■a^PANESE' WIFE 
 
Cornell Unlveralty Library 
 PR 4012.A3 1893 
 
 Adzuma; or, The Japanese wife; a play i 
 
 3 1924 013 206 101 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 32061 01 
 
A D Z U M A, 
 
 THE JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
A D Z U M A 
 
 Zbc 3apanese Mifc 
 
 A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS 
 
 SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, M.A, K.C.I.E., C.S.I. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE LIGHT OF ASIA," " THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD,'' 
 "jAPONICA," ETC. ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST 16"' STREET 
 
 1893 
 
 A II rights reserved 
 
A-jioi']<^6- 
 
SIR EDWARD LAWSOX. Bart. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 LONG FRIEXDSHir. 
 
TROLOGU E. 
 
 Lest aught offend you, in our foreign Play, 
 
 Let me— for him that writ it — briefly say, 
 
 'Tis a true story of the old Japan, 
 
 Where they who will the changeless strife may scan 
 
 Of fateful mortal passions; and, beside, 
 
 See in our Adzuma, high-typified. 
 
 The gentle, patient, faithful Nippon wife 
 
 Done to the fashion of the faultless life 
 
 Which those did learn to lead, by ancient rules 
 
 And manners shut away from Western schools. 
 
 Here shall he seen, too, how the doctrine grew 
 
 That past, forgotten, years constrain the new. 
 
 And souls are born, with life-scores incomplete 
 
vi PROLOGUE. 
 
 Which start anew when seeming strangers meet. 
 But, most and best of all, here shall you see 
 How " dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity^' 
 And Death himself hut friend and minister 
 To Adzuma, and nolle hearts like her. 
 
"DRAMATIS "PERSONS. 
 
 MORITO MUSHA EnDO . 
 
 Kameju 
 Sakamune 
 
 Wataru Watanabe . 
 
 Sasaki . 
 
 hojo tokimasa . 
 doi morinaga 
 Adachi Sanehira 
 A Fisherman. 
 A Lampseller. 
 
 Adzuma 
 Koromogawa 
 
 O YOSHI I 
 
 O Tama > 
 
 a Japanese Nobleman, 
 his faithful Retainer, 
 his companion, a Samurai, 
 another Japanese Nobleman, hus- 
 band of Adzuma. 
 Lord of Idzu. 
 a Samurai, 
 the same, 
 the same. 
 
 ; Wife of Wataru, and daughter of 
 Koromogawa. 
 Mother of Adzuma. 
 
 Waiting-ladies. 
 
 Retainers, Soldiers, Attendants, Citizens, Priests, 
 Musumes, Robbers, &r'c. 
 
A D Z U M A, 
 
 OR 
 
 THE JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 Scene i. — Kyoto. 
 
 An outer Guard-Room of the Emperor' s Palace. Armed 
 Samurai and Soldiers standing or sitting about. 
 
 HOJO. Saw you young Lord Morito throw Saka- 
 mune in the wrestling-ring to-day ? 
 
 Adachi. Aye ! a notable shoulder-heave it was ! 
 Sakamune, for all his skill, rolled over the edge of the 
 platform like a pine-log down the bank of Katsura. 
 
 HojO. Naruhodo ! What a man that is ! Every 
 inch of him soldierly ! 
 
2 ADZUMA, 
 
 Doi. He is now in high favour. When came he 
 first to the Court ? 
 
 HOJO. It was just after Morito won back the Em- 
 peror's favourite horse, Tama-jishi, which had been so 
 boldly stolen by the robber Koroku, whom none of us 
 could come at. 
 
 Doi. Did he do that ? 
 
 HojO. Yes ! he was only a stripling, but he could 
 swim the sea like a taz ; and run so fleetly that a 
 cord of thirty shaku, tied to his waist, would stream 
 in a straight line behind him. With Kameju, his re- 
 tainer, who is as prudent as Morito is headstrong, 
 he went to Tosa in Tango, where the outlaw made 
 his hold. 
 
 Doi. What could they look to do against Koroku ? 
 
 HojO. That which courage does, backed by wit. They 
 gave themselves out as pilgrims to the thirty-three 
 shrines, weary and in need : two wandering youths, one 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 3 
 
 tall and stout, the other delicate as a musume, but both 
 of the presence to please Koroku. So he entertained 
 them well, and, on a time, questioned them if they 
 knew the military arts, wanting them for his band. 
 
 DOI. How answered they ? 
 
 HojO. Kameju answered, saying, it was to their 
 shame that, albeit sons of a Daimio, a peasant had 
 brought them up, and taught them only to swim, ride, 
 and wrestle. So the Robber would see them show 
 their skill. Kameju plunged into the waves, and swam 
 well, but Morito, taking a knife in his belt, dived from 
 the rocks and brought up, dead, a large fuka, of a 
 bow's length. Then they were put to wrestle, in 
 which Morito, designing that Kameju should win, and 
 thus be first chosen to ride the great horse, gave his 
 companion advantage, and was finally thrown ; yet not 
 until they had played before Koroku like young tigers. 
 So Kameju was to mount the horse first, to show 
 
4 AD2UMA, 
 
 who could ride best ; and well he handled the black 
 stallion, which none of the thieves dared bestride. 
 But hardly was he mounted, and beginning speed, 
 before Morito, quicker than any deer on Arashiyama, 
 darts after him, and while all the rogues thought it the 
 wantonness of the youth, he leaps up behind Kameju, 
 claps heel to the stallion's flank, and ere the robbers 
 could so much as get to saddle, they had seen the last 
 of the Emperor's horse. 
 
 Doi. For this he was taken to favour ? 
 
 HOJO. It is so. And ever since he has constantly 
 bettered his fortunes by deeds of service. Yet there 
 is a wild spirit under his knightliness which only 
 Kameju can restrain. 
 
 Adachi. Domo ! did we not see to-day, when Saka- 
 mune took him in the " bear's grip," how young 
 Morito's teeth clenched; how he breathed; how he 
 braced ; how he set his feet like stone gate-posts, and 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 5 
 
 flung forth his very good friend with a wrench that 
 would have sent a koku of rice flying ? 
 
 HOJO. Ne? But, afterwards he raised Sakamune 
 full courteously, and wiped the dust out of his mouth 
 with his own head-cloth. 
 
 AdaCHI. It was so ! it was so ! nevertheless Morito's 
 glance, in that clinch, was like an eagle's look when 
 it draws the curtain off its eyes. 
 
 Doi. You are honourably right ! Meseemed Sir 
 Sakamune did not show best pleased to be grounded 
 so rudely before the ladies of the Court. 
 
 HojO. All, you marked that ? I, too, thought he 
 scowled more than a beaten player should, when he rose; 
 albeit he is a very polished Knight, who lets none see 
 what is hid in the silk sleeve of his manners. But you, 
 Adachi ! went your speech, just now, deeper than its 
 words, when you likened Morito's look to an eagle's ? 
 
 Adachi. Nay, Sir ! I spoke only as I have seen. 
 
6 ADZUMA, 
 
 HOJO. 'Tis the more strange, because there is told 
 a tale by the priests and the women — a story of shura 
 and of hoben * — giving out that in a former existence 
 our Morito was indeed an eagle. 
 
 Adachi. Naruhodo ; honourably make us hear. 
 
 HojO. In truth, I am but partly versed in the 
 matter, but here comes one who can tell us all, if he 
 will speak. Ask Kameju Haruki, the Heimin, if you 
 would know. 
 
 Enter Kameju. 
 
 Kameju. " The day," fair gentlemen ! 
 
 HojO. To you " the day ! " 
 
 What news, Kameju ? 
 Kam. Only soldiers' news ; 
 
 Morito takes your watch at hour of the Ox. 
 
 * Shura is " blood-feud " — hoben is " divine decree : " both 
 Buddhist terms. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 7 
 
 Doi. His name was large this moment on our tongues. 
 
 Kam. They could not wag, sirs ! to a nobler one ; 
 Morito Musha Endo, my good Lord, 
 Can give you talk enough from sun to sun 
 If what you love to talk upon be deeds 
 Fitting a warrior, and his Father's son. 
 
 HOJO. We know your mind to him, and his deserts, 
 And none is minded save to praise him here. 
 But, when you cast your zori at the gate. 
 Our speech went on the story of his birth ; 
 An eagle mixed with it, and foregone feuds. 
 So was it said — and you the one who knows : 
 An't be not private, will you make it ours ? 
 
 Kam. Sirs ! what the priests talk at the evening rice 
 And women in the bath-house, may well come 
 To all your ears, if soldiers' ears can care 
 For matter vague and visionary as mist 
 Driving down Biwa ; which the East wind blows 
 
8 ADZUMA, 
 
 To shapes of dragon, devil, bird and snake. 
 Melting before you name them. 
 
 Adachi. Still, 'tis known 
 
 Our past lives build the present, which must mould 
 The lives to be. 
 
 Kam. Oh, if you hold to that, 
 
 I had as lief my honoured Lord drew birth 
 From eyries, as from any plainer nests. 
 What ? must you have it ? 
 
 HOJO. Deign augustly, Sir ! 
 
 Kam. Then, since 'tis chatter with us, this they say — 
 The gossips at the wells — Two reigns ago, 
 The Emperor Toba ruling, a vast Bird 
 Haunted Shiki-no-kami's craggy crest, 
 In Yamato ; a monstrous snow-white Bird, 
 Its spread wings hke the mid-sails of a junk. 
 Its beak a blacksmith's shears, its talons twinned 
 Hooks of grey bronze. And, }vhen the women laid 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. g 
 
 Their babes upon the rice sheaves, oftentimes 
 A whistle would be heard amidst the pines 
 As if a typhoon burst, and there would pass 
 The roar of those wide, terrible, white vans 
 Casting a quick-gone shadow, and be heard 
 The scream of the eagle, swooping on the babe 
 With orbs ablaze, quick silencing the wail — 
 Save for the mother's ears — of that soft prey 
 Whose tender limbs the savage talons gripped 
 And bore aloft ; while some ran for their bows. 
 And some flung foolish stones, and some made 
 
 speed 
 To follow, if they might, the Ravisher ; 
 Yet always, to the hollows of his hill 
 Safe he took flight. 
 
 Doi. They speak in Yamato 
 
 Now, of that plague. 
 
 Kam. Well, then, the Emperor heai'd, 
 
 B 
 
lo ADZUMA, 
 
 And vowed the plague should stay. Therefore 
 
 he chose 
 Lord Yasuhira from his list of lords, 
 Best at the archery ; bade him fare forth 
 And slay the eagle. Now this knight was old ; 
 His wife, Koromogawa, childless still. 
 And near past nursing-times. So both went up 
 To Kwannon's temple at the lotus-pool 
 Praying these two boons — that a child might come 
 To take the enlarging honours of their name, 
 And that some happy arrow from his string 
 Might find the fierce Bird's breast, and save the 
 
 folk. 
 Thus, day by day, and night by night, alone — 
 With Yasuhira gone — his lady prayed 
 These things unceasingly at Kwannon's shrine 
 Till answer came — strange answer, were all true ! 
 AdacHI. The Gods do listen, if we ask enough. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. ii 
 
 Kam. I know not ; but they say it did befall 
 
 That, — one day, in her garden,, plucking flowers 
 
 To set before the goddess — from the reeds 
 
 Koromogawa sees a bright snake creep 
 
 Which, with soft rustlings, seeks to come to her. 
 
 No loathsome reptile, but a lovely coil 
 
 Of gold and green — if one can like a snake — 
 
 All living, jewelled silk. Thereon, the maids 
 
 Cried out and ran ; but Yasuhira's wife 
 
 Was none afeard, and stroked the glistering 
 
 length 
 Of the cold worm, and let its black forked tongue 
 Play with her hand ; then, put it gently back, 
 Straightway forgetting. 
 
 Doi. For the hfe of me 
 
 I could not play with serpents. 
 
 Kam. Well, that night. 
 
 Lying a-bed, she heard a beat on the screen, 
 
ADZUMA, 
 
 A whisper, " Open ! open ! " Whereupon, 
 All Knight's wife as she was, she snatched a spear 
 And slid the s/ioj'i back, and look ! a form 
 Oh, passing, peerless, fair ; a lovely face 
 Delicate-featured, as of some young maid 
 Budding to woman, but the garb a man's. 
 Dark blue hakama, swinging purple sleeves, 
 The long, smooth, gleaming hair tied like a man's. 
 Girdle of 'broidered silk, and from its folds 
 Two sword-hilts forking. If there dwelt a Dame 
 Leal to her Lord, 'twas Yasuhira's wife ; 
 Yet, while she eyed him, in herself she said, 
 " Thou gracious one ! if thou be'est man indeed 
 For thee Komachi's snow-cold blood had thaw'd. 
 For thee the Princess Chiyo's breast of stone 
 H ad turned to flame ! Oh , that thou wert my child ! " 
 HOJO. Komachi and the other were of those 
 Whom no man's love could touch ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 13 
 
 Kam. So 'tis ; and when 
 
 She put the sAojt back, saying : " Who comes 
 By night-time o'er the fence, is no true man 
 But kusemono, but a plunderer ! " 
 A gentle voice wailed : " Yasuhira's wife ! 
 Give entrance ! think thou not ill thoughts of me 
 That am thy lover, past all words of love. 
 And cannot choose but be about thy steps 
 By day-time, 'mid the flowers ; and in the night, 
 Where thou dost sleep." "Begone!" the Lady 
 
 cries : 
 " My Lord is absent, and I see no man 
 By day or night ! I know thee not, begone ! 
 Or I must strike thee with my husband's spear ! " 
 " Nay ! but thou knowest me," the soft voice 
 
 says: 
 " In many shapes I have been nigh to thee. 
 Because I yearn, out of the shadowy world 
 
14 ADZUMA, 
 
 To come to earth by thee, and be thy child ; 
 And this noon, in the garden, that was I 
 Who crept, a snake, out from the water-weeds 
 And would have fondled longer those dear hands 
 But that, unkind, thou dravest me away 
 With thy bunched lilies.'' 
 
 Adachi. Naruhodo ! Sir, 
 
 To hear a snake talk so ! 
 
 Kam. For very shame 
 
 To hear a snake enamoured of her so 
 Again she lifts the spear : but the form said : 
 " Strike ! if thou wilt, since, in another life, 
 I shall be woman, and more near to thee 
 As I am now thy servant and thy friend 
 Whose life is thine, to Hve and die for thee." 
 On this spake Koromogawa : " If 'tis sooth, 
 Go where my husband is, and help him kill 
 The great white eagle haunting Yamato." 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 15 
 
 Answered the beauteous shape : " Straight will I 
 
 speed, 
 For this is easy, and my destiny 
 To give myself for thee, whom I shall meet 
 In other lives, and other — till the end." 
 Doi. Judge you, good Sir ! 'twas waking truth, or 
 
 dream ? 
 Kam. She would have held it for a dream, but, see ! 
 At day-dawn, on the cover of her bed 
 Lies a long snake-slough — gold and green and 
 
 blue 
 And purple, like the apparel of the Form : 
 And, afterwards, what did befall, seems more. 
 Adachi. Ah! Nama Amida ! we long to hear. 
 Kam. Her lord comes back with pomp and beating 
 drums. 
 Four men bearing the vast bird on a pole. 
 Its white plumes bloodied. And his speech was this 
 
l6 ADZUMA, 
 
 When, full of honours from the Emperor, 
 
 He sate at home again. " I fared, my wife. 
 
 To Yamato, and prayed the Goddess long 
 
 For those two boons, the first a boy or girl 
 
 To bear th' enlarging honours of our house, 
 
 And next that I might find and slay the Bird. 
 
 Far did I wander over hill and moor 
 
 With notch on string, searching the speckless 
 
 sky, 
 
 Threading black pine-woods, rousing spotted deer 
 
 From glens unvisited, and startling up 
 
 The wild crane from her eggs, the grunting boar 
 
 Foul from his lair, and solitary bears 
 
 From berry-thickets where no man had come ; 
 
 Yet nothing nearer won I to my quest : 
 
 Till, on the seventh day, ranging at dawn 
 
 I spy a sugi-tree, whose swaying top, 
 
 A hundred arrow-lengths in air, spread there 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 17 
 
 Like a green cloud ; and, in its topmost fork 
 The piled sticks of an eagle's eyrie, loud 
 With clamours of the hungry couplets. See ! — 
 While I get breath and hide — a noise in the blue, 
 A whir of strong-struck pinions, and there lights, 
 Shaking the mighty tree, that great white Bird, 
 Its claws drove deep in the dead velvet meat 
 Of some poor mother's nursing babe. 
 
 How reach 
 At such a height the tyrant ? Pondering this 
 I mark a bright snake, from beneath the nest. 
 Glide near and nearer till it flings its coils — 
 Quick as a sword-blade springing — round the Bird 
 Chaining his strong wings down, fettering his feet, 
 Binding him tight with fold on glistening fold ; 
 And — while he screams and tumbles on his tree — 
 Darting on this and that side of his throat 
 The venomed daggers of its wide red jaw. 
 
i8 ADZUMA, 
 
 Which struck, and once more struck. Thereat, 
 
 the Bird 
 Cries loud for rage, and in its crooked bealc 
 Mashes the Serpent's head ; but sick and bound, 
 Falls to a lower fork, locked with his foe ; 
 And there a shaft can reach him. To my ear 
 I drew my string, and loosed ; the bow sang loud, 
 The arrow flew, the keen steel pierced and pinned 
 Serpent and Bird in one close writhing mass 
 Which bounded, plume and scale, from bough to 
 
 bough 
 And rolled down, dead and reddened, at my foot." 
 
 HojO. Ma ! Kameju ! no better tale-teller 
 Holds the still people on the Yose-razX=, ! 
 And how fits this with Endo Morito ? 
 
 Kam. Since you hold patience yet, that shall be told. 
 Lord Yasuhira finished, saying thus. 
 With solemn face : " Once more in Yamato 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 19 
 
 I sought the shrine, and gave the goddess thanks, 
 And slept ; but, sleeping, saw One not of our 
 
 world, 
 Radiant and great, who spake : ' Seen lives of men 
 Intermix close with other lives unseen. 
 What is done well, obedient to the Law, 
 Blossoms in bliss, and what is wrongly done 
 Withers to woe, 'till it be purged. Thy prayers 
 Were heard ! The snake that helped thee must 
 
 be born 
 A beauteous daughter to thy wife. The Bird 
 Hath ended all save one hard penitence 
 For which once more he meets the Snake, and 
 
 strives. 
 He will be IVIorimitsu's son on earth. 
 Born of Shiraito. Lest thy waking sense 
 This vision scorn, a sign is given for faith.' 
 And, when the morning-cock crowed me awake 
 
20 ADZUMA, 
 
 In my hand, wife ! there lay an eagle's plume, 
 With a snake's scale." 
 
 HojO. Partly I knew all this before, but never 
 nearly so well, as to-day. Our thanks, good Kameju ! 
 That's why Koromogawa, then, Adzuma's mother, 
 would liever have fire take her house, than Morito 
 Endo and her daughter come together. 
 
 Kam. I have prated too much, already ; but, indeed 
 I deem the fortune of my Lord lies better elsewhere. 
 These things are as they must be. We talk like 
 waiting-maids in a tea-house; and 'tis time, I think, 
 that the guard was shifted. 
 
 End of Act I., Scene i. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 21 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 Scene 2. 
 
 A Garden of the Palace, laid out in the Japanese style, with 
 rocks, dwarf-trees, bridges, fish-ponds, stone lanterns, 
 
 Enter Sakamune. 
 Sakamune. I would I could dare more, or did hate less 
 Three in this world make the world ill to me, 
 But when I seek how to be quits with them 
 The fearful half in me pulls at the sleeve 
 Of the bolder half, and bids me take good heed 
 Lest when I dig them pits I fall therein. 
 First of the three, Wataru most I hate — 
 My friend, a goodly man — because he sleeps 
 Nightly in that sweet paradise I sought, 
 Adzuma's arms ; her thrice, thrice happy Lord ! 
 And next I hate, as hot as once I loved. 
 
ADZUMA, 
 
 Adzuma's self, who had no eyes for me 
 When I did ask her for my wife — and there 
 Her mother shares my spite, Morito's Aunt. 
 Last comes Lord Morito — also my friend, 
 Also most goodly ! oh, a soldier forged 
 Of stuff as fine as any Bizen blade ; 
 Yet doth he cross me, and doth humble me. 
 Holding the manly mirror of his force 
 Up to this face of weakness I would hide. 
 A headstrong lord withal, whom I can bring 
 With craft to the slaughter, as a butcher leads 
 His brute ox by the nose-ring. Craft shall do't. 
 I will devise that each one pushes each 
 To tears and ruin, while I laugh and watch. 
 Always " Kind Sakamune ! honest friend ! " 
 But were I otherwise, if that in me 
 Which should be soldier, matched my pitiless 
 mind^ — 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIPE. 23 
 
 This way were pleasanter, and short to take : 
 
 [He draws one of his two swords, and lops off the 
 top of a young pine-treej\ 
 
 Wataru's head rolled in the dust — like that ! 
 
 [He cuts off another pine-tree top.] 
 
 Morito's proud brows rolling — like to that ! 
 
 [He aims to cut off a stalk of flowering Golden Lily, 
 but pauses in the blow.~\ 
 
 And Adzuma's — ! But, oh thou Lily-Flower, 
 
 That art so fair, so pure, scented so sweet 
 
 As if the Angels' breaths came with thee here ; 
 
 And dropped with purple gouts, and rosy stains. 
 
 And dusted with pale gold, all like the moles, 
 
 And birth-marks, and the ambered silken glow 
 
 Of Adzuma, to show fairness more fair. 
 
 The white skin whiter, and to draw the eye 
 
 Into the madness of the wondering mind, 
 
 The longing hand, the yearning hungry blood ! 
 
 Thus would I end thee, and my aches for thee 
 
24 ADZUMA, 
 
 Not by some too kind stroke, but so ! — and so ! 
 I He plucks and breaks slowly to pieces a Lily-blossom^ 
 
 Crushing thy sweet, desired, unwilling heart — 
 
 The rose, gold, purple, white — all, to one wrack 
 
 Of scattered satin leaf, and silver stem. 
 
 And soft green cup ! Oh, thus ! thus ! thus ! and 
 
 thus ! 
 
 That if I wear them not, none other shall. 
 
 And that thy soul exhale, in dew of tears. 
 
 Sweet incense to the nostrils of my wrong. 
 
 Enter MORITO Endo. 
 
 MORITO. Why, Sakamune ! do you practise sword- 
 play with the trees and flowers ? 
 
 Sakamune. Ah! Morito; truly you have caught 
 me idling ! I was meditating I know not what. 'Tis 
 a new blade the sword-maker Masamura hath forged 
 for me, and, having it in hand, I tried a cut or two. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 2; 
 
 MOR. T would be better training if tlae Emjieror's 
 saplings and lilies borrowed the bees' stings, and went 
 armed ! Steel upon steel is what teaches a soldier, 
 and it has been said well : — " The girded sword is the 
 living soul of the Samurai."' Grant me a respectful 
 glance at your new iatLina. 
 
 SaKA. It is at your honoiuable ser\'ice, like him 
 that owns it. 
 
 MOR. My ever good friend ! In truth, an excellent 
 piece of sword-craft ! the munc solid, yet not over- 
 weighted ; the /lira delicate, but firmly-fashioned ; and 
 the nioi marks pla^-ful as watered silk, yet misty as 
 the breath of a musume upon her looking-glass. You 
 must stain such an edge in our next wars with better 
 blood than pine-juice ! 
 
 Saka. I hope it maj- be at j-our side, then, to show 
 me how swords should be wielded. 
 
 MOR. Demo ! \Miat have I ever done ? You are 
 
 D 
 
26 AD2UMA, 
 
 too kind to me. I sought you here, in truth, to 
 ask your forgiveness about the wrestHng-match this 
 morning. I fear I handled you rudely. 
 
 Saka. It was my fit punishment for challenging a 
 better man. 
 
 MOR. Nay, thou art my master in the ring, and 
 it was only by a false step that I flung thee. But 
 indeed, there is that in my elements, which a friend 
 must find grace to put by. I desire to live knightly — 
 but, at times, there comes upon me a passion which 
 has no conscience. When I felt that thou wouldst 
 trip me, the evil spirit arose. I am quiet as a pigeon 
 with a full crop until it rouses, and then 'tis as 'twere 
 an eagle's wrath, which sets my breast on fire, and 
 brings the lightning to my eyes. Give me thy for- 
 giveness ! 
 
 Saka. It is nothing, it is nothing ! 
 
 MOR. No ! but 'twas less than friendly that I should 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 27 
 
 take thee so, when thy leg slipped on the sweat of 
 my thigh. I am very humbly sorry, and I have 
 said it elsewhere, that thou art my teacher in the 
 wrestling-ring. 
 
 Saka. I say it was nothing. 
 
 MOR. Then you will bear no grudge ? That is 
 gracious ! I had a little thing further to declare. 
 The great new bridge in the City square is to be 
 opened to-morrow, and I am appointed to keep the 
 way with five shotai of soldiers, and to receive the 
 Emperor's procession. Also I was to choose my 
 second in the commandment, and I have named thy 
 name, Sakamune ! 
 
 Saka. Now thou dost right courteously raise up 
 a fallen foe. I thank thee, Morito Endo ! At what 
 hour do we gather ? 
 
 MOR. At the hour of the Rat. 
 
 Saka. And where post we our fellows ? 
 
28 ADZUMA, 
 
 MOR. On the south end of the bridge, where the 
 open place is. If the Emperor be well pleased- with 
 the doings of the day, there will be another fief for 
 thee; or, mayhap, a sword of honour wherewith to 
 chop lilies and fir-tops, until better business comes. 
 Sayonara ! 
 
 Saka. Sayonara ! and my best service. 
 
 [Exit MORITO. 
 Aye! proud Bird, 
 That hast, indeed, the old life rank in thee, 
 So com'st thou to my springe, full-winged ! This 
 
 hap 
 Brings what I sought. Now shall they blindly 
 
 meet, 
 Morito and the lovely, spotless wife 
 Who dwells as high o'er my desire — and his — 
 As yonder evening star above this pool 
 Where the frogs croak. Beyond my love thou art, 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 29 
 
 Adzuma, with the honeyed mouth, but not 
 Beyond my hate ! Ah, far star ! thou shalt know 
 Better shine lowly than have me for foe ! 
 
 [Exii Sakamune. 
 
 End of Scene 2. 
 
 Scene 3. 
 
 An apartment in the house of Wataru Watanabe. His 
 wife, the Lady Adzuma, and her mother Korquoc aw p^, 
 are discovered, sitting upon the mats, a?id conversing. 
 A samisen {Japanese guitar) lies near at hand. 
 
 KOROMOGAWA. At what tirhe will thy Lord make 
 the august return. 
 
 Adzuma. I know not surely. Mother, but at his 
 first freedom. Ah, I am a too happy woman to say 
 so much, but here only, and only with me, finds he 
 delight. What have I done to be the luckiest wife in 
 
30 ADZUMA, 
 
 all Japan ? Hither will he hasten as soon as the 
 Palace duty can be laid aside ; and my life will begin 
 anew, as the sea-flower on the rock re-opens when the 
 tide comes back to it. 
 
 KOROMO. The Kami-sama grant thee long years of 
 such innocent content ! And, indeed, he is a good 
 Lord, and gentle, and gallant. But it is dangerous 
 to be overfond for us women, who must abide, and 
 obey, and rest patient under all things. 
 Adzuma. Ah ! teach me how to love a little, then ; 
 But, in the learning, like a scholar stayed 
 At the first hard word, I should shut my book, 
 And blot with tears the new unlovely love. 
 And change my page ; and so begin again 
 The old, sweet, easy lesson, — needing not 
 Teacher, nor school — to love him every day 
 A little more than yesterday, if that 
 Doth not do wrong to yesterday's great love 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 31 
 
 Which filled my heart so full, there seemed no 
 
 room 
 For any richer morrows. Is there fear 
 A wife may overgive herself, to pay 
 In duty, dearness, pleasure, service, smiles, 
 Her debt of loving to her wedded Lord 
 Who loves her, keeps, and guards and cherishes ? 
 Oh ! that might haply be where men will mete 
 So much, and so much — like commodities — 
 Of trust, and truth, and faith, and tenderness, 
 And dole each portion forth ; " this for thy kiss ; 
 And this to hold thee patient, if I see 
 Some fairer face outside ; and this because 
 Thou hast my name, art mother to my child, 
 And makest watch upon the money-bags." 
 Even then 'twere fit, I think — as good wives use 
 Here in Japan — we did not count with him 
 Koban for koban of heart's golden coin, 
 
32 ADZUMA, 
 
 But gave him all, in fast obedience, 
 And dutifulness, and delight to serve ; 
 Attending 'till his man's heart trimmed th' account 
 And paid late interest for fidelities. 
 But for me, Mother, and this most dear Lord 
 Who lays, with both great generous palms, palm- 
 full. 
 His honour, and his name, and love, and life. 
 And hours, and days, and joys, and thoughts, and 
 
 heart 
 In these small, feeble, idle hands of mine. 
 How should I love him with a lesser love 
 Than all the utmost of my grateful soul. 
 And my glad body, and my faithful blood ? 
 Part paying, as the bankrupt traders do, 
 With all my estate the debt too great to reach, 
 And then a joyous prisoner in the gaol 
 Of still unsatisfied expectancy ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 33 
 
 KOROMO. My gentle Adzuma ! I praise your words. 
 
 AdzuMA. Mother ! do you remember how we met — 
 
 What strange beginnings of this joy to be ? 
 
 KOROMO. Well do I call it to mind, Daughter. You 
 grew up too fair for my peace ; and many a suitor 
 begged you of me. Sakamune the Samurai, you 
 know, was one ; and the Lord of Idzu ; and Kameju's 
 father, the good Dosen, also besought me to bestow 
 you upon Morito ; yet I would not. 
 
 Adz. How I do thank you, now. Mother ! 
 
 KOROMO. Oh, I had deep reasons ! There are 
 destinies which must not mingle ; and besides you 
 took it all out of my hands, Adzuma-chan ! falUng in 
 love with Wataru. 
 
 Adz. Yes, yes ! he was the one man in the world, 
 and the Goddess herself gave him to me. 
 
 KOROMO. I think, indeed, he was the gift of our Lady 
 of Mercy. Together we went to the temple of Hase, 
 
 E 
 
34 ADZUMA, 
 
 where I prayed hard that she would choose a good 
 husband for you. Oh, how often I pulled the tsuna, 
 and struck upon the dora ! For six days I prayed, 
 and there seemed no answer coming. On the seventh 
 we met Wataru, riding with Sakamune. 
 
 Adz. Yes, under the white cherry-trees. 
 
 KOROMO. Oh, you remember well enough, Adzuma- 
 chan. And how shy you were ! But I, who saw 
 your eyes meet, knew Kwannon Sama had sent me 
 my son-in-law. 
 
 Adz. Okkasan ! how beautiful and noble he looked ! 
 And that evening again I saw him from the balcony 
 of our inn. 
 
 KOROMO. He saw you too, little fox ! but you did 
 not then guess what words of love he had sent to me 
 about you. Yet was I perplexed, for fair fruit may 
 cover evil seeds, and I could not know whether he 
 was surely Kwannon 's grace to us, or only a handsome 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 35 
 
 Knight that chanced. Naruhodo, then the dreams 
 came ! 
 
 Adz. Aye, Mother, how strange and sweet they 
 were ! Oft-times has Wataru told me since, so that 
 I am certain we had the same vision. It seemed 
 to him that, awake and wandering with love-thoughts 
 of me, he came to our inn, ascended the stair-way, 
 and, although there were fifty chambers, found mine 
 at once, and pushed back a little the shoji of it. 
 Then saw he me musing by the lamp-light, you and 
 the serving-girls lying asleep. And, being true 
 Knight, he would not, of course, enter unbidden — 
 but I rose, and beholding again that dear and noble 
 countenance, put softly back the door, and drew him 
 within. 
 
 KOROMO. That was too bold, my Child ! 
 
 Adz. Ah ! Mother, it was in a dream, remember ! 
 
 KOROMO. Well, and what spake he ? 
 
36 ADZUMA, 
 
 Adz. Words so tender that I could only tell thcni 
 to you. 
 
 KOROMO. Tell me ! 
 
 Adz. lie said: 
 
 " Dear Lady ! from the Mansion of the Moon — 
 Whose face is moonlight, and whose loosened locks 
 Frame its fair glory in with clouds i)\' night — 
 Take not again to IIcrivMi those hc'ivenly eyes, 
 Those brows as delicate as distant hills 
 By evening misted, tliosc rcd-linctun d lips 
 Which are lilcc new-blown cherry-blossoms, moist 
 With morning-dew. I do iio( laiow your ii;uiic, 
 Nor why I love you so, nor what deep spell 
 Brings me, too daring, to your folded feel; 
 But I know this, that now for life and death, 
 Thine am I, and thine only, luai-t and soul, 
 1, Watanabc ! " 
 
 KOROMO, What spake you ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 37 
 
 Adz. I said : 
 
 " Warawa ga na Adzmiia — Sweet Sir! " — 
 Thus I made answer in that happy dream, 
 " My name unfamed is Adzuma, my sire 
 Was Yasuhira. We were hither come 
 To pray the Goddess. And, because mine heart 
 Went to you with my eyes when we did meet, 
 I wish no other man in all this earth 
 To be my Lord ; and, if you love me so, 
 I now will love you, yes, for life and death 
 Chiyo mo kawaraim fiifn so." 
 Oh, I could talk so bold only in dreams ! 
 KOROMO. And afterwards ? 
 
 Adz. Why, then the morning light shot through 
 the mado, and I arose, and gave him for a love-gift, 
 — always in the vision, — my koro, the silver incense- 
 pot I ever used ; and he gave to me one of the bodkins 
 from his short sword. 
 
38 ADZUMA, 
 
 KOROMO. All this in the dream ? 
 Adz. Yes ! but it was so true a dream that when 
 day came we had each beheld the very same vision ; 
 and in his hand at his inn lay my silver incense-cup, 
 while in mine, as thou thyself did'st see, dear Mother, 
 was the bodkin missing from his sword. 
 
 KOROMO. It was so, daughter, and I did not doubt 
 thereafter that the Daibosatsu himself, the Great Com- 
 passionate One, had given Wataru to you. Sing me 
 now a little song, Adzuma-chan ! I love the samisen. 
 
 Adz. If it be your honourable pleasure. What 
 shall I sing ? 
 
 KoROMO. Whatever you will. 
 
 Adz. Then this one, " Maori kakushite" since my 
 
 Lord likes it well. 
 
 \She sings, accom/'anying liersdf upon the samisen.^ 
 
 She hid his cloak, 
 She plucked his sleeve, 
 " To-day you cannot go ! 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 39 
 
 To-day, at least, you must not leave 
 
 The heart that loves you so ! " 
 The window she undid. 
 And back the shutters slid ; 
 
 And clinging, cried: ^^ Sweet Lord ! perceive 
 The whole white world is snow 1 " 
 
 [A noise of door-opening is heard zmfhoui.'\ 
 
 Adz. Oya ! oya ! It is his voice, his footstep ! I 
 
 must go to welcome him home. 
 
 \The house-servants call out " O kaeri ! kaeri !" 
 and open the shoji.'\ 
 
 Enters Wataru ; Adzuma kneels to him on the 
 threshold, saluting. 
 
 kaeri irrashai ! Vouchsafe august return ! well 
 
 art thou welcome, dear Lord ! 
 
 Wataru. Arigato t Again I hang in your sweet 
 eyes ! Is all well ? 
 
 Adz. Now thou art here, all is well ! Be honour- 
 ably pleased to sit ! Did you think, this long while, 
 upon Adzuma ? 
 
40 ADZUMA, 
 
 Wat. Can a man think without a heart ? 
 
 Adz. Nay, surely ! there would be no thought or 
 Hfe if the bosom's beat were lacking. 
 
 Wat. Then, truly, I thought not even once upon 
 thee, pretty one ! for my heart was left here behind 
 me, in your lap. 
 
 Adz. Ah ! let me keep it there still. I will take 
 such care of it ! 
 
 Wat. The august Mother ! Ohayo ! [He salutes 
 KOROMOGAWA, ivith his forehead on the mats.'\ Is 
 the honourable health good ? 
 
 KOROMO. I thank you lovingly. It is good. 
 
 Wat. What ! have you been at the music ? 
 
 KOROMO. Dome ! You know Adzuma cannot live 
 without singing and poetry. And I, also, love the 
 music well. What have you brought with you in 
 these cloths ? 
 
 Wat. 'Tis a trifle of biwa-fruit and sweet cakes 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 41 
 
 from the Emperor's kitchen for you, Haha-sama ! 
 
 And for Adzuma some broidered silk for a girdle, and 
 
 a lacquered writing-box for her poetry-making. 
 
 Adz. Ah, then ! thou didst indeed think upon me, 
 
 false one ! But now come to thine ease, and let 
 
 me be thy squire, and untie thine armour and thy 
 
 sword-belt. 
 
 \She unfastens and removes Wataru's sivords and 
 military dress, aiid adjusts upon him the loose 
 Yukaia, the "house-gown," and soft silken belt, 
 Sanjaku-obi,'\ 
 
 KOROMO. Give me leave, Wataru san ! I will bid 
 the maids prepare gozen for thee. Wilt thou have 
 roasted eels to-night, or shall they boil thee a fat 
 koi from the fish-pond ? 
 
 Wat. As it falls, good Mother ! as it falls ! 'Tis 
 meat and drink enough for me to lay aside my iron, 
 and to sit safe again in my own house. 
 
 \_Exit KOROMOGAWA. 
 
 F 
 
42 ADZUMA, 
 
 Close, close, kind wife ! Ah, from the noisy main. 
 Where roll and break rough waves of salt affairs. 
 Ambitions, plans, policies, plots and wars, 
 And the wild winds blow of our mortal weather. 
 How good it is to be the ship that shoves 
 Straight o'er the furrowed sea, with sails braced 
 
 square 
 And helm set hard for port ; and, so to come — 
 The holiday breezes whistling in the ropes, 
 The merry dolphins racing us for sport. 
 The friendly headlands shutting safely in, 
 The billows gently falling from their foam 
 To peace, and equal ripples — into port. 
 And there cast anchor, where the quiet keel 
 Rides doubled on her shadow in the sun. 
 Adz. Yea, and dear ship ! how good to be the port 
 Which, glad to have her noble vessel home, 
 Opens its heart to take the brave bulk in ! 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 43 
 
 Forget upon my breast what storms did swell, 
 What evil weathers irked, what troublesome seas 
 Dashed at thy gallant bows their bitter spray. 
 Or sought to snatch thine ensign, where it flew 
 Bright emblem of thy bold nobility. 
 Here art thou safe, indeed, for 'twixt the brunt 
 Of any outer tempest brewed for thee, 
 Or distant gathering of dark clouds that brood 
 Woe to the seaman, stand my steadfast guards. 
 My harbouring arms, my love, humble but strong, 
 My life wrapped round thine honour and thy life 
 Even like the haven-walls, that must go down 
 Before the ship within takes injury. 
 Wat. Dear placid Port ! I moor, and rest in thee. 
 
 Enter O Tama. 
 
 Tama. Sir Sakamune stands at the gate, and would 
 have admission. It is an urgent business. 
 
44 ADZUMA, 
 
 Wat. Why then, give him honourable entrance ! 
 'Tis a well-spoken knight. 
 
 Enter Sakamune. 
 Sakamune. Salutations to this august House ! The 
 Lady Adzuma ! In truth 'tis long since I hung in 
 those most honourable eyes ! 
 
 Enter KOROMOGAWA. 
 Oh ! and the Lady Koromogawa ! Makoto ni shiba- 
 rakti ! Is the high health well ? 
 
 Wat. We thank you, well ! 
 
 Saka. I make unexcused intrusion. Pray you, 
 forgive ! but, indeed, I am come upon a well-meant 
 errand. 
 
 Wat. In any case, you are welcome. Sir Samurai ! 
 Condescend to take this cushion. 
 
 Saka. I humbly thank you. And I thank the beau- 
 tiful Lady of the house, and the august Mother. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 45 
 
 Wat. You will touch a cup of sak^ with us, fair 
 Sir? 
 
 Saka. I beseech your lofty pardon ! I come but to 
 go. My horse outside draws quick breath from the 
 speed which brought me hither. 
 
 KOROMO. What made you ride so hard ? 
 
 Saica. To-morrow, Madam ! the Emperor opens, in 
 all state, our new bridge in Kydto. It will be a 
 gallant sight! I am second in charge of the show, 
 and have at command fine places, if it would please 
 the Lady Adzuma, and her Mother, to look upon our 
 holiday doings. 
 
 Adz. Oh ! I long to see them. 
 
 Wat. Why, go then, Adzuma ! and thou, too, 
 Okkdsan ! I would myself conduct you, but that I 
 hold, to-morrow, the palace-gates. 
 
 Adz. We thank you frankly, Sir! Assuredly we 
 will go. 
 
46 AD2UMA, 
 
 Saka. So ! that is well — very well ! I shall be the 
 best paid messenger in all the City if my errand has 
 brought you pleasure. Now will I take worshipful 
 permission. Sayonara ! 
 
 All. Do mo ! we greatly thank you. Sayonara ! 
 
 \_Exit Sakamune. 
 \A noise of something falling is heard zmthin.] 
 KOROMO. AnSn^, Girls ! 
 
 What have you, heedless, broken ? 
 
 O Tama entering, agitated. 
 
 Tama. Madam! Nay, 
 
 'Twas not our heedlessness ! The effigy 
 Of Buddha from the tokonoma fell down 
 And struck a gilded scabbard of my Lord 
 Out of the sword-rack. All is since made good. 
 
 Wat. \laiighing^ If we had enemies, 'twere ominous ! 
 There be some fearful folk would burn for this 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 47 
 
 A sheaf of senko sticks ! Come, we'll to food : 
 The luck of men lives in the deeds of men. 
 Adz. I think that, too. If hearts be true and fast, 
 111 fates may hurt us, but not harm, at last. 
 
 End of Act the First. 
 
ACT II. 
 Scene i. 
 
 An open public place in Kyoto, upon which abuts a broad 
 newly-built bridge, of red lacquer and gilding. The 
 bridge and neighbouring buildings are gaily decorated 
 with national flags and painted lanterns. Cronvds of 
 citizens, in various dress, throng the approaches, which 
 are kept by armed men. 
 
 Enters SakaMUNE, apart; in full Samurai costume. 
 
 Sakamune. What is't the grey-beards mean by 
 " happiness " ? — 
 Time was I thought no peace could be, no joy, 
 Outside the amber arms of Adzuma; 
 That all the days of all my richest years 
 Would be well pawned to buy one night with her. 
 
 Spent in a million kisses on her mouth. 
 
 48 
 
THE JAPANESE WIFE. 49 
 
 But now another joy ! a different joy ! 
 
 The hunter's, not the lover's — yet as great, 
 
 Oh, greater, keener, deeper ; tingling more 
 
 The vigilant sense — for I shall see to-day 
 
 Destiny dance while I do pipe. He — she — 
 
 Will blindly meet, eagle-hot Morito, 
 
 And subtle, lovely, snake-bright Adzuma 
 
 Whose beauty — will she, nill she — draws men's 
 
 hearts 
 As on a bank in Spring the inamushi 
 Brings round her shining coils the dazzled birds. 
 What's after, I will heed : enough to-day 
 The snare's spread, and here comes my witless prey ! 
 
 Enters MORITO, armed, and splendidly apparelled. 
 
 Morito. Is all well-set ? Are our soldiers posted ? 
 Have the roadways for the procession been sprinkled 
 with fresh sand and flowers ? And the upper rooms 
 
 G 
 
5o ADZUMA, 
 
 of the houses, — are they cleared of such as would dare 
 to stand higher than the Son of Heaven ? 
 
 Saka. All the worshipful commands have been ful- 
 filled. 
 
 MOR. Bare thy bright sword, then, Sakamune, and 
 lay it across thy knee. Good lieges, all, Shita ni oru ! 
 Down upon your faces, quick ! for the Majesty of 
 
 Japan cometh. 
 
 \The populace prostrates itself, and the Imperial Proces- 
 sion enters by the bridge : the Emperor riding in a 
 gilded and painted kago, borne by footmen, fantas- 
 tically attired ; the Ladies of the palace, Court Nobles, 
 Samurai, Attendants, Dancing Girls, ^s^c, 6^r., 
 following. Banners, hatamochi, &'c., c^-r. 
 
 \A troop of young Girls dance the Echigo-fishi, ivith 
 accompanying song and chorus. '\ 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 A junk came in with silks and spice, 
 Oh, the land of Japan is long I 
 
 My lover is hoeing the rows of the rice, 
 
 What shall we sing for a song? &c., (S=c. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 51 
 
 [At the departure of the Imperial train, the citizens raise 
 loyal cries of ^^ banzai ! banzai f'' {"May you live ten 
 thousand years / ") and, amongst the departing crowd, 
 Adzuma and her Mother, with their attendants, are seen 
 entering their kago, to return home ; and presently 
 disappear by the bridge. Sakamune a7id Morito 
 remain aIo7ie.\ 
 
 Sakamune. Come, my Lord Morito ! It is well per- 
 formed ! Deign now to wash the dust of the vulgar 
 from thy throat with a cup of red-fish sak6, in my 
 quarters. 
 
 Morito. Sakamune ! Sawest thou yonder Lady ? 
 
 Saka. What Lady, Trifler ! 
 
 MOR. Why, her ! her ! — that most lovely woman 
 who passed hence a moment ago in her chair ? 
 
 Saka. Nay, indeed, I saw none. Yet, again, that is 
 false, for I saw scores, hundreds ! Naruhodo ! Every 
 petticoat in the City was out upon us, I think, to 
 gaze at the show. 
 
 MOR. Aha! nonsense! This one was to all the 
 
52 ADZUMA, 
 
 others as the full moon to a paper-lantern, as the 
 white crane on Arashiyama to the sparrow in the 
 bamboos ; as, as, as — 
 
 SaKA. Good Morito ! hath a flash from some black 
 eye pierced at last that corselet where an enemy's 
 point could never yet find its way ? We thought you 
 proof against such light assaults. 
 
 MOR. If thou didst not mark her, it matters not. 
 But I must know her name, and house. I will ride 
 after them. Take back the soldiers for me, and bid an 
 officer lead my horse to the lane of the persimmon- 
 tree, for she passed thereby. 
 
 Saka. Kashi komarishita ! I obey ! \_Aside\ Now 
 fluttereth my foolish eagle straight to his poisoned 
 meat ! 
 
 \Exit Sakamune. 
 MOR. \alone.\ 
 
 Have I my selfsame eyesight, reason, will ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 53 
 
 Am I that man who this morn buckled on, 
 Over a careless heart, breast-piece and belt 
 Whose tough steel hardly keeps the beat of the 
 
 heart 
 From bursting them this hour ? Oh She ! but 
 
 She! 
 Was ever such form seen, such heavenly grace, 
 Such eyes of loveliest light beneath a brow 
 So even-arched, so smoothly shadowing back 
 Into that twilight, where the black silk hair 
 Shuts in the soft fair face ? Yet 'twas not 
 
 that! 
 Something beyond her glorious beauty drew. 
 Where have I seen her ? In what spot before 
 Were we encountered ? Nowhere ! — Once be- 
 held 
 Would be to be in mind for aye. What voice 
 Whispers me, then, that she is Destiny ? 
 
54 ADZUMA, 
 
 I rave, and waste my words : but I must go 
 Whither she goes, be it for weal or woe ! 
 
 [Exz'i MORITO. 
 
 End of Act II., Scene i. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Scene 2. 
 
 Bac/; gateway of Adzuma's house. People, of various 
 classes, passing and repassing. A Fisherman, with his 
 tubs, co7nes out from the entrance of the house, as Morito 
 approaches. 
 
 Enter MORITO. 
 
 Morito. Here she went in. How may I discover 
 her name ? Ah ! doubtless, this simple fellow will 
 know it. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 55 
 
 The Fisherman, while repacking his tubs, and 
 adjusting his yoke, sings : 
 
 " The spot where one may hear 
 The nightingale sing clear 
 
 Is three ' ri' from the sake-shop 
 And bean-curds not too near t" 
 
 MOR. Oi, ryoshi 1 hast sold all thy fish to the 
 mistress of this house that thou chirpest so merrily ? 
 
 Fisherman. Your pardon, Danna ! Oh, your high 
 forgiveness, most worshipful Knight ! I spied not the 
 august presence. My bones are become as water for 
 such boldness. 
 
 MOR. Nay ! there is no offence. 
 
 Fisher. That is by reason of your Honour's good- 
 ness. Why ! there be knights, lording it up and 
 down our city now, with two swords sticking out of 
 their belts, would hack a poor man to little pieces, as 
 I slice a tai, if they liked not his song. 
 
 MOR. The Emperor's justice should be done upon such. 
 
56 ADZUMA, 
 
 Fisher. Nanhodo ! Kind Lord, it is far from the 
 mouths of the poor to the ears of the Mikado. As for 
 justice, we are like the peoples of the sea. The great 
 fish eat the little fish, and to splash too much only 
 makes the other big ones come. Our best safety lies 
 in silence, and the shallows. 
 
 MOR. How, the shallows ? 
 
 Fisher. I mean, worthy Sir ! to be one of a million 
 minnows in a finger's breadth of muddy water. Thus 
 may a poor man live, perchance, until ■ such time as 
 he doth die. Shall I bear a fresh fish. Sir, to your 
 honourable abode ? 
 
 MOR. Thou shalt earn the price of a whole tub-full 
 of tara, if thou wilt truly answer a question. Hold 
 up thy hand ; here be silver bu. 
 
 Fisher. Domo ! 'tis a week's good fish-selhng to 
 me. I will tell thee as much truth for this, as ever 
 honest words can compass. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 57 
 
 MoR. Whose house is this ? 
 
 Fisher. Why, everybody knows that much ; 'tis the 
 yashiki of the Lord Wataru Watanabe. 
 
 MOR. Didst thou mark a lady enter in her litter, 
 even as thou earnest forth ? 
 
 Fisher. Truly I did. 'Twas Wataru Sama's wife, 
 the lady Adzuma. And a most gentle, and a most 
 noble, and a most worthy lady she is ! 'Tis a piece 
 of sunshine to encounter her on the way, or to sell 
 even an hvashi into her hands. Nay, if she buy not 
 so much as a single awabi from me, I am always 
 richer by the sweet words of her mouth. 
 
 MOR. I thank thee ! Go thy ways in peace, and 
 Kompira Sama, the god of fishing-nets, send thee 
 customers. 
 
 Fisher. I would they might all be like thee. Then 
 would I let flat-fish and shell-fish for ever alone, and 
 sell only the truth. Truly, it is a good commodity 
 
 H 
 
58 ADZUMA, 
 
 for the markets. Worshipful Knight ! I take very 
 humble leave. 
 
 MoR. Fare thee well. [Exit Fisherman.] 
 
 Adzuma ! Adzuma ! She, 
 then, is this Star of women — the daughter of my 
 aunt Koromogawa, whom, as I do remember, my old 
 guardian, Dosen, sought for me in marriage ; wedded 
 now to Watanabe, my friend and my fellow-knight. 
 Here therefore doth Honour stay my steps. Yet, ah, 
 her face, and her form ! Ah, to know she is now 
 within those lattices, desirable as Heaven, dearer than 
 life — but, since all this is so, farther removed from me 
 than the moon from the bird of the night who cries 
 to her. 
 
 Enter Kameju. 
 
 Kameju. Are you here, dear Lord ! They seek you 
 all over the city. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 59 
 
 MOR. Good Kameju ! do you know this gate ? 
 Kam. Very well. It is the gate of Wataru Wata- 
 nabe's house. 
 
 MOR. Call it not a house. 'Tis a treasure-shrine 
 that holds a golden goddess ; a shell that shuts in a 
 most priceless pearl ! I have seen enter here, just 
 now, Kameju, one that has taken with her the heart 
 out of my bosom, the peace out of my days, the 
 strength out of my sword, and well-nigh the honour 
 out of my knighthood. Oh ! Kameju, I have seen 
 Adzuma, who should have been my wife. 
 Kam. You know I love you, Morito. Long since, 
 My father Dosen, dying — to whose care 
 Lord Yasuhira left you — spake, at brink 
 Of that world whence our still ones speak no more, 
 Son Kameju ! there is thy liege, thy chief. 
 Thy breast-brother, thy charge ! See that thou 
 giv'st 
 
6o ADZUMA, 
 
 Core of thy heart, and spirit of thy soul, 
 Strength of thy arm, and service of thy blood 
 To Morito Endo, as thy father gave, 
 Till death unbuckles this my blade from thee. 
 And, Morito ! I have given ;— and I give. 
 
 MOR. Right well I wot, brave Kameju and true ! 
 
 Kam. So shall you better bear me, saying this : — 
 All deadly as is sweep of steel, and dark 
 The chance of battle to the soldiermost, 
 I had liever see you, sweet Lord ! thick beset 
 With thirsty, sparkling swords ; encompassed in 
 By reek and rattle of a losing fight — 
 So I were there — than standing safe and sound. 
 But love-smit, at the door of Adzuma. 
 
 MOR. Your reasons, my Kameju ! 
 
 Kam. Half, my Lord 
 
 Are reasonless : the chill that steals the heat 
 Out of men's veins, when secret shadows pass. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 6i 
 
 When nameless perils creep : the sense we have — 
 Keenest for what we love, and quite outside 
 Work-a-day wit — of some twist in the path 
 Which leads to woe and fate. I shall not fright 
 Morito with what's womanish. Well, then, 
 Be my plea thus : here thou and Duty stand 
 Friends yet, and nobly linked ; thy fair days 
 
 smirched 
 With nothing misbecoming, thy young name 
 Writ splendid on the scroll of chosen youth, 
 The Emperor's trusted. For those eyes of hers, 
 Those arms of hers, those beckoning breasts of 
 
 hers — 
 (Which, being given, are no more to give) — 
 For one of many a fair one in this world 
 (This one not yours to have) — wilt set all by. 
 And let them write you down the Knight that sold 
 Fame, name, and virtue for a plundered bhss ? 
 
62 AD2UMA, 
 
 MOR. Your words are strong. So is her loveliness. 
 
 Kam. Who brought you hither; was't the Samurai ? 
 
 MOR. She brought, Adzuma brought ! The man you 
 mean 
 Never so much as marked. On sight of her — 
 Like whose delightful beauty in this world 
 Nothing hath been, or can be, — I was fain 
 To follow, as the leaf rolls with the wind, 
 As the stream hastens where the valley slopes. 
 I had no will save what the green sea hath 
 Obeying the white moon. 
 
 Kam. Oh ! be thyself— 
 
 Morito Musha Endo. Did she note 
 The trouble that her fair face wrought on thee, 
 This Lady ? 
 
 MOR. Not a whit ! her modest eyes 
 
 Kept the ground meekly, curtained oif from all 
 By veil of long-dropped lashes. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIPE. 63 
 
 Kam. Come away, 
 
 Dear Master, and forget ! A war is toward, 
 The Palace keeps a charge of note for thee : 
 Nothing's yet done amiss ! Think that you 
 
 see 
 Your Father's spirit softly from his tomb 
 Win you to come, laying his hand in yours ; 
 While I, this other hand, thy henchman true. 
 Humbly constrain. Come ! Do what none else 
 
 dares, 
 Make thy proud heart yield — conquer Morito ! 
 
 MoR. {gloomily.) What hast thou in the sword-bag, 
 Kameju ? 
 
 Kam. I did forget. I hold a message here ; 
 Wataru sent it. At the gaming-bout 
 Last week you played too rash ; you lost a fief 
 To Sakamune, and, for present lack 
 Of coin, you pawned your sword, the Bizen one ; 
 
64 ADZUMA, 
 
 'T was not well done, dear Lord : you know that too ! 
 Of this heard Watanabe, so he took 
 Gold in a bag, and bought the good blade back : 
 'Tis here, and with it, a scroll. 
 
 MOKITO reads — 
 
 " To the very true Knight and his Friend, Morito 
 Endo, Wataru Watanabe sends this, asking pardon for 
 too bold a good-will, — his sword, to wit. 'Tis too rare 
 a piece to be in any hands save those which have 
 oftentimes wielded it manfully. The sender craves 
 leave still to live Lord Morito's creditor, until such 
 time as he be weary of giving Wataru pleasure, or 
 luckier at the hazard." 
 
 [MoRiTO fitrns atvay impetuously from the door of 
 Adzuma.] 
 
 MOR. Hold fast my other hand ; I'll go with thee ! 
 End of Scene 2. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 65 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Scene 3. 
 
 A Banquet- room in a Tea-house, opening on a Garden. 
 Many high officers and Samurai seated upon the mats, 
 drinking sake, and conversing. Dancing girls perform, 
 with music, singing, (s'c. Painted lanterns and lamps 
 illuminate the Banquet-room and Garden. Morito, 
 Sakamune, Kameju, and the Lord of Idzu arc 
 among the company, with Hojo, Doi, and Adachi, all 
 Samurai. 
 
 Hojo. I tell you the old days were the good days. 
 It was merry in Japan before we fetched in from China 
 the outlandish letters and ways. 
 
 DOI. Oh, a cup of sake with you, Sir ! You are 
 
 augustly right ! The good old times went out with 
 
 the Shinto times. 
 
 Lord of Idzu. Yes, and the worst is tha the pretty 
 
 I 
 
66 ADZUMA, 
 
 women have all passed away with the ancient poetry, 
 faith, and manners. Minamoto Genji was well ad- 
 vised to spend his rainy nights railing at the ugly 
 faces of our modern Japan girls. 
 
 Sakamune. O Yuki ! [to a Waiting-maid\ fill up 
 again my Lord of Idzu's sakazuke, and let him see 
 your black eyes sparkle over the rim of it. He will 
 perchance think better of his land then. 
 
 L. OF Idzu. Oh, she is all very well for a maiko. 
 But where are gone the famous beauties of Ky6t6 ? 
 Who is there now left to match Inishiyi with the 
 moon-face, or Soto-ori the desire of her day, or 
 Komachi, who wrote the verses, and was so beau- 
 teous that people bought the mirrors into which she 
 had looked, to get dreams from them ? 
 
 Saka. Think you there are none such now ? 
 
 L. OF Idzu. I say it. Sir! Here sit I, a Hokumen 
 of the Court, that hath two swords, and am of repute ; 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 67 
 
 yet her Ladyship my wife ! — well, she hath not indeed 
 six fingers, and is not exactly shark-skinned ; but, 
 since she hears me not, I will honestly tell you, she 
 hath the eyes of a monkey, the nose of a fox, and the 
 mouth of a frog. 
 
 Adachi. Truly, in old times a great nobleman had 
 better fortune. 
 
 Saka. She is doubtless an excellent Lady in the 
 dark, and a good blade mends a bad scabbard. It 
 won't do, however, to tell us that Ky6t6 holds no 
 perfect beauty while Wataru's wife dwells in the 
 city. 
 
 L. OF IDZU. Is she so fair ? 
 
 Saka. Nay, ask Morito. He galloped away from 
 us all, last week at the Bridge, only to get a second 
 look at an angel he had spied, which angel, I heard, 
 was Wataru's wife. 
 
 HojO. I have seen her; and truly she is of a rare 
 
68 AD2UMA, 
 
 comeliness. Wataru's destiny is to be envied. But 
 a most holy Lady ! Oh, she hath no eyes except for 
 her husband, and goes not abroad once in a moon, 
 save to pray at the shrine of Kwannon, or to write 
 poetry to the plum and cherry blossoms. 
 
 Saka, She is fair enough. But she is only a 
 woman, after all, like the rest. Who wants may have, 
 if he only knows the right road. 
 
 HOJO. What are you saying, Sir Samurai ? She 
 hath a husband whom she adores. Dream you she 
 is of the flesh that makes a geisJia or a joro ? Why, 
 naruhodo ! you set us laughing. 
 
 Saka. O warai nasaruna ! Don't laugh till you 
 know ! I am saying what is true. The woman is 
 well enough : I speak naught against her, specially 
 since Morito has cast his eyes that way. But her 
 mother Koromogawa possesses an extremely base 
 mind. While Adzuma was yet unpromised many a 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 69 
 
 good man sought her for wife ; but Koromogawa 
 spurned them all, rejected even our noble Morito, 
 looking about for a rich husband, with plenty of rice- 
 bags and gold koban. 
 
 HOJO. You have drunk too much sake, Sakamune. 
 
 Saka. Nay! I am talking sooth. Forgetting justice 
 and shame, she sold her pretty daughter to Watanabe ; 
 and she would sell her over again to you, my Lord of 
 Idzu ; or to Morito ; if there were only money enough 
 forthcoming to gild the palm of the old bargainer. 
 
 MoR. [starting up, and half drazving his szvord.] 
 That is a lie, Sakamune ! And, were it not a lie, 
 what intend you, to speak so before this honourable 
 company of one who was my father's sister ? It is 
 much if I do not smite you. 
 
 L. OF Idzu. Morito, good Morito ! sweet Lord 
 Morito ! be patient ! He is thy friend, and only a 
 little drunk. Remember, if you draw point from 
 
^o ADZUMA, 
 
 sheath, a Samurai's sword cannot go back without 
 blood upon it. 
 
 [ 7 key succeed in restraining MoRITO. 
 
 Saka. I was to blame ; I lay my head at your feet, 
 Endo Morito ! The wine had loosened my tongue 
 too much. I was a fool to forget that one like your 
 worship bears an aunt no grudge for discarding him 
 as a breeder does a half-bred stud-horse. It is not 
 well, I see, to be faithful to friends. If you are angry, 
 take my head ; I will not defend it. 
 
 MOR. Nay ! but thou shalt not say Adzuma hath 
 a price. 
 
 Saka. Oh, I doubt not she herself is innocent 
 enough. I was incensed against her mother for 
 despising you. If it is for that you would kill me, 
 strike ! I will not even lift up my hand. 
 
 L. OF Idzu. We think he meant no wrong, Morito ! 
 
 Saka. How should I mean wrong to Morito Endo, 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 71 
 
 the best of all my friends ? If you forgive Koro- 
 mogawa, forgive me also. I was to blame; I beg 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 MOR. Why, then, let it be forgotten. I think, 
 indeed, thou art honest. I am over-quickly moved. 
 Thou, too, shalt pardon my hot blood. 
 
 L. OF IDZU. Sa, sa ! this is well ! And now let us 
 walk under the stars, and cool our heads. There was 
 never trouble yet between good fellows, but some 
 woman's name brewed it. Sa ! sa ! sa ! 
 
 \_Exemit Omnes. 
 
 End of Scene 3. 
 
72 ADZUMA, 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Scene 4. 
 
 A Garden-room in Adzuma's house. Wataru and Anzvux 
 together. She is perusing a Chinese book. 
 
 Wataru. What read you, Sweetheart ? 
 
 Adzuma. Oh, a foreign scroll 
 
 About a far-oif land, — quite far, I think. 
 Where, when they would adjudge some one 
 
 accused, 
 The man, or woman, was close blindfolded. 
 And red-hot shards of brass from the furnace fire 
 Being then scattered in a Temple-ground, 
 This he, or she, arraigned, must bare-foot walk 
 In the fierce labyrinth of that ordeal. 
 
 Wat. a dreadful test ! And, if the naked feet 
 Touched the hot brass ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 73 
 
 Adz. Then that was guiltiness ; 
 
 And guiltlessness showed only from good luck 
 To thread the perilous pathway harmlessly. 
 
 Wat. I hope just Heaven would guide the true feet safe. 
 
 Adz. Ah, if it did ! but I must think — alas ! 
 
 That, oftentimes, the false foot came through well, 
 While th' innocent stumbled 'gainst the blazing 
 
 bars. 
 Life sometimes seems to me like that hard test. 
 
 Wat. Wherein, my Pearl ? 
 
 Adz. Because, — tread as we will, 
 
 With never so much heed, the path of the years, — 
 Fate, or our foes, or relics of old faults 
 Sow the way with so many snares for us. 
 Oh, dost thou deem that gentle Heaven, indeed. 
 Would find a safe road 'mid the fires for those 
 Whose feet were clean of wrong ? 
 
 Wat. Surely I do ; 
 
 K 
 
74 ADZUMA, 
 
 At last — far-off — nothing befalls the good 
 
 Save good. That I hold firm. 
 Adz. If you did see 
 
 My feet burned by the brass ? 
 Wat. Why, I should know 
 
 The dull brass blundered, though a thousand 
 
 tongues 
 
 Called thy hurts justice. 
 Adz. Dear and loving Lord ! 
 
 Hold fast to that ! Go you on guard to-day ? 
 
 Wat. 'Till th' afternoon. 
 
 Adz. Then shall I — by your leave 
 
 Ride with my mother to the holy shrines. 
 And pray the goddess that she keep you well, 
 Nor weary yet of granting Adzuma 
 Comfort and courage of Wataru's love. 
 
 End of Scene 4. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 75 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Scene 5. 
 
 T/te Court-yard of the Hase Temple of the Goddess 
 Kwannoii, at Kyoto, showing front of tfie Temple, with 
 steps leading to shrine ; the praying-rope, and bell ; the 
 tank of purificatory water, a^c, &'c. 
 
 Enter MORITO and Sakamune. 
 
 MORITO. To what end dost thou bring me hither ? 
 
 Sakamune. I will answer that anon. I vexed you 
 sorely at the Tea-house lately. I am sorry for it. 
 
 MOR. I was too hot. But thou spakest lightly of 
 one so sweet, that, seeking to forget her, I still ever 
 steadfastly remember. Oh, Adzuma ! why did my idle 
 eyes ever fall upon thee ? 
 
 Saka. To take pleasure in a fair face. It is what 
 eyes were made for. 
 
76 ADZUMA, 
 
 MOR. I have forsworn all further seeing of her. I 
 have received kindness from her husband, who is a 
 gallant and worthy knight; and Kameju says there 
 is no Lady in the land more cherished by her Lord, 
 or happier in her chastity. Oh, that the wars would 
 come again ! I would find peace in the front of them. 
 
 Saka. One can be a soldier without dying, and 
 lover without sighing. Adzuma, thou should'st know, 
 belongs to thee by right. 
 
 MOR. How sayest thou that ? 
 
 Saka. You will draw blade on me if I tell the 
 truth. 
 
 MOR. No ! no ! 'Twas when you spoke ill of my 
 kinswoman before those sake-bibbers. 
 
 Saka. And if I speak ill of her again ? 
 
 MOR. Oh, say your say. 
 
 Saka. I am foolish to be so friendly, but you shall 
 hear. There is none oweth more to you than your 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 77 
 
 Aunt Koromogawa. She owed you Adzuma, and 
 cheated you out of payment. 
 
 MOR. If I thought that ! 
 
 Saka. If you thought that, would you sit tamely 
 down, and suffer the lily planted for you to bloom in 
 another's garden. You — named hokumen at twenty — 
 would you let the fox eat what was meant for the tiger ? 
 
 MOR. No ! no ! 
 
 Saka. You have seen Adzuma. You know what 
 has been lost — the Jewel of her time ; the Star of 
 women ; the fairest spouse that ever lay on a man's 
 breast. But if you have sworn patience, why should 
 I speak more ? 
 
 MoR. Nay, go on ! go on ! 
 
 Saka. Well, then, Koromogawa, I say, owes every- 
 thing to your father. She was poor, friendless, and 
 the daughter of a concubine, praying daily to the 
 goddess for a husband. One night she fell asleep in 
 
78 ADZUMA, 
 
 fhe Temple and dreamed that Kwannon appeared, 
 and bade her take the /laort from a woman slumbering 
 beside her. She awoke, and saw, indeed, a lady sleep- 
 ing near, from whom she stole the garment, and 
 departed. On the road a knight was riding, Jiro 
 Yasuhira, who, looking in her face, courteously saluted 
 her, and said : " I had a dear wife, who is dead : and 
 I have sworn never to take another, until I found one 
 exactly resembling her in countenance and figure. 
 Last night I dreamed I should encounter such an one 
 dressed in a blue haori, and, in truth, you are just 
 like my lost wife." Upon this Koromogawa con- 
 fessed what she had asked from the goddess, and how 
 she also had dreamed ; after which, thinking it all the 
 decree of destiny, they went to Oshu together, and 
 Yasuhira took her for wife. 
 
 MOR. 'Twas that same Lord who slew the great 
 white eagle ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 79 
 
 Saka. That same ! Well ! very happily dwelled 
 they together, until they came again to Ky6t6, and 
 then a little thing turned out for Koromogawa a 
 large matter. 
 
 MoR. It is often so ; naruhodo. 
 
 Saka. A tame dove, pursued by a kite, flew for 
 refuge into Koromogawa's litter. Having rescued 
 and returned it, the mistress of the dove invited your 
 Aunt to come within and take repose ; and she was 
 hospitably entertained by this Lady, who was none 
 other than Shiraito, the wife of Endo Morimitsu — your 
 mother. Growing friendly, your Aunt told all the 
 story of the dream, and of the blue haori which she 
 had stolen ; and what shame she still felt, though it 
 had obtained her a husband ; so that — spake she, 
 " I would give a thousand ryo to find the owner, and 
 restore it." 
 
 MOR. That is not like the bad spirit you alleged. 
 
So ADZUMA, 
 
 Saka. Oh, it is to you alone that she is so evil. 
 Shiraito inquired if the garment was of blue silk, 
 with gold chrysanthemums upon it, and Koromogawa 
 answering " Yes," they bade a servant bring it from 
 the litter ; whereupon, steadfastly regarding it, Shiraito 
 exclaimed, " That is my haori ! I was she who 
 slumbered in the Temple ! " 
 
 MOR. Is this all certain ? 
 
 Saka. Oh, it is true. Koromogawa was both re- 
 joiced and ashamed. But your mother comforted her, 
 saying it was the way and will of the Mi-Hotoke, and 
 your father, Morimitsu— entering just then — made 
 her also courteous cheer. Presently, observing the 
 silver dagger which she had laid aside, he asked : 
 " Whence got you this ? " Koromogawa replied, " It 
 was the keepsake of my mother, from my father, 
 when he sent her away.'' " Right well I know it," 
 said Morimitsu, " it was the parting gift of my father 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. Si 
 
 to his concubine, and you are my younger sister ! 
 How wondrously have we met ! I see, indeed, in you 
 the features of my sire." Presently, in came Yasuhira 
 also, having found out where his wife was entered ; 
 and they all made good cheer together, and drunk the 
 " three cups " of relationship. 
 
 MOR. 'Tis very strange ! 
 
 Saka. Afterwards they lived affectionately in one 
 place, and thou wast born of Shiraito, and afterwards 
 Adzuma of Koromogawa. So it was designed by your 
 father and uncle to marry you to your cousin. But 
 Yasuhira died, and Morimitsu too, and the Lady 
 Shiraito. Your aunt alone survived; and D6sen, your 
 guardian, when you came to age begged Adzuma from 
 her for your wife. Now 'tis certain she should have 
 given her. 
 
 MOR. Why, I think that, too. 
 
 Saka. It was a vile thing, and a wrongful — I say — 
 
 L 
 
82 ADZUMA, 
 
 to set thee aside ; son of her brother, who had 
 wrought her such benefits. Adzuma was bestowed 
 on Watanabe for his gold, and his great estates — • 
 but she was thine by will of the dead — and thou didst 
 but desire thine own when thine eyes fell lately upon 
 her loveliness. Howbeit, since thou hast now resigned 
 her, our priests will praise thee, if not our soldiers. 
 
 MOR. This is new to my ears. To all the devils 
 with the praise of the priests ! I am not he whom 
 any one can wrong without paying for it. 
 
 Saka. Nay ! but Kameju hath told thee how 
 sweetly they dwell together — what love-beds ; what 
 warm times ; what secret comforts Wataru hath with 
 thy lost wife. 
 
 MOR. Hold, Sakamune ! or I shall strike thee, whom 
 I should rather thank. Doth Adzuma know of this ? 
 
 Saka. Not one whit ! They have kept it very 
 heedfully from her and from thee. Had she once 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 83 
 
 seen thee, Watanabe would soon find her kisses grow 
 colder. The bond of past existences is strong ! 
 
 MOR. Would that I might yet again gaze upon her 
 sweet face ! 
 
 Saka. Art in earnest? dost then, indeed, desire 
 that? 
 
 MoR. As dry throats desire water ; or blind eyes 
 light; or dying men breath. 
 
 Saka. Why, turn thee round, then, and look who 
 repairs hither to prayers. I brought thee here, be- 
 lieving she would come. 
 
 Enters Adzuma, with her Mother and Attendants, not per- 
 ceiving MoRiTO and Sakamune. She takes water fro?n 
 the Saikai font, and, washing her hands, ascends the 
 temple-stairs, sounds the frayer-bell, and stands awhile 
 praying before the shrine, with head bowed, and clasped 
 palms. 
 
 MOR. (watching her with a rapt air). 
 
 Thou marvel ! thou fair joy ! 
 
ADZUMA, 
 
 Framed of delightfulness and finished sweet 
 From brow to foot with what's desirable ! — 
 Thee they have stolen from me ! And, what's 
 
 left? 
 What's left — having seen such loss — but desperate 
 
 will 
 To win thee back, though twenty furious swords 
 Deny ; though gods forbid ; though fates forecast 
 Sorrow, and horror, and the end in shame ? 
 What's left — in all the lesser things on earth 
 Ambition, honour, greatness, pride of praise. 
 Pleasures of life, joy of glad battle, gold, — 
 Save dust and ashes, matched with that one gain 
 Of one good moment in those heavenly arms ? 
 They have stol'n thee from me, star-bright 
 
 Adzuma ! 
 But I'll have back my treasure, if I thrust 
 Souls to perdition for my wrongful right ! 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 85 
 
 Adzuma nozv descends, with her Mother; and, observ- 
 ing Sakamune, they salute him. 
 
 Sakamune. Good morrow ! noble Ladies. To your 
 prayers 
 The Gods must listen. \To KOROMOGAWA] 'Tis 
 
 your kinsman here, 
 Lord Morimitsu's son. \To Adzuma] Fair 
 
 Adzuma, 
 This is your husband's friend. Sir Morito ; 
 The best sword of our Court. 
 Adz. Hajimemashite ! * 
 
 I am much honoured to encounter you. 
 MOR. I pray you, at this first you see of me, 
 
 To hold me in your kindness. 
 Adz. I, in yours 
 
 * The Japanese word at a first introduction. 
 
86 ADZUMA, 
 
 Would rather ask. My husband's friend must be, 
 In simple sequence, friend of Adzuma. 
 
 MOR. I am happy with but that one wi>rd from you. 
 Come you with Lord Wataru, oft, to Court, 
 Cousin — and friend ? 
 
 KOKOMOOAWA. Nay ! we arc stay-at-homes. 
 
 Good Nephew, getting news of your great world 
 As it sifts through the s//q/'i. Pardon us 
 If we crave leave : our little hou.sehold waits. 
 
 MOR. Farewell! 
 
 [Adzuma a>/d Koromogawa 7t)a//i aside ivith their 
 attendants. 
 
 So have I seen Heaven's gateway gleam again ! 
 
 Saka. Gate with a key! Didst thou not mark her 
 
 look ? 
 
 She would have tarried, but the mother drew. 
 
 \E.\eniit Mourro rr;/*/ Sakamunk. 
 [Adzuma and Koromogawa cotiu- forward to take 
 departure. 
 
OR THE JAFASESE WIFE. ; 
 
 Adz. Oh : Mother, in mv veins I feel a thriK 
 
 A? if my blood iced. Wliat is ill with me ? 
 KOPOMO. Let a.? ha^te homeTrard, Ija'^'ii'.ir. Tr. 
 
 Ls in. 
 
 And happens not, except b v Fate'-, hard wilL 
 
 Ei'D Of Act the Second. 
 
ACT III. 
 Scene i. 
 
 The Gateivay of a " Yaskiki," or city mansion in Kyoto. 
 
 Enter MoRlTO and Sakamune. 
 
 MORITO. Will you still say she cast eyes of pleasure 
 upon me ? 
 
 Sakamune. What else ? what else ? 
 
 MoR. Since I heard the truth of Koromogawa's 
 ungratefulness I bear another and a more angry 
 mind. 
 
 Saka. She owed you, for your father's kindness, 
 not Adzuma only, but her own good name, her happy 
 days, her easy life. 
 
 MoR. That is so indeed. Except for my mother 
 
THE JAPANESE WIFE. 89 
 
 taking her as sister, she was a robber of apparel in a 
 temple. 
 
 Saka. And that is a crime for the executioner. 
 
 MOR. I have her thus at my mercy. 
 
 Saka. Yet you would have drawn sword upon me 
 in the tea-house, for saying a lighter thing. 
 
 MOR. I did not know. Forgive it ! I thought kin 
 must be kind. It was a bitter deed to deny Adzuma 
 to my father's son, when Ddsen asked for her. 
 
 Saka. Never was knight worse used. But Adzuma 
 had no part in it. 
 
 MoR. Would it have fallen otherwise, had she 
 known ? 
 
 Saka. It must have fallen otherwise. 
 
 MOR. Were I but sure of that, the wrath which 
 smoulders in me, would become flaming fury. If 
 she, too, might have desired me, the twenty thousand 
 devils of Echizen shall not keep her from my arms. 
 
 M 
 
90 ADZUMA, 
 
 Saka. What would you do, if you had it from her 
 own hand that she saw a better man than Wataru 
 the day she met you in the Temple ? 
 
 MoR. She will never go to that. 
 
 Saka. But if she make you know it, so that blind 
 eyes might read the book of her heart ? 
 
 MOR. How mean you ? If Adzuma avowed it 
 would please her well that I had Wataru 's place ? 
 
 Saka. Aye, I say that. 
 
 MOR. Why, then I tell thee again hell should not 
 daunt me, nor honour hold me, nor friendship fetter 
 my hand ; nor pity stay me for my father's sister, 
 who hath cheated his son. I would pluck Adzuma 
 from Wataru, though I soaked my sleeve in blood. 
 
 Saka. 'Tis the fitting spirit. 
 
 MOR. Oh, but you dream. 
 
 Saka. Some dreams come true. Have patience in 
 this great love, which deserveth recompense. She 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 91 
 
 whom thou dost desire, desires you. Give time and 
 place for a woman's wit to work in. Those that cage 
 such bright-feathered birds cannot hinder them from 
 singing through the bars. 
 
 MOR. To what end are these words of hope ? I 
 shall not even cast eyes on her again. My Aunt will 
 look to that. 
 
 Saka. Sayo ka ? Wilt thou, this very week, see 
 her face to face anew; nay, touch her robe, drink 
 perchance from the same cup with her ? 
 
 MOR. Ask rather whether the famished would eat. 
 I am mad to sit beside her once more. 
 
 Saka. Be patient, then. Wataru comes back soon 
 from Nara, with treasure of the Emperor. Afterward 
 falls the feast in the Maple Gardens, when folks go to 
 gaze on the bright colours of the autumn. If I know 
 of a surety that Adzuma will be there, ask me not how. 
 For thy sake I adventure much. 
 
92 ADZUMA,^ 
 
 MOR. Thou art a faithful friend. We will go to the 
 
 Maple Gardens. 
 
 [Exeunt MORITO and Sakamune. 
 
 End of Scene i. 
 
 ACT III. 
 Scene 2. 
 
 Garden of Adzuma'^ house, with Pavilion openi7ig upon it. 
 Adzuma is sitting upon the mats there with her maids, 
 O YoSHi and O Tama. 
 
 Adzuma. Our bravest garments, Girls ! We'll not be 
 shamed 
 Even by maple-leaves. To-morrow falls 
 The great feast in the groves of momiji 
 Where all the city flocks to see the year 
 Put on its autumn dress, golden and green. 
 Scarlet and purple, saffron, russet, rose : 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 93 
 
 A^e ? maidens mine ! This earth were good as 
 Heaven 
 
 If all men lived as those should live who own 
 
 A house to dwell in, so embellished. 
 O Tama. Okus&ma ! What robe shall we lay for you ? 
 Adz. The pearl-grey one with oi^/ of pink silk 
 
 Sewn with white stars, because my Lord likes that; 
 
 But you, my Tama ! You, O Yoshi San ! 
 
 Be splendid like the autumn butterflies. 
 
 Like Autumn's self, though 'tis your time of 
 Spring : 
 
 Fetch forth such silks, such crapes, such girdle- 
 cloths 
 
 Jiban, and kanzashi, the maple-leaves 
 
 Shall flutter out of jealousy. My girls ! 
 
 We will be glad and gaj'. Wataru comes. 
 
 Be sure you take my writing-box and reeds ; 
 
 I shall make poetry. 
 
94 ADZUMA, 
 
 O YOSHI. Madam, you can 
 
 With any that are best. That last you wrote — 
 The Ufa of the moon — every one sings. 
 
 Adz. How went it, Yoshi ? play it, if you know. 
 
 O YosHi si7/£'s to her samisen — 
 
 " Moon of the autumn-sky ! 
 Sentinel, silver and still, 
 Where are the dear ones that die ? 
 Is it well ? — is it ill ? " 
 
 Adz. Ah, Yoshi ! that was in the sombre mood 
 
 Which sometimes comes upon my dreaming string; 
 
 Now all's for lightness — since my Lord returns 
 
 On honoured errand of the Emperor, 
 
 And we'll make sunshine for him in the house 
 
 And sunshine out of doors, if it be scant ; 
 
 But, sure, I think a day all blue and gold 
 
 Will paint Takawo for us. Give me here 
 
 The samise7i : I'll strike a happier strain. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 9; 
 
 Adzuma sings to Iter oivn accompaniinent — 
 
 " I would hide my soul, as the Asajiti 
 In the reeds of Ono's moorlands do ; 
 
 And none should know me, or see : 
 But the Asajiu gleam, by their blooms revealed ; 
 And the gladness of love in my bosom concealed 
 Shines forth in despite of me!" 
 
 Think you my Lord took strength enough with 
 him ? 
 
 There's an ill league to travel in those woods. 
 O Tama. Dear Mistress ! he is safe. What wicked 
 men 
 
 Would stand to see Wataru's sword flash forth ? 
 Adz. I think so, Tama ! though he had but two. 
 
 Besides, I still remember what he said : 
 
 There comes no evil to the man that's good ; 
 
 So is he safe, plated against all harm 
 
 By that which cannot fear, a soul serene 
 
96 ADZUMA, 
 
 Doing no wrong, and dreading none. But I 
 Count the slow minutes, when he is not nigh. 
 
 [Exeunt Oinnes. 
 End of Scene 2. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Scene 3. 
 
 Night-time. ^1 lane of bamboos in the outskirts of Kyoto. 
 
 Enter Wataru armed, with two attendants. One 
 catries a package. 
 
 Wataru. Give me the Emperor's packet. I do 
 not greatly like this place at night for those that are 
 upon honest business. 
 
 1st Attendant. Methought I spied the shine of 
 a lantern just now, my Lord, in the thorn-bushes 
 yonder. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 97 
 
 Wat. Aye ! we had done wiser, perchance, to pass 
 
 with more help through this wolf's mouth. Give me 
 
 the bag, I say, and look that your swords are free in 
 
 their scabbards. 
 
 [^Noises are heard."] 
 
 2nd Attend. Oh, Sir! I am hit in the side with 
 an arrow. 
 
 Wat. Stand fast, now, with your backs to this 
 clump. We will make it warm work for the knaves. 
 
 \^A rush of armed robbers takes place upon the little 
 parly. Sharp fighting ensues, in which one of 
 Wataru's men falls dead, and the other is 
 wounded, while several of the robbers are put 
 hers de combat.'] 
 
 I St Att. Master ! Good Sir ! look to yourself. My 
 fellow is slain, and I can give you help no longer. 
 
 Wat. Lie safe here between my feet. They shall 
 not come at thee, nor at the charge we carry, while 
 this blade can bite. \_He strikes dead an assailant.] 
 
 N 
 
98 ADZUMA, 
 
 Ha, foul thief! down with thee to poison the whole- 
 some grass by thy blood. Now for another, — and 
 
 another ! 
 
 [Ife wounds two more, but is very hard pressed, when 
 MoRiTO enters, with an armed servant. They 
 engage the robbers.] 
 
 MOR. Hott, hott! A knight of the Court beset, 
 and at long odds ! Stand behind me a moment. Sir ! 
 and take your breath, while I carve my swordmaker's 
 name on these scoundrels. 
 
 Wat. Nay, but I will stand at thy side, valiant 
 gentleman ! 'Tis a new sword-arm to me to see thee. 
 Naruhodo ! well struck ! [MORITO hews a robber 
 down, and the rest take to flight^ The rogues are 
 all away. They have stomach for no more steel ! 
 
 MOR. Are you hurt. Sir ? 
 
 Wat. Not a scratch, but one of my poor servants 
 is, I fear, dead, and the other sorely wounded. You 
 have saved. Sir! the Emperor's private letters and 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 99 
 
 treasure, with, what is of less moment, the Hfe of your 
 grateful servant Wataru Watanabe. 
 
 MOR. Wataru! 
 
 Wat. The same, albeit more scant of breath than 
 is wont with him. Most welcome friend ! I beseech 
 you raise your face-piece that I may see the man 
 whom I must henceforth love. 
 
 MOR. Be pleased to pardon me. I desire not to be 
 known. 
 
 Wat. You are as modest. Sir, as you are brave, 
 which is to say much. 
 
 MoR. It is not that. Sir ! Indeed I do not 
 desen'e your praise. Any soldier would do as I 
 did. 
 
 Wat. Came you by hazard, then, upon my one- 
 handed battle ? 
 
 MOR. By hazard only, Lord Wataru ; I and my 
 servant were returning to the city. 
 
loo ADZUMA, 
 
 Wat. Had you dropped from Heaven, it could not 
 have been more timely. 
 
 MOR. I am glad — and sorry ! Beseech you, let 
 me pass unquestioned. The way is safe now, 
 and I will send those who shall succour your 
 man. 
 
 Wat. I would dare believe I know your voice, 
 gallant Sir ! This is a service, look you, done to 
 the Emperor's Majesty, who will demand of me the 
 name of so worthy a knight. Suffer me to be able 
 to extol you to him. 
 
 MoR. Of your kindness hold me excused ! By 
 your honourable leave I will now sheathe my sword, 
 and be gone. 
 
 Wat. Ah ! that sword ! Surely I remember the 
 hilt! If it be now in its master's hand, — and none 
 other in Japan could so well wield it — you are Morito 
 Musha Endo. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. loi 
 
 MOR. \tmcovering his face.] Since you will know 
 me, Wataru, it must be so. I am Morito. 
 
 Wat. Now can I tell of thy valour in the Court ; 
 as well as of thy knightly silence. If thou must 
 depart, take with thee my truest thanks. Nay, I pray 
 thee, if thou goest to-morrow to the Maple-valley, 
 deign entrance into my tent there, and drink a cup 
 of rice-wine with us ; when Adzuma, my wife, shall 
 speak better gratitude for me. I must now lead my 
 poor vassal to a shelter. 
 
 [Exit Wataru, supporting Ids servant. 
 MOR. [wiping his sword blade and slowly shcatli- 
 ing it.] 
 Sword ! thou hast paid thy master's heavy debt ; 
 For that his better part gives thee good praise ; 
 Sword ! thou hast saved the life which, like a 
 
 stream, 
 Runs broad and strong between my love and me. 
 
102 ADZUMA, 
 
 For that my worser part cries curse on thee ! 
 Ah dearest, deadliest beauty ! Hoped I not 
 That this Lord's wife would fain be fere of mine 
 Then, — at that minute, — when his heart was large 
 With generous heat, I would have caught his 
 
 neck 
 And cried : " Help me ! if I have holpen thee ! 
 Take now my blade and stretch me stark and 
 
 dead 
 With these less guilty carcasses ; or take 
 Thy wife away out of my eyes, and ways. 
 And mind and life, lest I go mad for her." 
 Then Sword ! I could have worn thee worthy still, 
 But now what must and will be — must, and will ! 
 
 End of Scene 3. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Scene 4. 
 
 A beautiful valley outside Kyoto, full of maple-trees, dis- 
 playing various rich colours of the autumn. A stream 
 runs down the valley, and on either side of it, holiday- 
 makers sit in groups, enjoying the air and landscape. 
 The wealthier and more exclusive have established tents 
 or booths, by hanging curtains of many hues from tree 
 to tree, or suspending them upon bamboo poles. Such 
 an enclosure is seen to the left of the stage, beside the 
 stream, with near at hand a maple-tree, under which the 
 party of Adzuma and Wataru is lodged. 
 
 Adzuma. \lifting the curtain and coming forth, with 
 her two Attendants.] 
 Oya ! my maids ! I gave you leave to match 
 Your prettiest gowns with Autumn's dying dress, 
 Yet she outglories you. O Yoshi, look ! 
 Would you not say the evening had dropped down 
 
I04 ADZUMA, 
 
 Out of its sky upon this lovely vale, 
 And dyed it sunset-colours ? Tama, look ! 
 Would you not say — if not the sky of eve 
 Fall'n, to fix so its purples, pinks, and greens. 
 Which else are fled before the eyes can feast 
 Full of their wonder — then, a fairy grove 
 Planted by peoples of the under-world 
 Out of the treasures of their under-world 
 Red gold, and burning brass, and starry gleam 
 Of silver, and swart copper's sombre glow. 
 With soft lights, here and there, of sard and jade. 
 And hard, of coral and of carbuncle ? 
 How fair it is ! how fresh the air ! how glad 
 These city folks ! 
 O YOSHI. Okusdma ! So it is ; 
 
 Yet best I hke the tender time of the Spring 
 When the plum covers all our hills with snow, 
 And afterwards the rosy cherry breaks, 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 105 
 
 O Tama. Ah ! but they fade so soon, the blooms of 
 Spring, 
 
 One is so sorry, seeing them, to know 
 
 We shall not see them long. 
 Adz. Why, that's a song 
 
 " Hana no irowa" and it ends thus — 
 
 She touches the samisen and sings — 
 
 " Oh blood-red bloom of the cherry ! 
 Did you come for pleasure or pain ? " 
 
 O Tama. I like the Summer best, when no one fears 
 
 The wind will plunder what the sunshine gave, 
 
 Or Winter's snow come back, for jealousy. 
 
 To shroud the cherry boughs. Then no one goes 
 
 One day without delight of scent and tint. 
 
 First there's the ya^nabuki, lacquers us 
 
 The hill-sides with its gold ; and next there bloom 
 
 Rain-roses, silvering them ; and then there's flush 
 
 Of pink-eyes in the rice-fields ; and the lanes 
 
 o 
 
io6 ADZUMA, 
 
 Are lighted with the fire-fly buds and flame 
 Of red azaleas ; and, when those burn down, 
 Why, there's the fuji swinging lilac links 
 Of sweetness ; and the kirt, — sweeter still ; 
 And there's the iris, floating purple flags, 
 Zakiiro with red coral blooms ; screw-flowers, 
 Moon-flowers and crane-flowers, and the tiger- 
 tree ; 
 With lilies — silver, golden, blue and rose — ■ 
 The hime-yuri one, that hath her dress — 
 Fair ' princess ' as she is — all white and gold ; 
 And kanoko, red-dappled like a deer. 
 And ajisai, which never knows its mind 
 Whether to blow sea-blue, or pink, or green ; 
 And lotus cups that come, clean as the dawn 
 Out of dark mire ; let be green leagues of rice 
 Waving pearled feathers ; with the kiku last. 
 The Emperor's blossom, filling up the year. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIPE. 107 
 
 Adz. Why, you have made a garden of your words ! — 
 But Tama ! 'tis an Emperor's blossom, too, 
 The cherry. Oh ! a thousand years ago 
 There fell into King Richiu's cup a leaf 
 Of the wild cherry-flower, and Richiu said : 
 " This is the fairest flower in all the world, 
 Cover my kingdom with it ! " 
 
 O YOSHI. Every time 
 
 Is good, if we have eyes. 
 
 Adz. Yes, every time ! 
 
 Now, girls ! we'll go within, and warm the wine, 
 And set the sake-cups. By turn of the sun 
 Wataru will be here, and I've a thought 
 To make to a verse. 
 
 O YOSHI. Madam ! 'tis strange our Lord 
 
 Was so beset last night, and IVlorito 
 The knight to help him. 
 
 Adz. Yes ! O Yoshi San, 
 
lo8 ADZUMA, 
 
 Scarce have I slept for joy, since he came back 
 With dints of wicked weapons on his mail, 
 But safe, oh, safe ! Grace to the goddess, safe ! 
 Grace, too, to that brave friend who stood by him. 
 'Tis strange my mother loves not Morito ; 
 But I, until I utter all my heart 
 Will not touch food. Oh ! a true knight, I deem. 
 And goodly — and my cousin. 'Twere not well 
 We stinted kindliness if he should come. 
 [Adzuma and her Maids re-enter behind the curtains?^ 
 
 Enter MORITO and Sakamune. 
 
 Sakamune. 'Tis an odd matter, truly, that you 
 should have lighted last night upon Wataru, in his 
 need. 
 
 Morito. lya ! I little wished for it. I was re- 
 turning with my servant from the hills, thinking much 
 more of his fair wife than of him. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 109 
 
 Saka. Naruhodo ! Had I been Morito Endo, 
 Wataru Watanabe should have been left to his 
 chances. 
 
 MoR. Doubtless, doubtless ! You love him less 
 even than I ; but I saw not plainly his face in the 
 m^lee, and my blade leaps of itself from the sheath, 
 when it hears the music of steel upon steel. 
 
 Saka. If the thieves had slain him, how easy had 
 been your way to Adzuma's arms. 
 
 MoR. Tempt me not to ill thoughts. Samurai ! I am 
 desperate enough as it is, and already on the straight 
 road to evil, as I deem, with thee for guide. But I 
 am not yet come to that mind where I could stand by 
 and see a knight of Japan fight alone against half-a- 
 dozen villains. 
 
 Saka. As thou wilt. Know you who sits yonder 
 in that tent with the purple and green hangings ? 
 
 MOR. Nay ! how should I know ? 
 
no ADZUMA, 
 
 Saka. There is little need to tell thee ; for, look ! 
 of herself she cometh forth. Did I not promise to 
 
 thee another sight of thy Adzuma ? 
 
 [Adzuma fomes out of the tent ; and, not observing 
 MoRiTO and Sakamune, fastens upon a bough 
 of the maple-tree, according to Japanese custom, 
 a poem written in the native manner upon a 
 long strip of gilded paper, which she leaves 
 there, and then again retires.^ 
 
 MOR. {greatly agitated). My Adzuma ? 
 
 Ah ! if she were ! Again, again, that face 
 Like nothing in this world, because this world 
 Owns nothing else so heavenly ; that fair shape 
 Which when I thought I had learned it, line for 
 
 line. 
 Shines forth afresh, and lo ! I find myself 
 Marvelling I never knew my star so bright ! 
 My Adzuma ! Ah, yes ! My Adzuma 
 If great love had his rights, and kin were kind. 
 But not to-day, and not to-morrow " mine'' 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. in 
 
 Nor ever, as I think. Ilts Adzuma, 
 
 Who filched such sweetness from me ! His to 
 
 have, 
 And his to keep, and his to clasp and stroke, 
 And feast upon, whom I sent home alive 
 Safe to her outstretched arms and opened breast 
 Yesternight ; nay, not I !— this honester sword. 
 My Adzuma ! No ! nevfer, never mine 
 Except she wills so. Then, death should not keep. 
 Nor hell, nor any terrors, mine from me ; 
 My Adzuma ! Where is that liar fled ? 
 I'll find, and make him fear to mock at me. 
 
 [Sakamune kas withdrawn, to gather up secretly the 
 iaiizaku or poem affixed to the maple-bough by 
 Adzuma, uihich has been blown away by the 
 wind across the stream, and picked up by him. 
 He now returns, taking the concealed manuscript 
 from his sleeve. \ 
 
 Sakamune. Morito gone ? that's well ! Let the 
 
 proud fool cool, while I look at my treasure -trove. 
 
112 ADZUMA, 
 
 What have we here ? Adzuma's tefa to the maple- 
 leaves. By the right hand of the Mikado, what neat 
 characters she forms, and how clever at verses the 
 pretty little poetess really is ! See how glibly she has 
 made them run ! 
 
 He reads — 
 
 " The shadows of the maples paint 
 
 The river gold and red ; 
 Come quick, dear Love ! my heart is faint ! 
 
 If spotted deer should tread 
 This bright brocaded pattern out, — 
 
 Trampling the crystal ford — 
 Those deer to me not dear would be. 
 
 But brutes I hate, my lord ! " 
 
 Saka. Now, by the thirty-three thousand poets of 
 Choshiu, she falls ripe into my hands like a dry kaki ! 
 See here. It is but to break her last hne with one 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 113 
 
 touch of my ink-brush at that word " brutes," and to 
 alter a little this letter, and, zuUo ! it reads plain and 
 blunt " I hate my Lord." Ha ! ha ! ha ! What's 
 that except to avow to Morito in her own charm- 
 ing hand, that she is sick of Wataru, and hves but 
 to have her new fancy cross the stream to her ? 
 Now win I Morito, body and soul, by so small a 
 
 revision 
 
 I* 
 
 \He takes his ink-case from his girdle and marks the 
 manuscript.^ 
 
 There ! that is deftly done ! And here comes 
 
 again the love-sick knight who shall swallow my 
 
 philtre. 
 
 * In the Japanese versions of this story the play upon words, 
 by which Sakamune effects his devilish stratagem, is untrans- 
 ferable. Adzuma had written Fu7m na chirashi so, meaning 
 " do not disturb by trampling it." Sakamune substituted for this, 
 Wataru wo itou, which has much the same signification, " I do 
 not wish you to cross," but also reads, " I hate Wataru," wataru 
 in Japanese meaning " to cross." Thus it was necessary to 
 imitate the trick. 
 
 p 
 
114 ADZUMA, 
 
 Re-enters MORITO. 
 
 MORITO. I sought thee to say plainly I will 
 bear no more of this torment. I go mad upon each 
 new sight of her, but have thrust her now farther 
 away from me than ever, by rescuing Wataru, whom 
 alone she loves. 
 
 Sakamune. Art thou so sure of it ? 
 
 MOR. As I am that thou hast lied. 
 
 Saka. It is more than she herself is. 
 
 MoR. Play no more with me, Samurai ! I am ill to 
 jest with. 
 
 Saka. Nay, but cast a glance at that. 
 
 [MoRiTO reads the poem i\ 
 
 MoR. Whence hadst thou this ? 
 
 Saka. It is the tanzaku which you saw Adzuma 
 hang upon the maple-branch. A friendly breeze rent 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 115 
 
 it away, and carried it where I found the precious 
 message. 
 
 MOR. How precious ? 
 
 Saka. Hast thou eyes ? If thou hast, perpend the 
 dehcate wit of this. She composes, writes, and then 
 affixes her verses where the wind shall be messenger 
 for her ; since, doubt not that she did spy us. If they 
 had fallen into Wataru's hands, small matter ! The 
 husband reads past this little mark, and kisses the 
 pretty conceit. But should it come, as it hath duly 
 come, to your undeserving eyes ; why, she gives you 
 credit for sense to stay upon this word " brutes," and 
 to read her frank confession, " I hate my Lord." 
 
 MOR. Naruhodo ! There seems something in 
 this ! 
 
 Saka. Something ! There is everything ! there is 
 the woman you love hungering and thirsting for you ; 
 casting herself at your feet. 
 
ii6 ADZUMA, 
 
 MOR. Sakamune ! I will stay here. Nay, if I be 
 bidden, I will go into their tent. 
 
 SakA. You cannot do wiselier. Spake I not well 
 that she needed only time and place ? 
 
 En^er Wataru. 
 
 Wataru. Ah, fair Sirs, you are honourably early ! 
 Morito Endo ! that I have eaten fish and rice to-day, 
 and drunk sakd — a living man with good appetite — is 
 the gift of thy vahancy. Please you — if will serves, 
 and you have gazed enough on the maple-leaves — 
 repair to our booth yonder — 'tis that one with purple 
 and green cloths, — and suffer my wife and my mother- 
 in-law to- disburden their hearts of the gratitude which 
 will not let them eat. 
 
 MoR. Indeed, I merit not their thanks. 
 
 Wat. Come and try to persuade them of that ; but 
 you will not succeed. I pray you both deign to grace 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 117 
 
 US. We have within a little country feast toward. 
 Nay, but condescend ! 
 
 MOR. I will come with you. 
 
 \_All three enter the tent together.^ 
 
 End of Scene 4. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Scene 5. 
 
 Interior of Wataru's tent. Wataru and Adzuma are 
 discovered seated on carpets, entertaining Morito and 
 Sakamune. The feast is served after the Japanese 
 manner in small howls and trays, with sake-cups and 
 pots, a maidservant kneeling before each guest. 
 
 Adzuma. I say it again most gratefully, Sir Morito, 
 it was the deed of a true and noble knight. 
 
 Morito. Indeed, you do overpraise me. 
 
 Adz. It cannot be overpraised. My humble words 
 are too poor to tell your rich desert, 
 
ii8 ADZUMA, 
 
 MOR. Words from so sweet a mouth would make 
 death itself an easy thing. 
 
 Adz. Oh, Sir ! you are courteous as you are brave. 
 Saidst thou, Wataru San ! there were still six robbers 
 attacking when Sir Morito drew sword ? 
 
 Wataru. I did not closely number the dogs, but 
 there seemed too many left for me alone. Nay, 'twas 
 as friendly, and as timely, and as gallant a help as 
 ever thou canst declare. Bring hither the sakd-pot, 
 Adzuma ! I would fain pledge you, Sir Morito, in a 
 cup of love. 
 
 MOR. Beseech you, excuse me. I do not drink 
 to-day. I did not see your honour's countenance 
 in the confusion. I deserve not such high kindli- 
 ness. 
 
 Wat. It was all the more soldierly ! For a friend 
 one risks much ; but you say that you knew me not. 
 Oh ! a cup, a cup ; t/>J>ai kudasai ! 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 119 
 
 MOR. Pray you, forgive me ! I do not drink 
 to-day. 
 
 Adz. But, Sir ! you will drink a cup with me ? 
 
 MOR. [impulsively.'] Aye, Lady, if you poured me 
 poison ! 
 
 Adz. Truly, I love not our strong rice-wine better 
 than yourself. But we owe you so much ! 
 
 Sakamune. How much, madam ? 
 
 Wat. Well, Samurai ! that depends upon the value 
 to be put on the life of your most unworthy host, 
 with the Emperor's letters and treasure thrown into 
 the account. 
 
 MoR. I am to be too much overpaid, Lady, by the 
 honour of drinking from the same cup with you. 
 
 Wat. O Yoshi ! fill up the wine-cup of your 
 
 mistress. 
 
 \_In receiving the cup, and holding it to be filled, 
 
 Adzuma lets it fall and spill. 
 Adz. Ah, my stupidity ! Be pleased to grant me 
 
I20 ADZUMA, 
 
 august pardon. I cannot tell why my hand should 
 
 shake so. 
 
 [KoROMOGAWA Calls from within : " Adzuma ! 
 Adzuma ! "] 
 
 Nay, mother ! anon. 
 
 [Sakamune whispers Morito in the ear.] 
 
 MOR. O Yoshi San ! fill again the Lady Adzuma's 
 cup. 
 
 Adz. No, Sir ! your gracious forgiveness. I, too, 
 will not now drink. I have a strange feeling at my 
 heart, Wataru. Ask the honourable guests to allow 
 my departure. 
 
 Saka. Our loss will be great, Lady ! You are a 
 renowned poetess, and I was dying to inquire if you 
 have wrought any little thing to-day for our city 
 samisens, in honour of the maples ? 
 
 Adz. Ojya ! oya ! I made, indeed, a very trifling 
 tanzaku — a foolish verselet upon the colours of the 
 autumn. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 121 
 
 Saka. If we might but hear it, before you go ; it 
 would be better than the cakes and sake. 
 
 Adz. I am ashamed. I wrote such a thing, and 
 hung it on the tree by the stream, but a gust of wind 
 carried it away. 
 
 Wat. Then you also, Adzuma-chan ! have been 
 robbed, and no Sir Morito near at hand to aid 
 you. 
 
 Saka. Truly, rather it is we who are robbed. Lord 
 Wataru ! losing so sweet a song. 
 
 Adz. {smiling.'] Ah, Sirs, it was not worth so 
 much as one of the red maple-leaves, which flew over 
 the river with it. 
 
 Saka. The wise wind was of another mind, and 
 stole it away to sing to the maple-trees. Is this also 
 a piece of yours ? 
 
 [ Taking up a strip of writing?^ 
 
 Adz. It is, Sir. 
 
122 ADZUMA, 
 
 Saka. In your own very hand, dare I ask ? 
 
 Adz. Even so. 
 
 Saka. May I turn robber like the wind, and take 
 it, in remembrance of this fortunate occasion ? 
 
 Adz. Sir Samurai ! nothing can be refused to-day 
 to Lord Morito, or to his friend. 
 
 Saka. I humbly thank you. 
 
 [KoKOMOGAVf A, from within, calls again " Adzuma ! 
 Adzuma ! " Adzuma kneels before each guest, 
 and salutes him with her hands and forehead 
 on the ground: then rises, and passes within.\ 
 
 O Tama \_entering^ I am to say to the august 
 presence that the Okusama has gone home with her 
 mother. They beg honourable excuses. 
 
 MOR. We, too, will now take our leave. 
 
 Wat. Nay, but drink ! drink ! 
 
 MOR. Your honourable forgiveness. Already we 
 have stayed too long. 
 
 Wat. Well then, at another time. I heartily pray 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 123 
 
 you to distinguish my unworthy house in the city 
 by visiting it. 
 
 MOR. I shall come. 
 
 Wat. Fare you well ! And you, Sir ! Come, 
 again, at your august leisure. 
 
 \Exeunt Omnes. 
 
 End of Scene 5. 
 
 ACT III. 
 Scene 6. 
 
 A bridge, leading by steps through a cemetery. 
 
 Enter MORITO and Sakamune. 
 
 Sakamune. I say to thee, but for those present, 
 she had embraced thee then and there. 
 MORITO. Certainly she was much stirred. 
 Saka. Did'st thou mark her let fall the sak^-cup ! 
 
124 ADZUMA, 
 
 MOR. Yes ! and the colour burning in her cheeks 
 at that moment ! 
 
 SakA. Yea, but most when I spake of the nfa, 
 which she made the wind carry to our hands. Oh, 
 she is thine, if thou wilt have her. 
 
 MOR. I think so. Almost I think so ! 
 
 Saka. It is Koromogawa alone that hinders. 
 Did'st thou not note how she twice looked through 
 the curtains, and twice called Adzuma away? Go 
 to her house, at Toba. Be not denied. Be resolute ; 
 be pitiless ; be terrible ! Tell her what thou hast 
 learned ; what thou hast determined. Bid her bring 
 Adzuma to thee there, or abide thine anger, and the 
 shame of thy denunciation as the robber of Shiraito's 
 robe in a holy temple. The penalty of such a deed 
 is to have both hands cut off, and the thief's name 
 erased from the family-line. Go ! if thou would'st 
 have Adzuma all thine own — go ! 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 125 
 
 MOR. If I would have her ! Samurai ! Yon Dead, 
 That keep such settled silence in the mould, 
 Lie not more still under their graven tombs 
 Than, in my breast, the sense of pity sleeps. 
 I will not spare. I will avenge my wrong. 
 I have been plundered of a precious thing ; 
 Hatefully scorned ; set by ; shorn of a wife — 
 Willing, as now I think, to have spent on me 
 The treasure of her tenderness, but chained, 
 Gagged, cheated, sold to slavery for gain — 
 Whose prison I will break. If I would have ? 
 I tell thee Death, Hell, Danger, shall yield now 
 To the awakened fury of my love 
 As the thin airs part, and the filmy clouds 
 Before the swooping Eagle's stiffened wings. 
 They shall bewail who flouted Morito, 
 And I will lie with loveliest Adzuma. 
 
 [Ext'i Morito. 
 
126 ADZUMA, 
 
 Sakamune. Now I have set them fairly at each 
 others' throats. There will be sport out of it all, 
 before the end. Meantime here is my pretty Lady's 
 handwriting, which I have narrowly studied. She 
 makes her " I-ro-ha " very beautifully, and it is hard 
 to match such fair penmanship, yet I have been at so 
 much pains, that I do think this love-letter, which I 
 will deliver to Morito, might pass with Adzuma herself 
 for her own handwriting. Let us see how it runs : 
 
 He reads — 
 
 " / lift to your most honourable eyes this my very 
 humble letter, believing you the true friend of Lord 
 Morito Endo. I saw you gather up my tansaku, and 
 he will know therefore what I did write at the close of 
 it. I am not, indeed, so wicked as to ' hate ' Wataru, 
 but I have heard that our parents would have united us 
 in marriage, and of late I have seen the comeliness of 
 Morito, and have learned his valour ; wherefore the 
 heaviness of my heart to be separated from him by that 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 127 
 
 husband whom my mother forced me to marry, caused 
 me to ivrite such a verse. I pray you to let Morito 
 understand this little of my very loving and sorrowful 
 soul." 
 
 So ! — holding this, Morito cannot well miss to frighten 
 Aunt Koromogawa into consent. I am proud, in truth, 
 of my lady-like writing. Ah ! but here comes one of 
 the few whom I have to fear. 
 
 Enter Kameju. 
 
 Kameju. The day to you. Samurai ! Where is my 
 Lord Morito ? 
 
 Saka. When I am omba * to him I will stand ready 
 to tell you of his comings and goings. 
 
 Kam. It suits you to be uncivil. Where is Morito ? 
 
 Saka. What if I say I know not ? 
 
 * " Wet nurse.'' 
 
128 ADZUMA, 
 
 Kam. I should say you lied. He was with you 
 here a little while ago. 
 
 Saka. If you knew so much you wasted breath 
 to ask. 
 
 Kam. I waste breath, indeed, to ask truth from you. 
 Samurai ! or trust, or honour. 
 
 Saka. Were you of my rank, Heimin ! * it is 
 with tongue of sword that such insolence should be 
 answered. 
 
 Kam. Were you of my rank. Sir Sakamune ! I 
 had long ago obliged you to draw that steel which 
 you defame by wearing. It is your present safety, 
 look you, that I am only the retainer of my master. 
 But I love him, and I serve him faithfully ; and it is 
 sorrow to me and trouble to see him day by day in 
 your evil company. He hath of late lost his gallant 
 
 * Peasant. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 129 
 
 spirit, goes melancholy, and cares not for the service 
 of the Court, nor for the manly exercises of a Japanese 
 nobleman. 
 
 Saka. What is all this to me, fellow ? 
 
 Kam. Nothing to-day, perhaps. But it is a score 
 I watch, knowing not yet how the account will come 
 forth. Have a care, I bid thee, as to what thou dost 
 contrive with my Master, and whither thou dost push 
 his feet. Those that love him watch thee, Samurai ! 
 
 \_Exii Kameju. 
 
 Saka. The meddling peasant ! It would stain a 
 bright blade past cleaning to wet it in such vulgar 
 blood. Otherwise — otherwise ! 
 
 \_Exit Sakamune. 
 
 End of Scene 6. 
 
13° ADZUMA, 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Scene 7. 
 
 An apartment in the house of Koromogawa, at Toba, near 
 Kyoto. Koromogawa is sitting with her maids, who 
 are embroidering. 
 
 Koromogawa. Draw the threads thus, Tora San, 
 if you would have your dragon stand forth finely 
 from the silk. What are you doing, O Tatsu ? 
 
 O Tatsu. I am designing birds and trees, Go Inkyo 
 Sama ! for an over-gown. 
 
 KOROMO. This is well; but you must have the 
 proper birds and creatures with the proper trees. 
 Do you not know that the sparrow goes with the 
 bamboo ; the lion and the peacock with the peony ; 
 the dove with the wistaria ; the crow with the pine ; 
 and ducks and fishes with the lotus. 
 
 O Tatsu. I thank you, madam ! I will make it so, 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 131 
 
 Enter a Maid-servant. 
 
 MusUMfi. Okusdma ! The Lord Morito Endo 
 stands at the gate, asking to speak with you. 
 
 KOROMO. Beg of him the august pardon. To-day 
 I receive no guests. 
 
 MusUMfi. Your honourable forgiveness ! He bade 
 me say he prayed not to be denied. 
 
 Enters MoRiTO abruptly. 
 
 Morito. Nay ! but he said that he ivould not be 
 denied. As you see, Aunt Koromogawa, I have 
 admitted myself. Dismiss the serving-girls. I would 
 talk with you alone. [ The Musumes all retire. 
 
 KoROMO. Do you not even salute me, Morito ? 
 
 MOR. No, kinswoman ! And take heed that none 
 of thy servants eavesdrop, for what I must say is for 
 thy private ear. 
 
132 ADZVMA, 
 
 KOROMO. Thy manner pleaseth me not, Morito ! 
 
 MOR. It is not meant for liking. Listen ! If there 
 should be one among a man's relations to whom his 
 father showed great kindness, saving and restoring 
 her after a heinous fault, and if she repaid that 
 kindness with slight and despite to the son, were 
 it becoming in that son — a soldier — to restrain his 
 wrath ? 
 
 KOROMO. I do not understand. 
 
 MoR. But thou shalt ! Dost thou remember who it 
 was — desolate and disregarded — that prayed long and 
 hard for a husband in the Hase-dera at Kydto, and 
 afterwards stole from a sleeping woman there a blue 
 haori spotted with chrysanthemums ? 
 
 KOROMO. It was the will and way of the goddess 
 that I should take it. Long ago was it given 
 back. 
 
 MOR. Thy crime served thee well, I know — but it 
 
OR THE jfAPANESE WIFE. 133 
 
 was a crime, Obasan ! of which the punishment by 
 law is mutilation and degradation. 
 
 KOROMO. Dost thou dare to speak such words to 
 the sister of thy father ? 
 
 MOR. I dare, because my father's sister hath 
 wrought me bitter wrong. I dare, because she can 
 atone for it, and shall atone for it ; or I myself will 
 denounce her to the justice of the Mikado. 
 
 KoROMO. What wrong, Morito ? I have feared 
 thee, but never misliked thee before. 
 
 MOR. This wrong : you married Yasuhira, and 
 became a well-reputed and happy wife. But you had 
 deceived your Lord when he questioned you, touching 
 your kinsfolk in Kyoto, and you would have stood 
 declared a liar — as already you were secretly a thief 
 — except for the chance which brought you into my 
 father's house, and the grace shown by Morimitsu and 
 Shiraito to the concubine's daughter. 
 
134 ADZUMA, 
 
 KoROMO. I have my dagger here. Morito ! I will 
 not endure such words. 
 
 MOR. Aye, Obasan ! That dagger is part of the 
 story. Morimitsu saw and recognised it, as the 
 gift of his father to thy mother, and, freely ad- 
 mitting thee his sister by blood, forgave thy sin 
 and the robe stolen from my mother, Shiraito — for it 
 was she whom thou didst rob— took thee to peace 
 and honour; and died thy benefactor, friend, and 
 brother. 
 
 KOROMO. I deny nothing of this, save that my 
 taking the robe was by a dream from the goddess. 
 We must obey Heaven — but indeed I sought long and 
 hard to restore the blue kirtle. 
 
 MoR. Dost thou deny that, being left alone, but 
 well-provided, by favour of my dead father, thou 
 didst refuse to me, his son — through Dosen — the fair 
 daughter thou gladly gavest to rich Wataru ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 135 
 
 KOROMO. Yes, but for thy sake and for hers, if 
 thou knewest all. 
 
 MOR. How meanest thou ? 
 
 KOROMO. They that hate thee and me, and have 
 set thee on to this, have not told thee of the old be- 
 ginnings of thy life, and Adzuma's. They have not 
 told thee of the dreams which brought my lovely child 
 to me from the snake's bank, and thee to thy mother's 
 womb from the eagle's eyrie. There was between 
 you a destiny of mutual ruin, only to be overcome by 
 virtue, and the mercy of the Compassionate One. I 
 did thee true service keeping Adzuma from thine eyes. 
 
 MoR. To the priests and the country-gossips with 
 such folly ! 
 
 KOROMO. It is no folly. We do not touch the 
 sleeve of another person in this existence, but it 
 imports contact heretofore and mingling fortunes. 
 Morito, I even loved thee, I would have desired that 
 
136 ADZUMA, 
 
 which Dosen asked ; but the Snake and Eagle must 
 not again meet, and, moreover, my child's heart was 
 already given. The goddess had, of herself, brought 
 together Adzuma and Wataru. 
 
 MOR. You lie, my Aunt! And, if you lie not, I 
 will not now be lulled with nursery tales, like a 
 chikusai, a child that smells of milk. If this be true, 
 did not my father know it, who wished Adzuma for 
 me ? You refused her. The unsatisfied longing of 
 spirits holds them from, their repose, and these many 
 years Morimitsu's soul hath wandered indignant Hear 
 me ! I love Adzuma ! With all my body and my 
 blood I do desire her sweet beauty. With all my wit 
 and will I do seek possession of it. I will not live 
 without her; nor will I suffer thee to live, unless 
 thou dost comply with my demand. Help me to have 
 Adzuma ! 
 
 KOROMO. Oh, unhappy and unknightly one ! Ad- 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 137 
 
 zuma is no light o' love; but heart and soul the 
 faithful wife of a noble Lord, to whose ears I bid thee, 
 if thou dar'st, speak these base words. Could I be 
 vile enough to fear and to aid thee, she would never 
 be. Thou dost lose thy shameful labour ! 
 
 MOR. Nay ! I know what I ask. Adzuma also 
 de-sires me. 
 
 KOROMO. Though thou slay me I call thee liar, 
 saying so. 
 
 MOR. I will show thee sure proof, and to spare, of 
 it. Moreover, she shall herself avow in thine hearing 
 that she loves me only, and that thou didst commit a 
 second great crime, keeping her from my bed. 
 
 KOROMO. A second crime ? 
 
 MOR. Aye, for the first awaits the executioner's 
 knife, upon a word from me in the ear of justice. 
 
 KOROMO. Coward, as base as liar ! 
 
 MOR. I will not kill thee now. I will kill thee if 
 
 s 
 
138 ADZUMA. 
 
 thou dost not call Adzuma hither to meet me in this 
 same room. She shall confirm what I have told thee ; 
 and then thou shalt give her to me, or die. 
 
 KoROMO. I fear thee not. I can die by my own 
 dagger if what thou sayest were true. But I fear thy 
 evil spirit. There is some miserable plot herein which 
 her truth shall shame. Adzuma shall come hither to- 
 morrow to answer thee, and afterwards it is Wataru 
 Watanabe to whom thou thyself shalt answer. Be- 
 gone ! lest a knight's widow smite thee on the mouth 
 for her daughter's name. To-morrow ; in the after- 
 noon ! 
 
 [^;r?V'MORITO. 
 
 End of Act III. 
 
ACT IV. 
 
 Scene i. 
 A Street, with temple-gate and steps. 
 
 Enter Wataru and Kameju. 
 
 Wataru. I like the Samurai as little as thou thy- 
 self, Kameju ! yet, sooth to say, with no very good 
 reasons for it. 
 
 Kameju. There is reason enough in the looks and 
 the ways of Sakamune. What mischief he is working 
 with my Lord I have not yet discovered ; but Morito 
 Endo is no more himself. He sleeps not, eats not, 
 drinks not, fights not. His war-horse grows gross at 
 
 the manger for want of use ; and since the festival 
 
 139 
 
140 ADZUMA, 
 
 at the maple-trees I have not once seen him string his 
 bow for the practice. 
 
 Wat. Thou and I, good Kameju ! will arouse him. 
 A new war is gathering in the East, and we will take 
 him there. After what he wrought for me and for 
 the Emperor's treasure, the Court is well disposed 
 to Morito. [Exit Kameju. 
 
 Domo ! what spy I here ? The crest of my house upon 
 the bearers, and Adzuma's litter borne so quickly? 
 
 Enter Adzuma in her kago. Seeing Wataru, she 
 alights, and respectfully salutes her husband. 
 
 Wataru. Whither, in such high haste, my Adzuma ? 
 
 Adzuma. Oh, not to pleasure if not where thou art ! 
 My mother sends me word some trouble irks, — 
 A little ache, I hope — prays me repair 
 With all the speed I may. One must not keep 
 A mother long expectant — must we, dear ? — 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 141 
 
 Even for bribe of blessed times at home 
 When thou art there, and this too burning noon 
 Melts to the purple peace of evening. 
 Wat. Nay, but be back long ere the evening ! 
 I have a thing to show thee — ah ! a piece 
 Wonderful for its fancy — newly wrought. 
 Art thou so hurried, wife ? List ! there's a hill— 
 'Tis done in pearl and ivory on a plate 
 Of silver — there's a hill, and on the hill 
 An ancient castle ; and the castle's held 
 By rebels ; and the reigning Emperor's troops 
 Must take it, if they take the place at all, 
 Soon ; since there comes an army of relief 
 Will raise the siege ; but 'tis of utmost need 
 The place be yielded to his Majesty, 
 Therefore the question stands, " Have these men 
 
 food. 
 Or must they open, starved, if siege be held ! " 
 
142 ADZUMA, 
 
 Adz. Yes ; my sweet Lord ? 
 
 Wat. So they send in a spy 
 
 In woman's clothes, young Genjiro, the knight, 
 Who enters safe; and seeks, and hears, and 
 
 sees 
 There's provend but for two days in the fort. 
 And that such stuff as dogs would sniff and 
 
 leave : 
 Whom, as he steals back with his precious news. 
 They mark, detect, unguise — 'tis Genjiro ! 
 Oh ! every rebel knows him, — Genjiro, 
 The best bow of the enemy ! fierce hands 
 Seize him and thrust him to their rampart-edge. 
 
 Adz. Ah, how I long to see this piece of work ! 
 What will they do ? 
 
 Wat. Yonder's his tent, his wife. 
 
 His comrades, and the friendly, pleasant camp. 
 All that life means ; and at his back spear-blades 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 143 
 
 Sharp pricking, and a savage voice which growls : 
 " Shout ' Friends ! they have taken me ! the fort 
 
 is full, 
 Victualled for twenty days — best raise the siege!'" 
 
 Adz. Is that what the plate pictures ? 
 
 Wat. Not just that ; 
 
 The point's a little later. Genjiro, 
 Upon the wall, hears what they say to him ; 
 Feels the pushed spears sting; knows that he 
 
 may live 
 If he will lie, and let his duty go : 
 But, all too loyal to buy life with shame, 
 He thunders, " Ere the week is out they starve ! 
 Keep leaguer still ! " whereon a sheaf of spears 
 Pierce him ; but Genjiro has saved his Lord. 
 That's what the craftsman shows. 
 
 Adz. Oh, I'll come home 
 
 Quickly to see it. 'Tis a noble thing 
 
144 ADZUMA, 
 
 To die for duty. You had done it, too, 
 As well as Genjiro. 
 
 Wat. Adzuma-chan, 
 
 The "would-dos " and the " have-dones" differ so ! 
 Yet, 'tis the next best thing to Honour's self 
 To love high deeds and honourable deaths. 
 And keep glad memory of them. Hasten back, 
 And see my silver knight rejoice to die 
 Where death was duty. 
 
 Adz. Keep it for me. Lord ! 
 
 I praise the tale. Like a glad bird I'll come 
 Whose wings know of themselves the way to 
 home. 
 
 [Exeunt Onines. 
 
 End of Scene i. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 145 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 Scene 2. 
 
 T/ie Apartment in Koromogawa's house. Koromogawa 
 and MoRiTO are seated together. She holds a letter, 
 the pretended letter from Adzuma which Sakamune has 
 given to Morito. She is 7veeping, and deeply agitated. 
 
 Koromogawa. Who brought thee this letter ? 
 
 Morito. It is idle to ask me that. Thou seest it 
 is her own. Thou hast thyself said, "This is Ad- 
 zuma's handwriting." 
 
 KOROMO. That was before I read the shameful 
 words. 
 
 MOR. I care not. Wataru's wife loves me, as thou 
 seest. So thou art twice condemned for the wrong 
 thou didst, denying her for me to Dosen. 
 
 KOROMO. I tell thee she was pledged to Wataru 
 by the will of the goddess, when Dosen asked her. 
 
 T 
 
146 ADZUMA, 
 
 MOR. She was given in a dream, but I will have 
 her back awake. With what false pretences dost thou 
 still cover thy ingratitude ? If Adzuma be not now 
 yielded to me, when she herself desires it, thou shalt 
 die, and thy name be defamed. 
 
 KoROMO. I am not afraid to die, but I am afraid 
 to be dishonoured. Adzuma must answer. I think 
 this letter is a lie, forged by some enemy. 
 
 MOR. Wilt thou say so, looking at it ? Are these 
 not her own characters, both of the poem and the 
 letter ? 
 
 KOROMO. Odorokimashita ! they are very like. Yet 
 it could not ; it cannot be ! 
 
 MOR. But it is ! — Why cometh not Adzuma ? 
 
 KOROMO. I shall wrong her to let her ears listen 
 to such wickedness. Yet she will come. She will 
 make thee know thou hast fed upon falseness and 
 fancies. Oh, my Daughter 1 if this shame could be ! 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 147 
 
 MOR. I sa\', again, it is ! Adzuma shall tell thee 
 how she loves me. Why comes she not ? 
 
 KOROMO. Even now I hear her dear voice. Oh, 
 would I were a man, and not of thy blood, that, at the 
 first word of her denial, I might strike thee with the 
 scorn of sword-blade. 
 
 MOR. Vex me not, shrew ! I am dangerous. 
 
 KoROMO. A3'e, to women, ^lorito, it seems. But 
 thou shalt answer hereafter to those who can do better 
 than weep. 
 
 MOR. I shall be ready. 
 
 Enter Adzuma, wlio makes respectful salutations, and 
 then gazes -with troubled countenance on the angered 
 faces of KOROMOGAWA and MORITO. 
 
 Adz. I feared you were sick, dear Mother! Why 
 is this gentleman here ? 
 
 KOROMO. Do you know him ? 
 
148 ADZUMA, 
 
 Adz. Oh yes ! it was he who brought rescue to my 
 Lord in the lane. 
 
 KOROMO. It is he who now brings shame to us, 
 and sin, and the sorrow of wicked words and wishes, 
 and cruel threats to slay and disgrace me, if I yield 
 thee not up to him, away from Wataru. 
 
 Adz. [starting up to her feet ^ Mother ! 
 
 KOROMO. I should crave pardon, I know, for speak- 
 ing so to thee, but thou must hear me — and him. 
 
 Adz. I cannot understand ! 
 
 KOROMO. How shouldest thou understand ? Nor 
 know I in what way least to wound thine ears with 
 the understanding. 
 
 Adz. Away — from Wataru ? 
 
 KOROMO. Aye! 
 
 MORITO. Aye, Adzuma ! for I must find my tongue, 
 though thy beauty, at first entrance, hath struck it 
 dumb. I love thee, and do long for thee, as never yet 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 149 
 
 lover longed. From the hour in which I first saw thee 
 upon the Bridge, and afterwards again at the Temple, 
 and yet again at the Feast of the Maples, my heart 
 hath been filled with thee, and my soul sick for thine 
 embraces. Thou wert designed mine by the will of 
 the dead, by secret destinies, by thine own hidden 
 desires ; but this evil woman robbed me of thy love, 
 and gave thee to another. Now, with a sword and a 
 will nowise to be gainsaid, I am come here to claim 
 and take thee. If thou sayest "Yea," as thy pen hath 
 already sweetly promised, and if thy Mother, being 
 assured of thy mind, hinder not, have thou no fear! 
 There is neither danger nor blame that I will not 
 answer and crush. If I am crossed or denied, I will find 
 my way to my purpose in wrath and ruin, and blood. 
 
 Adz. My pen hath promised thee ? Morito Endo ! 
 I am Wataru's wife ! 
 
 MOR. By wrongfulness, as thy Mother knows. 
 
ISO ADZUMA, 
 
 Adz. By rightfulness, as love, and honour, and 
 true faith witness. Oh ! what is all this wild wicked- 
 ness ? 
 
 MOR. With twenty times Wataru's fondness . for 
 thee I love thee, Adzuma ! 
 
 Adz. 'Tis twice twenty times false ! And, were it 
 true, thy disgrace is measureless to tell it, and my 
 shame speechless to hear it said. 
 
 KoROMO. Then it is false, Daughter! to saj' that 
 this letter came to Morito from your hand ? 
 
 Adz. What letter. Mother ? [S/ie receives the 
 forged scroll, and slowly penises it, reading from it 
 at the endr\ 
 
 " I pray you to let Morito understand this little of 
 my very loving and sorrowful so.ul " — 
 
 And that signed " Adzuma ! " Ah ! what enemy has 
 invented against me such impossible sinfulness ? 
 
 KOROMO. It is not of thy writing, child ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIPE. 151 
 
 Adz. Oh, no ! no ! no ! no ! no ! Could you deem 
 so, Mother ? Have you, Morito Endo, believed a 
 Japanese wife would be so vile, so false, so wanton ? 
 
 MOR. Wilt thou deny the characters ? Is it not 
 exactly thus thy hand goes ? 
 
 Adz. Alas, yes 1 it is indeed my manner. It is 
 done with a bitter cunning. 
 
 KOROMO. You are assured it is false, nevertheless ! 
 
 Adz. Good Mother, yes ! I wrong myself and 
 my Lord to look so closely at the lying scroll. Butr- 
 see now, this ink is paler than I use, and here is 
 a letter not of my habit. 
 
 MoR. Oh, Adzuma, Adzuma ! will you take back 
 the promise of your eyes, your words, your written 
 mind, because Koromogawa frowns and weeps ? Here 
 is your name as none but you yourself can write 
 the precious letters of it. Here is your seal, which 
 only you yourself possess. If you deny this letter. 
 
t52 ADZUMA, 
 
 out of fear, will you also deny the tanzaku, which 
 the wind blew into my hands ? 
 
 KOROMO. What tanzaku ? 
 
 MOR. This ! {drawing the poem from his girdle.] 
 Here is what Adzuma wrote, and hung upon a 
 maple-branch at the festival. Read it ! See if she 
 did not plainly tell me, "I hate my Lord." 
 
 KoROMO. [after reading the poem.] Adzuma! 
 
 Adz. Give it me here. Mother. Ah, yes ! that 
 is my writing. 
 
 KOROMO. But see'st thou — at the end ? 
 
 Adz. I see. 
 
 KOROMO. And this is not false, then ? 
 
 Adz. No, not this. 
 
 KOROMO. And you made the wind your messenger 
 to tell this knight — and all — that you were weary of 
 your husband ? 
 
 Adz. Mother! Mother! It is the accursed device 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 153 
 
 of this man, or of some other enemy. Here, at 
 that mark which I never set, an evil hand hath broken 
 the sense of my innocent song, and made the loving, 
 wifely words I wrote rank and guilty as a harlot's. 
 
 KOROMO. But the writing so alike ! And two of 
 them ! And this, you do confess, your own hand. 
 
 Adz. Aye! aye! 
 
 KoROMO. And I bethink me, now, how you have 
 lately praised Morito Endo to me ; and called him 
 comely and gallant; and how I was forced twice to 
 summon you away from him at the feast in the tent. 
 
 Adz. Aye! 
 
 MOR. Oh, it is only the dread of you which forces 
 her to belie herself and her heart. Adzuma ! my 
 Desire, my Delight, my Destiny ! Fear nothing, and 
 fear none, but give thyself up to thy sweet will and 
 to me ! 
 
 Adz. Wataru ! Wataru ! 
 
154 ADZUMA, 
 
 MoR. Nay, name not him, lest I lose patience. 
 
 Adz. Wataru ! Lord Wataru ! 
 
 KOROMO. Criest thou to thy husband for anger, 
 or in shame, Adzuma ? [AUZUMA is silent.'] 
 
 KoROMO. Wilt thou have Wataru see these writ- 
 ings? l^KTiZXiMA is silent.'] 
 
 KOROMO. Adzuma ! Hast thou no better speech 
 than barely to call these writings false, which fit so 
 well together, and fall in with thy entertainment in 
 the tent ; and thy talk, of late, about this knight ; 
 and his own persuasion of thy strong desire for 
 him. [Adzuma still maintains silence.] 
 
 KOROMO. This is sharper than thy disgraced 
 sword, Morito ! This is harder than any dishonour 
 thou couldst put on me ! Here, for the house of 
 Yasuhira, begins ruin, infamy, death, unless thou 
 canst better answer. Daughter ! 
 
 [Adzuma, with bowed head, still preserves silence.] 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 155 
 
 KoROMO. Thou speakest nought ? Then I call thee 
 "daughter" no more. I call thee strumpet, Yotaka, 
 plucker of strangers' sleeves. Ah, thou dishonoured 
 wife ; — thou defamed Lady ! Let me look no longer 
 on thy guilty cheeks and downcast eyes. There is 
 the proper punishment for thy offence writ in the 
 law against the wicked wives that sin. But I de- 
 nounce thee not to that. Live on with thy mippu 
 here, thy fancy, thy knight who makes war upon 
 women, and gathers up love-messages from the gutter ! 
 I disown thee, I am done with thee. Adulteress ! 
 Thus ! thus ! and thus ! 
 
 {She strikes Adzuma three times and goes out.] 
 MOR. Comfort thee ! this is but a passing spleen. 
 Adz. Hold down thine evil voice ! let me be still ! 
 MOR. Now she is gone wilt thou not turn to me ? 
 Adz. Aye ! I will turn, to bid thee hate thyself. 
 As I do hate, and scorn — and pity thee. 
 
156 ADZUMA, 
 
 MOR. I am not used to pity. 
 
 Adz. Well, begin ! 
 
 See thy sick honour as my sad eyes see ; 
 Conceive thy knighthood as my virtue doth, 
 Loathsome, attainted, foul with lust and pride ! 
 Measure thyself by what thou wert, or no ! — 
 Since that was falsely honest — mete thyself 
 By such brave stature as my husband's worth ; 
 So learn, how low and petty thou art sunk 
 That plott'st against his frank nobility. 
 Mark how, in this hard strait and gathering gloom. 
 That which thou call'st thy love is vile to me. 
 And sweet my Mother's anger. Oh, I praise 
 The hand which struck the guilty Adzuma ; 
 If Adzuma were guilty. Though I see 
 No way to escape the anguish of these snares, 
 I pity thee more than myself. Now, go ! 
 Compassior^ate thine own state, judging so ! 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 157 
 
 MOR. Didst thou not write the letter ? 
 
 Adz. Why, no ! no ! 
 
 MOR. Nor 3'et the trick of the verse ? 
 
 Adz. The knave who did 
 
 Laughs at his easy dupe's simplicity. 
 I love Wataru to the last live drop 
 Of this true body's blood. Were it not so 
 Should I be mad enough to bid the wind 
 Puff my shame hither and thither. Go ! thou 
 fool! 
 
 MoR. Why wert thou silent, when thj' Mother cursed ? 
 
 Adz. The plot's too deep ; no words could do me good. 
 
 MOR. I do begin to fear myself deceived. 
 
 Adz. But thy fell folly ruins more than thee. 
 
 MoR. I have pushed thee. Lady, to a troublous 
 place. 
 
 Adz. Thou hast not wit enough to know how hard. 
 
 MoR. Aye ! and I have not will to have the wit. 
 
IS8 ADZUMA, 
 
 See now ! as here I stand, never before 
 So near, so sure ; never so deeply .drenched 
 With this strong sea of love, which, from thy form, 
 Thy face, thy grace, thy wrath, floods and reflows. 
 And sweeps my soul away — that soul, which 
 
 drowns. 
 Clutches at thee as sinking sailors will 
 At what they hold, and will not let thee go ; 
 Nay, cannot let thee go. Hark, now ! I swear 
 Thou shalt be mine ; either by willing love. 
 When I will compensate with tenderness 
 These terrors ; or because of darker dreads ; 
 Since, if I have thee not, I'll hold thee up 
 A scorn-mark, and thy dam a temple-thief; 
 And those that called thee honest, shall go by 
 Holding the nose : Wataru most of all. 
 
 [Adzuma does not reply. \ 
 MOR. Answerest me not? \_She is still silent?^ 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 159 
 
 MOK. I say, answerest me not ? 
 
 Adz. {speaking to her self. 1 If I should tell 
 
 All to Wataru, and he killed this beast, 
 His* whole life long cold doubt would torture him. 
 
 MOR. I cannot hear thee ; wilt thou answer not ? 
 
 Adz. Yea ! Yea ! I'll answer. I did meditate. — 
 There seems no other way. — Truly, it seems 
 You cannot but be somehow recompensed. — 
 You have done much for me, have sold your soul 
 To ruin, ruining me. Well, I must pay 
 As women pay. Your wild will wills it so. 
 Who knows ? It may be this is destiny. 
 I yield — I give myself: — it must be thus. 
 But one condition ! — thou shalt slay my Lord. 
 
 MOR. Aye, I will slay him. 
 
 Adz. While I live, and he, 
 
 This could not be ; so thou must slay my Lord. 
 
 MoR. I'll slay him. Tell me how. 
 
i6o ADZUMA, 
 
 Adz. Come thou, to-night; 
 
 A little after midnight, to my house. 
 I shall go back there. When Wataru sups 
 I'll fill his wine-cups fast, then wash his hair, 
 And lull him into sleep. His room will be 
 The easternmost, that gives upon the lane. 
 I'll set a lamp in it ; and, when I hear 
 Thy foot for certain, I'll extinguish it. 
 Have thou a care : the serving-men lie thick 
 In the fore-court. When thou passest in the dark 
 Safe to his mat, thou shalt know well his head, 
 Being moist with washing, and the locks tied back 
 In the noble's way. Cut off the head — and go ! 
 And — afterwards — • 
 
 MOR. Ah, afterwards — I see 
 
 Sweet bliss together, and no fears to mar. 
 
 Adz. Afterwards, as it shall be. Come to-night ! 
 
 MOR. Surely I will. [Exit MoRITO. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. i6i 
 
 Adz. There was no other way ! 
 
 I never could have laid these plots quite bare ; 
 He never would have lulled a lingering doubt ; 
 My mother's honour, life, peace, love for me ; 
 My husband's name, his trust in Adzuma ; 
 My own true innocence, go safe that way 
 And by no other road. If I should tell 
 All to Wataru, and this wretch should fall 
 Under his vengeful sword, how would he know 
 I wrote no wanton word ? how could men part 
 Mine honesty from fear ? It must be done ! 
 Aye ! I must make him kill me. Killing me 
 Blindly he sets wrong right. Yet, ah ! I ache, 
 My dearest Lord ! chiefly I ache for thee 
 So lonely when my pillow is not there 
 O' nights — (perchance he'll always keep it by 
 For thoughts !) But thou wilt know, dear, wilt 
 thou not ? 
 
ADZUMA, 
 
 How wholly true I was — all — always — thine. 
 Yes ! this must be ; Adzuma dead shall free 
 Adzuma living from all calumny ! 
 
 End of Scene 2. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 Scene 3. 
 
 A street in Kyoto. A lamp and candle-sellet's shop in fore- 
 ground. The dealer is seated among his goods. 
 
 Enter Fisherman. 
 
 Fisherman. Komban ! Mr. Lamp seller, a candle 
 for my lantern, please. 
 
 Lamp Seller. Do you do such a business, Ryoshi ! 
 that you sell fish by night ? 
 
 Fisher. Naruhodo ! one must sell when the fish 
 come ; and besides, folks like a fresh tai or tara for 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 163 
 
 their supper. I am even now going to my Lord 
 Wataru's house with some aji. 
 
 Lamp S. What is this token on your lantern ? 
 
 Fisher. I bought it for the sign of good-luck, but 
 I am like Kichibei's dog, I cannot read. 
 
 Lamp S. What about Kichibei's dog ? 
 
 Fisher. Well, he was drowned for not knowing 
 his letters. He was always barking at people, and 
 biting them, until somebody said that if you wrote the 
 China letter for " tiger " in the palm of your hand, and 
 held it out to an angry dog, it would become gentle. 
 
 Lamp S. Ha ! ha ! did they try it ? 
 
 Fisher. A learned man did, and the dog bit a piece 
 of silk out of his hakama, with much of the leg inside 
 it. Oh, it is ill to be without letters, like me and 
 Kichibei's dog. Now what really means my lantern- 
 writing ? 
 
 Lamp S. It means Temmei — " Destiny." 
 
i64 ADZUMA, 
 
 Fisher. Nay ! that is well enough for a fisherman ! 
 
 Lamp S. How so ? 
 
 Fisher. Domo ! See you not we are the very signs 
 and servants of destiny ? Here am I, K6z6, the 
 hawker, in your honourable shop buying this candle, 
 and there in the river is a fat koi, eating worms. 
 And to-morrow, though we have never seen each 
 other, we shall meet, and I shall catch him, and sell 
 him for half a kuban. And all because it was destiny. 
 
 Lamp S. So it is ! you are honourably right ! Fish 
 and men, we cannot escape Temmei. 
 
 Fisher. For the candle, how much, Danna ? 
 
 Lamp S. Nay, nay ! give me a little fish, and go 
 thy way. 
 
 Fisher. There is a bunch of aj'i, then. Now who 
 would have guessed Destiny would turn them into a 
 candle for K6z6. Naruhodo ! 
 
 End of Scene 3. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 165 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 Scene 4. 
 
 77ie sleeping -room in Wataru's house. Adzuma and 
 Wataru together. Adzuma has been playing and 
 singing: she lays aside the samiseti, and approaches 
 Wataru, who is finishing his evening repast. 
 
 Wataru. Why that's my sun-bright wife, again ! 
 Methought to-night there hung a cloud upon the fair 
 brow, but the pretty song hath chased it away. 
 
 Adzuma. Have you supped well ? 
 
 Myself I dressed those aji that you like ; 
 Let me fill up your cup. 
 Wat. The wine tastes good 
 
 With such a haqd to pour it. Th' Okkasan — 
 The honourable Mothei"— what was ill 
 This forenoon with her ? 
 
i66 ADZUMA, 
 
 Adz. Nought — save what will mend 
 
 Before to-morrow. Taste these saifron-balls 
 With some wild honey. 
 
 Wat. No ! enough — enough ! 
 
 Adz. Ah, just one bean-cake more, or I shall think 
 My cooking's out of favour. 
 
 Wat. Why, you witch ! 
 
 I should eat out of such deft palms as yours 
 Fresh come from dinner with the Emperor. 
 
 Adz. How kind you are ! In the good days gone by 
 Have I been what a Nippon wife should be 
 Wed to so dear a Lord ? 
 
 Wat. My Adzuma ! 
 
 Hast seen the fisher-folk, in Ise, hunt 
 The green sea for its wealth ? A hundred plunge, 
 And fetch up wrinkled shells, sea-ears, sea-fans, 
 Awabi, akagai. And this man gets 
 Out of his fish a little pearl ; and this 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 167 
 
 Another little pearl ; and that one nought 
 
 Save slime and mud ; and that one — why, a pearl 
 
 But black and ill-shaped. Till the one with the 
 
 luck, — 
 Not best of the band, may be — finds, in his 
 
 shell, 
 A pearl like the full moon, faultlessly white. 
 Round, lucent, lovely — oh ! the pride of the Sea ! 
 Fit treasure to be button to the neck 
 Of our Milcado's self; and all the crew 
 Envy their fellow, but no other gem 
 Comes like it from the secrets of the wave. 
 I am that fisher, sweetheart ! you that pearl. 
 
 Adz. Oh, how I thank you ! For such pretty words 
 A cup of sake. Sir ! — What happy days 
 Our days have been, since at the wedding-feast 
 We drunk nine cups' together. 
 
 Wat. Have been, sweet ? 
 
1 68 ADZUMA, 
 
 Why say you " have been " ? Please the gracious 
 
 gods 
 That's but begmning ! What's to hinder us 
 From growing grey together, every day 
 Better than yesterday — till, when 'tis willed 
 There's to be no to-morrow, side by side. 
 As 'twere a-bed again, we sleep content 
 Under the fir-trees, in the Temple's peace ? 
 
 Adz. Dear Lord ! if that had been — if that might be ! 
 But some day comes the day which doth not 
 
 have 
 Any to-morrow, and — sometimes it comes 
 So soon, so sudden. Did folks understand 
 Why Genjiro gave his life upon the wall ? 
 
 Wat. Oh, very well. 
 
 Adz. They would not deem he died 
 
 So fond of honour that he could forget 
 How some must weep for him ? 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 169 
 
 Wat. No ! I am sure 
 
 'Twas well perceived. 
 Adz. You think the living do 
 
 The dead ones justice ? Ah ! it seems so hard 
 To hold in mind what wrongs the grave endures 
 When lips which had so much to say are closed, 
 And full hearts finish beating ! 
 Wat. Nay, my girl ! 
 
 Surely a great death's like the calm that broods 
 At sea, after the storm. Rude waves, ashamed. 
 Leave raging; peaks and cliffs in the true 
 
 shape 
 Rise clear out of their shadows ; hidden reefs 
 Reveal their treachery, envy's chill mist 
 Rolls from the prospect, and the mariner 
 Sees where he steered amiss. But oh ! we talk 
 Like bitterns croaking. Fill my cup again, 
 And fetch my robe : I have a mind to sleep. 
 
 V 
 
1 7b ADZUMA, 
 
 Adz. Yes, sleep, dear Lord ! 
 
 [S/ie brings in, and puts on, the night-robe of 
 Wataru ; and then prepares his pilloiv, and 
 bed-covering , ivhile herself silting by him, and 
 taking writing materials. \ 
 
 Wat. Will you not sleep yet, wife ? 
 
 Adz. I'll write a little. 
 
 Wat. Then no makura ! 
 
 I'll make your lap my pillow, till you come. 
 
 \He lies down on the sleeping-rugs, with his head on 
 Adzuma's knees, and presently falls to slumber, 
 while Adzuma writes?^ 
 
 Adz. He is asleep. Kind Lord ! Sweet Lord ! I'll talk 
 Soft to thy spirit through the unhearing ears. 
 Wataru ! I am dying for thee, dear ! 
 To-night, this night. Thou didst not, couldst 
 
 not, know 
 The ache of my heart, which almost cracked its 
 
 strings. 
 At such kind words. I dared not answer right, 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 171 
 
 For, if I answered right, I must have said 
 ' Wataru ! 'tis thy dead Adzuma speaks ! ' — 
 Husband, oh, husband ! I am loath to leave 
 These strong true arms, this tender breast, — but, 
 
 dear ! 
 I musi die ! There's no other way ! Thereby 
 I clear all, and I quit thee well-assured 
 I was thy pure wife ; body and soul thy wife, 
 Clean to the core in my fidelity. 
 How thou wilt grieve ! yet not so much, so 
 
 much 
 As if I lived, and there fell now and then — 
 When people talked our story o'er again — • 
 That one drop in Love's cup which poisons Love. 
 Now it can never come. When tears half dry 
 Thou'lt see through them that I did this thing 
 
 well, 
 And thou wilt know there was no other way 
 
172 AD2UMA, 
 
 A Nippon wife could take ; and thou wilt live 
 
 To die, I think, and have me all again, 
 
 Beyond this world. Oh, what a little while 
 
 Is left to look upon his sleeping face ! 
 
 If I dared kiss it ! 
 
 [X'tssing him, a tear from Adzuma's eyes falls upon 
 Wataru's cheek, and awakens him.\ 
 
 WataRU {starting tip). What, my golden girl ! my 
 flower ! 
 Weeping ? I dreamed you sate in Heaven, and 
 
 sent 
 Rain down upon us. 
 
 Adz. Ah, forgive me, Sir : 
 
 I have wet your beard with foolish tears. Indeed, 
 You should be angry, but my heart was sad 
 With one day's separation, and I mused 
 How full of change life is, and how more hard 
 To part for many a day. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 173 
 
 Wat. We will not part ! 
 
 Comfort thee, wife ! and come to bed. 
 Adz. Aye, Lord ! 
 
 I'll finish these, and come. Do thou, meanwhile 
 
 Lie easier. [^She arranges his pillow. '\ 
 
 Sleep ! But dear Wataru ! Lord ! 
 
 If I should die, and thou should'st please to take 
 
 Another happy lady in my place — 
 
 It would be rightful — it would be thy due ! — 
 
 Alas ! how then the soul of Adzuma 
 
 Would wander restless, watching whilst thou gave 
 
 Adzuma's kisses not to Adzuma. 
 
 If I did dare to ask — 
 Wat. See now ; ask not ! 
 
 'Tis idle torment, sweet ! this peeping-work 
 
 Into what is to be. But I have sworn — 
 
 And I do swear again — none never shall 
 
 Lie in thy place. 
 
174 ADZUMA, 
 
 Adz. Now gentle Heaven thank 
 
 That gracious word ! Be't the last word to-night 
 Dear, dearest Lord ! That kind speech on thy 
 
 mouth 
 I seal with mine. Good-night ! good-bye ! good- 
 night ! [Wataru once more falls asleep.] 
 
 Now 'tis time ! 
 He slumbers sound : my scrolls are ended : now 
 'Tis time ! my murderer comes, whose sword shall 
 
 save 
 My name, Wataru's peace, my Mother's Hfe, 
 And make them see Adzuma did not sin. 
 Haste, thou foiled fool, whose love was bloody 
 
 lust. 
 And learn how Adzuma rights Adzuma. 
 First I must shear my hair away, and tie 
 The short ends back — Samurai-way. [Ske cuts 
 her hair close, and fastens the ends with a string.] 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 175 
 
 So there ! 
 My head is like Wataru's. Next 's to wet 
 Nape, crown, and brow. 
 
 \^She puts water upon her head and hair.] 
 
 He cannot miss to feel 
 
 This soaked hair ! Next, to leave by my Lord's 
 
 head 
 The letter on his pillow. \She places the letter.] 
 
 So ! that's done ! 
 And here's for Mother ; she will find it there. 
 
 \Places another letter.] 
 Now all is wrought ! I'll to the Eastern room 
 And set the signal-lamp, and lie down still 
 In dear Wataru's place, and fold my hands, 
 And wait the wicked steel of Morito. 
 
 \Exit Adzuma. 
 
 End of Scene 4. 
 
176 ADZUMA, 
 
 ACT IV. 
 Scene 5. 
 
 Exterior f?/" Adzuma's house. Night time. A lamp is 
 shining through a lattice. 
 
 Enter MoRITO, holding a naked sword. 
 
 MORITO. Aye ! there's -the light ! And, when I slide 
 the door, 
 She'll put it out, to show all's well. " All's well ? " 
 " All's ill " — say rather ! Oh, I know, I know 
 What cursed work I do, what bloody road 
 I follow to the fruitage of my love ; 
 And yonder light shines out of Hell, I know, 
 To show my way. Well ! if it gleam from Hell 
 It guides to Heaven, my Heaven with Adzuma. 
 Cut quick, fierce sword ! I spit upon thy hilt 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 177 
 
 To get fast grip. Now, Lord Wataru ! die ! 
 
 [MoRiTO enUrs ; and, after a brief interval, emerges 
 again, carrying a head in a bloodstained doth.'] 
 
 Devils of Hell ! how easy 'twas to do, 
 
 This coward murderous deed ! The head was wet. 
 
 The hair cropped close. I took his girdle-purse. 
 
 That it might seem a robber's deed. Now, naught 
 
 Lives 'twixt my love and me. How sound he slept 
 
 Who doth sleep sounder now ; how soft it was, 
 
 That soldier's neck ! I'll to the moon-light there, 
 
 And tie my burden better. 
 
 [MoRiTO goes near to a corner in the street, and 
 sitting down, opens the cloth ; when there rolls 
 out a severed head, which is seen to be that of 
 Adzuma.] 
 
 [MoRiTO starts to his feet ; covers his face with his 
 hands, and staggers paralysed to the wall.'] 
 
 MORITO [re-approaching, after a time, the head.] 
 
 Not his ! But Adzuma's ! Adzuma's head ! 
 
 What ! have I murdered Adzuma ? Hell's light ! 
 
 z 
 
ADZUMA, 
 
 Shrewdly thou beaconedst me ! I have steered 
 
 straight 
 To damnable perdition ! Eyes ! soft eyes ! 
 Shutjlest they blight themselves with glimpse of me, 
 Yes, ye are Adzuma's ; the pale cheeks her's ; 
 The blanched, locked lips her's — her's the black 
 
 hair cropped, 
 And tied Wataru's way. Oh, I see well 
 What snare she laid. The savage eagle's trussed 
 By the white dove's small foot. Fiends that do 
 
 tempt, 
 You, Sakamune ! chief — come hither and grin ! 
 Your utter worst is wrought ! Why then, she's 
 
 true ! 
 She never wrote the script ! Gods ! all reads plain 
 Writ in this pure bright blood. She could not put 
 Our cursed plots aside, unless she died, 
 And so she died, making of Morito 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 179 
 
 Servant and purger to her innocence. 
 
 Oh, miserable Morito ! Oh, spite 
 
 Of sinfulness, mocked, to set Virtue right ! 
 
 [Ezz'i Morito, carrying the head. 
 End of Scene 5. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 Scene 6. 
 
 Time, early mortiing. An apartment in Wataru's house. 
 Kameju and a group of lamenting people discovered. 
 VVataru apart, lost in grief. 
 
 [Morito is seen forcing the entrance by an inner door.] 
 
 Kameju. Nay, Sir ! you cannot come in. There 
 
 is great woe here. 
 
 Morito. Give me way ! 
 
 Kam. Enter not, for your own comfort ! You do 
 
i8o ADZUMA, 
 
 not know that the Lady Adzuma hath been found 
 this morning most foully murdered. 
 
 MOR. Give me way ! Stand aside, I say ! Where 
 is Wataru ? 
 
 Kam. He cannot speak with you. 
 MOR. Stand back ! give way ! Oh, Watanabe ! Sir ! 
 Let me have leave, and listen just so long 
 Till I have spoke enough to force thy blade 
 Make bloody period to my speech and me. 
 Wataru. What can'st thou say, in this fate- 
 stricken house. 
 Such heavy sorrow as to-day's could hear ? 
 MOR. This ! I am he who murdered Adzuma ! 
 Here is her beauteous, gentle, bleeding head 
 Severed, in place of thine, by this vile hand ! 
 I — fool, and beast, and butcher — being misled, 
 Being gone mad with passion, being beguiled. 
 Took her white purity for wantonness, 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. i8i 
 
 And forged scripts for the message of her hand. 
 With that, by hateful words, and cruel threats, 
 Perplexed her for her mother's sake, and thine, 
 Drove her to edge of dreadful precipice 
 Where no way seemed how Virtue could come safe. 
 Sudden resolved ( — oh ! as I now do know 
 Whispered by Heaven, which helps fidelity — ) 
 She turns : bids me break in ; slay thee ; and then. 
 It should be as it should be. Look, what's come ! 
 How, dying, she hath shamed me. Sir ! she lay 
 Meek, unafeared, in thy bed, for thy sake ; 
 Hair cropped, head wet, on a man's pillow put ; 
 And so I killed her, thinking to kill thee ; 
 And so I killed stone-dead the calumny 
 Wherewith we smirched her stainless nobleness ; 
 And so I killed my name, and fame, and peace. 
 And thy peace and the sweet joy of thy life. 
 And I am come, with naked breast, to lay 
 
i82 ADZUMA, 
 
 This fair head in thy hands, and this same sword 
 Which struck it off; and to beseech of thee 
 Now, with its edge, to lop my head away, 
 Which here I bend in broken humbleness. 
 Wat. Thou miserable Lord, whose great sin mates 
 The greatness of my sorrow, — sheathe the steel ! 
 I'll use it not. Had I encountered thee 
 Knowing one tittle of this before she died, 
 I had cloven thee, like a wolf, from chin to chine. 
 Hadst thou come thus, when first I found her dead. 
 With such a prayer, — before the half was out 
 I had split thy heart, if underneath such breast 
 Beats any heart. But now, thy punishment 
 Must be to live ! Thou art crept penitent. 
 Ashamed, judging thyself, before my feet, 
 I cannot therefore kill thee. Live ! I say ! 
 Ask no large grace like death ! Nay, see what's 
 left 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 183 
 
 Upon my pillow, it shall gash thy soul 
 Worse than sword could thy body. 
 
 He reads Adzuma'S last letter. 
 
 " To my most noble and loving Lord — Watarii 
 Watanabe ! — / was already dead for thy peace and 
 honour, while we talked together this night. When I 
 took boldness to ask that thou wouldest never marry 
 again after my death, it was my heart's deep love spoke, 
 rather than my duty. I beseech you, forgive this, but 
 take my thanks and blessings for thy most sweet words. 
 Yet do thy will, and be happy. Here, and in all the 
 worlds, my heart is thine, and my soul. I .have very 
 much more to say, but tears will not suffer me to write 
 it. Farewell ! thy true and unspotted wife — in fast 
 fidelity, Adzuma." 
 
 And, for her mother, this is what she left. 
 
 " I have, indeed, heard that wedded wives can be 
 false, but I have never understood it — loving nothing so 
 much as my husbands love, and my duty to him, and 
 to you, mother ! The nets ivoven around me by wicked 
 men were very strong, and therefore I have cut them 
 
l84 ADZUMA, 
 
 with Morito's sword. You will now know how clear 
 I was of evil; and your life and good name will be safe, 
 and my Lord will live in peace and honour, assured of 
 Adzuma. I kiss the kind hand which struck me, for 
 it was rightly done had I indeed failed so shamelessly 
 from my fidelity. I am very sorrowful to leave you, 
 mother, now so old and lonely ; but Wataru this night 
 — not understanding why I asked it — hath promised 
 always to protect you. Now I die ; glad because I 
 know you will again call me your daughter Adzuma. 
 
 Kam. Oh, heart of gold ! Oh ! noble Nippon wife ! 
 Oh ! tender Daughter ! Thou too lonely Lord, 
 What thinkest thou to do ? 
 
 Wat. The funeral o'er 
 
 For this dear dead, I shall lay wholly down 
 Armour and swords, and, from to-day's hard time. 
 With shorn head, in the holy Temple's shade 
 A Priest I'll live, 'till good hap come to die. 
 
 MOR. I, whom thou biddest live, humbly obey. 
 
 And, with my face in the dust, take thy vow, too, 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 185 
 
 That daily, and that nightly, I may pray 
 For this pure soul. 
 Wat. Why, be it so ! And she 
 
 May thus, in Heaven, find prayers to make for 
 thee. \_ExeHnt Ovines. 
 
 End of Scene 6. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 Scene 7. 
 
 .Front of a Buddhist Temple. Prayers for the dead are 
 proceeding, and incense-sticks being burned. Buddhist 
 monks go about the shrine ; among them are seen 
 Wataru and Morito with shaven heads., and wearing 
 the priestly robes. Kameju stands at the foot of the 
 Temple-steps, carrying two swords. Seeing Sakamune 
 pass the front of the Temple, lu beckons to Morito, who 
 descends. 
 
 Kameju. Master ! look yonder, underneath the trees ! 
 
 The Samurai ! 
 
1 86 ADZUMA, 
 
 MOR. What Samurai ? 
 
 Kam. Why, he ! 
 
 Damned Sakamune ! Wilt thou take my sword ? 
 
 [MoRiTO fakes the sword and draws back his 
 priestly goivn — but, zvith an effort, gives up 
 again the weapon. ] 
 
 MOR. Kameju! tempt me not. My vow is made 
 
 To spill no blood. I were a priest forsworn 
 
 Doing this thing, — which must be done ! Go to ! 
 
 [MoRiTO retires into the Temple. Kameju, draw- 
 ing his sword, follows .SakaMune, 7vho is 
 slowly passing in the foreground?\ 
 
 Kam. Ho ! Sakamune ! 
 
 Saka. Heimin ! ha ! — good-day ! 
 
 Kam. No good day dawns which thou art by to blast. 
 
 Art thou come here to pray with Morito ? 
 Saka. I come where I do please. 
 Kam. But you go not 
 
 Save by another road. 
 
OR THE JAPANESE WIFE. 187 
 
 Saka. What road ? 
 
 Kam. The road 
 
 To hell, where devils expect thee. Draw thy 
 sword ! 
 Saka. I fight not with a peasant. 
 Kam. Oh, for that 
 
 The hangman's knife were edge too clean for thee ; 
 
 Yet ease thy conscience. I am Samurai, 
 
 Named yesterweek. 
 Saka. {wtiA agitatioii). I have come without my 
 
 sword. 
 Kam. I'll lend you mine. See, here's another one ! 
 
 Thy dupe, my Master, with this fateful steel 
 
 Murdered thy victim, guiltless Adzuma. 
 Saka. Let me choose blades. 
 
 \Pretending io exami?ie the weapons, Sakamune 
 tries io take advantage of Kameju, and io 
 slab him.'] 
 
i88 ADZUMA. 
 
 Kam. Ah ! Villain to the last ! — too base to slay 
 
 By soldier's stroke. Dog of the Samurai ! 
 
 I'll rid the earth of thee. Stand, fight, and die ! 
 
 [T/tey fight. Sakamune is fatally wounded, and 
 falls.] 
 
 Saka. Curse thee, I fall ! Tell the bald-pates I die 
 Mocking at simpletons. [Sakamune dies.'] 
 
 Kam. [slowly wiping his blade, and looking down 
 upon the dead man.] 
 
 Good sword ! forgive 
 I stained thee so ! But, see, he could not live ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printid by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Ca 
 Edinburgh ajcd London