I have to say that on a scale of awfulness this knackers the balance:
'It is an hour of magic' 'the small strings talk like a whisper'
'Sorrow between mandarin ducks' 'Ah false desire and fate' 'The bass
strings are something like rain' - Jeez!!
Best (laughing because it's a better choice than crying)
Dave
2008/12/13 Jon Corelis <[log in to unmask]>:
> Two Excerpts from The Classic Noh Theatre of Japan by Ezra Pound and
> Ernest Fenollosa
>
> i
>
> A moon hangs clear on the pine-bough. The wind rustles as if
> flurried with rain. It is an hour of magic. The bass strings are
> something like rain; the small strings talk like a whisper. The deep
> string is a wind voice of autumn; the third and the fourth strings are
> like the crying stork in her cage, when she thinks of her young birds
> toward nightfall. Let the cocks leave off their crowing. Let no one
> announce the dawn.
>
> A flute's voice has moved the clouds of Sushinrei. And the
> phoenix came out from the cloud; they descend with their playing.
> Pitiful, marvelous music! I have come down to the world. I have
> resumed my old playing. And I was happy here. All that is soon over.
>
> -- from Tsunemasa
>
>
> ii
>
> Sorrow! --
> Sorrow is in the twigs of the duck's nest
> And in the pillow of the fishes,
> At being held apart in the waves,
> Sorrow between mandarin ducks,
> Who have been in love
> Since time out of mind.
> Sorrow --
> There is more sorrow between the united
> Though they move in the one same world.
> O low 'Remembering-grass',
> I do not forget to weep
> At the sound of the rain upon you,
> My tears are a rain in the silence,
> O heart of the seldom clearing. ...
>
> The stag's voice has bent her heart toward sorrow,
> Sending the evening winds which she does not see,
> We cannot see the tip of the branch.
> The last leaf falls without witness.
> There is an awe in the shadow,
> And even the moon is quiet,
> With the love-grass under the eaves. ...
>
> Ah false desire and fate!
> Her tears are shed on the silk-board,
> Tears fall and turn into flame,
> The smoke has stifled her cries,
> She cannot reach us at all,
> Nor yet the beating of the silk-board
> Nor even the voice of the pines,
> But only the voice of that sorrowful punishment. ...
>
> -- from Kinuta (The Silk-Board)
>
> --
> ===============================================
>
> Jon Corelis http://jcorelis.googlepages.com/joncorelis
>
> ===============================================
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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