Okuni and Gohei
7
- must go back again to Yedo, and perhaps to Kyoto and Osaka. Perhaps we must go to the out-of-the-way comers of Shikoku or Kyushu, nay, to the end of the world. I will go with you, even though it takes a lifetime.
- Okuni.—But if this bad luck of ours continues, and we have to roam through the land for years,—over the mountains, and across the wilderness, as time passes, one day we shall find ourselves a gray-headed man and woman … what a strange karma it is that binds us so closely! That I, who have left my home in order to avenge my husband fall into such a long illness on the way, and should add trouble to our already heavy burden! It is indeed making a very miserable woman of me!
- Gohei.—Madam, it is also my duty to avenge my master, and to take care of you. That your sickness should have recovered so soon must be through the divine help of the great and merciful Buddha. Our enemy Ikeda is a coward, and I fear that if we should meet him while your health is still weak, there is no knowing what he might do. I have been greatly troubled lately thinking about it, and I hope that no evil will befall us.
- (From the distance, faint music of a shakuhachi-flute is heard, and Okuni listens to it intently.)
- Okuni.—Listen, Gohei, do you hear someone playing a shakuhachi-flute in the distance?
- Gohei.—Indeed, madam, I can hear it, but the music sounds very far away … surely that komuso-priest
