Nishikigi
Nishikigi（1916）Certain Noble Plays of Japan: from the manuscripts of Ernest Fenollosa, chosen and finished by Ezra Pound, with an introduction by William Butler Yeats, Cuala, Churchtown, Dundram [EN]
- XIVThe feather-mantle, for whose lack the moon goddess, (or should we call her fairy?) cannot return to the sky, is the red cap whose theft can keep our fairies of the sea upon dry land; and the ghost-lovers in ‘Nishikigi’ remind me of the Aran boy and girl who in Lady Gregory’s story come to the priest after death to be married.
- XVBut in the ‘Nishikigi’ the tale of the lovers would lose its pathos if we did not see that forgotten tomb where ‘the hiding fox’ lives among ‘the orchids and the chrysanthemum flowers.’
- XVIIn the ‘Nishikigi’ the ghost of the girl-lover carries the cloth she went on weaving out of grass when she should have opened the chamber door to her lover, and woven grass returns again and again in metaphor and incident.
- 1[NISHIKIGI]
- 50?Ofthe plays in this book, *Nishikigi’ has appeared in ‘Poetry,’ *Hagoromo’ in *The Quarterly Review,* and ‘Kumasaka,’ in ‘The Drama;’ to the editors of which periodicals I wish to express my acknowledgment.
- 20Among the most petformed No of this class are: “Yuya,” “Hagoromo,” “Komachi,” “Izutsu,” “Nishikigi,” ” Ninin-Shizuka.”
- 42-43Many of the love romances are also examples of this, such as “Izutsu,” “Nishikigi,” and “Kinuta.”
- 7Let me take first the Nishikigi-little known in the West.
- 8Worn in Funabenkei, Nishikigi, Matsumushi, etc.
- 21So the priest-he might be the priest of Nishikigi-wanders through Mikawa to see the flowers of the iris in all their glory; for it is the season.
- 33What pangs of love denied but repeat themselves in the lonely wandering ghosts of Nishikigi?
- 37The nineteen page introduction by Mr. Yeats is followed by translations of Nishikigi and Hagoromo, both of which are described by Mrs. Beck, as well as by two plays not mentioned in her article-Kumasaka and Kagekiyo.
- 58Nisiki-gi (Piling up Box Boughs)
- 36some in which the leading personages are the ghosts of men and women which are unable to escape from the agony of passion, as in Ominamesi (The Lovers Drowned Themselves), Nisikigi (Piling up the Box Boughs), Huna-basi (The Lover on the Boat-bridge), Kayoi-Komati (Nightly Visits to Belle Komati) and Motome-zuka (The Tomb Discovered).