2. KURETAKE’S RUSTIC RESIDENCE
KURETAKE
MURASAKI About fifteen years old
TOKIMARU Formerly Kabu, now about seventeen years old
OLD WOMAN KOSASA
Kuretake's grass hut in the bamboo forest at Saga.
A summer night. The moon shines brightly, quietly.
Even if it is not so in the dew-wet Fields of Saga
(The curtain rises.)
Murasaki stands by herself.
Kosasa sets out to fetch water from the Well.
Longing for the past in a grass hut still faithful this bamboo a single drop
of dew on a bamboo leaf holds the light of the moon but this life too will
fall —how sad.
The sound of a flute approaches through the bamboo forest.
Tokimaru (formerly Kabu) discovers Murasaki as he makes his way
through the bamboo and runs out into the open.
TOKIMARU: Murasaki (he calls)—it’s more difficult for a person
hiding from the world to search for a person hiding from the world than it
was for Kabu to search for people who slandered the Heike.
MURASAKI: walking towards him, nostalgically.) Tokimaru.
TOKIMARU: Murasaki—I only wanted to meet with you once. The
fighting in town frightened me, so I walked through a village in the
mountains, playing my flute, yearning for you.
