"As the whole of the story is not soon told, what portion is it augustly
desired that I now recite?"


The woman's voice made answer:--


"Recite the story of the battle at Dan-no-ura,-- for the pity of it is the
most deep." [5]


Then Hoichi lifted up his voice, and chanted the chant of the fight on the
bitter sea,-- wonderfully making his biwa to sound like the straining of
oars and the rushing of ships, the whirr and the hissing of arrows, the
shouting and trampling of men, the crashing of steel upon helmets, the
plunging of slain in the flood. And to left and right of him, in the pauses
of his playing, he could hear voices murmuring praise: "How marvelous an
artist!" -- "Never in our own province was playing heard like this!" --
"Not in all the empire is there another singer like Hoichi!" Then fresh
courage came to him, and he played and sang yet better than before; and a
hush of wonder deepened about him. But when at last he came to tell the
fate of the fair and helpless,-- the piteous perishing of the women and
children,-- and the death-leap of Nii-no-Ama, with the imperial infant in
her arms,-- then all the listeners uttered together one long, long
shuddering cry of anguish; and thereafter they wept and wailed so loudly
and so wildly that the blind man was frightened by the violence and grief
that he had made. For much time the sobbing and the wailing continued. But
gradually the sounds of lamentation died away; and again, in the great
stillness that followed, Hoichi heard the voice of the woman whom he