- IZUTSU
- KAKITSUBATA
- HANAKATAMI
- OMINAMESHI
- MATSUKAZE
- SHUNKWAN
- AMA
- TAKE NO YUKI
- TORI-OI
- YUYA
- TANGO-MONOGURUI
- IKKAKU SENNIN
- YAMAUBA
- HOTOKE NO HARA
- MARI
- T?RU
- MAI-GURUMA
Of the plays which are founded on the Ise Monogatari[195] the best known are Izutsu and Kakitsubata, both by Seami. Izutsu is founded on the episode which runs as follows:
Once upon a time a boy and a girl, children of country people, used to meet at a well and play there together. When they grew up they became a little shame-faced towards one another, but he could think of no other woman, nor she of any other man. He would not take the wife his parents had found for him, nor she the husband that her parents had found for her.
Then he sent her a poem which said:
“Oh, the well, the well!
I who scarce topped the well-frame
Am grown to manhood since we met.”
And she to him:
“The two strands of my hair
That once with yours I measured,
Have passed my shoulder;
Who but you should put them up?”[196]
So they wrote, and at last their desire was fulfilled. Now after a year or more had passed the girl’s parents died, and they were left without sustenance. They could not go on living together; the man went to and fro between her house and the town of Takayasu in Kawachi, while she stayed at home.
Now when he saw that she let him go gladly and showed no grief in her face, he thought it was because her heart had changed. And one day, instead of going to Kawachi, he hid behind the hedge and watched. Then he heard the girl singing:
“The mountain of Tatsuta that rises
Steep as a wave of the sea when the wind blows
To-night my lord will be crossing all alone!”
And he was moved by her song, and went no more to Takayasu in Kawachi.
In the play a wandering priest meets with a village girl, who turns out to be the ghost of the girl in this story. The text is woven out of the words of the Ise Monogatari.
Kakitsubata is based on the eighth episode. Narihira and his companions come to a place called Yatsuhashi, where, across an iris-covered swamp, zigzags a low footpath of planks.
Narihira bids them compose an anagram on the word Kakitsubata, “iris,” and some one sings:
“Kara-goromo
Ki-tsutsu nare-ni-shi
Tsuma shi areba
Baru-baru ki-nuru
Tabi wo shi zo omou.”
The first syllables of each line make, when read consecutively, the word Kakitsubata, and the poem, which is a riddle with many meanings, may be translated:
“My lady’s love
Sat close upon me like a coat well worn;
And surely now
Her thoughts go after me down this long road!”
“When he had done singing, they all wept over their dried-rice till it grew soppy.”
In the play, a priest comes to this place and learns its story from a village-girl, who turns out to be the “soul of the iris-flower.” At the end she disappears into the Western Paradise. “Even the souls of flowers can attain to Buddhahood.”
HANAKATAMI
(THE FLOWER BASKET)
By KWANAMI; REVISED BY SEAMI
Before he came to the throne, the Emperor Keitai[197] loved the Lady Teruhi. On his accession he sent her a letter of farewell and a basket of flowers. In the play the messenger meets her on the road to her home; she reads the letter, which in elaborately ceremonial language announces the Emperor’s accession and departure to the Capital.
TERUHI.
The Spring of our love is passed! Like a moon left lonely
In the sky of dawn, back to the hills I go,
To the home where once we dwelt.
(She slips quietly from the stage, carrying the basket and letter. In the next scene the EMPEROR[198] is carried on to the stage in a litter borne by two attendants. It is the coronation procession. Suddenly TERUHI, who has left her home distraught, wanders on to the stage followed by her maid, who carries the flower-basket and letter.)
TERUHI (speaking wildly).
Ho, you travellers! Show me the road to the Capital! I am mad, you say?
Mad I may be; but love bids me ask. O heartless ones! why will they not answer me?
MAID.
Madam, from these creatures we shall get no answer. Yet there is a sign that will guide our steps to the City. Look, yonder the wild-geese are passing!
TERUHI.
Oh well-remembered! For southward ever
The wild-geese pass
Through the empty autumn sky; and southward lies
The city of my lord.
Then follows the “song of travel,” during which Teruhi and her companion are supposed to be journeying from their home in Echizen to the Capital in Yamato. They halt at last on the hashigakari, announcing that they have “arrived at the City.” Just as a courtier (who together with the boy-Emperor and the two litter-bearers represents the whole coronation procession) is calling: “Clear the way, clear the way! The Imperial procession is approaching,” Teruhi’s maid advances on to the stage and crosses the path of the procession. The courtier pushes her roughly back, and in doing so knocks the flower-basket to the ground.
MAID.
Oh, look what he has done! O madam, he has dashed your basket to the ground, the Prince’s flower-basket!
TERUHI.
What! My lord’s basket? He has dashed it to the ground? Oh hateful deed!
COURTIER.
Come, mad-woman! Why all this fuss about a basket? You call it your lord’s basket; what lord can you mean?
TERUHI.
What lord should I mean but the lord of this land of Sunrise? Is there another?
Then follow a “mad dance” and song. The courtier orders her to come nearer the Imperial litter and dance again, that her follies may divert the Emperor.
She comes forward and dances the story of Wu Ti and Li Fu-jen.[199] Nothing could console him for her death. He ordered her portrait to be painted on the walls of his palace. But, because the face neither laughed nor grieved, the sight of it increased his sorrow. Many wizards laboured at his command to summon her soul before him. At last one of them projected upon a screen some dim semblance of her face and form. But when the Emperor would have touched it, it vanished, and he stood in the palace alone.
COURTIER.
His Majesty commands you to show him your flower-basket.
(She holds the basket before the EMPEROR.)
COURTIER.
His Majesty has deigned to look at this basket. He says that without doubt it was a possession of his rural days.[200] He bids you forget the hateful letter that is with it and be mad no more. He will take you back with him to the palace.
OMINAMESHI
By SEAMI
The play is written round a story and a poem. A man came to the capital and was the lover of a woman there. Suddenly he vanished, and she, in great distress, set out to look for him in the country he came from. She found his house, and asked his servants where he was. They told her he had just married and was with his wife. When she heard this she ran out of the house and leapt into the Hojo River.
GHOST OF THE LOVER.
When this was told him,
Startled, perturbed, he went to the place;
But when he looked,
Pitiful she lay,
Limp-limbed on the ground.
Then weeping, weeping—
GHOST OF GIRL.
He took up the body in his arms,
And at the foot of this mountain
Laid it to rest in earth.
GHOST OF LOVER.
And from that earth sprang up
A lady-flower[201] and blossomed
Alone upon her grave.
Then he:
“This flower is her soul.”
And still he lingered, tenderly
Touched with his hand the petals’ hem,
Till in the flower’s dress and on his own
The same dew fell.
But the flower, he thought,
Was angry with him, for often when he touched it
It drooped and turned aside.
Such is the story upon which the play is founded. The poem is one by Bishop Henjo (816-890):
O lady-flowers
That preen yourselves upon the autumn hill,
Even you that make so brave a show,
Last but “one while.”
Hito toki, “one while,” is the refrain of the play. It was for “one while” that they lived together in the Capital; it is for “one while” that men are young, that flowers blossom, that love lasts. In the first part of the play an aged man hovering round a clump of lady-flowers begs the priest not to pluck them. In the second part this aged man turns into the soul of the lover. The soul of the girl also appears, and both are saved by the priest’s prayers from that limbo (half death, half life) where all must linger who die in the coils of shushin, “heart-attachment.”
MATSUKAZE
By KWANAMI; REVISED BY SEAMI
Lord Yukihira, brother of Narihira, was banished to the lonely shore of Suma. While he lived there he amused himself by helping two fisher-girls to carry salt water from the sea to the salt-kilns on the shore. Their names were Matsukaze and Murasame.
At this time he wrote two famous poems; the first, while he was crossing the mountains on his way to Suma:
“Through the traveller’s dress
The autumn wind blows with sudden chill.
It is the shore-wind of Suma
Blowing through the pass.”
When he had lived a little while at Suma, he sent to the Capital a poem which said:
“If any should ask news,
Tell him that upon the shore of Suma
I drag the water-pails.”
Long afterwards Prince Genji was banished to the same place. The chapter of the Genji Monogatari called “Suma” says:
Although the sea was some way off, yet when the melancholy autumn wind came “blowing through the pass” (the very wind of Yukihira’s poem), the beating of the waves on the shore seemed near indeed.
It is round these two poems and the prose passage quoted above that the play is written.
A wandering priest comes to the shore of Suma and sees a strange pine-tree standing alone. A “person of the place” (in an interlude not printed in the usual texts) tells him that the tree was planted in memory of two fisher-girls, Matsukaze, and Murasame, and asks him to pray for them. While the priest prays it grows late and he announces that he intends to ask for shelter “in that salt-kiln.” He goes to the “waki’s pillar” and waits there as if waiting for the master of the kiln to return.
Meanwhile Matsukaze and Murasame come on to the stage and perform the “water-carrying” dance which culminates in the famous passage known as “The moon in the water-pails.”
CHORUS (speaking for MURASAME).
There is a moon in my pail!
MATSUKAZE.
Why, into my pail too a moon has crept!
(Looking up at the sky.)
One moon above ...
CHORUS.
Two imaged moons below,
So through the night each carries
A moon on her water-truck,
Drowned at the bucket’s brim.
Forgotten, in toil on this salt sea-road,
The sadness of this world where souls cling!
Their work is over and they approach their huts, i.e., the “waki’s pillar,” where the priest is sitting waiting. After refusing for a long while to admit him “because their hovel is too mean to receive him,” they give him shelter, and after the usual questioning, reveal their identities.
In the final ballet Matsukaze dresses in the “court-hat and hunting cloak given her by Lord Yukihira” and dances, among other dances, the “Broken Dance,” which also figures in Hagoromo.
The “motif” of this part of the play is another famous poem by Yukihira, that by which he is represented in the Hyakuninisshu or “Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets”:
“When I am gone away,
If I hear that like the pine-tree on Mount Inaba
You are waiting for me,
Even then I will come back to you.”
There is a play of words between matsu, “wait,” and matsu, “pine-tree”; Inaba, the name of a mountain, and inaba, “if I go away.”
The play ends with the release of the girls’ souls from the shushin, “heart-attachment,” which holds them to the earth.
SHUNKWAN
By SEAMI
The priest Shunkwan, together with Naritsune and Yasuyori, had plotted the overthrow of the Tairas. They were arrested and banished to Devil’s Island on the shore of Satsuma.
Naritsune and Yasuyori were worshippers of the Gods of Kumano. They brought this worship with them to the place of their exile, constructing on the island an imitation of the road from Kyoto to Kumano with its ninety-nine roadside shrines. This “holy way” they decked with nusa, “paper-festoons,” and carried out, as best they might, the Shinto ceremonies of the three shrines of Kumano.
When the play begins the two exiles are carrying out these rites. Having no albs[202] to wear, they put on the tattered hemp-smocks which they wore on their journey; having no rice to offer, they pour out a libation of sand.
Shunkwan, who had been abbot of the Zen[203] temple Hosshoji, holds aloof from these ceremonies. But when the worshippers return he comes to meet them carrying a bucket of water, which he tells them is the wine for their final libation. They look into the bucket and cry in disgust: Ya! Kore wa mizu nari! “Why, it is water!”
In a long lyrical dialogue which follows, Shunkwan, with the aid of many classical allusions, justifies the identification of chrysanthemum-water and wine.
CHORUS (speaking for SHUNKWAN.)
Oh, endless days of banishment!
How long shall I languish in this place,
Where the time while a mountain dewdrop dries
Seems longer than a thousand years?
A spring has gone; summer grown to age;
An autumn closed; a winter come again,
Marked only by the changing forms
Of flowers and trees.
Oh, longed-for time of old!
Oh, recollection sweet whithersoever
The mind travels; City streets and cloisters now
Seem Edens[204] garlanded
With every flower of Spring.
Suddenly a boat appears carrying a stranger to the shore. This is represented on the stage by an attendant carrying the conventionalized No play “boat” on to the hashi gakari. The envoy, whose departure from the Capital forms the opening scene of the play—I have omitted it in my summary—has been standing by the “Waki’s pillar.” He now steps into the boat and announces that a following wind is carrying him swiftly over the sea. He leaves the boat, carrying a Proclamation in his hand.
ENVOY.
SHUNKWAN (snatching the scroll).
Look, Yasuyori! Look! At last!
YASUYORI (reading the scroll).
What is this? What is this?
“Because of the pregnancy of Her Majesty the Empress, an amnesty is proclaimed throughout the land. All exiles are recalled from banishment, and, of those exiled on Devil’s Island, to these two Naritsune, Lieutenant of Tamba and Yasuyori of the Taira clan, free pardon is granted.”
SHUNKWAN.
Why, you have forgotten to read Shunkwan’s name!
YASUYORI.
Your name, alas, is not there. Read the scroll.
SHUNKWAN (scanning the scroll).
This must be some scribe’s mistake.
ENVOY.
No; they told me at the Capital to bring back Yasuyori and Naritsune, but to leave Shunkwan upon the island.
SHUNKWAN.
How can that be?
One crime, one banishment;
Yet I alone, when pardon
Like a mighty net is spread
To catch the drowning multitude, slip back
Into the vengeful deep!
When three dwelt here together,
How terrible the loneliness of these wild rocks!
Now one is left, to wither
Like a flower dropped on the shore.
Like a broken sea-weed branch
That no wave carries home.
Is not this island named
The Realm of Fiends, where I,
Damned but not dead walk the Black Road of Death?
Yet shall the foulest fiend of Hell
Now weep for me whose wrong
Must needs move heaven and earth,
Wake angels’ pity, rend
The hearts of men, turn even the hungry cries
Of the wild beasts and birds that haunt these rocks
To tender lamentation.
(He buries his face in his hands; then after a while begins reading the scroll again.)
CHORUS.
He took the scroll that he had read before.
He opened it and looked.
His eyes, like a shuttle, travelled
To and fro, to and fro.
Yet, though he looked and looked,
No other names he saw
But Yasuyori’s name and Naritsune’s name
Then thinking “There is a codicil, perhaps,”
Again he opens the scroll and looks.
Nowhere is the word Sozu,[205] nowhere the word Shunkwan.
(The ENVOY then calls upon NARITSUNE and YASUYORI to board the boat. SHUNKWAN clutches at YASUYORI’S sleeve and tries to follow him on board. The ENVOY pushes him back, calling to him to keep clear of the boat.)
SHUNKWAN.
Wretch, have you not heard the saying:
“Be law, but not her servants, pitiless.”
Bring me at least to the mainland. Have so much charity!
ENVOY.
But the sailor[206] knew no pity;
He took his oar and struck ...
SHUNKWAN (retreating a step).
Nevertheless, leave me my life....
Then he stood back and caught in both his hands
The anchor-rope and dragged ...
ENVOY.
But the sailor cut the rope and pushed the boat to sea.
SHUNKWAN.
He clasped his hands. He called, besought them—
ENVOY.
But though they heard him calling, they would not carry him.
SHUNKWAN.
It was over; he struggled no more.
CHORUS.
But left upon the beach, wildly he waved his sleeves,
Stricken as she[207] who on the shore
Of Matsura waved till she froze to stone.
ENVOYS, NANITSUNE and YASUYORI (together).
Unhappy man, our hearts are not cold. When we reach the City, we will plead unceasingly for your recall. In a little while you shall return. Wait with a good heart.
(Their voices grow fainter and fainter, as though the ship were moving away from the shore.)
SHUNKWAN.
“Wait, wait,” they cried, “Hope, wait!”
But distance dimmed their cry,
And hope with their faint voices faded.
He checked his sobs, stood still and listened, listened—
(SHUNKWAN puts his hand to his ear and bends forward in the attitude of one straining to catch a distant sound.)
THE THREE.
Shunkwan, Shunkwan, do you hear us?
SHUNKWAN.
You will plead for me?
THE THREE.
Yes, yes. And then surely you will be summoned....
SHUNKWAN.
Back to the City? Can you mean it?
THE THREE.
Why, surely!
SHUNKWAN.
I hope; yet while I hope ...
CHORUS.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
Dimmer grow the voices; dimmer the ship, the wide waves
Pile up behind it.
The voices stop. The ship, the men
Have vanished. All is gone
There is an ancient Kowaka dance called Io go Shima, “Sulphur Island,” another name for Devil’s Island. It represents the piety of Naritsune and Yasuyori, and the amoral mysticism of the Zen abbot Shunkwan. Part of the text is as follows:
NARITSUNE.
This is the vow of the Holy One,
The God of Kumano:
“Whosoever of all mortal men
Shall turn his heart to me,
Though he be come to the utmost end of the desert,
To the furthest fold of the hills,
I will send a light to lead him;
I will guide him on his way.”
And we exiled on this far rock,
By daily honour to the Triple Shrine,
By supplication to Kumano’s God,
Shall compass our return.
Shunkwan, how think you?
SHUNKWAN.
Were it the Hill King of Hiyei,[208] I would not say no. But as for this God of Kumano, I have no faith in him. (Describing the actions of NARITSUNE and YASUYORI.)
Then lonely, lonely these two to worship went;
On the wide sea they gazed,
Roamed on the rugged shore;
Searching ever for a semblance
Of the Three Holy Hills.
Now, where between high rocks
A long, clear river flowed;
Now where tree-tops soar
Summit on summit upward to the sky.
And there they planned to set
The Mother-Temple, Hall of Proven Truth;
And here the Daughter-Shrine,
The Treasury of Kan.
Then far to northward aiming
To a white cliff they came, where from the clouds
Swift waters tumbled down.
Then straightway they remembered
The Hill of Nachi, where the Dragon God,
Winged water-spirit, pants with stormy breath
And fills the woods with awe.
Here reverently they their Nachi set.
The Bonze Shunkwan mounted to a high place;
His eye wandered north, south, east and west.
A thousand, thousand concepts filled his heart.
Suddenly a black cloud rose before him,
A heavy cloak of cloud;
And a great rock crashed and fell into the sea.
Then the great Bonze in his meditation remembered
An ancient song:
“The wind scattered a flower at Buddha’s feet;
A boulder fell and crushed the fish of the pool.
Neither has the wind merit, nor the boulder blame;
They know not what they do.”
“The Five Limbs are a loan,” he cried, “that must be repaid;
A mess of earth, water, air, fire.
And the heart—void, as the sky; shapeless, substanceless!
Being and non-being
Are but twin aspects of all component things.
And that which seems to be, soon is not.
But only contemplation is eternal.”
So the priest: proudly pillowed
On unrepentance and commandments broke.
AMA
(THE FISHER-GIRL)
By SEAMI
Fujiwara no Fusazaki was the child of a fisher-girl. He was taken from her in infancy and reared at the Capital. When he grew to be a man he went to Shido to look for her. On the shore he met with a fisher-girl who, after speaking for some while with him, gave him a letter, and at once vanished with the words: “I am the ghost of the fisher-girl that was your mother.” The letter said:
Ten years and three have passed since my soul fled to the Yellow Clod. Many days and months has the abacus told since the white sand covered my bones. The Road of Death is dark, dark; and none has prayed for me.
I am your mother. Lighten, oh lighten, dear son, the great darkness that has lain round me for thirteen years!
Then Fusazaki prayed for his mother’s soul and she appeared before him born again as a Blessed Dragon Lady of Paradise, carrying in her hand the scroll of the Hokkekyo (see Plate II), and danced the Hayamai, the “swift dance,” of thirteen movements. On the Kongo stage the Dragon Lady is dressed as a man; for women have no place in Paradise.
THE DRAGON LADY IN AMA HOLDING ALOFT THE SCROLL OF THE HOKKEKYO
(Behind her is seen the Hashigakari)
TAKE NO YUKI
(SNOW ON THE BAMBOOS)
By SEAMI
PERSONS
- TONO-I.
- HIS FIRST WIFE.
- HIS SECOND WIFE.
- TSUKIWAKA (his son by the first wife).
- TSUKIWAKA’S SISTER.
- A SERVANT.
- CHORUS.
TONO-I.
My name is Tono-i. I live in the land of Echigo. I had a wife; but for a trifling reason I parted from her and put her to live in the House of the Tall Pines, which is not far distant from here. We had two children; and the girl I sent to live with her mother at the House of the Tall Pines, but the boy, Tsukiwaka, I have here with me, to be the heir of all my fortune.
And this being done, I brought a new wife to my home. Now it happens that in pursuance of a binding vow I must be absent for a while on pilgrimage to a place not far away. I will now give orders for the care of Tsukiwaka, my son. Is my wife there?
SECOND WIFE.
What is it?
TONO-I.
I called you to tell you this: in pursuance of a vow I must be absent on pilgrimage for two or three days. While I am away, I beg you to tend my child Tsukiwaka with loving care. Moreover I must tell you that the snow falls very thick in these parts, and when it piles up upon the bamboos that grow along the four walls of the yard, it weighs them down and breaks them to bits.
I don’t know how it will be, but I fancy there is snow in the air now. If it should chance to fall, pray order my servants to brush it from the leaves of the bamboos.
SECOND WIFE.
What? A pilgrimage, is it? Why then go in peace, and a blessing on your journey. I will not forget about the snow on the bamboos. But as for Tsukiwaka, there was no need for you to speak. Do you suppose I would neglect him, however far away you went?
TONO-I.
No, indeed. I spoke of it, because he is so very young....
But now I must be starting on my journey. (He goes.)
SECOND WIFE.
Listen, Tsukiwaka! Your father has gone off on a pilgrimage. Before he went, he said something to me about you. “Tend Tsukiwaka with care,” he said. There was no need for him to speak. You must have been telling him tales about me, saying I was not kind to you or the like of that. You are a bad boy. I am angry with you, very angry! (She turns away.)
TSUKIWAKA then runs to his mother at the House of the Tall Pines. A lyric scene follows in which TSUKIWAKA and his mother (the CHORUS aiding) bewail their lot.
Meanwhile the SECOND WIFE misses TSUKIWAKA.
SECOND WIFE.
Where is Tsukiwaka? What can have become of him? (She calls for a servant.) Where has Tsukiwaka gone off to?
SERVANT.
I have not the least idea.
SECOND WIFE.
Why, of course! I have guessed. He took offence at what I said to him just now and has gone off as usual to the Tall Pines to blab to his mother. How tiresome! Go and tell him that his father has come home and has sent for him; bring him back with you.
SERVANT.
I tremble and obey. (He goes to the “hashigakari” and speaks to TSUKIWAKA and the FIRST WIFE.) The master has come back and sent for you, Master Tsukiwaka! Come back quickly!
FIRST WIFE.
What? His father has sent for him? What a pity; he comes here so seldom. But if your father has sent for you, you must go to him. Come soon again to give your mother comfort!
(The SERVANT takes TSUKIWAKA back to the SECOND WIFE.)
SERVANT.
Madam, I have brought back Master Tsukiwaka.
SECOND WIFE.
What does this mean, Tsukiwaka? Have you been blabbing again at the House of the Tall Pines? Listen! Your father told me before he went away that if it came on to snow, I was to tell some one to brush the snow off the bamboos round the four walls of the yard.
It is snowing very heavily now. So be quick and brush the snow off the bamboos. Come now, take off your coat and do it in your shirt-sleeves.
(The boy obeys. The CHORUS describes the “sweeping of the bamboos.” It grows colder and colder.)
CHORUS.
The wind stabbed him, and as the night wore on,
The snow grew hard with frost; he could not brush it away.
“I will go back,” he thought, and pushed at the barred gate.
“Open!” he cried, and hammered with his frozen hands.
None heard him; his blows made no sound.
“Oh the cold, the cold! I cannot bear it.
Help, help for Tsukiwaka!”
Never blew wind more wildly!
(TSUKIWAKA falls dead upon the snow.)
The servant finds him there and goes to the House of the Tall Pines to inform the mother. A scene of lament follows in which mother, sister and chorus join. The father comes home and hears the sound of weeping. When he discovers the cause, he is reconciled with the first wife (the second wife is not mentioned again), and owing to their pious attitude, the child returns to life.
TORI-OI
BY KONGO YAGORO
Bears a strong resemblance to Take no Yuki.
The date of the author is unknown.
A certain lord goes up to the city to settle a lawsuit, leaving his steward in charge of his estate. In his absence the steward grows overbearing in his manner towards his mistress and her little son, Hanawaka, finally compelling them to take part in the arduous labour of “bird-scaring,” rowing up and down the river among the rice-fields, driving away the birds that attack the crop.
YUYA
Taira no Munemori had long detained at the Capital his mistress Yuya, whose aged mother continually besought him to send back her daughter to her for a little while, that she might see her before she died. In the illustration she is shown reading a letter in which her mother begs her to return.
Munemori insisted that Yuya should stay with him till the Spring pageants were over; but all their feasting and flower-viewing turned to sadness, and in the end he let Yuya go home.
TANGO-MONOGURUI
By I-AMI
There are several plays which describe the fatal anger of a father on discovering that his child has no aptitude for learning. One of these, Nakamitsu or Manju, has been translated by Chamberlain. The Tango-Monogurui, a similar play, has usually been ascribed to Seami, but Seami in his Works says that it is by a certain I-ami. The father comes on to the stage and, after the usual opening, announces that he has sent a messenger to fetch his son, whom he has put to school at a neighbouring temple. He wishes to see what progress the boy is making.
FATHER (to his SERVANT).
I sent some one to bring Master Hanamatsu back from the temple. Has he come yet?
SERVANT.
Yes, sir. He was here last night.
FATHER.
What? He came home last night, and I heard nothing about it?
SERVANT.
Last night he had drunk a little too much, so we thought it better not to say that he was here.
FATHER.
Oho! Last night he was tipsy, was he? Send him to me.
(The SERVANT brings HANAMATSU.)
Well, you have grown up mightily since I saw you last.
I sent for you to find out how your studies are progressing. How far have you got?
HANAMATSU.
I have not learnt much of the difficult subjects. Nothing worth mentioning of the Sutras or Shastras or moral books. I know a little of the graduses and Eight Collections of Poetry; but in the Hokke Scripture I have not got to the Law-Master Chapter, and in the Gusha-shastra I have not got as far as the Seventh Book.
FATHER.
This is unthinkable! He says he has not learnt anything worth mentioning. Pray, have you talents in any direction?
SERVANT (wishing to put in a good word for the boy).
He’s reckoned a wonderful hand at the chop-sticks and drum.[209]
FATHER (angrily).
Be quiet! Is it your child I was talking of?
SERVANT.
No, sir, you were speaking of Master Hanamatsu.
FATHER.
Now then, Hanamatsu. Is this true? Very well then; just listen quietly to me. These childish tricks—writing odes, capping verses and the like are not worth anything. They’re no more important than playing ball or shooting toy darts. And as for the chop-sticks and drum—they are the sort of instruments street urchins play on under the Spear[210] at festival-time. But when I ask about your studies, you tell me that in the Hokke you have not got to the Law-Master Chapter, and in the Gusha-shastra you have not reached the Seventh Book. Might not the time you spent on the chop-sticks have been better employed in studying the Seventh Book? Now then, don’t excuse yourself! Those who talk most do least. But henceforth you are no son of mine. Be off with you now!
(The boy hesitates, bewildered.)
Well, if you can’t get started by yourself I must help you.
(Seizes him by the arm and thrusts him off the stage.)
In the next scene Hanamatsu enters accompanied by a pious ship’s captain, who relates that he found the lad on the point of drowning himself, but rescued him, and, taking him home, instructed him in the most recondite branches of knowledge, for which he showed uncommon aptitude; now he is taking him back to Tango to reconcile him with his father.
At Tango they learn that the father, stricken with remorse, has become demented and is wandering over the country in search of his son.
Coming to a chapel of Manjushri, the captain persuades the lad to read a service there, and announces to the people that an eminent and learned divine is about to expound the scriptures. Among the worshippers comes an eccentric character whom the captain is at first unwilling to admit.
MADMAN.
Even madmen can school themselves for a while. I will not rave while the service is being read.
CAPTAIN.
So be it. Then sit down here and listen quietly. (To HANAMATSU.) All the worshippers have come. You had better begin the service at once.
HANAMATSU (describing his own actions).
Then because the hour of worship had come
The Doctor mounted the pulpit and struck the silence-bell;
Then reverently prayed:
Let us call on the Sacred Name of Shakyamuni, once incarnate;
On the Buddhas of the Past, the Present and the Time to Come.
To thee we pray, Avalokita, Lord of the Ten Worlds;
And all Spirits of Heaven and Earth we invoke.
Praised be the name of Amida Buddha!
MADMAN (shouting excitedly).
Amida! Praise to Amida!
CAPTAIN.
There you go! You promised to behave properly, but now are disturbing[211] the whole congregation by your ravings. I never heard such senseless shouting.
(A lyrical dialogue follows full of poetical allusions, from which it is apparent that the MADMAN is crying to Amida to save a child’s soul.)
CAPTAIN.
Listen, Madman! The Doctor heard you praying for a child’s soul. He wishes you to tell him your story.
The father and son recognize one another. The son flings himself down from the pulpit and embraces his father. They go home together, attributing their reunion to the intervention of Manjushri, the God of Wisdom.
IKKAKU SENNIN
(THE ONE-HORNED RISHI)
A Rishi lived in the hills near Benares. Under strange circumstances[212] a roe bore him a son whose form was human, save that a single horn grew on his forehead, and that he had stag’s hoofs instead of feet. He was given the name Ekashringa, “One-horn.”
One day it was raining in the hills. Ekashringa slipped and hurt himself, for his hoofs were ill-suited to his human frame. He cursed the rain, and owing to his great merit and piety his prayer was answered. No rain fell for many months.
The King of Benares saw that the drought would soon bring famine. He called together his counsellors, and one of them told him the cause of the disaster. The King published a proclamation promising half of his kingdom to any who could break the Rishi’s spell. Then the harlot Shanta came to the King and said, “I will bring you this Rishi riding him pickaback!”
She set out for the mountains, carrying fruit and wine. Having seduced the Rishi, she persuaded him to follow her to Benares. Just outside the town she lay down, saying that she was too tired to go a step further. “Then I will carry you pickaback,” said the Rishi.
And so Shanta fulfilled her promise.
In the No play (which is by Komparu Zembo Motoyasu 1453-1532) the Rishi has overpowered the Rain-dragons, and shut them up in a cave. Shanta, a noble lady of Benares, is sent to tempt him. The Rishi yields to her and loses his magic power. There comes a mighty rumbling from the cave.
CHORUS.
Down blows the mountain wind with a wild gust,
The sky grows dark,
The rock-cave quakes,
Huge boulders crash on every side;
The dragons’ forms appear.
IKKAKU.
Then the Rishi in great alarm—
CHORUS.
Then the Rishi in great alarm
Pursued them with a sharp sword.
And the Dragon King
Girt with the armour of wrath,
Waving a demon blade,
Fought with him for a little while.
But the Rishi had lost his magic.
Weaker and weaker he grew, till at last he lay upon the ground.
Then the Dragon King joyfully
Pierced the dark clouds.
Thunder and lightning filled
The pools of Heaven, and fast
The great rain fell; the wide floods were loosed.
Over the white waves flying,
The white waves that rise,
Homeward he hastens
To the Dragon City of the sea.
YAMAUBA
(THE DAME OF THE MOUNTAINS)
REVISED BY KOMPARU ZENCHIKU UJINOBU FROM AN ORIGINAL BY SEAMI
Yamauba is the fairy of the mountains, which have been under her care since the world began. She decks them with snow in winter, with blossoms in spring; her task carrying her eternally from hill to valley and valley to hill. She has grown very old. Wild white hair hangs down her shoulders; her face is very thin.
There was a courtesan of the Capital who made a dance representing the wanderings of Yamauba. It had such success that people called this courtesan “Yamauba” though her real name was Hyakuma.
Once when Hyakuma was travelling across the hills to Shinano to visit the Zenko Temple, she lost her way, and took refuge in the hut of a “mountain-girl,” who was none other than the real Yamauba.
In the second part of the play the aged fairy appears in her true form and tells the story of her eternal wanderings—“round and round, on and on, from hill to hill, from valley to valley.” In spring decking the twigs with blossom, in autumn clothing the hills with moonlight, in winter shaking snow from the heavy clouds. “On and on, round and round, caught in the Wheel of Fate.... Striding to the hill-tops, sweeping through the valleys....”
CHORUS.
On and on, from hill to hill.
Awhile our eyes behold her, but now
She is vanished over the hills,
Vanished we know not where.
The hill, says a commentator, is the Hill of Life, where men wander from incarnation to incarnation, never escaping from the Wheel of Life and Death.
YAMAUBA
(The Lady of the Mountains)
HOTOKE NO HARA
By SEAMI
Gio was the mistress of Kiyomori (1118-1181), the greatest of the Tairas. One day there arrived at his camp a famous dancing-girl called Hotoke. Kiyomori was for sending her away; but Gio, who had heard wonderful stories of Hotoke’s beauty, was anxious to see her, and persuaded Kiyomori to let Hotoke dance before him.
Kiyomori fell in love with the dancer, and after a while Gio was dismissed. She became a nun, and with her mother and sister lived in a hut in the wilds of Sagano.
Hotoke, full of remorse at her rival’s dismissal, found no pleasure in her new honours, and saying “It was I who brought her to this,” fled in nun’s clothing to the hut at Sagano. Here the four women lived together, singing ceaseless prayers to Buddha.
In the play the ghost of Hotoke appears to a “travelling priest” and tells the story, which is indeed a curious and arresting one.
MARI
(THE FOOTBALL)
A footballer died at the Capital. When the news was brought to his wife, she became demented and performed a sort of football-mass for his soul. “The eight players in a game of football,” she declared, “represent the eight chapters in the Hokke Scripture. If the four goal-posts are added the number obtained is twelve, which is the number of the Causes and Effects which govern life. Do not think of football as a secular game.”
The play ends with a “football ballet.”
The Journal of the great twelfth century footballer, Fujiwara no Narimichi, contains the following story: “I had brought together the best players of the time to assist me in celebrating the completion of my thousandth game. We set up two altars, and upon the one we placed our footballs, while on the other we arranged all kinds of offerings. Then, holding on to prayer-ribbons which we had tied to them, we worshipped the footballs.
That night I was sitting at home near the lamp, grinding my ink with the intention of recording the day’s proceedings in my journal, when suddenly the football which I had dedicated came bouncing into the room followed by three children of about four years old. Their faces were human, but otherwise they looked like monkeys. “What horrid creatures,” I thought, and asked them roughly who they were.
“We are the Football Sprites,” they said. “And if you want to know our names—” So saying they lifted their hanging locks, and I saw that each of them had his name written on his forehead, as follows: Spring Willow Flower, Quiet Summer Wood, and Autumn Garden. Then they said, “Pray remember our names and deign to become our Mi-mori, ‘Honourable Guardian.’ Your success at Mi-mari, ‘Honourable Football,’ will then continually increase.”
And so saying they disappeared.”
TORU
By KWANAMI OR SEAMI
Toru was a prince who built a great palace at Rokujo-kawara, near Kyoto. In its grounds was a counterfeit of the bay of Naniwa, which was filled and emptied twice a day in imitation of the tides. Labourers toiled up from the sea-shore, which was many miles distant, carrying pails of salt water.
In the play a priest passing through Rokujo-kawara meets an old man carrying salt-water pails. It is the ghost of Toru. In the second part he rehearses the luxury and splendour of his life at the great palace Rokujo-kawara no In.
MAI-GURUMA[213]
(THE DANCE WAGGONS)
By MIYAMASU (DATE UNKNOWN)
A man of Kamakura went for a year to the Capital and fell in love with a girl there. When it was time for him to return to Kamakura he took her with him. But his parents did not like her, and one day when he was not at home, they turned her out of the house.
Thinking that she would have gone towards the Capital, the man set out in pursuit of her. At dusk he came to a village. He was told that if he lodged there he must take part next day in the waggon-dancing, which was held in the sixth month of each year in honour of the god Gion. He told them that he was heart-sore and foot-sore, and could not dance.
Next day the villagers formed into two parties. The first party mounted the waggon and danced the Bijinzoroye, a ballad about the twelve ladies whom Narihira loved. The second party danced the ballad called Tsumado, the story of which is:
Hossho, Abbot of the Hiyeizan, was sitting late one summer night by the Window of the Nine Perceptions, near the Couch of the Ten Vehicles, in a room sprinkled with the holy water of Yoga, washed by the moonlight of the Three Mysteries. Suddenly there was a sound of hammering on the double-doors. And when he opened the doors and looked—why, there stood the Chancellor Kwan, who had died on the twenty-fifth day of the second month.
“Why have you come so late in the night, Chancellor Kwan?”
“When I lived in the world foul tongues slandered me. I am come to destroy my enemies with thunder. Only the Home of Meditation[214] shall be spared. But if you will make me one promise, I will not harm you. Swear that you will go no more to Court!”
“I would not go, though they sent twice to fetch me. But if they sent a third time ...”
Then Chancellor Kwan, with a strange look on his face, drew a pomegranate from his sleeve, put it between his lips, crunched it with his teeth, and spat it at the double-doors.
Suddenly the red pomegranate turned into fire; a great flame flickered over the double-doors.
When the Abbot saw it, he twisted his fingers into the Gesture of Libation; he recited the Water-Spell of the Letter Vam, and the flames died down.
And the double-doors still stand before the Abbot’s cell, on the Hill of Hiyei.
When the two dances were over, the master of ceremonies called for a dance from one of those who had been watching. A girl stepped forward and said she would dance the “Dance of Tora Parting from Sukenari.” Then they called across to the man who had lost his wife (he was over by the other waggon). “Come, you must dance now.” “Forgive me, I cannot dance.” “Indeed you must dance.” “Then I will dance the ‘Dance of Tora Parting from Sukenari.’”
“But this dance,” said the master of ceremonies, “is to be danced by a girl on the other side. You must think of another dance.”
MAN.
I know no other dance.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES.
Here’s a pretty fix! Ha, I have it! Let’s set the waggons side by side, and the two of them shall dance their dance together.
When they step up on to the waggons, the man finds that his partner is the wife he was seeking for. They begin to dance the “Dance of Tora,” but soon break off to exchange happy greetings. The plays ends with a great ballet of rejoicing.
There is one whole group of plays to which I have hitherto made no reference: those in which a mother seeks for her lost child. Mrs. Stopes has translated Sumidagawa, and Mr. Sansom, Sakuragawa. Another well-known play of this kind is Miidera, a description of which will be found in an appendix at the end of this book (p. 267).
A few other plays, such as Nishikigi, Motomezuka, and Kinuta, I have omitted for lack of space and because it did not seem to me that I could in any important way improve on existing versions of them.
