The Noh Plays of Japan (5 page)

PERSONS

PRIEST

I am one that serves H
ō
nen Sh
ō
nin of Kurodani; and as for this child here—once when H
ō
nen was on a visit to the Temple of Kamo he saw a box lying under a trailing fir-tree; and when he raised the lid, what should he find inside but a lovely man-child one year old! It did not seem to be more than a common foundling, but my master in his compassion took the infant home with him. Ever since then he has had it in his care, doing all that was needful for it; and now the boy is over ten years old.

But it is a hard thing to have no father or mother, so one day after his preaching the Sh
ō
nin told the child's story. And sure enough a young woman stepped out from among the hearers and said it was her child. And when he took her aside and questioned her, he found that the child's father was Taira no Atsumori, who had fallen in battle at Ichi-no-Tani years ago. When the boy was told of this, he longed earnestly to see his father's face, were it but in a dream, and the Sh
ō
nin bade him go and pray at the shrine of Kamo. He was to go every day for a week, and this is the last day.

That is why I have brought him out with me.

But here we are at the Kamo shrine.
Pray well, boy, pray well!

BOY

How fills my heart with awe
When I behold the crimson palisade
Of this abode of gods!
Oh may my heart be clean
As the River of Ablution;
*
And the God's kindness deep
As its unfathomed waters. Show to me,
Though it were but in dream,
My father's face and form.
Is not my heart so ground away with prayer,
So smooth that it will slip
Unfelt into the favor of the gods?
But thou too, Censor of our prayers,
God of Tadasu,
^†
on the gods prevail
That what I crave may be!

How strange! While I was praying I fell half-asleep and had a wonderful dream.

PRIEST

Tell me your wonderful dream.

BOY

A strange voice spoke to me from within the Treasure Hall, saying, "If you are wanting, though it were but in a dream, to see your father's face, go down from here to the woods of Ikuta in the country of Settsu." That is the marvellous dream I had.

PRIEST

It is indeed a wonderful message that the God has sent you. And why should I go back at once to Kurodani? I had best take you straight to the forest of Ikuta. Let us be going.

PRIEST
(describing the journey
)

From the shrine of Kamo,
From under the shadow of the hills,
We set out swiftly;
Past Yamazaki to the fog-bound
Shores of Minasé;
And onward where the gale
Tears travelers' coats and winds about their bones.
"Autumn has come to woods where yesterday
We might have plucked the green."
*
To Settsu, to those woods of Ikuta
Lo! We are come.

We have gone so fast that here we are already at the woods of Ikuta in the country of Settsu. I have heard tell in the Capital of the beauty of these woods and the river that runs through them. But what I see now surpasses all that I have heard.

Look! Those meadows must be the Downs of Ikuta. Let us go nearer and admire them.

But while we have been going about looking at one view and another, the day has dusked.

I think I see a light over there. There must be a house. Let us go to it and ask for lodging.

ATSUMORI
(speaking from inside a hut
).

Beauty, perception, knowledge, motion, consciousness—
The Five Attributes of Being—
All are vain mockery.
How comes it that men prize
So weak a thing as body?
For the soul that guards it from corruption
Suddenly to the night-moon flies,
And the poor naked ghost wails desolate
In the autumn wind.

Oh! I am lonely. I am lonely!

PRIEST

How strange! Inside that grass-hut I see a young soldier dressed in helmet and breastplate. What can he be doing there?

ATSUMORI

Oh foolish men, was it not to meet me that you came to this place? I am—oh! I am ashamed to say it—I am the ghost of what once was...Atsumori.

BOY

Atsumori? My father...

CHORUS

And lightly he ran,
Plucked at the warrior's sleeve,
And though his tears might seem like the long woe
Of nightingales that weep,
Yet were they tears of meeting-joy,
Of happiness too great for human heart.
So think we, yet oh that we might change
This fragile dream of joy
Into the lasting love of waking life!

ATSUMORI

Oh pitiful!
To see this child, born after me,
Darling that should be gay as a flower,
Walking in tattered coat of old black cloth.
Alas!
Child, when your love of me
Led you to Kamo shrine, praying to the God
That, though but in a dream,
You might behold my face,
The God of Kamo, full of pity, came
To Yama, king of Hell.
King Yama listened and ordained for me
A moment's respite, but hereafter, never.

CHORUS

"The moon is sinking.
Come while the night is dark," he said,
"I will tell my tale."

ATSUMORI

When the house of Taira was in its pride,
When its glory was young,
Among the flowers we sported,
Among birds, wind, and moonlight;
With pipes and strings, with song and verse
We welcomed Springs and Autumns.
Till at last, because our time was come,
Across the bridges of Kiso a host unseen
Swept and devoured us.
Then the whole clan
Our lord leading
Fled from the City of Flowers.
By paths untrodden
To the Western Sea our journey brought us.
Lakes and hills we crossed
Till we ourselves grew to be like wild men.
At last by mountain ways—
We too tossed hither and thither like its waves—
To Suma came we,
To the First Valley and the woods of Ikuta.
And now while all of us,
We children of Taira, were light of heart
Because our homes were near,
Suddenly our foes in great strength appeared.

CHORUS

Noriyori, Yoshitsune—their hosts like clouds,
Like mists of spring.
For a little while we fought them,
But the day of our House was ended,
Our hearts weakened
That had been swift as arrows from the bowstring.
We scattered, scattered; till at last
To the deep waters of the Field of Life
*
We came, but how we found there Death, not Life,
What profit were it to tell?

ATSUMORI

Who is that?

(Pointing in terror at a figure which he sees off the stage.)

Can it be Yama's messenger? He comes to tell me that I have outstayed my time. The Lord of Hell is angry: he asks why I am late?

CHORUS

So he spoke. But behold
Suddenly black clouds rise,
Earth and sky resound with the clash of arms;
War-demons innumerable
Flash fierce sparks from brandished spears.

ATSUMORI

The Shura foes who night and day
Come thick about me!

CHORUS

He waves his sword and rushes among them,
Hither and thither he runs slashing furiously;
Fire glints upon the steel.
But in a little while
The dark clouds recede;
The demons have vanished,
The moon shines unsullied;
The sky is ready for dawn.

ATSUMORI

Oh! I am ashamed...
And the child to see me so...

CHORUS

"To see my misery!
I must go back.
Oh pray for me; pray for me
When I am gone," he said,
And weeping, weeping,
Dropped the child's hand.
He has faded; he dwindles
Like the dew from rush-leaves
Of hazy meadows.
His form has vanished.

By Seami

PERSONS

THE PRIEST GYOKEI

THE GHOST OF TAIRA NO TSUNEMASA

CHORUS

GYOKEI

I am Gy
ō
kei, priest of the imperial temple Ninnaji. You must know that there was a certain prince of the House of Taira named Tsunemasa, Lord of Tajima, who since his boyhood has enjoyed beyond all precedent the favor of our master the Emperor. But now he has been killed at the Battle of the Western Seas.

It was to this Tsunemasa in his lifetime that the Emperor had given the lute called Green Hill. And now my master bids me take it and dedicate it to Buddha, performing a liturgy of flutes and strings for the salvation of Tsunemasa's soul. And that was my purpose in gathering these musicians together.

Truly it is said that strangers who shelter under the same tree or draw water from the same pool will be friends in another life. How much the more must intercourse of many years, kindness and favor so deep . . .
*

Surely they will be heard,
The prayers that all night long
With due performance of rites
I have reverently repeated in this Palace
For the salvation of Tsunemasa
And for the awakening of his soul.

CHORUS

And, more than all, we dedicate
The lute Green Hill for this dead man;
While pipe and flute are joined to sounds of prayer.
For night and day the Gate of Law
Stands open and the Universal Road
Rejects no wayfarer.

TSUNEMASA
(speaking off the stage
)

"The wind blowing through withered trees: rain from a cloudless sky.
The moon shining on level sands: frost on a summer's night."
*
Frost lying...but I, because I could not lie at rest,
Am come back to the World for a while,
Like a shadow that steals over the grass.
I am like dews that in the morning
Still cling to the grasses. Oh pitiful the longing
That has beset me!

GY
Ō
KEI

How strange! Within the flame of our candle that is burning low because the night is far spent, suddenly I seemed to see a man's shadow dimly appearing. Who can be here?

TSUNEMASA
(his shadow disappearing
)

I am the ghost of Tsunemasa. The sound of your prayers has brought me in visible shape before you.

GY
Ō
KEI

"I am the ghost of Tsunemasa," he said, but when I looked to where the voice had sounded nothing was there, neither substance nor shadow!

TSUNEMASA

Only a voice,

GY
Ō
KEI

A dim voice whispers where the shadow of a man
Visibly lay, but when I looked

TSUNEMASA

It had vanished—

GY
Ō
KEI

This flickering form...

TSUNEMASA

Like haze over the fields.

CHORUS

Only as a tricking magic, A bodiless vision,
Can he hover in the world of his lifetime,
Swift-changing Tsunemasa.
By this name we call him, yet of the body
That men named so, what is left but longing?
What but the longing to look again, through the wall of death,
On one he loved?
"Sooner shall the waters in its garden cease to flow
Than I grow weary of living in the Palace of my Lord."
*
Like a dream he has come,
Like a morning dream.

GY
Ō
KEI

How strange! When the form of Tsunemasa had vanished, his voice lingered and spoke to me! Am I dreaming or waking? I cannot tell. But this I know—that by the power of my incantations I have had converse with the dead. Oh! marvellous potency of the Law!

TSUNEMASA

It was long ago that I came to the Palace. I was but a boy then, but all the world knew me; for I was marked with the love of our Lord, with the favor of an Emperor. And, among many gifts, he gave to me once while I was in the World this lute which you have dedicated. My fingers were ever on its strings.

CHORUS

Plucking them even as now
This music plucks at your heart;
The sound of the plectrum, then as now
Divine music fulfilling
The vows of Sarasvati.
*
But this Tsunemasa,
Was he not from the days of his childhood pre-eminent
In faith, wisdom, benevolence,
Honor and courtesy; yet for his pleasure
Ever of birds and flowers,
Of wind and moonlight making
Ballads and songs to join their harmony
To pipes and lutes?
So springs and autumns passed he.
But in a World that is as dew,
As dew on the grasses, as foam upon the waters,
What flower lasteth?

GY
Ō
KEI

For the dead man's sake we play upon this lute Green Hill that he loved when he was in the World. We follow the lute-music with a concord of many instruments.

(Music.
)

TSUNEMASA

And while they played the dead man stole up behind them. Though he could not be seen by the light of the candle, they felt him pluck the lute-strings...

GY
Ō
KEI

It is midnight. He is playing
Yabanraku,
the dance of midnight-revel. And now that we have shaken sleep from our eyes...