The Nō Plays Of Japan, by Arthur Waley--The Project Gutenberg eBook

She has not come. Is it not sung that those
Whom love has joined
Not even the God of Thunder can divide?
Of lovers, I alone
Am guideless, comfortless.
Then weary of himself and calling her to witness of his woe,
“Why should I endure,” he cried,
“Such life as this?” and in the waters of the pond
He cast himself and died.

The drum made no sound, and the aged Gardener in despair has flung himself into the pond by the laurel tree, and died. The soul of such a one may cling to you and do you injury. Go out and look upon him

PRINCESS (speaking wildly, already possessed by the GARDENER’S angry ghost, which speaks through her).[120]

Listen, people, listen!
In the noise of the beating waves
I hear the rolling of a drum.
Oh, joyful sound, oh joyful!
The music of a drum.

Strange, strange!
This lady speaks as one
By phantasy possessed.
What is amiss, what ails her?

Truly, by phantasy I am possessed.
Can a damask drum give sound?
When I bade him beat what could not ring,
Then tottered first my wits.

She spoke, and on the face of the evening pool
A wave stirred.

(The voice of the GARDENER is heard; as he gradually advances along the hashigakari it is seen that he wears a “demon mask,” leans on a staff and carries the “demon mallet” at his girdle.)

Anger clings to my heart,
Clings even now when neither wrath nor weeping
Are aught but folly.

One thought consumes me,
The anger of lust denied
Covers me like darkness.
I am become a demon dwelling
In the hell of my dark thoughts,
Storm-cloud of my desires.

“Though the waters parch in the fields
Though the brooks run dry,
Never shall the place be shown
Of the spring that feeds my heart.”[121]
So I had resolved. Oh, why so cruelly
Set they me to win
Voice from a voiceless drum,
Spending my heart in vain?
And I spent my heart on the glimpse of a moon that slipped
Through the boughs of an autumn tree.[122]

“Strike!” he cries;
“The quick beat, the battle-charge!
Loud, loud! Strike, strike,” he rails,
And brandishing his demon-stick
Gives her no rest.
“Oh woe!” the lady weeps,
“No sound, no sound. Oh misery!” she wails.
And he, at the mallet stroke, “Repent, repent!”
Such torments in the world of night
Abōrasetsu, chief of demons, wields,
Who on the Wheel of Fire
Sears sinful flesh and shatters bones to dust.
Not less her torture now!
“Oh, agony!” she cries, “What have I done,
By what dire seed this harvest sown?”

Clear stands the cause before my eyes;
I know it now.
By the pool’s white waters, upon the laurel’s bough
The drum was hung.
He did not know his hour, but struck and struck
Till all the will had ebbed from his heart’s core;
Then leapt into the lake and died.
And while his body rocked
Like driftwood on the waves,
His soul, an angry ghost,
Possessed the lady’s wits, haunted her heart with woe.
The mallet lashed, as these waves lash the shore,
Lash on the ice of the eastern shore.
The wind passes; the rain falls
On the Red Lotus, the Lesser and the Greater.[123]
The hair stands up on my head.
“The fish that leaps the falls
To a fell snake is turned,”[124]

In the Kwanze School this play is replaced by another called The Burden of Love, also attributed to Seami, who writes (Works, p. 166): “The Burden of Love was formerly The Damask Drum.” The task set in the later play is the carrying of a burden a thousand times round the garden. The Gardener seizes the burden joyfully and begins to run with it, but it grows heavier and heavier, till he sinks crushed to death beneath it.

I have learned to know them;
Such, such are the demons of the World of Night.
“O hateful lady, hateful!” he cried, and sank again
Into the whirlpool of desire.

Note on Aoi No Uye.

At the age of twelve Prince Genji went through the ceremony of marriage with Aoi no Uye (Princess Hollyhock), the Prime Minister’s daughter. She continued to live at her father’s house and Genji at his palace. When he was about sixteen he fell in love with Princess Rokujō, the widow of the Emperor’s brother; she was about eight years older than himself. He was not long faithful to her. The lady Yūgao next engaged his affections. He carried her one night to a deserted mansion on the outskirts of the City. “The night was far advanced and they had both fallen asleep. Suddenly the figure of a woman appeared at the bedside. “I have found you!” it cried. “What stranger is this that lies beside you? What treachery is this that you flaunt before my eyes?” And with these words the apparition stooped over the bed, and made as though to drag away the sleeping girl from Genji’s side.”[125]

Before dawn Yūgao was dead, stricken by the “living phantom” of Rokujō, embodiment of her baleful jealousy.

Soon after this, Genji became reconciled with his wife Aoi, but continued to visit Rokujō. One day, at the Kamo Festival, Aoi’s way was blocked by another carriage. She ordered her attendants to drag it aside. A scuffle ensued between her servants and those of Rokujō (for she was the occupant of the second carriage) in which Aoi’s side prevailed. Rokujō’s carriage was broken and Aoi’s pushed into the front place. After the festival was over Aoi returned to the Prime Minister’s house in high spirits.

There is nothing obscure or ambiguous in the situation. Fenollosa seems to have misunderstood the play and read into it complications and confusions which do not exist. He also changes the sex of the Witch, though the Japanese word, miko, always has a feminine meaning. The “Romance of Genji” (Genji Monogatari) was written by Lady Murasaki Shikibu and was finished in the year 1004 A. D. Of its fifty-four chapters only seventeen have been translated.[126] It furnished the plots of many Nō plays, of which Suma Genji (Genji’s exile at Suma), No no Miya (his visit to Rokujō after she became a nun), Tamakatsura (the story of Yūgao’s daughter), and Hajitomi (in which Yūgao’s ghost appears) are the best known.

There is some doubt about the authorship of the play. Seami saw it acted as a Dengaku by his father’s contemporary Inūo. He describes Inūo’s entry on to the stage in the rôle of Rokujō and quotes the first six lines of her opening speech. These lines correspond exactly with the modern text, and it is probable that the play existed in something like its present form in the middle of the fourteenth century. Kwanze Nagatoshi, the great-grandson of Seami, includes it in a list of Seami’s works; while popular tradition ascribes it to Seami’s son-in-law Zenchiku.

AOI NO UYE
(PRINCESS HOLLYHOCK)

I am a courtier in the service of the Emperor Shujaku. You must know that the Prime Minister’s daughter, Princess Aoi, has fallen sick. We have sent for abbots and high-priests of the Greater School and of the Secret School, but they could not cure her.

And now, here at my side, stands the witch of Teruhi,[127] a famous diviner with the bow-string. My lord has been told that by twanging her bow-string she can make visible an evil spirit and tell if it be the spirit of a living man or a dead. So he bade me send for her and let her pluck her string. (Turning to the WITCH, who has been waiting motionless.) Come, sorceress, we are ready!

Ten shōjō; chi shōjō.
Naige shōjō; rokon shōjō.
Pure above; pure below.
Pure without; pure within.
Pure in eyes, ears, heart and tongue.

You whom I call
Hold loose the reins
On your grey colt’s neck
As you gallop to me
Over the long sands!

In the Three Coaches
That travel on the Road of Law
I drove out of the Burning House ...[128]
Is there no way to banish the broken coach
That stands at Yūgao’s door?[129]

This world
Is like the wheels of the little ox-cart;
Round and round they go ... till vengeance comes.
The Wheel of Life turns like the wheel of a coach;
There is no escape from the Six Paths and Four Births.
We are brittle as the leaves of the bashō;
As fleeting as foam upon the sea.
Yesterday’s flower, to-day’s dream.
From such a dream were it not wiser to wake?
And when to this is added another’s scorn
How can the heart have rest?
So when I heard the twanging of your bow
For a little while, I thought, I will take my pleasure;
And as an angry ghost appeared.
Oh! I am ashamed!

This time too I have come secretly [130]
In a closed coach.
Though I sat till dawn and watched the moon,
Till dawn and watched,
How could I show myself,
That am no more than the mists that tremble over the fields?
I am come, I am come to the notch of your bow
To tell my sorrow.
Whence came the noise of the bow-string?

Though she should stand at the wife-door of the mother-house of the square court ...[131]

How strange! I see a fine lady whom I do not know riding in a broken coach. She clutches at the shafts of another coach from which the oxen have been unyoked. And in the second coach sits one who seems a new wife.[133] The lady of the broken coach is weeping, weeping. It is a piteous sight.

It would not be hard to guess who such a one might be. Come, spirit, tell us your name!

In this Sahā World [134] where days fly like the lightning’s flash
None is worth hating and none worth pitying.
This I knew. Oh when did folly master me?

You would know who I am that have come drawn by the twanging of your bow? I am the angry ghost of Rokujō, Lady of the Chamber.

Long ago I lived in the world.
I sat at flower-feasts among the clouds.[135]
On spring mornings I rode out
In royal retinue and on autumn nights
Among the red leaves of the Rishis’ Cave
I sported with moonbeams,
With colours and perfumes
My senses sated.
I had splendour then;
But now I wither like the Morning Glory
Whose span endures not from dawn to midday.
I have come to clear my hate.

(She then quotes the Buddhist saying, “Our sorrows in this world are not caused by others; for even when others wrong us we are suffering the retribution of our own deeds in a previous existence.”

But while singing these words she turns towards AOI’S bed; passion again seizes her and she cries:)

I am full of hatred.
I must strike; I must strike.

You, Lady Rokujō, you a Lady of the Chamber! Would you lay wait and strike as peasant women do?[136] How can this be? Think and forbear!

Say what you will, I must strike. I must strike now. (Describing her own action.) “And as she said this, she went over to the pillow and struck at it.” (She strikes at the head of the bed with her fan.)

O Hate, Hate!
Her [138] hate so deep that on her bed
Our lady [139] moans.
Yet, should she live in the world again,[140]
He would call her to him, her Lord
The Shining One, whose light
Is brighter than fire-fly hovering
Over the slime of an inky pool.

But for me
There is no way back to what I was,
No more than to the heart of a bramble-thicket.
The dew that dries on the bramble-leaf
Comes back again;
But love (and this is worst)
That not even in dream returns,—
That is grown to be an old tale,—
Now, even now waxes,
So that standing at the bright mirror
I tremble and am ashamed.

I am come to my broken coach. (She throws down her fan and begins to slip off her embroidered robe.) I will hide you in it and carry you away!

(She stands right over the bed, then turns away and at the back of the stage throws off her robe, which is held by two attendants in such a way that she cannot be seen. She changes her “deigan” mask for a female demon’s mask and now carries a mallet in her hand.)

(Meanwhile the COURTIER, who has been standing near the bed:)

Come quickly, some one! Princess Aoi is worse. Every minute she is worse. Go and fetch the Little Saint of Yokawa.[141]

Who is it that seeks admittance to a room washed by the moonlight of the Three Mysteries, sprinkled with the holy water of Yoga? Who would draw near to a couch of the Ten Vehicles, a window of the Eight Perceptions?

It happens that at this time I am practising particular austerities and go nowhere abroad. But if you are a messenger from the Court, I will follow you.

He said: “I will say my incantations.”
Following in the steps of En no Gyōja,[142]
Clad in skirts that have trailed the Peak of the Two Spheres,[143]
That have brushed the dew of the Seven Precious Trees,
Clad in the cope of endurance
That shields from the world’s defilement,
“Sarari, sarari,” with such sound
I shake the red wooden beads of my rosary
And say the first spell:
Namaku Samanda Basarada
Namaku Samanda Basarada.[144]

ROKUJŌ (during the incantation she has cowered at the back of the stage wrapped in her Chinese robe, which she has picked up again.)

Be you what demon you will, do not hope to overcome the Gyōja’s subtle power. I will pray again.

Fudō Immutable.
Namaku Samanda Basarada
Senda Makaroshana
Sohataya Untaratakarman.
“They that hear my name shall get Great Enlightenment;
They that see my body shall attain to Buddhahood.”[145]

The voice of the Hannya Book! I am afraid. Never again will I come as an angry ghost.

When she heard the sound of Scripture
The demon’s raging heart was stilled;
Shapes of Pity and Sufferance,
The Bodhisats descend.
Her soul casts off its bonds,
She walks in Buddha’s Way.

CHAPTER V

Note on Kantan.

A young man, going into the world to make his fortune, stops at an inn on the road and there meets with a sage, who lends him a pillow. While the inn-servant is heating up the millet, the young man dozes on the pillow and dreams that he enters public life, is promoted, degraded, recalled to office, endures the hardship of distant campaigns, is accused of treason, condemned to death, saved at the last moment and finally dies at a great old age. Awaking from his dream, the young man discovers that the millet is not yet cooked. In a moment’s sleep he has lived through the vicissitudes of a long public career. Convinced that in the great world “honour is soon followed by disgrace, and promotion by calumny,” he turns back again towards the village from which he came.

Such, in outline, is the most usual version of the story of Rosei’s dream at Kantan. The earliest form in which we know it is the “Pillow Tale” of the Chinese writer Li Pi, who lived from 722 to 789 A. D.

It is interesting to see how Seami deals with a subject which seems at first sight so impossible to shape into a Nō play. The “sage” is eliminated, and in the dream Rosei immediately becomes Emperor of Central China. This affords an excuse for the Court dances which form the central “ballet” of the piece. In the second half, as in Hagoromo and other plays, the words are merely an accompaniment to the dancing.

Chamberlain’s version loses by the fact that it is made from the ordinary printed text which omits the prologue and all the speeches of the hostess.

The play is usually attributed to Seami, but it is not mentioned in his Works, nor in the list of plays by him drawn up by his great-grandson in 1524.

It is discussed at considerable length in the Later Kwadensho, which was printed c. 1600. The writer of that book must therefore have regarded the play as a work of Seami’s period. It should be mentioned that the geography of the play is absurd. Though both his starting-point and goal lie in the south-western province of Ssechuan, he passes through Hantan,[146] which lay in the northern province of Chih-li.

KANTAN

I who now stand before you am a woman of the village of Kantan in China. A long while ago I gave lodging to one who practised the arts of wizardry; and as payment he left here a famous pillow, called the Pillow of Kantan. He who sleeps on this pillow sees in a moment’s dream the past or future spread out before him, and so awakes illumined. If it should chance that any worshipful travellers arrive to-day, pray send for me.

Lost on the journey of life, shall I learn at last
That I trod but a path of dreams?

My name is Rosei, and I have come from the land of Shoku. Though born to man’s estate, I have not sought Buddha’s way, but have drifted from dusk to dawn and dawn to dusk.

They tell me that on the Hill of the Flying Sheep in the land of So [147] there lives a mighty sage; and now I am hastening to visit him that he may tell by what rule I should conduct my life.

Deep hid behind the alleys of the sky
Lie the far lands where I was wont to dwell.
Over the hills I trail
A tattered cloak; over the hills again:
Fen-dusk and mountain-dusk and village-dusk
Closed many times about me, till to-day
At the village of Kantan,
Strange to me save in name, my journey ends.

I have travelled so fast that I am already come to the village of Kantan. Though the sun is still high, I will lodge here to-night. (Knocking.) May I come in?

Yes, I can give you lodging; pray come this way.... You seem to be travelling all alone. Tell me where you have come from and where you are going.

I come from the land of Shoku. They tell me that on the Hill of the Flying Sheep there lives a sage; and I am visiting him that he may tell me by what rule I should conduct my life.

It is a long way to the Hill of the Flying Sheep. Listen! A wizard once lodged here and gave us a marvellous pillow called the Pillow of Kantan: he who sleeps on it sees all his future in a moment’s dream.

So this is the pillow, the Pillow of Kantan that I have heard such strange tales of? Heaven has guided me to it, that I who came out to learn the secret of life may taste the world in a dream.

As one whose course swift summer-rain has stayed,
Unthrifty of the noon he turned aside
To seek a wayside dream;
Upon the borrowed Pillow of Kantan
He laid his head and slept.

(While ROSEI is still chanting these words, the ENVOY enters, followed by two ATTENDANTS who carry a litter. The ENVOY raps on the post of the bed.)

I am come as a messenger to tell you that the Emperor of the Land of So [148] resigns his throne and commands that Rosei shall reign in his stead.

I cannot venture to determine. Doubtless there were found in your Majesty’s countenance auspicious tokens, signs that you must rule the land. Let us lose no time; pray deign to enter this palanquin.

What thing is this?
A litter spangled with a dew of shining stones?
I am not wont to ride. Such splendour! Oh, little thought I
When first my weary feet trod unfamiliar roads
In kingly state to be borne to my journey’s end.
Is it to Heaven I ride?

In jewelled palanquin
On the Way of Wisdom you are borne; here shall you learn
That the flower of glory fades like a moment’s dream.
See, you are become a cloud-man of the sky.[149]
The palaces of ancient kings
Rise up before you, Abō’s Hall, the Dragon’s Tower;[150]
High over the tall clouds their moonlit gables gleam.
The light wells and wells like a rising tide.[151]
Oh splendid vision! A courtyard strewn
With golden and silver sand;
And they that at the four sides
Pass through the jewelled door are canopied
With a crown of woven light.
In the Cities of Heaven, in the home of Gods, I had thought,
Shine such still beams on walls of stone;
Never on palace reared by hands of men.
Treasures, a thousand kinds, ten thousand kinds,
Tribute to tribute joined, a myriad vassal-kings
Cast down before the Throne.
Flags of a thousand lords, ten thousand lords
Shine many-coloured in the sky,
And the noise of their wind-flapping
Rolls round the echoing earth.

Note on Aoi No Uye.

AOI NO UYE (PRINCESS HOLLYHOCK)

CHAPTER V

Note on Kantan.

KANTAN

AOI NO UYE
(PRINCESS HOLLYHOCK)