Over a silver hill of thirty cubits height
 A golden sun-wheel rose.

ROSEI.

And in the west
 Over a golden hill of thirty cubits height
 A silver moon-wheel rose,
 To prove his words who sang
 “In the Palace of Long Life[152]
 The Springs and Autumns cease.
 Before the Gate of Endless Youth[153]
 The days and months pass slow.”[154]

COURTIER.

I would address your Majesty. Your Majesty has reigned for fifty years. Deign but to drink this drink and you shall live a thousand years. See! I bring you the nectar and the grail.

ROSEI.

The nectar?

COURTIER.

It is the wine that Immortals drink.

ROSEI.

The grail?

COURTIER.

It is the cup from which they drink.

ROSEI.

The magic wine! A thousand generations shall pass

COURTIER.

Or ever the springtime of your glory fade.

ROSEI.

I bountiful ...

COURTIER.

Your people prosperous.

CHORUS.

For ever and ever
 The land secure;
 The flower of glory waxing;
 The “herb of increase,” joy-increasing
 Into the cup we pour.
 See! from hand to hand it goes.
 “I will drink,” he cries.

ROSEI.

Go circling, magic cup,

CHORUS.

Circling from hand to hand;[155]
 As at the Feast of Floating Cups[156]
 Hands thrust from damask sleeves detain
 The goblet whirling in the eager stream;
 Now launched, now landed![157]
 Oh merry flashing light, that shall endure
 Long as the Silver Chalice[158] circles space.

BOY DANCER.

The white chrysanthem-dew,

CHORUS.

“The dew of the flowers dripping day by day
 In how many thousand years
 Will it have grown into a pool?”[159]
 It shall not fail, it shall not fail,
 The fountain of our Immortality;
 He draws, and yet it wells;
 He drinks, and to his taste it is as sweet
 As the Gods’ deathless food.
 His heart grows airy; day and night
 In unimagined revel, incomparable pride and glory
 Eternally shall pass.

(End of the BOY DANCER’S dance. ROSEI, who has been watching this dance, now springs up in ecstasy to dance the Gaku or Court Dance.)

ROSEI.

The spring-time of my glory fades not ...

CHORUS.

Many times shall you behold
 The pale moon of dawn ...

ROSEI.

This is the moon-men’s dance;
 Cloud-like the feathery sleeves pile up; the song of joy
 From dusk to dawn I sing.

CHORUS.

All night we sing.
 The sun shines forth again,
 Sinks down, and it is night ...

ROSEI.

Nay, dawn has come!

CHORUS.

We thought the morning young, and lo! the moon

ROSEI.

Again is bright.

CHORUS.

Spring scarce has opened her fresh flowers,

ROSEI.

When leaves are crimson-dyed.

CHORUS.

Summer is with us yet;

ROSEI.

Nay, the snow falls.

CHORUS (speaking for ROSEI).

“I watched the seasons pass:
 Spring, summer, autumn, winter; a thousand trees,
 A thousand flowers were strange and lovely in their pride.
 So the time sped, and now
 Fifty years of glory have passed by me,
 And because they were a dream,

(At this point an ATTENDANT brings back the pillow, and places it in the “palace” which becomes a bed again.)

All, all has vanished and I wake
 On the pillow where I laid my head,
 The Pillow of Kantan.”

(The BOY DANCER and the two COURTIERS slip out by the side-door “kirido”; ROSEI has mounted the bed and is asleep.)

HOSTESS (tapping twice with her fan).

Listen, traveller! Your millet is ready. Come quickly and eat your dinner.

ROSEI (rising slowly from the bed).

Rosei has woken from his dream ...

CHORUS.

Woken from his dream! The springs and autumns of fifty years
 Vanished with all their glory; dazed he rises from the bed.

ROSEI.

Whither are they gone that were so many ...

CHORUS.

“The queens and waiting-ladies? What I thought their voices”

ROSEI.

Were but the whisperings of wind in the trees.

CHORUS.

The palaces and towers

ROSEI.

Were but the baiting-house of Kantan.

CHORUS.

The time of my glory,

ROSEI.

Those fifty years,

CHORUS.

Were but the space of a dream,

ROSEI.

Dreamed while a bowl of millet cooked!

CHORUS.

It is the Inscrutable, the Mystery.

ROSEI.

Yet when I well consider
 Man’s life in the world of men ...

CHORUS.

Then shall you find that a hundred years of gladness
 Fade as a dream when Death their sequence closes.
 Thus too has ended
 This monarch’s fifty years of state.
 Ambition, length of days,
 Revels and kingly rule,
 All, all has ended thus, all was a dream
 Dreamed while the millet cooked.

ROSEI.

Glory be to the Trinity,[160]
 Glory to the Trinity!

CHORUS.

Seek you a sage to loose
 The bonds that bound you to life’s woes?
 This pillow is the oracle you sought.
 Now shall the wayfarer, content to learn
 What here he learnt, that Life is but a dream,
 Turn homeward from the village of Kantan.

THE HŌKA PRIESTS
(HŌKAZŌ)

By ZENCHIKU UJINOBU (1414-1499)

PERSONS

MAKINO.

My name is Kojirō; I am the son of one Makino no Sayemon who lived in the land of Shimotsuke. You must know that my father had a quarrel with Nobutoshi, a man of Sagami, and was done to death by him. So this man was my father’s murderer and I ought to kill him. But he has many bold fellows to stand by him, while I am all alone. So the days and months slip by with nothing done.

A brother indeed I have, but he left home when he was a child, made himself into a priest, and lives at the seminary near by.

I am much puzzled how to act. I think I will go across and speak to my brother of this matter. (He goes to the curtain at the end of the hashigakari.) May I come in?

(The curtain is raised and the BROTHER appears.)

BROTHER.

Who is it?

MAKINO.

It is I.

BROTHER.

Come in, brother. What has brought you hither?

MAKINO.

I will tell you. It is this matter of our father’s murder that has brought me. I have been thinking that I ought to kill his enemy, and would have done so but he has many bold fellows to stand by him and I am all alone. So the days and months slip by and nothing is done.

For pity’s sake, decide with me what course we must pursue.

BROTHER.

Brother, what you have said is true enough. But have you forgotten that I left my home when I was but a child and made myself a priest? Since that is so, I cannot help you.

MAKINO.

So you are pleased to think; but men say he is a bad son who does not kill his father’s foe.

BROTHER.

Can you tell me of any that have ministered to piety by slaying a parent’s foe?

MAKINO.

Why, yes. It was in China, I think. There was one whose mother had been taken by a savage tiger. “I will take vengeance,” he cried, and for a hundred days he lay ambushed in the fields waiting for the tiger to come. And once when he was walking on the hillside at dusk, he thought he saw his enemy, and having an arrow already on his bow-string, he shot with all his might. It was nothing but a great rock that he had seen, shaped like a tiger. But his arrow stuck so deep in the stone that blood gushed out from it. If then the strength of piety is such that it can drive an arrow deep into the heart of a stone, take thought, I beseech you, whether you will not resolve to come with me.

BROTHER.

You have cited me a notable instance. I am persuaded to resolve with you how this thing may be effected.

Come now, by what strategy may we get access to our foe?

MAKINO.

A plan has suddenly come into my head. You know that these hōka plays are become the fashion of the day. Why should not I dress up as a hōka and you as a hōka priest? They say that our man is a great lover of the Zen doctrine; so you may talk to him of Zen.

BROTHER.

That is indeed a pretty notion; let me lose no time in effecting it.
 I am resolved; in a pilgrim guise
 I mask my limbs.

MAKINO.

And I, glad-thoughted,
 In a minstrel’s garb go forth.

BROTHER.

Secretly

MAKINO.

We steal from a home

CHORUS.

“Where fain we would stay, but now
 Long as life lasts,
 Life fickle as the moon of dawn,
 No refuge know we
 But the haven of our intent.”

(The BROTHERS leave the stage. Enter their enemy NOBUTOSHI, followed by his Servant.)

NOBUTOSHI.

To the home of gods my footsteps turn
 To the Sacred Fence that bars
 No suppliant’s desire.

I am called Tone no Nobutoshi. My home is in the land of Sagami. Because for much time past I have been troubled with evil dreams, I have resolved to visit the Three Isles of Seto.

(Re-enter the Brothers: MAKINO with bow and arrow in his hand and bamboo sprigs stuck in his belt behind; the BROTHER carrying a long staff to which a round fan is attached.)

BROTHER.

A fine sight are we now!
 From priest and laic way alike removed,
 Scarce men in speech or form!

MAKINO.

This antic garb shall hide us from the World
 More safe than hermit cell;
 All earthly thoughts shut out here might we bide
 Cloistered in ease. Oh why,
 Why back to the bitter World
 Are we borne by our intent?

MAKINO and BROTHER.

The flower that has fallen dreams that Spring is done,
 There are white clouds to cover
 The green hillside ...

MAKINO.

To match the scarlet
 Of the autumn leaves
 Red sunlight glitters
 On the flowing stream.

CHORUS.

Wind at morning, rain at night;
 To-day and to-morrow
 Shall be part of long ago.
 We who pass through a world
 Changeful as the dews of evening,
 Uncertain as the skies of Spring,
 We that are as foam upon the stream,—
 Can any be our foe?

SERVANT (seeing them and going towards the hashigakari).

You’re a merry pair of guys! What may your names be?

BROTHER.

Floating Cloud; Running Water.

SERVANT.

And what is your friend’s name?

MAKINO.

Floating Cloud; Running Water.

SERVANT.

Have you then but one name between you?

BROTHER.

I am Floating Cloud and he is Running Water. And now, pray, tell us your master’s name.

SERVANT.

Why, he comes from the land of Sagami, and Nobutoshi ... (here the SERVANT suddenly remembers that he is being indiscreet and stuffs his hand into his mouth) ... is not his name.

BROTHER.

That’s no matter. Whoever he is, tell him that we are only two hōka come to speak with him.

SERVANT.

I will tell him. Do you wait here.

(He goes over to NOBUTOSHI and whispers with him, then comes back to the BROTHERS.)

Come this way.

(NOBUTOSHI comes to meet them, covering his face with a fan.)

NOBUTOSHI.

Listen, gentlemen, I desire an explanation from you.

BROTHER.

What would you know?

NOBUTOSHI.

It is this. They alone can be called priests round whose fingers is twisted the rosary of Tenfold Power, who are clad in cloak of Forbearance, round whose shoulders hangs the stole of Penitence. Such is everywhere the garb of Buddha’s priests. I know no other habit. But you, I see, carry a round fan tied to your pillar-staff. By what verse do you justify the wearing of a fan?

BROTHER.

“In motion, a wind;
 In stillness, a bright moon.”
 And even as in this one substance
 Both wind and moon inhere,
 So Thought alone is Truth, and from the mind
 Spring all component things.
 Such is the sermon of the fan, as a sign we bear it
 Of the heart’s omnipotence. It is an emblem
 Fools only would decry!

NOBUTOSHI.

The fan indeed teaches an agreeable lesson; but one of you carries a bow and arrow at his side. Are these too reckoned fit gear for men of your profession?

MAKINO.

The bow? Why, surely!
 Are not its two horns fashioned
 In likeness of the Hare and Crow,
 Symbols of the Moon and Sun, of Night and Day?
 Here is the primal mystery displayed
 Of fair and foul conjoined.[161]
 Bears not the God of Love, unsullied king,
 A magical bow? Does he not stretch upon its string
 Arrows of grace whereby
 The armies of the Four Fiends[162] know no rest

CHORUS.

And thus we two are armed,
 For though the bow be not bent nor the arrow loosed,
 Yet falls the prey unmasked.

(MAKINO draws his bow as though about to shoot; his BROTHER checks him with his staff.)

So says the song. Now speak no more
 Of things you know not of.

NOBUTOSHI.

Tell me, pray, from which patriarch do the hōka priests derive their doctrine? To what sect do you adhere?

BROTHER.

We are of no sect; our doctrine stands apart. It cannot be spoken nor expounded. To frame it in sentences is to degrade our faith; to set it down in writing is to be untrue to our Order; but by the bending of a leaf is the wind’s journey known.

NOBUTOSHI.

I thank you; your exposition delights me. Pray tell me now, what is the meaning of this word “Zen”?

MAKINO.

Within, to sound to their depths the waters of Mystery;
 Without, to wander at will through the portals of Concentration.

NOBUTOSHI.

And of the doctrine that Buddha is in the bones of each one of us ...?

BROTHER.

He lurks unseen; like the golden dragon[163] when he leaps behind the clouds.

NOBUTOSHI.

If we believe that life and death are real ...

BROTHER.

Then are we caught in the wheel of sorrow.

NOBUTOSHI.

But if we deny them ...

BROTHER.

We are listed to a heresy.[164]

NOBUTOSHI.

And the straight path to knowledge ...

MAKINO (rushing forward sword in hand).

“With the triple stroke is carved.”[165]

Hold! (turning to NOBUTOSHI who has recoiled and drawn his sword.)

“To carve a way to knowledge by the triple stroke” ...
 These are Zen words; he was but quoting a text.
 This perturbation does little honour to your wits.

CHORUS.

Thus do men ever
 Blurt out or blazen on the cheek
 Red as rock-rose[166] the thing they would not speak.
 Now by the Trinity, how foolish are men’s hearts!

SERVANT (aside).

While my masters are fooling, I’ll to my folly too.

(He slips out by the side door.)

BROTHER (embarking upon a religious discourse in order to allay NOBUTOSHI’S suspicions).

It matters not whether faith and words be great or small,
 Whether the law be kept or broken.

CHORUS.

Neither in the “Yea” nor “Nay” is the Truth found;
 There is none but may be saved at last.

BROTHER.

Not man alone; the woods and fields
 Show happy striving.

CHORUS.

The willow in his green, the peony
 In crimson dressed.

(The BROTHER here begins his first dance; like that which follows, it is a “shimai” or dance without instrumental music.)

On mornings of green spring
 When at the valley’s shining gate
 First melt the hawthorn-warbler’s frozen tears,
 Or when by singing foam
 Of snow-fed waters echoes the discourse
 Of neighbourly frogs;—then speaks
 The voice of Buddha’s heart.
 Autumn, by eyes unseen,
 Is heard in the wind’s anger;
 And the clash of river-reeds, the clamorous descent
 Of wild-geese searching
 The home-field’s face,
 Clouds shaped like leaves of rice,—all these
 To watchful eyes foretell the evening storm.
 He who has seen upon a mountain-side
 Stock-still beneath the moon
 The young deer stand in longing for his mate,
 That man may read the writing, and forget
 The finger on the page.

BROTHER.

Even so the fisher’s boats that ride
 The harbour of the creek,

CHORUS.

Bring back the fish, but leave the net behind.
 These things you have heard and seen;
 In the wind of the hill-top, in the valley’s song,
 In the film of night, in the mist of morning
 Is it proclaimed that Thought alone
 Was, Is and Shall be.

BROTHER.

Conceive this truth and wake!
 As a cloud that hides the moon, so Matter veils

CHORUS.

The face of Thought.

BROTHER (begins his second dance, while the CHORUS sings the ballad used by the “hōka” players).

Oh, a pleasant place is the City of Flowers;

CHORUS.

No pen could write its wonders.[167]
 In the east, Gion and the Temple of Clear Waters
 Where torrents tumble with a noise of many wings;
 In the storm-wind flutter, flutter
 The blossoms of the Earth-lord’s tree.[168]
 In the west, the Temple of the Wheel of Law,
 The Shrine of Saga (Turn, if thou wilt,
 Wheel of the Water Mill!),
 Where river-waves dance on the weir
 And river-willows by the waves are chafed;
 Oxen of the City by the wheels are chafed;
 And the tea-mortar by the pestle is chafed.
 Why, and I’d forgot! In the hōka’s hands
 The kokiriko[169] is chafed.
 Now long may our Lord rule
 Age notched on age, like the notches
 Of these gnarled sticks!

MAKINO and BROTHER.

Enough! Why longer hide our plot?

(They draw their swords and rush upon NOBUTOSHI, who places his hat upon the ground and slips out at the side-door. The hat henceforward symbolically represents NOBUTOSHI, an actual representation of slaughter being thus avoided.)

CHORUS.

Then the brothers drew their swords and rushed upon him,
 The foe of their desire.

(MAKINO gets behind the hat, to signify that NOBUTOSHI is surrounded.)

They have scaled the summit of their hate,
 The rancour of many months and years.
 The way is open to the bourne of their intent.

(They strike.)

They have laid their enemy low.
 So when the hour was come
 Did these two brothers
 By sudden resolution
 Destroy their father’s foe.
 For valour and piety are their names remembered
 Even in this aftertime.
THE ANGEL IN HAGOROMO


Note on Hagoromo.

The story of the mortal who stole an angel’s cloak and so prevented her return to heaven is very widely spread. It exists, with variations and complications, in India, China, Japan, the Liu Chiu Islands and Sweden. The story of Hasan in the Arabian Nights is an elaboration of the same theme.

The Nō play is said to have been written by Seami, but a version of it existed long before. The last half consists merely of chants sung to the dancing. Some of these (e.g. the words to the Suruga Dance) have no relevance to the play, which is chiefly a framework or excuse for the dances. It is thus a Nō of the primitive type, and perhaps belongs, at any rate in its conception, to an earlier period than such unified dramas as Atsumori or Kagekiyo. The words of the dances in Maiguruma are just as irrelevant to the play as those of the Suruga Dance in Hagoromo, but there the plot explains and even demands their intrusion.

The libretto of the second part lends itself very ill to translation, but I have thought it best to give the play in full.

HAGOROMO

By SEAMI

PERSONS

FISHERMAN.

Loud the rowers’ cry
 Who through the storm-swept paths of Mio Bay
 Ride to the rising sea.

HAKURYŌ.

I am Hakuryō, a fisherman whose home is by the pine-woods of Mio.

BOTH.

“On a thousand leagues of lovely hill clouds suddenly close;
 But by one tower the bright moon shines in a clear sky.”[170]
 A pleasant season, truly: on the pine-wood shore
 The countenance of Spring;
 Early mist close-clasped to the swell of the sea;
 In the plains of the sky a dim, loitering moon.
 Sweet sight, to gaze enticing
 Eyes even of us earth-cumbered
 Low souls, least for attaining
 Of high beauty nurtured.
 Oh unforgettable! By mountain paths
 Down to the sea of Kiyomi I come
 And on far woodlands look,
 Pine-woods of Mio, thither
 Come, thither guide we our course.
 Fishers, why put you back your boats to shore,
 No fishing done?
Thought you them rising waves, those billowy clouds
 Wind-blown across sea?
 Wait, for the time is Spring and in the trees
 The early wind his everlasting song
 Sings low; and in the bay
 Silent in morning calm the little ships,
 Ships of a thousand fishers, ride the sea.

(The second FISHERMAN retires to a position near the leader of the CHORUS, and takes no further part in the action.)

HAKURYŌ.

Now I have landed at the pine-wood of Mio and am viewing the beauty of the shore. Suddenly there is music in the sky, a rain of flowers, unearthly fragrance wafted on all sides. These are no common things; nor is this beautiful cloak that hangs upon the pine-tree. I come near to it. It is marvellous in form and fragrance. This surely is no common dress. I will take it back with me and show it to the people of my home. It shall be a treasure in my house.

(He walks four steps towards the Waki’s pillar carrying the feather robe.)

ANGEL (entering through the curtain at the end of the gallery).

Stop! That cloak is mine. Where are you going with it?

HAKURYŌ.

This is a cloak I found here. I am taking it home.

ANGEL.

It is an angel’s robe of feathers, a cloak no mortal man may wear. Put it back where you found it.

HAKURYŌ.

How? Is the owner of this cloak an angel of the sky? Why, then, I will put it in safe keeping. It shall be a treasure in the land, a marvel to men unborn.[171] I will not give back your cloak.

ANGEL.

Oh pitiful! How shall I cloakless tread
 The wing-ways of the air, how climb
 The sky, my home?
 Oh, give it back, in charity give it back.

HAKURYŌ.

No charity is in me, and your moan
 Makes my heart resolute.
 Look, I take your robe, hide it, and will not give it back.

(Describing his own actions. Then he walks away.)

ANGEL.

Like a bird without wings,
 I would rise, but robeless

HAKURYŌ.