CHANTER (ponderously singing to the shamisen): When he lifts open the lid . . . ! (Sagami recognizes Kojirō.)
SAGAMI: Ahh! That head is . . . !
CHANTER (singing rapidly): Struck by the truth, the wife rushes forward; Lady Fuji strains to see! (With lightning speed, Kumagai claps the lid back over the head. Sagami rushes forward, but he forces her down the steps with the notice board. Fuji, straining to see, is prevented from approaching by Kumagai, who presses her back, using the notice board as a pole.)
KUMAGAI (harshly): Stop! You may see the head after our lord has verified it! You will be silent now! Silence! (The last word is drawn out in an agonized cry. They pose in a tableau.)
CHANTER (emotionally): Kumagai’s admonition . . . (Both women try to move forward. Kumagai shakes his head fiercely and pushes Fuji back with the board.) . . . calls them to shame . . . wanting to approach but unable to . . . (Kumagai raises the notice board over his head. Fuji, suddenly released, plunges headlong down the steps.) . . . racked by unendurable anxiety! (To loud beats they pose: Kumagai flicks a long trouser leg forward, plants his foot loudly on the top step, presses the notice board upside down against his shoulder, and glares at the women; Sagami and Fuji, kneeling, face Kumagai, hold up their hands to protect themselves, then fall forward, sobbing bitterly.) Circumspectly, Kumagai Jirō Naozane proceeds.
KUMAGAI (gripping the board emotionally): Prince Atsumori is the emperor’s offspring, living in the emperor’s Southern Palace. (Glances significantly at the notice board) “Rare double-flowering cherry tree from the south: if any person strikes off the flower of one branch, he must strike off the flower of the other.”10 Inferring what your intentions might be, I have cut off his head to correspond to the flower of your command! (His words are a strangled scream. His body trembles violently.) Has my lord’s will been fulfilled? Or has Kumagai misunderstood? Pronounce judgment!
This triptych by Utagawa Toyokuni III (1786–1864) depicts “Kumagai’s Battle Camp” with the actors who starred in the 1863 performance of Chronicle of the Battle of Ichinotani at the Ichimura Theater in Edo. Yoshitsune (right), played by the kabuki actor Ichimura Uzaemon XIII (1844–1903), is dressed in elegant battle armor and seated on a brocade stool. On the stairs, Kumagai, acted by Ichikawa Kodanji IV (1812–1866), holds off with a notice board his wife, Sagami, performed by Onoe Kikujirō II (1814–1875), while secretly holding the head of their son Kojirō. The vertical cartouches note each actor’s name and role. (Courtesy of the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University)
CHANTER: He cries out! . . . (The chanter’s voice quivers with emotion. His face contorted, Kumagai throws down the notice board and, with a single gesture, takes the lid from the case and thrusts the head of Kojirō before Yoshitsune. The chanter’s voice becomes hushed.) Yoshitsune smiles and initiates the inspection. (Yoshitsune opens his fan in a languid movement, holds it before his face, turns toward the head, and then slowly lowers the fan. Kumagai looks intently into Yoshitsune’s eyes, trying to read his lord’s expression. Yoshitsune nods slightly as he recognizes Kojirō. He continues to gaze at the pale face of the dead boy as he speaks delicately, yet he is deeply moved.)
YOSHITSUNE: Ahh. You have read Yoshitsune’s heart to spare the flower. The head was well taken. Now, let those relatives present pay final honor to this dead person, who unmistakably . . . is Atsumori.
CHANTER (sings slowly): After hearing these words . . . (Kumagai bows and moves, on his knees, to the veranda.)
KUMAGAI (scarcely audible): Here, Wife. (He places the head before her on the veranda.) Show Prince Atsumori’s head to Lady Fuji. (He looks at her with a look of warning. She slowly raises her eyes to meet his. A look of understanding passes between them. He retires upstage.)
SAGAMI (bowing): Yes.
CHANTER: Saying no more than yes, the wife . . . (Sagami rises, anguished, unable to look at the head of her son. She sinks to her knees weeping.) . . . lifts the pitiful head in her hands . . . (At last, she turns and looks but cannot bring herself yet to touch it. She takes folded paper from her breast, bites down hard on it to gain control of herself, turns away, and stands in a grief-stricken pose, head rhythmically bobbing up and down like a puppet to express her conflicting emotions.) . . . with brimming eyes she gazes at the changed face of her dead son . . . her breast, choked with bitter grief, her body quaking . . . (She staggers, catches herself, then sinks to the floor. Holding the head out at arm’s length, at last she gazes at it, lovingly, as she rocks from side to side.) ahhh! . . . the head in her trembling hands . . . (Taking the paper from between her teeth, she cradles the head in the crook of her arm and wipes Kojirō’s face. Her hands and body tremble.) . . . seems to be nodding . . .
SAGAMI: . . . as he did, when turning back at the gate, he smiled at me! When I recall his features . . . (She clutches the head to her breast and presses her cheek against Kojirō’s.)
CHANTER (emotionally): . . . how tragic . . .
SAGAMI: . . . how pathetic!
CHANTER: Her voice stops in her throat!
SAGAMI (tearfully): Dear Lady Fuji. Look. Lamented Prince Atsumori’s . . . head! (Putting a piece of clean paper beneath it, Sagami places the head on the floor facing Fuji. Seeing the head of Kojirō, Fuji turns to Sagami in wonder.)
FUJI: What? That head is . . .?
SAGAMI: Yes, it is! (Sagami quickly covers the head with the trailing of her robe as if to protect it and cries anew. She looks meaningfully at Fuji and partially uncovers the head.) Look carefully upon this head. May it dispel your rancor. You should, indeed, pay homage . . . pay homage to it! . . . (Covering the head again, she cries softly in time to the rhythm of the shamisen.) Ahh, this head . . . at the time I was secretly pregnant by Kumagai at the palace and forced to flee to the east to give birth . . . this head . . . you, too, gave birth to a child who became . . . Prince Atsumori! Together we carried a child in our wombs when we left our homes.
CHANTER: That, after sixteen years of separation, a maid-in-waiting could be of service to her lady . . . (Sagami looks down at the head under the robe. She waves her hands in the air distractedly.) . . . surely is an act of karma!
SAGAMI (frantically): At least, in death were his . . .
CHANTER: . . . last moments brave? she asks in tormented fear. (She lifts the robe to peer at her son’s face, then drops the robe with an agonized expression on her face. Tearfully she hugs the head in the robe to her breast.) The husband does not even blink before his lord, but tears stream from his eyes. . . . (Kumagai grips his fan tightly, his lips tremble, but he does not speak.) Were he to speak a word of consolation, he would choke on tears, he would spit blood! (Sagami falls to the floor, leans back first on one hand and then on the other. Suddenly she rises and runs to embrace Kojirō’s head once more, but Kumagai firmly gestures for her to go back. She collapses on the floor weeping.) Lady Fuji, in tremulous voice . . .
FUJI: Ah, dear Sagami, it had not crossed my mind until now that Kumagai had compassionately sacrificed your son for mine. With what words can I thank you? As to how he could play his flute and show his shadow on the doors—now I understand. (She faces Yoshitsune and bows deeply, indicating that she knows he has arranged these events. Suddenly battle alarms—a conch shell and drums and cymbals—sound offstage.)
CHANTER (rapidly): Carried by the wind, the conch shell’s battle cry clamorously pierces the ear! Roused by its sound, Yoshitsune . . .
YOSHITSUNE (briskly): Kumagai. The conch shell sounds assembly. Prepare yourself. Prepare for battle!
CHANTER (singing rapidly to shamisen accompaniment): Obedient to his words, Kumagai hurries from the room. Kajiwara, who has been listening all the while, runs in from the garden gate!
KAJIWARA: I heard you, I heard you! (Laughs harshly) I expected something like this, so on the excuse of investigating the stonecutter, I’ve done some spying! (He runs to the hanamichi.) The Kamakura shōgunate will be pleased to hear that Yoshitsune and Kumagai want to save Atsumor
i! Ha, ha! Just wait!
CHANTER: He shouts over his shoulders as he rushes off, when from behind, a stonemason’s steel chisel pierces his back as cleanly as a dagger’s blow! With a single cry, breath and life expire! As the general is thinking, “Who has done this?” the old stonecutter enters. (Midaroku, holding a stone chisel in his hand, runs on stage from the left. Seeing Yoshitsune, he assumes a pose of innocent old age.)
MIDAROKU: Well, well. A piece of worthless trash blocking your way has been removed, and a recent conversation has set my mind at ease. I will take my leave.
CHANTER: . . . he says, turning to go.
YOSHITSUNE: Wait, old man.
MIDAROKU: What is it you wish, my lord?
YOSHITSUNE: Identify yourself.
MIDAROKU: I have nothing to conceal. I am an old stonecutter: Midaroku from Mikage Village.
YOSHITSUNE: Then stand. You may go. (Relieved, Midaroku bows and crosses onto the hanamichi with the small slow steps of an elderly person. Yoshitsune suddenly glares at him.) Munekiyo, wait! Yaheibyoe Munekiyo! Wait!
CHANTER: Surprised at Yoshitsune’s words, he gasps but shows an innocent face.
MIDAROKU: Hey, Yahei! Our commander is calling you! Hey there, Yahei! (He enters and bows contritely to Yoshitsune.) No person called Yahei is here, your lordship.
YOSHITSUNE: The saying is true: “When a man is touched by extreme hatred, sorrow, or joy, these are not forgotten through a lifetime.” I recall with joy how, long ago, when my mother, Tokiwa, was nursing me at her breast, your kindness saved her, my brothers, and me from freezing in the snows of Fushimi outside the capital. Although I was only three years old, I remember your face and can clearly picture, whether or not you conceal it, the mole between your eyes. You disappeared soon after Councillor Shigemori died. It is good to see you well, Grandfather.
CHANTER (singing): Hearing this, Midaroku briskly returns, staring at Yoshitsune’s face as if to bore a hole through it!
MIDAROKU: Your insight is monstrous! They say Laozi was born wise,11 that by the age of three Zhuangzi could read a man’s face! But you, Yoshitsune! (A stage assistant helps him drop his kimono top, showing a samurai’s white underkimono beneath it, and take off his cap, revealing a thatch of snow white hair. No longer acting as the devious commoner, we see him as he really is: a proud samurai.) Had I not overlooked you that time, long ago, there would have been no general to breach the cliffs at Tekkai and at Hiyodorigoe and to reduce the Heike force at Suma Bay. Had I not saved Yoritomo’s life, the Heike would be ascendant now. Aghh! The greatest error of my life was helping you! Because of you, Lord Shigemori knew the Heike faced a perilous future. At the time of his death, he advised me to renounce the warrior’s life, go into hiding, and offer masses in memory of all the Taira who might fall. I took under my care the only remaining princess of the Taira family12 and retired to Mikage Village with three thousand gold ryō, which was intended for memorial services at the Heike ancestral temple at Iozan. Throughout Harima Province, at Nachi and Mount Kōya—at Heike mausoleums everywhere—I erected gravestones for those already departed, each memorial, each one, sprung from the bitter tears of its unknown donor . . . Yaheibyoe Munekiyo!! (He points to himself and screams his name as if it were a curse.) Although I had not seen Atsumori since he was an infant and could not possibly remember his face, without knowing why, I somehow felt the man who came to order Atsumori’s marker was a noble of the vanquished Heike, so I accepted his commission happily, never dreaming that he was ordering a stone memorial on this shore for the salvation of Kojirō’s soul, whose fate had changed his! Agh! The will of heaven is beyond man’s understanding, but for the two infants whom I saved from death—Yoritomo and Yoshitsune—to become leaders who would utterly annihilate the greatest Taira nobility . . . !
CHANTER: “. . . is fate too cruel to bear!” (Midaroku clasps his hands supplicating heaven.)
MIDAROKU: I am the traitor among the Heike who betrayed their trust! How the spirits of dead Taira lords and warriors will vent their hatred on me! Ahhh! Munekiyo! Wretched man!! (Like one demented, he tears his hair. He strikes his chest and arms.)
CHANTER: First raging, then contrite, his tears . . . challenge a waterfall! Ahhhhh! (Midaroku tumbles down the steps and collapses, weeping bitterly.) Wise since birth, General Yoshitsune says . . .
YOSHITSUNE (sensing Kumagai’s presence offstage): Ah, it is you, Kumagai. Bring the box of armor from the small room.
Midaroku revealed as a proud samurai with a white underkimono. (Photograph courtesy of Barbara Curtis Adachi Collection, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University)
CHANTER: Kumagai Jirō Naozane enters from within. Bearers place an armor box before their lord. (Kumagai wears battle dress: dark armor, gloves, leggings, and helmet. Bearers bring out a large wicker box and place it in front of Yoshitsune.)
YOSHITSUNE: Old man, take this box of armor to the princess. Do it . . . Midaroku!
MIDAROKU (surprised): Midaroku, did you say? Ah, I see. A Genji general can’t ask Munekiyo, friend of the Heike, for a favor! Ha, ha! Isn’t this an interesting situation? (He chuckles and assumes his previous guise of innocent old age.) I could do what you request, but armor for a girl? It seems inappropriate. I’ll just peek inside . . .
CHANTER (sings): When he lifts the lid and looks inside . . . ! (Opening the lid, he sees Atsumori. Fuji rushes forward.)
FUJI: Ahh! Is it . . .? (Midaroku claps the lid on the box. She tries to open it. He holds the lid tightly with one hand and pushes her back with the other.)
MIDAROKU (seeing Atsumori inside the box): There is . . . nothing . . . inside. (He pushes Fuji gently back and shakes his head. He looks at her meaningfully.) Even a traitor would be satisfied. Give thanks to Kumagai for . . . (He picks up the notice board and looks at it with tears in his eyes.) . . . strike off the flower of one branch, strike off the flower of the other. Ahh! How grateful we are! (He bows to Kumagai and Yoshitsune, weeping quietly in gratitude.)
CHANTER (sings): Hearing this, Sagami turns to her husband . . .
SAGAMI (dabbing her eyes): Although I am resigned knowing my child’s death was an act of loyalty, still, how could Kojirō and Atsumori, opponents in the battle, be exchanged?
KUMAGAI (gruffly): I have told you: I carried Atsumori from the field, pretending he was wounded. Obviously, it was Kojirō whom Hirayama challenged and Kojirō’s head I took!
CHANTER: She weeps at his harsh words.
SAGAMI: You are inhuman, Kumagai! He was not your child alone. After I have come one hundred, two hundred miles hoping anxiously to see his face, how can you scold me, saying nothing of what you have done except “obviously it was Kojirō’s head I took”?
CHANTER: She has reason to weep bitter tears and raise her voice. The general understands her feelings.
YOSHITSUNE: Kumagai. The time has come to depart for battle in the west. Prepare yourself.
KUMAGAI: My Lord, please grant the leave I have requested.
YOSHITSUNE: I understand. From time immemorial, the samurai has fought for fame in life in order to pass on glory to his heir. Should one’s son die before him, the will to battle dies, too. I grant your request, Kumagai. Enter monkhood in good spirits and offer services for the repose of my parents’ souls, I pray.
CHANTER (sings): This compassionate command is heard gratefully as he loosens his sash and slips off his armor. . . . (Beneath his helmet his head is shaven, and beneath his armor he wears a monk’s black cloak and plain gray kimono.) Seeing this, Sagami says . . .
SAGAMI (amazed): But . . . Kumagai . . . !
KUMAGAI (calmly, holding Buddhist prayer beads in his hands): I am doing nothing strange. In the midst of strife the general has generously granted my deep desire to renounce the world. From this moment, let me take the monk’s name Renshō and turn my steps toward Amida Buddha’s Western Paradise, where Kojirō—embarked before me on the Nine Stages of Bliss—and I shall one day sit together on the same lotus. Buddha Merci
ful All Hail. Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu.
CHANTER (singing): Commendable . . . and . . . heartbreaking! (Kumagai lifts the prayer beads to his forehead and prays.) Thinking “a long stay brings misfortune,” Midaroku plans to conclude the affair and quickly leave. (Midaroku kneels in front of the armor box and tries to tie it onto his back.)
MIDAROKU: Yo, ho! Yo, ho! Yo, ho! (Panting, he tucks one leg under him, plants the notice board firmly in the ground and, to accelerating shamisen music, manages at last to rise to his feet. He staggers left, then right, and finally stands straight.) Lord Yoshitsune! What if Prince Atsumori gathers once again remnants of the Heike clan and returns evil for good?
Kumagai as a monk, his head shaven, in a black cloak. (Photograph courtesy of Barbara Curtis Adachi Collection, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University)
YOSHITSUNE: It would be no more than heaven’s just retribution, for when Yoshitsune and his brother Yoritomo were saved, they rewarded with evil the kindness done to them.
KUMAGAI: Truly, when that time comes, the vanity of this world abandoned, unfettered to any man, Kumagai will stand apart from the bloody carnage and help equally the tortured souls of both Genji and Heike dead . . .
CHANTER: . . . offering prayers for their salvation. (Kumagai raises the prayer beads to his forehead and eyes. Midaroku looks at Kumagai and laughs wryly.)
MIDAROKU: When that time comes, Midaroku will abandon this world and return as Munekiyo!
KUMAGAI: Thoughts of a monk’s black robes fill my heart. I shall become a disciple of Priest Hōnen, submitting to his teaching in Kurodani, Black Valley. (Turns to Yoshitsune) May your good fortune increase, my lord.
CHANTER (singing): Saying this, wife joins husband . . . the stonecutter, together with Lady Fuji, stand beneath the eaves of the encampment. (Fuji kneels by Midaroku and looks questioningly at the box. Midaroku indicates with a reassuring nod that Atsumori is safe in his care.)
Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900 Page 62
