by Arthur Waley
Heaven-gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees.(She kneels.)
Come, violent death,
Serve for mandragora to make me sleep!
Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out,
They then may feed in quiet.
(She sinks her head and folds her hands.)
The chorus, taking up the word "quiet," chant a phrase from the Hokkekyo: Sangai Mu-an, "In the Three Worlds there is no quietness or rest."
But the Pilgrim's prayers have been answered. Her soul has broken its bonds: is free to depart. The ghost recedes, grows dimmer and dimmer, till at last
use-nikeri
use-ni-keri
it vanishes from sight.
Footnotes
* For example in yuku kata shira-yuki ni...shira does duty twice, meaning both "unknown" and "white." The meaning is "whither-unknown amid the white snow."
* These dates have only recently been established
† See p.xxxi
* Not to be confused with the forged book printed in 1600 and used by Fenollosa.
† See note on Buddhism, p. 250.
* The piece to be used as an introduction. Modern performances are not confined to full Noh. Sometimes actors in plain dress recite without the aid of instrumental music, sitting in a row. Or one actor may recite the piece, with music (this is calledHayashi); or the piece may mimed without music (this is called Shimai).
* An old shiroto, i.e. person not engaged in trade.
* This, shows that, in seami's hands, the device of making an apparition the hero of the play was simply a dramatic convention
† This, too, is the only aspect of them that I can here discuss; no other kind of criticism being possible without quotation of the actual words used by the poet.
Note on Buddhism
The Buddhism of the Noh Plays is of the kind called the "Greater Vehicle," which prevails in China, Japan, and Tibet. Primitive Buddhism (the "Lesser Velicle"), which survives in Ceylon and Burma, centres round the person of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, and uses Pali as its sacred lnguage. The "Greater Vehicle," which came into being about the same time as Christianity and sprang from the same religious impulses, to a large extent replaces Shakyamuni by a timeless, ideal Buddha named Amida, "Lord of Boundless Light," perhaps originally a sun-god, like Ormuzd of the Zoroastrians. Primitive Buddhism had taught that the souls of the faithful are absorbed into Nirvana, in other words into Buddha. The "Greater Vehicle" promised to its adherents an after-life in Amida's Western Paradise. It produced scriptures in the Sanskrit language, in which Shakyamuni himself describes this Western Land and recommends the worship of Amida; it inculcated too the worship of the Bodhisattvas, half-Buddhas, intermediaries between Buddha and man. These Bodhisattvas are beings who, though fit to receive Buddhahood, have of their own free will renounced it, that they may better alleviate the miseries of mankind.
Chief among them is Kwaanon, called in India Avalokitesh-vara, who appears in the world both in male and female form, but it is chiefly thought of as a woman in China and Japan; Goddess of Mercy, to whom men pray in war, storm, sickness, or travail.
The doctrine of Karma and of the transmigration of souls was common both to the earlier and later forms of Buddhism. Man is born to an endless chain of reincarnations, each one of which is, as it were, the fruit of seed sown in that which precedes.
The only escape from this "Wheel of Life and Death" lies in satori, "Enlightenment," the realization that material phenomena are thoughts, not facts.
Each of the four chief sects which existed in medieval Japan had its own method of achieving this Enlightenment.
(1) The Amidists sought to gain satori by the study of the Hokke Kyō, called in Sanskrit Saddharma Pundarika Sūtra or "Scripture of the Lotus of the True Law," or even by the mere repetition of its complete title Myoho Renge Hokke Kyo. Others of them maintained that the repetition of the formula "Praise to Amida Buddha" (Namu Amida Butsu) was in itself a sufficient means of salvation.
(2) Once when Shäkyamuni was preaching before a great multitude, he picked up a flower and twisted it in his fingers. The rest of his hearers saw no significance in the act and made no response; but the disciple Käshyapa smiled.
In this brief moment a perception of transcendental truth had flashed from Buddha's mind to the mind of his disciple. Thus Käshyapa became the patriarch of the Zen Buddhists, who believe that Truth cannot be communicated by speech or writing, but that it lies hidden in the heart of each one of us and can be discovered by "Zen" or contemplative introspection.
At first sight there would not appear to be any possibility of reconciling the religion of the Zen Buddhists with that of the Amidists. Yet many Zen masters strove to combine the two faiths, teaching that Amida and his Western Paradise exist, not in time or space, but mystically enshrined in men's hearts.
Zen denied the existence of Good and Evil, and was sometimes regarded as a dangerous sophistry by pious Buddhists of other sects, as, for example, in the story of Shunkwan (see p. 207) and in The Hōka Priests (see p. 143), where the murderer's interest in Zen doctrines is, I think, definitely regarded as a discreditable weakness and is represented as the cause of his undoing.
The only other play, among those I have here translated, which deals much with Zen tenets, is Sotoba Komachi. Here the priests represent the Shingon Shū or Mystic Sect, while Komachi, as becomes a poetess, defends the doctrines of Zen. For Zen was the religion of artists; it had inspired the painters and poets of the Sung dynasty in China; it was the religion of the great art-patrons who ruled Japan in the fifteenth century.*
It was in the language of Zen that poetry and painting were discussed; and it was in a style tinged with Zen that Seami wrote of his own art. But the religion of the Noh plays is predominantly Amidist; it is the common, average Buddhism of medieval Japan.
(3) I have said that the priests in Sotoba Komachi represent the Mystic Sect. The followers of this sect sought salvation by means of charms and spells, corruptions of Sanskrit formulae. Their principal Buddha was Dainichi, "The Great Sun." To this sect belonged the Yamabushi, mountain ascetics referred to in Tanikō and other plays.
(4) Mention must be made of the fusion between Buddhism and Shinto. The Tendai Sect which had its headquarters on Mount Hiyei preached an eclectic doctrine which aimed at becoming the universal religion of Japan. It combined the cults of native gods with a Buddhism tolerant in dogma, but magnificent in outward pomp, with a leaning towards the magical practices of Shingon.
The Little Saint of Yokawa in the play Aoi no Uye is an example of the Tendai ascetic, with his use of magical incantations.
Hatsuyuki appeared in "Poetry," Chicago, and is here reprinted with the editor's kind permission.
Footnote
* See further my Zen Buddhism & its relation to Art. Luzac, 1922.
ATSUMORI, IKUTA, AND TSUNEMASA
IN the eleventh century two powerful clans, the Taira and the Mi-namoto, contended for mastery. In 1181 Kiyomori the chief of the Tairas died, and from that time their fortunes declined. In 1183 they were forced to flee from Kyōto, carrying with them the infant Emperor. After many hardships and wanderings they camped on the shores of Suma, where they were protected by their fleet.
Early in 1184 the Minamotos attacked and utterly routed them at the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani, near the woods of Ikuta. At this battle fell Atsumori, the nephew of Kiyomori, and his brother Tsunemasa.
When Kumagai, who had slain Atsumori, bent over him to examine the body, he found lying beside him a bamboo-flute wrapped in brocade. He took the flute and gave it to his son.
The bay of Suma is associated in the mind of a Japanese reader not only with this battle but also with the stories of Prince Genji and Prince Yukihira. (See p. 204.)
ATSUMORI
By Seami
PERSONS
THE PRIEST RENSEI (formerly the warrior Kumaga
i).
A YOUNG REAPER, who turns out to be the ghost of Atsumori.
HIS COMPANION
CHORUS
PRIEST
Life is a lying dream, he only wakes
Who casts the World aside.
I am Kumagai no Naozane, a man of the country of Musashi. I have left my home and call myself the priest Rensei; this I have done because of my grief at the death of Atsumori, who fell in battle by my hand. Hence it comes that I am dressed in priestly guise.
And now I am going down to Ichi-no-Tani to pray for the salvation of Atsumori's soul.
(He walks slowly across the stage, singing a song descriptive of his journey.)
I have come so fast that here I am already at Ichi-no-Tani, in the country of Tsu.
Truly the past returns to my mind as though it were a thing of today.
But listen! I hear the sound of a flute coming from a knoll of rising ground. I will wait here till the flute-player passes, and ask him to tell me the story of this place.
REAPERS (together)
To the music of the reaper's flute
No song is sung
But the sighing of wind in the fields.
YOUNG REAPER
They that were reaping,
Reaping on that hill,
Walk now through the fields
Homeward, for it is dusk.
REAPERS (together)
Short is the way that leads*
From the sea of Suma back to my home.
This little journey, up to the hill
And down to the shore again, and up to the hill—
This is my life, and the sum of hateful tasks.
If one should ask me
I too† would answer
That on the shores of Suma
I live in sadness.
Yet if any guessed my name,
Then might I too have friends.
But now from my deep misery
Even those that were dearest
Are grown estranged. Here must I dwell abandoned
To one thought's anguish:
That I must dwell here.
PRIEST
Hey, you reapers! I have a question to ask you.
YOUNG REAPER
Is it to us you are speaking? What do you wish to know?
PRIEST
Was it one of you who was playing on the flute just now?
YOUNG REAPER
Yes, it was we who were playing.
PRIEST
It was a pleasant sound, and all the pleasanter because one does not look for such music from men of your condition.
YOUNG REAPER
Unlooked for from men of our condition, you say!
Have you not read:—
"Do not envy what is above you
Nor despise what is below you?"
Moreover the songs of woodmen and the flute-playing of herdsmen,
Flute-playing even of reapers and songs of wood-fellers
Through poets' verses are known to all the world.
Wonder not to hear among us
The sound of a bamboo-flute.
PRIEST
You are right. Indeed it is as you have told me. Songs of woodmen and flute-playing of herdsmen...
REAPER
Flute-playing of reapers...
PRIEST
Songs of wood-fellers...
REAPERS
Guide us on our passage through this sad world.
PRIEST
Song...
REAPER
And dance...
PRIEST
And the flute...
REAPER
And music of many instruments...
CHORUS
These are the pastimes that each chooses to his taste. Of floating bamboo-wood
Many are the famous flutes that have been made;
Little-Branch and Cicada-Cage,
And as for the reaper's flute,
Its name is Green-leaf;
On the shore of Sumiyoshi
The Corean flute they play.
And here on the shore of Suma
On Stick of the Salt-kilns
The fishers blow their tune.
PRIEST
How strange it is! The other reapers have all gone home, but you alone stay loitering here. How is that?
REAPER
How is it, you ask? I am seeking for a prayer in the voice of the evening waves. Perhaps you will pray the Ten Prayers for me?
PRIEST
I can easily pray the Ten Prayers for you, if you will tell me who you are.
REAPER
To tell you the truth—I am one of the family of Lord Atsumori.
PRIEST
One of Atsumori's family? How glad I am!
Then the priest joined his hands (he kneels down) and prayed:
NAMU AMIDABU
Praise to Amida Buddha!
"If I attain to Buddhahood,
In the whole world and its ten spheres
Of all that dwell here none shall call on my name
And be rejected or cast aside."
CHORUS
"Oh, reject me not!
One cry suffices for salvation,
Yet day and night
Your prayers will rise for me.
Happy am I, for though you know not my name,
Yet for my soul's deliverance
At dawn and dusk henceforward I know that you will pray." So he spoke. Then vanished and was seen no more.
(Here follows the Interlude between the two Acts, in which a recitation concerning Atsumori's death takes place. These interludes are subject to variation and are not considered part of the literary text of the play.)
PRIEST
Since this is so, I will perform all night the rites of prayer for the dead, and calling upon Amida's name will pray again for the salvation of Atsumori.
(The ghost of ATSUMORI appears, dressed as a young warrior.)
ATSUMORI
Would you know who I am
That like the watchmen at Suma Pass
Have wakened at the cry of sea-birds roaming
Upon Awaji shore?
Listen, Rensei. I am Atsumori.
PRIEST
How strange! All this while I have never stopped beating my gong and performing the rites of the Law. I cannot for a moment have dozed, yet I thought that Atsumori was standing before me. Surely it was a dream.
ATSUMORI
Why need it be a dream? It is to clear the karma of my waking life that I am come here in visible form before you.
PRIEST
Is it not written that one prayer will wipe away ten thousand sins? Ceaselessly I have performed the ritual of the Holy Name that clears all sin away. After such prayers, what evil can be left? Though you should be sunk in sin as deep...
ATSUMORI
As the sea by a rocky shore, Yet should I be salved by prayer.
PRIEST
And that my prayers should save you...
ATSUMORI
This too must spring
From kindness of a former life.*
PRIEST
Once enemies...
ATSUMORI
But now...
PRIEST
In truth may we be named...
ATSUMORI
Friends in Buddha's Law.
CHORUS
There is a saying, "Put away from you a wicked friend; summon to your side a virtuous enemy." For you it was said, and you have proven it true.
And now come tell with us the tale of your confession, while the night is still dark.
CHORUS
He† bids the flowers of Spring
Mount the tree-top that men may raise their eyes
And walk on upward paths;
He bids the moon in autumn waves be drowned
In token that he visits laggard men
And leads them out from valleys of despair.
ATSUMORI
Now the clan of Taira, building wall to wall,
S
pread over the earth like the leafy branches of a great tree:
CHORUS
Yet their prosperity lasted but for a day;
It was like the flower of the convolvulus.
There was none to tell them*
That glory flashes like sparks from flint-stone,
And after—darkness.
Oh wretched, the life of men!
ATSUMORI
When they were on high they afflicted the humble;
When they were rich they were reckless in pride.
And so for twenty years and more
They ruled this land.
But truly a generation passes like the space of a dream.
The leaves of the autumn of Juyei'†
Were tossed by the four winds;
Scattered, scattered (like leaves too) floated their ships.
And they, asleep on the heaving sea, not even in dreams
Went back to home.
Caged birds longing for the clouds—
Wild geese were they rather, whose ranks are broken
As they fly to southward on their doubtful journey.
