The Noh Plays of Japan
Page 14
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 hoka plays are become the fashion of the day. Why should not I dress up as a hoka and you as a hoka 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 NOBU-TOSHI, 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;
Today and tomorrow
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 anybe 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.*
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† 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 hoka 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* 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.*
NOBUTOSHI
And the straight path to knowledge...
MAKINO (rushing forward sword in hand)
"With the triple stroke is carved."†
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 honor to your wits.
CHORUS
Thus do men ever
Blurt out or blazen on the cheek
Red as rock-rose‡ 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 neighborly 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 mountainside
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 harbor 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 "hoka" players)
Oh, a pleasant place is the City of Flowers;
CHORUS
No pen could write its wonders.*
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.†
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 hoka's hands
The kokiriko‡ 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 sidedoor.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 rancor 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.
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 Noh 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 Noh 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
HAKURYO (a Fisherman)
ANOTHER FISHERMAN
ANGEL
CHORUS
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."*
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 safekeeping. It shall be a treasure in the land, a marvel to men unborn.* I will not give back your cloak.
ANGEL
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
To the low earth you sink, an angel dwelling
In the dingy world.
ANGEL
This way, that way.
Despair only.
HAKURYŌ