by Arthur Waley
MAID
Madam, from these creatures we shall get no answer. Yet there is a sign that will guide our steps to the City. Look, yonder the wild geese are passing!
TERUHI
Oh well remembered! For southward ever
The wild geese pass
Through the empty autumn sky; and southward lies
The city of my lord.
Then follows the "song of travel," during which Teruhi and her companion are supposed to be journeying from their home in Echizen to the Capital in Yamato. They halt at last on the hashi-gakari, announcing that they have "arrived at the City." Just as a courtier (who together with the boy-Emperor and the two litter-bearers represents the whole coronation procession) is calling: "Clear the way, clear the way! The Imperial procession is approaching," Teruhi's maid advances on to the stage and crosses the path of the procession. The courtier pushes her roughly back, and in doing so knocks the flower-basket to the ground.
MAID
Oh, look what he has done! O madam, he has dashed your basket to the ground, the Prince's flower-basket!
TERUHI
What! My lord's basket? He has dashed it to the ground? Oh hateful deed!
COURTIER
Come, mad woman! Why all this fuss about a basket? You call it your lord's basket; what lord can you mean?
TERUHI
What lord should I mean but the lord of this land of Sunrise? Is there another?
Then follow a "mad dance" and song. The courtier orders her to come nearer the Imperial litter and dance again, that her follies may divert the Emperor.
She comes forward and dances the story of Wu Ti and Li Fu-jen.† Nothing could console him for her death. He ordered her portrait to be painted on the walls of his palace. But, because the face neither laughed nor grieved, the sight of it increased his sorrow. Many wizards labored at his command to summon her soul before him. At last one of them projected upon a screen some dim semblance of her face and form. But when the Emperor would have touched it, it vanished, and he stood in the palace alone.
COURTIER
His Majesty commands you to show him your flower-basket.
(She holds the basket before the EMPEROR.)
COURTIER
His Majesty has deigned to look at this basket. He says that without doubt it was a possession of his rural days.* He bids you forget the hateful letter that is with it and be mad no more. He will take you back with him to the palace.
OMINAMESHI
By Seami
THE play is written round a story and a poem. A man came to the capital and was the lover of a woman there. Suddenly he vanished, and she, in great distress, set out to look for him in the country he came from. She found his house, and asked his servants where he was. They told her he had just married and was with his wife. When she heard this she ran out of the house and leapt into the Hōjō River.
GHOST OF THE LOVER
When this was told him,
Startled, perturbed, he went to the place;
But when he looked,
Pitiful she lay, Limp-limbed on the ground.
Then weeping, weeping—
GHOST OF GIRL
He took up the body in his arms,
And at the foot of this mountain
Laid it to rest in earth.
GHOST OF LOVER
And from that earth sprang up
A lady-flower* and blossomed
Alone upon her grave.
Then he:
"This flower is her soul."
And still he lingered, tenderly
Touched with his hand the petals' hem,
Till in the flower's dress and on his own
The same dew fell.
But the flower, he thought,
Was angry with him, for often when he touched it
It drooped and turned aside.
Such is the story upon which the play is founded. The poem is one by Bishop Henjō (816-890):
O lady-flowers
That preen yourselves upon the autumn hill,
Even you that make so brave a show,
Last but "one while."
Hito toki, "one while," is the refrain of the play. It was for "one while" that they lived together in the Capital; it is for "one while" that men are young, that flowers blossom, that love lasts. In the first part of the play an aged man hovering round a clump of lady-flowers begs the priest not to pluck them. In the second part this aged man turns into the soul of the lover. The soul of the girl also appears, and both are saved by the priest's prayers from that limbo (half death, half life) where all must linger who die in the coils of shūshin, "heart-attachment."
MATSUKAZE
By Kwanami; Revised By Seami
LORD YUKIHIRA,brother of Narihira, was banished to the lonely shore of Suma. While he lived there he amused himself by helping two fisher-girls to carry salt water from the sea to the salt-kilns on the shore. Their names were Matsukaze and Murasame.
At this time he wrote two famous poems; the first, while he was crossing the mountains on his way to Suma:
"Through the traveler's dress
The autumn wind blows with sudden chill.
It is the shore-wind of Suma
Blowing through the pass."
When he had lived a little while at Suma, he sent to the Capital a poem which said:
"If any should ask news,
Tell him that upon the shore of Suma
I drag the water-pails."
Long afterwards Prince Genji was banished to the same place. The chapter of the Genji Monogatari called "Suma" says:
Although the sea was some way off, yet when the melancholy autumn wind came "blowing through the pass" (the very wind of Yakihira's poem), the beating of the waves on the shore seemed near indeed.
It is round these two poems and the prose passage quoted above that the play is written.
A wandering priest comes to the shore of Suma and sees a strange pine-tree standing alone. A "person of the place" (in an interlude not printed in the usual texts) tells him that the tree was planted in memory of two fisher-girls, Matsukaze, and Murasame, and asks him to pray for them. While the priest prays it grows late and he announces that he intends to ask for shelter "in that salt-kiln." He goes to the "waki's pillar" and waits there as if waiting for the master of the kiln to return.
Meanwhile Matsukaze and Murasame come on to the stage and perform the "water-carrying" dance which culminates in the famous passage known as "The moon in the water-pails."
CHORUS (speaking for MURASAME)
There is a moon in my pail!
MATSUKAZE
Why, into my pail too a moon has crept!
(Looking up at the sky.)
One moon above...
CHORUS
Two imaged moons below,
So through the night each carries
A moon on her water-truck,
Drowned at the bucket's brim.
Forgotten, in toil on this salt sea-road,
The sadness of this world where souls cling!
Their work is over and they approach their huts, i. e., the "waki's pillar," where the priest is sitting waiting. After refusing for a long while to admit him "because their hovel is too mean to receive him," they give him shelter, and after the usual questioning, reveal their identities.
In the final ballet Matsukaze dresses in the "court-hat and hunting cloak given her by Lord Yukihira" and dances, among other dances, the "Broken Dance," which also figures in Hagoromo.
The "motif" of this part of the play is another famous poem by Yukihira, that by which he is represented in the Hyakuninisshu or "Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets":
"When I am gone away,
If I hear that like the pine-tree on Mount Inaba
You are waiting for me,
Even then I will come back to you."
There is a play of words between matsu, "wait," and matsu, "pinetree";
Inaba, the name of a mountain, and inaba, "if I go away."
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The play ends with the release of the girls' souls from the shūshin, "heart-attachment," which holds them to the earth.
SHUNKWAN
By Seami
THE priest Shunkwan, together with Naritsune and Yasuyori, had plotted the overthrow of the Tairas. They were arrested and banished to Devil's Island on the shore of Satsuma.
Naritsune and Yasuyori were worshippers of the Gods of Ku-mano. They brought this worship with them to the place of their exile, constructing on the island an imitation of the road from Kyoto to Kumano with its ninety-nine roadside shrines. This "holy way" they decked with nusa, "paper-festoons," and carried out, as best they might, the Shintō ceremonies of the three shrines of Kumano.
When the play begins the two exiles are carrying out these rites. Having no albs* to wear, they put on the tattered hemp-smocks which they wore on their journey; having no rice to offer, they pour out a libation of sand.
Shunkwan, who had been abbot of the Zen† temple Hosshōji, holds aloof from these ceremonies. But when the worshippers return he comes to meet them carrying a bucket of water, which he tells them is the wine for their final libation. They look into the bucket and cry in disgust: Ya! Kore wa mizu nari! "Why, it is water!"
In a long lyrical dialogue which follows, Shunkwan, with the aid of many classical allusions, justifies the identification of chrysanthemum-water and wine.
CHORUS (speaking for SHUNKWAN.)
Oh, endless days of banishment!
How long shall I languish in this place,
Where the time while a mountain dewdrop dries
Seems longer than a thousand years?
A spring has gone; summer grown to age;
An autumn closed; a winter come again,
Marked only by the changing forms
Of flowers and trees.
Oh, longed-for time of old!
Oh, recollection sweet whithersoever
The mind travels; City streets and cloisters now
Seem Edens* garlanded
With every flower of Spring.
Suddenly a boat appears carrying a stranger to the shore. This is represented on the stage by an attendant carrying the conventionalized Noh play "boat" on to the hoshi gakari. The envoy, whose departure from the Capital forms the opening scene of the play—I have omitted it in my summary—has been standing by the "Waki's pillar." He now steps into the boat and announces that a following wind is carrying him swiftly over the sea. He leaves the boat, carrying a Proclamation in his hand.
ENVOY
I bring an Act of Amnesty from the City. Here, read it for yourselves.
SHUNKWAN (snatching the scroll)
Look, Yasuyori! Look! At last!
YASUYORI (reading the scroll)
What is this? What is this?
"Because of the pregnancy of Her Majesty the Empress, an amnesty is proclaimed throughout the land. All exiles are recalled from banishment, and, of those exiled on Devil's Island, to these two Naritsune, Lieutenant of Tamba and Yasuyori of the Taira clan, free pardon is granted."
SHUNKWAN
Why, you have forgotten to read Shunkwan's name!
YASUYORI
Your name, alas, is not there. Read the scroll.
SHUNKWAN (scanning the scroll)
This must be some scribe's mistake.
ENVOY
No, they told me at the Capital to bring back Yasuyori and Naritsune, but to leave Shunkwan upon the island.
SHUNKWAN
How can that be?
One crime, one banishment;
Yet I alone, when pardon
Like a mighty net is spread
To catch the drowning multitude, slip back
Into the vengeful deep!
When three dwelt here together,
How terrible the loneliness of these wild rocks!
Now one is left, to wither
Like a flower dropped on the shore.
like a broken sea-weed branch
That no wave carries home.
Is not this island named
The Realm of Fiends, where I,
Damned but not dead walk the Black Road of Death?
Yet shall the foulest fiend of Hell
Now weep for me whose wrong
Must needs move heaven and earth,
Wake angels' pity, rend
The hearts of men, turn even the hungry cries
Of the wild beasts and birds that haunt these rocks
To tender lamentation.
(He buries his face in. his hands; then after a while begins reading the scroll again.)
CHORUS
He took the scroll that he had read before.
He opened it and looked.
His eyes, like a shuttle, traveled
To and fro, to and fro.
Yet, though he looked and looked,
No other names he saw
But Yasuyori's name and Naritsune's name
Then thinking "There is a codicil, perhaps,"
Again he opens the scroll and looks.
Nowhere is the word Sōzu,† nowhere the word Shunkwan.
(The ENVOY then calls upon NARITSUNE and YASUYORI to board the boat. SHUNKWAN clutches at YASUYORI'S sleeve and tries to follow him on board. The ENVOY pushes him back, calling to him to keep clear of the boat.)
SHUNKWAN
Wretch, have you not heard the saying: "Be law, but not her servants, pitiless." Bring me at least to the mainland. Have so much charity!
ENVOY
But the sailor* knew no pity; He took his oar and struck...
SHUNKWAN (retreating a step)
Nevertheless, leave me my life...
Then he stood back and caught in both his hands
The anchor-rope and dragged...
ENVOY
But the sailor cut the rope and pushed the boat to sea.
SHUNKWAN
He clasped his hands. He called, besought them—
ENVOY
But though they heard him calling, they would not carry him.
SHUNKWAN
It was over; he struggled no more.
CHORUS
But left upon the beach, wildly he waved his sleeves,
Stricken as she† who on the shore
Of Matsura waved till she froze to stone.
ENVOYS, NANITSUNE and YASUYORI (together)
Unhappy man, our hearts are not cold. When we reach the City, we will plead unceasingly for your recall. In a little while you shall return. Wait with a good heart.
(Their voices grow fainter and fainter, as though the ship were moving away from the shore.)
SHUNKWAN
"Wait, wait," they cried, "Hope, wait!"
But distance dimmed their cry,
And hope with their faint voices faded.
He checked his sobs, stood still and listened, listened—
(SHUNKWAN puts his hand to his ear and bends forward in the attitude of one straining to catch a distant sound.)
THE THREE
Shunkwan, Shunkwan, do you hear us?
SHUNKWAN
You will plead for me?
THE THREE
Yes, yes. And then surely you will be summoned...
SHUNKWAN
Back to the City? Can you mean it?
THE THREE
Why, surely!
SHUNKWAN
I hope; yet while I hope...
CHORUS
"Wait, wait, wait!"
Dimmer grow the voices; dimmer the ship, the wide waves
Pile up behind it.
The voices stop. The ship, the men
Have vanished. All is gone
There is an ancient Kōwaka dance called Io go Shima, "Sulphur Island" another name for Devil's Island. It represents the piety of Naritsune and Yasuyori, and the amoral mysticism of the Zen abbot Shunkwan. Part of the text is as follows:
NARITSUNE
This is the vow of the Holy One,
The God of Kumano:
"Whosoever of all mortal men
Shall turn his heart to me,
Though he be come to the utmost end of the desert,
To the furthest fold of the hills,
I will send a light to lead him;
I will guide him on his way."
And we exiled on this far rock,
By dailyhonor to the Triple Shrine,
By supplication to Kumano's God,
Shall compass our return.
Shunkwan, how think you?
SHUNKWAN
Were it the Hill King of Hiyei,* I would not say no. But as for this God of Kumano, I have no faith in him. (Describing the actions of NARITSUNE and YASUYORI.)
Then lonely, lonely these two to worship went;
On the wide sea they gazed,
Roamed on the rugged shore;
Searching ever for a semblance
Of the Three Holy Hills.
Now, where between high rocks
A long, clear river flowed;
Now where tree-tops soar
