CHANTER: These are the words of a brave warrior who does not varnish the truth.
[KINSHŌJO]: I understand. I can carry out such duty. Out of filial devotion, I will sacrifice this body that I received from my parents, and with no regrets.
CHANTER: Kinshōjo pushes aside her mother and approaches her husband. She opens the front of her robe and draws the icy blade to her chest as her mother looks on in horror.
[MOTHER]: No!!
CHANTER: The mother hurls herself between them, trying to separate the two, but it is hopeless: she cannot move her hands enough to drive them apart. She grabs her daughter’s sleeve with her teeth and pulls her back, but Kanki closes in. Then she grabs Kanki’s sleeve with her teeth and tries to drag him away, but Kinshōjo is set on death. The mother struggles, like a cat trying to move her kittens, until her strength dwindles, her eyes grow dim, and she collapses with a cry. Kinshōjo clings to her.
[KINSHŌJO]: All my life I’ve never known a parent. How can I repay my gratitude without ever once showing my filial devotion? Let me die in your place, Mother!
CHANTER: Kinshōjo bursts into tears.
[MOTHER]: What a sad thing to say! Especially when in this world and in that of the dead you have three parents. You owe a great debt to the father and mother who gave you life. Of your three parents, I alone have never had a chance to show you sympathy or even kindness. How cruel that I can never be rid of the title “stepmother”! If I let you die here and now, people will say that your Japanese stepmother let you be killed before her eyes out of hatred for her Chinese stepdaughter. And the shame would not be mine alone but Japan’s as well: people would say that the Japanese are a heartless people and point to me as an example. The sun that shines on China and the sun that shines on Japan are one and the same, but the Land of the Rising Sun is where the day begins. It is home to the Five Constant Virtues—and, above all, to sympathy.54 How could I, born in the Land of the Gods where sympathy is everything, go on living after I watched my daughter be killed? Better that these ropes turn into the sacred ropes of the Japanese gods and strangle me. Then these ropes might lead my soul back to Japan even if my body remains in a foreign land!
CHANTER: Love, sympathy, and a sense of duty fill her tearful pleading. Kinshōjo clings to her mother’s sleeves, now wet with both their tears. Even Kanki is moved to tears by the truth of her words. Pausing a while, he strikes his chair.
[KANKI]: Very well then, it is out of my hands. Since your mother insists on an answer now, Watōnai is my enemy from this day forth. But I do not intend to have people think I’m keeping your mother here as a hostage. Bring the carriage, ask her where she wants to go, and send her on her way.
[KINSHŌJO]: No, there is no need to send her away. I promised my father and brother that if I had good news I would drop white powder in the garden spring, and rouge if you refused. I shall put rouge into the water, and they will come and get her.
CHANTER: Kinshōjo goes into her sitting room as her mother sinks into dark despair at this unexpected turn of events. Worried about what she will have to tell her husband and son, the mother’s tears of helplessness run red, like a Chinese brocade. Meanwhile, Kinshōjo prepares the rouge in an azure stone bowl.
[KINSHŌJO]: Father and daughter will never meet. The brocade will be cut in two; I will say my farewells—now!55
CHANTER: The rouge slides into the moonlit waters of the spring and floats away, swirling like autumn leaves in a rapid stream. The red-stained bubbles carry the sad tidings along, through the conduit to the moat and beyond, toward the Yellow River. Downstream, Watōnai sits on the bank, his straw raincoat pulled over his shoulders, as he watches the water to see if it turns red or white.
[WATŌNAI]: Good Heavens—the water has turned red! Kanki has refused my request to join our cause. I can’t leave my mother in the hands of that coward!
CHANTER: His feet churn through the rapids as he rushes to the moat and leaps across. He scales the wall, tramples down the garden fences, and arrives at the spring in the garden of Kanki’s castle.
[WATŌNAI]: Well, thank goodness Mother is safe!
CHANTER: He leaps into the room, slashes through her ropes, and plants himself in front of Kanki.
[WATŌNAI]: So, you’re that bearded Chinaman, Gojōgun Kanki, eh! I tied up my own mother—the only one I’ll ever have in heaven or on earth—out of respect for who I thought you were. I wanted you to join our cause. And yet, when I treat you with respect it goes to your head.
You don’t want to join us because I don’t measure up as a general? I thought you would follow, above all, because your wife is my half sister. Now I, Watōnai, the greatest warrior in Japan, ask you man to man—answer me!
CHANTER: He grips the handle of his sword and stands ready to strike.
[KANKI]: Mentioning your relationship to my wife only makes your request more difficult. You may be the greatest warrior in Japan, but I am the one and only Kanki of China. I am not the sort who joins sides because of his wife, but I have no reason to divorce her, nor can I wait for her to die. Leave quickly now while you still can, or would you rather leave me your head as a memento?
[WATŌNAI]: Oh? I shall take yours back to Japan as a memento!
CHANTER: Both are about to draw their swords when Kinshōjo cries out. . . .
[KINSHŌJO]: No! No! You won’t have to wait for me to die. Look! Here is the rouge I put in the water!
CHANTER: She opens her robe to reveal that she has slashed herself with her dagger diagonally from under her breast to her liver. At the sight of the bloody wound, the mother cries out and falls senseless. Watōnai is stunned, and even Kanki, although he had been ready to kill her, can only stare in disbelief. Kinshojo’s words come painfully.
[KINSHŌJO]: Mother would not let you kill me for fear of the shame it would bring to Japan, but if I cling to my life and don’t help my parents and my brother, it will bring shame to China. Now that I have stabbed myself, no one will slander you, saying that your heart was moved by a woman. Kanki, please join my father and brother and lend your strength, and tell my father about this, too. Please, say no more—the pain!
CHANTER: With these words she collapses in a faint. Holding back his tears, Kanki speaks.
[KANKI]: How noble of you! Your sacrifice will not be in vain.
CHANTER: He bows his head before Watōnai.
[KANKI]: My ancestors served as ministers under the Ming. I was more than willing to join you, but I hesitated for fear that people would speak ill of me saying that I had been led astray by my wife’s relatives. Now, by taking her own life, she has advanced the cause of justice, and I can join you with a clear conscience. I bow to you as my commanding general and confer upon you a princely name: Coxinga, lord of Enpei. Please honor me by putting on these robes.
Watōnai arriving inside Kanki’s castle. (Photograph courtesy of Barbara Curtis Adachi Collection, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University)
CHANTER: Coxinga’s future opens as Kanki opens a chest and hands him a double-layered scarlet court robe with sleeves of figured silk gauze, a black Confucian hat, slippers embossed with a floral pattern, a black leather belt set with coral and amber, and, finally, a ceremonial sword of polished gold. A silk parasol opens above Coxinga’s head, and over a hundred thousand cavalrymen line up before him, arm band to arm band, holding shields and halberds, bows and muskets, and imperial flag poles topped with streamers, as if the king of Yue had come again to Mount Kuaiji. Coxinga’s mother cries out in joy.
[MOTHER]: Oh, I’m so happy! My deepest wish has come true! Kinshōjo—do you see? By giving up your life, my husband and son have achieved their dream, and the dream of all China. Your dagger is less than a foot long, but your sacrifice will heal the land. For me to go on living now would make my earlier words a lie and again bring shame to Japan.
CHANTER: She grabs Kinshojo’s dagger and stabs herself in the throat. Kanki and Coxinga cry out in shock, but she glares back at them.
CHANTER: With that she deftly plunges the dagger into her liver.
[MOTHER]: Kinshōjo—have you no regrets at leaving this world?
[KINSHŌJO]: Why should I feel any regret?
CHANTER: And yet as a wife, Kinshōjo thinks of the husband she leaves behind. Mother and daughter take each other’s hands and embrace. They look up at Coxinga, now dressed in his fine robes, as he looks down at their smiling faces, a remembrance of their final moment as they breath their last.
Coxinga, fierce enough to be mistaken for a demon, and Kanki, courageous as a dragon or tiger, blink back the tears that darken their eyes; one determined to obey his mother’s last request, the other to honor his wife’s sacrifice. Coxinga is ashamed to weep before Kanki, just as Kanki is ashamed to weep before Coxinga; they hide their pain-wracked faces.
The living and the dead travel one road: two bodies, mother and daughter, carried to their graves while an army led by Coxinga and Kanki sets out for battle. For Coxinga, his mother’s last words are like the words of the Buddha; his father’s teachings, like an iron bar given to a devil. When he strikes, he wins; when he attacks, he captures the field, a warrior of uncanny wisdom, benevolence, and bravery the likes of which will never be seen again.
The banks of a pool with a jewel in it will never crumble;
A pond where a dragon dwells will never dry up.56
A country that produces such a warrior is a well-governed country; its prince, a true prince.57 People will say that this is a marvel of Japan, a hero who illuminates a foreign land with his fighting prowess.
[Chikamatsu jōruri shū ge, NKBT 50: 256–272, translated by Michael Brownstein]
THE HEIKE AND THE ISLAND OF WOMEN (HEIKE NYOGO NO SHIMA, 1719)
“Devil’s Island” (Kikaigashima) premiered in 1719 as the second scene of act 2 of the five-act Heike and the Island of Women, a jōruri play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Today, however, it is usually performed in jōruri and kabuki as a single play. In act 1, Chikamatsu focuses on the arrogant, insatiable, and lascivious Taira no Kiyomori, dictator of the land, presented as an example of the corruption and abuse of power. Kiyomori demands that Azumaya, Shunkan’s wife, become his mistress, but she chooses to die by her own hand instead of submitting to him. Her lament at her suffering at the tyrant’s hand is the climax of act 1. In act 2, the audience meets her husband Shunkan, who has been exiled to far-off Devil’s Island as punishment for having led a rebellion against the despotic Kiyomori. The pregnancy of Kiyomori’s daughter Kenreimon-in by Emperor Takakura brings about a general amnesty, but Kiyomori cruelly keeps Shunkan off the amnesty list because of Azumaya’s refusal to submit to him. But Kiyomori’s son Shigemori, the model of an honorable and compassionate samurai, adds Shunkan to the list.
“Devil’s Island,” which describes Shunkan’s attempt to return home from his exile on Devil’s Island, contains in microcosm two major themes of the entire play: the abuse of authority and the power of eros. Kiyomori is represented by Seno’o, who abuses his position of authority to taunt those weaker than himself, and the character of Shigemori is represented by Tanzaemon. “Devil’s Island” is based on the story of Shunkan’s exile, first told in the medieval Tale of the Heike and later in the nō play Shunkan. Chikamatsu adds a female character, the local fishergirl Chidori, and makes the scene more dramatic by revealing the death of Shunkan’s wife, Azumaya, and by having Shunkan fight with the villain official Seno’o, who taunts him. Chidori is initially described by Chikamatsu as a fantastic metaphor for female erotic charm—a passage omitted in kabuki. The sexual attraction of Naritsune, one of the exiles on Devil’s Island, to Chidori and the love that it leads to is presented as natural and an ideal, in contrast to Kiyomori’s lust and his use of power to force women to submit to his will. Chidori’s encounter with Kiyomori’s abusive power in the guise of his representative, the bully Seno’o, leads to her song of lament, the first high point of the piece.
In 1772 “Devil’s Island” was revived in the puppet theater as a play in itself, and during the nineteenth century it became part of the kabuki repertory as well. Takemoto Gidayū, the famous jōruri chanter for whom Chikamatsu wrote many of his plays, outlined a formula for the overall theme of each of the five acts. In this scheme, act 2 is set symbolically in the Buddhist realm Shura (Ashura), a sphere of never-ending fighting and revenge. For Chikamatsu, Devil’s Island is clearly a kind of hell on earth.
A comparison with the medieval versions—the Shunkan scene (Ashizuri) in The Tale of the Heike and the nō play Shunkan—reveals Chikamatsu’s method and the difference between medieval drama and early-eighteenth-century popular theater. Chikamatsu’s most striking change is the addition of Chidori, the young fishergirl lover and lowly commoner who embodies love and eros, characteristics not found in the dark story of a celibate Shunkan in the medieval versions. First we see Shunkan as a reflective figure, alone and destitute; then we see him as the kind father to young Chidori and Naritsune, delighting in their happiness. Next we witness his devastation and despair at the news of his wife’s death for refusing Kiyomori. This leads him to rise in rebellion against Seno’o, Kiyomori’s agent. He convinces Chidori to board the boat and leave him behind because he is assured of a place on the boat that leads to Buddha’s paradise in the next life. He tells her to think of him as a buddha, but the final image is of Shunkan the man, tragically alone, abandoned, desperately watching the departing ship as it disappears beyond the waves.
CHARACTERS
SHUNKAN, a high-level priest who plotted against Taira no Kiyomori and has been exiled to Devil’s Island
NARITSUNE, Captain of Tanba who was exiled with Shunkan for the same crime and falls in love with Chidori
YASUYORI, Lord of Hei who was exiled with Shunkan for the same crime
TANZAEMON, an official from the capital who comes with Seno’o to pardon the exiles
SENO’O, an envoy for Kiyomori who comes with Tanzaemon to pardon the exiles
CHIDORI, a fishergirl and lover of Naritsune
Act 2
Scene 2: Devil’s Island (Kikaigashima).
CHANTER (chants in nō style):
Known from ages long past
as Devil’s Island,
a realm where demons roam,
this lonely isle, a hell on earth.
No matter how cruel the demon,
has it no pity for my plight,
abandoned far from home?
Do even the birds and beasts cry out
in sympathy for my suffering?58
Tales of joyful times now silent,
memories too, withered fragments.
Only the light of the sun and moon coursing the sky
Stir thoughts of days and nights in the capital.
Few are the trees and grasses here;
no grains grow on this barren land.
We struggle just to live.
From mountain peaks flow molten lava.
Instead of fisherman’ catches,
we have only kelp gathered from the rough waves,
or clams discarded by the tide.
The fragile figure before your eyes
is a broken man, bearded with snowy white hair.
A rough garment of leaves covers his shoulders,
its seams torn and tattered.
even the sound of chirping crickets has ceased.59
Leaning on a withered branch for a cane,
Wobbly, wobbly, like the
Han warrior Sun Wu
captured fighting the Hu Di,60
who struggled on with but one good leg,
stands Shunkan, a shell of a man.
If one counts the days on this island, we see an almanac in the passing of snowy winters, summer breezes, spring and autumn—for three years no word has come save the lapping waves, mountain winds, and “chidori” plovers along the shore. All bring tears and thoughts of home; when will the wheels of fate carry me away? My grief is like that of a fish trapped in the puddle made by the tracks of a carriage.61 Nothing to compare with my sad fate. To wait, the agony of eternal waiting.
Another of like mind with tattered clothes descends along a narrow, mossy path among the rocks.
[SHUNKAN]: Do I too look as worn and withered as that man? They say the Shura realm of revenge and never-ending fighting is along the shore of a great ocean; the sutras say the lower realms are in the mountain at the bottom of the sea. Have I fallen unwittingly into the Realm of Hungry Ghosts?62
CHANTER: Looking more carefully, he sees that it is Yasuyori, lord of Hei.
[SHUNKAN]: Ah, has everyone, like myself, fallen into this pitiful condition?
CHANTER: His heart flutters like the reeds along the shore as Captain Naritsune ambles aimlessly through them.
[SHUNKAN]: Is that you Naritsune? Yasuyori?
[YASUYORI]: Is that Shunkan?
CHANTER: Each calls out invitingly as they walk toward the other.
[SHUNKAN]: My friends, in the morning it is Yasuyori; in the evening, Naritsune. Besides us three, no others, all communication has ceased. Although I’m not a priest guarding over a lonely mountain rice field,63 weary of this world, how sad I am.
CHANTER: They hold each other’s hands and weep: their grief is all too real.
[YASUYORI]: I perform daily services without fail at the three island temples to Amida, Yakushi Kannon, and Senshu Kannon. Have you not heard, Shunkan, that the three companions have recently become four?
Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900 Page 44