Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  KUMAGAI (harshly, to cover his grief): You! Wife! What do you mean coming here? When I left home you were strictly warned not to disturb us, but you have paid no attention. You also know women are forbidden to enter a battle camp! Insolent, brazen woman!

  CHANTER (singing): Before his angry display, Sagami hesitantly . . .

  SAGAMI (bowing politely): Your rebuke is justified, dear husband, but I worried so much about Kojirō going into his first battle that I couldn’t sleep. So, wondering whether I would walk only a mile and learn how he is or walk five miles and have word from him, I found I had traveled seven miles down the road, then ten, and, before I knew it, one hundred miles . . . until I was in the capital. (Hoping to disarm him, she laughs.) Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! (She covers her face with her partly open fan. Still unmoved, he looks stonily ahead.) Arriving in the capital and hearing stories on every hand about the battle raging at Ichinotani, what parent would not be drawn to where her child was? Forgive me, I beg you. (She bows, then looks up happily.) Is Kojirō well?

  CHANTER (chanting): The question draws a harsh reply from Kumagai!

  KUMAGAI (strongly): Agh! When a warrior enters the battlefield, he abandons life! It looks cowardly to cling to affections, to ask if Kojirō is well. (Pausing, he steals a glance.) And if he had been killed, what would you do? Well?

  SAGAMI (slowly, with dignity): You don’t understand. If Kojirō died, even in his first battle, my heart would be at ease as long as the opponent who killed him was a worthy general.

  CHANTER (singing softly): Her brave words match the thought in his heart. His face softens as he speaks . . .

  KUMAGAI: Listen, then:

  By wrestling from Hirayama Mushadokoro the honor of advancing to the head of our troops, Kojirō distinguished himself. Single-handed, he slashed his way into the Heike camp. Although he was slightly wounded in the struggle, he has brought eternal glory to our family.

  SAGAMI (startled): What? It wasn’t a fatal wound?

  KUMAGAI: Ah. I see regret is written on your face. (He poses strongly. His right hand rests on his closed fan. He glares at her.) Answer me! If his wound were fatal, would you grieve?

  SAGAMI (with difficulty she lies): It’s not that. I was moved to ask out of joy whether his efforts were at least meritorious to the extent that he was slightly wounded. (She pauses and looks closely at Kumagai.) Were you with Kojirō then?

  KUMAGAI (gesturing with the closed fan): I was. From the time of his first danger we were together in the battle. I took him, protesting, under my arm and carried him back to camp. Later, to my incomparable glory, I took the head of their rear-guard commander, Prince Atsumori! (Kumagai poses. Sagami falls back with a gasp.)

  CHANTER (rapidly to shamisen accompaniment): At his words Sagami pales with shock while behind her, the emperor’s intimate listens . . .

  FUJI (rushing from the room at the left): My son’s enemy! Kumagai!

  CHANTER: Unsheathing her dagger, she cries “Kumagai!” He uses her scabbard . . . (Fuji slashes at Kumagai several times to loud beats. He fends off the blows with the empty scabbard.)

  KUMAGAI: Who calls me an enemy?

  CHANTER: . . . Pressing her to the floor. (He does not see her face.)

  SAGAMI: Do not be hasty. She is our Lady Fuji.

  KUMAGAI: What? Lady Fuji? (He lifts her up enough to recognize her. He is aghast.) Truly it is Lady Fuji!

  CHANTER: Meeting so unexpectedly, he leaps back and bows in respect. (He takes the dagger from her hand and starts to bow to her. Fuji seizes his long sword and is about to draw it out. To show his sincerity, he quickly removes the short sword from his sash and pushes it toward her, thus disarming himself. He looks Fuji directly in the eye, then prostrates himself before her. For the moment she is unable to kill him, but her desire for revenge is undiminished.)

  FUJI: How inhuman, Kumagai, to take the head of a mere child in combat. (She weeps loudly. Recovering, she nods to Sagami.) You have sworn to kill your husband.

  SAGAMI: But I . . .

  FUJI: Did you lie before?

  SAGAMI: But . . .

  FUJI: Will you help me?

  SAGAMI: Well . . .

  FUJI: Well?

  BOTH (alternately): Well, well, well, well!

  FUJI (hand on hilt of Kumagai’s long sword): Well? Sagami! Will you?

  SAGAMI (weakly, after an anguished pause): I . . . will!

  CHANTER: “I will,” she replies, although her breast feels paralyzed!

  SAGAMI (bowing, the words scarcely audible): My Lord Naozane. Knowing all the while that Prince Atsumori was the noble seed of an emperor, you felt obliged to kill him. There must be some reason. If there is . . .

  SAGAMI AND FUJI: . . . I pray . . .

  CHANTER: They speak as if suffocating . . . (Fuji seems ready to draw Kumagai’s long sword, but Sagami gestures for her to stop. Fuji slowly sinks to the floor.) . . . tears fall unrestrained.

  KUMAGAI (looking coldly ahead): What nonsense. In this war all Heike warriors are enemies. Why should we forgive Atsumori, a Heike prince, or anyone else, when we’re fighting for our very lives?

  (He falls back on one hand and calms Fuji with a gesture.) Listen to me, Lady Fuji, what happens on the battlefield is beyond human power. Resign yourself to it. I will tell you what happened that day and how Prince Atsumori died in battle.

  CHANTER (sings, with great emotion, to shamisen accompaniment): He settles himself and begins to narrate the tale! (Fuji sits reluctantly. He moves forward and poses on his knees, grasping the closed fan in his right hand.)

  KUMAGAI (strongly): Now then, it so happened that during the long night of the sixth, at the time the clouds in the east were beginning to brighten, among the throng of Heike warriors who assaulted our vanguard of two—Hirayama and Kumagai—one man stood out . . .

  CHANTER: . . .“unsurpassed in scarlet-laced armor, forcing even Hirayama to cease fighting and flee to safety on the beach!” (Kumagai lifts the closed fan, strikes his chest with it, and points into the distance, miming the action described in the narration.)

  KUMAGAI: What a fearless young samurai! “Come back,” I shouted, “don’t waste yourself on a fleeing enemy when I, Kumagai, am here! Come back! Come back!”

  CHANTER: Holding the fan, he motioned him to return . . . until he turned his horse’s head and strikes blows twice, three times, on the wave-struck shore. (Kumagai closes the fan and, to block beats, strikes his thighs as if whipping a horse.)

  KUMAGAI: “Let us fight,” I said; “Yes,” he replied.

  CHANTER: Casting away their long swords, they crash to the earth between their horses! (He moves the fan back and forth as if the two were grappling over it, opens it, and suddenly presses it down to the floor.)

  FUJI (trembling): Ah! Then did you hold down the young warrior?

  KUMAGAI: Looking closely at his face, I saw he was some sixteen years old, the same age as my son, a court child with blackened teeth and eyebrows delicately plucked, surely still living with his parents. Thinking of their deep agony and of my own affections for a son, I lifted him to his feet.

  CHANTER (slowly): Brushing off the dust . . . (Kumagai mimes brushing the dust from his sword.)

  KUMAGAI: “Quickly! Flee!”

  FUJI: Did you urge him to go? Then you did not intend to kill him?

  KUMAGAI: Although I urged him, “Quickly, flee,” “No,” he replied, “once thrown to the ground by the enemy, I am dishonored. Take my head quickly . . . Kumagai!”

  FUJI: What? Did he say, “Take my head”? What a noble phrase! (She collapses, weeping loudly.)

  KUMAGAI (straining for control): My lady, please! When I heard this, even more tears welled up in my breast. (Forcing back tears, he presses the closed fan against his chest.) Ahh, what if my son Kojirō had been thrown to the ground by the enemy and was about to lose his life in this same way? The way of the samurai is not so base! Even though I seized my long sword . . .

  CHANTER (singing loud): “I hesitated! I c
ould not draw! (Kumagai seizes his long sword. Rising on his knees, he stamps one foot on the top step of the stairs and poses in an anguished pose to loud block beats. The chanter cries out Kumagai’s agony.) Then I heard! From the mountaintop behind me, the routed Hirayama cried out!!”

  KUMAGAI (chants powerfully): “Kumagai! You are a traitor! He is at your mercy, yet you dream of helping Atsumori,” he called out to me! Ahhhh!! (With a prolonged cry, Kumagai falls forward. He steadies himself by leaning on the upright closed fan). “There is nothing I can do. Have you any final words? If so, speak and I will . . .” (He breaks off and puts his hands to his eyes.)

  CHANTER: Eyes brimming with teardrops . . .

  KUMAGAI: “Father is safely at sea, but Mother’s welfare weighs on my heart. In this unsettled world, yesterday’s clear skies have clouded. My single request, Kumagai, is that you help my mother in the difficult life to come.” There was nothing else to do but . . . strike off the child’s head! (Screaming) Thus I fulfilled the custom of the battlefield! (The two women rise on their knees in horror, then sink back weeping loudly. Kumagai’s face twists in agony; he rises on one knee, holds the open fan before his chest, and poses. He throws the closed fan to the floor in a gesture of revulsion. His chest heaves with sobs, and he prostrates himself on the floor. The three weep together.)

  CHANTER (singing): In the midst of this narrative, Lady Fuji . . .

  FUJI: Had he truly loved his mother, couldn’t he have hidden in the capital as his father urged . . .

  CHANTER (speaking for Fuji): “. . . instead of setting out for Ichinotani? Ah, how I bitterly regret that when you bravely dressed in armor . . .” (Rising on her knees, Fuji mimes bidding Atsumori farewell.)

  FUJI: . . . I urged you, joyfully, to go!

  CHANTER (for Fuji): “Although I was resolved, my heart bursts with anguish!” (Sagami and Fuji look comfortingly at each other, then fall forward, weeping loudly and wiping their eyes. In her grief Fuji turns away. Kumagai sits impassively.) Thinking, “how natural her grief,” Sagami deliberately raises her lamenting voice.

  SAGAMI: No, my dear lady. Among all the soldiers who fled by ship to Yashima Harbor, only one, Prince Atsumori, remained behind to earn through death a greater fame than that of a hundred thousand mounted warriors. Would you be happy if he quaked in hiding, the object of people’s jibes and laughter? How disgraceful that would be.

  CHANTER (singing): As she is admonished, Kumagai . . .

  KUMAGAI (turns to Sagami, soberly): Excellent, Wife. It will not do for a lady of the court to remain here. Go with Lady Fuji at once, anywhere she wishes. (He faces Fuji gravely.) Resign yourself, my lady. I must prepare for Lord Yoshitsune’s inspection of Prince Atsumori’s head. Gunji, are you there? Gunji? Gunji! (The two women bow very low. Kumagai replaces the short sword in his sash and takes the long sword in his hand. He rises and looks intently at Fuji.)

  CHANTER: Calling, he goes out of the room. (Kumagai gestures to Fuji to be restrained, then strides out through the doors at the center, which automatically open and close for him. A time bell tolls in the distance. Sagami rises and helps Fuji put on her outer robe. Plaintive poetic narration.) As the sunset bell tolls time’s uncertain passing, the lights of the battle camp light up more and more7 (The bells toll again. Two boy servants bring out small glowing lanterns.) . . . the grief of stricken Lady Fuji. (Sagami sheathes the small dagger and hands it respectfully to Fuji. She kneels and bows. The bell tolls.)

  FUJI (sadly, to quiet shamisen accompaniment): When I think of him, pity overwhelms me. He carried an object next to his flesh, from which, until his death, he was never parted:

  This flute called Green Leaves. (She takes out a small flute wrapped in cloth.) It proves how strong the bond between mother and son is, that this flute, which Atsumori gave the stonecutter as payment to raise a marker over his grave, should mysteriously come into my hands. (She gazes wonderingly at the flute.)

  CHANTER (singing slowly for Fuji): “If the soul still remains on earth, why do you not appear before me?”8

  FUJI: You do not hear my voice, my son. Ahh! What memories are contained in this flute! (She folds back the cloth and gazes longingly at the polished bamboo tube.)

  CHANTER: Pressing it inconsolably to her breast, she laments. (Fuji presses the flute to first one cheek and then the other. She cradles it tenderly in long kimono sleeves and holds it tightly to her breast. She sinks to the floor, weeping loudly.)

  SAGAMI (drying her tears): The flute should be a consoling memento, its notes, even more than a chanted dharani prayer, leading his soul through all obstacles to repose. Dearest mistress, let its sound be Prince Atsumori’s voice. (Sagami looks inquiringly at Fuji.)

  CHANTER: In accordance with her urgings, Lady Fuji plays. . . . Although her tears flow into the holes of the flute and her fingers tremble, the notes rise clear. . . . (Two boy servants enter from the inside room. One carries a black lacquered pitcher of water and matching basin; the other, an incense tray. The first servant pours water over Fuji’s hands, then moves back respectfully. The second servant passes a small white towel to Sagami, who in turn passes it to Fuji, who carefully dries her hands. Fuji takes the flute from inside her kimono, unwraps it, and holds it before her reverently. Sagami places a pitch of incense on the coals and clasps her hands in a silent prayer. Fuji raises the flute to her lips.) Bound by ties of love between mother and son . . . (Gentle notes of “Tsukuebue,” flute accompaniment. The shadow of a man appears on the translucent paper doors.) She catches one fleeting glimpse of a form, vague as shadows of a heat wave, cast on the sliding paper doors. “Surely it is Atsumori!”

  FUJI: My child! My beloved!

  CHANTER: Rushing forward, she is stopped and calmed by Sagami.

  SAGAMI: Dear lady, please listen. The spirit of the dead may appear in the smoke of incense.9 When Fujiwara Sanekata died in exile, his soul’s longing for the capital was so great that he returned in the form of a sparrow. While this form you see may be such a spirit, it is said that the ties of parent and child last but one lifetime. If you approach, his spirit will surely vanish.

  FUJI: No, no! Isn’t it said that souls of the dead wander on earth for forty-nine days before their incarnation? At least a single word . . . !

  Lady Fuji (left) and Sagami, in white, in the jōruri version of Chronicle of the Battle of Ichinotani. (Photograph courtesy of Barbara Curtis Adachi Collection, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University)

  CHANTER: Shaking loose, breaking loose . . . ! (Three times Sagami tries to prevent Fuji from reaching the doors, but in the end Fuji forces Sagami to the floor and rushes to the doors.) When the sliding doors rattle open, there is no figure to be seen, only a suit of scarlet-laced armor standing in its place. (Both women fall back in surprise.)

  FUJI (tremulously): Was the shadow only this?

  SAGAMI (on her knees, gently): Did you imagine this form in the longing of your heart?

  FUJI: Oh, Sagami!

  SAGAMI: Dearest lady!

  CHANTER: Bound in yearning, unheedingly . . . they cry out their weeping lament. (Both women wipe their eyes as they cry out rhythmically in unison.) Time slips by. Then Kumagai Jirō Naozane enters carrying the head box. Sagami pulls her husband’s sleeve. (Kumagai, a deeply melancholy expression on his face, slowly enters. He wears formal dress and carries under his left arm a round case, made of plain wood, used to contain a head taken in battle or execution. Sagami politely holds his sleeve so that he cannot move.)

  SAGAMI (modestly): Dear Naozane, the life of mother and child together ends here. Allow them to take final leave of each other at least.

  CHANTER (singing to shamisen accompaniment): Lady Fuji, still in tears . . .

  Lady Fuji, Kumagai holding the head box, and Sagami. (Photograph courtesy of Barbara Curtis Adachi Collection, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University)

  FUJI (weeping): Kumagai, don’t you have a child, too? Understand what is in a parent’s heart. Even
wild beasts grieve for their children. Have pity, allow me one last glimpse.

  CHANTER: Although wretchedly imploring him . . . ! (She sinks to her knees and pulls on his other sleeve.)

  KUMAGAI (severely): No! Until the head has been identified, permission cannot be given to view it!

  CHANTER: As he pulls free and moves between them, about to go . . . (He pulls first one sleeve free, then the other, and deliberately walks down the steps. Suddenly the clear, refined voice of Yoshitsune is heard offstage. Kumagai stops and looks back.)

  YOSHITSUNE (offstage): Kumagai! Kumagai, don’t leave with Atsumori’s head! Give it to Yoshitsune! I shall verify it immediately!

  CHANTER: With the call of “I shall verify it immediately,” the door flies open to reveal . . . General of the Army Yoshitsune! (Nō drums play a military piece. The center doors slide open to reveal Yoshitsune, the shōgun’s younger brother. He wears armor threaded with gold, black leggings, and red shoes. His handsome face is powdered a delicate white.) Jirō Naozane, his wife, and Lady Fuji fall prostrate. Yoshitsune takes his seat. . . . (Yoshitsune holds a large war fan firmly in his right hand. Kumagai quickly mounts the steps and kneels at center stage while Sagami and Fuji bow flat to the floor. Four samurai squat on their heels behind Yoshitsune, keeping guard. The music stops.)

  YOSHITSUNE (elegantly, yet with great inner strength): Kumagai, to delay in presenting the head for verification and to request leave in the midst of battle cast doubt on your intentions. Concealed in the inner room, I have heard your conversation from beginning to end. I command you: This instant, produce Atsumori’s head!

  CHANTER (singing slowly to the shamisen): Hearing his words, Kumagai strongly answers yes and moves quickly to the young cherry tree, where a notice board has been stuck in the ground, which he pulls out and places, unafraid, before Lord Yoshitsune.

  KUMAGAI (strongly composed): A short time ago at Horikawa Palace, my Lord Yoshitsune made known his will to one of his vassals by means of a poem fastened to a mountain cherry. In the same way here, Priest Benkei has written on this notice board your command to take Atsumori’s head. In obedience to my lord’s decree, as written here, the head has been taken! Now, then, confirm it!