Such ambiguity in authorship is a problem common to early nō plays, almost none of which remained untouched by Zeami. It is not that Zeami was unusually fond of revising others’ plays; rather, adapting old plays was a common practice among nō playwrights, including Kan’ami. The concept of authorship was not as strict at that time as it is now, and it was necessary to continually revise plays for new troupes and for audiences’ changing tastes. It was only after Zeami had established the basic aesthetic principles and structure of nō plays that the practice of revising the plays subsided.
Although Zeami revised all the extant plays by Kan’ami, they still retain characteristics of Kan’ami’s style, such as the vivid and witty conversation and the realistic representation of dramatic story lines, which often include confrontations between characters. These characteristics, which can clearly be seen in Stupa Komachi, are in fact the remnants of sarugaku from Yamato Province. Later, Zeami attenuated these features through his reformation of no, bringing it more in line with the principle of yūgen.
The play’s antiquity is indicated also by Shōshō’s possession of Komachi. In Teachings on Style and the Flower (Fūshikaden), Zeami classifies “derangement” (monogurui) into two types, one due to possession by a spirit or god and the other to an emotional crisis, usually precipitated by the loss of a lover or child. For female protagonists, Zeami recommends the latter type of derangement but rejects the former. He in fact wrote numerous nō plays that feature a distraught female protagonist seeking her lost child or lover, which became the standard for later generations of playwrights. Before Zeami, however, presumably many plays dealt with female characters whose derangement was caused by possession, but most were gradually omitted from the repertoire and eventually disappeared altogether. Stupa Komachi is a rare exception. With such diverse scenes, presented one after the other—the fiery and witty debate between the monks and Komachi, her bemoaning her lost beauty and current misery, her possession by Shōshō’s spirit, and her reenactment of his one hundred nightly visits—the play remains one of the most popular in today’s repertoire, even though only a few performers, of mature years and superior skill, are permitted to play this highly prized and prestigious role.
Characters in Order of Appearance
MONK
waki
COMPANION, also a monk
waki-tsure
ONO NO KOMACHI, a poet, now a very old woman (uba mask)
shite
To shidai music, enter slowly Monk with Companion. They stand side by side at the front of the stage and then face each other.
MONK AND COMPANION:
(shidai) Mountains are but shallow hideaways;
mountains are but shallow hideaways; what hermitage
is deeper than the heart?
Monk faces forward.
MONK: (nanori) I am a monk come from the monasteries of Mount Kōya. I thought I’d pay a visit to the capital, and am on my way there now.
(sashi) The Buddha that once was has now passed on; the Buddha that shall be is not yet come into the world.28
Monk and Companion face each other again.
MONK AND COMPANION:
Born into such a dreamlike in-between,
what can we take for real?
By chance we have obtained this human body,
so difficult to obtain,
and have encountered the teachings of the Buddha,
so difficult to encounter.
That this is the seed of enlightenment we know,
as tokened by these robes as black as ink
in which we drape ourselves.29
(age-uta) Knowing our self-nature before birth,
Knowing our self-nature before birth,
we have no parents who can claim our love.
We have no parents; and we have
no children to constrain their hearts
with worry for our sakes. (Monk mimes walking.)
This self that goes a thousand leagues
and does not count it far,
bedding down in meadows,
dwelling in the mountains:
this is our true home,
this is our true home.
MONK: (tsuki-zerifu) Having hastened along, already we have come, it seems, to the pine forest of Abeno, in the province of Settsu. Let us rest here for a bit.30
COMPANION: Yes, by all means.
Monk and Companion sit in the waki spot.
Stage assistant brings out a stool from backstage and places it center stage. It represents a decaying stupa. To narai no shidai music, Ono no Komachi enters, moving very slowly with the aid of a walking stick and pausing to rest as she moves down the bridgeway. Stopping at the shite spot, she stands facing the rear.
KOMACHI:
(shidai) Were there but a stream to woo this floating water plant,
were there but a stream to woo this floating water plant …
But there is none—only a lonely, aching heart.31 (Faces forward.)
(sashi) Ah, but oh so long ago
I was the proudest of them all,
my raven tresses sensually rippling
like weeping-willow streamers
wafted lightly on spring breezes.
And the trilling of this warbler
was more exquisite even than
the dew-drenched itohagi blossoms,
their petals only just begun to fall.
But now, despised even by lowly common wenches,
my shame exposed for one and all to see,
as joyless days and months heap up upon me,
I have become a hundred-year-old hag.
(sage-uta) In the capital I hide myself from people’s gaze;
“Can that be she?” they murmur, faint
light of the gloaming in which,
(age-uta) with the moon for company, I venture forth,
with the moon for company, I venture forth.
The men who guard the palace—
that grand abode among the clouds, built from myriad stones
upon the heights—
will surely pay no heed to such a wretch as I;
why then, there is no need for slinking, hidden
in the shadows of the trees
of the Tomb of Love32
at Toba, and the Autumn Hill,
and moonlit Katsura riverboat—(Facing stage right, peers into the distance from under her wide sedge hat.)
rowing it away, who can that be?
rowing it away, who can that be? (Plants her walking stick before her, right hand atop the stick, left hand atop the right, and gazes into the distance.)
(tsuki-zerifu) I am in such pain—(Looks over at the stool.) I think I’ll just sit down and rest upon this moldering piece of wood.
Removes her sedge hat and, holding it in her hand, slowly makes her way to the stool and sits down on it. Monk and Companion stand up.
Komachi, holding a walking stick and a wide sedge hat, sits on a stupa and rebuts a sermon by two monks. (From Meiji-Period Nō Illustrations by Tsukioka Kōgyo, in the Hōsei University Kōzan Bunko Collection)
MONK: (mondō) Why, already the sun has set. We must hasten on our way. But look! that beggar there: surely that is a stupa she is sitting on.33 Let us teach her the error of her ways and have her move away from it.
COMPANION: Yes, by all means.
Companion passes behind Komachi and moves toward the corner pillar so that the three characters form a triangle, with Komachi at its apex and Monk and Companion forming its base.
MONK: (mondō) How now, you beggar, there! That place where you are sitting—do you not know that you are profaning a stupa, the form of Buddha’s body? Get up from there; go rest some other place!
KOMACHI (to Monk): Profane—the form of Buddha’s body, you say! But I see no writing here, no carven image; it looks like just a moldering piece of wood to me.
MONK:
(kakeai) Though but a moldering piece of wood
in mountains deep,
>
when the tree has blossomed
there’s no hiding what it is.
And all the more so when the wood’s carved in the form of Buddha’s body—how can you say there was no indication?
Komachi remains seated during the ensuing exchange as she responds to Monk and Companion, speaking slowly throughout, with pretended ignorance.
KOMACHI:
I am myself a lowly, buried tree,
yet still the blossom of my heart remains;
why, then, should this not be my offering?34
But tell me: why is this to be viewed as Buddha’s body?
COMPANION:
You see, a stupa is how Vajrasattva,
provisionally manifesting in the world,
embodied the Buddha’s sacred vow
in symbolic form: as a samaya body.35
KOMACHI:
This form it is embodied in: what is it?
MONK:
Earth, water, fire, wind, and space.
KOMACHI:
Those Five Great Elements’ five rings
make up the body of a person—so between us
why should there be any separation?36
COMPANION:
It may not be dissimilar in form,
but in mind and merit it is clearly different.37
KOMACHI:
And what, pray, is a stupa’s merit?
MONK:
One glimpse of a stupa frees you forever
from rebirth in the three lower realms.38
KOMACHI:
The essence of enlightened mind
that flashes in one instant:
now how is that inferior?39
COMPANION:
But if you claim enlightened mind,
why have you not renounced this world of suffering?40
KOMACHI (unaffectedly and clearly):
You think it is the outward form
that renounces the world?
It is the mind that renounces.
MONK:
Yours is a body with no mind;
no doubt that’s why
you do not know the body of the Buddha.
KOMACHI: Indeed, it is because I know this as the Buddha’s body that I come near to a stupa.
COMPANION:
In that case why did you sit down on it
without so much as bowing?
Komachi looks at the stupa.
KOMACHI (with growing force):
In any case this stupa is reclining;
can it object that I too should relax?
MONK:
That is a far from proper connection
to the Buddha.
KOMACHI:
Even a backward connection can lead to enlightenment.41
COMPANION:
Even Daiba’s evil
KOMACHI:
is Kannon’s compassion.42
MONK:
Even Handoku’s stupidity
KOMACHI:
is Monju’s wisdom.43
COMPANION:
Even what we call evil
KOMACHI:
is good.
MONK:
Even what we call the passions
KOMACHI:
is enlightenment.44
COMPANION:
Enlightenment, at its root,
KOMACHI:
is not a tree.
MONK:
And the clear mirror—
KOMACHI:
—mind’s mirror-on-a-stand—there’s no such thing. (Decisively turns to face forward.)
CHORUS:
(uta) Indeed, when in the first place not one thing exists,
there is no separation between
buddhas and sentient beings.45 (Companion moves back next to Monk and sits down.)
(age-uta) To this, the Buddha’s
solemnly sworn vow of compassion,46
this expedient devised
for saving ignorant, deluded beings,
even a backward connection
can lead to enlightenment. (She turns earnestly toward Monk.)
—Thus she explains,
at which the monk cries,
Truly, an enlightened mendicant! (As though unable to help himself, Monk falls back two or three steps, sinks to his knees, and deferentially lowers his forehead to the earth.)
and lowering his forehead to the earth,
three times he makes obeisance,
whereupon:
KOMACHI:
I now feel stronger, so I shall make bold
to compose a frivolous verse:
(ge-no-ei) (easily, in a low voice) If we were in the heaven of Supreme Bliss:
it would no doubt be a sin;
but here outside,
whatever can you be objecting to?47
Abruptly rising, she turns her back to Monk as though in annoyance and moves away several steps toward the base pillar.
CHORUS:
(uta) Presumptuous priest, who would
“teach me the error of my ways”!
Presumptuous priest, who would
“teach me the error of my ways”!
MONK: (unnamed) (to Komachi’s back) But what manner of person are you? Please tell us your name!
Komachi turns to face Monk.
KOMACHI: Embarrassing though it is, I shall tell you my name. (Moves slowly to center stage and sits facing forward.)
(nanori-guri) (haughtily, yet sadly) I am what has become of
Ono no Komachi,
daughter of Ono no Yoshizane,
governor of Dewa Province.
MONK AND COMPANION:
(sashi) My heart goes out to her.
Komachi—ah, truly, long ago
she was a lady of surpassing beauty:
her visage like a flower, radiant,
her eyebrows two slim blue crescents,
her face invariably powdered white,
she had so many fine silk robes,
they overflowed her mansion.
KOMACHI:
Thus I remained absorbed in my appearance,
CHORUS:
and men far away ached for me,
while men close by were plunged in utter gloom;
KOMACHI:
and I, in robes whose turquoise breakers foamed
upon a cobalt coast,
CHORUS:
like sunset-painted clouds ringed round with cobalt peaks,
KOMACHI:
resplendent
CHORUS:
as a floating lotus blossom
lapped by daybreak waves,48
KOMACHI (slowly):
Composing Japanese poems
and writing Chinese verse, …
CHORUS:
When she raised a cup of heady wine,
the stars and moon would tarry on her sleeves.
That peerless grace and beauty—
when was it so utterly transformed?
(age-uta) Her head’s crowned with a frosted, drooping thatch,
and at her temples those once-lovely, flowing locks
cling limply to her skin in random streaks;
her gently curving brows, twin butterflies,
have lost their hue that was like distant hills.
(sage-uta) A year short of a hundred—ninety-nine—
oh, that the grief of these white, straggly locks
should have come to her one day!49—
wan daylight moon: (Komachi hides her face with her hat.)
how mortifying her appearance now! (She rises and moves toward the shite spot.)
(rongi) The pouch that you have hung around your neck—
what do you have in it?
KOMACHI:
Although I know not whether life may end today,
to save me from hunger tomorrow I’ve brought along
some dried millet-and-beans inside this bag.
CHORUS:
And in the bag you carry on your back?
KOMACHI:
A garment soiled with dirt a
nd grease.
CHORUS:
And in the basket in the crook of your arm?
KOMACHI:
Kuwai roots, both black and white.50
CHORUS:
With tattered cloak of straw
KOMACHI:
and tattered hat of sedge, (Looks at the hat in her hand.)
CHORUS:
you cannot so much as hide your face, (She looks down, betraying some emotion.)
KOMACHI:
much less keep out the frost, snow, rain, dew,
CHORUS:
tears—even her tears
she has not cuffs and sleeves enough to staunch! (Examines first one sleeve and then the other.)
And now she wanders by the roadside, (With both hands, Komachi thrusts out her hat, turned upside down, and moves purposefully toward the corner pillar.)
begging from passersby.
When she cannot beg what she needs, (Komachi peers searchingly into her hat.)
an evil mood, (With a deranged air, takes two or three steps.)
a crazy wildness, takes her mind,
and her voice grows weirdly altered. (Abruptly throws down her walking stick.)
KOMACHI (again thrusting out her hat with both hands, and advancing toward Monk):
(mondō) I pray you, sir, vouchsafe me something.
I beg of you, reverend monk, I beg of you. (Presses toward Monk, to around center stage.)
MONK: What is it you want?
KOMACHI: Let us go calling on Komachi—oh yes, please!
MONK: But you yourself are Komachi! Why do you speak such nonsense?
KOMACHI (facing forward): Ah, but that Komachi, what exquisite charms were hers! (Looking this way and that.) Love letters from here, missives from there, (Backing away slightly.)
written by love-beclouded hearts,
poured down upon her
like the summer rains
darkening the heavens.
Yet she would not answer even once,
not even in words empty as the sky. (Turns her face downward, evidently holding back strong emotion.)
Now she is one hundred years of age—
her karmic retribution.
Ah, how I long for her!
Ah, how I long for her!
MONK: “I long for her,” you say? What manner of being is it, then, possesses you?
Traditional Japanese Literature Page 65