no boxwood comb in my hair,83
CHORUS:
while in comb the rolling billows (Autumn Rain places her pail on the brine wagon. Pining Wind gazes at it.)
for us to draw brine, and look:
the moon is in my pail!
WIND:
In mine, too, there is a moon!
CHORUS:
How lovely! A moon here, too!
Pining Wind looks into the other pail, then up to the sky, then again at the two pails. Having received the wagon-rope from Autumn Rain, she pulls the wagon up to the drums, then looks back at it one more time.
WIND:
The moon is one,
CHORUS:
reflections two, three the brimming tide,
for tonight we load our wagon with the moon.84
O no, I do not find them dreary,
the tide-roads of the sea!
Stage attendant removes the wagon. Pining Wind sits on a stool in front of the drums, while Autumn Rain sits directly on stage, slightly behind her and to her left. They are in the salt-house.
MONK: (unnamed) The people of the salt-house have returned. I will ask them to give me shelter for the night.
(mondō) I beg your pardon, there in the salt-house! Excuse me, please!
RAIN (rises): What is it?
MONK: I am a traveler, and now the sun has set. May I have shelter for the night?
RAIN: Please wait a moment. I will ask the owner. (Turns to Pining Wind, kneels on one knee.) I beg your pardon, but a traveler is here. He says he wants shelter for the night.
WIND: We could easily give him shelter, but our house simply is not fit to be seen. No, we cannot let him stay.
RAIN (rises, turns to Monk): I gave your request to the owner. She says that our house is not fit to be seen and that we cannot offer you lodging for the night.
MONK: I understand, of course, but please realize that I do not mind what condition your house is in. I am a monk, after all. Do pass on again my urgent request for shelter here tonight.
RAIN (turns to Pining Wind, kneeling on one knee): The traveler is a monk, and he insists on asking again for a night’s shelter.
WIND: What? The traveler is a monk, you say? Why yes, the moonlight shows me one who has renounced the world. Well, it will do, this saltmakers’ home, with its posts of pine and fence of bamboo.85 The night is cold, I know. Tell him he may stay and warm himself at our rush fire.
Pining Wind pulls a small wagon carrying two pails of seawater. (From Meiji-Period Nō Illustrations by Tsukioka Kōgyo, in the Hōsei University Kōzan Bunko Collection)
RAIN (rises, turns to Monk): Do please come in.
MONK: Thank you for your kindness.
Autumn Rain sits as before. Monk rises, advances a few steps, sits again. He too is now in the salt-house.
WIND: From the start I wanted to have you stay, but this house is simply not fit to be seen. That is why I refused.
MONK: It is very good of you to have me. Since I am a monk and have always been one, my travels have no particular goal. On what grounds, then, should I prefer one lodging to another? Besides, here on Suma shore, any sensitive person ought actually to prefer a somewhat melancholy life:
Should one perchance
ask after me,
say that on Suma shore,
salt, sea-tangle drops
are falling as I grieve.86
Yes, that was Yukihira’s poem. By the way, I noticed that pine tree on the shore. When I asked a man about it, he told me that it stands in memory of two saltmakers named Pining Wind and Autumn Rain. (Pining Wind and Autumn Rain weep.) I have no connection of my own with them, of course, but I prayed for them before going on. Why, how strange! When I mentioned Yukihira, both of you seemed overcome with sorrow. What is the meaning of your grief?
WIND AND RAIN: Oh, it is true! When love is within, love’s colors will show without!87 The way you quoted his poem, “Should one by chance inquire for me,” brought on such pangs of longing! So tears of attachment to the human world once more moistened our sleeves. (They weep.)
MONK: Tears of attachment to the human world? You talk as though you were not of the living. And Yukihira’s poem seems to afflict you with feelings of painful longing; I do not understand. Please, both of you, tell me your names!
WIND AND RAIN
(kudoki-guri) I am ashamed!
As the tale rises to my lips,
I whom none ask after, ever,
rejoin a world gone long ago,
where, brine drenched, I learn no lesson
but suffer on in bitterness of heart.88
(kudoki) Yet having spoken,
perhaps we need dissemble no more.
Some while ago, as twilight fell,
you kindly comforted those who lie
under that pine, beneath the moss:
two young women,
Pining Wind and Autumn Rain.
We before you are their phantoms.
Yes, Yukihira, those three years,
lightened his leisure with pleasant boating
and watched the moon here on Suma shore.
While seafolk maidens each night drew brine,
he chose and courted us, two sisters.
Pleased with names that fit the season,
he called us Pining Wind and Autumn Rain.
We Suma seafolk, familiars of the moon,
WIND:
found our saltburners’ clothing suddenly changed
BOTH:
to silken summer robes censed with sweet fragrance.
WIND:
So those three years slipped quickly by.
Then Yukihira went up to the capital
RAIN:
and, not long after, came the news
BOTH:
that he, so young, had passed away.89
WIND:
O how I love him!
But perhaps once, in another life (Weeps.)
he again will come,
CHORUS:
(uta) pining. Wind and Autumn Rain
wet these sleeves, helpless, alas,
against a love so far beyond us.
We of Suma are deep in sin:90 (They appeal to Monk with palms pressed together.)
O in your kindness, give us comfort!
(age-uta) Upon passion’s tangled grasses,
dew and longing mingle wildly, (Below, Autumn Rain goes to sit in left center while Monk moves to the waki spot.)
dew and longing mingle wildly,
till the heart, spellbound, yields to madness.
The Day of the Serpent brings purification,91
yet sacred streamers to ask the god’s help
wave on, useless, wave-borne froth,
we melt into grief and lasting sorrow. (Below, stage attendant gives Pining Wind a man’s hat and robe. Carrying them, she dances and mimes in consonance with the text.)
(kuse) Ah, as those old days return to mind,
I miss him so!
Yukihira, the Middle Counselor,
three years dwelt on Suma shore,
then went away up to the capital,
but left as keepsakes of our love
his tall court hat, his hunting cloak.
Each time I see them, ever more
passion grasses spring,
the pale dewdrops on each blade
so swiftly gone—might I so soon
forget this agony!
His parting gifts,
O they are enemies:
were they gone from me,
a moment of forgetfulness
might even now be mine92
so someone sang. O it is true!
My love for him only deepens. (Lowers her hat and cloak, which she had clasped to her, and weeps. Below, she continues miming.)
WIND:
Night after night,
I remove on lying down
this, my hunting cloak,93
CHORUS:
and on and on I only pray
that he
and I might share our life—
but fruitlessly.
His keepsakes bring me no joy!
She throws them down but cannot leave them;
picks them up, and his own face
looms before her. Do as she may,
From the pillow,
from the foot of the bed,
love comes pursuing.94
Down she sinks in helpless tears,
lost in misery.
(The donning of the robe)
In the shite spot, Pining Wind collapses into a sitting position and weeps. To ashirai music, the stage attendant clothes her in the robe and places the hat on her head. She weeps once more.
WIND:
(ge-no-ei) River of Three Crossings:95
the grim ford of ceaseless weeping
yet conceals a gulf of churning love!
(kakeai) O what happiness! Yukihira is standing there, calling my name, Pining Wind!
I am going to him!
She rises and starts toward the pine. Autumn Rain comes up behind her and catches her right sleeve.
RAIN: How awful! This state you are in is exactly what drowns you in the sin of clinging! You have not yet forgotten the mad passion you felt when we still belonged to the world. That is a pine tree. Yukihira is not there.
WIND:
You are too cruel, to talk that way! That pine is Yukihira!
Though for a time we may say goodbye,
should I hear you pine, I will return:
so said his poem, did it not?96
RAIN:
Why, you are right! I had forgotten!
A while, perhaps, we may say goodbye,
but should you miss me, I will come:
those were the words
WIND:
I had not forgotten, pining
wind is rising now:
he promised he will come—
RAIN:
news to start an autumn rain,
leaving sleeves a moment moistened;
WIND:
yes, pining still, he will return:
RAIN:
we rightly trusted
WIND:
his dear poem:
BOTH:
(waka) Now I say goodbye,
(Dance: chū-no-mai)
In tears, Pining Wind runs on to bridgeway, while Autumn Rain, also weeping, goes to sit in left center. Pining Wind then returns to the stage, pauses in the shite spot, and performs a chū-no-mai dance.
WIND:
bound for Inaba’s
far green mountains;
yet, my love, pine
and I will come again.97
(noriji) Yonder, Inaba’s far mountain pines;
CHORUS:
here, my longing, my beloved lord
here on Suma shore pines:98 Yukihira
back with me once more, while I,
beside the tree, rise now, draw near:
so dear, the wind-bent pine—
I love him still!
(Dance: ha-no-mai)
Pining Wind ceases weeping, then lifts her head and dances a ha-no-mai around the pine. As the text continues, she continues to dance and mime.
CHORUS:
In the pine a wind blows wild.
The Suma breakers rage nightlong
While wrongful clinging brings you this, our dream.
In your kindness, give us comfort!
Now, farewell:
(uta) receding waves fall silent
along Suma shore
a breeze sweeps down from off the hills.
On the pass, the cocks are crowing.
The dream is gone, without a shadow
night opens into dawn.
It was autumn rain you heard,
but this morning see:
pining wind alone lingers on,
pining wind alone lingers on.
Facing the side from the shite spot, stamps the final beat.
[Translated by Royall Tyler]
ATSUMORI
Attributed to Zeami
The protagonists of warrior plays are the ghosts of those who have fallen in battle. In earlier versions, they usually seem to have been portrayed as denizens of a hellish realm of never-ending battle in the afterlife.99 However, in The Three Paths (Sandō), Zeami recommends selecting protagonists of warrior plays from The Tales of the Heike and depicting them in an elegant manner. In this way, Zeami transformed warrior plays to suit the tastes of his cultural patrons in the capital, such as court nobles and high-ranking samurai, who favored elegant beauty over the rough mimicry of demonic battles between long-dead warriors.
The Tales of the Heike was enormously popular at the beginning of the medieval period. Earlier versions of this narrative are closer to historical documents in their descriptions of actual battles between the Heike (Taira) and the Genji (Minamoto) clans, whereas later versions highlight the aristocratic refinement of the Heike and the tragedy of the deaths of the clan’s noblemen and -women. In addition, Zeami often changed details of the original plot in order to accentuate the elegance of the protagonists.
Atsumori is Zeami’s adaptation of a famous episode from the Heike. Near the end of the battle at Ichi-no-tani on Suma Bay, Naozane, a follower of the rival Genji clan, catches sight of an apparently high-ranking warrior of the Heike alone on the seashore. Wrestling his enemy to the ground and removing his helmet, Naozane realizes that the soldier—Atsumori—is a boy of only about fifteen, nearly the same age as his own son. Although his first impulse is to spare the boy’s life, he sees other Genji followers fast approaching and knows that they will surely kill the boy. Thinking it better for the boy that he be the one to strike the final blow, Naozane is compelled to cut off the boy’s head. When he tears off a piece of Atsumori’s garment to wrap the head, he notices a flute, a symbol of courtly elegance, hidden under the boy’s armor. Some time afterward, revolted by the calling that has led him to commit such a brutal act, Naozane takes the tonsure. Later descriptions of this episode emphasize young Atsumori’s nobility, his almost feminine beauty, and his musical talent, as well as Naozane’s regret for having killed such an exquisite youth.
The nō play Atsumori revisits the encounter at Suma Bay between Naozane, who is now a monk named Renshō, and the ghost of Atsumori, disguised as a reaper. In the first act, the ghost of Atsumori shows his love for music by playing the flute. A question about the sound of his flute opens the conversation between the monk and the ghost, which soon leads to a song reciting the names of famous flutes in Japanese literature. Recurrent references to the flute function as allusions to the one that Atsumori kept close to his person during his life, even on the field of battle.
The play also alludes frequently to the “Suma” chapter of The Tale of Genji. Its background scene, the shore at Suma, is thus portrayed as a highly poetic landscape with strong associations with aristocratic culture rather than a bloody battlefield. These associations even suggest an analogy between Atsumori and the protagonist of the Heian-period tale of the Shining Genji, as both characters fled the capital for this remote seashore under adverse circumstances. The climax of the second act, unlike that of typical warrior plays, describes not the warriors’ torment in hell but Atsumori’s recollection of a banquet he enjoyed with his family the night before his death. Atsumori’s ghost reenacts the singing, flute playing, and dancing during the banquet.
Atsumori is a dream play (mugen-nō) in two acts, a structure that Zeami invented, although he did not follow it strictly here. For example, in a standard mugen-nō, the monk would simply be a passerby with no personal connection with the ghost, whereas in Atsumori, the monk is Naozane, the murderer of Atsumori. Such an exceptional personal relationship between the ghost and the monk is based on the fact that the original episode in the Heike is a tragedy for both Atsumori and Naozane, who is forced by circumstances to kill the young boy. Consequently, just as Atsumori needs to be saved from the torment of hell, Naozane is desperate to be delivered from his own anguish. This doub
le salvation is attained at the end of the play, when Atsumori forgives Naozane and expresses his strong hope that, through Naozane’s prayers, Atsumori will attain buddhahood.
Characters in Order of Appearance
THE MONK RENSHŌ, formerly the Minamoto warrior Kumagai no Jirō Naozane
waki
A YOUTH, the ghost of Atsumori appearing as a grass cutter
mae-shite
TWO OR THREE COMPANIONS to the Youth
tsure
A VILLAGER ai
THE GHOST OF THE TAIRA WARRIOR ATSUMORI (Atsumori, jūroku, or chūjō mask)
nochi-shite
Place: Ichi-no-tani, in Settsu Province
Act 1
To shidai music, Renshō enters, carrying a rosary. He stands in the shite spot, facing the rear of the stage.
RENSHŌ:
(shidai) The world is all a dream, and he who wakes
the world is all a dream, and he who wakes,
casting it from him, may yet know the real. (Turns to audience.)
(nanori) You have before you one who in his time was Kumagai no Jirō Naozane, a warrior from Musashi Province. Now I have renounced the world, and Renshō is my name. It was I, you understand, who struck Atsumori down; and the great sorrow of this deed moved me to become the monk you see. Now I am setting out for Ichi-no-tani, to comfort Atsumori and guide his spirit toward enlightenment.
(age-uta) The wandering moon,
issuing from among the Ninefold Clouds,100
issuing from among the Ninefold Clouds, (Mimes walking.)
swings southward by Yodo and Yamazaki,
past Koya Pond and the Ikuta River,
and Suma shore, loud with pounding waves,
to Ichi-no-tani, where I have arrived,
to Ichi-no-tani, where I have arrived.
(tsuki-zerifu) Having come so swiftly, I have reached Ichinotani in the province of Settsu. Ah, the past returns to mind as though it were before me now. But what is this? I hear a flute from that upper field. I will wait for the player to come by and question him about what happened here.
Sits below the witness pillar. To shidai music, the Youth and Companions enter. Each carries a split bamboo pole with a bunch of mown grass secured in the cleft. They face each other at the front.
YOUTH AND COMPANIONS:
(shidai) The sweet music of the mower’s flute,
the sweet music of the mower’s flute
Traditional Japanese Literature Page 67