floats, windborne, far across the fields.
YOUTH:
(sashi) Those who gather grass on yonder hill
now start for home, for twilight is at hand.
YOUTH AND COMPANIONS:
They too head back to Suma, by the sea,
and their way, like mine, is hardly long.
Back and forth I ply, from hill to shore,
heart heavy with the cares of thankless toil.
(sage-uta) Yes, should one perchance ask after me,
my reply would speak of lonely grief.101
(age-uta) On Suma shore
the salty drops fall fast, though were I known,
the salty drops fall fast, though were I known,
I myself might hope to have a friend.102
Yet, having sunk so low, I am forlorn,
and those whom I once loved are strangers now.
While chanting these lines, Youth goes to stand in the shite spot, Companions in front of the chorus.
But I resign myself to what life brings,
and accept what griefs are mine to bear,
and accept what griefs are mine to bear.
Renshō rises.
RENSHŌ: (mondō) Excuse me, mowers, but I have a question for you.
YOUTH: For us, reverend sir? What is it, then?
RENSHŌ: Was it one of you I just heard playing the flute?
YOUTH: Yes, it was one of us.
RENSHŌ: How touching! For people such as you, that is a remarkably elegant thing to do! Oh yes, it is very touching.
YOUTH: It is a remarkably elegant thing, you say, for people like us to do? The proverb puts the matter well: “Envy none above you, despise none below.” Besides,
the woodman’s songs and the mower’s flute
YOUTH AND COMPANIONS:
are called “sylvan lays” and “pastoral airs”.103
they nourish, too, many a poet’s work,
and ring out very bravely through the world.
You need not wonder, then, to hear me play.
RENSHŌ:
(kakeai) I do not doubt that what you say is right.
Then, “sylvan lays” or “pastoral airs”
YOUTH:
mean the mower’s flute,
RENSHŌ:
the woodman’s songs:
YOUTH:
music to ease all the sad trials of life,
RENSHŌ:
singing,
YOUTH:
dancing.
RENSHŌ:
fluting—
YOUTH:
all these pleasures
Youth begins to move and gesture in consonance with the text.
CHORUS:
(age-uta) are pastimes not unworthy of those
who care to seek out beauty: for bamboo,
who care to seek out beauty: for bamboo,
washed up by the sea, yields Little Branch,
Cicada Wing, and other famous flutes;
while this one, that the mower blows,
could be Greenleaf, as you will agree.104
Perhaps upon the beach at Sumiyoshi,
one might expect instead a Koma flute;105
but this is Suma. Imagine, if you will,
a flute of wood left from saltmakers’ fires
a flute of wood left from saltmakers’ fires.
Exeunt Companions. Youth, in the shite spot, turns to Renshō.
RENSHŌ: (kakeai) How strange! While the other mowers have gone home, you have stayed on, alone. Why is this?
In act 2, Atsumori’s ghost, appearing in his original form, refrains from attacking Kumagai and drops to one knee. (From Meiji-Period Nō Illustrations by Tsukioka Kōgyo, in the Hōsei University Kōzan Bunko Collection)
YOUTH: You ask why have I stayed behind? A voice called me here, chanting the Name. O be kind and grant me the Ten Invocations!106
RENSHŌ: Very gladly. I will give you Ten Invocations, as you ask. But then tell me who you are.
YOUTH: In truth, I am someone with a tie to Atsumori.
RENSHŌ:
One with a tie to Atsumori?
Ah, the name recalls such memories! (Presses his palms together in prayer over his rosary.)
“Namu Amida Butsu,” I chant in prayer:
Youth goes down on one knee and presses his palms together.
YOUTH AND RENSHŌ:
“If I at last become a Buddha,
then all sentient beings who call my Name
in all the worlds, in the ten directions,
will find welcome in Me, for I abandon none.”107
CHORUS:
(uta) Then, O monk, do not abandon me!
One calling of the Name should be enough,
but you have comforted me by night and day—
a most precious gift! As to my name,
no silence I might keep could quite conceal
the one you pray for always, dawn and dusk; (Youth rises.)
that name is my own. And, having spoken,
he fades away and is lost to view,
he fades away and is lost to view.
Exit Youth.
Interlude
Villager passes by and, in response to Renshō’s request for information, describes how Atsumori was defeated by Kumagai on this very coast. He expresses deep sympathy for the former and a fierce hatred for the latter. Renshō reveals his identity. Greatly surprised, the Villager apologizes for his previous indignation, advises Renshō to pray for the peace of Atsumori’s spirit, and exits.
Act 2
RENSHŌ:
(age-uta) Then it is well: to guide and comfort him,
then it is well: to guide and comfort him,
I shall do holy rites, and through the night
call aloud the Name for Atsumori,
praying that he reach enlightenment,
praying that he reach enlightenment.
To issei music, Atsumori enters, in the costume of a warrior. He stops in the shite spot.
ATSUMORI:
(jō-no-ei) Across to Awaji the plovers fly,
while the Suma barrier guard sleeps on;
yet one, I see, keeps night-long vigil here.
O keeper of the pass, tell me your name.108
(kakeai) Behold, Renshō: I am Atsumori.
RENSHŌ:
Strange! As I chant aloud the Name,
beating out the rhythm on this gong,
and wakeful as ever in broad day,
I see Atsumori come before me.
The sight can only be a dream.
ATSUMORI:
Why need you take it for a dream?
For I have come so far to be with you
in order to clear karma that is real.
RENSHŌ:
I do not understand you: for the Name
has power to clear away all trace of sin.
Call once upon the name of Amida
and your countless sins will be no more:
so the sutra promises. As for me,
I have always called the Name for you.
How could sinful karma afflict you still?
ATSUMORI:
Deep as the sea it runs. O lift me up,
RENSHŌ:
that I too may come to buddhahood!
ATSUMORI:
Let each assure the other’s life to come,
RENSHŌ:
for we, once enemies,
ATSUMORI:
are now become,
RENSHŌ:
in very truth,
ATSUMORI:
fast friends in the Law.
Below, Atsumori moves and gestures in consonance with the text.
CHORUS:
(uta) Now I understand!
“Leave the company of an evil friend,
cleave to the foe you judge a good man”:
and that good man is you! O I am grateful!
How can I thank you as you deserve?
Then I will make confession of my tale,
an
d pass the night recounting it to you,
and pass the night recounting it to you. (Atsumori sits on a stool at the center, facing the audience.)
(kuri) The flowers of spring rise up and deck the trees
to urge all upward to illumination;
the autumn moon plumbs the waters’ depths
to show grace from on high saving all beings.
ATSUMORI:
(sashi) Rows of Taira mansions lined the streets:
we were the leafy branches on the trees.
CHORUS:
Like the rose of Sharon, we flowered one day;
but as the Teaching that enjoins the Good
is seldom found,109 birth in the human realm
quickly ends, like a spark from a flint.
This we never knew, nor understood
that vigor is followed by decline.
ATSUMORI:
Lords of the land we were, but caused much grief;
CHORUS:
blinded by wealth, we never knew our pride. (Atsumori rises now and dances through the kuse passage below.)
(kuse) Yes, the house of Taira ruled the world
twenty years and more: a generation
that passed by as swiftly as a dream.
Then came the Juei years, and one sad fall,
when storms stripped the trees of all their leaves
and scattered them to the four directions,
we took to our fragile, leaflike ships,
and tossed in restless sleep upon the waves.
Our very dreams foretold no return.
We were like caged birds that miss the clouds,
or homing geese that have lost their way.
We never lingered long under one sky,
but traveled on for days, and months, and years,
till at last spring came round again,
and we camped here, at Ichinotani.
So we stayed on, hard by Suma shore,
ATSUMORI:
while winds swept down upon us off the hills.
CHORUS:
The fields were bitterly cold. At the sea’s edge
our ships huddled close, while day and night
the plovers cried, and our own poor sleeves
wilted in the spray that drenched the beach.
Together in the seafolk’s huts we slept,
till we ourselves joined these villagers,
bent to their life like the wind-bent pines.
The evening smoke rose from our cooking fires
while we sat about on heaps of sticks
piled upon the beach, and thought and thought
of how we were at Suma, in the wilds,
and we ourselves belonged to Suma now,
even as we wept for all our clan.
Atsumori stands in front of the drums.
ATSUMORI:
(kakeai) Then came the sixth night of the Second Month.
My father, Tsunemori, summoned us
to play and dance, and sing imayō.110
RENSHŌ:
Why, that was the music I remember!
A flute was playing so sweetly in their camp!
We, the attackers, heard it well enough.
ATSUMORI:
It was Atsumori’s flute, you see:
the one I took with me to my death
RENSHŌ:
and that you wished to play this final time,
ATSUMORI:
while from every throat
RENSHŌ:
rose songs and poems
CHORUS:
(issei) sung in chorus to a lively beat.
(Dance: chū-no-mai)
Atsumori performs a lively chū-no-mai, ending in the shite spot. Below, he continues dancing and miming in consonance with the text.
ATSUMORI:
(unnamed) Then, in time, His Majesty’s ship sailed,
CHORUS:
(noriji) with the whole clan behind him in their own.
Anxious to be aboard, I sought the shore,
but all the warships and the imperial barge
stood already far, far out to sea.
ATSUMORI:
(unnamed) I was stranded. Reining in my horse,
I halted, at a loss for what to do.
CHORUS:
(chū-noriji) There came then, galloping behind me,
Kumagai no Jirō Naozane,
shouting, “You will not escape my arm!”
At this Atsumori wheeled his mount
and swiftly, all undaunted, drew his sword.
We first exchanged a few rapid blows,
then, still on horseback, closed to grapple, fell,
and wrestled on, upon the wave-washed strand.
But you had bested me, and I was slain.
Now karma brings us face to face again.
“You are my foe!” Atsumori shouts, (Brandishes sword.)
lifting his sword to strike; but Kumagai (He drops to one knee.)
with kindness has repaid old enmity, (Rises, retreats.)
calling the Name to give the spirit peace.
They at last shall be reborn together
upon one lotus throne in paradise.
Renshō, you were no enemy of mine. (He drops his sword and, in the shite spot, turns to Renshō with palms pressed together.)
Pray for me, O pray for my release!
Pray for me, O pray for my release!
Facing right center from the shite spot, stamps the final beat.
[Translated by Royall Tyler]
SHRINE IN THE FIELDS(NONOMIYA)
Attributed to Konparu Zenchiku
Zeami’s elegant style was most faithfully followed by Konparu Zenchiku (1405?–1470?), head of the Konparu-za sarugaku troupe in Yamato Province, as is obvious in both Zenchiku’s plays and his aesthetic treatises. Having lost his father while still young, Zenchiku turned to Zeami as his mentor and married Zeami’s daughter. While Zeami was in exile on Sado Island, Zenchiku supported him financially and looked after his wife, who remained in Yamato.
Although there is no documented evidence of the authorship of Shrine in the Fields, a third-category or “woman” play, it is generally attributed to Zenchiku, as it contains many characteristics common to his works. The setting of the play, a lonely field on an autumn night, reflects Zenchiku’s predilection for desolate settings. Zenchiku’s plays also frequently use the word iro (color), often signifying metaphysical instead of visible colors, as in kokoro no iro (the shades of my heart), which is a convention he probably borrowed from the famous poet Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), whom he greatly admired. Here, however, this convention is also an allusion to a remark made in The Tale of Genji, about the “unchanging color” of the sacred sakaki branch.
The overall composition and details of the play also resemble The Well Cradle (Izutsu), one of Zeami’s most popular works, such as the arrangement of subsections (shōdan), the way in which a traveling monk encounters a female ghost, and the use of relatively large stage props (in Izutsu, a well; in Nonomiya, the gate and fences of a shrine). Although Zeami often incorporated whole or revised portions of earlier plays, he rarely created a new play by duplicating the structure of an earlier one of his own. Instead, each of his plays seems to be a new composition or contain a new theatrical device. Conversely, Zenchiku often copied the structure of Zeami’s popular plays, as if teaching himself how to write by patterning his own works after Zeami’s.
Nonomiya is based on an episode in “The Sacred Tree” (Sakaki) chapter of The Tale of Genji, a sequel to the episode that inspired the nō play Lady Aoi. In Genji, the daughter of Lady Rokujō and the late crown prince is appointed as the Ise Shrine’s priestess. Lady Rokujō (or the “Consort,” as she is referred to in the play), who has by now realized that her own wandering, resentful spirit killed Aoi and that Genji is well aware of this, makes the highly unorthodox decision to accompany her daughter to distant Ise. Before setting off on their long journey, mother and daughter seek purification at Nonomiya, a
shrine in a desolate field north of Kyoto. One autumn night while they are there, Genji pays Lady Rokujō a last visit to bid her farewell. In Nonomiya, a traveling monk visits Nonomiya and there encounters the ghost of Lady Rokujō, who has been returning to this place on this very night in autumn every year since her death.
Although they share the same protagonist, Lady Aoi and Nonomiya differ in other respects. Lady Aoi presents Lady Rokujō as an obsessive female demon, whereas Nonomiya depicts her as a proud and noble lady who quietly recalls her past love. In Lady Aoi, Genji is rarely cited directly, whereas in Nonomiya the night of Genji’s visit is described in detail, with several quotations from the original. Lady Aoi also does not refer directly to the earlier episode of the “clash of the carriages,” in which Lady Rokujō conceives an ultimately deadly animosity toward Aoi, but alludes to it only vaguely, through its frequent references to a carriage. The audience thus can enjoy the play even if they are not familiar with the original story. By contrast, in the second act of Nonomiya the ghost of Lady Rokujō reenacts this incident but does not explain how it relates to her relationship with Genji. Clearly, Nonomiya assumes its audience is sufficiently familiar with Genji to understand the significance of this scene, for otherwise they would be completely lost in the second act of the play. This change in expectations regarding nō audiences’ literary knowledge may have reflected the rapid rise in nō performances’ social status.
Although it follows the original narrative more closely than Lady Aoi does, Nonomiya introduces a new twist in its presentation of the relationship between Lady Rokujō and Genji from the viewpoint of her ghost. In the original, Genji finally decides to sever his ties with Rokujō when he realizes that her living spirit has murdered his wife. But he continues to visit her at Nonomiya, and when she is about to set out for Ise, he sends her a letter asking that she remain in the capital. These gestures can be viewed less as sincere demonstrations of affection than as formal expressions of the prevailing etiquette. As is clear in the original text, Genji’s intention in comforting Lady Rokujō is to avoid acquiring a reputation for heartlessness. In Nonomiya, however, the ghost of Lady Rokujō never mentions her attack on Aoi but recalls Genji’s visit as a token of his genuine affection for her. She even regrets not having heeded his request to stay in the capital. It is as if that night—and her whole relationship with Genji—has become idealized in her memory over the many centuries since her death.
Toward the end of the play, the ghost of Lady Rokujō performs a dance (jo-no-mai) that serves no clear purpose in the plot. Indeed, such purely ornamental dance was introduced only after Zeami, who had always provided in his plays social situations in which female characters might plausibly dance. Since the social code of that time did not permit ordinary women to dance, the female characters who dance in his plays are deities, professional dancers, or deranged women. But through such plays, in which ordinary women, or sometimes even women of high rank, dance in derangement or after being reborn as deities, both playwrights and audiences gradually grew accustomed to seeing female characters dance in nō. By Zenchiku’s time, dancing by female characters had become little more than a theatrical convention of nō.
Traditional Japanese Literature Page 68