TARŌ (notices the barrel is gone and confronts Jirō): Hey! Aren’t you going to let me have any?
JIRŌ: You were hogging it. I’ve got to eat some too!
TARŌ: No, I’ve got to eat it. Give it here! (They tussle over the Busu.)
JIRŌ: Give it here!
TARŌ: Give it here!
JIRŌ: Give it here!
TARŌ: All right, let’s place it here, right between us and share it.
JIRŌ: That’s fine with me.
TARŌ: Well, well, let’s dig in!
JIRŌ: Yes, let’s.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
TARŌ: All my life I’ve never tasted anything this good. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
JIRŌ: It’s so delicious I’m afraid my chin will drop off! Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
TARŌ: Eat up, eat up. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
JIRŌ: Right you are, right you are. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
Tarō notices the Busu is almost gone and leaves. He goes to the shite spot, where he stands facing forward.
JIRŌ (stirring with a clattering sound as he scrapes the inside of the barrel): There’s still some left, there’s still some left. Ahm ahm ahm ahm. Hey, what’s this? The Busu is all gone. (He goes to the waki spot and turns to face Tarō.)
TARŌ: What?! You’ve just done something fine.
JIRŌ: What do you mean “something fine?”
TARŌ: Well, Master didn’t want you and me to eat the Busu. That’s why he told us it was deadly poison. Now you’ve gone and eaten it all up, and I don’t think he will be very pleased about it. When the Master comes home, I’m going to tell him right away.
JIRŌ: Hey, wait, wait! It was you who first looked at the Busu and first ate the Busu, and when the Master comes home, I’ll tell him about it right away.
TARŌ: Now wait, wait! What I just said was a joke.
JIRŌ: You shouldn’t be telling bad jokes like that. So, what should we do for an excuse?
TARŌ (pointing to the right of the waki pillar): Tear up that hanging scroll.
JIRŌ: What? If I rip it up, will it give us an excuse?
TARŌ: Oh, it will, it will!
JIRŌ: In that case, I’ll tear it up. (He goes to the right of the waki pillar, where, to the following vocalization, he mimes pulling down a scroll, ripping it up, and throwing the pieces away.) Zarrari, zarrari, bassari! There, I’ve ripped it to shreds.
TARŌ: What?! You just did something fine again.
JIRŌ: What do you mean?
TARŌ: Now it’s true that I was the first to see and the first to eat the Busu. But because the Master treasures that scroll more than any other, I don’t think he’ll be pleased when he sees it ripped up like that. When he returns, I’ll tell him right away just who it was that ripped it up.
JIRŌ: Hey, what do you mean?! It was you who told me to rip it up, and when the Master returns, I’ll tell him about it right away.
TARŌ: Now wait, wait! That was another joke.
JIRŌ: How many times do I have to tell you this is no time for bad jokes. Now what’s our excuse?
TARŌ: Smash that huge Chinese vase. (He points in the direction of the corner pillar.)
JIRŌ: I’m not going to do anything you tell me anymore.
TARŌ: And why is that?
JIRŌ: You’ll tell on me, right? (Both laugh.)
TARŌ: So, let’s get together, and both smash it.
JIRŌ: That’s a good idea.
TARŌ: Come over here.
JIRŌ: Right. (They walk downstage, to the left of the corner pillar.)
TARŌ AND JIRŌ (they crouch down together and mime lifting a heavy object): Ei ei yattona.
TARŌ: For this we need three lifts, and on the third we’ll let it go.
JIRŌ: Right.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Iiiiyaaaa. Eiii.
TARŌ: That was one.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Iiiiyaaaa. Eiii.
JIRŌ: That was two.
TARŌ: This is the important one. Don’t forget to drop it.
JIRŌ: I won’t forget to drop it.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Iiiiiyaaaaaa. Eiii!
TARŌ: Garari! (Crash!)
JIRŌ: Chin! (Tinkle, tinkle!)
TARŌ: There’s a lot more of it now!
JIRŌ: It’s in smithereens!
Tarō and Jirō laugh together as they return to their respective places at the shite and waki spots.
JIRŌ: Well, now what do we do for an excuse?
TARŌ: My, you are a weakling. When the Master comes home, burst into tears!
JIRŌ: What? Will crying be an excuse?
TARŌ: Oh, it will, it will. (He looks toward the bridgeway.) Oh, look, he’ll be back soon. Come over here and sit down. (The two sit side by side in front of the left side of the orchestra position, up-stage center, facing the audience.)
MASTER (at the first pine): My business is finally over. (Walking toward the main stage) Even though I told Tarō AND Jirō to guard the house, I’m worried about them so I’ll hurry home. (Arriving at the main stage) What do you know, I’m home already.
TARŌ: He’s back. Start crying.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Eheh, eheh, heh, heh, heh, heh. (This is the vocalization used for weeping.)
MASTER: Hey, Tarō, Jirō, I’m home! (The two servants continue to weep as the Master takes his place at the waki spot.) Something’s wrong. You should be happy to see your Master return. Why are you crying like that?
TARŌ: Jirō, please, you explain it to him.
JIRŌ: No Tarō, please, you do it. (They continue to weep.)
MASTER: Enough! You two are making me very angry. Either one of you tell me what is going on right away.
TARŌ: In that case, I guess I’ll tell you. We had important work to do guarding the house, and we knew we shouldn’t fall asleep, so I sumo-wrestled Jirō to keep awake. He was stronger and lifted me up higher than his head. I didn’t want to be thrown, so I grabbed onto that scroll, and—look—that’s what’s become of it. (The two servants weep.)
MASTER (looking at the remains of the scroll on the ground): What’s this? My precious scroll is torn to shreds!
JIRŌ: Then we had a rematch, and I fell with a crash onto the big Chinese vase, and there—it’s in smithereens. (The two servants weep.)
MASTER (moving to stage right and looking at the shards of the vase on the ground): Oh my god! You smashed my precious vase to bits! (Returning to the waki spot) The two of you don’t deserve to live!
TARŌ: We knew we had no right to live, and so we hoped to kill ourselves by eating the Busu. Right, Jirō?
JIRŌ: Riiiiiight!
MASTER: What’s this? You even ate all the Busu. What useless wretches!
TARŌ AND JIRŌ (singing):
We took one mouthful
But we did not die.
Two mouthfuls, and still we did not die.
Three mouthfuls, four mouthfuls, five mouthfuls,
Ten mouthfuls and more. (They begin dancing.)
We ate up all the Busu
And still we could not die.
Destined to live, what lucky fellows!
Aren’t we sturdy guys?
Tarō and Jirō end the dance by striking the head of the standing Master with their open fans. They then run off stage, down the bridgeway.
MASTER: What do you mean, “sturdy guys”? You rascals! I’ll get you, I’ll get you.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ (exiting down the bridgeway): Please forgive us, forgive us!
MASTER (chasing the servants and exiting down the bridgeway): Where are you going? Someone stop them please! I’ll get you, I’ll get you!
[Introduction and translation by Laurence Kominz]
LINKED VERSE (RENGA)
SŌGI
Sōgi (1421–1502), a poet in the late Muromachi period, was born into a family of the warrior class, probably in Ōmi Province just east of Kyoto. At a young age Sōgi was placed in one of the premier Zen temples of the day, where he evidently contemplated life as a cleric. Only fairly late,
in his thirties, did he decide instead to make a living as a rengashi, a master of linked verse. Sōgi’s first teacher was the renga master Sōzei (d. 1455), also of warrior background, although of much higher rank, who was important for not only guidance in poetry but also social contacts, enabling Sōgi to ask courtiers such as Ichijō Kanera (Kaneyoshi, 1421–1520) for instruction. With his teacher’s encouragement, Sōgi studied linked verse as well as waka and court classics like The Tale of Genji and The Tales of Ise. Like Ton’a and other commoner poets, he never attained a dominant position in court circles, but by the end of his life he had achieved a position of respect seldom afforded one of such modest social origins.
During the Ōnin war (1467–1477), Sōgi spent much of his time traveling in the east country (Azuma) and the Kantō area and befriending powerful warlords, many of whom became his chief patrons. Staying sometimes for extended periods with one clan, he lectured, led linking sessions, and served as a mentor to samurai eager to acquire elite culture. As a partial record of this first great tour of the eastern regions, he composed a short travel journal, Journey to Shirakawa (Shirakawa kikō, 1468). The Shirakawa Pass, the entry into the northern frontier since ancient times, was a place that many famous poets of the past had visited, and he was anxious to add his name to the list of those who had recorded their impressions of the place in verse.
It was during his time in the east country that Sōgi met Shinkei (1406–1475), another refugee from the capital and a noted poet whose linked verse, characterized by the qualities of yūgen (mystery and depth) and hiesabi (chilled loneliness), he regarded as the finest of that of his contemporaries. In his own work, Sōgi tried in many ways to combine the strengths of his two teachers: Sōzei’s verbal ingenuity and Shinkei’s profundity. Although Shinkei was rather critical of Sōzei’s work, he recognized Sōgi’s talent and did all he could to encourage him.
After peace returned to Kyoto in the late 1470s, Sōgi set up his own practice there, in the tradition of poets like Ton’a and Shōtetsu. Sōzei, Shinkei, and their peers of the previous generation had died, and Sōgi marked their passing with an anthology of their work entitled Notes from the Bamboo Grove (Chikurinshō, 1476). By this time, he was indisputably the premier renga master in the capital and had students even among the traditional aristocracy. His unprecedented success was symbolized by two events: his appointment as steward of the Kitano Shrine’s renga office in 1488, and a commission to compile a second imperially sanctioned anthology of linked verse, the New Tsukuba Collection (Shinsen Tsukubashū, 1495).
Even during the years when he was most in demand as a master in Kyoto, Sōgi spent a great deal of time on the road, visiting patrons for whom he acted as a teacher of linked verse and the classics of court literature and waka. One of his journeys, through Kyushu in 1480 and 1481, is recorded in detail in Record of a Journey to Tsukushi (Tsukushi no michi no ki). In his early years, traveling to attend patrons had been a necessity; later it became part of the rhythm of Sōgi’s life and a crucial element of his literary practice.
Sōgi was a prolific writer. He left four major collections of his own linked verse, numerous full sequences that he had directed as senior participant (including Three Poets at Minase [Minase sangin hyakuin, 1488]) and that soon became required reading for aspiring poets, a personal collection of waka, more than a dozen essays on linked verse, and various lectures on court classics. He also was instrumental in reforming the Kokin denju (secret teachings of the Kokinshū) under the instruction he received from another warrior literatus named Tō no Tsuneyori (1401–1484?) during his first extended trip to the east country. In later years, these esoteric teachings assumed a central role in elite poetic culture, among both courtiers and warrior poets.
Many of Sōgi’s writings on linked verse are handbooks or compendia of notes intended for poets preparing to compose in a za (linked-verse session). As aesthetic theory, none of his work rises to the level of Shinkei’s Whisperings (Sasamegoto, 1463). But in East Country Dialogues (Azuma mondō, 1467–1470), Sōgi addresses both practical questions concerning technique and the history of the genre and its aesthetic ideals; and in An Old Man’s Diversions (Oi no susami, late 1470s), he offers sensitive readings of links by his teachers that reveal him as both a scholar and an astute critic. The number of disciples he attracted is an indication that he was a dedicated and respected teacher.
Sōgi left Kyoto in the summer of 1500 to visit friends in the east country, and he died at Hakone (in present-day Kanagawa Prefecture) in 1502. His last days are recorded in a short essay, “A Record of Sōgi’s Passing” (Sōgi shūen ki, 1502), written by a disciple, Sōchō (1448–1532), a distinguished renga poet.
EAST COUNTRY DIALOGUES (AZUMA MONDŌ, 1467–1470)
As a master of linked verse, Sōgi was first of all a teacher of many disciples, some of them training to become professionals, others content to be amateurs. Most of his essays were written for such students, usually for specific individuals. The most famous of Sōgi’s treatises is best known by the title East Country Dialogues and was written in response to questions by members of the Nagao clan of Musashi Province (in present-day Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture). The mondō (question–answer) format was a well-established didactic genre, and we cannot be sure whether the questions in the text were recorded verbatim, but the answers serve the purpose of introducing the basics of renga. The title East Country Dialogues—probably not chosen by Sōgi but by a later scribe—suggests that the text was regarded as a successor to Nijō Yoshimoto’s Tsukuba Dialogue (Tsukuba mondō, 1372), which was widely accepted as the first and foremost critical text in the renga tradition.
Most of Sōgi’s critical writings are handbooks on technique, but Azuma mondō touches also on questions of history, philosophy, and aesthetics. The following are three sections from the text, two dealing with matters of training and the third with the proper pace of composition in the za, in the linked-verse session.
QUESTION: What writings should be read as part of the renga poet’s training [keiko]?
ANSWER: This is a difficult question. My own opinion is that all the imperial anthologies of the various reigns, beginning with the Man’yōshū, as well as the personal collections of the several families of poetry, are suitable for training. Still, it depends on the individual. Since the world counts on me for expertise,139 I have collected texts of the Man’yōshū, The Eight Anthologies,140 The Tale of Genji, The Tales of Ise, The Tales of Yamato, The Tale of Sagoromo, Utsuho [The Tale of the Hollow Tree], The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter,141 and the like, which I refer to in case questions arise—although, having said that, the unfortunate fact is that I can’t claim that my efforts have been of much benefit to others or myself.
Perhaps those preoccupied with government duties, or busy with administrative service, cannot hope to engage in such broad training. I do believe, however, that all students should at the very least peruse The Three Collections,142 Senzaishū, Shinkokinshū, and catalogs of poems about famous places.143 Of course, even that may be too much for the elderly and for children. In such cases, they should just use the Kokinshū, Shinkokinshū, and books on famous places.
QUESTION: One hears of beginning, intermediate, and advanced stages of training. What do these stages entail?
ANSWER: I haven’t ever seen anything written down about beginning, intermediate, and advanced stages of training.144 But a young person will begin by perusing the Kokinshū innocently,145 committing to memory poems that will be useful later on, and play chain games146 with friends, always chanting poems. I would call this the beginning stage.
In the intermediate stage, students ask people about the meanings of classical waka, and when the words thus learned come up in linking sessions, they will take care to use them in making links. By doing so, one will acquire the respect of others and be pleased with oneself, until one gradually develops the heart of a connoisseur.147 This is what should be called the intermediate stage.
Once beyond that level, you ne
ed no longer think about borrowing words from particular waka but, instead, putting all your efforts into the work of attaining moments of intense feeling [ushin], seek beauty of form and grandeur of style.148 In this way, you will stay effortlessly within the realm of waka, without drawing on the diction of specific poems. Once you have entered this deeply into the art, all the texts will be in your heart. You will no longer need to tire your eyes with reading. I would call this the advanced stage of training.
QUESTION: Which would you say is better—favoring a rapid pace in the za or a slow pace?
ANSWER: The Way of linked verse is to ponder deeply and, indeed, to brood over your links. Nevertheless there are times when, judging the needs of a whole sequence, you may produce a simple verse that surpasses a distinctive verse in total effect. In the distant past it appears that most people felt they must ponder carefully in the za. Lord Sōzei,149 however, said that you should polish your talents through practice [keiko]150 and then compose quickly when in the za.
Surely, without practice, you will not produce an outstanding link in the za, no matter how you agonize over it. It is particularly unfortunate when someone, at a promising point in a sequence, as if to keep anyone else from coming up with a link, produces a verse with an earnest look on his face even before the scribe has had time to read the previous verse aloud. You should understand that when pursuing this Way, you must weigh your own attainments against the circumstances of the za and compose appropriately, without being either overly modest or too forward.
Anyone wishing to pursue this Way should first seek the aid of the gods and buddhas. Dedicate oneself to Sumiyoshi and Tamatsushima,151 embrace the straight and forsake the crooked, abandon distinctions between self and other, and, whether as a teacher of others or as a disciple, pray only to become skillful in the end.
In the Way of Japanese poetry, embrace above all the mind of compassion, so that seeing the red blossoms of spring gives way to the yellow leaves of autumn; meditating on the principle that all that lives must die, the demons of the heart will be calmed; and the mind will return to the truth of Original Enlightenment and Thusness.152 All phenomenal appearances are manifestations of absolute reality, and whichever Way you pursue, your heart must never depart from this thought.153
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