by Arthur Waley
KOMACHI
Buddha's worshipful body, you say? But I could see no writing on it, nor any figure carved. I thought it was only a tree-stump.
PRIEST
Even the little black tree on the hillside
When it has put its blossoms on
Cannot be hid;
And think you that this tree
Cut fivefold in the fashion of Buddha's holy form
Shall not make manifest its power?
KOMACHI
I too am a poor withered bough.
But there are flowers at my heart,†
Good enough, maybe, for an offering.
But why is this called Buddha's body?
PRIEST
Hear then! This Stūpa is the Body of the Diamond Lord.* It is the symbol of his incarnation.
KOMACHI
And in what elements did he choose to manifest his body?
PRIEST
Earth, water, wind, fire, and space.
KOMACHI
Of these five man also is compounded. Where then is the difference?
PRIEST
The forms are the same, but not the virtue.
KOMACHI
And what is the virtue of the Stūpa?
PRIEST
"He that has looked once upon the Stūpa, shall escape forever from the Three Paths of Evil."†
KOMACHI
"One thought can sow salvation in the heart."‡ Is that of less price?
SECOND PRIEST
If your heart has seen salvation, how comes it that you linger in the World?
KOMACHI
It is my body that lingers, for my heart left it long ago.
PRIEST
You have no heart at all, or you would have known the Body of Buddha.
KOMACHI
It was because I knew it that I came to see it!
SECOND PRIEST
And knowing what you know, you sprawled upon it without a word of prayer?
KOMACHI
It was on the ground already. What harm could it get by my resting on it?
PRIEST
It was an act of discord.*
KOMACHI
Sometimes from discord salvation springs.
SECOND PRIEST
From the malice of Daiba...†
KOMACHI
As from the mercy of Kwannon.‡
PRIEST
From the folly of Handoku...§
KOMACHI
As from the wisdom of Monju.++
SECOND PRIEST
That which is called Evil
KOMACHI
Is Good.
PRIEST
That which is called Illusion
KOMACHI
Is Salvation.*
SECOND PRIEST
For Salvation
KOMACHI
Cannot be planted like a tree.
PRIEST
And the Heart's Mirror
KOMACHI
Hangs in the void.
CHORUS (speaking for KOMACHI,)
"Nothing is real. Between Buddha and Man
Is no distinction, but a seeming of difference planned
For the welfare of the humble, the ill-instructed,
Whom he has vowed to save.
Sin itself may be the ladder of salvation."
So she spoke, eagerly; and the priests,
"A saint, a saint is this decrepit, outcast soul."
And bending their heads to the ground,
Three times did homage before her.
KOMACHI
I now emboldened
Recite a riddle, a jesting song.
"Were I in Heaven
The Stūpa were an ill seat;
But here, in the world without,
What harm is done?"*
CHORUS
The priests would have rebuked her;
But they have found their match.
PRIEST
Who are you? Pray tell us the name you had, and we will pray for you when you are dead.
KOMACHI
Shame covers me when I speak my name; but if you will pray for me, I will try to tell you. This is my name; write it down in your prayer-list: I am the ruins of Komachi, daughter of Ono no Yoshizane, Governor of the land of Dewa.
PRIESTS
Oh piteous, piteous! Is this
Komachi that once
Was a bright flower,
Komachi the beautiful, whose dark brows
Linked like young moons;
Her face white-farded ever;
Whose many, many damask robes
Filled cedar-scented halls?
KOMACHI
I made verses in our speech
And in the speech of the foreign Court.
CHORUS
The cup she held at the feast
Like gentle moonlight dropped its glint on her sleeve.
Oh how fell she from splendour,
How came the white of winter
To crown her head?
Where are gone the lovely locks, double-twined, The coils of jet?
Lank wisps, scant curls wither now On wilted flesh;
And twin-arches, moth-brows tinge no more
With the hue of far hills. "Oh cover, cover
From the creeping light of dawn
Silted seaweed locks that of a hundred years
Lack now but one.
Oh hide me from my shame."
(KOMACHI hides her face.)
CHORUS (speaking for the PRIEST)
What is it you carry in the wallet string at your neck?
KOMACHI
Death may come today—or hunger tomorrow. A few beans and a cake of millet: That is what I carry in my bag.
CHORUS
And in the wallet on your back?
KOMACHI
A garment stained with dust and sweat.
CHORUS
And in the basket on your arm?
KOMACHI
Sagittaries white and black.
CHORUS
Tattered cloak,*
KOMACHI
Broken hat...
CHORUS
She cannot hide her face from our eyes; And how her limbs
KOMACHI
From rain and dew, hoar-frost and snow?
CHORUS (speaking for KOMACHI while she mimes the actions they describe)
Not rags enough to wipe the tears from my eyes!
Now, wandering along the roads
I beg an alms of those that pass.
And when they will not give,
An evil rage, a very madness possesses me.
My voice changes. Oh terrible!
KOMACHI (thrusting her hat under the PRIESTS' noses and shrieking at them menacingly)
Grr! You priests, give me something: give me something...Ah!
PRIEST
What do you want?
KOMACHI
Let me go to Komachi.†
PRIEST
But you told us you were Komachi. What folly is this you are talking?
KOMACHI
No, no...Komachi was very beautiful.
Many letters came to her, many messages—
Thick as raindrops out of a black summer sky.
But she sent no answer, not even an empty word.
And now in punishment she has grown old:
She has lived a hundred years—
I love her, oh I love her!
PRIEST
You love Komachi? Say then, whose spirit has possessed you?
KOMACHI
There were many who set their hearts on her,
But among them all
It was Shōshō who loved her best,
Shii no Shōshō of the Deep Grass.*
CHORUS (speaking for KOMACHI, i. e. for the spirit of Shōshō)
The wheel goes back; I live again through the cycle of my woes.
Again I travel to the shaft-bench.
The sun...what hour does he show?
Dusk...Alone in the moonlight
&
nbsp; I must go my way.
Though the watchmen of the barriers
Stand across my path,
They shall not stop me!
(Attendants robe KOMACHI in the Court hat and traveling-cloak of Shōshō.)
Look, I go!
KOMACHI
Lifting the white skirts of my trailing dress,
CHORUS (speaking for KOMACHI, while she, dressed as her lover Shōshō, mimes the night-journey)
Pulling down over my ears the tall, nodding hat,
Tying over my head the long sleeves of my hunting cloak,
Hidden from the eyes of men,
In moonlight, in darkness,
On rainy nights I traveled; on windy nights,
Under a shower of leaves; when the snow was deep,
KOMACHI
And when water dripped at the roof-eaves—tok, tok...
CHORUS
Swiftly, swiftly coming and going, coming and going...
One night, two nights, three nights,
Ten nights (and this was harvest night)...
I never saw her, yet I traveled;
Faithful as the cock who marks each day the dawn,
I carved my marks on the bench.
I was to come a hundred times;
There lacked but one...
KOMACHI (feeling the death-agony of Shōshō)
My eyes dazzle. Oh the pain, the pain!
CHORUS
Oh the pain! and desperate,
Before the last night had come,
He died—Shii no Shosho the Captain.
(Speaking for KOMACHI, who is now no longer possessed by Shōshō's spirit.)
Was it his spirit that possessed me,
Was it his anger that broke my wits?
If this be so, let me pray for the life hereafter,
Where alone is comfort;
Piling high the sands*
Till I be burnished as gold.†
See, I offer my flower† to Buddha,
I hold it in both hands.
Oh may He lead me into the Path of Truth,
Into the Path of Truth.
Footnotes
* The Tairas.
† The Minamotos, who came into power at the end of the twelfth century.
‡ The journey to look for her father.
§ Tōtōmi is written with characters meaning “distant estuary.” The whole passage is full of double-meanings which cannot be rendered.
* The Capital.
* Quotation from the Parable Chapter of the Hokkekyo.
* A Chinese Pegasus. The proverb says, "Even Kirin, when he was old, was outstripped by hacks." Seami quotes this proverb, Works, p. 9.
* "Le vieux guerrier avengle, assis devant sa cabane d'exilé, mime son dernier combat de gestes incertains et tremblants" (Péri).
† Yoshitsune.
* Po Chū-i’s Works, iii. 13.
† Alluding partly to the fact that he is snow-covered, partly to his grey hairs.
‡ Kefu, "today."
* Buddhist ordinances, such as hospitality to priests.
* Food of the poorest peasants.
* After Shakyamuni left the palace, he served the Rishi of the mountains.
* Using words from a poem by Michizane (845-903 A.D.).
† For Japanese football, see p. 231. A different interpretation has lately been suggested by Mr. Suzuki.
* I.e. Tokiyori.
* Hōjō no Tokiyori ruled at Kamakura from 1246 till 1256. He then became a priest and traveled through the country incognito in order to acquaint himself with the needs of his subjects.
* Sanskrit; Jap. sotoba.
† See p. xxxi.
‡ Now generally called Kayoi Komachi.
* The Koyasan is not so remote as most mountain temples.
* See p. 85.
* Seami, writing c. 1430, says: “Komachi was once a long play. After the words ‘Who are those,’ etc., there used to be a long lyric passage” (Works, p. 240).
† “Heart flowers,” kokoro no hana, is a synonym for “poetry.”
* Vajrasattva, himself an emanation of Vairochana, the principal Buddha of the Shingon Sect. 1 From the Nirvana Sūtra.
† From the Nirvāna Sūtra.
‡ From the Avatamsaka Sūtra.
* Lit. "discordant karma."
† A wicked disciple who in the end attained to Illumination. Also called Datta; cp.Kumasaka, p. 31.
‡ The Goddess of Mercy.
§ A disciple so witless that he could not recite a single verse of Scripture.
* God of Wisdom.
* From the Nirvana Sūtra.
* The riddle depends on a pun between sotoba and soto wa, "without" "outside."
* The words which follow suggest the plight of her lover Shōshō when he traveled to her house “a hundred nights all but one,” to cut his notch on the bench.
† The spirit of her lover Shōshō has now entirely possessed her: this "possession-scene" lasts very much longer on the stage than the brief words would suggest.
* Fukagusa the name of his native place, means "deep grass."
* See Hokkekyō, II. 18.
* The color of the saints in heaven.
† Her "heart-flower," i.e. poetic talent.
NOTE ON UKAI
SEAMI tells us (Works,p. 228) that this play was written by Enami no Sayemon. "But as I removed bad passages and added good ones, I consider the play to be really my work" (p. 230).
On p. 227 he points out that the same play on words occurs in Ukaithree times, and suggests how one passage might be amended. The text of the play which we possess today still contains the passages which Seami ridiculed, so that it must be Enami no Sayemon's version which has survived, while Seami's amended text is lost.
It is well known that Buddhism forbids the taking of life, especially by cruel means or for sport. The cormorant-fisher's trade had long been considered particularly wicked, as is shown by an early folksong:*
"Woe to the cormorant-fisher
Who binds the heads of his cormorants
And slays the tortoise whose span is ten thousand eons!
In this life he may do well enough,
But what will become of him at his next birth?"
This song, which is at least as old as the twelfth century, and may be much earlier, seems to be the seed from which the Noh play Ukai grew.
UKAI
(THE CORMORANT-FISHER)
By Enami No Sayemon (c. 1400).
PERSONS
PRIEST
FISHER
SECOND PRIEST CHORUS
YAMA, KING OF HELL
PRIEST
I am a priest from Kiyosumi in Awa. I have never yet seen the country of Kai, so now I am minded to go there on pilgrimage.
(Describing the journey.)
On the foam of white waves
From Kiyosumi in the land of Awa riding
To Mutsura I come; to the Hill of Kamakura,
Lamentably tattered, yet because the World
Is mine no longer, unashamed on borrowed bed,
Mattress of straw, to lie till the bell swings
Above my pillow. Away, away! For dawn
Is on the hemp-fields of Tsuru. Now the noonday sun
Hangs high above us as we cross the hills.
Now to the village of Isawa we come.
Let us lie down and rest awhile in the shelter of this shrine.
(The FISHER comes along the hashigakari towards the stage carrying a lighted torch.)
FISHER
When the fisher's torch is quenched
What lamp shall guide him on the dark road that lies before?
Truly, if the World had tasked me hardly
I might be minded to leave it, but this bird-fishing,
Cruel though it be in the wanton taking of life away,
Is a pleasant trade to ply
Afloat on summer streams.
I have heard it told that Yūshi and Hakuyō vowed their love-vows b
y the moon, and were changed to wedded stars of heaven. And even today the high ones of the earth are grieved by moonless nights. Only I grow weary of her shining and welcome nights of darkness. But when the torches on the boats burn low,
Then, in the dreadful darkness comes repentance
Of the crime that is my trade,
My sinful sustenance; and life thus lived
Is loathsome then.
Yet I would live, and soon
Bent on my oar I push between the waves
To ply my hateful trade.
I will go up to the chapel as I am wont to do, and give my cormorants rest (Seeing the PRIESTS.) What, have travelers entered here?
PRIEST
We are pilgrim-priests. We asked for lodging in the village. But they told us that it was not lawful for them to receive us, so we lay down in the shelter of this shrine.