PART ONE
CHORUS
The ghosts of two fisher girls, Matsukaze and Murasame, gather salt on the seashore at Suma.
MATSUKAZE
I feel the waves washing my skin. Even the shadows of the moon are wet.
MURASAME
The autumn wind is full of thoughts of the sea.
MATSUKAZE
Even though our old lives were hard, I wish we could go back to them.
MURASAME
Oh, Matsukaze. The old lives were hard but the ghost life is harder. We exist in the shadows. The moon and the sun must hate the dead for they only shine on the living. The dew is gathered from the ground by the sun but we two are left behind like old grass left to rot on the beach.
MATSUKAZE
How beautiful is the evening at Suma. We have seen it many times and still it is beautiful. How faint are the fishermen's voices.
MURASAME
I can see the fisher boats on the tide. The faint moon is their only friend.
MATSUKAZE
Children sing under the field-sweeping wind, the wind that is salt with the
autumn smells. O, how sublime is the night.
MURASAME
I will go back to the shore for the tide is turning. We can hang our wet sleeves over our shoulders and let the salt water drip from them.
MATSUKAZE
The waves rush in against the shore. A stork is singing from the reeds. The storm is gathering in from all sides. How shall we pass through this night?
Cold night, clear moon, and we two are deep in shadow.
The flute and drum begin and the girls dance away.
CHORUS
How glorious are the sleeves of the dance that whirl like falling flakes of snow.
Quite, thinks Veda, and turns to the notes.
Noh: A brief introduction
FOR 400 years, Noh has represented the purification of the Japanese soul. The fifteen virtues of Noh, classified by Kobori Enshu, include mental and bodily health and healing without medicine. "Dancing," he said, "Is known to ward off the disease (sic.) of old age by encouraging the blood to circulate."
The essence of Noh lies in emotion, not action. There are neither accessories nor props. Tthe actors rely on "tamashii" (or spirit), and the drama is therefore moved by pure spirit. Everything comes down almost unchanged from a form perfected in the fifteenth century when the Zen priests summoned the Dengaku troupe from Nara to work with them in Kyoto. Under their tutelage, the Noh acquired a moral purpose and psychological breadth.
When the Revolution of 1868 ended the Tokugawa Dynasty (1602-1868), the Noh stages were destroyed, the troupes of actors dispersed. In 1871, Umewaka Minoru, one of the Shogun's solo performers, set up a stage by the Sumida River in Tokyo, bought a collection of costumes and masks from impoverished nobles and taught the Noh traditions to his sons. Such traditions included dancing with masks, using the sleeve or a fan for elaborate gestures, sacred dances from Shinto temples, tense, stanzaic lyric poetry in five or seven syllable lines, simple, chanted melodies accompanied by a drum and flute and the placing of large open jars under the stage to create resonance.
Each drama tries to capture a single idea by concentrating all the elements on one emotion rather than character. Such ideas might be filial affection, loyalty to a master, love between a husband and a wife, a mother's grief for a dead child, jealousy, anger, passion in battle, the infinite compassion of Buddha, the sorrow of unrequited love. These intense emotions are made universal experiences by the purity and clarity of the treatment. Character types are made vivid by masks. For the 200 plays extant, nearly 300 masks are necessary in a complete list of props. Costumes are less individualised. For the heroes and especially for spirits, they are rich, of gold brocades and soft silks.
Some of the more well known plays including Kiyotsugu's MATSUKAZE, CHORIO by Nobumitsu, d. A.D. 1516, (or the 13th year of Yeisho), KUMASAKA by Ujinobu, adopted son of Motokiyo, and TAMURA by Chikamatsu (1653-1724), author of 97 joruri plays. TAMURA depicts the pacification of the country and the driving out of evil spirits whilst in KUMASAKA the boy-warrior Ushiwaka fights a band of fourteen giant robbers in the dark.
From Visiting Japan by Jurat Jarkman
Reproduced with the permission of the author and Jackdaw Press
J. Page 36