Plays

By Zeami Motokiyo.

Translated by Arthur Waley, Frederick Victor Dickins, George Sansom, Ernest Fenollosa, and Noguchi Yone.

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Foreword

This edition of Zeami Motokiyo’s Plays was produced from various translations. Takasago was translated by Frederick Victor Dickins and originally published in 1906. Sakuragawa was translated by George Sansom and originally published in 1911. Kinuta, Suma Genji and Nishikigi were translated by Ernest Fenollosa and originally published in 1916. Yamanba was translated by Yone Noguchi and originally published in 1918. Atsumori was translated by Arthur Waley and originally published in 1921.

Robin Whittleton

Sweden, March 2026

Plays

Takasago

Introduction

The scene of the Prologue is the shore near Aso; of the first Act the scene is the strand of Takasago, of the second Act the scene is the strand of Sumiyoshi. (On the stage there is no differentiation of scene.)

The chorus would, originally at least, consist of the actors. At a later period more or fewer of the musicians and songmen (utahigata) took choral parts. It does not seem that there was any special chorus. It has, however, been supposed that the waki was accompanied by two hafuri (shrine-servants), who acted as chorus.

The performance began with the entry, from behind, of the shite and his tsure and the waki, who⁠—in later times perhaps some of the musicians⁠—would chant the opening quatrain. Upon the stage a Pine-tree was originally placed, afterwards represented by a picture on a curtain of the Tree under which the Spirits of the Trees of Takasago and Sumiyoshi were depicted, holding rakes in their hands and sweeping up the fallen needles.

The dancing or posturing would be part of the duty of the actors, not of the chorus, the functions of which only distantly resemble those of the chorus in the Greek Drama.

Characters

The shite, or protagonist, an Ancient, being the Manifestation or Presence of the Spirit of the Pine-tree of Sumiyoshi (or Suminoye) in Settsu.

The tsure, or companion of the Ancient, being a Dame, the Manifestation or Presence of the Spirit of the Pine-tree of Takasago in Harima.

The ato shite, or deuteragonist⁠—the part being taken by the shite⁠—the Manifestation or Presence of the God (representing the three gods) of Sumiyoshi.

The waki, or side-actor (tritagonist), being Tomonari, the Warden of the Shinto shrine of Aso in Higo (southwest of Kyūshū).

Prologue

Scene. The Seashore Near Aso in Higo.

Chorus. Tomonari.

Chorus

In traveller’s trim
now first he fareth forth,
and far the way is,
and many the days before him.

Tomonari
I who speak, Sirs, am Warden of the shrine of Aso in the land of Higo within the isle of the Nine Territories,¹ and Tomonari is my name. Never yet have I beheld City-Royal, and so am I minded to go up to the Capital; and for that so good an occasion may not be mine again, I would fain turn aside a space by the way and gaze upon the strand of Takasago in the land of Harima.

Chorus

Describing the journey.

In trim of traveller
this day to start he mindeth
for City-Royal,
for distant City-Royal⁠—
across the surf he
upon the shipway oareth,
gentle the skies are,
the spring-winds softly blowing⁠—
what tale of days shall
his bark in the cloudy distance
sail o’er the sea-plain
till Harima he reacheth,
and Takasago
at last his keel receiveth,
his keel receiveth!

Act I

Scene. The Strand of Takasago² overshadowed by an ancient gnarled and wide-branched Pine-tree.

Tomonari. The Ancient of Suminoye. The Dame of Takasago.

Ancient and Dame together

In the Pine-tree
of Takasago murmureth
the gentle spring-wind,
across the darkening air
the deep tones wafting
of the bell of old Onöe⁠—3

Dame | Mid the rocks mist-hidden the roar of the surf resoundeth;
Ancient and Dame | or ebb or flood be the cadenced music telleth.

Ancient

Whom may I friend hail
if mine own ancient comrade
I may not call thee,
O Tree of Takasago!
with whom sweet converse
to hold of long past years
beneath the snows
of many a winter white hid⁠—
for wont I have been
or night or morn, or sleeping
on my rude pallet,⁴
like hoary crane’s nest whiten’d
with morning moonshine,
or springtime’s rimy sparkle
like moonshine gleaming,
or waking with the daybreak,
in the murmurous music
the winds make in thy leafery
to find new gladness⁠—
so communing with my own heart
my night thoughts give me,
in utterance give me solace.

Ancient and Dame

What ask the winds
what ask they of the Pine-tree?
the falling leaves
blown by the shore winds down
upon our garments⁵
they give the answer, give they,⁶
the leaves low-fallen
we sweep and heap
beneath the Pine-tree’s shadow;
’tis Takasago
’tis the Tree of yore Onöe’s⁷
doth bide forever
the waves of Time affronting⁠—
so gather we
the leaves low fallen gather,
while ever the Pine-tree
shall ever live its life days,
and Takasago
its fame preserve forever,
its fame forever!

Tomonari | Ah, I looked to meet some village-folk here, and now come forth an Ancient and his Dame. Good people, I would ask a thing of you.
Ancient | Is it to me you speak, Sir, what would you know?
Tomonari | Tell me, which among these trees I see is the Pine of Takasago?
Ancient | The Tree it is, Sir, under whose shadow we sweep and heap the fallen leaves.
Tomonari | The Pine of Takasago and the Pine of Suminoye, aioi no matsu, the Wedded Pines, the poets name them, the Pines that grow old together; yet wide apart lie the strands of Suminoye and Takasago, how, then, may these Trees be called the Wedded Pines!
Ancient | ’Tis so, Sir, as you are pleased to say. In the foreword of Songs, Old and New is it not written that the story of the Trees of Takasago and Suminoye witnesseth of spousal love? I, this Ancient, am of Sumiyoshi in the land of Tsu, this Dame is native-born, read you us the riddle, if you may, Sir.
Tomonari | A miracle ’tis, good sooth! a wedded pair I behold you dwelling here together, yet hill and sea and moorland wide lie between Suminoye and Takasago; I cannot read the riddle.
Dame | Not well considered, Sir, would I say your words are, for though thousands of leagues of land and water part them, yet between wedded folk whose thoughts and feelings ay commingle never long is affection’s path.
Ancient | Yet again bethink you, Sir⁠—

Ancient and Dame
Things unquick are the Trees of Takasago and Sumiyoshi, yet men well call them the Wedded Pines. But we who speak have sense and feeling, to this year for many a year hath the Ancient of Sumiyoshi and the Dame of Takasago known spousal union, years many as the Tree hath endured time have they been a Wedded Pair, aioi no fûfu, who grow old together!

Tomonari | Ah! fair are your words and pleasant; but tell me, tell me, bides there not in these parts some memory of the ancient story of the Wedded Pines which grow old together!
Ancient | The sages of old time have told us that the Wedded Trees were sign and presage of a happy age.
Dame | The story of Takasago is as old as the Garner of Ancient Verse⁸ that goeth back to the elder time.
Ancient | And Sumiyoshi⁹ betokeneth the joy of living in this happy Yengi¹⁰ age.
Dame | The Pine-tree telleth us of the countless leaves of speech⁠—
Ancient | Now, as of yore, the tree flourisheth, ever green⁠—
Ancient and Dame | And ever doth its unceasing greenery adorn the age⁠—
Tomonari | Now do I understand and thank you well, good folk; of doubt my mind is clear as a cloudless sky in Spring.¹¹
Ancient | How soft yon light that falleth on the western sea!
Tomonari | There lieth Suminoye⁠—
Ancient | On Takasago’s shore we stand.
Tomonari | The Pines their greenery blend⁠—
Ancient | O time of Spring!
Tomonari | How balmy ’tis!

Chorus¹²

In waveless peace
the four seas lap our shores,
the gentle tide winds
no murmur mid the woods wake,
Oh, fair the age is!
fair yonder Pine-trees’ spousal,
äiöino
äiöinomatsu,
whose happy augury
men note with awe and wonder,
while vainly seek they
meet words their thanks to utter,
in such an age
that they do live rejoicing
in their Lord’s abundant bounty.

Tomonari | Ah tell me, tell me all the happy story of the Pine of Takasago!
Chorus | Well! no souls have trees and herbs, men say, yet never miss they their appointed times of flower and fruit, they love the warm light of Spring, and first those flowers blow whose buds look to the midday⁠—
Ancient | Yea! and this Pine-tree ever flourisheth, showing bloom and leaf, all heedless of change of season.
Chorus | Aye! through Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, under deepest snow, and for a thousand years it bideth green, yea for ten flower-cycles of a thousand years its hue endureth.¹³
Ancient | Such virtue hath the Pine-tree.
Chorus | The pearly dewdrops that hang on its leaves⁠—leaves of speech belike⁠—do cleanse the heart of man.
Ancient | All living things that live⁠—

Chorus

Under the protecting shadow of our wide-isled¹⁴ land do they not flourish?

A member of the chorus here recites the kuse¹⁵ or precept of the piece. Aye! and as Chônô¹⁶ hath it, all things, or quick or unquick, are revealed in song; herbs and trees and soil and sand, the whispers of the wind, the babble of the brooks⁠—all contain the soul of poetry. The sway of the woods in Spring under the eastern breezes, the chirrup of the cicada among the dews that moisten the unsunn’d foliages in Autumn, are they not forms or models of our native verse? In the universe of things that grow, doth not the Pine-tree surpass all the world of trees; bright as a full bevy of court nobles,¹⁷ the green leafery defieth a thousand autumns unshowing any change of hue⁠—well worthy, belike, the Pine-tree is of the badge of rank bestowed upon it by China’s Sovran Shikwo!¹⁸ In barbarian lands, within our own borders, by all the peoples of earth, is not the Pine-tree held blessed?

Ancient | Hark! I hear the solemn tone of Onöe’s bell by Takasago.

Chorus

Though with the daydawn
the hoarfrost shineth chilly
the Pine-tree ever
unchang’d its leafery showeth,
in the deep green shadow
or morn or evening
the fallen leaves we sweep,
yet ever fall they,
for true it is that never
yon leafery perisheth,
and ages long endureth
the Pine-tree’s greenery
as wild moor-creeper endless,
among the trees
that keep their freshness ever
deathless the fame is
of the Pine of Takasago
for ay a symbol,
äiöinomatsu,
and sign of wedded joyance.

Chorus¹⁹ | Well have ye told the ancient story of the Pine-trees whose everlasting bloom hath earned such fame, but, Sir and Dame, tell me how ye be called.
Ancient and Dame | Why should we not tell them, we are the spirits of the Pine-trees of Takasago and Suminoye that grow old together. As a wedded pair do we present ourselves.
Chorus | Now are manifest the wedded spirits. O wonder! such then is the mystery of the Pine-trees that o’ershadow these famous strands.²⁰
Ancient and Dame | Though plants and trees be things unquick⁠—
Chorus | In this auspicious age⁠—
Ancient and Dame | Or trees or herbs⁠—

Chorus

In this our land
our mighty Sovran ruleth
beneath his sway
’tis good to live²¹ forever,
and Sumiyoshi
where fair it is to dwell
our wanderer fain
would seek, and humbly there
the god await⁠—
wherefore ’tis now he climbeth
on fisher’s bark
anigh the sea-marge floateth,
and forth he fareth
by favouring breezes wafted,
across the waters
the evening waters fareth.

Tomonari

From Takasago
on fisher’s bark I climb
and sail away
far o’er the waves of ocean
as the pale moon riseth,
under Awaji’s shadow
I cleave the waters
’yond roaring Naruwo faring,
till Sumiyoshi
I reach, fair Sumiyoshi!

Act II

Scene. The Strand of Sumiyoshi in Settsu.

Chorus. The God of Sumiyoshi.

God of Sumiyoshi

Entering.²²

Long ’tis since saw I
the Princess Pine that groweth
by Sumiyoshi
nor knoweth, belike, the Sovran
how many an age through
my grace on him hath rested;
and now for generations
as palace-fence enduring,
to cheer my heart
be the sacred mime enacted,
wherefore the night drums
bring, and beat out their music,
ye servants of the shrine.

Chorus | From the western sea from where the waves are breaking upon Aoki⁠—23

God of Sumiyoshi

cometh the holy Presence,
in this fair spring-tide
when the Tree Divine full flourisheth,
and still the snows lie
lightly on As’kagata⁠—24

Chorus | where men do gather on the strand rich seaweed harvest⁠—
God of Sumiyoshi | at foot of the ancient Pine-tree I will recline me⁠—
Chorus | with a thousand years’ green leafery his²⁵ hands full filled be⁠—
God of Sumiyoshi | and spray of plum-tree gathered my head adorning⁠—
Chorus | like latest snows of winter the blossoms deck him.
Chorus | To the god of Sumiyoshi, since clear the moon shineth, let us offer thanks and praise, and for many an age adore his Presence that deigneth to take pleasure in this fair abode.

God of Sumiyoshi

The virgin voices,
how clear is their music
beneath the Pine-tree
of bright-shored Suminoye,
as featly dance they
to the air of the “Blue Sea Wave”
by the blue sea where
the shadow is reflected
of the Princess Pine-tree.

Chorus

The way of god and Sovran
towards City-Royal
will now be straightway wended²⁶
this fair spring season⁠—

God of Sumiyoshi | ’Tis the Dance of “Joyeuse Rentrée”
Chorus | for years ten thousand
God of Sumiyoshi | in ritual vestments

Chorus

let arms extended
all ill fend from the land,
and arms fair-folded
embrace all happiness,
and make the folk glad
with the “Joy of a Thousand Autumns,”
long life give all men
with the “Joy of a Myriad Years”⁠—
äiöinomatsu
among the Wedded Pine-trees
growing old together
may gentle winds forever
wake music ever haunting
and ever the world enchanting!²⁷

Sakuragawa

The Cherry-Blossom River

Argument

The following is a rendering of the greater part of Sakuragawa. There are some omissions⁠—of passages that defied any approach to adequate translation⁠—but the fragments remaining will perhaps give an idea of the spirit of this play, which differs considerably in subject and in manner from the two preceding selections.

Sakuragawa is, in fact, one of a group of pieces (Kiōjo mono) in which the chief personage is a madwoman. Such are Sumida-gawa, possibly the best, where a mother, driven mad by grief at losing her child, wanders forth in search, to hear by chance that he is dead; Hanjo, where a girl deranged by parting roams the countryside until she finds her lover; Minadzuki-barai, where a wife, lost by her husband, is found by him raving before a shrine, praying that she may meet him; Hyakuman, and several others of similar construction.

It will be gathered that the type shows little variety. There is no attempt to depict madness, except perhaps by a slight emphasis of the usual incoherence of the chanted words.

In Sakuragawa the lyric passages are a potpourri of flower-conceits. The masses of blossom are compared to clouds, or to a billowing sea; and when the wind comes and scatters them, they are waves breaking from above, they are snow, and they are dreams. All the stock fancies are there, woven together by the Chorus and the Madwoman, and through the whole runs a continuous thread of allusion, now understood, now expressed, to the likeness of name between the River and the lost child, “Sakurago.”

Characters

A Madwoman.

Her son, Sakurago, the “Cherry Child.”

A priest.

A child merchant.²⁸

Villagers.

I

Tsukushi, in Autumn

Merchant
I am a child-merchant from the East. I have lived for a long time in Kioto, but now I have come down to Hiuga, in Tsukushi, Yesterday, towards evening I bought a young boy, and he begged me to take the money that I paid for him, together with this letter, to ask for the mother of Young Sakura, and to deliver both safely to her. Now I am hastening on my way to find her dwelling. This looks like the place. I will ask admission. Pray, is the mother of young Sakura here?

Mother | Who art thou?
Merchant | Here is a letter from Young Sakura. Also he bade me safely to deliver this money, so I have brought it hither, and hereby do deliver it.

Mother

O this is strange! First let me see the letter. She reads.

“Now these many months I have been sore grieved to look upon thy wretched state, and so I have sold myself to a Child Merchant, and am going Eastward⁠ ⁠… ⁠ ⁠…

Stay, what is this? My child was not for such as they⁠ ⁠… The Merchant has disappeared. Ah! Woe is me, he is gone, and lost from sight. What can this mean Reading.

“and now I pray thee to make of this an occasion to retire from the world, and change thy garb.²⁹ A thousand times do I regret that I must part from thee.”

Chorus

Why, if the parting is bitter, dost leave
thy mother, not stay by her side?
The mother in her humble cot
grieving alone
day in, day out,
and naught to comfort her
but the sight of her son.

Mother

O Thou in whom I put my faith,
Lady-of-the-Trees-that-Blossom,³⁰
to Thee he’s dedicate.
Canst thou not stay him,
my Sakura, my Flower?

Chorus

For otherwise
how can I live the weary days alone,
in this old home where grief has come to me?
I will seek out whither my child has gone,
she cries and weeping, weeping wanders forth.

II

The Sakuragawa, in Spring. Three years later.

A Priest

Long have we waited, and the Cherry Time
has come at last. So hasten we
along the hill-path gay with Spring.

I am a priest of the temple of Isobe in Hitachi. This youth has begged me to take him under my care, so we have made a vow of teacher and disciple. In this district is the Sakuragawa, famous for its blossoms; and as the flowers are now at the best, I am taking him with me, and we are hastening thither.

On Tsukuba
all round the bloom is at the full.
A grove of trees, and thick the shade
and in the sky their colour glows.
The firtrees wear a look of Spring
and the tempest
lies on the billows of a flowery sea.
’Tis the River of Blossoms,
the Sakuragawa.

Villager | Thou comest late. I’ve waited long for thee.
Priest | We all came in company. That is why we are late. But see, how beautiful! The flowers are in full bloom.
Villager | Indeed they are. And there is another sight to see. A mad woman, with a beautiful hand-net, with which she scoops up the blossoms floating on the stream. And her ravings are most strange and diverting. Wait here a little, and we will show her to this youth.
| He tells another villager to fetch her. She approaches, and, meeting a traveller, addresses him.
Woman | Tell me, O Wayfarer, are the blossoms falling on the Sakuragawa?
| He replies “Yes.”

Woman

The blossoms are about to fall, say ye?
O! Woe is me, that would entice
the flowers as they floating come
adown the stream, whose waters hurry past
as quickly as the fleeting days of Spring.
Whirled willy-nilly³¹ on the stream
The fallen petals hurry down⁠—
A sign that from the mountainside
Up yonder also Spring has flown.

So runs the song, and I must not delay.
It were unkind to them to come⁠—too late⁠—
upon the blossoms that have turned to snow.
In anger at the wind³² that shed the blooms,
the waves have risen in a sealess sky.
Deep as my love lies the snow of the flowers
that fall and melting make a stream of tears.
I am a mad woman that stands here,
my home is Hiuga, up in Tsukushi.
I lost my loved son, my heart was torn with grief,
and I have crossed o’er mountains and o’er seas
to Hakozaki, where the waves arise, and thence
by Suma’s shore, and on past Suruga,
to Hitachi I now have come.
But this way doth not lie the Path³³
of Mother and Son, so how shall I
go on my distant journey hence?

This is the famous river, the Sakuragawa. In truth a lovely place that well deserves its name. The child from whom I am parted is also named Sakura, and this remembrance and the season both make dear to me this river with the name I love and where

I plunge my net and gather in
the snow-white blossoms floating by,
a keepsake of the Spring.

Chorus

Parted the parent and child,
the bird has flown from the nest,
whither I know not.
And I have travelled far, worn out am I
with this my journey through the wilds,
distant as earth from sky.
But what if we should meet, mother and son,
and neither know the other’s face?
Nay, nay, it cannot be!
Through the dark winter he was lost from view,
but now the Spring has come
shall he not blossom out again,
my Flower?

Priest | This must be the madwoman here. Pray tell me, Mad Woman, from what province and from what town dost thou come?
Woman | I am from distant Tsukushi.
Priest | And what is it that thus hath made thee mad?
Woman | Because I have been parted from my only child my mind is all deranged.
Priest | O sad to hear! I see that thou dost carry a lovely net, to scoop up the blossoms floating by. Moreover thou dost wear an earnest look of faith. What is the meaning of this?

Woman
It is because the Goddess that guards my native place is called the Lady-of-the-Trees-that-Blossom, and on earth her Presence is a Cherry Tree. For my lost child was dedicate to her, and he was brought up with the name of Cherry Blossom. So as the Goddess is called the Lady of the Blossom, and this child I seek is named Cherry Blossom, and this river is the Cherry Blossom River, I fain would save these fallen blooms that bear the name I love.

Priest

Oh! Admirable Reason! True indeed
a Cause there is to each Result,³⁴
and this has brought thee up from Tsukushi
far Eastward to the cherry river here.

Woman | This river for its very distance famed. What says the verse than Tsurayuki made?
Priest | ’Tis true, for Tsurayuki sang of old, hearing that in a land he had not seen,
Woman | in Hitachi, there ran a stream men call
Priest | The River of Blossoms, the Sakuragawa,

Chorus

Methinks, when Spring has come,
The waters rise, and ever beat the waves,
More than their wont upon the banks
Of the River of Blossoms.

Today the Flowers and the Poet too
have vanished like the snow, and left
only a name behind; the river still
flows on and shallow after shallow bears
its foaming blossom where the waves beat white.
⋮

Villager | To Madwoman. Alas! A sudden blast³⁵ from the mountain tops is scattering the blossoms on the Sakuragawa.

Woman

What sayest thou? The evening breeze
down from the mountains brings the blooms?
’Tis well. I’ll catch them in my net
before they float away.

Priest | See, see, the blast from the hills on every tree top beating down,
Woman | the flood of flowers rising white
Priest | and the waves that break from above.
Woman | Are they blossoms?
Priest | Are they snow?
Woman | Are they waves?
Priest | Are they flowers?
Woman | The hovering clouds
Priest | by the river breeze

Chorus

are scattered and the waves flow on,
waves of the River of Blossoms,
let me catch them as they pass!
⋮
The waters flow,³⁶ the flowers fall,
forever lasts the Spring.
The moon shines cold, the wind blows high,
the cranes do not fly home.
The flowers that grow in the rocks
are scarlet, and light up the stream.
The trees that grow by the caverns
are green and contain the breeze.
The blossoms open like brocade,
the brimming pools are deep and blue.

Woman | My straying footsteps brought me here

Chorus

to the river that rouses a longing within.
“The shade of a tree,³⁷ the flow of a stream”⁠—
Alike the name, alike the place,
they must be together bound
by a Link of former Life.

The water is the mirror of the flowers,
but as the year grows old
and blossoms fade and fall,
then can ye say the mirror tarnisheth?
What shall we do,
well knowing that the blossoms fade
and later turn to dust?
’Tis vain to hold
them blossoms which in truth are dreams.
For from the treetops
scattered and come to naught they fall,
fall on the waters, and, alas,
vanish as bubbles and are gone.
What looked like clouds
were the swift eddies and the silent pools
of blossoms on Miyoshino.
⋮
But though I catch them in my net,
the cherries, the flowers, the clouds and the waves,
are but the blossoms from the trees.
Not these indeed I seek,
but my beloved son,
not these indeed, but my beloved son,
my Sakura, my Flower.
⋮

Priest | Strange, O how strange are this mad woman’s words to hear! Comest thou perchance from Tsukushi?
Woman | Why dost thou ask this thing of me, whom none until today have known, whether I come from Tsukushi?
Priest | Why should we hide it from thee? Lo! The bloom of love that doth not fade! Behold thy Sakura.
Woman | That name I hear⁠— Is it a dream? I cannot tell⁠— Which is my child?
Chorus | The days of three long years have passed and many a league has lain between Mother and Son,
Woman | and his form has changed.
Chorus | But on that familiar face

Woman

looking with earnest gaze I see
the bright and blooming countenance
of Sakura, my blossom!
⋮

| They depart together.

Kinuta

Introduction

In Kinuta (“The Silk-board”) the plot is as follows:

The Waki, a country gentleman, has tarried long in the capital. He at last sends the Tsure, a maidservant, home with a message to his wife. The servant talks on the road. She reaches the Waki’s house and talks with the Shite (the wife). The chorus comments. Finally, the wife dies. The chorus sing a death-song, after which the husband returns. The second Shite, the ghost of the wife, then appears, and continues speaking alternately with the chorus until the close.

Characters

Waki, a country gentleman.

Tsure, the servant-maid Yugiri.

Shite, the wife.

Second Shite, ghost of the wife.

Husband
I am of Ashiya of Kinshu, unknown and of no repute. I have been loitering on in the capital entangled in many litigations. I went for a casual visit, and there I have been tarrying for three full years. Now I am anxious, overanxious, about affairs in my home. I shall send Yugiri homeward; she is a maid in my employ. Ho! Yugiri! I am worried. I shall send you down to the country. You will go home and tell them that I return at the end of this year.

Maidservant
I will go, Sir, and say that then you are surely coming. She starts on her journey. The day is advancing, and I, in my travelling clothes, travel with the day. I do not know the lodgings, I do not know the dreams upon the road, I do not know the number of the dreams that gather for one night’s pillow. At length I am come to the village⁠—it is true that I was in haste⁠—I am come at last to Ashiya. I think I will call out gently. “Is there any person or thing in this house? Say that Yugiri is here in the street, she has just come back from the city.”

Wife

Sorrow!⁠—
Sorrow is in the twigs of the duck’s nest
And in the pillow of the fishes,
At being held apart in the waves,
Sorrow between mandarin ducks,
Who have been in love
Since time out of mind.
Sorrow⁠—
There is more sorrow between the united
Though they move in the one same world.
O low “Remembering-grass,”
I do not forget to weep
At the sound of the rain upon you,
My tears are a rain in the silence,
O heart of the seldom clearing.

Maidservant | Say to whomsoever it concerns that Yugiri has come.
Wife | What! you say it is Yugiri? There is no need for a servant. Come to this side! in here! How is this, Yugiri, that you are so great a stranger? Yet welcome. I have cause of complaint. If you were utterly changed, why did you send me no word? Not even a message in the current of the wind?
Maidservant | Truly I wished to come, but his Honour gave me no leisure. For three years he kept me in that very ancient city.
Wife | You say it was against your heart to stay in the city? While even in the time of delights I thought of its blossom, until sorrow had grown the cloak of my heart.

Chorus

As the decline of autumn
In a country dwelling,
With the grasses failing and fading⁠—
As men’s eyes fail⁠—
As men’s eyes fail,
Love has utterly ceased.
Upon what shall she lean tomorrow?
A dream of the autumn, three years,
Until the sorrow of those dreams awakes
Autumnal echoes within her.
Now former days are changed,
They have left no shadow or trace;
And if there were no lies in all the world
Then there might come some pleasure
Upon the track of men’s words.
Alas, for her foolish heart!
How foolish her trust has been.

Wife | What strange thing is it beyond there that takes the forms of sound? Tell me. What is it?
Maidservant | A villager beating a silk-board.

Wife
Is that all? And I am weary as an old saying. When the wandering Sobu³⁸ of China was in the Mongol country he also had left a wife and children, and she, aroused upon the clear cold nights, climbed her high tower and beat such a silk-board, and had perhaps some purpose of her heart. For that far-murmuring cloth could move his sleep⁠—that is the tale⁠—though he were leagues away. Yet I have stretched my board with patterned cloths, which curious birds brought through the twilit utter solitude, and hoped with such that I might ease my heart.

Maidservant | Boards are rough work, hard even for the poor, and you of high rank have done this to ease your heart! Here, let me arrange them, I am better fit for such business.
Wife | Beat then. Beat out our resentment.
Maidservant | It’s a coarse mat; we can never be sure.

Chorus

The voice of the pine-trees sinks ever into the web!
The voice of the pine-trees, now falling,
Shall make talk in the night.
It is cold.

Wife | Autumn it is, and news rarely comes in your fickle wind, the frost comes bearing no message.
Chorus | Weariness tells of the night.
Wife | Even a man in a very far village might see.⁠ ⁠…
Chorus | Perhaps the moon will not call upon her, saying: “Whose night-world is this?”
Wife | O beautiful season, say also this time is toward autumn, “The evening moves to an end.”

Chorus

The stag’s voice has bent her heart toward sorrow,
Sending the evening winds which she does not see,
We cannot see the tip of the branch.
The last leaf falls without witness.
There is an awe in the shadow,
And even the moon is quiet,
With the love-grass under the eaves.

Wife | My blind soul hangs like a curtain studded with dew.

Chorus

What a night to unsheave her sorrows⁠—
An hour for magic⁠—
And that cloth-frame stands high on the palace;
The wind rakes it from the north.

Wife | They beat now fast and now slow⁠—are they silk-workers down in the village? The moon-river pours on the west.
Chorus (strophe) | The wandering Sobu is asleep in the North country, And here in the East-sky the autumnal wind is working about from the West. Wind, take up the sound she is beating upon her coarse-webbed cloth.

Chorus (antistrophe)

Beware of even the pines about the eaves,
Lest they confuse the sound.
Beware that you do not lose the sound of the travelling storm,
That travels after your travels.
Take up the sound of this beating of the cloths.

Go where her lord is, O Wind; my heart reaches out and can be seen by him; I pray that you keep him still dreaming.

Wife
Aoi! if the web is broken, who, weary with time, will then come to seek me out? If at last he should come to seek me, let him call in the deep of time. Cloths are changed by recutting, hateful! love thin as a summer cloth! Let my lord’s life be even so slight, for I have no sleep under the moon. O let me go on with my cloths!

Chorus

The love of a god with a goddess
Is but for the one night in passing,
So thin are the summer cloths!
The river-waves of the sky
Have cut through our time like shears,
They have kept us apart with dew.
There are tears on the Kaji leaf,
There is dew upon the helm-bar
Of the skiff in the twisting current.
Will it harm the two sleeves of the gods
If he pass?
As a floating shadow of the water grass,
That the ripples break on the shore?
O foam, let him be as brief.

Wife
The seventh month is come to its seventh day; we are hard on the time of long nights, and I would send him the sadness of these ten thousand voices⁠—the colour of the moon, the breath-colour of the wind, even the points of frost that assemble in the shadow. A time that brings awe to the heart, a sound of beaten cloths, and storms in the night, a crying in the storm, a sad sound of the crickets, make one sound in the falling dew, a whispering lamentation, hera, hera, a sound in the cloth of beauty.

Maidservant | What shall I say to all this? A man has just come from the city. The master will not come this year. It seems as if⁠ ⁠…

Chorus

The heart, that thinks that it will think no more, grows fainter; outside in the withered field the crickets’ noise has gone faint. The flower lies open to the wind, the gazers pass on to madness, this flower-heart of the grass is blown on by a wind-like madness, until at last she is but emptiness.

The wife dies. Enter the husband, returning.

Husband | Pitiful hate, for my three years’ delay, working within her has turned our long-drawn play of separation to separation indeed.

Chorus

The time of regret comes not before the deed,
This we have heard from the eight thousand shadows.
This is their chorus⁠—the shadowy blades of grass.
Sorrow! to be exchanging words
At the string-tip⁠—
Sorrow! that we can but speak
With the bow-tip of the adzusa!
The way that a ghost returns
From the shadow of the grass⁠—
We have heard the stories,
It is eight thousand times, they say,
Before regret runs in a smooth-worn groove,
Forestalls itself.

Ghost of the Wife | Aoi! for fate, fading, alas, and unformed, all sunk into the river of three currents, gone from the light of the plum flowers that reveal spring in the world!
Chorus | She has but kindling flame to light her track⁠ ⁠…

Ghost of the Wife
… and show her autumns of a lasting moon.³⁹ And yet, who had not fallen into desire? It was easy, in the rising and falling of the smoke and the fire of thought, to sink so deep in desires. O heart, you were entangled in the threads. “Suffering” and “the Price” are their names. There is no end to the lashes of Aborasetsu, the jailor of this prison. O heart, in your utter extremity you beat the silks of remorse; to the end of all false desire Karma shows her hate.

Chorus

Ah false desire and fate!
Her tears are shed on the silk-board,
Tears fall and turn into flame,
The smoke has stifled her cries,
She cannot reach us at all,
Nor yet the beating of the silk-board
Nor even the voice of the pines,
But only the voice of that sorrowful punishment.
Aoi! Aoi!

Slow as the pace of sleep,
Swift as the steeds of time,
By the six roads of changing and passing
We do not escape from the wheel,
Nor from the flaming of Karma,
Though we wander through life and death;
This woman fled from his horses
To a world without taste or breath.

Ghost of the Wife | Even the leaves of the katsu-grass show their hate of this underworld by the turning away of their leaves.

Chorus
The leaves of the katsu show their hate by bending aside; and neither can they unbend nor can the face of o’ershadowed desire. O face of eagerness, though you had loved him truly through both worlds, and hope had clung a thousand generations, ’twere little avail. The cliffs of Matsuyama, with stiff pines, stand in the end of time; your useless speech is but false mocking, like the elfish waves. Aoi! Aoi! Is this the heart of man?

Ghost of the Wife | It is the great, false bird called “Taking-care.”

Chorus
Who will call him a true man⁠—the wandering husband⁠—when even the plants know their season, the feathered and furred have their hearts? It seems that our story has set a fact beyond fable. Even Sobu, afar, gave to the flying wild-duck a message to be borne through the southern country, over a thousand leagues, so deep was his heart’s current⁠—not shallow the love in his heart. Kimi, you have no drowsy thought of me, and no dream of yours reaches toward me. Hateful, and why? O hateful!

Chorus | She recites the Flower of Law; the ghost is received into Butsu; the road has become enlightened. Her constant beating of silk has opened the flower, even so lightly she has entered the seedpod of Butsu.

Suma Genji

Characters

Shite, an old woodcutter, who is an apparition of the hero, Genji, as a sort of place-spirit, the spirit of the seashore at Suma.

Waki, Fujiwara, a priest with a hobby for folklore, who is visiting sacred places.

Second Shite, or the Shite in his second manner or apparition, Genji’s spirit appearing in a sort of glory of waves and moonlight.

Scene I

Waki

Announcing himself.

I, Fujiwara no Okinori,
Am come over the sea from Hiuga;
I am a priest from the shinto temple at Miyazaki,
And, as I lived far afield,
I could not see the temple of the great god at Ise;
And now I am a-mind to go thither,
And am come to Suma, the seaboard.
Here Genji lived, and here I shall see the young cherry,
The tree that is so set in the tales⁠—

Shite

And I am a woodcutter of Suma.
I fish in the twilight;
By day I pack wood and make salt.
Here is the mount of Suma.
There is the tree, the young cherry.⁴⁰

And you may be quite right about Genji’s having lived here. That blossom will flare in a moment.⁴¹

Waki | I must find out what that old man knows. To Shite. Sir, you seem very poor, and yet you neglect your road; you stop on your way home, just to look at a flower. Is that the tree of the stories?
Shite | I dare say I’m poor enough; but you don’t know much if you’re asking about that tree, “Is it the fine tree of Suma?”
Waki | Well, is it the tree? I’ve come on purpose to see it.
Shite | What! you really have come to see the cherry-blossom, and not to look at Mount Suma?
Waki | Yes; this is where Genji lived, and you are so old that you ought to know a lot of stories about him.

Chorus

Telling out Genji’s thoughts.

If I tell over the days that are gone,
My sleeves will wither.⁴²
The past was at Kiritsubo;
I went to the lovely cottage, my mother’s,
But the emperor loved me.

I was made esquire at twelve, with the hat. The soothsayers unrolled my glories.⁴³ I was called Hikaru Genji. I was chujo in Hahakigi province. I was chujo in the land of the maple-feasting.⁴⁴ At twenty-five I came to Suma, knowing all sorrow of seafare, having none to attend my dreams, no one to hear the old stories.

Then I was recalled to the city. I passed from office to office. I was naidaijin in Miwotsukushi, I was dajodaijin in the lands of Otome, and daijotenno in Fuji no Uraba; for this I was called Hikam Kimi.

Waki | But tell me exactly where he lived. Tell me all that you know about him.
Shite | One can’t place the exact spot; he lived all along here by the waves. If you will wait for the moonlight you might see it all in a mist.
Chorus | He was in Suma in the old days⁠—
Shite | Stepping behind a screen or making some sign of departure, he completes the sentence of the chorus.⁠—but now in the aery heaven.
Chorus | To Waki. Wait and the moon will show him. That woodman is gone in the clouds.
Waki | That “woodman” was Genji himself, who was here talking live words. I will wait for the night. I will stay here to see what happens. Announcing his act.⁴⁵ Then Fujiwara no Okinori lay down and heard the waves filled with music.

Scene II

Scene II begins with the appearance of the Second Shite, that is to say, a bright apparition of Genji in supernatural form.

Genji

How beautiful this sea is! When I trod the grass here I was called “Genji the gleaming,” and now from the vaulting heaven I reach down to set a magic on mortals. I sing of the moon in this shadow, here on this sea-marge of Suma. Here I will dance Sei-kai-ha, the blue dance of the sea waves.

And then he begins to dance.

Chorus

Accompanying and describing the dance.

The flower of waves-reflected
Is on his white garment;
That pattern covers the sleeve.
The air is alive with flute-sounds,
With the song of various pipes
The land is a-quiver,
And even the wild sea of Suma
Is filled with resonant quiet.

Moving in clouds and in rain,
The dream overlaps with the real;
There was a light out of heaven,
There was a young man at the dance here;
Surely it was Genji Hikaru,
It was Genji Hikaru in spirit.

Genji

My name is known to the world;
Here by the white waves was my dwelling;
But I am come down out of sky
To put my glamour on mortals.

Chorus | Gracious is the presence of Genji, It is like the feel of things at Suma.
Genji | Referring also to a change in the dance. The wind is abated.
Chorus | A thin cloud⁠—
Genji | —clings to the clear-blown sky. It seems like the springtime.

Chorus

He came down like Brahma, Indra, and the Four Kings visiting the abode of Devas and Men.⁴⁶
He, the soul of the place.⁴⁷
He, who seemed but a woodman,
He flashed with the honoured colours,
He the true-gleaming.
Blue-grey is the garb they wear here,
Blue-grey he fluttered in Suma;
His sleeves were like the grey sea-waves;
They moved with curious rustling,
Like the noise of the restless waves,
Like the bell of a country town
’Neath the nightfall.

Nishikigi

Characters

The Waki: a priest

The Shite, or Hero: ghost of the lover

Tsure: Ghost of the woman; they have both been long dead, and have not yet been united.

Chorus

The Nishikigi are wands used as a love charm.

Hosonuno is the name of a local cloth which the woman weaves.

First Part

Waki

There never was anybody heard of Mount Shinobu but had a kindly feeling for it; so I, like any other priest that might want to know a little bit about each one of the provinces, may as well be walking up here along the much travelled road.

I have not yet been about the east country, but now I have set my mind to go as far as the earth goes; and why shouldn’t I, after all? seeing that I go about with my heart set upon no particular place whatsoever, and with no other man’s flag in my hand, no more than a cloud has. It is a flag of the night I see coming down upon me. I wonder now, would the sea be that way, or the little place Kefu that they say is stuck down against it?

Shite | To Tsure. Times out of mind am I here setting up this bright branch, this silky wood with the charms painted in it as fine as the web you’d get in the grass-cloth of Shinobu, that they’d be still selling you in this mountain.

Shite and Tsure

Tangled, we are entangled. Whose fault was it, dear? tangled up as the grass patterns are tangled up in this coarse cloth, or as the little Mushi that lives on and chirrups in dried seaweed. We do not know where are today our tears in the undergrowth of this eternal wilderness. We neither wake nor sleep, and passing our nights in a sorrow which is in the end a vision, what are these scenes of spring to us? This thinking in sleep of someone who has no thought of you, is it more than a dream? and yet surely it is the natural way of love. In our hearts there is much and in our bodies nothing, and we do nothing at all, and only the waters of the river of tears flow quickly.

Chorus | Narrow is the cloth of Kefu, but wild is that river, that torrent of the hills, between the beloved and the bride. The cloth she had woven is faded, the thousand one hundred nights were night-trysts watched out in vain.

Waki

Not recognizing the nature of the speakers.

Strange indeed, seeing these town-people here.
They seem like man and wife,
And the lady seems to be holding something
Like a cloth woven of feathers,
While he has a staff or a wooden sceptre
Beautifully ornate.
Both of these things are strange;
In any case, I wonder what they call them.

Tsure | This is a narrow cloth called “Hosonuno,” It is just the breadth of the loom.
Shite | And this is merely wood painted, And yet the place is famous because of these things. Would you care to buy them from us?
Waki | Yes, I know that the cloth of this place and the lacquers are famous things. I have already heard of their glory, and yet I still wonder why they have such great reputation.
Tsure | Ah well now, that’s a disappointment. Here they call the wood “Nishikigi,” and the woven stuff “Hosonuno,” and yet you come saying that you have never heard why, and never heard the story. Is it reasonable?
Shite | No, no, that is reasonable enough. What can people be expected to know of these affairs when it is more than they can do to keep abreast of their own?
Both | To the Priest. Ah well, you look like a person who has abandoned the world; it is reasonable enough that you should not know the worth of wands and cloths with love’s signs painted upon them, with love’s marks painted and dyed.
Waki | That is a fine answer. And you would tell me then that Nishikigi and Hosonuno are names bound over with love?
Shite | They are names in love’s list surely. Every day for a year, for three years come to their full, the wands Nishikigi were set up, until there were a thousand in all. And they are in song in your time, and will be. “Chidzuka” they call them.

Tsure

These names are surely a byword.
As the cloth Hosonuno is narrow of weft,
More narrow than the breast,
We call by this name any woman
Whose breasts are hard to come nigh to.
It is a name in books of love.

Shite | ’Tis a sad name to look back on.
Tsure | A thousand wands were in vain. A sad name, set in a story.
Shite | A seedpod void of the seed, We had no meeting together.
Tsure | Let him read out the story.

Chorus

I

At last they forget, they forget.
The wands are no longer offered,
The custom is faded away.
The narrow cloth of Kefu
Will not meet over the breast.
’Tis the story of Hosonuno,
This is the tale:
These bodies, having no weft,
Even now are not come together.
Truly a shameful story,
A tale to bring shame on the gods.

II

Names of love,
Now for a little spell,
For a faint charm only,
For a charm as slight as the binding together
Of pine-flakes in Iwashiro,
And for saying a wish over them about sunset,
We return, and return to our lodging.
The evening sun leaves a shadow.

Waki | Go on, tell out all the story.
Shite | There is an old custom of this country. We make wands of meditation, and deck them with symbols, and set them before a gate, when we are suitors.

Tsure
And we women take up a wand of the man we would meet with, and let the others lie, although a man might come for a hundred nights, it may be, or for a thousand nights in three years, till there were a thousand wands here in the shade of this mountain. We know the funeral cave of such a man, one who had watched out the thousand nights; a bright cave, for they buried him with all his wands. They have named it the “Cave of the many charms.”

Waki | I will go to that love-cave, It will be a tale to take back to my village. Will you show me my way there?
Shite | So be it, I will teach you the path.
Tsure | Tell him to come over this way.
Both | Here are the pair of them Going along before the traveller.

Chorus

We have spent the whole day until dusk
Pushing aside the grass
From the overgrown way at Kefu,
And we are not yet come to the cave.
O you there, cutting grass on the hill,
Please set your mind on this matter.
“You’d be asking where the dew is
While the frost’s lying here on the road.
Who’d tell you that now?”
Very well then don’t tell us,
But be sure we will come to the cave.

Shite | There’s a cold feel in the autumn. Night comes.⁠ ⁠…

Chorus

And storms; trees giving up their leaf,
Spotted with sudden showers.
Autumn! our feet are clogged
In the dew-drenched, entangled leaves.
The perpetual shadow is lonely,
The mountain shadow is lying alone.
The owl cries out from the ivies
That drag their weight on the pine.
Among the orchids and chrysanthemum flowers
The hiding fox is now lord of that love-cave,
Nishidzuka,
That is dyed like the maple’s leaf.
They have left us this thing for a saying.
That pair have gone into the cave.

| Sign for the exit of Shite and Tsure.

Second Part

| The Waki has taken the posture of sleep. His respectful visit to the cave is beginning to have its effect.

Waki

Restless.

It seems that I cannot sleep
For the length of a pricket’s horn.
Under October wind, under pines, under night!
I will do service to Butsu.

He performs the gestures of a ritual.

Tsure

Aie! honoured priest!
You do not dip twice in the river
Beneath the same tree’s shadow
Without bonds in some other life.
Hear sooth-say,
Now is there meeting between us,
Between us who were until now
In life and in afterlife kept apart.
A dream-bridge over wild grass,
Over the grass I dwell in.
O honoured! do not awake me by force.
I see that the law is perfect.

Shite

Supposedly invisible.

It is a good service you have done, sir,
A service that spreads in two worlds,
And binds up an ancient love
That was stretched out between them.
I had watched for a thousand days.
Take my thanks,
For this meeting is under a difficult law.
And now I will show myself in the form of Nishikigi.
I will come out now for the first time in colour.

| The characters announce or explain their acts, as these are mostly symbolical. Thus here the Shite, or Sh’te, announces his change of costume, and later the dance.
Chorus | The three years are over and past: All that is but an old story.

Shite

To dream under dream we return.
Three years.⁠ ⁠… And the meeting comes now!
This night has happened over and over,
And only now comes the tryst.

Chorus

Look there to the cave
Beneath the stems of the Suzuki.
From under the shadows of the love-grass,
See, see how they come forth and appear
For an instant.⁠ ⁠… Illusion!

Shite | There is at the root of hell No distinction between princes and commons; Wretched for me! ’tis the saying.

Waki

Strange, what seemed so very old a cave
Is all glittering-bright within,
Like the flicker of fire.
It is like the inside of a house.
They are setting up a loom,
And heaping up charm-sticks. No,
The hangings are out of old time.
Is it illusion, illusion?

Tsure

Our hearts have been in the dark of the falling snow,
We have been astray in the flurry.
You should tell better than we
How much is illusion;
You who are in the world.
We have been in the whirl of those who are fading.

Shite

Indeed in old times Narihira said,
—and he has vanished with the years⁠—
“Let a man who is in the world tell the fact.”
It is for you, traveller,
To say how much is illusion.

Waki

Let it be a dream, or a vision,
Or what you will, I care not.
Only show me the old times over-past and snowed under⁠—
Now, soon, while the night lasts.

Shite | Look then, the old times are shown, Faint as the shadow-flower shows in the grass that bears it; And you’ve but a moon for lantern.

Tsure

The woman has gone into the cave.
She sets up her loom there
For the weaving of Hosonuno,
Thin as the heart of Autumn.

Shite | The suitor for his part, holding his charm-sticks, Knocks on a gate which was barred.
Tsure | In old time he got back no answer, No secret sound at all Save.⁠ ⁠…
Shite | The sound of the loom.
Tsure | It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets, A thin sound like the Autumn.
Shite | It was what you would hear any night.
Tsure | Kiri.
Shite | Hatari.
Tsure | Cho.
Shite | Cho.

Chorus

Mimicking the sound of crickets.

Kiri, hatari, cho, cho,
Kiri, hatari, cho, cho.
The cricket sews on at his old rags,
With all the new grass in the field; sho,
Churr, isho, like the whir of a loom: churr.

Chorus (antistrophe) | Let be, they make grass-cloth in Kefu, Kefu, the land’s end, matchless in the world.
Shite | That is an old custom, truly, But this priest would look on the past.

Chorus

The good priest himself would say:
Even if we weave the cloth, Hosonuno,
And set up the charm-sticks
For a thousand, a hundred nights,
Even then our beautiful desire will not pass,
Nor fade nor die out.

Shite | Even today the difficulty of our meeting is remembered, And is remembered in song.

Chorus

That we may acquire power,
Even in our faint substance,
We will show forth even now,
And though it be but in a dream,
Our form of repentance.
Explaining the movement of the Shite and Tsure.
There he is carrying wands,
And she has no need to be asked.
See her within the cave,
With a cricket-like noise of weaving.
The grass-gates and the hedge are between them;
That is a symbol.
Night has already come on.
Now explaining the thoughts of the man’s spirit.
Love’s thoughts are heaped high within him,
As high as the charm-sticks,
As high as the charm-sticks, once coloured,
Now fading, lie heaped in this cave.
And he knows of their fading. He says:
I lie a body, unknown to any other man,
Like old wood buried in moss.
It were a fit thing
That I should stop thinking the love-thoughts.
The charm-sticks fade and decay,
And yet,
The rumour of our love
Takes foot and moves through the world.
We had no meeting
But tears have, it seems, brought out a bright blossom
Upon the dyed tree of love.

Shite | Tell me, could I have foreseen Or known what a heap of my writings Should lie at the end of her shaft-bench?

Chorus

A hundred nights and more
Of twisting, encumbered sleep,
And now they make it a ballad,
Not for one year or for two only
But until the days lie deep
As the sand’s depth at Kefu,
Until the year’s end is red with Autumn,
Red like these love-wands,
A thousand nights are in vain.
And I stand at this gate-side.
You grant no admission, you do not show yourself
Until I and my sleeves are faded.
By the dew-like gemming of tears upon my sleeve,
Why will you grant no admission?
And we all are doomed to pass,
You, and my sleeves and my tears.
And you did not even know when three years had come to an end.
Cruel, ah cruel!
The charm-sticks.⁠ ⁠…

Shite | Were set up a thousand times; Then, now, and for always.
Chorus | Shall I ever at last see into that room of hers, which no other sight has traversed?
Shite | Happy at last and well-starred, Now comes the eve of betrothal: We meet for the wine-cup.
Chorus | How glorious the sleeves of the dance, That are like snow-whirls!
Shite | Tread out the dance.
Chorus | Tread out the dance and bring music. This dance is for Nishikigi.
Shite | This dance is for the evening plays, And for the weaving.
Chorus | For the tokens between lover and lover: It is a reflecting in the wine-cup.

Chorus

Ari-aki,
The dawn!
Come, we are out of place;
Let us go ere the light comes.
To the Waki.
We ask you, do not awake,
We all will wither away,
The wands and this cloth of a dream.
Now you will come out of sleep,
You tread the border and nothing
Awaits you: no, all this will wither away.
There is nothing here but this cave in the field’s midst.
Today’s wind moves in the pines;
A wild place, unlit, and unfilled.

Yamanba

The Mountain She-Devil

Characters

Hyakma Yamauba, a singer.

Yamauba, the mountain she-devil, appearing at first in the play as an old woman.

Chorus. This chorus sometimes speaks in place of the characters, sometimes explains the meaning of their movements.

Act I

Servant
We seek a temple for its blessed shadow of light. I am from the capital; the lady with me here is a renowned singer commonly called Hyakma Yamauba. She is known by that name, because she sings in her song of how Yamauba, a she-devil, wanders round the mountain. She has not yet visited the holy Zenkoji temple; so accompanied by myself, she is going now toward it.

Chorus

We left the capital, took a boat at ripple-kissing Shiga no Ura to cross the lake; then passed over Arichi no Yama Hill, and reached the Tamaye bridge studded with the jewel-dews. We loitered by the singing shade of the Shiwokoshi pine-tree at Adaka, whose smoke-like leaves were ruffled by the evening wind; we climbed the highest point of Tonami Mountain as keen as the Buddha’s law that will cut asunder our sins. But our goal is still remote underneath the dim clouds. Oh, how far behind is the capital!⁠ ⁠…

Now we arrived at Sakaigawa.

Servant | So we have now arrived at Sakaigawa between Echigo and Etchu Provinces. I think we must study which way to take.
Singer | I am told that the Azero mountain pass is the only one straight road leading to the Zenkoji temple, and finally to a western Pure Land a billion miles away. We should leave our palanquins here and go on barefoot, since ours is a holy journey for austere practice.
Servant | How strange! Oh! How mysterious! The day grows ere the time suddenly dark. What shall we do now?
Old Woman | Ho, ho, travellers, come, come stop over the night at my little mountain hut! The day has already set. This, the Azero mountain pass, is a place far away from human dwellings.
Servant | How glad! We are taken aghast by this early unexpected sun-setting. We will accept your kind invitation with thanks.
Old Woman | There is a particular reason for my offering you a lodging for the night. Let me hear a bit of the song on Yamauba. That is a desire I have cherished for a long long time. For this purpose I intentionally made the day grow dark, and even offered a lodging. By all means, sing, pray, sing!
Servant | What a strange request is yours! For whom do you take us? Why do you wish for the song on Yamauba?
Old Woman | Conceal it not⁠—the lady I see is nobody but Hyakma Yamauba, the renowned singer of the capital. Her song begins, I understand, by describing how Yamauba wanders round the mountain. That is merely a she-devil of her song. But do you know what the real Yamauba looks like?
Servant | It is told in her song, I believe, that Yamauba is an evil spirit living in the mountain.

Old Woman
An evil spirit in the mountain indeed! Since I too live amid the verdant hills, that means to say that her song concerns my own self. The fact that this renowned singer sings it for many years, not pitying me at all, is the very cause of my resentment. Oh! How heartless! What an affront! She owes it to the song certainly that she has become famous, her life’s sweet flower blooming perfectly. Therefore, I beg her to say Mass for my soul with dancing and music; then let me escape from the merciless pains of transmigration, and enter into the natural righteous final realm. I am nothing but the very spirit of Yamauba, now making her resentful presence before you, O lady.

Singer | Alas, you, the real Yamauba!
Old Woman | Yes, I came from afar to hear about myself in your own song. Pray, sing, sing!
Singer | It is not right, of course, to refuse you further.
Old Woman | But wait, wait, oh, lady! You would better sing the song after dark, under the shining moon; I will then reveal to you my true ghastly form.
Chorus | The sad mountain valley that ever hurries to grow dark is now clothed by the sudden streaming clouds, in whose mystery, lo, Yamauba hides away, saying that she will again appear later, and dance wildly to the singer’s nocturnal song.

Act II

Singer | Oh! How surprising! How incredible!
Chorus | The winds blew their flutes through the long forests of pine-trees⁠—the long mournful sound echoing to the clear depth of a valley stream. How the moon finds her lonely home in the silvery heart of the water! What silence of the mountains⁠—

Yamauba
What a nocturnal ghastliness! There a maddening spirit beats his own corpse in a cold forest and with tears repents over the sins of his previous life. Here a glad angel offers flowers to her own corpse in a deep field and with smiles delights in the worthy acts of her former life. To say good or bad, right or wrong, that is after all nothing so different;⁠—what has one to repent? And what has one to delight in? Go to Nature. Learn there a lesson of true perception! The waterfall rushes down, and the rocks are steep. Lo, mountain over mountain! What carver carved such a wonderful shape of green granites? Lo, water on water! What dyer dyed such a pleasing colour of blue brocade?

Singer | Alas and alas! What a fearful face from amid the shadowy gloom of mountains and trees! Ah, are you Yamauba?
Yamauba | Do not fear, do not be afraid of me!
Chorus | Though I speak a human tongue⁠—
Yamauba | my hair is thorn-like, icy-white⁠—
Chorus | my eyes are star-flaming⁠—
Yamauba | and my face is red⁠—
Chorus | like a red demon-tile threatening the world from the roof of a house.
Singer | Oh, the fear that never struck me before!
Chorus | If I were devoured at one mouthful! What terror! Oh! What a horror!
Yamauba | The lovely moment of the spring like this night is valued beyond a thousand pounds. There is fragrance in the flowers; a shadow with the moon. Pray, do not idle away these precious spring moments. Sing quickly, sing quickly!
Singer | Now I will sing⁠—
Chorus | making the waterfall beat a sound of the drum⁠—
Singer | with a flute played by the pine-tree.
Chorus | Oh! What a sight to see how the dark ghost wanders round the mountain!
Yamauba | The mountain rising first from a bit of dust, will thrust itself through the sky and clouds;⁠—
Chorus | the sea that began with a moss-dew, enfolds the million waves.
Yamauba | Behold, the wonder of my sylvan home, with the lofty mountains, and the seas anear! The valley is deep. Faraway the water resounds.
Chorus | The boundless sea before me nestles the moon, tranquil in her heart; the deep pine forests behind will scatter away life’s delusive dream with a wand of magic wind.
Yamauba | Here in the empty valley is no voice to be heard, here are only the fireflies on wings. No echoes run from tree to tree, no bird is alarmed.

Chorus
The peak of Hosho no Mine Mountain makes one aspire toward a peak of Nirvana; the bottomless depth of the Mumyo valley makes him lament over the bottomless delusion of human life. This Yamauba, the mountain she-devil, knows not where she was born or where is her home. Carried ever by a cloud or water, she does know no place where she can not wander. Sometimes she helps the poor woodman with his heaviest load, and kindly sees him off out of a mountain with the sunken moon. Sometimes she slides herself into the weaver’s busy window, and lightens the work of the woman with tangled threads.

Yamauba | But she is not a human being⁠—

Chorus
as light as a cloud, as free as the water, she will transform herself into any existence, at her momentary whim. Since good and wrong are the same, nothing different, she embraces the Buddha’s understanding as well as the human fallacy. There is a Buddha, and so here is human being too⁠—a Buddha, when you attain to perception, and a mere human, when you are caught by deception. There is the human being, and so here is a Yamauba too. Oh! What varied lives! What an interesting world! Oh what a beautiful Nature! Behold, the willow leaves ever so green, the flowers ever so red! Oh, be true like Nature herself!

Yamauba | What am I? What am I?⁠—I am nothing but the ever wandering spirit of life, when called by spring in the trees, to wander round a mountain for the smiling flower;⁠—
Chorus | in autumn⁠—
Yamauba | to wander after the lovely shadow of the moon;⁠—
Chorus | in winter⁠—
Yamauba | to wander for the flashing beauty of snow.
Chorus | Oh! What a sight to see how the dark ghost wanders round the mountain!
Yamauba | How restless I am in the human delusion, bound with the sad transmigrating pains!
Chorus | Yamauba born out of life’s dusts, this mountain she-devil. Oh, how she wanders round the mountain, nay, Life⁠—
Yamauba | now running up the rocks⁠—
Chorus | then dashing down the valley.
Yamauba | By mountain on mountain⁠—
Chorus | over water on water⁠—
Yamauba | —behold, Yamauba wanders, and now away disappears⁠—
Chorus | now away disappears. Oh! Where has she gone, this wandering restless ghost!

Atsumori

Introduction

In the eleventh century two powerful clans, the Taira and the Minamoto, contended for mastery. In 1181 Kiyomori the chief of the Tairas died, and from that time their fortunes declined. In 1183 they were forced to flee from Kyōto, carrying with them the infant Emperor. After many hardships and wanderings they camped on the shores of Suma, where they were protected by their fleet.

Early in 1184 the Minamotos attacked and utterly routed them at the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani, near the woods of Ikuta. At this battle fell Atsumori, the nephew of Kiyomori, and his brother Tsunemasa.

When Kumagai, who had slain Atsumori, bent over him to examine the body, he found lying beside him a bamboo-flute wrapped in brocade. He took the flute and gave it to his son.

The bay of Suma is associated in the mind of a Japanese reader not only with this battle but also with the stories of Prince Genji and Prince Yukihira.

A recitation concerning Atsumori’s death takes place in the Interlude between the two Acts. These interludes are subject to variation and are not considered part of the literary text of the play.

Characters

The Priest Rensei (formerly the warrior Kumagai).

A Young Reaper, who turns out to be the ghost of Atsumori.

His companion.

Chorus.

Act I

Priest

Life is a lying dream, he only wakes
Who casts the World aside.

I am Kumagai no Naozane, a man of the country of Musashi. I have left my home and call myself the priest Rensei; this I have done because of my grief at the death of Atsumori, who fell in battle by my hand. Hence it comes that I am dressed in priestly guise.

And now I am going down to Ichi-no-Tani to pray for the salvation of Atsumori’s soul.

He walks slowly across the stage, singing a song descriptive of his journey.

I have come so fast that here I am already at Ichi-no-Tani, in the country of Tsu.

Truly the past returns to my mind as though it were a thing of today.

But listen! I hear the sound of a flute coming from a knoll of rising ground. I will wait here till the flute-player passes, and ask him to tell me the story of this place.

Reapers | To the music of the reaper’s flute No song is sung But the sighing of wind in the fields.

Young reaper

They that were reaping,
Reaping on that hill,
Walk now through the fields
Homeward, for it is dusk.

Reapers

Short is the way that leads
From the sea of Suma back to my home.
This little journey, up to the hill
And down to the shore again, and up to the hill⁠—
This is my life, and the sum of hateful tasks.
If one should ask me
I too would answer
That on the shores of Suma
I live in sadness.
Yet if any guessed my name,
Then might I too have friends.
But now from my deep misery
Even those that were dearest
Are grown estranged. Here must I dwell abandoned
To one thought’s anguish:
That I must dwell here.

Priest | Hey, you reapers! I have a question to ask you.
Young reaper | Is it to us you are speaking? What do you wish to know?
Priest | Was it one of you who was playing on the flute just now?
Young reaper | Yes, it was we who were playing.
Priest | It was a pleasant sound, and all the pleasanter because one does not look for such music from men of your condition.

Young reaper

Unlooked for from men of our condition, you say!
Have you not read:⁠—
“Do not envy what is above you
Nor despise what is below you”?
Moreover the songs of woodmen and the flute-playing of herdsmen,
Flute-playing even of reapers and songs of wood-fellers
Through poets’ verses are known to all the world.
Wonder not to hear among us
The sound of a bamboo-flute.

Priest | You are right. Indeed it is as you have told me. Songs of woodmen and flute-playing of herdsmen⁠ ⁠…
Reaper | Flute-playing of reapers⁠ ⁠…
Priest | Songs of wood-fellers⁠ ⁠…
Reapers | Guide us on our passage through this sad world.
Priest | Song⁠ ⁠…
Reaper | And dance⁠ ⁠…
Priest | And the flute⁠ ⁠…
Reaper | And music of many instruments⁠ ⁠…

Chorus

These are the pastimes that each chooses to his taste.
Of floating bamboo-wood
Many are the famous flutes that have been made;
Little-Branch and Cicada-Cage,
And as for the reaper’s flute,
Its name is Green-leaf;
On the shore of Sumiyoshi
The Korean flute they play.
And here on the shore of Suma
On Stick of the Salt-kilns
The fishers blow their tune.

Priest | How strange it is! The other reapers have all gone home, but you alone stay loitering here. How is that?
Reaper | How is it, you ask? I am seeking for a prayer in the voice of the evening waves. Perhaps you will pray the Ten Prayers for me?
Priest | I can easily pray the Ten Prayers for you, if you will tell me who you are.
Reaper | To tell you the truth⁠—I am one of the family of Lord Atsumori.
Priest | One of Atsumori’s family? How glad I am!
| Then the priest joined his hands He kneels down and prayed:⁠—

Namu Amidabu.

Praise to Amida Buddha!

“If I attain to Buddhahood,
In the whole world and its ten spheres
Of all that dwell here none shall call on my name
And be rejected or cast aside.”

Chorus

“Oh, reject me not!
One cry suffices for salvation,
Yet day and night
Your prayers will rise for me.
Happy am I, for though you know not my name,
Yet for my soul’s deliverance
At dawn and dusk henceforward I know that you will pray.”

| So he spoke. Then vanished and was seen no more.

Act II

Priest | Since this is so, I will perform all night the rites of prayer for the dead, and calling upon Amida’s name will pray again for the salvation of Atsumori.
| The ghost of Atsumori appears, dressed as a young warrior.

Atsumori

Would you know who I am
That like the watchmen at Suma Pass
Have wakened at the cry of seabirds roaming
Upon Awaji shore?
Listen, Rensei. I am Atsumori.

Priest | How strange! All this while I have never stopped beating my gong and performing the rites of the Law. I cannot for a moment have dozed, yet I thought that Atsumori was standing before me. Surely it was a dream.
Atsumori | Why need it be a dream? It is to clear the karma of my waking life that I am come here in visible form before you.
Priest | Is it not written that one prayer will wipe away ten thousand sins? Ceaselessly I have performed the ritual of the Holy Name that clears all sin away. After such prayers, what evil can be left? Though you should be sunk in sin as deep⁠ ⁠…
Atsumori | As the sea by a rocky shore, Yet should I be salved by prayer.
Priest | And that my prayers should save you⁠ ⁠…
Atsumori | This too must spring From kindness of a former life.⁴⁸
Priest | Once enemies⁠ ⁠…
Atsumori | But now⁠ ⁠…
Priest | In truth may we be named⁠ ⁠…
Atsumori | Friends in Buddha’s Law.
Chorus | There is a saying, “Put away from you a wicked friend; summon to your side a virtuous enemy.” For you it was said, and you have proven it true. And now come tell with us the tale of your confession, while the night is still dark.

Chorus

He⁴⁹ bids the flowers of Spring
Mount the treetop that men may raise their eyes
And walk on upward paths;
He bids the moon in autumn waves be drowned
In token that he visits laggard men
And leads them out from valleys of despair.

Atsumori | Now the clan of Taira, building wall to wall, Spread over the earth like the leafy branches of a great tree:

Chorus

Yet their prosperity lasted but for a day;
It was like the flower of the convolvulus.
There was none to tell them⁵⁰
That glory flashes like sparks from flint-stone,
And after⁠—darkness.
Oh wretched, the life of men!

Atsumori

When they were on high they afflicted the humble;
When they were rich they were reckless in pride.
And so for twenty years and more
They ruled this land.
But truly a generation passes like the space of a dream.
The leaves of the autumn of Juyei⁵¹
Were tossed by the four winds;
Scattered, scattered (like leaves too) floated their ships.
And they, asleep on the heaving sea, not even in dreams
Went back to home.
Caged birds longing for the clouds⁠—
Wild geese were they rather, whose ranks are broken
As they fly to southward on their doubtful journey.
So days and months went by; Spring came again
And for a little while
Here dwelt they on the shore of Suma
At the first valley.⁵²
From the mountain behind us the winds blew down
Till the fields grew wintry again.
Our ships lay by the shore, where night and day
The seagulls cried and salt waves washed on our sleeves.
We slept with fishers in their huts
On pillows of sand.
We knew none but the people of Suma.
And when among the pine-trees
The evening smoke was rising,
Brushwood, as they call it,⁵³
Brushwood we gathered
And spread for carpet.
Sorrowful we lived
On the wild shore of Suma,
Till the clan Taira and all its princes
Were but villagers of Suma.

Atsumori

But on the night of the sixth day of the second month
My father Tsunemori gathered us together.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “we shall fight our last fight.
Tonight is all that is left us.”
We sang songs together, and danced.

Priest

Yes, I remember; we in our siege-camp
Heard the sound of music
Echoing from your tents that night;
There was the music of a flute⁠ ⁠…

Atsumori | The bamboo-flute! I wore it when I died.
Priest | We heard the singing⁠ ⁠…
Atsumori | Songs and ballads⁠ ⁠…
Priest | Many voices
Atsumori | Singing to one measure. Atsumori dances. First comes the Royal Boat.

Chorus

The whole clan has put its boats to sea.
He⁵⁴ will not be left behind;
He runs to the shore.
But the Royal Boat and the soldiers’ boats
Have sailed far away.

Atsumori

What can he do?
He spurs his horse into the waves.
He is full of perplexity.
And then

Chorus

He looks behind him and sees
That Kumagai pursues him;
He cannot escape.
Then Atsumori turns his horse
Knee-deep in the lashing waves,
And draws his sword.
Twice, three times he strikes; then, still saddled,
In close fight they twine; roll headlong together
Among the surf of the shore.
So Atsumori fell and was slain, but now the Wheel of Fate
Has turned and brought him back.

Atsumori rises from the ground and advances toward the Priest with uplifted sword.

“There is my enemy,” he cries, and would strike,
But the other is grown gentle
And calling on Buddha’s name
Has obtained salvation for his foe;
So that they shall be reborn together
On one lotus-seat.
“No, Rensei is not my enemy.
Pray for me again, oh pray for me again.”

Endnotes

The province of Kyūshū.

On the north shore of the Inland Sea, west of Kobe.

In Murakami’s Harima Meisho-zuwe (Illustrated Description of the Province of Harima, 1863), vol. III, Onöe (wo no uhe) is described as a pine-grove in Osada, where the shrines of two deities Sumiyoshi Myojin (Illustrious God), and Ohara Dai myojin (Great Illustrious God) exist. Finally there were three gods of Sumiyoshi, of the upper (or nearer?) middle (remote?) and bottom (furthest?) waters. When Jingu, the Queen-Regnant (AD 201⁠–⁠69), had completed her conquest of Korea, she built here the Sumiyoshi shrine and called the place Takasago (High Dune). Changes in the coastline occurred, and Takasago (which was a little port) disappeared, while Old Takasago became Onöe. [Possibly the twain trees originally grew near these shrines, and of their proximity the memory was preserved in the story, when Sumiyoshi in Tsu came into existence.]

There are two sayings about the pine-tree which are worth giving. One is Matsu to ifu ji wo sakashima yomeba tsuma to naru no de ureshikaro; if you read the syllabic characters of ma tsu (matsu, pine) backwards you have tsu ma (tsuma) “spouse,” which is, more japonico, a pleasant conceit. The other turns upon an analysis of the character 松 (pine-tree); matsu to ifu ji wo wakachite yomeba kimi to boku to no futari-zure, if you dissect the character for pine-tree you have 木 boku, “tree,” and 公 kimi, “you.” Boku is also the pronunciation of 僕 “I myself,” so that the saying means that the analysis of the character gives the pair of ego and tu. The one saying involves the notion of spousal love, the other that of friendship.

In Titsingh’s Japan will be found an illustration of Takasago no ura.

He compares his couch with the crane’s nest, usually figured as built amid the Takasago pine branches. The crane, like the tree, was a symbol of longevity⁠—the tortoise also; Pine, Crane, and Tortoise (long haired) with the Ancient Pair are commonly represented together.

There is here an allusion to a dress of the colour of autumn leafery, but the leaves themselves are also regarded as a sort of vestment.

An allusion to the phrase koto no ha (“leaves of speech”) for kotoba.

A somewhat bold attempt to represent the wordplay in the text.

The Manyoshiu.

Sumiyoshi = “where (or when) ’tis good to dwell (exist).”

Yengi means “prolong-joy,” it is the name of a year-period (AD 901⁠–⁠22).

There is a wordplay here on haru, which means Spring, and also to clear up (as weather).

These lines are sung at weddings as an epithalamium. At such ceremonies, in various ways, the story of the Twain Trees is represented.

This passage is poetized prose. There exists a stanza on the pine-blossom that shows only once in a millennium. The floral organs of the pine were, of course, not understood in Old Japan.

Written “spread out islands”⁠—a name for Japan. Possibly an ancient capital is intended.

Or possibly the shite only. The speech is called kuse, which may be rendered as “chief argument,” or “inner meaning,” or “precept” of the piece.

A poet who flourished in the reign of the first Ichijo (987⁠–⁠1101).

A play on the character for pine 松, which may be dissected into 八十 (80 = many), 公, nobles or princes.

Shi Hwangti, the Chinese Emperor, BC 259⁠–⁠210, who bestowed rank upon a Pine-tree that gave him shelter from a shower of rain.

Or perhaps one or more of the musicians or songmen (utahi gata).

I.e. Takasago and Suminoye.

See note 9.

What the god chants here is said to have been of his own composition. There is considerable doubt as to the personages of the remaining dialogue. I take the view that they are the god and the chorus⁠—the god, as ato-shite, being represented by the shite with changed dress and mask.

The god came originally from Aokigahara (see Zoku Kokin, a continuation of Songs Old and New).

Asakayama is in Settsu. Another hill, so named, is in Michinoku.

Or “my.” The vagueness is characteristic of Japanese poetry, and often, as here, is not without effect as broadening the field of suggestion.

The meaning of this passage is not quite clear.

The last three lines are a slightly paraphrased rendering of the text. “Blue Sea Wave,” “Joyeuse Rentrée,” “Joy of a Thousand Autumns,” and “Joy of a Myriad Years,” are all titles of Chinese musical pieces.

Hito akiudo (人商人). They bought, or kidnapped, youths of agreeable appearance for service in temples.

Become a nun.

Konohasakuyahime.

A stanza from the Kokinshiu.

A stanza from the Kokinshiu, by Tsurayuki.

Of Maternal and Filial Duty, which cannot be fulfilled apart.

The doctorine of Karma. Every relationship, a chance likeness of name, a casual brushing of sleeves, betokens some past or future affinity.

The priest has asked the villager why the woman speaks so sensibly, and suggested that he should say something that will set her off raving, so that he may be amused! The villager thereupon tells her that the blossoms are being scattered by the breeze.

A similar situation in the Kiōjomono is not infrequent. A mad woman is produced as an entertainment for visitors, and her ravings, serve for their diversion.

In Minazukibarai, for instance, a villager says to one who enquires what sights his district offers, “There is a young madwoman here⁠ ⁠… the way she dances about is most amusing⁠ ⁠… I’ll show her to you.”

In Hanjo, a servant, on his master’s behalf, addresses Hanako, “Why dost thou not rave to day, Mad Woman? Rave now to amuse us.” Strange idea of fun⁠—yet not so strange when one remembers that, a century ago, people of fashion used to make up parties to view the antics of lunatics confined in Bedlam.

These ten lines are transferred bodily from Chinese verse.

“To shelter under the same tree, to dip one’s hand in the same stream.” Even such trifling affinities as these are preordained, so that there must be some previous cause from a previous existence connecting Sakurago with the Sakuragawa. The Japanese view of life was strongly coloured by the Karma doctrine.

So Wu.

I.e. a moon that has no phases.

It must be remembered that the properties and scene are not representational but symbolic, the hero-actor simply says in effect, “Pretend that that is the tree and that the mountain.”

There is here the double-entente. The blossom will really come out: it is a day of anniversary or something of that kind; also Genji will appear in his proper glory, as the audience knows, though the Waki does not.

That is, this present manifestation in the shape of an old man will fade.

The “soothsayer” is literally “the physiognomist from Korea.”

Chujo, naidaijin, etc. are names for different grades of office.

The characters often give their own stage directions or explain the meaning of their acts, as in the last line here.

The Four Kings, i.e. of the four points of the compass. Devas (spirits) and Men occupy the position immediately below the Gods.

More precisely “He became the place.” You can compare this with Buckle, or Jules Romains’ studies in unanimism.

Atsumori must have done Kumagai some kindness in a former incarnation. This would account for Kumagai’s remorse.

Buddha.

I have omitted a line the force of which depends upon a play on words.

The Taira evacuated the Capital in the second year of Juyei, 1188.

Ichi-no-Tani means “First Valley.”

The name of so humble a thing was unfamiliar to the Taira lords.

Atsumori. This passage is mimed throughout.

Colophon

Plays
was compiled from plays written between circa 1385 and 1443 by
Zeami Motokiyo.
They were translated from Japanese between 1906 and 1921 by
Frederick Victor Dickins, George Sansom, Ernest Fenollosa, Yone Noguchi, and Arthur Waley.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on transcriptions produced between 2005 and 2013 by
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The cover page is adapted from
Irises,
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This edition was released on
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The first edition of this ebook was released on
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