The Noh Plays of Japan (17 page)

Cloud-like the feathery sleeves pile up; the song of joy

From dusk to dawn I sing.

CHORUS

All night we sing.

The sun shines forth again,

Sinks down, and it is night...

ROSEI

Nay, dawn has come!

CHORUS

We thought the morning young, and lo! the moon

ROSEI

Again is bright.

CHORUS

Spring scarce has opened her fresh flowers,

ROSEI

When leaves are crimson-dyed.

CHORUS

Summer is with us yet;

ROSEI

Nay, the snow falls.

CHORUS
(speaking for
ROSEI
)

"I watched the seasons pass:

Spring, summer, autumn, winter; a thousand trees,

A thousand flowers were strange and lovely in their pride.

So the time sped, and now

Fifty years of glory have passed by me,

And because they were a dream,

(At this point an
ATTENDANT
brings back the pillow, and places it in the "palace," which becomes a bed again.)

All, all has vanished and I wake

On the pillow where I laid my head,

The Pillow of Kantan.

(The
BOY DANCER
and the two
COURTIERS
slip out by the side-door "kirido";
ROSEI
has mounted the bed and is asleep.)

HOSTESS
(tapping twice with her fan)

Listen, traveler! Your millet is ready. Come quickly and eat your dinner.

ROSEI
(rising slowly from the bed)

Rosei has woken from his dream...

CHORUS

Woken from his dream! The springs and autumns of fifty years Vanished with all their glory; dazed he rises from the bed.

ROSEI

Whither are they gone that were so many...

CHORUS

"The queens and waiting-ladies? What I thought their voices"

ROSEI

Were but the whisperings of wind in the trees.

CHORUS

The palaces and towers

ROSEI

Were but the baiting-house of Kantan.

CHORUS

The time of my glory,

ROSEI

Those fifty years,

CHORUS

Were but the space of a dream,

ROSEI

Dreamed while a bowl of millet cooked!

CHORUS

It is the Inscrutable, the Mystery.

ROSEI

Yet when I well consider Man's life in the world of men...

CHORUS

Then shall you find that a hundred years of gladness

Fade as a dream when Death their sequence closes.

Thus too has ended

This monarch's fifty years of state.

Ambition, length of days,

Revels and kingly rule,

All, all has ended thus, all was a dream

Dreamed while the millet cooked.

ROSEI

Glory be to the Trinity,
*
Glory to the Trinity!

CHORUS

Seek you a sage to loose

The bonds that bound you to life's woes?

This pillow is the oracle you sought.

Now shall the wayfarer, content to learn

What here he learnt, that Life is but a dream,

Turn homeward from the village of Kantan.

(HOKAZ
Ō
)
By Zenchiku Ujinobu (1414-1499)

PERSONS

MAKINO

My name is Kojiro; I am the son of one Makino no Sayemon who lived in the land of Shimotsuke. You must know that my father had a quarrel with Nobutoshi, a man of Sagami, and was done to death by him. So this man was my father's murderer and I ought to kill him. But he has many bold fellows to stand by him, while I am all alone. So the days and months slip by with nothing done.

A brother indeed I have, but he left home when he was a child, made himself into a priest, and lives at the seminary near by.

I am much puzzled how to act. I think I will go across and speak to my brother of this matter.
(He goes to the curtain at the end of the hashigakari.)
May I come in?

(The curtain is raised and the
BROTHER
appears.)

BROTHER

Who is it?

MAKINO

It is I.

BROTHER

Come in, brother. What has brought you hither?

MAKINO

I will tell you. It is this matter of our father's murder that has brought me. I have been thinking that I ought to kill his enemy, and would have done so but he has many bold fellows to stand by him and I am all alone. So the days and months slip by and nothing is done.

For pity's sake, decide with me what course we must pursue.

BROTHER

Brother, what you have said is true enough. But have you forgotten that I left my home when I was but a child and made myself a priest? Since that is so, I cannot help you.

MAKINO

So you are pleased to think; but men say he is a bad son who does not kill his father's foe.

BROTHER

Can you tell me of any that have ministered to piety by slaying a parent's foe?

MAKINO

Why, yes. It was in China, I think. There was one whose mother had been taken by a savage tiger. "I will take vengeance," he cried, and for a hundred days he lay ambushed in the fields waiting for the tiger to come. And once when he was walking on the hillside at dusk, he thought he saw his enemy, and having an arrow already on his bow-string, he shot with all his might. It was nothing but a great rock that he had seen, shaped like a tiger. But his arrow stuck so deep in the stone that blood gushed out from it. If then the strength of piety is such that it can drive an arrow deep into the heart of a stone, take thought, I beseech you, whether you will not resolve to come with me.

BROTHER

You have cited me a notable instance. I am persuaded to resolve with you how this thing may be effected.

Come now, by what strategy may we get access to our foe?

MAKINO

A plan has suddenly come into my head. You know that these
hoka
plays are become the fashion of the day. Why should not I dress up as a
hoka
and you as a
hoka
priest? They say that our man is a great lover of the Zen doctrine; so you may talk to him of Zen.

BROTHER

That is indeed a pretty notion; let me lose no time in effecting it.

I am resolved; in a pilgrim guise

I mask my limbs.

MAKINO

And I, glad-thoughted,

In a minstrel's garb go forth.

BROTHER

Secretly

MAKINO

We steal from a home

CHORUS

"Where fain we would stay, but now

Long as life lasts,

Life fickle as the moon of dawn,

No refuge know we

But the haven of our intent.

(The
BROTHERS
leave the stage. Enter their enemy
NOBU-TOSHI
,
followed by his Servant.)

NOBUTOSHI

To the home of gods my footsteps turn

To the Sacred Fence that bars

No suppliant's desire.

I am called Tone no Nobutoshi. My home is in the land of Sagami. Because for much time past I have been troubled with evil dreams, I have resolved to visit the Three Isles of Seto.

(Re-enter the Brothers:
MAKINO
with bow and arrow in his hand and bamboo sprigs stuck in his belt behind; the
BROTHER
carrying a long staff to which a round fan is attached.)

BROTHER

A fine sight are we now!

From priest and laic way alike removed,

Scarce men in speech or form!

MAKINO

This antic garb shall hide us from the World

More safe than hermit cell;

All earthly thoughts shut out here might we bide

Cloistered in ease. Oh why,

Why back to the bitter World

Are we borne by our intent?

MAKINO and BROTHER

The flower that has fallen dreams that Spring is done,

There are white clouds to cover

The green hillside...

MAKINO

To match the scarlet

Of the autumn leaves

Red sunlight glitters

On the flowing stream.

CHORUS

Wind at morning, rain at night;

Today and tomorrow

Shall be part of long ago.

We who pass through a world

Changeful as the dews of evening,

Uncertain as the skies of Spring,

We that are as foam upon the stream—

Can
any
be our foe?

SERVANT
(seeing them and going towards the hashigakari)

You're a merry pair of guys! What may your names be?

BROTHER

Floating Cloud; Running Water.

SERVANT

And what is your friend's name?

MAKINO

Floating Cloud; Running Water.

SERVANT

Have you then but one name between you?

BROTHER

I am Floating Cloud and he is Running Water. And now, pray, tell us your master's name.

SERVANT

Why, he comes from the land of Sagami, and Nobutoshi...
(here the
SERVANT
suddenly remembers that he is being indiscreet and stuffs his hand into his mouth)...
is not his name.

BROTHER

That's no matter. Whoever he is, tell him that we are only two
h
ō
ka
come to speak with him.

SERVANT

I will tell him. Do you wait here.

(He goes over to
NOBUTOSHI
and whispers with him, then comes back to the
BROTHERS.
)

Come this way.

(
NOBUTOSHI
comes to meet them, covering his face with a fan.)

NOBUTOSHI

Listen, gentlemen, I desire an explanation from you.

BROTHER

What would you know?

NOBUTOSHI

It is this. They alone can be called priests round whose fingers is twisted the rosary of Tenfold Power, who are clad in cloak of Forbearance, round whose shoulders hangs the stole of Penitence. Such is everywhere the garb of Buddha's priests. I know no other habit. But you, I see, carry a round fan tied to your pillar-staff. By what verse do you justify the wearing of a fan?

BROTHER

"In motion, a wind;

In stillness, a bright moon."

And even as in this one substance

Both wind and moon inhere,

So Thought alone is Truth, and from the mind

Spring all component things.

Such is the sermon of the fan, as a sign we bear it

Of the heart's omnipotence. It is an emblem

Fools only would decry!

NOBUTOSHI

The fan indeed teaches an agreeable lesson; but one of you carries a bow and arrow at his side. Are these too reckoned fit gear for men of your profession?

MAKINO

The bow? Why, surely!

Are not its two horns fashioned

In likeness of the Hare and Crow,

Symbols of the Moon and Sun, of Night and Day?

Here is the primal mystery displayed

Of fair and foul conjoined.
*

Bears not the God of Love, unsullied king,

A magical bow? Does he not stretch upon its string