The Noh Plays of Japan Read online

  FISHER

  Truly, truly: I know of none in the village that could give you lodging.

  PRIEST

  Pray tell me, sir, what brings you here?

  FISHER

  Gladly. I am a cormorant-fisher. While the moon is shining I rest at this shrine; but when the moon sinks, I go to ply my trade.

  PRIEST

  Then you will not mind our lodging here. But, sir, this work of slaughter ill becomes you; for I see that the years lie heavy on you. Pray leave this trade and find yourself another means of sustenance.

  FISHER

  You say well. But this trade has kept me since I was a child. I cannot leave it now.

  SECOND PRIEST

  Listen. The sight of this man has brought back something to my mind. Down this river there is a place they call Rock-tumble. And there, when I passed that way three years ago, I met just such a fisherman as this. And when I told him this cormorant-fishing was reckoned a sin against life, I think he listened; for he brought me back to his house and lodged me with uncommon care.

  FISHER

  And you are the priest that came then?

  SECOND PRIEST

  Yes, I am he.

  FISHER

  That cormorant-fisher died.

  PRIEST

  How came he to die?

  FISHER

  Following his trade, more shame to him. Listen to his story and give his soul your prayers.

  PRIEST

  Gladly we will.

  FISHER (seats himself facing the audience and puts down his torch)

  You must know that on this river of Isawa, for a stretch of three leagues up stream and down, the killing of any living creature is forbidden. Now at that Rock-tumble you spoke of there were many cormorant-fishers who every night went secretly to their fishing. And the people of the place, hating the vile trade, made plans to catch them at their task. But he knew nothing of this; and one night he went there secretly and let his cormorants loose.

  There was an ambush set for him; in a moment they were upon him. "Kill him!" they cried; "one life for many," was their plea. Then he pressed palm to palm. "Is the taking of life forbidden in this place? Had I but known it! But now, never again..." So with clasped hands he prayed and wept; but none helped him; and as fishers set their stakes they planted him deep in the stream. He cried, but no sound came. (Turning to the PRIEST suddenly.) I am the ghost of that fisherman.

  PRIEST

  Oh strange! If that be so, act out before me the tale of your repentance. Show me your sin and I will pray for you tenderly.

  FISHER

  I will act before your eyes the sin that binds me, the cormorant-fishing of those days. Oh give my soul your prayer!

  PRIEST

  I will.

  FISHER (rising and taking up his torch)

  The night is passing. It is fishing-time.

  I must rehearse the sin that binds me.

  PRIEST

  I have read in tales of a foreign land*

  How sin-laden the souls of the dead Have toiled at bitter tasks;

  But strange, before my eyes

  To see such penance done!

  FISHER (describing his own action)

  He waved the smeared torches.

  PRIEST (describing the FISHER'S action)

  Girt up his coarse-spun skirts.

  FISHER (going to the "flute-pillar" and bending over as if opening a basket)

  Then he opened the basket,

  PRIEST

  And those fierce island-birds

  FISHER

  Over the river-waves suddenly he loosed...

  CHORUS

  See them, see them clear in the torches' light

  Hither and thither darting,

  Those frightened fishes.*

  Swift pounce the diving birds,

  Plunging, scooping,

  Ceaselessly clutch their prey:

  In the joy of capture

  Forgotten sin and forfeit

  Of the life hereafter!

  Oh if these boiling waters would be still,

  Then would the carp rise thick

  As goldfinch in a bowl.

  Look how the little ayu leap*

  Playing in the shallow stream.

  Hem them in: give them no rest!

  Oh strange!

  The torches burn still, but their light grows dim;

  And I remember suddenly and am sad.

  It is the hated moon!

  (He throws down the torch.)

  The lights of the fishing-boat are quenched;

  Homeward on the Way of Darkness*

  In anguish I depart.

  (He leaves the stage.)

  PRIEST (sings his "machi-utai" or waiting-song, while the actor who has taken the part of the FISHER changes into the mask and costume of the KING OF HELL.)

  I dip my hand in the shallows,

  I gather pebbles in the stream.

  I write Scripture upon them,

  Upon each stone a letter of the Holy Law.

  Now I cast them back into the waves and their drowned spell

  Shall raise from its abyss a foundered soul.

  (Enter YAMA, KING OF HELL; he remains on the hashi-gakari.)

  YAMA

  Hell is not far away:

  All that your eyes look out on in the world

  Is the Fiend's home.

  I am come to proclaim that the sins of this man, who from the days of his boyhood long ago has fished in rivers and streams, were grown so many that they filled the pages of the Iron Book;* while on the Golden Leaves there was not a mark to his name. And he was like to have been thrown down into the Deepest Pit; but now, because he once gave lodging to a priest, I am commanded to carry him quickly to Buddha's Place.

  The Demon's rage is stilled,

  The fisher's boat is changed

  To the ship of Buddha's vow,'*

  Lifeboat of the Lotus Law.*

  AYA NO TSUZUMI

  (THE DAMASK DRUM)

  Attributed to Seami, but Perhaps Earlier.

  PERSONS

  A COURTIER

  AN OLD GARDENER

  THE PRINCESS

  COURTIER

  I am a courtier at the Palace of Kinomaru in the country of Chikuzen. You must know that in this place there is a famous pond called the Laurel Pond, where the royal ones often take their walks; so it happened that one day the old man who sweeps the garden here caught sight of the Princess. And from that time he has loved her with a love that gives his heart no rest.

  Someone told her of this, and she said, "Love's equal realm knows no divisions,"* and in her pity she said, "By that pond there stands a laurel-tree, and on its branches there hangs a drum. Let him beat the drum, and if the sound is heard in the Palace, he shall see my face again."

  I must tell him of this.

  Listen, old Gardener! The worshipful lady has heard of your love and sends you this message: "Go and beat the drum that hangs on the tree by the pond, and if the sound is heard in the Palace, you shall see my face again." Go quickly now and beat the drum!

  GARDENER

  With trembling I receive her words. I will go and beat the drum.

  COURTIER

  Look, here is the drum she spoke of. Make haste and beat it!

  (He leaves the GARDENER standing by the tree and seats

  himself at the foot of the "Waki's pillar")

  GARDENER

  They talk of the moon-tree, the laurel that grows in the Garden of the Moon...But for me there is but one true tree, this laurel by the lake. Oh, may the drum that hangs on its branches give forth a mighty note, a music to bind up my bursting heart.

  Listen! the evening bell to help me chimes;

  But then tolls in

  A heavy tale of day linked on to day,

  CHORUS (speaking for the GARDENER)

  And hope stretched out from dusk

  to dusk. But now, a watchman of the hours,

  I beat The longed-for stroke.
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  GARDENER

  I was old, I shunned the daylight,

  I was gaunt as an aged crane;

  And upon all that misery

  Suddenly a sorrow was heaped,

  The new sorrow of love.

  The days had left their marks,

  Coming and coming, like waves that beat on a sandy shore...

  CHORUS

  Oh, with a thunder of white waves

  The echo of the drum shall roll.

  GARDENER

  The after-world draws near me,

  Yet even now I wake not

  From this autumn of love that closes

  In sadness the sequence of my years.

  CHORUS

  And slow as the autumn dew

  Tears gather in my eyes, to fall

  Scattered like dewdrops from a shaken flower

  On my coarse-woven dress.

  See here the marks, imprint of tangled love,

  That all the world will read.

  GARDENER

  I said "I will forget,"

  CHORUS

  And got worse torment so

  Than by remembrance. But all in this world

  Is as the horse of the aged man of the land of Sai;*

  And as a white colt flashes

  Past a gap in the hedge, even so our days pass.*

  And though the time be come,

  Yet can none know the road that he at last must tread,

  Goal of his dewdrop-life.

  All this I knew; yet knowing,

  Was blind with folly.

  GARDENER

  "Wake, wake," he cries—

  CHORUS

  The watchman of the hours—

  "Wake from the sleep of dawn!"

  And batters on the drum.

  For if its sound be heard, soon shall he see

  Her face, the damask of her dress...

  Aye, damask! He does not know

  That on a damask drum he beats,

  Beats with all the strength of his hands, his aged hands, But hears no sound.

  "Am I grown deaf?" he cries, and listens, listens:

  Rain on the windows, lapping of waves on the pool—

  Both these he hears, and silent only

  The drum, strange damask drum.

  Oh, will it never sound?

  I thought to beat the sorrow from my heart,

  Wake music in a damask drum; an echo of love

  From the voiceless fabric of pride!

  GARDENER

  Longed for as the moon that hides

  In the obstinate clouds of a rainy night I

  s the sound of the watchman's drum,

  To roll the darkness from my heart.

  CHORUS

  I beat the drum. The days pass and the hours.

  It was yesterday, and it is today.

  GARDENER

  But she for whom I wait

  CHORUS

  Comes not even in dream. At dawn and dusk

  GARDENER

  No drum sounds.

  CHORUS

  She has not come. Is it not sung that those

  Whom love has joined

  Not even the God of Thunder can divide?

  Of lovers, I alone

  Am guideless, comfortless.

  Then weary of himself and calling her to witness of his woe,

  "Why should I endure," he cried,

  "Such life as this?" and in the waters of the pond

  He cast himself and died.

  (GARDENER leaves the stage.)

  Enter the PRINCESS.

  COURTIER

  I would speak with you, madam.

  The drum made no sound, and the aged Gardener in despair has flung himself into the pond by the laurel tree, and died. The soul of such a one may cling to you and do you injury. Go out and look upon him

  PRINCESS (speaking wildly, already possessed by the GARDENER'S angry ghost, which speaks through her).*

  Listen, people, listen!

  In the noise of the beating waves

  I hear the rolling of a drum.

  Oh, joyful sound, oh joyful!

  The music of a drum.

  COURTIER

  Strange, strange!

  This lady speaks as one

  By phantasy possessed.

  What is amiss, what ails her?

  PRINCESS

  Truly, by phantasy I am possessed.

  Can a damask drum give sound?

  When I bade him beat what could not ring,

  Then tottered first my wits.

  COURTIER

  She spoke, and on the face of the evening pool

  A wave stirred.

  PRINCESS

  And out of the wave

  COURTIER

  A voice spoke.

  (The voice of the GARDENER is heard; as he gradually advances along the hashigakari it is seen that he wears a "demon mask," leans on a staff and carries the "demon mallet" at his girdle.)

  GARDENER'S GHOST

  I was driftwood in the pool, but the waves of bitterness

  CHORUS

  Have washed me back to the shore.

  GHOST

  Anger clings to my heart,

  Clings even now when neither wrath nor weeping

  Are aught but folly.

  CHORUS

  One thought consumes me,

  The anger of lust denied

  Covers me like darkness.

  I am become a demon dwelling

  In the hell of my dark thoughts,

  Storm-cloud of my desires.

  GHOST

  "Though the waters parch in the fields

  Though the brooks run dry,

  Never shall the place be shown

  Of the spring that feeds my heart."*

  So I had resolved. Oh, why so cruelly

  Set they me to win

  Voice from a voiceless drum,

  Spending my heart in vain?

  And I spent my heart on the glimpse of a moon that slipped

  Through the boughs of an autumn tree.*

  CHORUS

  This damask drum that hangs on the laurel-tree

  GHOST

  Will it sound, will it sound?

  (He seizes the PRINCESS and drags her towards the drum.)

  Try! Strike it!

  CHORUS

  "Strike!" he cries;

  "The quick beat, the battle-charge!

  Loud, loud! Strike, strike," he rails,

  And brandishing his demon-stick

  Gives her no rest

  "Oh woe!" the lady weeps,

  "No sound, no sound. Oh misery!" she wails.

  And he, at the mallet stroke, "Repent, repent!"

  Such torments in the world of night

  Abōrasetsu, chief of demons, wields,

  Who on the Wheel of Fire

  Sears sinful flesh and shatters bones to dust.

  Not less her torture now!

  "Oh, agony!" she cries, "What have I done,

  By what dire seed this harvest sown?"

  GHOST

  Clear stands the cause before you.

  CHORUS

  Clear stands the cause before my eyes; I know it now.

  By the pool's white waters, upon the laurel's bough The drum was hung.

  He did not know his hour, but struck and struck

  Till all the will had ebbed from his heart's core;

  Then leapt into the lake and died.

  And while his body rocked

  Like driftwood on the waves,

  His soul, an angry ghost,

  Possessed the lady's wits, haunted her heart with woe.

  The mallet lashed, as these waves lash, the shore,

  Lash on the ice of the eastern shore.

  The wind passes; the rain falls

  On the Red Lotus, the Lesser and the Greater.*

  The hair stands up on my head.

  "The fish that leaps the falls

  To a fell snake is turned,"*

  In the Kwanze S
chool this play is replaced by another called The Burden of Love, also attributed to Seami, who writes (Works, p. 166): "The Burden of Love was formerly The Damask Drum." The task set in the later play is the carrying of a burden a thousand times round the garden. The Gardener seizes the burden joyfully and begins to run with it, but it grows heavier and heavier, till he sinks crushed to death beneath it.

  I have learned to know them;

  Such, such are the demons of the World of Night.

  "O hateful lady, hateful!" he cried, and sank again

  Into the whirlpool of desire.

  NOTE ON AOI NO UYE.

  At the age of twelve Prince Genji went through the ceremony of marriage with Aoi no Uye (Princess Hollyhock), the Prime Minister's daughter. She continued to live at her father's house and Genji at his palace. When he was about sixteen he fell in love with Princess Rokujo, the widow of the Emperor's brother; she was about eight years older than himself. He was not long faithful to her. The lady Yūgao next engaged his affections. He carried her one night to a deserted mansion on the outskirts of the City. "The night was far advanced and they had both fallen asleep. Suddenly the figure of a woman appeared at the bedside. "I have found you!" it cried. "What stranger is this that lies beside you? What treachery is this that you flaunt before my eyes?" And with these words the apparition stooped over the bed, and made as though to drag away the sleeping girl from Genji's side."*