"Noh", or, Accomplishment : a study of the classical stage of Japan |
 | I. |
|
|
| II. |
|
|
| II. |
| III. |
|
| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. | IV |
|
| IV. |
|
|
|
|
|
| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
 | "Noh", or, Accomplishment : |  |
IV
In Dojoji a girl is in love with a priest, who
flees from her and takes shelter under a great
bronze temple bell, which falls over him. Her
sheer force of desire turns her into a dragon,
she bites the top of the bell, twists herself
about the bell seven times, spits flame from
her mouth, and lashes the bronze with her tail.
Then the bell melts away under her, and the
priest she loves dies in the molten mass. In
Kumasaka the boy-warrior, Ushiwaka, fights a
band of fifteen giant robbers in the dark.
They fight with each other also. One by one,
and two by two, they are all killed. At one
time all are dancing in double combat across
stage and bridge. The Noh fencing with
spear and sword is superb in line. In the
conventional Noh fall, two robbers, facing, who
have killed each other with simultaneous blows,
stand for a moment erect and stiff, then slowly
fall over backward, away from each other, as
stiff as logs, touching the stage at the same
moment with head and heel.
In the play of Atsumori there is an interesting
ghost, taken from the epic cycle of the
Yoritomo. Atsumori was a young noble of
the Heike family who was killed in one of
opens the final scene tells the story thus:
I am one who serves the great Bishop Homeri
Shonini in Kurodain temple. And that little one
over there is the child of Atsumori, who was killed
at Ichinotani. Once when the Shonini was going
down to the Kamo river, he found a baby about
two years old in a tattered basket under a pine tree.
He felt great pity for the child, took it home with
him, and cared for it tenderly. When the boy had
grown to be ten years of age and was lamenting
that he had no parents, the Shonini spoke about
the matter to an audience which came to his preaching.
Then a young woman came up, and cried
excitedly, "This must be my child." On further
enquiry he found it was indeed the child of the
famous Atsumori. The child, having heard all
this, is most desirous to see the image of his father,
even in a dream, and he has been praying devoutly
to this effect at the shrine of Kamo Miojin for
seven days. To-day the term is up for the fulfilment
of his vow, so I am taking him down to Kamo
Miojin for his last prayer. Here we are at Kamo.
Now, boy! pray well!
During his prayer the boy hears a voice
which tells him to go to the forest of Ikuta;
and thither the priest and the boy journey.
On arrival they look about at the beauty of
the place, till suddenly nightfall surprises them.
that a light yonder? Perhaps it may be a
house? We will go to take lodging there."
A straw hut has been set at the centre of the
stage. The curtain in front of it is now withdrawn,
and the figure of a very young warrior
is disclosed, in a mask, and wearing a dress of
blue, white, and gold. He begins to speak to
himself:
Gowun! Gowun! The five possessions of
man are all hollow. Why do we love this queer
thing—body? The soul which dwells in agony
flies about like a bat under the moon. The poor
bewildered ghost that has lost its body whistles in
the autumn wind.
They think him a man, but he tells them
he has had a half-hour's respite from hell. He
looks wistfully at the boy, who wishes to seize
him, and cries, "Flower child of mine, left
behind in the world, like a favourite carnation,
how pitiful to see you in those old black
sleeves!" Then the spirit dances with restraint,
while the chorus chants the martial
scene of his former death. "Rushing like
two clouds together they were scattered in a
whirlwind." Suddenly he stops, looks off the
stage, and stamps, shouting:
Who is that over there? A messenger from
hell?
Yes, why do you stay so late? King Enma is
angry.
Then the grim warriors frantically rush
across the stage like Valkyrie, and Atsumori is
forced to fight with a spear in a tremendous
mystic dance against them. This is a vision
of his torment transferred to earth. Exhausted
and bleeding he falls; the hell fires vanish;
and crying out, "Oh, how shameful that you
should see me thus," he melts away from the
frantic clutches of the weeping boy.
Among the most weird and delicately poetic
pieces is Nishikigi, in which the hero and heroine
are the ghosts of two lovers who died unmarried
a hundred years before. Their spirits are in
the course of the play united near a hillside
grave where their bodies had long lain together.
This spiritual union is brought about
by the piety of a priest. Action, words, and
music are vague and ghostly shadows. The
lover, as a young man, had waited before the
girl's door every night for months, but she,
from ignorance or coquetry, had refused to
notice him. Then he died of despair. She
repented of her cruelty and died also.
The play opens with the entrance of the
travelling priest, who has wandered to the
ancient village of Kefu in the far north of the
island. He meets the two ghosts in ancient
attire. At first he supposes them to be villagers.
He does not seem to notice their dress, or, if
he does, he apparently mistakes it for some
fashion of the province. Then the two ghosts
sing together, as if muttering to themselves:
We are entangled—whose fault was it, dear?—
tangled up as the grass patterns are tangled in this
coarse cloth, or that insect which lives 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 some one who has no
thought for 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.
Then the priest says:
It is strange, seeing these town-people here. I
might suppose them two married people; and what
the lady gives herself the trouble of carrying might
be a piece of cloth woven from birds' feathers, and
indeed queer merchandise.
Gradually they tell him the story—they do
not say at first that it is their own story. Two
people had lived in that village, one of whom
had offered the nishikigi, the charm-sticks, the
"crimson tokens of love," night after night
for three years. That was the man, of course;
and the girl, apparently oblivious, had sat
inside her house, weaving long bands of cloth.
They say that the man was buried in a cave
and all his charm-sticks with him. The priest
says it will be a fine tale for him to tell when
he gets home, and says he will go see the
tomb, to which they offer to guide him. Then
the chorus for the first time sings:
The couple are passing in front and the stranger
behind, having spent the whole day until dusk,
pushing aside the rank grass from the narrow paths
about Kefu. Where, indeed, for them is that love-grave?
Ho! you farmer there, cutting grass upon
the hill, tell me clearly how I am to get on further.
In this frosty night, of whom shall we ask about
the dews on the wayside grass?
Then the hero, the man's ghost, breaks in
for a moment: "Oh how cold it is in these
evening dusks of autumn!" And the chorus
resumes:
Storms, fallen leaves, patches of the autumn
showers clogging the feet, the eternal shadow of the
long-sloped mountain, and, crying among the ivies
on the pine tree, an owl! And as for the love-grave,
dyed like the leaves of maple with the tokens
of bygone passion, and like the orchids and chrysanthemums
which hide the mouth of a fox's hole, they
have slipped into the shadow of the cave; this
brave couple has vanished into the love-grave.
After an interval, for the changing of the
spirits' costumes, the second act begins. The
priest cannot sleep in the frost, and thinks he
had better pass the night in prayer. Then the
spirits in masks steal out, and in mystic language,
which he does not hear, try to thank
him for his prayer, and say that through his
pity the love promise of incarnations long
perished is now just realized, even in dream.
Then the priest says:
How strange! That place, which seemed like
an old grave, is now lighted up from within, and
has become like a human dwelling, where people
are talking and setting up looms for spinning, and
painted sticks. It must be an illusion!
Then follows a wonderful loom song and
chorus, comparing the sound of weaving to
the clicking of crickets; and in a vision is
seen the old tragic story, and the chorus sings
now they shall see the secret bride-room."
The hero cries, "And we shall drink the cup
of meeting." Then the ghostly chorus sings
a final song:
That are like snow-whirls.
But now the wine-cup of the night-play is
reflecting the first hint of the dawn. Perhaps we
shall feel awkward when it becomes really morning.
And like a dream which is just about to break,
the stick and the cloth are breaking up, and the
whole place has turned into a deserted grave on
a hill, where morning winds are blowing through
the pines.
(? about 1906).
| "Noh", or, Accomplishment : | |