"Noh", or, Accomplishment : a study of the classical stage of Japan |
 | I. |
|
|
| II. |
|
|
| II. |
| III. |
|
| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
|
HAGOROMO |
| IV. |
|
|
|
|
|
| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
 | "Noh", or, Accomplishment : |  |
HAGOROMO
A Play in one Act
- Chief Fisherman, Hakuryo.
- A Fisherman.
- A Tennin.
- Chorus.
Characters
The plot of the play Hagoromo, the Feather-mantle,
is as follows: The priest finds the
Hagoromo, the magical feather-mantle of a
Tennin, an aerial spirit or celestial dancer,
hanging upon a bough. She demands its
return. He argues with her, and finally
promises to return it, if she will teach him her
dance or part of it. She accepts the offer.
The Chorus explains the dance as symbolical
of the daily changes of the moon. The words
about "three, five, and fifteen" refer to the
number of nights in the moon's changes. In
the finale, the Tennin is supposed to disappear
like a mountain slowly hidden in mist. The
the God-dance.
Swift with ships, loud over steersmen's voices.
Hakuryo, taker of fish, head of his house,
dwells upon the barren pine-waste of Miwo.
A Fisherman
Upon a thousand heights had gathered the
inexplicable cloud. Swept by the rain, the
moon is just come to light the high house.
A clean and pleasant time surely. There
comes the breath-colour of spring; the waves
rise in a line below the early mist; the moon
is still delaying above, though we've no skill
to grasp it. Here is a beauty to set the mind
above itself.
Chorus
Of the mountain road by Kiyomi,
Nor of the parted grass by that bay,
Nor of the far seen pine-waste
Of Miwo of wheat stalks.
Let us go according to custom. Take
hands against the wind here, for it presses the
clouds and the sea. Those men who were
going to fish are about to return without
will not the wind be quiet? This wind is only
the voice of the lasting pine-trees, ready for
stillness. See how the air is soundless, or
would be, were it not for the waves. There
now, the fishermen are putting out with even
the smallest boats.
Hakuryo
I am come to shore at Miwo-no; I disembark
in Matsubara; I see all that they
speak of on the shore. An empty sky with
music, a rain of flowers, strange fragrance on
every side; all these are no common things,
nor is this cloak that hangs upon the pine-tree.
As I approach to inhale its colour, I am
aware of mystery. Its colour-smell is mysterious.
I see that it is surely no common dress.
I will take it now and return and make it a
treasure in my house, to show to the aged.
Tennin
That cloak belongs to some one on this
side. What are you proposing to do with it?
Hakuryo
This? this is a cloak picked up. I am
taking it home, I tell you.
Not easily wrested from the sky-traversing spirit,
Not easily taken or given.
I ask you to leave it where you found it.
Hakuryo
How! Is the owner of this cloak a Tennin?
So be it. In this downcast age I should keep
it, a rare thing, and make it a treasure in the
country, a thing respected. Then I should
not return it.
Tennin
Pitiful, there is no flying without the cloak
of feathers, no return through the ether. I
pray you return me the mantle.
Hakuryo
Just from hearing these high words, I,
Hakuryo, have gathered more and yet more
force. You think, because I was too stupid
to recognize it, that I shall be unable to take
and keep hid the feather-robe, that I shall
give it back for merely being told to stand and
withdraw?
A bird without wings,
How shall she climb the air?
Hakuryo
And this world would be a sorry place for
her to dwell in?
Tennin
I am caught, I struggle, how shall I . . .?
Hakuryo
No, Hakuryo is not one to give back the
robe.
Tennin
Power does not attain . . .
Hakuryo
. . . to get back the robe. . . .
Chorus
Her coronet,[1]
jewelled as with the dew of
tears, even the flowers that decorated her hair,
drooping and fading, the whole chain of
weaknesses[2]
of the dying Tennin can be seen
actually before the eyes. Sorrow!
I look into the flat of heaven, peering;
the cloud-road is all hidden and uncertain; we
are lost in the rising mist; I have lost the
knowledge of the road. Strange, a strange
sorrow!
Chorus
Enviable colour of breath, wonder of clouds
that fade along the sky that was our accustomed
dwelling; hearing the sky-bird, accustomed,
and well accustomed, hearing the voices grow
fewer, the wild geese fewer and fewer, along
the highways of air, how deep her longing
to return! Plover and seagull are on the waves
in the offing. Do they go or do they return?
She reaches out for the very blowing of the
spring wind against heaven.
Hakuryo
(to the Tennin)
What do you say? Now that I can see
you in your sorrow, gracious, of heaven, I
bend and would return you your mantle.
Tennin
It grows clearer. No, give it this side.
First tell me your nature, who are you,
Tennin? Give payment with the dance of
the Tennin, and I will return you your mantle.
Tennin
Readily and gladly, and then I return into
heaven. You shall have what pleasure you
will, and I will leave a dance here, a joy to be
new among men and to be memorial dancing.
Learn then this dance that can turn the palace
of the moon. No, come here to learn it.
For the sorrows of the world I will leave this
new dancing with you for sorrowful people.
But give me my mantle, I cannot do the dance
rightly without it.
Hakuryo
Not yet, for if you should get it, how do
I know you'll not be off to your palace without
even beginning your dance, not even a measure?
Tennin
Doubt is fitting for mortals; with us there
is no deceit.
Hakuryo
I am again ashamed. I give you your
mantle.
The young sprite now is arrayed, she assumes
the curious mantle; watch how she moves
in the dance of the rainbow-feathered garment.
Hakuryo
The heavenly feather-robe moves in accord
with the wind.
Tennin
The sleeves of flowers are being wet with
the rain.
Hakuryo
All three are doing one step.
Chorus
Thus was the dance of pleasure,
Suruga dancing, brought to the sacred east.
Thus was it when the lords of the everlasting
Trod the world,
They being of old our friends.
Upon ten sides their sky is without limit,
They have named it, on this account, the enduring.
Tennin
The jewelled axe takes up the eternal
renewing, the palace of the moon-god is being
renewed with the jewelled axe, and this is
always recurring.
(Commenting on the dance)
Three, five into fifteen,
The figure that the Tennin is dividing.
There are heavenly nymphs, Amaotome,[3]
One for each night of the month,
And each with her deed assigned.
Tennin
I also am heaven-born and a maid, Amaotome.
Of them there are many. This is the
dividing of my body, that is fruit of the moon's
tree, Katsura.[4]
This is one part of our dance
that I leave to you here in your world.
Chorus
The spring mist is widespread abroad; so
perhaps the wild olive's flower will blossom
in the infinitely unreachable moon. Her
flowery head-ornament is putting on colour;
this truly is sign of the spring. Not sky is
here, but the beauty; and even here comes
the heavenly, wonderful wind. O blow, shut
the accustomed path of the clouds. O, you
your delaying. The pine-waste of Miwo puts
on the colour of spring. The bay of Kiyomi
lies clear before the snow upon Fuji. Are
not all these presages of the spring? There
are but few ripples beneath the piny wind. It
is quiet along the shore. There is naught
but a fence of jewels between the earth and
the sky, and the gods within and without,[5]
beyond and beneath the stars, and the moon
unclouded by her lord, and we who are born
of the sun. This alone intervenes, here where
the moon is unshadowed, here in Nippon, the
sun's field.
Tennin
The plumage of heaven drops neither
feather nor flame to its own diminution.
Chorus
Nor is this rock of earth overmuch worn
by the brushing of that feather-mantle, the
feathery skirt of the stars: rarely, how rarely.
There is a magic song from the east, the voices
of many and many: and flute and sho, filling
the space beyond the cloud's edge, seven-stringed;
dance filling and filling. The red
sun blots on the sky the line of the colour-drenched
gust; it is no racking storm that comes over
this green moor, which is afloat, as it would
seem, in these waves.
Wonderful is the sleeve of the white cloud,
whirling such snow here.
Tennin
Plain of life, field of the sun, true foundation,
great power!
Chorus
Hence and for ever this dancing shall be
called "a revel in the East." Many are the
robes thou hast, now of the sky's colour itself,
and now a green garment.
Semi-Chorus
And now the robe of mist, presaging spring,
a colour-smell as this wonderful maiden's skirt—
left, right, left! The rustling of flowers, the
putting on of the feathery sleeve; they bend
in air with the dancing.
Semi-Chorus
Many are the joys in the east. She who
is the colour-person of the moon takes her
middle-night in the sky. She marks her three
fives with this dancing, as a shadow of all fulfilments.
seven jewels of rain and all of the treasure, you
who go from us. After a little time, only a
little time, can the mantle be upon the wind
that was spread over Matsubara or over Ashitaka
the mountain, though the clouds lie in its
heaven like a plain awash with sea. Fuji is
gone; the great peak of Fuji is blotted out
little by little. It melts into the upper mist.
In this way she (the Tennin) is lost to sight.
| "Noh", or, Accomplishment : | |