{"collection":"shi","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/shi/npj/npj08.htm","path":"shi/npj/npj08.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/shi/npj/npj08.htm","text":"PERSONS\nTHE PRIEST RENSEI (formerly the warrior Kumagai).\n A YOUNG REAPER, who turns out to be the ghost of Atsumori.\n HIS COMPANION.\n CHORUS.\nPRIEST.\nLife is a lying dream, he only wakes\n Who casts the World aside.\nI 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.\nAnd now I am going down to Ichi-no-Tani to pray for the salvation of Atsumori's soul.\n(He walks slowly across the stage, singing a song descriptive of his journey.)\nI have come so fast that here I am already at Ichi-no-Tani, in the country of Tsu.\nTruly the past returns to my mind as though it were a thing of to-day.\nBut 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.\nREAPERS (together).\nTo the music of the reaper's flute\n No song is sung\n But the sighing of wind in the fields.\nYOUNG REAPER.\nThey that were reaping,\n Reaping on that hill,p. 37\n Walk now through the fields\n Homeward, for it is dusk.\nShort is the way that leads\u00a01\n From the sea of Suma back to my home.\n This little journey, up to the hill\n And down to the shore again, and up to the hill,--\n This is my life, and the sum of hateful tasks.\n If one should ask me\n I too\u00a02 would answer\n That on the shores of Suma\n I live in sadness.\n Yet if any guessed my name,\n Then might I too have friends.\n But now from my deep misery\n Even those that were dearest\n Are grown estranged. Here must I dwell abandoned\n To one thought's anguish:\n That I must dwell here.\nHey, you reapers! I have a question to ask you.\nIs it to us you are speaking? What do you wish to know?\nWas it one of you who was playing on the flute just now?\nYes, it was we who were playing.\nIt was a pleasant sound, and all the pleasanter because one does not look for such music from men of your condition.\nUnlocked for from men of our condition, you say! Have you not read:--\n\"Do not envy what is above you\n Nor despise what is below you\"?\n Moreover the songs of woodmen and the flute-playing of herdsmen,\n Flute-playing even of reapers and songs of wood-fellers\n Through poets' verses are known to all the world.\n Wonder not to hear among us\n The sound of a bamboo-flute.\nYou are right. Indeed it is as you have told me.\n Songs of woodmen and flute-playing of herdsmen . . .\nREAPER.\nFlute-playing of reapers . . .\nSongs of wood-fellers\nREAPERS.\nGuide us on our passage through this sad world.\nSong . . .\nAnd dance\nAnd the flute . . .\nAnd music of many instruments . . .\nCHORUS.\nThese are the pastimes that each chooses to his taste.\n Of floating bamboo-wood\n Many are the famous flutes that have been made;\n Little-Branch and Cicada-Cage,\n And as for the reaper's flute,\n Its name is Green-leaf;\n On the shore of Sumiyoshi\n The Corean flute they play.p. 39\n And here on the shore of Suma\n On Stick of the Salt-kilns\n The fishers blow their tune.\nHow strange it is! The other reapers have all gone home, but you alone stay loitering here. How is that?\nHow 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?\nI can easily pray the Ten Prayers for you, if you will tell me who you are.\nTo tell you the truth--I am one of the family of Lord Atsumori.\nOne of Atsumori's family? How glad I am!\n Then the priest joined his hands (he kneels down) and prayed:--\nNAMU AMIDABU.\nPraise to Amida Buddha!\n\"If I attain to Buddhahood,\n In the whole world and its ten spheres\n Of all that dwell here none shall call on my name\n And be rejected or cast aside.\"\n\"Oh, reject me not!\n One cry suffices for salvation,\n Yet day and night\n Your prayers will rise for me.\n Happy am I, for though you know not my name,\n Yet for my soul's deliverance\n At dawn and dusk henceforward I know that you will pray.\"\nSo he spoke. Then vanished and was seen no more.\n(Here follows the Interlude between the two Acts, in which a recitation concerning Atsumori's death takes place. These p. 40 interludes are subject to variation and are not considered part of the literary text of the play.)\nSince 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.\n(The ghost of ATSUMORI appears, dressed as a young warrior.)\nATSUMORI.\nWould you know who I am\n That like the watchmen at Suma Pass\n Have wakened at the cry of sea-birds roaming\n Upon Awaji shore?\n Listen, Rensei. I am Atsumori.\nHow 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.\nWhy 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.\nIs 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 . . .\nAs the sea by a rocky shore,\n Yet should I be salved by prayer.\nAnd that my prayers should save you . . .\nThis too must spring p. 41\n From kindness of a former life.\u00a01\nOnce enemies . . .\nBut now . . .\nIn truth may we be named . . .\nFriends in Buddha's Law.\nThere 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.\nAnd now come tell with us the tale of your confession, while the night is still dark.\nHe\u00a02 bids the flowers of Spring\n Mount the tree-top that men may raise their eyes\n And walk on upward paths;\n He bids the moon in autumn waves be drowned\n In token that he visits laggard men\n And leads them out from valleys of despair.\nNow the clan of Taira, building wall to wall,\n Spread over the earth like the leafy branches of a great tree:\nYet their prosperity lasted but for a day;\n It was like the flower of the convolvulus.\n There was none to tell them\u00a03 p. 42\nThat glory flashes like sparks from flint-stone,\n And after,--darkness.\n Oh wretched, the life of men!\nWhen they were on high they afflicted the humble;\n When they were rich they were reckless in pride.\n And so for twenty years and more\n They ruled this land.\n But truly a generation passes like the space of a dream.\n The leaves of the autumn of Juyei\u00a01\n Were tossed by the four winds;\n Scattered, scattered (like leaves too) floated their ships.\n And they, asleep on the heaving sea, not even in dream\n Went back to home.\n Caged birds longing for the clouds,--\n Wild geese were they rather, whose ranks are broken\n As they fly to southward on their doubtful journey.\n So days and months went by; Spring came again\n And for a little while\n Here dwelt they on the shore of Suma\n At the first valley.\u00a02\n From the mountain behind us the winds blew down\n Till the fields grew wintry again.\n Our ships lay by the shore, where night and day\n The sea-gulls cried and salt waves washed on our sleeves.\n We slept with fishers in their buts\n On pillows of sand.\n We knew none but the people of Suma.\n And when among the pine-trees\n The evening smoke was rising,\n Brushwood, as they call it,\u00a03\n Brushwood we gathered\n And spread for carpet.\n Sorrowful we lived\n On the wild shore of Suma,\n Till the clan Taira and all its princes\n Were but villagers of Suma.\nBut on the night of the sixth day of the second month\n My father Tsunemori gathered us together.\n \"To-morrow,\" he said, \"we shall fight our last fight.\n To-night is all that is left us.\"\n We sang songs together, and danced.\nYes, I remember; we in our siege-camp\n Heard the sound of music\n Echoing from your tents that night,;\n There was the music of a flute . . .\nThe bamboo-flute! I wore it when I died.\nWe heard the singing . . .\nSongs and ballads . . .\nMany voices\nSinging to one measure.\n(ATSUMORI dances.)\nFirst comes the Royal Boat.\nThe whole clan has put its boats to sea.\n He\u00a01 will not be left behind;\n He runs to the shore.\n But the Royal Boat and the soldiers' boats\n Have sailed far away.\nWhat can he do? p. 44\n He spurs his horse into the waves.\n He is full of perplexity. And then\nHe looks behind him and sees\n That Kumagai pursues him;\n He cannot escape.\n Then Atsumori turns his horse\n Knee-deep in the lashing waves,\n And draws his sword.\n Twice, three times he strikes; then, still saddled,\n In close fight they twine; roll headlong together\n Among the surf of the shore.\n So Atsumori fell and was slain, but now the Wheel of Fate\n Has turned and brought him back.\n(ATSUMORI rises from the ground and advances toward the PRIEST with uplifted sword.)\n\"There is my enemy,\" he cries, and would strike,\n But the other is grown gentle\n And calling on Buddha's name\n Has obtained salvation for his foe;\n So that they shall be re-born together\n On one lotus-seat.\n \"No, Rensei is not my enemy.\n Pray for me again, oh pray for me again.\"\n37:2 like Yukihira; see p. 225.\n41:1 Atsumori must have done Kumagai some kindness in a former incarnation. This would account for Kumagai's remorse.\n41:2 Buddha.\n41:3 I have omitted a line the force of which depends upon a play on words.\n42:1 The Taira evacuated the Capital in the second year of Juyei, 1188.\n42:2 Ichi no-Tani means \"First Valley.\"\n42:3 The name of so humble a thing was unfamiliar to the Taira lords.\n43:1 Atsumori. This passage is mimed throughout.","title":"The Noh Plays of Japan: Chapter I: Atsumori","type":"page"}