{"collection":"shi","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/shi/npj/npj25.htm","path":"shi/npj/npj25.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/shi/npj/npj25.htm","text":"REVISED BY ZENCHIKU UJINOBU (1414-1499?)\nPERSONS\nCOURTIER.\n THE SAINT OF YOKAWA.\n WITCH.\n MESSENGER.\n PRINCESS ROKUJ\u014c.\n CHORUS.\n(A folded cloak laid in front of the stage symbolizes the sickbed of Aoi.)\nCOURTIER.\nI am a courtier in the service of the Emperor Shujaku. You must know that the Prime Minister's daughter, Princess Aoi, has fallen sick. We have sent for abbots and high-priests, of the Greater School and of the Secret School, but they could not cure her.\nAnd now, here at my side, stands the witch of Teruhi, 1 a famous diviner with the bow-string. My lord has been told that by twanging her bow-string she can make visible an evil spirit and tell if it be the spirit of a living man or a dead. So he bade me send for her and let her pluck her string. (Turning to the WITCH, who has been waiting motionless.) Come, sorceress, we are ready!\nWITCH (comes forward beating a little drum and reciting a mystic formula).\nTen sh\u014dj\u014d; chi sh\u014dj\u014d.\n Naige sh\u014dj\u014d; rokon sh\u014dj\u014d.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Pure above; pure below.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Pure without; pure within.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Pure in eyes, ears, heart and tongue.\n(She plucks her bow-string, reciting the spell.)\nYou whom I call\n Hold loose the reinsp. 146\n On your grey colt's neck\n As you gallop to me\n Over the long sands!\n(The living phantasm of ROKUJ\u014c appears at the back of the stage.)\nROKUJ\u014c.\nIn the Three Coaches\n That travel on the Road of Law\n I drove out of the Burning House . . .\u00a01\n Is there no way to banish the broken coach\n That stands at Y\u016bgao's door?\u00a02\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This world\n Is like the wheels of the little ox-cart;\n Round and round they go . . . till vengeance comes.\n The Wheel of Life-turns like the wheel of a coach;\n There is no escape from the Six Paths and Four Births.\n We are brittle as the leaves of the bash\u014d;\n As fleeting as foam upon the sea.\n Yesterday's flower, to-day's dream.\n From such a dream were it not wiser to wake?\n And when to this is added another's scorn\n How can the heart have rest?\n So when I heard the twanging of your bow\n For a little while, I thought, I will take my pleasure;\n And as an angry ghost appeared.\n Oh! I am ashamed!\n(She veils her face.)\nThis time too I have come secretly\u00a03 p. 147\n In a closed coach.\n Though I sat till dawn and watched the moon,\n Till dawn and watched,\n How could I show myself,\n That am no more than the mists that tremble over the fields?\n I am come, I am come to the notch of your bow\n To tell my sorrow.\n Whence came the noise of the bow-string?\nWITCH.\nThough she should stand at the wife-door of the mother-house of the square court . . . 1\nYet would none come to me, that am not in the flesh. 2\nHow strange! I see a fine lady whom I do not know riding in a broken coach. She clutches at the shafts of another coach from which the oxen have been unyoked. And in the second coach sits one who seems a new wife. 3 The lady of the broken coach is weeping, weeping. It is a piteous sight.\nCan this be she?\nIt would not be hard to guess who such a one might be. Come, spirit, tell us your name?\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In this Sah\u0101 World\u00a04 where days fly like the lightning's flash\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0None is worth hating and none worth pitying.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This I knew. Oh when did folly master me?\n You would know who I am that have come drawn by the twanging of your bow? I am the angry ghost of Rokuj\u014d, Lady of the Chamber.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Long ago I lived in the world.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I sat at flower-feasts among the clouds.\u00a05 p. 148\n On spring mornings I rode out\n In royal retinue and on autumn nights\n Among the red leaves of the Rishis' Cave\n I sported with moonbeams,\n With colours and perfumes\n My senses sated.\n \u00a0\u00a0I had splendour then;\n But now I wither like the Morning Glory\n Whose span endures not from dawn to midday.\n I have come to clear my hate.\n(She then quotes the Buddhist saying, \"Our sorrows in this world are not caused by others; for even when others wrong us we are suffering the retribution of our own deeds in a previous existence.\"\nBut while singing these words she turns towards AOI'S bed; passion again seizes her and she cries:)\nI am full of hatred.\n I must strike; I must strike.\n(She creeps towards the bed.)\nYou, Lady Rokuj\u014d, you a Lady of the Chamber! Would you lay wait and strike as peasant women do? 1 How can this be? Think and forbear!\nSay what you will, I must strike. I must strike now. (Describing her own action.) \"And as she said this, she went over to the pillow and struck at it.\" (She strikes at the head of the bed with her fan.)\nShe is going to strike again. (To ROKUJ\u014c.) You shall pay for this!\nAnd this hate too is payment for past hate.\n\"The flame of anger\nROKUJ\u014c\nConsumes itself only.\" 1\nDid you not know?\nKnow it then now.\nCHORUS.\nO Hate, Hate!\n Her\u00a02 hate so deep that on her bed\n Our lady\u00a03 moans.\n Yet, should she live in the world again\u00a04\n He would call her to him, her Lord\n The Shining One, whose light\n Is brighter than fire-fly hovering\n Over the slime of an inky pool.\nBut for me\n There is no way back to what I was,\n No more than to the heart of a bramble-thicket.\n The dew that dries on the bramble-leaf\n Comes back again;\n But love (and this is worst)\n That not even in dream returns,--\n That is grown to be an old tale,--\n Now, even now waxes,\n So that standing at the bright mirror\n I tremble and am ashamed.\nI am come to my broken coach. (She throws down her fan and begins to slip on her embroidered robe.) I will hide you in it and carry you away!\n(She stands right over the bed, then turns away and at the back of the stage throws off her robe, which is held by p. 150 two attendants in such a way that she cannot be seen. She changes her \"deigan\" mask for a female demon's mask and now carries a mallet in her hand.)\n(Meanwhile the COURTIER, who has been standing near the bed:)\nCome quickly, some one! Princess Aoi is worse. Every minute she is worse, Go and fetch the Little Saint of Yokawa. 1\nMESSENGER.\nI tremble and obey.\n(He goes to the wing and speaks to some one aft the stage.)\nMay I come in?\nSAINT (speaking from the wing).\nWho is it that seeks admittance to a room washed by the moonlight of the Three Mysteries, sprinkled with the holy water of Yoga? Who would draw near to a couch of the Ten Vehicles, a window of the Eight Perceptions?\nI am come from the Court. Princess Aoi is ill. They would have you come to her.\nSAINT.\nIt happens that at this time I am practising particular austerities and go nowhere abroad. But if you are a messenger from the Court, I will follow you.\n(He comes on the stage.)\nWe thank you for coming.\nI wait upon you. Where is the sick person?\nOn the bed here.\nThen I will begin my incantations at once.\np. 151\n COURTIER.\nPray do so.\nHe said: \"I will say my incantations.\"\n Following in the steps of En no Gy\u014dja,\u00a01\n Clad in skirts that have trailed the Peak of the Two Spheres,\u00a02\n That have brushed the dew of the Seven Precious Trees,\n Clad in the cope of endurance\n That shields from the world's defilement,\n \"Sarari, sarari,\" with such sound\n I shake the red wooden beads of my rosary\n And say the first spell:\n Namaku Samanda Basarada\n Namaku Samanda Basarada.\u00a03\nROKUJ\u014c (during the incantation she has cowered at the back of the stage wrapped in her Chinese robe, which she has picked up again.)\nGo back, Gy\u014dja, go back to your home; do not stay and be vanquished!\nBe you what demon you will, do not hope to overcome the Gy\u014dja's subtle power. I will pray again.\n(He shakes his rosary whilst the CHORUS, speaking for him, invokes the first of the Five Kings.)\nIn the east G\u014d Sanze, Subduer of the Three Worlds.\nROKUJ\u014c (counter-invoking).\nIn the south Gundari Yasha.\nIn the west Dai-itoku.\nIn the north Kong\u014d\nYasha, the Diamond King.\nIn the centre the Great Holy\nFud\u014d Immutable.\n Namaku Samanda Basarada\n Senda Makaroshana\n Sohataya Untaratakarman.\n \"They that hear my name shall get Great Enlightenment;\n They that see my body shall attain to Buddhahood.\"\u00a01\nROKUJ\u014c (suddenly dropping her mallet and pressing her hands to her ears.)\nThe voice of the Hannya Book! I am afraid. Never again will I come as an angry ghost.\nGHOST.\nWhen she heard the sound of Scripture\n The demon's raging heart was stilled;\n Shapes of Pity and Sufferance,\n The Bodhisats descend.\n Her soul casts off its bonds,\n She walks in Buddha's Way.\n \nDEMON MASK\n145:1 A miko or witch called Teruhi is the subject of the play Sanja Takusen.\n146:1 Rokuj\u014d has left the \"Burning House,\" i. e. her material body. The \"Three Coaches\" are those of the famous \"Burning House\" parable in the Hokkeky\u014d. Some children were in a burning house. Intent on their play, they could not he induced to leave the building; till their father lured them out by the promise that they would find those little toy coaches awaiting them. So Buddha, by partial truth, lures men from the \"burning house\" of their material lives. Owing to the episode at the Kamo Festival, Rokuj\u014d is obsessed by the idea of \"carriages,\" \"wheels\" and the like.\n146:2 One day Rokuj\u014d saw a coach from which all badges and distinctive decorations had been purposely stripped (hence, in a sense, a \"broken coach\") standing before Y\u016bgao's door. She found out that it was Genji's. For Y\u016bgao, see p. 142.\n146:3 Rokuj\u014d went secretly to the Kamo Festival in a closed carriage.\n147:1 Words from an old dance-song or \"saibara.\"\n147:2 \"That am a ghost,\" but also \"that have lost my beauty.\"\n147:3 Alluding to Aoi's pregnancy.\n147:4 A Sanskrit name for the \"world of appearances.\"\n147:5 I.e. at the Palace.\n148:1 It was the custom for wives who had been put away to ambush the new wife and strike her \"to clear their hate.\"\n149:1 From the Sutr\u0101lank\u00e4ra Sh\u0101stra (Cat. No. 1182).\n149:2 Rokuj\u014d's.\n149:3 Aoi.\n149:4 I.e. recover.\n150:1 The hero of the \"Finding of Ukifune,\" a later episode in the Genji Monogatari.\n151:1 Founder of the sect of the ascetics called Yamabushi Mountaineers.\n151:2 Mount \u014cmine, near Yoshino, ritual ascents of which were made by Yamabushi.\n151:3 Known as the Lesser Spell of Fud\u014d. The longer one which follows is the Middle Spell. They consist of corrupt Sanskrit mixed with meaningless magic syllables.\n152:1 From the Buddhist S\u016btra known in Japan as the Hannya Ky\u014d. It was supposed to have a particular influence over female demons, who are also called \"Hannyas.\"","title":"The Noh Plays of Japan: Chapter IV: Aoi no Uye (Princess ...","type":"page"}