{"collection":"shi","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/shi/npj/npj29.htm","path":"shi/npj/npj29.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/shi/npj/npj29.htm","text":"By ZENCHIKU UJINOBU (1414-1499)\nPERSONS\nMAKINO.\n NOBUTOSHI (their father's murderer).\n HIS BROTHER.\n NOBUTOSHI'S SERVANT.\nMAKINO.\nMy name is Kojir\u014d; I am the son of one Makino no Sayemon who lived in the land of Shimotsuke. You must know that my father had a quarrel with Nobutoshi, a man of Sagami, and was done to death by him. So this man was my father's murderer and I ought to kill him. But he has many bold fellows to stand by him, while I am all alone. So the days and months slip by with nothing done.\n A brother indeed I have, but he left home when he was a child, made himself into a priest, and lives at the seminary near by.\nI am much puzzled how to act. I think I will go across and speak to my brother of this matter. (He goes to the curtain at the end of the hashigakari.) May I come in?\n(The curtain is raised and the BROTHER appears.)\nBROTHER.\nWho is it?\nIt is I.\nCome in, brother. What has brought you hither?\nI will tell you. It is this matter of our father's murder that has brought me. I have been thinking that I ought to kill his enemy, and would have done so but he has many bold fellows to stand by him p. 166 and I am all alone. So the days and months slip by and nothing is done.\nFor pity's sake, decide with me what course we must pursue.\nBrother, what you have said is true enough. But have you forgotten that I left my home when I was but a child and made myself a priest? Since that is so, I cannot help you.\nSo you are pleased to think; but men say he is a bad son who does not kill his father's foe.\nCan you tell me of any that have ministered to piety by slaying a parent's foe?\nWhy, yes. It was in China, I think. There was one whose mother had been taken by a savage tiger. \"I will take vengeance,\" he cried, and for a hundred days he lay ambushed in the fields waiting for the tiger to come. And once when he was walking on the hillside at dusk, he thought he saw his enemy, and having an arrow already on his bow-string, he shot with all his might. It was nothing but a great rock that he had seen, shaped like a tiger. But his arrow stuck so deep in the stone that blood gushed out from it. If then the strength of piety is such that it can drive an arrow deep into the heart of a stone, take thought, I beseech you, whether you will not resolve to come with me.\nYou have cited me a notable instance. I am persuaded to resolve with you how this thing may be effected.\nCome now, by what strategy may we get access to our foe?\nA plan has suddenly come into my head. You know that these h\u014dka plays are become the fashion of the day. Why should not I dress up as a h\u014dka and you as a h\u014dka priest? They say that our man is a great lover of the Zen doctrine; so you may talk to him of Zen.\nThat is indeed a pretty notion; let me lose no time in effecting it.\n I am resolved; in a pilgrim guise\n I mask my limbs.\nAnd I, glad-thoughted,\n In a minstrel's garb go forth.\nSecretly\nWe steal from a home\nCHORUS.\n\"Where fain we would stay, but now\n Long as life lasts,\n Life fickle as the moon of dawn,\n No refuge know we\n But the haven of our intent.\n(The BROTHERS leave the stage. Enter their enemy NOBUTOSHI, followed by his Servant.)\nNOBUTOSHI.\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To the home of gods my footsteps turn\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To the Sacred Fence that bars\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No suppliant's desire.\n I am called Tone no Nobutoshi. My home is in the land of Sagami. Because for much time past I have been troubled with evil dreams, I have resolved to visit the Three Isles of Seto.\n(Re-enter the Brothers: MAKINO with bow and arrow in his hand and bamboo sprigs stuck in his belt behind; the BROTHER carrying a long staff to which a round fan is attached.)\nA fine sight are we now!\n From priest and laic way alike removed,\n Scarce men in speech or form!\nThis antic garb shall hide us from the World\n More safe than hermit cell;\n All earthly thoughts shut out here might we bide\n Cloistered in ease. Oh why,\n Why back to the bitter World\n Are we borne by our intent?\nMAKINO and BROTHER.\nThe flower that has fallen dreams that Spring is done,\n There are white clouds to cover\n The green hillside . . .\nTo match the scarlet\n Of the autumn leaves\n Red sunlight glitters\n On the flowing stream.\nWind at morning, rain at night;\n To-day and to-morrow\n Shall be part of long ago.\n We who pass through a world\n Changeful as the dews of evening,\n Uncertain as the skies of Spring,\n We that are as foam upon the stream,--\n Can any be our foe?\nSERVANT (seeing them and going towards the hashigakari).\nYou're a merry pair of guys! What may your names be?\nFloating Cloud; Running Water.\nSERVANT.\nAnd what is your friend's name?\nHave you then but one name between you?\nI am Floating Cloud and he is Running Water. And now, pray, tell us your master's name.\nWhy, he comes from the land of Sagami, and Nobutoshi . . . (here the SERVANT suddenly remembers that he is being indiscreet and stuffs his hand into his mouth) . . . is not his name.\nThat's no matter. Whoever he is, tell him that we are only two h\u014dka come to speak with him.\nI will tell him. Do you wait here.\n(He goes over to NOBUTOSHI and whispers with him, then comes back to the BROTHERS.)\nCome this way.\n(NOBUTOSHI comes to meet them, covering his face with a fan.)\nListen, gentlemen, I desire an explanation from you.\nWhat would you know?\nIt is this. They alone can be called priests round whose fingers is twisted the rosary of Tenfold Power, who are clad in cloak of Forbearance, round whose shoulders hangs the stole of Penitence. Such is everywhere the garb of Buddha's priests, I know no other habit. But you, I see, carry a round fan tied to your pillar-staff. By what verse do you justify the wearing of a fan?\n\u00a0\u00a0\"In motion, a wind;\n \u00a0\u00a0In stillness, a bright moon.\"\n And even as in this one substance p. 170\n Both wind and moon inhere,\n So Thought alone is Truth, and from the mind\n Spring all component things.\n Such is the sermon of the fan, as a sign we bear it\n Of the heart's omnipotence. It is an emblem\n Fools only would decry!\nThe fan indeed teaches an agreeable lesson; but one of you carries a bow and arrow at his side. Are these too reckoned fit gear for men of your profession?\nThe bow? Why, surely!\n Are not its two horns fashioned\n In likeness of the Hare and Crow,\n Symbols of the Moon and Sun, of Night and Day?\n Here is the primal mystery displayed\n Of fair and foul conjoined.\u00a01\n Bears not the God of Love, unsullied king,\n A magical bow? Does he not stretch upon its string\n Arrows of grace whereby\n The armies of the Four Fiends\u00a02 know no rest\nAnd thus we two are armed,\n For though the bow be not bent nor the arrow loosed,\n Yet falls the prey unmasked.\n(MAKINO draws his bow as though about to shoot; his BROTHER checks him with his staff.)\nSo says the song. Now speak no more\n Of things you know not of.\nTell me, pray, from which patriarch do the h\u014dka priests derive their doctrine? To what sect do you adhere?\nWe are of no sect; our doctrine stands apart. It cannot be spoken p. 171 nor expounded. To frame it in sentences is to degrade our faith; to set it down in writing is to be untrue to our Order; but by the bending of a leaf is the wind's journey known.\nI thank you; your exposition delights me. Pray tell me now, what is the meaning of this word \"Zen\"?\nWithin, to sound to their depths the waters of Mystery;\n Without, to wander at will through the portals of Concentration.\nAnd of the doctrine that Buddha is in the bones of each one of us . . .?\nHe lurks unseen; like the golden dragon 1 when he leaps behind the clouds.\nIf we believe that life and death are real . . .\nThen are we caught in the wheel of sorrow.\nBut if we deny them . . .\nWe are listed to a heresy. 2\nAnd the straight path to knowledge . . .\nMAKINO (rushing forward sword in hand).\n\"With the triple stroke is carved.\" 3\nHold! (turning to NOBUTOSHI who has recoiled and drawn his sword.)\n\"To carve a way to knowledge by the triple stroke\" . . . .\n These are Zen words; he was but quoting a text.\n This perturbation does little honour to your wits.\nThus do men ever\n Blurt out or blazen on the cheek\n Red as rock-rose\u00a01 the thing they would not speak.\n Now by the Trinity, how foolish are men's hearts!\nSERVANT (aside).\nWhile my masters are fooling, I'll to my folly too.\n(He slips out by the side door.)\nBROTHER (embarking upon a religious discourse in order to allay NOBUTOSHI'S suspicions).\nIt matters not whether faith and words be great or small,\n Whether the law be kept or broken.\nNeither in the \"Yea\" nor \"Nay\" is the Truth found;\n There is none but may be saved at last.\nNot man alone; the woods and fields\n Show happy striving.\nThe willow in his green, the peony\n In crimson dressed.\n(The BROTHER here begins his first dance; like that which follows, it is a \"shimai,\" or dance without instrumental music.)\nOn mornings of green spring\n When at the valley's shining gate\n First melt the hawthorn-warbler's frozen tears,\n Or when by singing foam\n Of snow-fed waters echoes the discourse\n Of neighbourly frogs;--then speaks p. 173\n The voice of Buddha's heart.\n Autumn, by eyes unseen,\n Is heard in the wind's anger; the clamorous descent\n And the clash of river-reeds,\n Of wild-geese searching\n The home-field's face,\n Clouds shaped like leaves of rice,--all these\n To watchful eyes foretell the evening storm.\n He who has seen upon a mountain-side\n Stock-still beneath the moon\n The young deer stand in longing for his mate,\n That man may read the writing, and forget\n The finger on the page.\nEven so the fisher's boats that ride\n The harbour of the creek,\nBring back the fish, but leave the net behind.\n These things you have heard and seen;\n In the wind of the hill-top, in the valley's song,\n In the film of night, in the mist of morning\n Is it proclaimed that Thought alone\n Was, is and Shall be.\nConceive this truth and wake!\n As a cloud that hides the moon, so Matter veils\nThe face of Thought.\nBROTHER (begins his second dance, while the CHORUS sings the ballad used by the \"h\u014dka\" players).\nOh, a pleasant place is the City of Flowers;\nNo pen could write its wonders.\u00a01 p. 174\n In the east, Gion and the Temple of Clear Waters\n Where torrents tumble with a noise of many wings;\n In the storm-wind flutter, flutter\n The blossoms of the Earth-lord's tree.\u00a01\n In the west, the Temple of the Wheel of Law,\n The Shrine of Saga (Turn, if thou wilt,\n Wheel of the Water Mill!),\n Where river-waves dance on the weir\n And river-willows by the waves are chafed;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Oxen of the City by the wheels are chafed;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And the tea-mortar by the pestle is chafed.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Why, and I'd forgot! In the h\u014dka's hands\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The kokiriko\u00a02 is chafed.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Now long may our Lord rule\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Age notched on age, like the notches\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of these gnarled sticks!\nEnough! Why longer hide our plot?\n(They draw their swords and rush upon NOBUTOSHI, who places his hat upon the ground and slips out at the side-door. The hat henceforward symbolically represents NOBUTOSHI, an actual representation of slaughter being thus avoided.)\nThen the brothers drew their swords and rushed upon him,\n The foe of their desire.\n(MAKINO gets behind the hat, to signify that NOBUTOSHI is surrounded.)\nThey have scaled the summit of their hate,\n The rancour of many months and years.\n The way is open to the bourne of their intent.\n(They strike.)\nThey have laid their enemy low.\n So when the hour was come\n Did these two brothers p. 175\n By sudden resolution\n Destroy their father's foe.\n For valour and piety are their names remembered\n Even in this aftertime.\n170:1 The Sun is male, i.e. fair. The Moon female, i.e. foul.\n170:2 The demons of Delusion, of the Senses, of the Air and of Death.\n171:1 The Sun.\n171:2 The heresy of Nihilism. To say that phenomena do not exist is as untrue as to say that they exist.\n171:3 He quotes a Zen text.\n172:1 Iwa, \"rock,\" also means \"not speak.\"\n173:1 Some actors, says Owada, here write in the air with their fan; but such detailed miming is vulgar.\n174:1 An allusion to the cherry-trees at the Kiyomizu-dera.\n174:2 Bamboo-strips rubbed together to produce a squeaking sound.","title":"The Noh Plays of Japan: Chapter V: The H\u014dka Priests","type":"page"}