INTRODUCTION

The Chinese poet Po Chü-i, whom the Japanese call Haku Rakuten, was born in 772 A. D. and died in 847. His works enjoyed immense contemporary popularity in China, Korea and Japan. In the second half of the ninth century the composition of Chinese verse became fashionable at the Japanese Court, and native forms of poetry were for a time threatened with extinction.

The Nō play Haku Rakuten deals with this literary peril. It was written at the end of the fourteenth century, a time when Japanese art and literature were again becoming subject to Chinese influence. Painting and prose ultimately succumbed, but poetry was saved.

Historically, Haku Rakuten never came to Japan. But the danger of his influence was real and actual, as may be deduced from reading the works of Sugawara no Michizane, the greatest Japanese poet of the ninth century. Michizane’s slavish imitations of Po Chü-i show an unparalleled example of literary prostration. The plot of the play is as follows:

Rakuten is sent by the Emperor of China to “subdue” Japan with his art. On arriving at the coast of Bizen, he meets with two Japanese fishermen. One of them is in reality the god of Japanese poetry, Sumiyoshi no Kami. In the second act his identity is revealed. He summons other gods, and a great dancing-scene ensues. Finally the wind from their dancing-sleeves blows the Chinese poet’s ship back to his own country.

Seami, in his plays, frequently quotes Po Chü-i’s poems; and in his lament for the death of his son, Zemparu Motomasa, who died in 1432, he refers to the death of Po Chü-i’s son, A-ts’ui.

PERSONS

Scene: The coast of Bizen in Japan.

HAKU.

I am Haku Rakuten, a courtier of the Prince of China. There is a land in the East called Nippon.[188] Now, at my master’s bidding, I am sent to that land to make proof of the wisdom of its people. I must travel over the paths of the sea.

I will row my boat towards the rising sun,
The rising sun;
And seek the country that lies to the far side
Over the wave-paths of the Eastern Sea.
Far my boat shall go,
My boat shall go,—
With the light of the setting sun in the waves of its wake
And a cloud like a banner shaking the void of the sky.
Now the moon rises, and on the margin of the sea
A mountain I discern.
I am come to the land of Nippon,
The land of Nippon.

So swiftly have I passed over the ways of the ocean that I am come already to the shores of Nippon. I will cast anchor here a little while. I would know what manner of land this may be.

THE TWO FISHERMEN (together).

Dawn over the Sea of Tsukushi,
Place of the Unknown Fire.
Only the moonlight—nothing else left!

THE OLD FISHERMAN.

The great waters toss and toss;
The grey waves soak the sky.

THE TWO FISHERMEN.

So was it when Han Rei[189] left the land of Etsu
And rowed in a little boat
Over the misty waves of the Five Lakes.

How pleasant the sea looks!
From the beach of Matsura
Westward we watch the hill-less dawn.
A cloud, where the moon is setting,
Floats like a boat at sea,
A boat at sea
That would anchor near us in the dawn.
Over the sea from the far side,
From China the journey of a ship’s travel
Is a single night’s sailing, they say.
And lo! the moon has vanished!

HAKU.

I have borne with the billows of a thousand miles of sea and come at last to the land of Nippon. Here is a little ship anchored near me. An old fisherman is in it. Can this be indeed an inhabitant of Nippon?

OLD FISHERMAN.

Aye, so it is. I am an old fisher of Nihon. And your Honour, I think, is Haku Rakuten, of China.

HAKU.

How strange! No sooner am I come to this land than they call me by my name! How can this be?

SECOND FISHERMAN.

Although your Honour is a man of China, your name and fame have come before you.

HAKU.

Even though my name be known, yet that you should know my face is strange surely!

THE TWO FISHERMEN.

It was said everywhere in the Land of Sunrise that your Honour, Rakuten, would come to make trial of the wisdom of Nihon. And when, as we gazed westwards, we saw a boat coming in from the open sea, the hearts of us all thought in a twinkling, “This is he.”

CHORUS.

“He has come, he has come.”
So we cried when the boat came in
To the shore of Matsura,
The shore of Matsura.
Sailing in from the sea
Openly before us—
A Chinese ship
And a man from China,—
How could we fail to know you,
Haku Rakuten?
But your halting words tire us.
Listen as we will, we cannot understand
Your foreign talk.
Come, our fishing-time is precious.
Let us cast our hooks,
Let us cast our hooks!

HAKU.

Stay! Answer me one question.[190] Bring your boat closer and tell me, Fisherman, what is your pastime now in Nippon?

FISHERMAN.

And in the land of China, pray how do your Honours disport yourselves?

HAKU.

In China we play at making poetry.

FISHERMAN.

And in Nihon, may it please you, we venture on the sport of making “uta.”[191]

HAKU.

And what are “uta”?

FISHERMAN.

You in China make your poems and odes out of the Scriptures of India; and we have made our “uta” out of the poems and odes of China. Since then our poetry is a blend of three lands, we have named it Yamato, the great Blend, and all our songs “Yamato Uta.” But I think you question me only to mock an old man’s simplicity.

HAKU.

No, truly; that was not my purpose. But come, I will sing a Chinese poem about the scene before us.

“Green moss donned like a cloak
Lies on the shoulders of the rocks;
White clouds drawn like a belt
Surround the flanks of the mountains.”

How does that song please you?

FISHERMAN.

It is indeed a pleasant verse. In our tongue we should say the poem thus:

Koke-goromo
Kitaru iwao wa
Samonakute,
Kinu kinu yama no
Obi wo suru kana!

HAKU.

How strange that a poor fisherman should put my verse into a sweet native measure! Who can he be?

FISHERMAN.

A poor man and unknown. But as for the making of “uta,” it is not only men that make them. “For among things that live there is none that has not the gift of song.”[192]

HAKU (taking up the other’s words as if hypnotized).

“Among things that have life,—yes, and birds and insects—”

FISHERMAN.

They have sung Yamato songs.

HAKU.

In the land of Yamato ...

FISHERMAN.

... many such have been sung.

CHORUS.

“The nightingale singing on the bush,
Even the frog that dwells in the pond——”
I know not if it be in your Honour’s land,
But in Nihon they sing the stanzas of the “uta.”
And so it comes that an old man
Can sing the song you have heard,
A song of great Yamato.

CHORUS (changing the chant).

And as for the nightingale and the poem it made,—
They say that in the royal reign
Of the Emperor Kōren
In the land of Yamato, in the temple of High Heaven
A priest was dwelling.[193]
Each year at the season of Spring
There came a nightingale
To the plum-tree at his window.
And when he listened to its song
He heard it singing a verse:

“Sho-yō mei-chō rai
Fu-sō gem-bon sei.”

And when he wrote down the characters,
Behold, it was an “uta”-song
Of thirty letters and one.
And the words of the song—

FISHERMAN.

Hatsu-haru no
Ashita goto ni wa
Kitaredomo

Of Spring’s beginning
At each dawn
Though I come,

CHORUS.

Awade zo kaeru
Moto no sumika ni.

Unmet I return
To my old nest.

Thus first the nightingale,
And many birds and beasts thereto,
Sing “uta,” like the songs of men.
And instances are many;
Many as the myriad pebbles that lie
On the shore of the sea of Ariso.
“For among things that live
There is none that has not the gift of song.”

Truly the fisherman has the ways of Yamato in his heart. Truly, this custom is excellent.

FISHERMAN.

If we speak of the sports of Yamato and sing its songs, we should show too what dances we use; for there are many kinds.

CHORUS.

Yes, there are the dances; but there is no one to dance.

FISHERMAN.

Though there be no dancer, yet even I—

CHORUS.

For drums—the beating of the waves.
For flutes—the song of the sea-dragon.
For dancer—this ancient man
Despite his furrowed brow
Standing on the furrowed sea
Floating on the green waves
Shall dance the Sea Green Dance.

FISHERMAN.

And the land of Reeds and Rushes....

CHORUS.

Ten thousand years our land inviolate!

[The rest of the play is a kind of “ballet”; the words are merely a commentary on the dances.]

ACT II.

FISHERMAN (transformed into SUMIYOSHI NO KAMI, the God of Poetry).

Sea that is green with the shadow of the hills in the water!
Sea Green Dance, danced to the beating of the waves.

(He dances the Sea Green Dance.)

Out of the wave-lands,
Out of the fields of the Western Sea

CHORUS.

He rises before us,
The God of Sumiyoshi,
The God of Sumiyoshi!

THE GOD.

I rise before you
The god—

CHORUS.

The God of Sumiyoshi whose strength is such
That he will not let you subdue us, O Rakuten!
So we bid you return to your home,
Swiftly over the waves of the shore!
First the God of Sumiyoshi came.
Now other gods[194] have come—
Of Isé and Iwa-shimizu,
Of Kamo and Kasuga,
Of Ka-shima and Mi-shima,
Of Suwa and Atsuta.
And the goddess of the Beautiful Island,
The daughter of Shakāra
King of the Dragons of the Sea—
Skimming the face of the waves
They have danced the Sea Green Dance.
And the King of the Eight Dragons—
With his Symphony of Eight Musics.
As they hovered over the void of the sea,
Moved in the dance, the sleeves of their dancing-dress
Stirred up a wind, a magic wind
That blew on the Chinese boat
And filled its sails
And sent it back again to the land of Han.
Truly, the God is wondrous;
The God is wondrous, and thou, our Prince,
Mayest thou rule for many, many years
Our Land Inviolate!

CHAPTER VII
SUMMARIES

Of the plays which are founded on the Ise Monogatari[195] the best known are Izutsu and Kakitsubata, both by Seami. Izutsu is founded on the episode which runs as follows:

Once upon a time a boy and a girl, children of country people, used to meet at a well and play there together. When they grew up they became a little shame-faced towards one another, but he could think of no other woman, nor she of any other man. He would not take the wife his parents had found for him, nor she the husband that her parents had found for her.

Then he sent her a poem which said:

“Oh, the well, the well!
I who scarce topped the well-frame
Am grown to manhood since we met.”

And she to him:

“The two strands of my hair
That once with yours I measured,
Have passed my shoulder;
Who but you should put them up?”[196]

So they wrote, and at last their desire was fulfilled. Now after a year or more had passed the girl’s parents died, and they were left without sustenance. They could not go on living together; the man went to and fro between her house and the town of Takayasu in Kawachi, while she stayed at home.

Now when he saw that she let him go gladly and showed no grief in her face, he thought it was because her heart had changed. And one day, instead of going to Kawachi, he hid behind the hedge and watched. Then he heard the girl singing:

“The mountain of Tatsuta that rises
Steep as a wave of the sea when the wind blows
To-night my lord will be crossing all alone!”

And he was moved by her song, and went no more to Takayasu in Kawachi.

In the play a wandering priest meets with a village girl, who turns out to be the ghost of the girl in this story. The text is woven out of the words of the Ise Monogatari.

IZUTSU

Kakitsubata is based on the eighth episode. Narihira and his companions come to a place called Yatsuhashi, where, across an iris-covered swamp, zigzags a low footpath of planks.

Narihira bids them compose an anagram on the word Kakitsubata, “iris,” and some one sings:

“Kara-goromo
Ki-tsutsu nare-ni-shi
Tsuma shi areba
Baru-baru ki-nuru
Tabi wo shi zo omou.”

The first syllables of each line make, when read consecutively, the word Kakitsubata, and the poem, which is a riddle with many meanings, may be translated:

“My lady’s love
Sat close upon me like a coat well worn;
And surely now
Her thoughts go after me down this long road!”

“When he had done singing, they all wept over their dried-rice till it grew soppy.”

In the play, a priest comes to this place and learns its story from a village-girl, who turns out to be the “soul of the iris-flower.” At the end she disappears into the Western Paradise. “Even the souls of flowers can attain to Buddhahood.”

HANAKATAMI
(THE FLOWER BASKET)

By KWANAMI; REVISED BY SEAMI

Before he came to the throne, the Emperor Keitai[197] loved the Lady Teruhi. On his accession he sent her a letter of farewell and a basket of flowers. In the play the messenger meets her on the road to her home; she reads the letter, which in elaborately ceremonial language announces the Emperor’s accession and departure to the Capital.

TERUHI.

The Spring of our love is passed! Like a moon left lonely
In the sky of dawn, back to the hills I go,
To the home where once we dwelt.

(She slips quietly from the stage, carrying the basket and letter. In the next scene the EMPEROR[198] is carried on to the stage in a litter borne by two attendants. It is the coronation procession. Suddenly TERUHI, who has left her home distraught, wanders on to the stage followed by her maid, who carries the flower-basket and letter.)

TERUHI (speaking wildly).

Ho, you travellers! Show me the road to the Capital! I am mad, you say?
Mad I may be; but love bids me ask. O heartless ones! why will they not answer me?

MAID.

Madam, from these creatures we shall get no answer. Yet there is a sign that will guide our steps to the City. Look, yonder the wild-geese are passing!

TERUHI.

Oh well-remembered! For southward ever
The wild-geese pass
Through the empty autumn sky; and southward lies
The city of my lord.

Then follows the “song of travel,” during which Teruhi and her companion are supposed to be journeying from their home in Echizen to the Capital in Yamato. They halt at last on the hashigakari, announcing that they have “arrived at the City.” Just as a courtier (who together with the boy-Emperor and the two litter-bearers represents the whole coronation procession) is calling: “Clear the way, clear the way! The Imperial procession is approaching,” Teruhi’s maid advances on to the stage and crosses the path of the procession. The courtier pushes her roughly back, and in doing so knocks the flower-basket to the ground.

MAID.

Oh, look what he has done! O madam, he has dashed your basket to the ground, the Prince’s flower-basket!

TERUHI.

What! My lord’s basket? He has dashed it to the ground? Oh hateful deed!

COURTIER.

Come, mad-woman! Why all this fuss about a basket? You call it your lord’s basket; what lord can you mean?

TERUHI.

What lord should I mean but the lord of this land of Sunrise? Is there another?

Then follow a “mad dance” and song. The courtier orders her to come nearer the Imperial litter and dance again, that her follies may divert the Emperor.

She comes forward and dances the story of Wu Ti and Li Fu-jēn.[199] Nothing could console him for her death. He ordered her portrait to be painted on the walls of his palace. But, because the face neither laughed nor grieved, the sight of it increased his sorrow. Many wizards laboured at his command to summon her soul before him. At last one of them projected upon a screen some dim semblance of her face and form. But when the Emperor would have touched it, it vanished, and he stood in the palace alone.

COURTIER.

His Majesty commands you to show him your flower-basket.

(She holds the basket before the EMPEROR.)

COURTIER.

His Majesty has deigned to look at this basket. He says that without doubt it was a possession of his rural days.[200] He bids you forget the hateful letter that is with it and be mad no more. He will take you back with him to the palace.