Part 2

These plays arose in an age of continual war and became a part of the education of soldiers. These soldiers, whose natures had as much of Walter Pater as of Achilles combined with Buddhist priests and women to elaborate life in a ceremony, the playing of football, the drinking of tea, and all great events of state, becoming a ritual. In the painting that decorated their walls and in the poetry they recited one discovers the only sign of a great age that cannot deceive us, the most vivid and subtle discrimination of sense and the invention of images more powerful than sense; the continual presence of reality. It is still true that the Deity gives us, according to His promise, not His thoughts or His convictions but His flesh and blood, and I believe that the elaborate technique of the arts, seeming to create out of itself a superhuman life has taught more men to die than oratory or the Prayer Book. We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body. The Minoan soldier who bore upon his arm the shield ornamented with the dove in the Museum at Crete, or had upon his head the helmet with the winged horse, knew his rôle in life. When Nobuzane painted the child Saint Kobo, Daishi kneeling full of sweet austerity upon the flower of the lotus, he set up before our eyes exquisite life and the acceptance of death.

I cannot imagine those young soldiers and the women they loved pleased with the ill-breeding and theatricality of Carlyle, nor I think with the magniloquence of Hugo. These things belong to an industrial age, a mechanical sequence of ideas; but when I remember that curious game which the Japanese called, with a confusion of the senses that had seemed typical of our own age, 'listening to incense,' I know that some among them would have understood the prose of Walter Pater, the painting or Puvis de Chavannes, the poetry of Mallarmé and Verlaine. When heroism returned to our age it bore with it as its first gift technical sincerity.

VIII

For some weeks now I have been elaborating my play in London where alone I can find the help I need, Mr. Dulac's mastery of design and Mr. Ito's genius of movement; yet it pleases me to think that I am working for my own country. Perhaps some day a play in the form I am adapting for European purposes shall awake once more, whether in Gaelic or in English, under the slope of Slieve-na-mon or Croagh Patrick ancient memories; for this form has no need of scenery that runs away with money nor of a theatre-building. Yet I know that I only amuse myself with a fancy; for though my writings if they be sea-worthy must put to sea, I cannot tell where they may be carried by the wind. Are not the fairy-stories of Oscar Wilde, which were written for Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Shannon and for a few ladies, very popular in Arabia?

W. B. Yeats, April 1916.

NISHIKIGI

A PLAY IN TWO ACTS BY MOTOKIYO.

PERSONS OF THE PLAY

THE WAKI A priest

THE SHITE, OR HERO Ghost of the lover

TSURE Ghost of the woman; they have both been long dead, and have not yet been united.

CHORUS

The 'Nishikigi' are wands used as a love charm.

'Hosonuno' is the name of a local cloth which the woman weaves.

NISHIKIGI

First Part

WAKI There never was anybody heard of Mount Shinobu but had a kindly feeling for it; so I, like any other priest that might want to know a little bit about each one of the provinces, may as well be walking up here along the much travelled road.

I have not yet been about the east country, but now I have set my mind to go as far as the earth goes; and why shouldn't I, after all? seeing that I go about with my heart set upon no particular place whatsoever, and with no other man's flag in my hand, no more than a cloud has. It is a flag of the night I see coming down upon me. I wonder now, would the sea be that way, or the little place Kefu that they say is stuck down against it?

SHITE (to Tsure) Times out of mind am I here setting up this bright branch, this silky wood with the charms painted in it as fine as the web you'd get in the grass-cloth of Shinobu, that they'd be still selling you in this mountain.

SHITE AND TSURE Tangled, we are entangled. Whose fault was it, dear? tangled up as the grass patterns are tangled up in this coarse cloth, or as the little Mushi that lives on and chirrups in dried sea-weed. We do not know where are to-day our tears in the undergrowth of this eternal wilderness. We neither wake nor sleep, and passing our nights in a sorrow which is in the end a vision, what are these scenes of spring to us? This thinking in sleep of someone who has no thought of you, is it more than a dream? and yet surely it is the natural way of love. In our hearts there is much and in our bodies nothing, and we do nothing at all, and only the waters of the river of tears flow quickly.

CHORUS Narrow is the cloth of Kefu, but wild is that river, that torrent of the hills, between the beloved and the bride.

The cloth she had woven is faded, the thousand one hundred nights were night-trysts watched out in vain.

WAKI (not recognizing the nature of the speakers)

Strange indeed, seeing these town-people here. They seem like man and wife, And the lady seems to be holding something Like a cloth woven of feathers, While he has a staff or a wooden sceptre Beautifully ornate. Both of these things are strange; In any case, I wonder what they call them.

TSURE

This is a narrow cloth called 'Hosonuno,' It is just the breadth of the loom.

SHITE

And this is merely wood painted, And yet the place is famous because of these things. Would you care to buy them from us?

WAKI Yes, I know that the cloth of this place and the lacquers are famous things. I have already heard of their glory, and yet I still wonder why they have such great reputation.

TSURE Ah well now, that's a disappointment. Here they call the wood Nishikigi,' and the woven stuff 'Hosonuno,' and yet you come saying that you have never heard why, and never heard the story. Is it reasonable?

SHITE No, no, that is reasonable enough. What can people be expected to know of these affairs when it is more than they can do to keep abreast of their own?

BOTH (to the Priest) Ah well, you look like a person who has abandoned the world; it is reasonable enough that you should not know the worth of wands and cloths with love's signs painted upon them, with love's marks painted and dyed.

WAKI That is a fine answer. And you would tell me then that Nishikigi and Hosonuno are names bound over with love?

SHITE They are names in love's list surely. Every day for a year, for three years come to their full, the wands Nishikigi were set up, until there were a thousand in all. And they are in song in your time, and will be. 'Chidzuka' they call them.

TSURE

These names are surely a by-word. As the cloth Hosonuno is narrow of weft, More narrow than the breast, We call by this name any woman Whose breasts are hard to come nigh to. It is a name in books of love.

SHITE 'Tis a sad name to look back on.

TSURE

A thousand wands were in vain. A sad name, set in a story.

SHITE

A seed-pod void of the seed, We had no meeting together.

TSURE Let him read out the story.

CHORUS

I At last they forget, they forget. The wands are no longer offered, The custom is faded away. The narrow cloth of Kefu Will not meet over the breast. 'Tis the story of Hosonuno, This is the tale: These bodies, having no weft, Even now are not come together. Truly a shameful story, A tale to bring shame on the gods.

II Names of love, Now for a little spell, For a faint charm only, For a charm as slight as the binding together Of pine-flakes in Iwashiro, And for saying a wish over them about sunset, We return, and return to our lodging. The evening sun leaves a shadow.

WAKI Go on, tell out all the story.

SHITE There is an old custom of this country. We make wands of meditation, and deck them with symbols, and set them before a gate, when we are suitors.

TSURE And we women take up a wand of the man we would meet with, and let the others lie, although a man might come for a hundred nights, it may be, or for a thousand nights in three years, till there were a thousand wands here in the shade of this mountain. We know the funeral cave of such a man, one who had watched out the thousand nights; a bright cave, for they buried him with all his wands. They have named it the 'Cave of the many charms.'

WAKI

I will go to that love-cave, It will be a tale to take back to my village. Will you show me my way there?

SHITE So be it, I will teach you the path.

TSURE Tell him to come over this way.

BOTH

Here are the pair of them Going along before the traveller.

CHORUS

We have spent the whole day until dusk Pushing aside the grass From the over-grown way at Kefu, And we are not yet come to the cave. O you there, cutting grass on the hill, Please set your mind on this matter. 'You'd be asking where the dew is 'While the frost's lying here on the road. 'Who'd tell you that now?' Very well then don't tell us, But be sure we will come to the cave.

SHITE

There's a cold feel in the autumn. Night comes....

CHORUS

And storms; trees giving up their leaf, Spotted with sudden showers. Autumn! our feet are clogged In the dew-drenched, entangled leaves. The perpetual shadow is lonely, The mountain shadow is lying alone. The owl cries out from the ivies That drag their weight on the pine. Among the orchids and chrysanthemum flowers The hiding fox is now lord of that love-cave, Nishidzuka, That is dyed like the maple's leaf. They have left us this thing for a saying. That pair have gone into the cave. (sign for the exit of Shite and Tsure)

Second Part

(The Waki has taken the posture of sleep. His respectful visit to the cave is beginning to have its effect.)

WAKI (restless)

It seems that I cannot sleep For the length of a pricket's horn. Under October wind, under pines, under night! I will do service to Butsu. (he performs the gestures of a ritual)

TSURE

Aie! honoured priest! You do not dip twice in the river Beneath the same tree's shadow Without bonds in some other life. Hear sooth-say, Now is there meeting between us, Between us who were until now In life and in after-life kept apart. A dream-bridge over wild grass, Over the grass I dwell in. O honoured! do not awake me by force. I see that the law is perfect.

SHITE (supposedly invisible)

It is a good service you have done, sir, A service that spreads in two worlds, And binds up an ancient love That was stretched out between them. I had watched for a thousand days. Take my thanks, For this meeting is under a difficult law. And now I will show myself in the form of Nishikigi. I will come out now for the first time in colour.

(The characters announce or explain their acts, as these are mostly symbolical. Thus here the Shite, or Sh'te, announces his change of costume, and later the dance.)

CHORUS

The three years are over and past: All that is but an old story.

SHITE

To dream under dream we return. Three years.... And the meeting comes now! This night has happened over and over, And only now comes the tryst.

CHORUS

Look there to the cave Beneath the stems of the Suzuki. From under the shadows of the love-grass, See, see how they come forth and appear For an instant.... Illusion!

SHITE

There is at the root of hell No distinction between princes and commons; Wretched for me! 'tis the saying.

WAKI

Strange, what seemed so very old a cave Is all glittering-bright within, Like the flicker of fire. It is like the inside of a house. They are setting up a loom, And heaping up charm-sticks. No, The hangings are out of old time. Is it illusion, illusion?

TSURE

Our hearts have been in the dark of the falling snow, We have been astray in the flurry. You should tell better than we How much is illusion; You who are in the world. We have been in the whirl of those who are fading.

SHITE

Indeed in old times Narihira said, --and he has vanished with the years-- 'Let a man who is in the world tell the fact.' It is for you, traveller, To say how much is illusion.

WAKI

Let it be a dream, or a vision, Or what you will, I care not. Only show me the old times over-past and snowed under-- Now, soon, while the night lasts.

SHITE

Look then, the old times are shown, Faint as the shadow-flower shows in the grass that bears it; And you've but a moon for lanthorn.

TSURE

The woman has gone into the cave. She sets up her loom there For the weaving of Hosonuno, Thin as the heart of Autumn.

SHITE

The suitor for his part, holding his charm-sticks, Knocks on a gate which was barred.

TSURE

In old time he got back no answer, No secret sound at all Save....

SHITE The sound of the loom.

TSURE

It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets, A thin sound like the Autumn.

SHITE It was what you would hear any night.

TSURE

Kiri.

SHITE

Hatari.

TSURE

Cho.

SHITE

Cho.

CHORUS (mimicking the sound of crickets)

Kiri, hatari, cho, cho, Kiri, hatari, cho, cho. The cricket sews on at his old rags, With all the new grass in the field; sho, Churr, isho, like the whir of a loom: churr.

CHORUS (antistrophe)

Let be, they make grass-cloth in Kefu, Kefu, the land's end, matchless in the world.

SHITE

That is an old custom, truly, But this priest would look on the past.

CHORUS

The good priest himself would say: Even if we weave the cloth, Hosonuno, And set up the charm-sticks For a thousand, a hundred nights, Even then our beautiful desire will not pass, Nor fade nor die out.

SHITE

Even to-day the difficulty of our meeting is remembered, And is remembered in song.

CHORUS

That we may acquire power, Even in our faint substance, We will show forth even now, And though it be but in a dream, Our form of repentance. (explaining the movement of the Shite and Tsure) There he is carrying wands, And she has no need to be asked. See her within the cave, With a cricket-like noise of weaving. The grass-gates and the hedge are between them; That is a symbol. Night has already come on. (now explaining the thoughts of the man's spirit) Love's thoughts are heaped high within him, As high as the charm-sticks, As high as the charm-sticks, once coloured, Now fading, lie heaped in this cave. And he knows of their fading. He says: I lie a body, unknown to any other man, Like old wood buried in moss. It were a fit thing That I should stop thinking the love-thoughts. The charm-sticks fade and decay, And yet, The rumour of our love Takes foot and moves through the world. We had no meeting But tears have, it seems, brought out a bright blossom Upon the dyed tree of love.

SHITE

Tell me, could I have foreseen Or known what a heap of my writings Should lie at the end of her shaft-bench?

CHORUS

A hundred nights and more Of twisting, encumbered sleep, And now they make it a ballad, Not for one year or for two only But until the days lie deep As the sand's depth at Kefu, Until the year's end is red with Autumn, Red like these love-wands, A thousand nights are in vain. And I stand at this gate-side. You grant no admission, you do not show yourself Until I and my sleeves are faded. By the dew-like gemming of tears upon my sleeve, Why will you grant no admission? And we all are doomed to pass, You, and my sleeves and my tears. And you did not even know when three years had come to an end. Cruel, ah cruel! The charm-sticks....

SHITE

Were set up a thousand times; Then, now, and for always.

CHORUS Shall I ever at last see into that room of hers, which no other sight has traversed?

SHITE

Happy at last and well-starred, Now comes the eve of betrothal: We meet for the wine-cup.

CHORUS

How glorious the sleeves of the dance, That are like snow-whirls!

SHITE Tread out the dance.

CHORUS

Tread out the dance and bring music. This dance is for Nishikigi.

SHITE This dance is for the evening plays, And for the weaving.

CHORUS

For the tokens between lover and lover: It is a reflecting in the wine-cup.

CHORUS

Ari-aki, The dawn! Come, we are out of place; Let us go ere the light comes. (to the Waki) We ask you, do not awake, We all will wither away, The wands and this cloth of a dream. Now you will come out of sleep, You tread the border and nothing Awaits you: no, all this will wither away. There is nothing here but this cave in the field's midst. To-day's wind moves in the pines; A wild place, unlit, and unfilled.

HAGOROMO

HAGOROMO, A PLAY IN ONE ACT.

PERSONS OF THE PLAY

THE PRIEST Hakuryo

A FISHERMAN

A TENNIN

CHORUS

HAGOROMO

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 play shows the relation of the early Noh to the God-dance.

PRIEST

Windy road of the waves by Miwo, 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 low 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

I shall not be out of memory 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 launching. Wait a little, is it not spring? 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.

PRIEST Now I am come to shore at Miwo-no; I disembark in Subara; 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 someone on this side. What are you proposing to do with it?

PRIEST This? this is a cloak picked up. I am taking it home, I tell you.

TENNIN

That is a feather-mantle not fit for a mortal to bear, Not easily wrested from the sky-traversing spirit, Not easily taken or given. I ask you to leave it where you found it.

PRIEST 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.

PRIEST Just from hearing these high words, I, Hakuryo have gathered more and yet more force. You think, because I was too stupid to recognise 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?

TENNIN

A Tennin without her robe, A bird without wings, How shall she climb the air?

PRIEST And this world would be a sorry place for her to dwell in?

TENNIN I am caught, I struggle, how shall I?...

PRIEST No, Hakuryo is not one to give back the robe.

TENNIN Power does not attain....

PRIEST 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!

[Footnote 1: Vide examples of state head-dress of kingfisher feathers, in the South Kensington Museum.]

[Footnote 2: The chain of weaknesses, or the five ills, diseases of the Tennin: namely, the hanakadzusa withers; the Hagoromo is stained; sweat comes from the body; both eyes wink frequently; she feels very weary of her palace in heaven.]

TENNIN 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.

PRIEST (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.

PRIEST 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.

PRIEST 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.

PRIEST I am again ashamed. I give you your mantle.

CHORUS The young maid now is arrayed; she assumes the curious mantle; watch how she moves in the dance of the rainbow-feathered garment.

PRIEST The heavenly feather-robe moves in accord with the wind.

TENNIN The sleeves of flowers are being wet with the rain.

PRIEST The wind and the sleeve move together.

CHORUS

It seems that she dances. 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.

CHORUS (commenting on the dance) The white kiromo, the black kiromo, 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.

[Footnote 3: Cf. 'Paradiso,' xxiii, 25. 'Quale nei plenilunii sereni Trivia ride tra le ninfe eterne.']