Yoroboshi (The Beggar and His Saviour) 弱法師
from
Pretty Boys in the Noh (2004)
Kenneth
L. Richard
The
Siebold University of Nagasaki
Abstract: ‘Pretty Boys in the Noh’
includes new translations of four plays from the traditional Noh repertoire:
1.) Matsumushi (Pinus Erectus) that is without a category, 2.) Kagetsu
(Florimund) also from category four and that appears here, with Pinus
Erectus, for the first time in English translation, 3.) Kanehira
(Imai’s End) from category two of warrior plays, and 4.) Yoroboshi (The
Beggar and His Saviour) from category four of people in various states of
mental confusion or those who change gender role or societal function. All four
plays are about men in love (Kanehira), men who have been sold into
sexual slavery and recover (Yoroboshi), a beautiful dancer and his
patrons (Kagetsu), and men who have died for love of the same sex (Matsumushi).
The plays I have chosen for analysis here re-privilege the appeal of beautiful
boys and strong warriors, as well as the homosocial society of the Buddhist
priesthood in Japan.
‘Living Noh’ is the title
given to a series of workshops held at the Nichibunken in Kyoto in 2001-02. I
was privileged to attend these sessions. As we read through often performed
plays as well as some that are not as well known or performed, I began to draft
my own answer to the question of what constitutes an idea of ‘Living Noh.’
After all, the main characters in a Noh play are mostly returned from the dead.
‘Living Noh,’ as I discovered, is a dramaturgy that has been re-evaluated,
restored to a more originally lucent spirit, and that is where I became
convinced that the widest variety of male responses to life and death was
central to the whole idea of Noh, and that this male response had been
undervalued, or truncated in the choice of plays performed for modern audiences.
Then, as now, Noh is filled
with beautiful moments when memory is exalted, and the soul saved. The texts
are central to the aesthetic beauty of the play, and actors and acting
traditions throughout the four eras since the first Noh was performed seek to
reinterpret, even reform plays to their ideals. In the Muromachi era when Zeami
and those who followed him were both actors and writers, a privileged class of
consumers of the art, the military class--both employed and unemployed,
patronized actors, encouraged them to write plays that would be well received,
and often took Noh players to bed. Actors in this era were an unprivileged
class. Many of their plays give witness to men like themselves who were at home
in the marketplace where they drank sake and then went to make love in the
surrounding fields. Matsumushi is an anonymous play but a good one,
because it deals with men who may have been friends of actors, not patrons. For
their patrons, witnessing Matsumushi and enjoying the eternal love of two
commoners, might have exalted the actors in the eyes of their audience. Because
Matsumushi so obviously restores the appeal of same sex relationships,
actors easily became samurai, shogunal lovers. These actors were rewarded both
for their drama, and for their good looks and character. The stories of Zeami
Motokiyo as shogunal lover to the Ashikaga are well known. Kagetsu,
though ostensibly a play about the reunion of a long, lost son with his father,
is really a story about how a young and beautiful boy found his way as a boy
lover to priests who then taught him the arts of music, dance, and repartee,
and who has, by the current time of the play, become a free agent for his
skills. Kagetsu is the epitome of the male prostitute, as entertainer
and actor, of the Muromachi era. He is a very talented dancer. His name
Florimund in my English translation is the name of the Prince in The
Sleeping Beauty ballet. As many of the principal male dancers in the
Russian ballet had same sex lovers, so does Kagetsu outside of the play text.
All consumers of the Noh in the Muromachi enjoyed stories of beautiful boys.
In the Edo Period, the second
of the greatest eras of purveyors and consumers of Noh, great acting families
grew into distinct acting traditions with specific plays privatized to their
house style. Noh took on a more specific canonical role as an entertainment for
the shogunal and samurai class. It legitimized the neoclassical stance of the kokugakusha,
the nativists, and others who touted Japanese classical literature over a
newfound interest in continental Chinese writers. At the same time, however,
newer theatrical performances by manipulated puppets, and then by professional
actors took over the intimate exchange of art and sex that had once been the
sole purvey of Zeami and his successors. Noh became ‘high art.’
Whereas the actors and
playwrights of an earlier era had the precedent of clawing their way up the
social ladder from waifs, to chigo or boys who were engaged in Buddhist
temples for the sexual satisfaction of priests, to private troupes for the
Shogunal authorities, the social agenda of the Edo schools of Noh was quite
different. A play such as Kanehira, based on characters and incidents
drawn from The Tale of the Heike from the 13th
century, helped to maintain a myth of the nobility of the warrior class and
might have been a staple of regular performances for the pleasure of the Edo
shoguns, for example. Because of the time lag between the active roles of the
Minamoto warriors in the 12th century historical narrative and the
mostly unemployed and idle samurai class in Edo and Osaka of the time,
Yoshinaka and his friend Imai Kanehira, in the play male lovers who promised to
die together, might have been an entertaining ideal state of Bushido, a state
of mind enacted on the battlefield, but kept as an emotional modus operandi
when the sword was laid down. Kanehira in performance restores the ideal
of the strong warrior, and reinforces the prevalence of sympathy for the fallen
hero among Japanese audiences. Both Kiso and Kanehira are from the winning side
in the war, but choose a form of liebestod, a love death, rather than
commit suicide in the face of the enemy. Kanehira continues to appeal in
performace to this day, despite the same sex vows the two men take before their
deaths.
Meiji and modern Noh performance, being so strongly tied to the
responsibilities of the acting families to teach the repertoire to amateurs, to
publish texts and annotations, to perform and introduce their art to audiences
throughout the world, and to live up to their canonization as so-called Japanese
‘living treasures,’ has taken the idea of purveyor and consumer a huge distance
away from the patronage of individuals and the sexual intimacies of the
Muromachi era. Now Noh is traditional, and classical. Very few plays are being
added to the regular repertoire, and very few actors adopted from completely
outside the acting families ever make it to the stage. Gone are the connections
between the Buddhist clergy, the temples, the chigo, and becoming an
actor. Many old plays considered inappropriate for foreign audiences were
dropped from the repertoire of all the acting families. There is a history of government
interference since the Meiji in the activities and repertoire of Japanese drama
and its venues. Iwata Jun’ichi’s Honcho nanshoku ko – nanshoku bunken shoshi
(Thoughts on Same-Sex Male Relations in Japan – Bibliography of Homosexual
Literature in Japan) published privately from his writings in the 1930’s
lists many Noh plays dealing with same sex relations that have been abandoned,
become haikyoku or lost repertoire. Matsumushi and Kagetsu
are both on Iwata’s list, and I have included them here in English translation
because at least the text is still available.
But I have also included here my translation of Yoroboshi
because, though quite acceptable to modern audiences because its text is loaded
with Buddhist terminology and because the setting at Tennoji is highly
nostalgic for audiences from Kyoto and Osaka, I believe the beggar yoroboshi
as he calls himself, is not a priest by any means, nor does he achieve
salvation in the context of the play, but a male prostitute now wizened and
wasted by venereal disease, who has come to Tennoji to receive alms on that
special day in Spring reserved to honor the memory of the temple’s founder
Prince Shotoku (7th century) whose reason for founding the temple
was to provide aid to the infirm, the ill, and to lost children. Yoroboshi fits
all these categories: he was thrown out of his home by his father for having
sold himself into sexual slavery, I believe, though the text is not specific
enough about this. He is ill with then incurable sexually transmitted disease,
and he is infirm, though young, because he says that his legs are wobbly, and
he makes constant use of a cane throughout the performance. The entire play is
a tribute to the Tennoji, not a deeply felt revelation of the why and how of Yoroboshi’s
unfortunate life. We want to know so much more about why the so-called father
wants to make contrition for throwing his only son out of his house. We want to
know so much more about how Yoroboshi made a living meeting strangers
along the road on the plains of Naniwa. We want to know whether Yoroboshi
really wants to go home to Takayasu with a man who only says he is his father.
In the last seconds of the play, Yoroboshi expresses legitimate doubt
about the revelation, and he has nothing by way of revelation to comfort his
father, and to acknowledge him before going off at the dawn bell from Tennoji
back to a place for which he must certainly not have a fond memory.
What to make of this? Because Yoroboshi
is a form of fallen hero, the Japanese audience may find him appealing enough.
But does he achieve the Buddhist salvation promised to those who accept alms on
this day at the Tennoji? We are left wondering. Of the four plays presented in
translation here, Yoroboshi is the most altered, cut, rewritten and
variant in performance. One cannot help but think that this editing process
happened in modern times.
The four plays follow in the
order that I have outlined. Matsumushi is timeless and seems to best
represent the older animistic beliefs of legend. It seems the oldest play to
me. Kagetsu plays upon the themes of Buddhist festival, the Kiyomizu
Temple in Kyoto, and on the boy kept as a male lover by priests. This play
seems closest in spirit to the joy and affirmation of same sex relations in the
Muromachi era. Kanehira, though clearly written in the time of Zeami, is
perhaps most representative of the type of play appreciated by Edo audiences,
even though the ending is shocking. Two men committing love suicide on the
battlefield seems remote indeed from the more pressing concern of urban
suicide, seppuku, ordered and honored by the shogunal government. There
is a choice in the romance of Kanehira and Yoshinaka, while none in most
sanctioned seppuku during the Edo era. That is why the drama of Chushingura
is so appealing now, as it was then. The 47 masterless samurai chose their
death. It was not ordered, at least in the dramatic version of events.
Yoroboshi (The Beggar and His Savior)1
Tr.
Kenneth L. Richard
Author: Most texts note Kwanze Juro
Motomasa,2 yet the kuse portion seems older,
perhaps the work of Zeami himself.
Waki:
Michitoshi of the village of Takayasu
Ai: a
companion to Michitoshi
Setting: Primarily in the precincts of
the Tennoji, a temple built originally by Prince Shotoku, in the early seventh
century, in an area of Osaka now known by the same name, to harbor the feeble,
the ill, and abandoned children.
Background of the Story: Driven from his
home and now blinded, the youth Shuntokumaru discovers his salvation in the
Buddhist life after enduring the torments of a life beyond the pale of normal
society. The story of how the youth finds enlightenment unravels on a festival
day of the Spring Solstice in the Tenno Temple grounds.
NANORI
Waki
I am Saemon no jo, called Michitoshi
from the village of Takayasu in the Province of Kawachi.3
I once had a son, my only child, and when I found that he had been seduced and
led astray by words of deceit, I banished him from my house at yearend. It has
been such a terrible affair that I have come here to Tennoji to pray for
comfort in this life and in the life to come, and to give alms to the poor
wretches who gather here. Today is such a day of giving alms. Is there someone
there?
Ai
I am here before you.
Waki
All of our prayers conclude today. Please, indeed go ahead. Give as much
as we have.
Ai
As you say Michitoshi.
Hear me, hear me. Today concludes
Saemon’s almsgiving and contrition, so hurry forth to claim some solace. Be
assured of it. He distributes to all. Be assured.
ISSEI
Shite(As the instruments signal the issei
portion, Shuntokumaru enters. He grips a cane in his right hand. He delivers
the issei from the third pine (San no matsu) on the entrance
bridge (hashigakari), followed by the sashi and the sageuta.
He enters the stage at the beginning of the ageuta. Testing his step
with his cane against the shite pillar that we are to infer is the torii gate
of the Tennoji, he turns to face front. We see a blind beggar)
I see not the
waxing and waning of the moon; I know neither morning nor evening nor the
parameters of the night. The sea of Naniwa is deep, bottomless as the depth of
my despair. No one knows how deep.
SASHI
Shite
I have despaired at knowing that I had
to leave the security of soft coverlets embroidered with a conjugal pair of
mandarin ducks, grieved at the sea of tears flowing from paired eyes on the
pillow as close as those on a flounder’s head.4
How much more so when one’s heart has been taken! Men are born of worldly
delusion, as was I. The sad months and years ebbed away. I flowed with the
current of love, the good times that surge down through mountain and through
the valley, as good indeed as the good river Yoshino.5
My desires never ceased. What a terrible fate! Whom did I hate so in a previous
life, that would lead to my downfall in this? I had fallen into the sin of
being totally depraved,6 fallen
into other stress that made my tears cloud over and hide my eyes, till, in the
end, I went blind. Still I have not exchanged life for death, and I founder
along the path between this life and the other.
SAGEUTA
Shite
The heart on a path of darkness is a well-known phrase.
AGEUTA
Shite
It is handed down:
The journey Priest Ichigyo made to Kara The journey Priest Ichigyo made to
Kara At the crossroads of the
darkened cave path The glorious
light of the nine-fold Mandala
Shimmered and shone down To
guide him along the right path out of danger7 To wit, we live in an age of the Latter
Days of the Law when all is in decline
Yet the illustrious name of this great temple of
Tennoji Still marks the place
where Buddhist law first was proclaimed
Ah, is this the great stone torii? (Tapping the pillar with his cane) I
approach to say a prayer Yes, I
approach to offer my prayer.
Waki (Approaches the
waki pillar and begins to chant. A mondo or question and answer dialogue
ensues. A kakeai or linked dialogue then leads to another ageuta from
the chorus. Alms are offered to Shuntokumaru.)
It is
the second month when days and nights are equal and time flows calmly
on this day we have received and to this place that draws both rich and
poor let us be urged to give alms.
Shite
Ah yes, one gives thanks for such
blessings. A great procession brings all here to receive compassion in large
measure Even the common ones
without entry to the Buddhist law
make their feet fly to such a boon.
Waki
Who is this poor wretch here? The
proverbial beggar priest?
Shite
A name for me is a name for all. We are
all beggars to the Buddhist law.
Indeed this body is blind, and its legs are like wheels without
spokes. I am a cripple and wobbly I
walk, so call me the weak beggar priest
It is a fitting title.
Waki
Ah, do I hear in these casual words a
hint of sincerity? Yes, you shall be first to receive my alms. Take them.
Shite
Gladly. I
smell the fragrance of flowers descending on me. Why now do they begin to fall?
Waki
Oh, see how the plum blossoms from the
temple hedges fall upon the beggar priest’s sleeves now.
Shite
What a shame that when it is Spring in
Naniwa only the blossoms on
the trees are mentioned.8
Now it is the middle of the Spring. Let us pick the plum blossoms and
weave them into garlands for our hair. Let the white snowy blossoms fall on our
sleeves.9 Fascinating! Plums in full bloom!
Waki
Indeed, I can see how such blossoms,
when commended to the sleeves, are a great reward as they are.
Shite
Exactly. Grasses and trees, the
landface, all things equally receive the blessings of the Buddhist Law
Waki
All in the great benefice of Becoming
Buddha.
Shite
Unfailingly, all line up for alms
Waki
Hands together in prayer
Shite
Waving the sleeves widely
AGEUTA
Chorus
Blossoms join in the colors of the
benefits to be received (the waki
unfolds his fan and in a gesture of offering something up, raises it toward the
shite. The ai does the same) In the colors of the benefits to be received comes the blossoming plums on our
sleeves Will it again this
Spring? What is Naniwa if it is
not the Law? What when we joke,
play music, and dance? Will this too never fall through the net of the great
almsgiving? The great sea of
Naniwa is deep indeed. Ah yes, the
benefits extend even to the blind tortoises that we are、so that we see the blossoming branches of
plum?10 This flowering Spring calm shall not
fall through the net of the Law of Naniwa. The Buddhist Law of Naniwa shall
never fail us.
(The beggar
priest, Yoroboshi, sits and places his cane upon the stage. The kuri,
sashi, and kuse follow. In the middle of the kuse, Yoroboshi
again picks up his cane and begins a dance, then turns his back and stands at
the tsuneza.)
Just as the
Buddha life rose, his life set as does the sun in a Western sky. Maitreya, our savior, has yet to come
into the world. The dawn of a far distant future when he delivers his three
sermons to save the world has not yet arrived.11
SASHI
Shite
What then, in the interim period, will serve to expand our minds?
Chorus
It was here that the Great Prince Shotoku brought new government to the
land, and instructed all the people, creating an age when the Buddhist Law
spread far and wide, casting its benefice to every corner of the world.
Shite
That is to say, he built this temple
Chorus
Making manifest a new space for nuns
and priests Calling his temple
Shitenno, of the Four Deva Kings.12
KUSE
Chorus
How did he name it? The main figure of
veneration in the Golden Hall at the center of the temple was the Nyoirin
Kannon, also known as the Guse Kannon13.
The Great Prince was in his former life, the Zen Master Eshi,14 and so the benefice came to us. It is a
sculpture beyond all sculpture and through its benefice far and wide in Japan,
we know it as the first central figure of the spread of the Buddhist Law. Its
great and abiding light must surely be our guiding promise in this age of
decline. And so it is that this great temple of the Buddha was constructed of
the finest wood and fittings: pillars made of sacred aromatic red sandalwood,
while the finial of the relic tower sat on a base of the finest solid gold.15
Shite
For all time, the clear water of the
Kamei Spring shall flow in these grounds,
Chorus
Its source from the pure water of the
land to the West, inheritor of the sacred spring at Anavatapta16. Just as it shall flow for eternity,
through the ages, the Buddhist Law shall purge the impurities from mankind17 until the final barge nears to ferry us
across the river separating us from Paradise. The bell sounds from the temple
at Naniwa now, pealing to the farthest village. All encompassing vow fulfills
in the evening tide. Light floods from sea to mountain. All is encompassed in
Buddhahood.18
Unfathomable!
As I look more closely at the beggar priest, I take him to be the son I once
banished. How can this be? He has become blind through the pain of my
rejection. What horror to see him in such a wizened state! I know what I shall do.
I shall wait until nightfall, avoiding others’ eyes, before I tell him I am his
father. Then I shall take him back to Takayasu.
Waki
Make a prayer in the setting sun!19
It is indeed the solstice and this is
the time for such. I am blind and can only guess, but let my heart seek to face
the setting sun, and pray at the Eastern Gate. Hail be to Buddha! (Shuntokumaru
faces the curtain on the exit passageway, kneels, and presses his hands
together in prayer.)
Waki
Why do you call it the Eastern Gate? We
are at the stone torii, at the Western Gate.
Shite
How silly of me. Is it a lie to say
that when one passes through the Western Gate of the Tennoji towards the
Western Paradise, that one has arrived at its Eastern Gate?
Waki
Indeed, indeed, it is as you say. The
Western Gate of the Naniwa Temple leads one to the stone torii.
Shite
Enter the Primary Gate.20
Waki
Leave the Primary Gate.
Shite
One arrives at the Kingdom of Amida’s
Waki
Paradise
ISSEI
Shite
Through its Eastern Gate, one faces the
Sea of Naniwa to the West toward Paradise.
Chorus
The setting sun’s rays seem to dance
upon the sky
Shite (Dances with a fan
in his right hand, his cane in his left)
Marvelous! In the days before I became
blind, all this land was under Yoroboshi’s purvey. Fear not, doubt not the inlet at Naniwa. The moon radiates
over the inlet, wind rustles through the pines, the crystal clear, cool nights
in Naniwa, what else but a Paradise?21 (Shuntokumaru dances the iroe,イロエ)
WAKA
Shite
Looking afar
From among the pines at
Sumiyoshi
Chorus
One sees the moon rays falling
On Awaji Island, on the mountains22
Shite
I sang of moonlight
Chorus
You sang of moonlight, but now it is
the sun’s rays that are setting over the sea. It is the solstice, and not a
cloud mars the sky over picturesque Awaji Island, Suma, and Akashi. One sees
even to the ocean on the Ki coastline. One sees even to Ki. I hold a myriad of
sights, every green hill, in my heart. (Shuntokumaru takes the cane to his
breast, then clasps his right hand to it)
Shite
Ah yes, I see the scene. I tell you, I
am seeing it.
Chorus
Let me enumerate the various sites
along the Bay of Naniwa
Shite
There to the south see the waves in the
setting sun, the moonlight settling on the pines of Sumiyoshi
Chorus
There to the east see time in a
balanced moment
Shite
See Mt. Kusaka in the green light of
Spring
Chorus
What is to the north?
Shite
In Naniwa
Chorus
The Nagara Bridge Aimlessly, here and there, to and fro I
wander (Shuntokumaru strikes his cane on the stage to the right and to the
left) in the pain of blindness
meeting all along the way both high and low stumbling, reeling my way to Naniwa of the reeds (throws his cane away and sits down) my
legs wobble from weakness (takes up the cane again and stands) the very same
beggar priest who stands before you now (stamps his feet upon the stage) Laugh
at me if you will! (Looks around) I am wretched as you will perceive, yet now I
shall not fall apart at least now
I shall never lose my senses.
RONGI
Chorus
Now is the time. It has grown dark, it
has grown late, and people have quieted. I ask you, after all this, tell me
your name. Who are you?
Shite
You take me by surprise. Who are you to
ask me of my past? The real me? I am Shuntokumaru of the village of Takayasu.
Chorus
I am happy indeed, for I am your
father, Michitoshi of Takayasu.
Shite
I hear the name Michitoshi, my father.
I hear the voice and
Chorus
Shite
Is this just a dream? (slaps his right
hand against his knee)
Chorus
Shuntoku is too embarrassed to admit of
a father now (he covers his face with his left sleeve) and attempts to flee in
the opposite direction, but his father chases after, taking his hand in his
(the waki has arrested Shuntokumaru’s movement from behind). What is there now
to repress in this Naniwa of questions? Muffled by the tolling of the evening
bell of the Naniwa Temple, he presses his invitation to move on before the
dawn, to return to Takayasu. (The shite exits) Returning to Takayasu. (The waki
waves his fan and stamps his feet to end the play)
Bibliography
Iwata, Jun’ichi. 2002. Honcho nanshoku ko – nanshoku bunken shoshi (Thoughts on Same Sex Male Relations in Japan – Bibliography of Homosexual Literature in Japan). Tokyo: Hara shobo
Kanehira 兼平 (2) Jones Monumenta Nipponica (MN) 18:1/4
(1963), also in Keene 1970;. Sieffert II 1979
Koyama, Hiroshi et.al. 1973. Nihon koten bungaku zenshu 34 Yokyokushu. Tokyo:Iwanami shoten
List of Noh Plays in Translation at
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/biblio/noh-trans.html#biblio
Nihon Keizei Shimbunsha ed. 2003 Tokyo National Museum catalogue Kamakura-The Art of Zen Buddhism 鎌倉――禅の源流
Nishino, Haruo. 1998. Yokyoku hyakuban in Shin nihon koten bungaku taikei vol. 57. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten
Shimazaki, Chifumi. 1993. Battle Noh Book 2. Published as: Warrior Ghost plays from the Japanese Noh Theater. Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University. [5: Kanehira, Michimori, Tomoakira, Tomoe, Yashima, Yorimasa]
Watson, M. Pre-Modern Japanese Literature Listserve at
http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~pmjs/biblio/noh-trans.html
Yokomichi Mario, Omote Akira eds. 1963. Yokyokushu Ge in Nihon koten bungaku taikei vol. 41. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten
Yoroboshi 弱法師 (4) Nipon Gakujutsu Shinkokai (NGS) III 1960.
Notes to Yoroboshi
1 translation and notes based on Koyama, Hiroshi et.al. 1973. Nihon koten bungaku zenshu 34 Yokyokushu: 93-104.
2 Kwanze Juro Motomasa ( c.1394-1432), eldest son of Zeami (1364-1443) rose to the rank of first rate actor while he was still young. Author of Sumidagawa (The River Sumida), one of the finest of all plays, also of the fourth category of frenzied women, and others who suffer traumatic downfalls.
3 The rank and names are fictitious. Takayasu is at the foot of Mt. Takayasu in modern Yao, Osaka. One remembers the name of this village from ‘The Well-Curb’ episode in The Tales of Ise as the place to which the husband who had married the girl next door over the protestations of her parents, and who had managed to put together a normal and loving married life with his first love, went to be with another woman, the Lady of Takayasu we should call her. Though his visits continued sporadically, it seems, even after his wife found out, the affair was terminated finally after he found that his Takayasu love had grown frumpy and unkempt. The nice thing is that, even after all the pain he must have caused her, the Takayasu lady still composed poems of love to him, and believed that one day he would come back to her. He never did, according to The Tales of Ise.
4 A pair of mandarin ducks with the highly colorful feathers of blue and gold and green of their tails entwined on a background of a lovely quiet pond, two trees with leaves and branches entwined above them, are symbols of conjugal bliss, often embroidered on quilts to be given to newlyweds in Korea and China. The design is known in Japan. The usual reference to this imagery is to the eternal pledge to the T’ang Emperor given, through the medium of a sorcerer who meets his lover and concubine Yang Guei-fei (楊貴妃 jp. Yokihi) in the Taoist heaven after her death, at the conclusion of Po Chu-I’s (白居易) The Song of Everlasting Lament （長恨歌 Jp. Chogonka, 806 ad.）Two eyes paired on a pillow is another image of romantic attachment, but I think the situation Shuntokumaru is referring to is forced sexual slavery, not marital bliss. These are the situations from which he necessarily had to flee.
5 The good times (yoshino and yoshiya yo 吉野とよしや世) pun on the Yoshino River flowing down through Mt. Imose 妹背山(Wife and Mate) derive from love poetry in the era of the Kokin wakashu c. 905 ad., perhaps this anonymous poem from the Love chapters:
Nagarete wa
Imose no yama no
Naka ni otsuru
Yoshino no kawa no
Yoshi ya yo no naka
Flowing, living
It descends through the
Mountain of wife and mate:
Yoshino River, good as the world
Good as two together!!
6 ‘Totally depraved’ could also be read as ‘unfilial to ones parents’ (不孝). I have chosen the former nuance over the latter expression because of the strength with which Shuntokumaru’s father, Michitoshi, says that he threw his son out of his house. The notes to this text suggest that fuko may rather have been read as fukyo, a euphemism for a number of situations of being in desperate straits.
7 This entire passage of the ageuta derives from Chapter Two of The Tales of Heike that depicts the story of Ichigyo, a high priest of T’ang China, an Azari or Abbot, who through an evil curse drew the wrath of the Emperor Tsuan Tsang (玄宗皇帝Genso kotei) and was banished to Kara（果羅）, a Chinese form of Hell. Heavenly forces realized the unjust nature of such banishment. In Ichigyo’s case, a mandala appeared in a ninefold pattern and saved him from ruin. Ichigyo then drew blood from his finger and drew the ninefold mandala design, thus beginning a tradition of illustrating the tantric world of Buddhism in this way. The ‘darkened cave path’ refers to one of the paths men with heavy sins must travel, one that is devoid of sunlight and moonlight for seven days.
8 Reference is to the famous poem called ‘The Naniwazu’ because it is the earliest known poem about the bay and city now known as Osaka. The poem can be found in the Preface to the Kokin wakashu:
Naniwazu ni
Saku ya kono hana
Fuyugomori
Ima wa harube to
Saku ya kono hana
Naniwa inlet
Where blossoms bloom on the trees
Through the winter, will they,
Now that Spring has come
Bloom again, these blossoms on trees?
The poem has an obvious connection to Buddhism because it is attributed to the Priest Wani who first brought Buddhist images to Japan from the Korean Peninsula in the 6th century a.d. In pre-modern times, this poem was taught to students as a first lesson in how to read and understand Japanese poetry (waka), so the reference here is fundamental to Osaka, and to Buddhism. Somewhere, I remember this poem being spoken by a Japanese Emperor who used the poem to allude to his being unsure of holding onto his imperial seat.
9 In another poem in Chinese from the Wakan roeishu 和漢朗詠集of 1013, the poet Tachibana no Aritsura 橘在列 remarks in a couplet of plucking the plum blossoms to decorate the hair, and to let the snowy blossoms fall on ones sleeves:
折梅花而挿頭、
二月之雪落衣
10 The Nirvana Sutra (涅槃経 Jp. Nehankyo) that portrays the historical Buddha at his death, contains this phrase: ‘Among the living things of the world, the most difficult is to be human; the same is true of the world of the Buddha—it too is difficult to enter. It is as though a blind tortoise in a great sea chances to find the knot hole on a bit of floating wood.’ Thus, to see or experience the blossoming plums is as rare an experience as becoming a Buddha, or finding salvation.
11 The Three Sermons 竜華三会to save mankind will be preached by the Miroku Bosatsu ( 弥勒菩薩Maitreya) in the future when he manifests under a tree called the Dragon Flower, in India, in 56 trillion 700 million years hence. No need to wait around for it.
12 The Four Deva Kings (四天王 Shitenno) guarded the four cardinal directions on Mt. Sumeru in the Buddhist paradise. Four grimacing figures are often seen in Nara Buddhist sculpture, guarding the four corners of a large altarpiece, as in the ceramic figure arrangement at Shin-Yakushiji. The original configuration at the Shitennoji in Osaka has been lost for many generations.
13 The Nyoirin Kannon (如意輪観音)is one of the 33 poses of the goddess Avalokitesvara who grants all wishes and eases the pain of the masses. As the Nyoirin, the figure is often seated, with six arms, two of which hold a crystal jewel and a nine-tiered golden finial, both symbols of salvation. The Guse or Guze Kannon (救世観音)is a particularized representation of the Nyoirin. The figure of the Guze that comes immediately to mind is the supposedly masculine portrait sculpture of Shotoku kept as a ‘hidden Buddha’ in the Yumedono ‘Dream Pavilion’, an octagonal building of the finest beauty in the Horyuji temple complex in Nara. A similar Buddha was kept at Shitennoji as the likeness of the Great Prince.
14 Eshi (515-577) (Ch.慧思) was a High Priest of the Northern and Southern Dynasties in China, master to the founder of the Tendai (Ch.天台)sect of Buddhism. If one believes that Shotoku Taishi (Jp.聖徳太子574-622) was born as a reincarnation of Master Eshi, he would have been born three years before Eshi’s death, thus making the whole thing quite plausible?
15 ‘Pillars of aromatic red sandalwood (赤栴檀)refers to a rare wood from a mountain in India sacred to Buddhism. The solid gold base of the finial refers to a type of pure gold found as powder in the riverbed of a stream that flows through a forest of Indian hardwood called jambu (Sanskrit Jambu-nada-suvarna).
16 Sk. Anavatapta無熱地 is a fictitious spring in Paradise, in Indian Buddhism, whose banks are made of precious stones. A dragon King dwells within, and four rivers flow from its source to bring nourishment to the land. The Kamei Spring (亀井の水) can be found just to the south of the Shitennoji treasury. In another source, it is said that this sacred spring issues from the Ryugujo (竜宮城),the palace of the Dragon King at the bottom of the sea. Its waters, in turn, issue from a silver sluice that draws its sustenance from the Anavatapta spring in India.
17 Five impurities（Gojoku五濁）plague the world during the Latter Days of the Law: 1.) calamities of famine, epidemics, and war, 2.) evil deeds, 3.) covetousness caused by sexual rivalry, 4.) the sins of not attending to religious instruction, and 5.) shortening of the normal lifespan. See note 9 for Kagetsu.
18 The implication here is that the hills and the sea around Naniwa, Naniwa itself and the Shitennoji at its center, represent the true shape of enlightenment. Everyone is saved (皆成仏).
19 ‘Make a prayer in the setting sun’ refers to the first of sixteen methods for imagining the Western Paradise that the historical Buddha Shakamuni taught the Empress Vedehi (Sk.) in the Kingdom of Makada. These commandments form the Kanmuryojukyo 観無量寿経, a sutra made to explain the Buddha of the Western Paradise, Amida (阿弥陀Sk. Amitabha), and the attributes of the Pure Land（浄土Jodo）. Another work concerning the solstice at Naniwa refers to the practice of saying prayers at the stone torii gate of the Shitennoji at the solstice, believing the gate, as the Eastern gate of the temple, to be the eastern gate of the Western paradise.
20 The word Primary Gate, Ajimon (阿字門), is used because the ‘a’ sound is the first in the Sanskrit sound system. I am tempted to call it the Alpha Gate, but resisted the expression to avoid any confusion with the Greek system.
22 The waka seems to be adapted loosely from a poem by Minamoto no Yorimasa （源頼政 1104-1180）from the Mumyosho (無名抄) by Kamo no Chomei (鴨長明1155-1216)