Arthur Waley
Aoi No Uye
About the print version
Aoi No Uye The No Plays of Japan
Arthur Waley
1st Edition
pp. 143-152
Alfred A. Knopf
New York
1922
Published: 1922
NOTE ON AOI NO UYE.
At the age of twelve Prince Genji went through the ceremony of marriage with
Aoi no Uye (Princess Hollyhock), the Prime Minister's daughter. She continued to
live at her father's house and Genji at his palace. When he was about sixteen he
fell in love with Princess Rokujo, the widow of the Emperor's brother; she was
about eight years older than himself. He was not long faithful to her. The lady
Yugao next engaged his affections. He carried her one night to a deserted
mansion on the outskirts of the City. "The night was far advanced and they had
both fallen asleep. Suddenly the figure of a woman appeared at the bedside. "I
have found you!" it cried. "What stranger is this that lies beside you? What
treachery is this that you flaunt before my eyes?" And with these words the
apparition stooped over the bed, and made as though to drag away the sleeping
girl from Genji's side." 1
Before dawn Yugao was dead, stricken by the "living phantom" of Rokujo,
embodiment of her baleful jealousy.
Soon after this, Genji became reconciled with his wife Aoi, but continued to
visit Rokujo. One day, at the Kamo Festival, Aoi's way was blocked by another
carriage. She ordered her attendants to drag it aside. A scuffle ensued between
her servants and those of Rokujo (for she was the occupant of the second
carriage) in which Aoi's side prevailed. Rokujo's carriage was broken and Aoi's
pushed into the front place. After the festival was over Aoi returned to the
Prime Minister's house in high spirits.
Soon afterwards she fell ill, and it is at this point that the play begins.
There is nothing obscure or ambiguous in the situation. Fenollosa seems to
have misunderstood the play and read into it complications and confusions which
do not exist. He also changes the sex of the Witch, though the Japanese word,
miko, always has a feminine meaning. The "Romance of Genji" (Genji Monogatari)
was written by Lady Murasaki Shikibu and was finished in the year 1004 A. D. Of
its fifty-four chapters only seventeen have been translated. 2 It furnished the
plots of many No plays, of which Suma Genji (Genji's exile at Suma), No no Miya (his visit to Rokujo after she became a nun), Tamakatsura
(the story of Yugao's daughter), and Hajitomi (in which Yugao's ghost appears)
are the best known.
There is some doubt about the authorship of the play. Seami saw it acted as
a Dengaku by his father's contemporary Inuo. He describes Inuo's entry on to the
stage in the role of Rukujo and quotes the first six lines of her opening
speech. These lines correspond exactly with the modern text, and it is probable
that the play existed in something like its present form in the middle of the
fourteenth century. Kwanze Nagatoshi, the great-grandson of Seami, includes it
in a list of Seami's works; while popular tradition ascribes it to Seami's
son-in-law Zenchiku.
AOI NO UYE
(PRINCESS HOLLYHOCK)
REVISED BY ZENCHIKU UJINOBU (1414-1499?)
PERSONS
Courtier.
Witch.
Princess Rokujo.
The Saint of Yokaro.
Messenger.
Chorus.
(A folded cloak laid in front of the stage symbolizes the sickbed of Aoi.)
Courtier
I 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.
And now, here at my side, stands the witch of Teruhi, 3 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!
Witch
[ comes forward beating a little drum and reciting a mystic formula. ]
Ten shojo; chi shojo.
Naige shojo; rokon shojo.
Pure above; pure below.
Pure without; pure within.
Pure in eyes, ears, heart and tongue.
[ She plucks her bow-string, reciting the spell. ]
You whom I call
Hold loose the reins
On your grey colt's neck
As you gallop to me
Over the long sands!
[ The living phantasm of Rokujo appears at the back of the stage. ]
Rokujo
In the Three Coaches
That travel on the Road of Law
I drove out of the Burning House . . . 4
Is there no way to banish the broken coach
That stands at Yugao's door? 5
This world
Is like the wheels of the little ox-cart;
Round and round they go. . . till vengeance comes.
The Wheel of Life turns like the wheel of a coach;
There is no escape from the Six Paths and Four Births.
We are brittle as the leaves of the basho;
As fleeting as foam upon the sea.
Yesterday's flower, to-day's dream.
From such a dream were it not wiser to wake?
And when to this is added another's scorn
How can the heart have rest?
So when I heard the twanging of your bow
For a little while, I thought, I will take my pleasure;
And as an angry ghost appeared.
Oh! I am ashamed!
[ She veils her face. ]
This time too I have come secretly 6
In a closed coach.
Though I sat till dawn and watched the moon,
Till dawn and watched,
How could I show myself,
That am no more than the mists that tremble over the fields?
I am come, I am come to the notch of your bow
To tell my sorrow.
Whence came the noise of the bow-string?
Witch
Though she should stand at the wife-door of the mother-house of the square
court . . . 7
Rokujo
Yet would none come to me, that am not in the flesh. 8
Witch
How 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. 9 The lady of
the broken coach is weeping, weeping. It is a piteous sight.
Can this be she?
Courtier
It would not be hard to guess who such a one might be. Come, spirit, tell us
your name!
Rokujo
In this Sahā World 10 where days fly like the lightning's flash
None is worth hating and none worth pitying.
This I knew. Oh when did folly master me?
You would know who I am that have come drawn by the twanging of your bow? I
am the angry ghost of Rokujo, Lady of the Chamber.
Long ago I lived in the world.
I sat at flower-feasts among the clouds. 11
On spring mornings I rode out
In royal retinue and on autumn nights
Among the red leaves of the Rishis' Cave
I sported with moonbeams,
With colours and perfumes
My senses sated.
I had splendour then;
But now I wither like the Morning Glory
Whose span endures not from dawn to midday.
I have come to clear my hate.
[ 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." ]
[ But while singing these words she turns towards Aoi's bed; passion again
seizes her and she cries: ]
I am full of hatred.
I must strike; I must strike.
[ She creeps towards the bed. ]
Witch
You, Lady Rokujo, you a Lady of the Chamber! Would you lay wait and strike
as peasant women do? 12 How can this be? Think and forbear!
Rokujo
Say 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. ]
Witch
She is going to strike again. [ To Rokujo. ]
You shall pay for this!
Rokujo
And this hate too is payment for past hate.
Witch
"The flame of anger
Rokujo
Consumes itself only." 13
Witch
Did you not know?
Rokujo
Know it then now.
Chorus
O Hate, Hate!
Her 14 hate so deep that on her bed
Our lady 15 moans.
Yet, should she live in the world again, 16
He would call her to him, her Lord
The Shining One, whose light
Is brighter than fire-fly hovering
Over the slime ...
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