Ezra Pound - Ernest Fenollosa
Hagoromo
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About the print version
Hagoromo "Noh" or Accomplishment: a Study of the Classical Stage in Japan
Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenollosa pp. 165-176
MacMillan
London
1916
Published: 1916
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Hagoromo
A Play in one Act
Characters
Chief Fisherman, Hakuryo.
A Fisherman.
A Tennin.
Chorus.
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.
Hakuryo
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 high 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.
Hakuryo
I am come to shore at Miwo-no; I disembark in Matsubara; 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 some one on this side. What are you proposing to do
with it?
Hakuryo
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.
Hakuryo
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.
Hakuryo
Just from hearing these high words, I, Hakuryo, have gathered more and yet
more force. You think, because I was too stupid to recognize 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?
Hakuryo
And this world would be a sorry place for her to dwell in?
Tennin
I am caught, I struggle, how shall I . . .?
Hakuryo
No, Hakuryo is not one to give back the robe.
Tennin
Power does not attain . . .
Hakuryo
. . . 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!
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.
Hakuryo
[ 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.
Hakuryo
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.
Hakuryo
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.
Hakuryo
I am again ashamed. I give you your mantle.
Chorus
The young sprite now is arrayed, she assumes the curious mantle; watch how
she moves in the dance of the rainbow-feathered garment.
Hakuryo
The heavenly feather-robe moves in accord with the wind.
Tennin
The sleeves of flowers are being wet with the rain.
Hakuryo
All three are doing one step.
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.
Tennin
I also am heaven-born and a maid, Amaotome. Of them there are many. This is
the dividing of my body, that is fruit of the moon's tree, Katsura. 4 This is
one part of our dance that I leave to you here in your world.
Chorus
The spring mist is widespread abroad; so perhaps the wild olive's flower
will blossom in the infinitely unreachable moon. Her flowery head-ornament is
putting on colour; this truly is sign of the spring. Not sky is here, but the
beauty; and even here comes the heavenly, wonderful wind. O blow, shut the
accustomed path of the clouds. O, you in the form of a maid, grant us the favour of your delaying. The pine-waste of Miwo puts on the colour of spring. The bay of Kiyomi lies clear before the snow upon Fuji. Are not all these presages of the spring? There are but few ripples beneath the piny wind. It is quiet along the shore. There is naught but a fence of jewels between the earth and the sky, and the gods within and without, 5 beyond and beneath the stars, and the moon unclouded by her lord, and we who are born of the sun. This alone intervenes, here where the moon is unshadowed, here in Nippon, the sun's field.
Tennin
The plumage of ...
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