Atsumori - Grade: B+ PDF

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Dialogue in Atsumori...

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Dialogue in Atsumori

Zeami Motokiyo is one of the most well-known actors, playwrights, and theorists in traditional Japanese theatre called Noh Theatre.1 Zeami developed Noh theatre in a poetic form with rich reference to military narratives, religious tales, poetry, and other structure of Japanese and Chinese 1

J. Ellen Gainor, Stanton B. Garner Jr., Martin Puchner, The Norton Anthology of Drama Third Edition. Volume 1: Antiquity through the eighteenth century (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2018), 504.

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literature.2 Zeami wrote approximately 50 plays including adaptions of original texts.3 One of the famous plays by him that includes this aspect of poetic form and adaptions of the earlier texts is called Atsumori. Atsumori is a play based in the ninth chapter of the Tale of Heike (heike monogatari) and the thirty-eighth chapter of the Rise and Fall of Genpei. This play is also a type of “ghost-of-warrior plays” (shura mono), which is one of the five categories of the play (group II) in formal noh theatre4 and uses ghostly characters.

The argument is: Zeami’s version of Atsumori is a sequel and answer to the original text. The essay supports the argument by comparing the plot of Atsumori and the original text and analyzing the use of dialogue and chorus in Atsumori. Further writing will include the plot summary of the original text, how Atsumori’s plot differs from the original text, and the significance of the dialogue (and chorus) in relation to the original text. The original text that will be examined through is the Tale of Heike.

Atsumori’s main character (shite), Taira no Atsumori, is the youngest child of Taira no Kiyomori’s younger brother. This young nobleman was unfortunately murdered in the battle at Ichi-no-Tani when he was just about 16 years old. The Tale of Heike told this story with the following plot:5 When Taira’s loss was inevitable in the battle of Ichin-no-Tani, Kumagai no Jiro Naozane (a warrior of the Genji clan) was looking for warriors from Taira that were trying to escape safely. There he finds a warrior on a horse trying to catch up on ships offshore. Since this warrior was a young man and Genji clan’s victory was inevitable, Kumagai wanted to spare him. However, there 2

Gainor, The Norton Anthology of Drama Third Edition, 505. Ibid., 504. 4 Ibid., 505 5 Helen Craig McCullough, The Tale of the Heike (Standard, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), chapter nine, section sixteen, entitled The Death of Atsumori. 3

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were already Genji warriors everywhere, and the young man cannot possibly escape. After hesitating for a moment to kill him, Kumagai tearfully cuts his head off instead of letting other people kill the young man, to offer prayers on his behalf. A flute was tucked in at the young man’s waist. Kumagai recalls the day just before dawn when he heard people making music with flute in Taira. He realizes that the owner of this beautiful flute sound was this young man. This young man’s elegance remaining even in the front (of war) incredibly moved Kumagai. Overwhelmed by the tragedy and realizing the uncertainty of life, Kumagai decides to become a priest. Later on, it is revealed that the young man was the youngest son of Taira no Tsunemori, Atsumori.

Zeami’s version of Atsumori has some twist in the plot from this original twist. With the use of shura mono, now a priest, Rensei (Kumagai), sees the ghost of Atsumori and they have a long conversation. This dialogue creates the reunion scene of the two characters and shows that the episode is a sequel to the original text. In Act I of Atsumori, Atsumori appears as a grass cutter without a mask. His identity is still not revealed. However in Act II, shite is now a masked ghost of Atsumori and he reveals his identity to Rensei.

Atsumori sees the change in Kumagai becoming Rensei and prays for the peace of his soul. He is pleased with Rensei’s pray for salvation through mourning Atsumori. Through their dialogue, we can tell that their relationship was turning from enemies into true friends: SHITE so deep my sins, please wash them away. WAKI

and in doing so, my own salvation seek

SHITE Your prayers affecting both our future lives – WAKI

once enemies 3

SHITE now instead WAKI

in Buddha’s Law

SHITE made friends

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By having the dialogue between the two characters, we can understand both of their thinking and feelings, which were not evident in the original text. The original text was only written from Kumagaya’s perspective while in Atsumori, Atsumori itself has lines to narrate his feelings. Furthermore, the original text described the conflicts within Kumagai’s heart when killing Atsumori. However, Zeami excluded that plot and gave attention to Rensei’s sentiment in becoming a priest encouraged by this incident. Rensei’s life as a priest was described in detail in Atsumori, which shows the continuation part of the original text.

Another notable section is the end of the scene. The chorus skillfully performs in two different forms: narrator and Rensei. Right after the chorus explains the combat scene where Atsumori died, CHORUS

struck down, Atsumori dies; (narrating) the wheel of fate turns, and they meet. (narrating) “The enemy’s right here!” (Atsumori) he cries and is about to strike. (narrating) Returning good for evil, (narrating) the priest performs services and prays (narrating) that in the end they will be reborn together (narrating) on a single lotus petal, (narrating) and Rensho the priest (narrating)

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Gainor, The Norton Anthology of Drama Third Edition, 515.

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is an enemy no more. (narrating) Please pray for my soul, (Atsumori) Please pray for my soul. (Atsumori)

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The brackets show in whose position chorus is versing. It shows that the chorus function as the narrator and Atsumori itself in a mixed order as if the narrator and Rensei are talking to each other in a dialogue form. This function allows Rensei to confess his feelings with the narrator as a supporter. In the original text, we were not able to know how Rensei felt when his fellow (members of the Taisho clan) left him and went offshore first. How he felt when he got killed. Such unknown was answered in Zeami’s Atsumori through the dialogue.

Through such dialogue form between Rensei/Kumagae, Atsuhiro, and the narrator, we can look at the story from every angle, creating an objective view. Simply, the dialogue allowed Zeami to make an environment for Rensei and Atsumori to talk. With dialogue, we were able to understand both feelings. Therefore, Atsumori is like an ‘answering’ play through their reunion, which was not told in the original text and is the later-on story of the original text.

Bibliography Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner Jr., Martin Puchner. The Norton Anthology of Drama Third Edition. Volume 1: Antiquity through the eighteenth century. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2018. McCullough, Helen Craig. The Tale of the Heike. Standard, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988. 7

Ibid., 519.

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