Matsukaze, The Wind in the Pines, by Zeami (14th-15th c.)

Matsukaze by Zeami is often considered as the greatest Noh play and also as one of the greatest Japanese plays ever written. The title of Matsukaze is taken from the name of its protagonist, the ghost of a female salt maker - a rural girl lingering on the desolate seashore of Suma waiting for the return of her lover, who long ago set off for the capital and never returned. Her name is therefore a pun: both "wind in the pines" and "the wind that awaits."

[Scene from Matsukaze by Tsukioka Kogyo (c. 1900)]

The play is based on several stories. In the first place we have the historical Ariwara no Yukihira (818-893), the grandson of emperor Heizei, a courtier and high official who fulfilled various positions, from the governor of several provinces to Councillor and Minister. He was also a poet, just like his even more famous brother Narihira (Narihira is known for his many love affairs and became the stuff of legend - he is the "hero" of the poem-tale The Tales of Ise).

We know almost no details about the life of the historical Yukihira, but apparently at one time he was banished for three years to the lonely shore of Suma (now lying within the city limits of Kobe and not at all lonely anymore). The rest is fiction, based on the motif of "the courtier who goes down to the provinces, becomes briefly involved with a woman there, and then leaves her yearning for him forever more." The story that while Yukihira lived at Suma he amused himself by helping two fisher-girls, Matsukaze (Pinning Wind) and Murasame (Autumn Rain), to carry salt water in pails from the sea to the salt-kilns on the shore, was probably devised by Zeami. Salt-making was an intricate process, as described by Royall Tyler in his translation of the play: seaweed was either harvested offshore or workers raked it up from the beach, and then repeatedly poured brine over it. Next they would burn this salt-saturated seaweed, mix the ashes with water, let them settle, and then skim off the salt solution. Only after that would they boil down this elaborately prepared brine (paraphrased from Tyler, p. 192).

At this time Yukihira wrote two famous poems; the first, while he was crossing the mountains on his way to Suma:

through the traveler's dress
the autumn wind blows
with sudden chill
it is the shore-wind of Suma
blowing through the pass
 
When he had lived a little while at Suma, he sent to the capital a poem which said:

if any should ask news
tell him that upon the shore of Suma
I drag the water-pails

These poems and their imagery play an important role in the Noh play.

Zeami was also inspired by the Suma chapter of The Tale of Genji. Like Yukihira, Genji spends a period of exile in Suma, and then moves on to neighboring Akashi, where he becomes involved with the Akashi Lady, who likened her own status to that of the rural girls working by the seashore. Matsukaze borrows from the Genji Monogatari the relationship between a noble exile and a local woman at the seacoast and recreates it as the story of Yukihira who while in exile at Suma for three years, had an affair with two local girls and left behind his robe and court cap as keepsakes when he journeyed back to the capital.

The chapter of the Genji Monogatari called “Suma” says:

Although the sea was some way off, yet when the melancholy autumn wind came “blowing through the pass” (the very wind of Yukihira’s poem), the beating of the waves on the shore seemed near indeed.

It is round this prose passage and the two poems quoted above that the play is written.

[Yukihira and the two salt-making sisters]

The plot is as follows:
One autumn evening, a traveling priest has come to the seashore at Suma where he notices a strange pine tree standing alone which seems to serve as a memorial (in the play, a small pine tree set in a stand, is placed at front of stage; a poem-slip hangs in its branches). When the priest asks a local about it, the villager explains that it is a grave marker for two young diver sisters, Matsukaze and Murasame, and asks him to pray for them. The monk recites a sutra and prays for the comfort of their souls. Meanwhile, it is growing  late and the priest announces that he intends to ask for shelter “in that salt-kiln.” He goes to the “waki’s pillar” and waits there as if waiting for the master of the kiln to return.

Meanwhile Matsukaze and Murasame come on to the stage (they are pulling a brine wagon, a small, light evocation of a wagon with a pail on it and a long brocade rope to pull it). They then perform the “water-carrying” dance which culminates in the famous passage known as “the moon in the water-pails.” The sisters, ladling seawater into their brine cart at night, become fascinated by the sight of the moon in the water, and try to capture it in their pails.

Here is this passage in the translation by Arthur Waley (The No Plays of Japan):

CHORUS (speaking for MURASAME).

There is a moon in my pail!

MATSUKAZE.

Why, into my pail too a moon has crept!

(Looking up at the sky.)

One moon above ...

CHORUS.
Two imaged moons below,
So through the night each carries
A moon on her water-truck,
Drowned at the bucket’s brim.
Forgotten, in toil on this salt sea-road,
The sadness of this world where souls cling!

Their work is over and they approach their hut, i. e., the “waki’s pillar,” where the priest is waiting. After refusing for a long while to admit him “because their hovel is too mean to receive him,” they give him shelter, and after the usual questioning, reveal their identities. They now are overcome with their love and longing for Yukihira - and the monk realizes that they are ghostly beings, the two sisters buried in the grave under the pine tree. 

Matsukaze next mistakes the pine tree for her lover Yukihira. In the final dance she dresses in the “court-hat and hunting cloak given her by Lord Yukihira” and dances, among other dances, the “Broken Dance,” which also figures in the Noh play Hagoromo.

The “motif” of this part of the play is a famous poem by Yukihira in the Hyakunin Isshu which was also interpreted to fit in this story (my translation below therefore differs from the one in my post on Yukihira in the One Hundred Poems, One Poem Each series):

when I am gone away
and hear that like the pines
growing on the peak of Mount Inaba
you are pining for me
I will immediately come back to you

There is a familiar play of words between matsu, “wait,” and matsu, “pine-tree”; Inaba, the name of a mountain, and inaba, “if I go away.”

The play ends with the release of the girls’ souls from the shushin, “heart-attachment,” which holds them to the earth. Their attachment has been broken and now they can obtain enlightenment.


Finally, a few remarks on the Noh and Zeami, the creator of the genre and author of Matsukaze.

By the mid-14th c. Noh had gained wide popularity, especially among the warrior class. The Kanze troupe from Nara, led first by Kan'ami (1333-1384) and later by his son Zeami (1363-1443), shaped the genre into what is seen on today's stage. Kan'ami began making trips to Kyoto to give performances, and in 1374 the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was in the audience and was so impressed that he became Kan'ami's patron. Kan'ami wrote many plays, but as these were in later times adapted into new plays by his son Zeami and others, only few have been transmitted in their original form.

Zeami wrote nearly 40 plays (more than 50 when we include his revisions of existing plays), which are marked by exquisite diction and frequent allusion to classical texts. He created plays with elegant dances and refined versification. Zeami also wrote about 20 theoretical treatises on the Noh theater.

Another innovation by Zeami was the "mugen-Noh," the "dream play," in which a monk meets a ghost, plant spirit or deity, who in the guise of a commoner recalls a famous episode that took place at that location; then, in the second act, the ghost appears in its original form in the monk's dream, recalling a crucial incident in his or her former life that has blocked the path to buddhahood. By reenacting the incident, the ghost finally seeks to gain enlightenment through the monk's prayers. This is also the type of play to which Matsukaze belongs.

I have read the translation by Royall Tyler Japanese No Dramas in Penguin Classics (also anthologized in Traditional Japanese Literature by Haruo Shirane). Another translation is by Donald Keene in 20 Plays of the No Theatre (Columbia U.P., 1970)

In the above I have quoted from The No Plays of Japan by Arthur Waley (New York, 1922, public domain), pp. 226-228. Waley doesn't translate the play, but gives a brief summary.

Performance by Tessenkai at Youtube (with English explanations)

Greatest Plays of All Time



       

Delicious Poison (Busu), Kyogen

Kyogen ("mad words") are short, humorous plays programmed as an intermission between the different Noh plays that are usually part of a performance. Although it developed alongside Noh and retains strong ties with it, Kyogen is a comic form, very different from the solemn, symbolic Noh - its primary goal is to make the audience laugh.

Kyogen plays are invariably brief – often about 10 minutes, and they contain only two or three roles, which are usually stock characters, for example Taro kaja, the main servant, Jiro kaja, the second servant, and the Master, shujin. Movements and dialogue in kyogen are very exaggerated. All kyogen actors, including those in female roles, are men. Kyogen is generally performed on a Noh stage. The traditions of kyogen are maintained primarily by family groups, especially the Izumi school and Okura school.

[Kyogen performance (not of Busu)]

Delicious Poison (Busu) is one of the most popular kyogen plays. It is a humorous description of how the servants Tarokaja and Jirokaja catch their master in a lie and silence him using his own logic.

The Busu of the title is a generic name for "poison" in Chinese herbal medicine - the specific name used in the play is "torikabuto," wolf's bane. The master has to go away on business and he is worried that his servants, Taro and Jiro, will eat his precious store of sugar while he is away - prior to the Edo period, when finally industrial sugar production was undertaken, all sugar In Japan was imported and therefore rare and valuable (as sweetener an from sweet beans, azuki, was used as still in traditional Japanese sweets). So he lies to the servants that the large, lidded lacquer barrel containing the sugar, actually contains a very strong poison, torikabuto. He tells them to carefully guard it but on no account go near it, as one whiff of the stuff is already deadly.

After the master has left, both servants at first are afraid of the deadly pot, but they are also fascinated by it. They are frightened when a small breeze blows over the pot in their direction. But how is the master able to handle this stuff when it is so poisonous? Their curiosity gets stronger and stronger and they decide to remove the lid and peak inside - to be on the safe side, one of them has to make a breeze with his fan in the opposite direction. Now that the lid is off, what is inside the barrel actually looks quite delicious. The next step is to dip a pair of chopsticks in it and taste a small bit (they use their stage fans to mimic this). They soon realize that their master has fooled them: the barrel contains delicious sugar (presumably in the form of syrup) and they end up eating the whole lot, competing with each other. "It's so delicious, I'm dying!"

Now they have to find an excuse for when the master returns. They tear up a valuable hanging scroll hanging on the wall, and also break a precious Chinese vase. When the master returns, they sit next to the broken scroll and vase and start crying. The master asks what happened. They explain: "When we did some sumo wresting to keep awake to guard the important barrel, we broke the hanging scroll and pot by mistake, so to atone for our misdeed, we were going to commit suicide by eating the poison you told us was kept in the pot. But so far nothing has happened - unfortunately we couldn't die..." Despite these words, both servants look very satisfied after having consumed this delicious snack.

Unlike most Kyogen, Busu has an identifiable literary source, the collection of Buddhist stories called Shasekishu (Collection of Sand and Pebbles) compiled in the 13th century by the priest Muju Ichien. The characters are a monk and an acolyte; the second servant has been added in the play. There is also a similar story about the Priest Ikkyu from a later period. As a folk story, it is categorized among similar tales under the name of "candy is poison." In those stories, many variations of foods are used as "poison," and various treasured goods are destroyed by way of an apology.

I have read Delicious Poison in the translation of Laurence Kominz, published in Traditional Japanese Literature, An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, edited by Haruo Shirane.

Performance with subtitles on Youtube (starts at 8:21)


Greatest Plays of All Time

 

Kanadehon Chushingura (1748)

Kanadehon Chushingura or "the story of the 47 loyal retainers" is perhaps the most famous story in Japan, popular among aficionados of "Bushido" and violent tragedy also in the West. It is based on two linked historical incidents (together called "the Ako incident"): in 1701, Asano Naganori, the daimyo of the Ako domain, assaulted his superior Kira Yoshinaka in Edo Castle, presumably after having been provoked; for this transgression (violence was forbidden in the palace of the shogun), Asano was sentenced to commit seppuku, but Kira did not receive any punishment. The shogunate confiscated Asano's lands and dismissed the samurai who had served him, making them ronin. Then almost two years later, after skilled secret planning, the leader of these ronin, Oishi Kuranosuke, led a group of forty-six/forty-seven of the ronin (some discount the membership of one for various reasons) in an attack on Kira's mansion in Edo; they captured and executed Kira, and laid his head at the grave of Asano at Sengakuji. They then turned themselves in to the authorities, and were all sentenced to commit seppuku. Read more about the historical incident in my blog article about Chushingura.

[The seppuku scene from Act Four, by Kunisada]

 
The uniqueness of the case and the mysterious motivations of its protagonists, soon made this story of the "Tormented Lord" and his "Loyal Retainers" extremely popular as fictional material, although the action had to be transposed back several centuries and the identities of its actors had to be hidden, as commentaries and plays about contemporary events and persons were forbidden by the shogunate. Between 1706 and 1892 about seventy Kabuki and Bunraku puppet plays were written about this hot subject. And the subject remained popular, also in modern times: in total about 70 Chushingura films were made in the 20th c. (mainly between 1907 and 1962), plus about 30 TV versions. They were generally box office hits, and served to propagate on a massive scale the ideal of loyalty and self-sacrifice (although most viewers may just have considered it as a good story). These modern films were based on the historical incident, rather, than the puppet play or Kabuki versions.

The most famous of these early plays became Kanadehon Chushingura, "Kana practice book Treasury of the Loyal Retainers," an 11-act bunraku puppet play from 1748. ""Kanadehon" or "Kana practice book" in the full title refers to the coincidence that the number of ronin matches the number of kana syllables.

Now, when you read this puppet play, you will be surprised. We are used to calling the protagonists "Asano", "Oishi" and "Kira," but in Kanadehon Chushingura the names of the protagonists have been changed and the story is transported several centuries back. Asano Naganori becomes Enya Hangan, Kira Yoshinaka becomes Ko no Moronao and Oishi Kuranosuke is Oboshi Yuranosuke. The setting is the mid-14th century, the time of the Ashikaga shoguns. The initial incident in the palace is transferred from Edo to Kamakura, as is the last scene of the attack on Moronao's mansion in Kamakura. The ronin have been hiding in Yamashina, a suburb of Kyoto, and travel by boat with their weapons from Sakai, a port near Osaka, to Inamuragasaki, a cape at the western end of Yuigahama Beach in Kamakura.

[Act V: Kanpei, the hunter, and the thief who has stolen a purse]

Here are the eleven acts of Kanadehon Chushingura:
Act I: Set in Kamakura's Hachiman Shrine, where Ko no Moronao unsuccessfully tries to seduce the wife of Enya Hangan (adding a personal element to the motivation).
Act II: Set in the Kamakura mansion of Wakanosuke, a colleague of Enya Hangan, who just as much has a grievance against Moronao, but is prevented from acting on it by his clever retainer Honzo.
Act III. The taunted Enya Hangan attacks Ko no Moronao in the Pine Corridor of the shogunal palace in Kamakura.
Act IV: Enya Hangan's seppuku; with his dying breath Enya Hangan asks Oboshi Yuranosuke to avenge his death; Yuranosuke takes possession of the dagger used by Asano during his seppuku and this becomes his keepsake, almost a fetish; in the end he will plunge the weapon into the body of his lord's enemy.
Act V: A side story mostly dropped in later versions of Chushingura, concerning the 47th ronin and why he was not able to join the attack in the last act. On the Yamazaki Highway, between Kyoto and Osaka, Kanpei, a former retainer of Enya Hangan who wants to join the vendetta, by mistake shoots a robber and finds a purse with cash.
Act VI: Continuation of Kanpei's story. Kanpei mistakenly thinks that he has killed his father-in-law in the previous scene and commits suicide; in reality, he has kiled a robber and retrieved the purse stolen by that robber.
Act VII: Set in the Ichiriki Teahouse in Kyoto's Gion area. Yuranosuke pretends to be debauched by making fun in Kyoto's licensed quarter.
Act VIII: Another side story: Konami, the betrothed of Yuranosuke's son Rikiya, travels to Yamashina (a village just east of Kyoto, now part of the city), where Yuranosuke is hiding.
Act IX: Continuation of Act Eight: Yuranosuke's wife is against the marriage of her son with Konami, but relents when Konami's father Honzo commits suicide to atone for his act of restraining Enya Hangan in the past.
Act X: Set in the House of Amakawaya Gihei, a merchant in the port city of Sakai. The ronin test the trustworthiness of Gihei, who will transport them and their weapons to Kamakura by boat.
Act XI: The attack on Moronao's mansion, led by Yuranosuke. The attackers come on shore in Kamakura at cape Inamuragasaki, and then march to the mansion of Moronao, whose head is then carried to Hangan's grave at Komyoji Temple.

[Act X: in front of the mansion of merchant Amakawaya Gihei in Sakai]

Certain elements of this Bunraku / Kabuki play became standard to the story; others proved more extraneous. Central were acts III, IV, VII, and XI. I have marked two sequences (acts 5 and 6, and acts 8 and 9) as "side stories", but that is only from the perspective of the historical incident and later adaptations. In the puppet play these acts have been tightly integrated into the overall story. There are some inconsistencies in the puppet play, especially in characterization (perhaps because there were three different authors, Takeda Izumo, Miyoshi Shoraku and Namiki Senryu, who were each responsible for different acts), but overall it has a great variety of scenes and a magnificent cumulative effect. It is also a great play to read. A complete performance takes about ten to eleven hours. While the puppet play is sometimes staged in its entirety, in the many Kabuki versions which would appear within a few years after 1748, it became customary to perform just a few selected acts and not the whole work. 

Kanadehon Chushingura is one of the core works of the Japanese theater tradition, together with the Noh play Matsukaze. These two plays could not be more different, but both are quintessentially Japanese, illustrating two different aspects of Japanese culture: in the Noh play, austere restraint and understatement, in the Bunraku play a craving for excitement, color and even violence (as Donald Keene writes in the introduction to his translation of the play). 

English translation: Chushingura, The Treasury of Loyal Retainers, a puppet play, translated by Donald Keene (Tuttle, 1981, many times reprinted also in other editions).

See my blog article "The Ako Incident and the Forty-Seven Loyal Retainers (Chushingura) in fact and fiction" for a discussion of the various film version of the story.

Greatest Plays of All Time

The Brothers Menaechmus, by Plautus (200 BCE)

Plautus is great fun - like Shakespeare or Molière, his comedies are really enjoyable, though simpler, for there are no serious themes in these farces.

Plautus is very different from Aristophanes, the first Greek comedy writer. Aristophanes' plays are full of political satire and social criticism, and his frequent references to current events and persons make his work difficult to read - almost every other sentence you have to look up something in the notes (reason why I have selected Lysistrata, which is relatively easy to understand without commentary). But after Aristophanes' time, we get a simpler type of comedy in Greece. This new style was later called "new comedy" in opposition to the "old comedy" style of Aristophanes, and new-style plays were written by Menander (342-290 BCE) and others who wrote between 320 and 260 BCE.

Plautus learned his trade from the "new comedy," farces that could be performed without risk of giving offense. Instead, there is much more of a focus on the home and the family unit - something that the Romans could easily understand and adopt. There are also no heroic or supernatural overtones. The "new comedy" uses stock plots (thwarted lovers) and stock characters (the cunning slave, the wily merchant, the boastful soldier, the cruel father). One of the lovers is usually a foundling, the discovery of whose true birth and identity makes marriage possible in the end.

Plautus often used the plots from Greek plays, as well as Greek settings. After all, the Romans who learned the theater from Sicily (which had been colonized by the Greeks), thought about plays as something essentially Greek. 

[Plautus]

Plautus (254-184 BCE) wrote about 120 plays, of which 20 have survived more or less intact. His plays are the earliest literary works in Latin to have come down to us in their entirety (i.e. not in fragments). He may have worked as a theater carpenter or scene shifter before becoming a professional playwright - he knew the theater inside out. His plays were created between 205 and 184 BCE.

As indicated above, Plautus' comedies are mostly adapted from Greek models for a Roman audience. He not only reworked the Greek texts to give them a flavor that would appeal to local Roman audiences, but above all poured the plot and characters in virtuoso language with a strong expression, often using alliteration, punning and other literary devices.

One of Plautus' most famous characters is "the clever slave," who often drives the plot in his plays. Plautus took the stock slave character from the "new comedy" and altered it for his own purposes, by finding humor in slaves tricking their masters or comparing themselves to great heroes. Other typical figures in Plautus are: the young man in love who spends his father's money as if it were water; the strict father; the domineering wife; the parasite, a stereotypical figure who renders all kinds of services to his master, in exchange for a meal; the comic courtesan; the quack doctor.

Note also that Plautus' plays were a form of musical comedy: they consisted of songs (arias), recitative and spoken dialogue. Costumes were standardized, masks were worn in the Greek fashion, and all players were male.

The plot of The Brothers Menaechmus is as follows: two identical twins from Syracuse are separated when still very young; the eldest twin is believed dead so the youngest one takes his name, Menaechmus, in his memory. Menaechmus I, however, is very much alive and resides in Epidamnus where he has married a wealthy wife. Menaechmus II has been looking all his life for his brother and now happens to visit Epidamnus, where he is of course immediately confused with his twin brother. Many curious and laughable mistakes happen between him and persons who are involved with Menaechmus I, such as his domineering wife, his courtesan Erotium, his parasite Peniculus, his father-in-law, etc. Lastly it is the clever slave Messenio of Menaechmus II who clears things up. The brothers recognize each other and Messenio receives his liberty as a reward. Menaechmus I decides to sell his possessions and returns with his twin brother Menaechmus II to his native place Syracuse.


Plautus's influence on later literature is enormous, especially on two literary giants, Shakespeare and Molière, both in a direct and indirect sense. The Brothers Menaechmus by Plautus was for example the major source for William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors - Shakespeare even doubles the identical twins by making the servants also into twin brothers. The play spawned more offspring: Shakespeare's work was in turn adapted as a Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hart in 1938 as The Boys from Syracuse. And in 2001 the Mansaku company of Japan performed The Kyogen of Errors, showing that Shakespearean slapstick was particularly suited to the earthy, comic style of Kyogen.

A similar line of influence of Plautus' play was Carlo Goldoni's 1747 play I due gemelli veneziani ("The two Venetian twins"), which was amongst others adapted and staged as a 1979 Australian two-act musical comedy.

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night also features mistaken twins, the sister dressed as a boy. As the actual father of twins, Shakespeare  seems to have been especially interested in twinship.

And, finally, the 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was based on three other plays by Plautus (specifically Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, and Mostellaria); it tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. 

I have read the translation by E.F. Watling in Penguin Classics (The Pot of Gold and Other Plays).

Full text in English (older translation) at Perseus

Greatest Plays of All Time

 

Helen, by Euripides (412 BCE)

Euripides' Helen starts with quite a lot of names and mythological background, forcing the reader to frequently consult the notes. But I decided to include this play as Michael Billington in The 101 Greatest Plays calls it "the greatest play by Euripides." Helen was written soon after the Sicilian Expedition, in which Athens had suffered a massive defeat. In the play, Euripides strongly condemns war, deeming it to be the root of all evil.

[Helen of Troy by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1863)]

Helen, the daughter of the supreme god Zeus and Leda in Greek mythology, was the most beautiful woman in the world. Zeus is said to have seduced Leda in the form of a swan and from the eggs Leda laid Helen and Pollux were born. When it came time for Helen to be married, many kings and princes came to ask for her hand. The favorite was Menelaus, who did not come in person but was represented by his brother Agamemnon, and Helen married him.

The myth goes that a few years later, Paris, a Trojan prince, came to Sparta to take the most beautiful girl in the world. This was Helen. Aphrodite had promised him her as a reward, if in return he would choose the goddess as the most beautiful in the "Judgement of Paris," incurring the wrath of Athena and Hera. When Paris visited Helen and Menelaus, they received him very warmly, and with Aphrodite's help, Helen fell in love with Paris and secretly left her husband to be with her new lover.

When Menelaus discovered that his wife was gone, he asked his brother Agamemnon for advice. Agamemnon, who had wanted to fight Troy for years, told his brother to declare war. Menelaus summoned all the kings and heroes of Greece to start the Trojan War. "A thousand ships" were launched by the Greeks to get Helen back from Troy.

After ten years of war, when he had finally entered Troy by ruse with the wooden horse, Menelaus wanted to kill Helen. But when Helen saw Menelaus, the spell broke and she fell in love with him again. Menelaus, unable to bring herself to kill her, took her back to Sparta and grew old with her.

So far the "official" myth. There was also a variant version which maintained that Helen had never in fact arrived at Troy, but had been in Egypt during the entire Trojan War - rather than running off to Troy with Paris, Helen was actually whisked away to Egypt by the gods. The Helen who escaped with Paris, betraying her husband and her country and initiating the ten-year conflict, was actually an "eidolon," a phantom look-alike. After Paris was promised the most beautiful woman in the world by Aphrodite and he judged her fairer than her fellow goddesses Athena and Hera, Hera ordered Hermes to replace Helen, Paris' assumed prize, with a fake. Thus, the real Helen has been languishing in Egypt for years, while the Greeks and Trojans alike scold her for her supposed infidelity.

At the beginning of the play, the Egyptian king Proteus, who has protected Helen, has died. His son Theoclymenus, the new king, intends to marry Helen, who after all these years remains loyal to her husband Menelaus. However, she receives word from the exiled Greek Teucer that Menelaus never returned to Greece from Troy, and is presumed dead, putting her in a perilous position. She consults the prophetess Theonoe, sister to Theoclymenus, to find out more about Menelaus' fate.

Her fears are allayed when a stranger arrives in Egypt and turns out to be Menelaus himself, who, beaten by storms out of his way, is shipwrecked on the coast of Egypt. At first, Menelaus does not believe that she is the real Helen, since he has hidden the Helen he won in Troy in a cave. But luckily one of his sailors steps in to inform him that the false Helen has disappeared into thin air.

The couple still must figure out how to escape from Egypt, but the rumor that Menelaus has died is still in circulation. Thus, Helen tells Theoclymenus that the stranger who came ashore was a messenger who came to tell her that her husband was truly dead. She informs the king that she may marry him as soon as she has performed a ritual burial at sea, thus freeing her symbolically from her first wedding vows. The king agrees to this, and Helen and Menelaus use this opportunity to escape on the boat given them for the ceremony.

[Helen, by Evelyn De Morgan (1898)]

Why is Helen such a great play? According to Michael Billington because it invents the new form of tragicomedy, and because Sophocles offers a strong indictment of war's futility. As Helen of Troy does not exist and is just a mirage, the whole Trojan War has been fought about nothing - as so many wars are, also in recent times. Instead of cheating on her husband with Paris and then eloping with him to Troy, the real Helen has spent 17 years living in Egypt as a model of marital fidelity. She is chastely waiting for her husband to return from the useless war.

When they finally meet, Helen has a quicker mind than her husband Menelaus, who has (understandably) some difficulty accepting the idea that he sailed to Troy in pursuit of a shadow. It is also Helen who comes up with the great plan for their escape from Egypt, by feigning that she has to carry out funeral obsequies for her deceased husband at sea. In other words, in Billington's words, "the whole play is a testament to female resourcefulness." It may be partly due to my selection and preferences, but also in Antigone, Electra and Medea we have met strong women. 

I have read Helen in the translation by James Morwood in Oxford World's Classics.

The 101 Greatest Plays from Antiquity to the Present, by Michael Billington (Faber & Faber, 2015)

Illustrations from Wikipedia, from which I have also borrowed some parts of the synopsis.

Greatest Plays of All Time

Thunderstorm (1933), by Cao Yu

Cao Yu (1910- 1996) is regarded as the most important Chinese playwright of the 20th century. His best-known works are Thunderstorm (1933), Sunrise (1936) and Peking Man (1940). It is largely through the efforts of Cao Yu that the modern Chinese "spoken theater" (huaju, vernacular drama, as opposed to traditional drama forms as for example jingju or "Peking Opera") took root in modern Chinese literature. 

[Cao Yu]

Cao Yu grew up in the cosmopolitan city of Tianjin and later went to Tsinghua University in Beijing. He graduated in 1934 with a degree in Western Languages and Literature. During his time at university, Cao Yu improved his abilities in both Russian and English. His course of studies required reading the works of such western authors as Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neill, as well as translations of classical Greek writers as Euripides and Aeschylus. In 1945, Cao Yu would also translate Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet into Chinese. This immersion in western literature would greatly influence Yu's style in the "spoken theater," which until then had had little tradition in China.

During his last year at the university, Cao Yu completed his first work, Thunderstorm, which would mark a milestone in Chinese theater history. It formed a trilogy with the two plays mentioned above and these realistic and social-critical dramas ushered in the first "golden age" of modern Chinese drama in the mid 1930s. Other important drama authors were for example Guo Moruo, Hong Shen and Lao She. Huaju represents a shift in the Chinese perception of drama, and the influence of Western dramatic theory on Chinese playwrights.

The play is set in the summer of 1925 at the mansion of wealthy mine director Zhou Puyuan, aged 55, a man with a decided air of authority. He has two sons in his household, one called Ping, aged 28, by a woman named Shiping whom he drove away with their younger son Dahai 27 years ago and whom he believes drowned. The other, 17, by his second wife Fanyi, is called Chong. Ping is handsome and popular with women, Chong is a romantic dreamer. Dahai works as miner in the coal mines of Zhou; he is a mine workers' representative and has a stubborn character. Shiping is in her late forties and works at a school. Zhou is married to the 20-year younger Fanyi, a refined and physically fragile woman with a passionate and resolute spirit; she has had a love affair with Zhou's son Ping. The Zhou servants Lu Gui and Lu Gui's daughter Sifeng ("Fourth Phoenix") are respectively Shiping's husband and daughter. Lu Gui is a coarse man and a gambler; Sifeng, aged 18, is a healthy, physically well-developed young woman.

None of these people is initially aware of the connection of the two families through Zhou Puyuan and Shiping. In fact, Ping is now having a love affair with Fourth Phoenix, without either of them realizing that she is his half-sister. Ping's (half) brother Chong is also in love with Sifeng, but his love is unrequited.

Then Shiping, whom Zhou Yuanpu has assumed dead for 27 years, shows up at the Zhous' and eventually all become aware of their interrelationships, which leads to high drama. Horrified to discover that the father-to-be of the child she is expecting is none other than her half-brother, Fourth Phoenix rushes out of the house in a raging thunderstorm and is electrocuted by a faulty electrical cable. Chong, chasing after her, is also electrocuted. Ping shoots himself. Both wives, Fanyi and Shiping, go mad from the shock of loosing all their children within only five minutes time. The patriarch, Zhou Puyuan, having set off the whole tragedy, is left to face the consequences of his actions.

So lots and lots of drama in this early play! Thematically, Thunderstorm can be compared to Ibsen's Ghosts, with which it shares elements such as a respected patriarch who has, in fact, impregnated his servant, a romance between his children (who do not know that they are half-siblings), and a climactic revelation of this situation in the play. The staccato, realistic dialogue has been written with great skill, and Cao Yu deftly manages the complexities of his meany-threaded plot. Thunderstorm neatly observes the Aristotelian unities.

Several film adaptations and remake stage productions have been made. The most famous - very loose - movie adaptation is The Curse of the Golden Flower, an epic wuxia film written and directed by Zhang Yimou, with Chow Yun-fat and Gong Li. In this film the story from Thunderstorm has been transferred to one of the imperial courts in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (10th c.), with the Emperor in the place of Puyuan.

A History of Chinese Drama, by William Dolby (London, 1976). Thunderstorm is discussed on pp. 208-212.

Thunderstorm is included in The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama (Columbia University Press, 2010).

Photo from Wikipedia.


Greatest Plays of All Time

Friends (1967) by Abe Kobo

"Friends" is a very creepy play in which a sort of "holy family", almost like a weird sect, takes over the life of a lonely salaryman. The play depicts an aggressively benevolent family hell-bent on befriending a lonely bachelor. With a smile they chant love for one's neighbors and solidarity with the lonely as the ideal and in the process they completely disrupt the man's life, seduce his fiancee, and finally kill him. The so-called good intentions of the family invading the man's apartment turn out to be false and hypocritical and they themselves are transformed into monsters. That doesn't mean this is a dark play: thanks to the black humor there is a lot to laugh as well.

[Abe Kobo]

In fact, the play is based on a short story, "Intruders" (Kaijin) Abe wrote in 1951, in which a salaryman living alone in a small apartment is visited by complete strangers, a large family with grown-up sons and a daughter, who take over his apartment and his life. They use his money and he has to wait on them as their servant. They even steal his girlfriend. Although they behave very dictatorially, everything is decided "democratically" by the majority. In this 1951 satire Abe was writing a political story, for it is clear he is referring to the American occupation of Japan (which ended one year later, in 1952). The greatest difference with the play "Friends" is that Abe removed the political satire and instead broadened the focus of the play to encompass the general human condition.

Here is the plot:

The city at night. A strange family of eight sings the popular song "Poor broken necklace... Little lost beads, little lost beads." They then enter the apartment of a young man (who is 31 and works as section head in a commercial firm), without invitation or introduction, and announce that they will save him from his loneliness by moving in and befriending him. Restringing "the little lost beads" is their mission!

They consist of a father, who at first glance might be taken for a clergyman, a mother in old-fashioned dress, an eighty-year old grandmother, an elder son who is clever but frail-looking and rather gloomy (he is a former private detective), a younger son who is an amateur boxer, an eldest daughter of about 30, a prospective old maid who still dreams about marriage, a middle daughter of 24, sweet looking and giving the impression of being the crystallization of good will, and a youngest daughter who is a little devil, although she doesn't look it.

Shocked by the strange invasion, the young man first of all tries to persuade them to leave. But his reasoning proves useless against their cheerful madness. The man then calls the police to complain about their trespassing, but both the caretaker of his apartment and the two police officers who arrive on the scene don't believe him, and go away without doing anything.

The family answers with various far-fetched and hair-splitting arguments to the man asking them to leave, and they impose a majority-decision "democratic" rule. They also argue skillfully with the man's fiancée and her brother, and the man has to allow the family to stay with him. In this way, slowly but effectively, the family strips the young man of his reasons for living: his fiancee, his self-esteem, and his interest in his work. They do everything possible to convince him, in the name of brotherhood and love, that his desire for privacy and his choice of companions is an aberration.

One night, half a month later, the middle daughter discovers that the eldest daughter and the man are sleeping together. She reports to the others that the eldest daughter has promised the man to help him escape. The man is than as punishment incarcerated in the coat rack in the hall of the apartment, which is converted into a cage. The middle daughter is in charge of bringing the prisoner his food. One morning, when everyone is out, she gives him a glass of poisoned milk (with the key to his prison, falsely claiming she loves him and wants to help him). The man suffers terrible convulsions and dies. The middle daughter then mutters: "If only you hadn't turned against us, we would have been no more than company to you..." Quietly sobbing, she tenderly drapes a blanket over the cage. The second son comes home and says: "What, you, did you do it again!" To which she answers: "What else could I do..." The family now has to leave and dresses for travel. The father mourns the man with the words: "The deceased was always a good friend to us..." Then waving their handkerchiefs, the family marches off. The audience can still hear their eerie laughter when the lights go out.

What does this play mean? Some critics have written that it is about socialization (in other words, Abe has a positive stand towards the actions of the family) but nothing could be farther from the truth. This unusual variation on the Theater of the Absurd is about the destruction of the individual. Whether it be a destructive political ideology as communism with its blind solidarity, a personality obliterating religious cult or a weird sect, or "majority principle" democracy going too far by neglecting the rights of minorities, there are many dangers threatening individuality in modern times. Abe gives a sound warning against those trends. And he tells us to be alert, for we can be perpetrators as well as victims.

The play, which has been called highly inventive and well-crafted, is Abe's masterwork for the theater. Abe Kobo (1924-1993) is in the West in the first place known for his novels as The Woman in the Dunes, but he is an all-round author also known for his plays, his essays and his short stories.

 

Kobe Abe, Friends, A play, translated by Donald Keene (Tuttle Publishing 1971).

The short story "The Intruders" has been included in Beyond the Curve (1991) translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. See my post about Abe's short stories at this blog.

Greatest Plays of All Time

 

Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each): Poem 67 (Suo no Naishi)

 

  Hyakunin Isshu, Poem 67

Translation and comments by Ad Blankestijn
(version September 2022)

your arm as my pillow
for a moment fleeting
as a spring night's dream -
it would be a pity
to ruin my name for that

haru no yo no
yume bakari naru
tamakura ni
kainaku tatan
na koso oshi kere
      
春の夜の
夢ばかりなる
手枕に
かひなく立たむ
名こそ惜しけれ

Suo no Naishi 周防内侍 (1037-1111)

[Suo no Naishi]

Suo no Naishi was a lady-in-waiting at the courts of emperors Shirakawa and Horikawa. According to the head note in the Senzaishu, she composed this poem on a moonlit night when Fujiwara no Tadaie, Shunzei's grandfather, overhearing her whisper to a lady-in-waiting nearby that she would like to have a pillow, playfully offered his arm as a substitute through the separation screen. She composed this poem as a response, meaning that she wouldn’t ruin her reputation for such a pointless thing.

Notes

• tamakura: "arm pillow," the arm of a lover used as a pillow
• kainaku: valueless, pointless
• tatamu: -mu indicates assumption
• na: reputation (Heian court women were afraid to earn the reputation of being fickle)
• Note the concentration of romantic words: "spring night", "dream", "pillow." Although most commentators see this poem as another instance of a witty reply by a court lady (as in Poems 60, 61 and 62), it is also possible to appreciate it as a romantic lyric full of mysterious beauty (yoen), as Teika perhaps did.
  

The Poet

Suo no Naishi (real name: Taira no Chushi / Nakako) was the daughter of Suo no Kami (the Governor of Suo Province - hence her nickname), Taira no Munenaka. Her mother was Minamoto no Masamoto. She served at court through four dynasties under Emperor Go-Reizei, Emperor Go-Sanjo, Emperor Shirakawa, and Emperor Horikawa. After that, she probably became a Buddhist nun due to illness, and appears to have died by 1111. She often participated in poetry contests and also left zotoka (poetry exchanges). 35 of her poems were selected for the Goshui Wakashu and other imperial anthologies. She has her own collection of poems. She is assumed to have been the author of the sequel to the Eiga Monogatari (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes).

References: Pictures of the Heart, The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawai'i Press, 1996); One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, by Peter MacMIllan (Penguin Classics); Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991); Hyakunin Isshu by Inoue Muneo, etc. (Shinchosha, 1990); Genshoku Hyakunin Isshu by Suzuki Hideo, etc. (Buneido, 1997); Chishiki Zero kara no Hyakunin Isshu, by Ariyoshi Tamotsu (Gentosha); Hyakunin Isshu Kaibo Zukan, by Tani Tomoko (X-Knowledge);  Ogura Hyakunin Isshu at Japanese Text Initiative (University of Virginia Library Etext Center); Hyakunin Isshu wo aruku by Shimaoka Shin (Kofusha Shuppan); Hyakunin Isshu, Ocho waka kara chusei waka e by Inoue Muneo (Chikuma Shoin, 2004); Basho's Haiku (2 vols) by Toshiharu Oseko (Maruzen, 1990); The Ise Stories by Joshua S. Mostow and Royall Tyler (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010); Kokin Wakashu, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford University Press, 1985); Kokinshu, A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius (University of Tokyo Press, 1984); Kokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1994); Shinkokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1995); Taketori Monogatari-Ise Monogatari-Yamato Monogatari-Heichu Monogatari (Shogakkan, 1994).

 Illustration: Wikimedia Commons

    Hyakunin Isshu Index

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, by William Shakespeare

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is the first play written by Shakespeare, between 1589 and 1591, and although it may seem a bit unmerciful to say so, it shows that this is a first tentative endeavor. Not only is the richness of language, character and ideas so typical of Shakespeare lacking, the main theme he has chosen, that of male-male friendship, leads the author into rather misogynistic territory.

Although this is a "romantic comedy", Shakespeare is very negative about the experience of love compared to the homosocial bonding between male friends. To love was to be rendered effeminate. Passion prevented that young men became good soldiers, students or explorers. It was even considered as physically destructive: "As the most forward bud / Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, / Even so by love the young and tender wit / Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud."

In Shakespeare's time, male-male friendship was seen as something pure and ennobling, enabling friends to perfect themselves through the mirror they provided to one another. But that is of course only possible when both friends have a high-standing character, which is not the case for these two gentlemen of Verona: Valentine will reveal himself to be weak and naive, and Proteus even much worse, as a double dealer and a trickster.

[Two Gentlemen of Verona by Angelica Kauffman (1789)]

The plot is as follows:

Proteus and Valentine, two young gentlemen, are good friends living in Verona. There is only one black spot: Valentine is in love with Julia, something deplored by his friend who sees love as negative. As the play begins, Valentine is preparing to leave Verona to complete his education at the court of the Duke of Milan. He asks Proteus to come with him, but Proteus refuses to leave. Disappointed, Valentine bids Proteus farewell and leaves on his own.

Meanwhile, Julia has a discussion with her saucy maid, Lucetta, who thinks that Proteus is fond of her mistress. Julia, however, complains that he has so far not yet declared his love. Lucetta then produces a letter given her by Speed, the servant of Proteus, but Lucia pretends she doesn't want to read it and even angrily tears it up. Later, when she is alone, we find her picking up the fragments of the letter from the floor, trying to piece them back together - she is also in love with Proteus.

Meanwhile, Proteus' father has decided that Proteus should travel to Milan and join his friend Valentine. He orders that Proteus must leave the next day. Proteus comes to say farewell to Julia, exchanging rings with her and vowing to be faithful and return soon. Their leave-taking is drenched in tears, and only Crab, the dog of Lance, Proteus' clownish servant, remains dry-eyed (the monologues which Lance here and elsewhere addresses to his dog are the comic highlight of the play).

In Milan Valentine has given up his hate of women, for he has become infatuated with Sylvia, the daughter of the Duke. Sylvia cannot openly show that she likes him as well, for her father has promised her to the rich but foolish suitor Thurio. So she has Valentine copy out a love letter she dictates to him, but he is so naive that he doesn't realize the letter is addressed to himself.

Then Proteus arrives at court and immediately falls in love with Sylvia and vows to win her - out of sight, out of mind, he has already forgotten Julia, and will also betray his friendship ("In love/Who respects friend?"). Unaware of Proteus' feelings, Valentine is happy to meet his friend again. He also naively discloses his plan to elope with Sylvia, because her father wants to force her to marry Thurio. He shows the rope ladder he has hidden under his mantel, to climb into the tower were Sylvia is held prisoner because of the Duke's suspicions. As a "good friend", Proteus immediately plants a knife in the back of Valentine by running to the Duke and informing on his friend, in the hope this will give him the opportunity to declare his own love to Sylvia. The Duke banishes Valentine from Milan. In the wood outside the city, Valentine is captured by a band of robbers, but when Valentine lies that he was banished for killing a man in a fair fight, the outlaws elect him their leader (believe it or not).

Meanwhile, in Verona, Julia decides to travel to Milan to join her lover. She will disguise herself as a page so she will not be harmed on her journey and asks her maid Lucetta to help her make the clothes, including a codpiece, for her disguise (the first of many cross-dressings in Shakespeare). Once in Milan, Julia quickly discovers Proteus' love for Silvia, watching him attempt to serenade her. She contrives to become his page boy – Sebastian – and is immediately used as a messenger to Sylvia. She has to bring Sylvia a letter and the very ring she gave her lover when he left Verona! But Sylvia scorns Proteus' affections and tears up the letter. Julia then gives an account of Proteus' betrayal and the two women decide to join hands together.

[Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus, by William Holman Hunt, c. 1850]

Silvia determines to run away and look for Valentine in the forest; she is helped by Sir Eglamour, a knight who has taken a vow of chastity after his true love died. In the forest they are confronted by the outlaws and Silvia is taken captive. The outlaws then happen to run into Proteus and Julia (still disguised as Sebastian). Proteus rescues Silvia and professes his love for her, but when Sylvia refuses him, he proceeds to rape her ("I'll force thee yield to my desire")... Fortunately, at this point Valentine intervenes and denounces Proteus (it is busy in the woods).

Horrified at what has happened (an unbelievable change of mind), Proteus vows that the hate Valentine feels for him is nothing compared to the hate he feels for himself. Convinced that Proteus' repentance is genuine, Valentine forgives him and even offers Silvia to him (note that Valentine has not addressed even one word of consolation to his beloved, although she was captured by a robber band and then threatened with rape). At this point, overwhelmed, Julia faints, and then reveals her true identity. Proteus now suddenly remembers his love for her and vows fidelity to her once again. As the Duke now also approves of the marriage between Valentine and Sylvia, the play ends with a double wedding.

Note how Shakespeare undermines the play's women, even though they are the only faithful and strong characters. Valentine apparently regards Sylvia simply as a possession he could give away to others - even to his traitorous friend who had tried to rape her. Also, her fate is only decided by the men around her (Valentine, the Duke and Thurio, who agrees to give her up) and she is not allowed to utter a word in her own cause. Even more troubling is the final assumption that Julia would be happy marrying a treacherous and faithless man who has developed into a would-be rapist. His change of mind and rediscovery of his love are totally unbelievable.

As stated at the top of this page: in this play, Shakespeare puts male-male friendship over the love between man and women - women are treated as just an appendix. The denouement will leave modern audiences and readers with a bad taste in the mouth.

Text at Gutenberg.org
Text after the Arden edition at MIT server

The Plays of Shakespeare

As You Like It, by William Shakespeare

A pastoral comedy of erotic entanglements which elegantly untie themselves in the end. Betrayed by the people who were supposed to care for them, three young people, Rosalind, Celia, and Orlando, flee to the Forest of Arden, a strange place, where they are free from the threats of treason or murder, but instead are exposed to the hazards of love. In Arden, identities and even gender can be hidden as one is granted the chance here to be someone else. It is a place to practice and learn, to act out one's imaginations and desires.

Written in 1600, Shakespeare based himself on a popular novel by Thomas Lodge, Rosalynde (1590), but made many important changes.

[In the Forest of Arden]

Here is the plot of the play.

The local Duke ("Duke Senior") has been overthrown by his brother, Duke Frederick, and has gone in exile, together with his courtiers, in Arden Forest like a second Robin hood. Sir Rowland de Bois, a friend of Duke Senior, has recently died and under the law of primogeniture his estate now belongs to his eldest son Oliver. Before Sir Rowland died, he made Oliver promise to take good care of his younger brother Orlando, but Oliver treats him badly and refuses him his small inheritance from their father’s estate. Consumed with jealousy, Oliver schemes instead to have Orlando die in a match with Charles, Duke Frederick's powerful wrestler. Against expectation, Orlando wins. When his trusted old servant Adam tells him that Oliver is planning to murder him, he flees to Arden Forest, and is soon at the court in the forest of Arden. Duke Frederick feels threatened by Orlando's disappearance to the forest and demands that Oliver bring him back within a month or he will loose all his estates. So Oliver also will have to enter the forest.

Duke Senior’s daughter, Rosalind, and Duke Frederick’s daughter, Celia, are inseparable cousins, reason why Rosalind lives with her uncle and not with her exiled father. The two women meet the victorious Orlando at the wrestling match, where Orlando and Rosalind fall in love. Duke Frederick is unhappy at his niece's continuous appearance at the regular court, and wants her to leave the court within ten days. Celia thinks this is so unfair that she comes up with the plan to run away together. They go in search of Rosalind's father, the ex-duke, in the Forest of Arden, and take Touchstone the jester with them. Rosalind dresses as a man, a young male page, so that she will not be harassed on the way; Celia plays her sister Aliena, a shepherdess.

In the second act all characters end up in the Forest of Arden, where as we saw also the Duke Senior is in exile with his courtiers, such as the melancholy philosopher Jaques. Orlando and Rosalind are in love with each other, without having told each other. Orlando is so infatuated that he hangs all the trees in the forest with love poems for her - without knowing that she is walking around in the same forest, dressed as a young man named "Ganymede" - and reading those poems. When Rosalind, in her male disguise, comes upon her lover, she decides to hang on to her disguise as “Ganymede” to befriend Orlando, and teach him what it truly takes to win a woman's heart (he is too full of antiquated notions of artificial courtly love). She does that by asking Orlando to act as if he were in love with "him". The lovesick Orlando proves a ready student and he is slowly molded into a fit lover for Rosalind - in her genuine person.

Matters are muddled a bit when a country girl named Phoebe (loved desperately by the shepherd Silvius) falls head over heels in love with Ganymede, but in the order of things that is a small problem Rosalind takes in her stride…

In this way, the forest becomes a place where the truth keeps emerging. Oliver, searching for Orlando in the forest, reforms after Orlando saves his life from a wild beast. Finally, Rosalind reveals her identity, triggering several weddings, including her own with Orlando and Celia’s with Oliver. Touchstone the jester marries Audrey the goatherd and Silvius gets his Phebe. Duke Frederick restores the dukedom to Duke Senior, who leaves the forest with his followers. More than the play so named, this is truly a case of "All's well that ends well."

[Rosalind Preparing to Leave Duke Frederick's Palace, John Dawson Watson (1881)]

Rosalind is one of Shakespeare's most engaging heroines, a confident and appealingly witty woman. Mostly in the company of her beloved cousin Celia, Rosalind is a faithful friend, leader, and schemer. She stays true to her family and friends throughout the story and dominates the stage. She is the main character of the play who brings out the true character of the others. Moreover, she upsets gender expectations: by claiming that women who are wild are smarter than those who are not, Rosalind often refutes the perception of women as passive in their pursuit of men. In the end, she is the leader who arranges the marriages of the others.

Another interesting character, albeit with a much smaller role, is one of the old Duke's closest friends, Jaques, a melancholic figure who gives the most famous speech of the play, "the seven ages of man," beginning with the well-known monologue "All the world's a stage." He then describes the seven different roles played by men in life, from infancy to old age:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

[The Seven Ages of Man by William Mulready, 1838]

As You Like It was filmed in 1936 in London by Paul Czinner with Elisabeth Bergner and Laurence Olivier. Paul Czinner was an Austrian Jew who fled his home country to avoid the Nazi persecution, and the same applies to star actress Elizabeth Bergner, who in exile became his wife. To these persecuted exiles, the escape to the Forest of Arden must have had the added symbolism of an escape to freedom.

[Elisabeth Bergner, 1929, by Mario von Bucovich]

The film's chief strength is Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalind. A delightful blend of womanly tenderness and gamine impishness, she is perfectly adjusted to the part. She can be all tears one instant, all taunting, feminine wit the next. She keeps the energy level in the somewhat understated film up. The personality that made her the leading actress in Austria and Germany carries well in this English film. Her accent has been criticized, but that is rather childish behavior: I can't see why a strong American or Australian accent would be better in Shakespeare than her German intonation. Moreover, English is an international language, which is spoken all over the world with countless different accents, and native English speakers should get used to that. In sum, I think this film is a very congenial production of Shakespeare, which deserves a higher appreciation than it generally receives. (P.S. the film is also notable for being scored by classical composer William Walton.)
By the way, I am curious to see the 2006 version by Kenneth Branagh which has been set in 19th c. Japan.

Full text

1936 film

The Plays of Shakespeare

Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each): Poem 66 (Gyoson)

  Hyakunin Isshu, Poem 66

Translation and comments by Ad Blankestijn
(version September 2022)

mountain cherry!
let us cheer
each other up -
no one understands me
the way your blossoms do

morotomo ni
aware to omoe
yamazakura
hana yori hoka ni
shiru hito mo nashi

      
もろともに
哀れと思へ
山桜
花より外に
知る人もなし

Gyoson 行尊 (c. 1055-1135)

[Mountain cherries in Arashiyama]

According to the head note composed on Mt Omine when suddenly seeing a cherry tree in bloom.

Notes

• morotomo ni: together, like me
• aware to omoe: let us feel compassion for each other
• hana yori hoka ni shiru hito mo nashi: only the blossoms know my heart
  

The Poet

Gyoson was the son of Minamoto no Motohira. At age 12 he entered Miidera (Onjoji) and eventually became its abbot. He started ascetic practices around 1070 in Mt. Omine, Mt. Katsuragi, and Kumano, thus he came to be known as an ascetic Buddhist priest. He was appointed to Kumano sanzan kengyo (Inspector of the Three Kumano Shrines). It was instrumental in laying out the route between Kumano and Omine for yamabushi. In May 1107, the title Hogen (the second highest rank for Buddhist priests) was conferred upon him. In addition, in January, 1108, he was appointed as Gojiso (a priest who stays near the Emperor and prays for the safety of the emperor) at the enthronement of Emperor Toba. His incantations had remarkably miraculous efficacy, thus he was highly venerated by court nobles. Later he was appointed to Chori (chief priest) of Onjoji Temple, and in 1123 he became Tendai-zasu (the Head Priest of the Tendai sect). However, he stayed in that position for only six days before resigning due to a conflict between Enryakuji and Onjoji Temples. Since then he held the post of Betto (the head priest) of various temples successively, while he restored the declining Onjoji Temple.

Gyoson himzelf practiced yamabushi austerities and made various pilgrimages throughout the country. Almost fifty of his poems were included in imperial anthologies, and he also produced a private collection of poetry. His poetry records his experiences on his pilgrimages, and in later ages he was celebrated as a spiritual precursor to Saigyo. In addition to his poetry, he was also known as a skilled biwa performer and calligrapher. He appears in many setsuwa-type miracle tales.

References: Pictures of the Heart, The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawai'i Press, 1996); One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, by Peter MacMIllan (Penguin Classics); Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991); Hyakunin Isshu by Inoue Muneo, etc. (Shinchosha, 1990); Genshoku Hyakunin Isshu by Suzuki Hideo, etc. (Buneido, 1997); Chishiki Zero kara no Hyakunin Isshu, by Ariyoshi Tamotsu (Gentosha); Hyakunin Isshu Kaibo Zukan, by Tani Tomoko (X-Knowledge);  Ogura Hyakunin Isshu at Japanese Text Initiative (University of Virginia Library Etext Center); Hyakunin Isshu wo aruku by Shimaoka Shin (Kofusha Shuppan); Hyakunin Isshu, Ocho waka kara chusei waka e by Inoue Muneo (Chikuma Shoin, 2004); Basho's Haiku (2 vols) by Toshiharu Oseko (Maruzen, 1990); The Ise Stories by Joshua S. Mostow and Royall Tyler (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010); Kokin Wakashu, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford University Press, 1985); Kokinshu, A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius (University of Tokyo Press, 1984); Kokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1994); Shinkokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1995); Taketori Monogatari-Ise Monogatari-Yamato Monogatari-Heichu Monogatari (Shogakkan, 1994).

Photo: own work.

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Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each): Poem 65 (Sagami)

 

 Hyakunin Isshu, Poem 65

Translation and comments by Ad Blankestijn
(version September 2022)

though bitter resentment
has utterly ruined

my never-dry sleeves
what I really deplore
is love's ruin of my honor

urami wabi
hosanu sode dani
aru mono o
koi ni kuchinamu
na koso oshikere
      
恨みわび
ほさぬ袖だに
あるものを
恋に朽ちなん
名こそ惜しけれ

Sagami 相模 (11th c.)

[Sagami]

The head note in the Goshuishu identifies this poem as composed for a poetry contest that took place in the palace in the fifth month of 1051 (described in A Tale of Flowering Fortunes).

By the way, with this poem we leave the Fujiwara Regency of the Heian period and enter the time of the Cloistered Emperors, the Insei Period (mid-11th c. -1185).

Notes

• uramiwabi: "wabu" = to be sad, to sigh.
  
• hosanu sode dani: "hosanu" = sleeves which remain wet from tears. "dani" = even.
  
• aru mono wo: "mono wo" is a contradictory conjunction.
  
• koi ni kuchinamu: "-mu" indicates a conjecture."Because of my love, I'll end up with a scandalous reputation."
  
• na koso oshikere: na = reputation
  

 

The Poet

Sagami's dates are unknown, but she was probably born between 995 and 1003.
The identity of her real father is not known, but her mother was a daughter of Yoshishige no Yasuakira, Governor of Noto Province. Her stepfather seems to have been Minamoto no Yorimitsu, Governor of Tajima Province. Before 1020, she married Oe no Kin'yori, Governor of Sagami Province, and came to be called "Sagami's wife." Although she accompanied her husband to his place of work in Sagami Province, their married life broke down, and they divorced soon after returning to Kyoto in 1024. Subsequently, Chunagon (vice-councilor of state) Fujiwara no Sadayori, who was the eldest son of Fujiwara no Kinto, often made approaches to her.

After a while, she began to serve Princess Shushi (Nagako), the eldest daughter of Emperor Ichijo. After the death of Shushi in 1049, she served Princess Yushi, a daughter of Emperor Go-Suzaku.

Sagami joined many uta awase (poetry matches), and was actively involved in the waka poem circles of the emperors Go-Suzaku and Go-Reizei. All those uta awase were held with the support of distinguished persons, which suggests that she had a high reputation. 109 of her poems were included in imperial anthologies starting with the Goshuishu. The number of her poems collected in that last collection, which was compiled during the era of Emperor Shirakawa, was the second highest after Izumi Shikibu. The manuscript of her personal collection of poems is also still in existence.

References: Pictures of the Heart, The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawai'i Press, 1996); One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, by Peter MacMIllan (Penguin Classics); Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991); Hyakunin Isshu by Inoue Muneo, etc. (Shinchosha, 1990); Genshoku Hyakunin Isshu by Suzuki Hideo, etc. (Buneido, 1997); Chishiki Zero kara no Hyakunin Isshu, by Ariyoshi Tamotsu (Gentosha); Hyakunin Isshu Kaibo Zukan, by Tani Tomoko (X-Knowledge);  Ogura Hyakunin Isshu at Japanese Text Initiative (University of Virginia Library Etext Center); Hyakunin Isshu wo aruku by Shimaoka Shin (Kofusha Shuppan); Hyakunin Isshu, Ocho waka kara chusei waka e by Inoue Muneo (Chikuma Shoin, 2004); Basho's Haiku (2 vols) by Toshiharu Oseko (Maruzen, 1990); The Ise Stories by Joshua S. Mostow and Royall Tyler (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010); Kokin Wakashu, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford University Press, 1985); Kokinshu, A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius (University of Tokyo Press, 1984); Kokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1994); Shinkokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1995); Taketori Monogatari-Ise Monogatari-Yamato Monogatari-Heichu Monogatari (Shogakkan, 1994).

Illustration: Wiki Commons.

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Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each): Poem 64 (Fujiwara no Sadayori)

 Hyakunin Isshu, Poem 64

Translation and comments by Ad Blankestijn
(version September 2022)

at break of day
when the fog on Uji River
lifts in patches
the stakes of fish traps in the shallows
appear one after another

asaborake
Uji no kawagiri
taedae ni
araware wataru
zeze no ajirogi
      
朝ぼらけ
宇治の川ぎり
たえだえに
あらはれわたる
ぜぜの網代木

Fujiwara no Sadayori 藤原定頼 (995-1045)

[The Uji River]

The prose lead-in presents this poem as an actual description of a landscape, written during a visit to the Uji River. Despite some differing opinions from commentators who endeavored to find hidden meanings in the poem, it is now considered correct to read it only as a straightforward landscape poem.

Notes

• The Uji River is a poetic location where in Heian times many aristocrats had their villas (see Poem 8); it was also the setting of the last ten chapters of The Tale of Genji.
  
• asaborake: daybreak (lighter than "akebono")
• taedae ni: intermittently. The mist is here and there getting thinner.
• araware wataru: the whole scene is gradually becoming clear.
• ajirogi: a wooden stake used in a wickerwork trap for catching fish. Such fish traps were only used in winter.
  

The Poet

Fujiwara no Sadayori was the eldest son of Fujiwara no Kinto (Poem 55) and, on his mother's side, a grandson of Emperor Murakami. He is the antagonist in Koshikibu no Naishi's poem (Poem 60). He served as director for military affairs before becoming middle councilor (Gon Chunagon). He was well known as both a poet and a calligrapher. Forty-five of his poems were included in imperial anthologies.

[The Uji River]

Visiting

For a short description of Uji and places to visit there, see Poem 8.

References: Pictures of the Heart, The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawai'i Press, 1996); One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, by Peter MacMIllan (Penguin Classics); Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991); Hyakunin Isshu by Inoue Muneo, etc. (Shinchosha, 1990); Genshoku Hyakunin Isshu by Suzuki Hideo, etc. (Buneido, 1997); Chishiki Zero kara no Hyakunin Isshu, by Ariyoshi Tamotsu (Gentosha); Hyakunin Isshu Kaibo Zukan, by Tani Tomoko (X-Knowledge);  Ogura Hyakunin Isshu at Japanese Text Initiative (University of Virginia Library Etext Center); Hyakunin Isshu wo aruku by Shimaoka Shin (Kofusha Shuppan); Hyakunin Isshu, Ocho waka kara chusei waka e by Inoue Muneo (Chikuma Shoin, 2004); Basho's Haiku (2 vols) by Toshiharu Oseko (Maruzen, 1990); The Ise Stories by Joshua S. Mostow and Royall Tyler (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010); Kokin Wakashu, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford University Press, 1985); Kokinshu, A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius (University of Tokyo Press, 1984); Kokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1994); Shinkokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1995); Taketori Monogatari-Ise Monogatari-Yamato Monogatari-Heichu Monogatari (Shogakkan, 1994).

 Photo: own work.

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Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each): Poem 63 (Fujiwara no Michimasa)

   Hyakunin Isshu, Poem 63

Translation and comments by Ad Blankestijn
(version September 2022)

is there any way
to tell you myself
and not through someone else
that the only thing now left
is that I have to give you up?

ima wa tada
omoitaenamu
to bakari wo
hitozute nara de
iu yoshi mo gana
      
今はただ
思ひ絶えなむ
とばかりを
人づてならで
いふよしもがな

Fujiwara no Michimasa 藤原道雅 (992-1054)

[Michimasa]

The head note to this poem in the Goshuishu says that Michimasa had secret trysts with the former High Priestess of Ise, Princess Toshi (Masako). When her father, Retired Emperor Sanjo, heard of this, he became very angry and had guards posted so that Michimasa could not even visit the princess in secret. This soap opera had certain parallels with the famous affair between Narihira and the Ise Virgin as described in the Tales of Ise and found its way into several (semi-) historical works, such as the Tale of Flowering Fortunes. Just like Narihira, Michimasa had the reputation of a womanizer, which may have been an added reason why the ex-emperor was against the liaison. The Ise Priestess was supposed to remain a virgin, but as Princess Toshi was no longer serving, it was not as great an offense as that of Narihira.

So this is not a poem about a quarrel between two lovers, but one announcing a forced separation, combined with regret that even a last meeting is not allowed. The end was tragic: Princess Toshi became a nun and died prematurely at age 21 (in 1022) and Michimasa's wife left him and married someone else. Michimasa was not a great poet, but the above poem was thought to give a perfect expression to his feelings at the end of the much talked about affair.

Notes

• ima wa tada: "wa"  serves to add emphasis to "now". "tada" = the only thing, only this.
• omoitaenamu: "omoi" and "taeyu" have been combined in the meaning of "to give up, to resign." "mu" indicates intention.
  
• to bakari wo: "to iu hitokoto bakari wo"
• hitozute nara de: "hitozute:" via someone else. "de" indicates a negation.
• iu yoshi mo ga na: "yoshi": means, way. "mo ga na" indicates a wish or desire.
  

The Poet

Fujiwara no Michimasa was the son of Minister Korechika (Poem 54) and was the nephew of Emperor Ichijo's wife, Empress Fujiwara no Teishi. In his early life he served in several posts, including that of Sakyo no Daibu, "Master of the Western Capital" (chief administrator of the western sector of Heiankyo). After his family was supplanted by Michinaga, he spent the rest of his life in retirement. He has only six poems in the Goshuishu and other imperial anthologies.

[Gate of Kotai-jingu (Naiku, Main Ise Shrine)]

Visiting

Ise Shrine and Ise Saiku. The Saio was an unmarried female member of the Japanese Imperial family, sent to Ise to serve as a Vestal Priestess at the Ise Grand Shrine, a custom which continued from the late 7th century until the 14th century. The Saio's residence, Saiku, was about 10 km north-west of the shrine (the remains are situated in the town of Meiwa, Mie Prefecture - here now also stands the Saiku Historical Musseum). The role of the Saio was to serve as Vestal Priestess at the Ise Shrine on behalf of the Emperor. Three rituals a year were conducted at the Shrine in which the Saio prayed for peace and protection. In June and November each year, she journeyed to the Shrine to perform the Tsukinamisai Festival. In September in ancient Calendar, she performed the Kannamesai Festival to make offerings to the kami of the year's new grain harvest. For the rest of the year, the Saio lived in the Saiku, where she would spend her time composing waka verses, making small excursions in the vicinity and wait to be recalled to Kyoto.

In the Genji Monogatari, chapter 10, Akikonomu, the daughter of the Rokujo Lady, becomes the new Ise Vestal. According to custom, she is confined at the Nonomiya Shrine in Arashiyama for purification, before she can travel to Ise. Her mother is with her (which was unusual) and Genji visits them to say goodbye to his former lover, the Rokujo Lady. After the death of the mother, Genji will become the guardian of the daughter, who eventually will rise to the exalted position of Empress.

[Representation of the the Saio
at the Saio Matsuri held on 6/5]

References: Pictures of the Heart, The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawai'i Press, 1996); One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, by Peter MacMIllan (Penguin Classics); Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991); Hyakunin Isshu by Inoue Muneo, etc. (Shinchosha, 1990); Genshoku Hyakunin Isshu by Suzuki Hideo, etc. (Buneido, 1997); Chishiki Zero kara no Hyakunin Isshu, by Ariyoshi Tamotsu (Gentosha); Hyakunin Isshu Kaibo Zukan, by Tani Tomoko (X-Knowledge);  Ogura Hyakunin Isshu at Japanese Text Initiative (University of Virginia Library Etext Center); Hyakunin Isshu wo aruku by Shimaoka Shin (Kofusha Shuppan); Hyakunin Isshu, Ocho waka kara chusei waka e by Inoue Muneo (Chikuma Shoin, 2004); Basho's Haiku (2 vols) by Toshiharu Oseko (Maruzen, 1990); The Ise Stories by Joshua S. Mostow and Royall Tyler (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010); Kokin Wakashu, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford University Press, 1985); Kokinshu, A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius (University of Tokyo Press, 1984); Kokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1994); Shinkokin Wakashu (Shogakkan, 1995); Taketori Monogatari-Ise Monogatari-Yamato Monogatari-Heichu Monogatari (Shogakkan, 1994).

Illustraion/Photos: Wikimedia Commons

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