Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees

A Masterpiece of the Eighteenth-Century Japanese Puppet Theater

Stanleigh H. Jones Jr., Stanleigh Jones Jr.

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 1993
• eBook ISBN: 9780231515023
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A masterpiece of eighteenth-century Japanese puppet theater, Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees is an action-packed play set in the aftermath of the twelfth-century Genji–Heike wars. It follows the adventures of the military commander, Yoshitsune, as he tries to avoid capture by his jealous older brother and loyal henchmen. The drama, written by a trio of playwrights, popularizes Japan's martial past for urban Edo audiences. It was banned only once in its long history, for a period after World War II, because occupying American forces feared its nationalizing power.

In this expert translation by Stanleigh H. Jones Jr., readers learn why Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees became one of the most influential plays in the repertoires of both kabuki and bunraku puppet theater. He opens with an introduction detailing the historical background, production history, and major features of the bunraku genre, and then pairs his translation of the play with helpful resources for students and scholars. Emphasizing text and performance, Jones's translation underlines not only the play's skillful appropriation of traditional forms but also its brilliant development of dramatic technique.

Act Four

SCENE 1

MICHIYUKI: THE JOURNEY WITH THE DRUM

(This is a dance scene, with at least three narrators and as many as five samisen accompanists. Throughout the scene, one narrator delivers Shizuka’s lines, another delivers Tadanobu’s. At other times all three narrators sing narrative lines as a chorus. As the narration begins, the set is concealed by a curtain with broad vertical stripes of red and white. At the point indicated in the text this curtain is dropped and pulled offstage, revealing a vista of the deep green Yoshino mountains, interlaced with clouds of blossoming pink cherries. At both SR and SL clusters of cherry trees stand in bloom, those at SR on a low hill. Across the top of the proscenium hang strands of festive cherry blossoms. At center stage in the near foreground is a single tall cherry tree, the stump of another tree downstage of it. Just behind the tree is a stage flat, a low hill painted in horizontal bands of white shading to sky blue, representing the mists that weave through the mountains).¹

NARRATOR: Love and loyalty:

Which is the heavier burden?

Considered, weighed upon a scale,

One cannot say.

To Tadanobu, a warrior

Steadfast and true of heart,

His master Yoshitsune

Has entrusted one he loves,

The gentle Lady Shizuka.

Behind them forlornly lies

The Capital through which they’ve moved

In silence and in stealth.

Now they start their journey,

Happy to be dressed

In plain and simple garb.

The gossip brings them news

That Yoshitsune, tossed by waves,

And drifting without course,

Has arrived at Naniwazu²

And made his destination Yoshino.

They take this clue

As counsel for their route

And make for the Yamato Road

To follow after.

(The red and white striped curtain falls, revealing the set. Shizuka stands at center. She wears a bright red gown decorated with embroidered pink cherry blossoms and flowing lines of mist in silver. She carries a thin cane and a black lacquered wicker hat with crimson cords. Slung across her back is a small bundle (the drum) wrapped in a lavender cloth. She and Tadanobu are traveling together, but she is alone on stage. In the long passage that follows, Shizuka dances.)

The country lanes are unfamiliar,

Thickly grown with weeds

And difficult to follow.

Shizuka makes her way

Amid young grasses

Growing left and right,

While pheasants foraging for food

Cry hororoken, hororotsu.³

“You birds long for your young,”

Thinks Shizuka, “And we who stray

Upon the road of love,

Ah, discontent are we

With what the world has dealt us.

How we envy you.”

On wings spread wide

Like well starched hakama,⁴

The first geese of the autumn fly above.

A mated pair, how joyous they seem;

A better fate for them

Than that of humans.

The brushwood points the way

To the Uga no Mitama Shrine,⁵

Glimpsed sacred, shining through the mists.

At Mika Moor,

Where the river Izumi

Rises and flows forth,⁶

Shizuka holds close the keepsake drum

With its leather drumheads,

And in her mind repeats the reverie:

“How cherished is my lord,

And dear, so dear, this keepsake drum.”⁷

Her thoughts are like the sweet exchange

Of lovers in their chamber.

“Oh to be embraced by him,

Just as this drum is swathed in silk”—

With such thoughts to give her hope,

She leans upon her staff;

But forlorn her lonely heart

As she moves along the narrow road.

As far as she can see,

The boughs of trees are starting into bloom.

In the village of Utahime⁸

The village men all sing aloud

The Plum Branch Song:⁹

My wife’s in bliss,

She’s making eyes at me,

Putting out our pillows

In the daytime—

What a silly woman!

A silly woman she!

To such a funny tune the young men sing,

So like a flock of crows

That even rustics raised from birth

In cottages with roofs of straw

Are set to rounds of laughter.

In spring the kicking ball’s kicked up

To counts of “one” and “two.”

And if one listens carefully,

One hears the eastern wind of spring join in,

Melting last year’s ice,

Like the happy manzai songs

That wish one endless youth.

Just so prays Shizuka:

For her lord a bounteous life.

What winsome charm she has,

Such promise for the future.

“If indeed my lord’s in Yamato,

I’ll hurry to his hiding place.

With this Hatsune Drum,” she thinks,

“I wish my lord a long and fulsome life.

Ah, would that to the present

I could bring the past of long ago,

Like the first sweet song

Of the valley nightingale.”

(From the off-stage musicians, concealed from the audience in an enclosure at SR, there are sounds suggesting the call of the nightingale.)

“And to entice the bird to follow me

I’ll play this Hatsune Drum,

This Drum of Hatsune.”

(She strikes the drum. There is an ominous roll of drums, and a white fox emerges at SR. It romps along the front edge of the stage, comes close to Shizuka, who is oblivious to its presence. The fox, apparently drawn to the drum, then goes to the low hill at SR and moves be...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Frontispiece and Titlepage Illustrations
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Dramatis Personae
• Prologue
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Act Four
• Act Five
• Bibliography