Plays - Sakuragawa

Sakuragawa

The Cherry-Blossom River

Argument

The following is a rendering of the greater part of Sakuragawa. There are some omissions⁠—of passages that defied any approach to adequate translation⁠—but the fragments remaining will perhaps give an idea of the spirit of this play, which differs considerably in subject and in manner from the two preceding selections.

Sakuragawa is, in fact, one of a group of pieces (Kiōjo mono) in which the chief personage is a madwoman. Such are Sumida-gawa, possibly the best, where a mother, driven mad by grief at losing her child, wanders forth in search, to hear by chance that he is dead; Hanjo, where a girl deranged by parting roams the countryside until she finds her lover; Minadzuki-barai, where a wife, lost by her husband, is found by him raving before a shrine, praying that she may meet him; Hyakuman, and several others of similar construction.

It will be gathered that the type shows little variety. There is no attempt to depict madness, except perhaps by a slight emphasis of the usual incoherence of the chanted words.

In Sakuragawa the lyric passages are a potpourri of flower-conceits. The masses of blossom are compared to clouds, or to a billowing sea; and when the wind comes and scatters them, they are waves breaking from above, they are snow, and they are dreams. All the stock fancies are there, woven together by the Chorus and the Madwoman, and through the whole runs a continuous thread of allusion, now understood, now expressed, to the likeness of name between the River and the lost child, “Sakurago.”

Characters

A Madwoman.
Her son, Sakurago, the “Cherry Child.”
A priest.
A child merchant.28
Villagers.

I

Tsukushi, in Autumn

Merchant	I am a child-merchant from the East. I have lived for a long time in Kioto, but now I have come down to Hiuga, in Tsukushi, Yesterday, towards evening I bought a young boy, and he begged me to take the money that I paid for him, together with this letter, to ask for the mother of Young Sakura, and to deliver both safely to her. Now I am hastening on my way to find her dwelling. This looks like the place. I will ask admission. Pray, is the mother of young Sakura here?
Mother	Who art thou?
Merchant	Here is a letter from Young Sakura. Also he bade me safely to deliver this money, so I have brought it hither, and hereby do deliver it.
Mother	O this is strange! First let me see the letter. She reads. “Now these many months I have been sore grieved to look upon thy wretched state, and so I have sold myself to a Child Merchant, and am going Eastward⁠ ⁠… ⁠ ⁠… Stay, what is this? My child was not for such as they⁠ ⁠… The Merchant has disappeared. Ah! Woe is me, he is gone, and lost from sight. What can this mean Reading. “and now I pray thee to make of this an occasion to retire from the world, and change thy garb.29 A thousand times do I regret that I must part from thee.”
Chorus	Why, if the parting is bitter, dost leave thy mother, not stay by her side? The mother in her humble cot grieving alone day in, day out, and naught to comfort her but the sight of her son.
Mother	O Thou in whom I put my faith, Lady-of-the-Trees-that-Blossom,30 to Thee he’s dedicate. Canst thou not stay him, my Sakura, my Flower?
Chorus	For otherwise how can I live the weary days alone, in this old home where grief has come to me? I will seek out whither my child has gone, she cries and weeping, weeping wanders forth.

II

The Sakuragawa, in Spring. Three years later.

A Priest	Long have we waited, and the Cherry Time has come at last. So hasten we along the hill-path gay with Spring. I am a priest of the temple of Isobe in Hitachi. This youth has begged me to take him under my care, so we have made a vow of teacher and disciple. In this district is the Sakuragawa, famous for its blossoms; and as the flowers are now at the best, I am taking him with me, and we are hastening thither. On Tsukuba all round the bloom is at the full. A grove of trees, and thick the shade and in the sky their colour glows. The firtrees wear a look of Spring and the tempest lies on the billows of a flowery sea. ’Tis the River of Blossoms, the Sakuragawa.
Villager	Thou comest late. I’ve waited long for thee.
Priest	We all came in company. That is why we are late. But see, how beautiful! The flowers are in full bloom.
Villager	Indeed they are. And there is another sight to see. A mad woman, with a beautiful hand-net, with which she scoops up the blossoms floating on the stream. And her ravings are most strange and diverting. Wait here a little, and we will show her to this youth.
	He tells another villager to fetch her. She approaches, and, meeting a traveller, addresses him.
Woman	Tell me, O Wayfarer, are the blossoms falling on the Sakuragawa?
	He replies “Yes.”
Woman	The blossoms are about to fall, say ye? O! Woe is me, that would entice the flowers as they floating come adown the stream, whose waters hurry past as quickly as the fleeting days of Spring. Whirled willy-nilly31 on the stream The fallen petals hurry down⁠— A sign that from the mountainside Up yonder also Spring has flown. So runs the song, and I must not delay. It were unkind to them to come⁠—too late⁠— upon the blossoms that have turned to snow. In anger at the wind32 that shed the blooms, the waves have risen in a sealess sky. Deep as my love lies the snow of the flowers that fall and melting make a stream of tears. I am a mad woman that stands here, my home is Hiuga, up in Tsukushi. I lost my loved son, my heart was torn with grief, and I have crossed o’er mountains and o’er seas to Hakozaki, where the waves arise, and thence by Suma’s shore, and on past Suruga, to Hitachi I now have come. But this way doth not lie the Path33 of Mother and Son, so how shall I go on my distant journey hence? This is the famous river, the Sakuragawa. In truth a lovely place that well deserves its name. The child from whom I am parted is also named Sakura, and this remembrance and the season both make dear to me this river with the name I love and where I plunge my net and gather in the snow-white blossoms floating by, a keepsake of the Spring.
Chorus	Parted the parent and child, the bird has flown from the nest, whither I know not. And I have travelled far, worn out am I with this my journey through the wilds, distant as earth from sky. But what if we should meet, mother and son, and neither know the other’s face? Nay, nay, it cannot be! Through the dark winter he was lost from view, but now the Spring has come shall he not blossom out again, my Flower?
Priest	This must be the madwoman here. Pray tell me, Mad Woman, from what province and from what town dost thou come?
Woman	I am from distant Tsukushi.
Priest	And what is it that thus hath made thee mad?
Woman	Because I have been parted from my only child my mind is all deranged.
Priest	O sad to hear! I see that thou dost carry a lovely net, to scoop up the blossoms floating by. Moreover thou dost wear an earnest look of faith. What is the meaning of this?
Woman	It is because the Goddess that guards my native place is called the Lady-of-the-Trees-that-Blossom, and on earth her Presence is a Cherry Tree. For my lost child was dedicate to her, and he was brought up with the name of Cherry Blossom. So as the Goddess is called the Lady of the Blossom, and this child I seek is named Cherry Blossom, and this river is the Cherry Blossom River, I fain would save these fallen blooms that bear the name I love.
Priest	Oh! Admirable Reason! True indeed a Cause there is to each Result,34 and this has brought thee up from Tsukushi far Eastward to the cherry river here.
Woman	This river for its very distance famed. What says the verse than Tsurayuki made?
Priest	’Tis true, for Tsurayuki sang of old, hearing that in a land he had not seen,
Woman	in Hitachi, there ran a stream men call
Priest	The River of Blossoms, the Sakuragawa,
Chorus	Methinks, when Spring has come, The waters rise, and ever beat the waves, More than their wont upon the banks Of the River of Blossoms. Today the Flowers and the Poet too have vanished like the snow, and left only a name behind; the river still flows on and shallow after shallow bears its foaming blossom where the waves beat white. ⋮
Villager	To Madwoman. Alas! A sudden blast35 from the mountain tops is scattering the blossoms on the Sakuragawa.
Woman	What sayest thou? The evening breeze down from the mountains brings the blooms? ’Tis well. I’ll catch them in my net before they float away.
Priest	See, see, the blast from the hills on every tree top beating down,
Woman	the flood of flowers rising white
Priest	and the waves that break from above.
Woman	Are they blossoms?
Priest	Are they snow?
Woman	Are they waves?
Priest	Are they flowers?
Woman	The hovering clouds
Priest	by the river breeze
Chorus	are scattered and the waves flow on, waves of the River of Blossoms, let me catch them as they pass! ⋮ The waters flow,36 the flowers fall, forever lasts the Spring. The moon shines cold, the wind blows high, the cranes do not fly home. The flowers that grow in the rocks are scarlet, and light up the stream. The trees that grow by the caverns are green and contain the breeze. The blossoms open like brocade, the brimming pools are deep and blue.
Woman	My straying footsteps brought me here
Chorus	to the river that rouses a longing within. “The shade of a tree,37 the flow of a stream”⁠— Alike the name, alike the place, they must be together bound by a Link of former Life. The water is the mirror of the flowers, but as the year grows old and blossoms fade and fall, then can ye say the mirror tarnisheth? What shall we do, well knowing that the blossoms fade and later turn to dust? ’Tis vain to hold them blossoms which in truth are dreams. For from the treetops scattered and come to naught they fall, fall on the waters, and, alas, vanish as bubbles and are gone. What looked like clouds were the swift eddies and the silent pools of blossoms on Miyoshino. ⋮ But though I catch them in my net, the cherries, the flowers, the clouds and the waves, are but the blossoms from the trees. Not these indeed I seek, but my beloved son, not these indeed, but my beloved son, my Sakura, my Flower. ⋮
Priest	Strange, O how strange are this mad woman’s words to hear! Comest thou perchance from Tsukushi?
Woman	Why dost thou ask this thing of me, whom none until today have known, whether I come from Tsukushi?
Priest	Why should we hide it from thee? Lo! The bloom of love that doth not fade! Behold thy Sakura.
Woman	That name I hear⁠— Is it a dream? I cannot tell⁠— Which is my child?
Chorus	The days of three long years have passed and many a league has lain between Mother and Son,
Woman	and his form has changed.
Chorus	But on that familiar face
Woman	looking with earnest gaze I see the bright and blooming countenance of Sakura, my blossom! ⋮
	They depart together.