The nō drama Aoi no ue draws on an episode recounted in the Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji) by Murasaki Shikibu.
Aoi no ue is Genji’s official wife and is gravely ill. Her family has tried various treatments, but none seem to work. Believing, therefore, that she must be possessed by an evil spirit, they decide to summon a priestess, Teruhi.
The spirit is trapped by the priestess’s prayers and appears before those present. It reveals itself to be the vengeful spirit born from the jealousy of Lady Rokujō, one of Genji’s lovers.
Widowed from a crown prince, she had recently lost Genji’s attentions, as he no longer felt any interest in her. Moreover, during the Kamo Festival, her carriage was forced to move aside to let Lady Aoi’s carriage pass, causing her deep humiliation and profound jealousy.
Whereas in Murasaki’s narrative the presence of a malevolent spirit killing Aoi is not explicitly stated, but rather implied as a belief held by the characters, in the nō play this vengeful spirit is fully present and deceitful. It first appears in the guise of a court lady, only to later reveal its true nature. The spirit attacks not only Lady Aoi, but also the priest who is subsequently summoned and who begins to recite a prayer.
The priest and the vengeful ghost struggle, but in the end the spirit is defeated and becomes pacified.
A distinctive feature of this play is that Lady Aoi does not appear “in the flesh”, that is, she is not portrayed by an actor; instead, her presence is represented by a kosode laid out on the stage.
The story tells about an episode happened during the travel undertaken by Yoshitsune and some of his devotees, who are running from the capital because of the fall out with his brother Yoritomo, the current shōgun. Yoshitsune and his followers arrive at the Ataka barrier, recently established by Yoritomo. To pass, they pretend to be mountain priests collecting donations for the reconstruction of the Tōdaiji temple in Nara.
Togashi Saemon, who was entrusted with controlling the passage, asks the supposed monks to prove themselves as such by reading the kanjinchō, a list of people who have already donated and which each temple possessed.
Because Benkei, Yoshitsune’s loyal devotee, was a former yamabushi (mountain ascetic monk) and had a background on Buddhist teachings, he is believable as a monk. However they don’t have a real kanjinchō, so he takes a blank scroll and starts reading, as if there was actually written a list of donators.
Togashi noticed that Benkei was reading from a blank scroll, but nonetheless, he admires his knowledge on the Buddhist teachings. After asking him many difficult questions on Buddhism, he lets them pass through the barrier. However, they are held again when one of Togashi’s men thinks that one of the alleged priests might be Yoshitsune.
To prove that the man is not Yoshitsune, Benkei hits his master with a stuff, with the reason that he needs to be punished for bringing suspicion upon them. This has a strong symbolic meaning, for at the time beating your master was a serious act.
Even though he still has some doubts, Togashi’s man admires Benkei’s courage and lets them pass. Later, Yoshitsune will thank Benkei for his quick thinking. One they passed through the barrier, Togashi goes to the group to apologize and drink with them. Benkei still doesn’t trust him, so he checks Togashi’s behaviour while dancing an ennen-no-mai, a dance performed in temples to wish peace and longevity.
In the story told by the nō play there is a ceremony where monks are reading the Lotus Sūtra to renovate the temple’s bell and it is forbidden the participation of women. Just one woman can have access to the ceremony, a shirabyōshi, for she proposed to perform a purification dance for the bell.
Her dance lead all the monk to fall asleep, which allows the shirabyōshi, who turns out to be a serpent demon, to hit the bell until the rods no longer held and the bell fell, while the demon jumps under it. The noise caused by the fall awakens those present and at this moment, in the drama, the abbot of the temple tells an event that happened many years ago, a story linked to the temple bell: an inn owner tells his daughter, Kiyohime, that the monk the welcome every year in their inn, and that gifts her with some new toy every time, will one day be his husband.
Once Kiyohime is old enough to be wed, on a night when the monk was staying at the inn, the young woman goes to his room to seduce him. Because he was a monk, is horrified by her behaviour. To appease her, he tells her that he had to stay pure because of the journey he had to undertake, but he would come back to her just after the pilgrimage. It was obviously a lie, the monk will never go back to her. He fled toward the Dōjōji, where he pleaded the temple monks to protect him. They agreed and hid him under the temple bell.
The young woman dives into the Hidakawa river to follow the monk and turns into a serpent and goes to the other side of the river. The woman, now a serpent demon, reaches the temple and she can detect the presence of the monk right away. She winds up her body around the temple bell, overheating it. With hot flames surrounding the bell, nobody can get close to it and the monks can’t do anything else aside looking and waiting for the serpent to go back where it came from. When the bystanders lifted up the burnt bell, there was no trace of the monk aside bones.
After the story ended, the monks started chanting prayers to rise the bell and get the serpent demon out of it. When the bell is up enough, an exorcism starts and the serpent is burnt by the flames of its own passion, and it goes back to the Hideka river.
The story begins with Ushiwaka, who encounters a group of merchants traveling east and asks to accompany them. When they stop at an inn to rest, a messenger arrives claiming to have been sent to bring the young Ushiwaka back to the temple. Ushiwaka devises a way to avoid being recognized by asking a local hat maker to prepare an eboshi folded to the left (hence the title of the Noh play Eboshi-ori, “The Folded Eboshi”).
At first, the hat maker refuses, explaining that this type of eboshi was worn during the time of the Minamoto, but now that the Taira are in power, such a headdress can no longer be worn. Ushiwaka pleads him, and the hat maker eventually provides the folded cap. He recounts the history of the folded eboshi, explaining how it once brought good fortune before the Taira seized power, and predicting that one day it will shine again. This passage clearly alludes to the Genpei War (1180–1185), from which the Minamoto will emerge victorious, thus foreshadowing a time when they will rule Japan.
Ushiwaka thanks the hat maker by giving him his sword. Deeply moved, the hat maker shows it to his wife, who is overcome with emotion at the sight of it. She reveals that she is the sister of Kamada Masakiyo, who died in the Battle of Utsumi. At the time, when Yoshitsune’s mother was pregnant, her husband had sent this very sword to her as a protective talisman, and the hat maker’s wife had been entrusted with delivering it. Recognizing the young customer as Ushiwaka, they both urge him to take the sword back. Grateful for their kindness, Ushiwaka promises that, should he ever come to power, he will not forget them.
Upon returning to the inn, news arrives that bandits have learned of the presence of the two merchants and are planning an attack. Having undergone months of training at the temple, Ushiwaka decides to confront them. He engages in a duel with one of the bandits, Kumasaka, and emerges victorious.
Hachinoki, one of the favourite plays from the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), tells the story of a priest in a pilgrimage toward Kamakura, but because of a snowstorm, he has to look for a shelter.
He knocks on someone’s door and asks to the owner’s wife, alone at the moment, to stay the night. When the owner of the house comes back, at first he doesn’t want to host the monk, due to their poverty. However, the wife convinces him, so they welcome the monk.
The night gets colder and colder, and to heat up the room and treat the guest with care, the poor man decides to burn in the brazier his plants: the prune, the cherry tree, and a pine tree.
The monk is moved and asks the man to tell him his story. It is revealed that the owner of that house is Sano Genzaemon Tsuneyo, a samurai from the Kamakura period (1185-1333). He says that his family betrayed him, that he was banished from his land and that is way he is now poor. He also declares that, even though he is living a miserable life, he is ready to go to Kamakura at any time to fight for his shōgun, if an emergency arises.
This is exactly what happens a few days later, when Hōjō Tokiyori (1227-1263), a regent in retreat of the Kamakura shogunate, gathers warriors from the eight prefectures of Kantō. Tsuneyo goes to Kamakura right away. Tokiyori orders to one of his subordinates to find a man with worn out clothes, a rusty sword and a bony horse.
When Tusneyo is brought before the regent, the poor man finds out that the monk he and his wife welcomed that snowy night in their humble house is the very regent in front of him, Hōjō Tokiyori. Tokiyori thanks Tsuneyo for burning his loved plants to warm him up, by giving him something in return: three lots of land with prune, cherry and pine trees.
Hagoromo (The feather robe) is based on a well-known Japanese legend.
A fisherman named Hakuryō, while going fishing, sees a beautiful robe hanging from the branch of a pine tree. The dress belongs to a celestial lady who was taking a bath at that moment, and therefore had temporarily removed it and placed it on the branch. In the original story, the man forces the woman to marry him and become his wife to get the dress back, but in the drama the fisherman gives it back to her.
In the nō play, at first, the man does not want to give the robe back to the lady, because it is a very precious dress, but he is moved by the lady's difficulty, since she cannot return home to the celestial world without the robe that allows her to fly. He then decides to give it back to her, but in exchange he wants the lady to perform a celestial dance for him.
The accusation, not too veiled, that the celestial lady expresses towards the world of men is impactful: the fisherman does not want to give her the robe back immediately, because he fears that the lady will take advantage of it to run away, without dancing for him, but she replies that these doubts belong to the world of men, because deception does not exist in the celestial world.
After this statement, the fisherman is convinced to give her the robe and the lady, as promised, dances. The celestial dance is the pinnacle of the drama, a dance full of elegance and beauty, praised by Zeami himself in his treatises.
Hanagatami belongs to the category of kyōjo mono, i.e. nō that tell the story of a mad woman.
The work tells the story of Lady Teruhi, who loses her mind due to the profound loneliness she felt after the forced separation from her beloved, Emperor Keitei, due to his accession to the throne.
To show her his affection and regret, the emperor gives her his favourite basket. Later, having learned that the emperor was going to admire the autumn leaves, Lady Teruhi decides to join him, but is chased away by the guards. Overwhelmed by pain, she definitively loses her mind and, under the emperor's order, she is invited to perform a crazy dance (kakeri).
At the end of the dance, the woman delivers the basket to the emperor, who, recognizing her, confirms the lady's identity and promises her that they will be able to reunite as long as she comes to her senses.
The story is set in China and tells of a man named Rosei, who, wondering how he should live, travels to Mount Yohi, in the land of Chu, to meet a famous monk.
He stops to rest at an inn called Kantan. Following the advice of the woman who works at the inn, while waiting for his meal to be prepared, he rests on a special pillow, received from a Taoist master. It is said that a person could know their future by sleeping on that pillow.
While Rosei sleeps, a messenger sent by the Emperor of Chu enters his room. The man reveals that he will ascend the throne. Rosei then heads to the palace and spends 50 years in wealth. During a banquet in honor of his 50th anniversary, Rosei begins to dance and sees the passage of time and the seasons before his eyes. Gradually, however, this image begins to fragment, until it fades completely.
He is suddenly awakened by the woman at the inn, and it is revealed that it was all a dream.
Rosei realizes that life in this world is as ephemeral as the dream. Having found the answer to his dilemma, he returns home.
Kokaji tells the story of Munechika, known as "Kokaji," a swordsmith ordered to forge a sword by Tachibana no Michinari, at the request of Emperor Ichijō (10th-11th century).
Munechika explains that he cannot complete the task without the presence of a colleague equally skilled, but Michinari reminds him that an imperial order cannot be refused. The swordsmith then goes to the Inari shrine to ask for divine assistance.
At the shrine, a mysterious young man calls out to him and speaks of the powers of a sword, recounting various legends. He tells the story of the sword possessed by the first emperor of the Han Dynasty, thanks to which the emperor could rule his enemies in all directions without leaving the capital; of the sword of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, with which he defeated the Zhou Dinasty; or the spirit of the sword of Yamato Takeru, which created a storm of flame that burned the barbarian enemies to flames.
After these tales, the young man reassures Munechika, telling him that he will help him forge the sword. The young man then reveals himself to be the god Inari, who presents himself to Munechika as the fox spirit, and together they forge the sword.
There is a version called Kokaji Hakuto, in which the shite, the fox spirit, wears a white wig and a white costume.
One autumn night, a traveling monk visits Suma Bay (near present-day Kobe) and notices a pine tree on the shores. Convinced that this mysterious pine has a story, he asks a villager to tell him about it. The man explains that the tree serves as a gravestone for two young sisters who collected seawater, Matsukaze and Murasame.
The monk recites a sutra and prayers for the two sisters and then goes to a hut to ask for shelter for the night.
The scene then focuses on two girls collecting seawater. This moment is rich in poetic and literary references, with images of water, waves, and the moon. Through these images, the two girls express their sadness. When they return to their hut, they encounter the monk, who was waiting for the owner of the house so he could ask for shelter for the night.
Initially, the two women refuse to welcome the monk due to the poverty of their home, but the monk, through a poem by Ariwara no Yukihira (brother of the famous Heian-period poet Ariwara no Narihira and who was exiled to Suma for political reasons), states that those who desire elegance live a solitary life. He also adds that he had just prayed for the two sisters tied to the pine tree of this bay.
The two women begin to cry and reveal to the monk that they are the ghosts of Matsukaze and Murasame, Yukihira's former lovers. They tell the monk about how Yukihira arrived in Suma, but one day had to leave for Kyoto, where he died. Their love for Yukihira has grown stronger, even after his death, becoming an obsession, and for this reason they remain tied to this land.
Matsukaze, in tears, takes the kariginu that belonged to Yukihira and puts it on, as she does every night. She admits that every time she puts it on, the image of his beloved appears before her eyes. The woman, wearing her beloved's dress, goes mad with despair and love, and thinks the pine tree is Yukihira. Her sister tries to calm her, but to no avail. Matsukaze dances, revealing both her madness and her love for Yukihira. The dance begins slowly, accompanied by the flute and drums, then speeds up, expressing his madness.
When dawn breaks, the ghosts of the two women vanish, leaving only the breeze blowing through the pine tree.
Momijigari is a play full of twists and turns. It begins with the appearance of a lady who is on a mountain to admire the autumn maples and hides behind some curtains.
Then a man who is later revealed to be Taira no Koremochi, enters the scene; he has arrived on the mountain for a hunting trip and happens to pass by an autumn festival.
Some women, who have noticed Koremochi and his group, invite him to celebrate and drink with them, and Koremochi becomes drunk and falls asleep.
The deity Takeuchi, in the service of Bodhisattva Hachiman, appears to him in a dream to warn Koremochi that the woman who drove him to drunkenness is actually the demon of Mount Togakushi (present-day Nagano Prefecture). She then gives him the divine sword of the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman.
As soon as Koremochi awakens from his dream, the demon appears before him and attacks. However, Koremochi fights bravely and defeats the demon with his divine sword.
Okina is a ceremonial performance performed today on special occasions or during New Year's celebrations. Born as a rite with strong sacred and propitiatory value, it was originally known as shikisanban 式三番 (the three rites), a performance that involved a series of ritual dances performed at Shinto shrines, featuring three elders: Chichi no jō (later disappeared from the nō repertoire), Okina, and Sanbasō. These three elder figures were seen as manifestations of the divine. Today, the three dances are performed by Okina, Senzai, and Sanbasō.
The origins of this ritual are narrated in the Sarugaku dangi 申楽談儀 by Kanze Motoyoshi, second son of Zeami Motokiyo (1364-1444), a text that emphasizes its sacred and divine nature from the outset: on the last day of the twelfth month, the leader of the Yamashima troupe went to Hie Shrine with his wife to pray for their three-year-old son, who had died suddenly. They promised the deity that, if their son were to return to life, the troupe and all their descendants would perform a sarugaku every year on the first day of the new year. This was indeed the case, and since then, the Yamashima troupe has performed Okina at the shrine on New Year's Eve.
Today, Okina is performed by several troupes and in numerous theatres, yet its sacred and ritualistic nature remains profoundly present, both before the performance, when the actors perform purification rites and idolize the mask that will be worn on stage, and during the performance itself. Indeed, it is a rule that, once the performance begins, no spectator can enter or leave until Okina leaves the stage, because from the moment the ritual begins, the spectator becomes a participant.
For this reason, Okina is defined as a "nō that is not a nō," because, despite being one of the founding elements of the nō codified by Kan'ami and Zeami, it belongs to a category unto itself and has no real plot, effectively configuring itself as a ritual.
A monk named Jakushō is traveling through all the Buddhist sites in China and comes across a stone bridge near Mount Shōryōzen.
The monk meets a young woodcutter and asks him if the bridge he is standing in front of is the renowned stone bridge. The boy replies that it is indeed the famous bridge, and that on the other side lies the Pure Land of Bodhisattva Manjusri.
The monk, having confirmed his hypothesis, wants to cross the bridge, but is stopped by the young boy. He tells him that in the past, only highly esteemed monks who have dedicated years and years of their lives to the ascetic path and risked their lives for this training have managed to cross the bridge. He admonishes the monk, who thought he could cross the bridge easily by his own spiritual power alone.
The monk realizes that having a classical Buddhist education is not enough to cross it. The story of the bridge is told, which is not man-made, but appeared magically one day. It is described as floating, frighteningly narrow, and very slippery. Beneath it, there is nothingness.
Then a lion appears, messenger of the Bodhisattva Manjusri, and performs a celebratory dance among the peonies. The lion dance is the climax of the drama, where the actor's skills are showcased through the study of form, movement, and expressiveness.
Some aspects of this tale and the choice of representation vary from school to school. For example, in some versions there is only one lion, while in others there are two, one with a white wig and the other with a red wig, colours that reflect the peonies presented on stage.
Shōjō is a nō drama belonging to the fifth group, kiri no mono (nō plays featuring demonic or supernatural characters, performed at the end of a nō day), which has a purely celebratory function.
The story is set in China, in the village of Yōzu, where a man named Kōfū is advised in a dream to sell liquor at the village market so he can become rich.
However, Kōfū notices something curious: a customer regularly shows up at the market to buy his liquor, but no matter how much he drinks, his face never turns red (a symbol of drunkenness). Intrigued, Kōfū asks the man his name, who reveals that he is a shōjō, a creature that lives in the ocean. Kōfū then takes the liquor to the beach and waits for the shōjō to reveal itself in its true form. When the being appears, happy that Kōfū had come to visit, it drinks the liquor and dances gaily. To thank Kōfū for the liquor, the creature gives him a jug of never-ending liquor.
This encounter turns out to be a dream, but when Kōfū wakes up, the jug is truly present, and thanks to it, Kōfū and his family were wealthy for a long time.
Takasago is a shūgen nō (celebratory nō) and is considered one of Zeami's greatest works.
It comes from a renown Japanese legend and it tells the story of a Shinto priest, Tomonari, who encounters an elderly couple in Takasago no ura (Harima Province, now Hyogo Prefecture). The elders are sweeping pine needles from under the tree, and Tomonari asks them to tell him the story associated with that place. The couple explains that the pine tree they are standing under is known as the Takasago Pine, along with the distant Suminoe Pine in Sumiyoshi, and that together, they are known as aioi no matsu (the pair of pines). The old man then adds that he comes from Sumiyoshi, while his wife id from Takasago.
The two elders appreciate the beauty of Japanese poetry from the reign of the current emperor, placing it on a par with the poetry of the Manyōshu 万葉集 (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, ca. mid-8th century) from ancient times. They discuss the comparison between contemporary poetry and ancient poetry through the parallelism of the pair of pine trees.
The two elders later reveal themselves to be the personifications of the two pine trees, Takasago and Sumiyoshi, and promise Tomonari that they will meet him again in Sumiyoshi. The drama ends with their second meeting; the male deity of Sumiyoshi appears and dances to ward off demons and celebrate the emperor's longevity and peace in this world.
Zeami's inspiration for this work was a quote found in the preface to the Kokin wakashū 古今和歌集 (Collection of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poems, early 10th century), which states that the Takasago Pine and the Suminoe Pine are known as a pair (aioi no matsu). In this case, the pair of pines symbolizes the Japanese poetic tradition and the glory of the imperial tradition, which Zeami intends to celebrate through the drama, presenting this bond through the image of an elderly married couple who, despite living apart, are united in spirit. This passage is particularly clear when, at the beginning of the play, the elderly man explains that he comes from Sumiyoshi, while his wife lives in Takasago. To Tomonari's astonishment, the old lady replies: “Even though we live a thousand miles away from each other, separated by peaks and rivers, we do not feel any distance, if we understand each other and our hearts are together.”
This nō play tells the story of Yuya, a woman who works at an inn in present-day Shizuoka Prefecture for Taira no Munemori of the Heike clan.
Yuya has learned that her mother is very ill, so she asks Munemori the permission to return home to her mother. However, Munemori refuses, wanting to go admire the cherry blossoms with her.
During the visit to the cherry blossoms, a woman who serves Yuya's family brings her a letter from her mother, begging her daughter to see her. Despite the letter, Munenori still won't let her go home to her mother.
Yuya is unable to share the happiness of the others enjoying the view, and when, reluctantly, she dances at the party, the sight of the cherry blossom petals falling in a light breeze prompts her to sing a poem about her love for her mother.
Only then does Munemori allow her to go to her sick mother.