能のあらすじ・見どころ Summary and Highlights of Noh Ukon English
Summary
A Shinto priest (waki) from Kashima Shrine in Hitachi Province (present-day Ibaraki Prefecture) travels to the capital (Kyoto) with his attendants to view the famous flowers of the city. Hearing that the cherry blossoms at Ukon no Baba, at Kitano Tenmangū Shrine, are in full bloom, they hasten there.
The priest and his party rest in the shade of the blossoms. Soon, a woman (mae-shite) accompanied by her maid (tsure) draws up her viewing carriage beneath the trees. The priest recites a waka by Ariwara no Narihira—“Though I have not truly seen her, nor not seen her at all, I find myself longing; shall I spend this day in idle gazing?”—and the two share in the poetic mood.
The woman points out notable sites of Kitano Tenmangū, such as the Kōbaiden Hall (Pink Ume Blossom Hall), the Oimatsu Shrine (Old Pine Shrine) and the Ichiya Matsu (the One-Night Pine). She then tells the priest to wait for the sacred kagura dance on a moonlit night, reveals that she is the deity of Sakuraba (Cherry Leaf), a subsidiary shrine of Tenmangū, and disappears into the shade of the blossoms.
On a moonlit night, the deity of Sakuraba (nochi-jite) appears in the form of a goddess and performs a dance. Then, as if ascending to the treetops of the cherry blossoms, she vanishes beyond the clouds.
Highlights
The play is attributed to Zeami. In his musical treatise Go-onkyoku jōjō, he cites a passage from this work as an example of a “yūkyoku,” a piece imbued with the subtle, evocative mood of yūgen. However, the text as it exists today is thought to have been revised after Zeami’s time, likely by Kanze Kojirō Nobumitsu (the seventh son of On’ami).
Ukon no Baba, the setting of the play, lies to the east of Kitano Tenmangū. It is said to have originally been the riding ground of the Ukonefu, the office of the palace guards who were responsible for security at court and for accompanying imperial processions. In the Heian period, a divine oracle instructed that the spirit of Sugawara no Michizane be enshrined there, and Kitano Tenmangū was subsequently established near this site.
The poem recited by the priest in the first half, beginning “Though I have not truly seen her …,” appears in section ninety-nine of The Tales of Ise as a waka by Ariwara no Narihira. According to that tale, when a mounted archery event was held at Ukon no Baba, Narihira sent the poem to a woman watching from her carriage, and she replied with a poem of her own. The exchange between the priest and the woman in the first half draws on this episode. The scene in which the woman guides him to famous spots around Kitano Tenmangū—such as the Kōbaiden Hall, the Oimatsu Shrine, and the Ichiya Matsu is also a key point of interest.
The highlight of the second half is the dance of Sakuraba Deity. Appearing in the form of a goddess, she celebrates the peace and tranquility of the realm while performing two dances, the chu no mai and the ha no mai. Her graceful figure, playing among the cherry blossoms in full bloom at Kitano, offers the central visual and emotional focus of the play.