Kumasaka

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Kumasaka (The Robber) is a Noh play from the 15th century. Arthur Waley attributes it to Zenchiku Ujinobu and it concerns the notable Heian period bandit Kumasaka no Chohan.

The play takes the form of a dream-time Mugen Noh.[1]

Legendary background

The fight between Ushiwakamaru (Minamoto no Yoshitune) and the bandit chief Kumasaka Chohan in 1174. Ukiyo-e printed by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Warriors Trembling with Courage .

The samurai hero, Minamoto no Yoshitsune (known in his early life as Ushiwaka) had a series of encounters attributed to him in his youth, one of which concerned repelling a bandit attack led by Kumasaka. Kumasaka is sometimes identified as the slayer of Yoshitsune's mother.[2]

Plot

A travelling monk is offered shelter by another, on condition that he prays for an anonymous soul buried by a pine tree.[3] The traveler is surprised to see a large pike hanging on the cottage wall, and the other reveals his past as a robber before vanishing. This reveals to the priest that "It was under the shadow of a pine-tree that he had rested".[4]

Thereafter, the robber reappears as the ghost of Kumasaka and recounts the story of his last fight and his death at the hands of Ushiwaka: "The wonderful boy...be he ogre or hobgoblin".[5]

Literary associations

  • Basho referenced the pine tree associated with Kumasaka in a renga: "a pine in memory/of a bandit/broken by the wind".[7]

See also

References

  1. Kumasaka
  2. H C McCullough trans, Yoshitsune (1966) p. 43-4
  3. A Waley, The Noh Plays of Japan (1976) p. 28-9
  4. A Waley, The Noh Plays of Japan (1976) p. 31
  5. A Waley, The Noh Plays of Japan (1976) p. 35-6
  6. H C McCullough trans, Yoshitsune (1966) p. 44
  7. Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams (1998) p. 136