Sotoba Komachi
[by Kan’ami Kiyotsugu]
“Sotoba Komachi” concerns Ono no Komachi, a beautiful and heartless poetess of ancient Japan. One infatuated nobleman was refused a rendezvous until he should have come to her house in his chariot a hundred nights. He died just before completing his ordeal, but his unresolved love and passionate jealousy returned to possess Komachi when she was a wretched, withered old woman.
- •
Persons
- First Priest
- Second Priest
- Komachi, as herself and as her former lover
- Chorus
Both Priests: The mountains are not high on which we hide
The mountains are not high on which we hide
The lonely deepness of our hearts.
First Priest: I am a priest from the Koya Hills
Coming down now to make my way to the city.
Second Priest: The Buddha that was is gone away.
The Buddha to be has not yet come to the world.
Both Priest: At birth we woke to dream in this world between.
What then shall we say is real?
By chance we took the forms of men
From a thousand possibilities.
We stumbled on the treasure of the holy law
The seed of all salvation
And then with thoughtful hearts we put our bodies
In these thin and ink-black robes.
We knew of lives before this birth
We knew of lives before this birth
