Ominameshi
Summary
A priest (waki) from Kyushu-Matsura (today’s Matsuura City, Nagasaki Prefecture) embarks on a journey to see the capital, Kyoto. On the way, he decides to pay a devotional visit to Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine on Otokoyama, a hill in the southwest of the capital (Yawata City, Kyoto Prefecture).
Among various autumn flowers blooming in a field by the foot of Otokoyama, he spots a particularly vivid one. The flower is called “ominameshi,” ( “ominaeshi” in modern Japanese, also “eastern valerian” or “golden lace” in English). The priest decides to pick one in order to offer it to the Buddha.
Then, an old man (mae shite) who calls himself the guard of the flowers suddenly appears and tells the priest not to pick the ominameshi. The two engage in a debate as to whether picking ominameshi is appropriate or not, each supporting their argument by referring to waka and Chinese poems related to picking flowers and to this plant. Satisfied by the priest’s response in the debate, the old man permits picking one ominameshi.
The old man then guides the priest through the shrine precincts of Iwashimizu Hachimangū. When the priest asks the old man about the relationship between Otokoyama and ominameshi, the old man guides the priest to two old tombs that are placed side-by-side and called Otoko-zuka (the Man’s Tomb”) and Onna-zuka (the Woman’s Tomb). The old man then disappears after hinting that he is the spirit of Ono no Yorikaze, a noble who lived centuries in the past.
Following a local (ai)’s suggestion, the priest recites a Sutra as a memorial service for Yorikaze and his wife. The ghosts of Yorikaze (nochi shite) and his wife (tsure) emerge, their appearances the same as when they were alive. The husband and wife thank the priest for the memorial service and explain to him how they had both committed suicide.
They then relate how they had gone to hell and suffered there, request another memorial service to allow them to be reborn in paradise, and disappear.
Highlights
This nō play is a theatrical adaptation of a legend associated with a phrase about the capacity of waka poetry in evoking or expressing nostalgia or longing written by Ki no Tsurayuki in the Kana Preface to the Kokin Wakashū. Various legends related to the content of the Kana Preface have existed, and the legend of Yorikaze and his wife remains in the Sanryūshō, an annotative text written in the Middle Ages.
A highlight of the first half of the play is the intellectual competition between the priest and the old man, in which they refer to waka and Chinese poems mentioning ominameshi.
One of the Seven Flowers of Autumn, ominammeshi is a pretty, delicate-looking plant with clusters of small flowers that bloom atop a thin stem. Ominameshi flowers have often been treated as a symbol for young women in classical Japanese literature due to this delicate, pretty appearance as well as the fact that the Japanese name for the plant starts with the sound “omina,” an archaic form of a word meaning “woman.” In fact, the poems about ominameshi flowers referred to in the exchange between the priest and the old man involve themes such as the swearing of lifelong love between man and woman, and some delicate sentiments such as in a poem saying: “Since you picked me out of naught but interest in my name, do not say that I have fallen.” In addition, ominameshi flowers have been poetic symbols of the ephemerality of youth. Such is the case in a poem by Henjō describing the short-lived beauty of ominameshi flowers blooming in fields in autumn.
A highlight of the second half of the play is the scene where Yorikaze, describing his suffering in hell, reenacts how he tries to climb up a mountain of swords and is stabbed by the swords, his body crushed on the rocks.
Around the end of the play, a superimposition of motifs between ominameshi and the paradisiacal lotus takes place in verse, conveying a sense that the ominameshi flowers, which originally represented the misunderstanding between Yorikaze and his wife, ultimately contributed to the couple’s rebirth in paradise.