Atsumori

Today, I was awakened by myself singing a traditional song, Atsumori. :-D I was astonished by my self. "Atsumori" is a song about Taira Atsumori, a nobel samurai, who was killed by Kumagai Naozane, a samurai, when Atsumori was 16 years old, in 1184. Oda Nobunaga, a one of most famous warring lord, loved to sing and dance it.



The song's lyrics



「敦盛」(Atsumori)



人間五十年

下天の内をくらぶれば

夢まぼろしのごとくなり

一度生を得て

滅せぬ者のあるべきか



A man's life is only fifty years.

In the universe,

what is there but a lying dream,

Fleeting illusion.

Is there any born

Who ever does escape

from the deth?



According to wiki,



The Death of Atsumori as told in the Tales of the Heike

The legend, as told in The Tales of the Heike, goes as follows. The Heike were scattered by Yoshitsune's attack from the Ichi-no-Tani cliff. Kumagae no Jirō Naozane, while scanning the beach for fleeing soldiers, spotted the young Atsumori swimming towards the fleeing vessels. Kumagae beckons Atsumori with his fan, taunting Atsumori saying, "I see that you are a Commander-in-Chief. It is dishonorable to show your back to an enemy. Return!"(316, t. McCullough). The two grappled on the beach, but Kumagae was too powerful. Kumagae knocks off Atsumori's helmet to deliver the finishing blow, only to be struck by the beauty of the young noble. Atsumori was "sixteen or seventeen years old, with a lightly powdered face and blackened teeth--a boy just the age of Naozane's own son..."(317, t. McCullough).

Kumagae, wishing to spare the boy, asks for Atsumori's name, but the child refuses. Atsumori simply says that he is famous enough that Kumagae's superiors will recognize his head when it is time to assign rewards. At that moment, other Minamoto warriors arrived at the scene, and Kumagae knows that if he doesn't kill Atsumori, the other warriors surely will. Kumagae reasons that it is better if he is the one to kill Atsumori, because he can offer prayers on his behalf for the afterlife. Crying, Kumagae beheads the boy. Searching the body for something to wrap the head in, he came across a bag containing a flute. He realized that Atsumori must have been one of the soldiers playing music before the battle and thought, "There are tens of thousands of riders in our eastern armies, but I am sure none of them has brought a flute to the battlefield. Those court nobles are refined men!"(317, t. McCullough).

It is said that the beheading of Atsumori is what led Kumagae to take priestly vows and become a Buddhist monk.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taira_no_Atsumori





Well,



Kumagai Naozane became a student of Hōnen who was the founder of Japan's Pure-Land- Buddhism-Sect, Jyōdo(Pure-land)-shū(sect).



It is a photo of 白梅(white ume apricot) blooming at Suma where Atsumori and Kumagai battled. I used to go fishing to Suma.



Atsumori's story became an item of Noh, Jyohruri, Kabuki and so on.



Well, I want to write one more blog today but I have to do what I have do at first.