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After the old woman vanishes into thin air, a local man from Sarashina appears and recounts in detail the legend of the abandoned woman to the man from Kyoto. He suggests that the man stay there overnight. Eventually night falls, and the moon shines brightly in the crisp, clear sky. While the man from Kyoto is enjoying the view of the moon, the ghost of the old woman in white robes appears. She lauds the beauty of the moon in this place and narrates a Buddhist story associated with the moon. While she pines for bygone days and performs a dance, day starts to break. The man leaves the mountain and the old woman, having seen him off, is left alone again, just as in olden times when she was abandoned to die on the mountain.
The composition of Obasute is believed to be have been inspired by a poem in Kokin Wakashū (Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times), “Nothing can ease my saddened heart, here in Sarashina, when I look up the moon shining over Mount Obasute,” as well as the legend of the abandoned old woman that has been passed down in the Sarashina region in Shinano Province. The legend of abandoning an old woman appears in ancient story books, such as Yamato Monogatari (Tales of Yamato), Konjaku Monogatari (Anthology of Tales from the Past), and Toshiyori Zuinō (The Poetic Genius of Toshiyori). In Yamato Monogatari and Konjaku Monogatari, a man who was pressured by his wife abandons his aged aunt, whom he looked up to as his mother, in the mountains. However, he regrets his action, returns to takes her back with him, and writes a poem about it. Toshiyori Zuinō includes a story of an elderly woman, who had adopted her niece, being abandoned in the mountains and composing a poem there. It is not clear in this story whether the niece ends up taking the old woman back home with her. In this Noh play, the old woman writes a poem about her feeling and passes away on the mountain. Although Ai Kyōgen relates the tragic legend of how the old woman was abandoned to die, that story serves merely as the backdrop of this play. The highlight of this piece comes in the second half of the drama: the unworldly night scene created by the pure, calm solitude of the mysterious old woman, appearing like a nymph of the moon on the mountain illuminated by the bright light of the harvest moon. Lengthy explanations are probably unnecessary to enjoy this esoteric piece of drama, which only an extremely limited number of actors are allowed to perform. We hope you immerse yourself in the world of Obasute and enjoy the best of best performances. STORY PAPER : Obasute (The Abandoned Old Woman)Story Paper presents noh chant stories in modern speech, with story outlines, highlights and more using Adobe PDF format, which can print out and zoom in. Print out the pages and take them with you when you see the actual noh performance.
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