With thundering voice, which shook trees and rivers, even the mountains, and which echoed through the heavens and reached to the deepest earth, TAMURAMARU then spoke thus: "You, fiends, hear what I say. In older times there was once a rebel called Chikata, and the heavenly punishment descended upon him and the fiends who served him, and they were at once defeated."
The CHORUS then describes how the fiends came on in battle, raising thick clouds and pouring down iron-fire, and by their magic art creating thousands of armed men. They looked like the sea of Isé, or the forest of Ano, so mighty were they and so numerous!
TAMURAMARU breaks in: "There behold, how astonishing!" and the CHORUS goes on to explain that over his own army the light of the thousand-handed Kannon appeared, flying in space, with a bow of mercy and arrows of wisdom in each of her thousand hands, so that the arrows poured down like rain and hail over the enemy till all were struck and not one was left alive. Hence it was by Kannon's power that the victory was gained, and to her should be rendered eternal gratitude.
The play, which was written essentially in praise of the virtues and powers of Kannon, is attributed to Motokiyo, the author of Kagekiyo (see p. 53).
[47] Or Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, one of the principal deities in the popular religion of Japan to-day.
[49] The reign of Emperor Heize = 806-809 A.D.
The play is attributed to _Motomasa_, who was a grandchild of the famous Kiyotsugu (see p. 7) and who died in 1459. The exact date of its composition is uncertain, but it was most likely within the first half of the fifteenth century.
A little child, the only son of his widowed mother (and owing to the laws regarding the continuation of families in Japan that means much more there than it does in Europe), was kidnapped from his home. The play opens a year after this had happened, and we meet the mother hurrying toward the Sumida river, which she crosses in the ferry. She has had a long journey from the City Royal (Kioto) in her search for the child. While she is in the ferry, the ferryman tells the passengers of a festival to be held in the place that evening in memory of a little lad who died on the road just a year ago. The mother questions him, and learns that it is _her_ child for whom the villagers are about to meet in prayer. The ferryman prevails on her to join in the prayers, and for a moment the ghost of the little one appears and speaks with her.