AustLit

The Robe of Yama

by

Kester Berwick

(1932)

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CHARACTERS

YAMA

THE OLD PRIEST

THE YOUNG PRIEST

THE FISHERMAN

The theatre is slowly darkened, and, at the same time, there wells up, as if approaching from a great distance, music that is subjective in tonality and angular in rhythm. As it concluded, the Old Priest, holding a burning taper, comes through the draw-curtains and lights the No candle on the extreme left-front. Then he extinguishes the taper with a breath that is little more than a sigh from crinkled lips.

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Prologue by the Old Priest

Yes; I avowed the holy robe.

I girt myself in yellow;

but the fabric is stained with the highroad's dust,

is frayed with the wind, and rain.

To him who wonders why,

say I come from Kryosumi and pursue a pilgrim's way.

And tell him, too,

that across the peaks and over the seas,

where such as I must journey,

there flourish with many names and forms

fantastic cults and strange beliefs

with customs equally curious.

Now some, who ignore the Law of Life,

take boats and flaring torches,

and on the streams of moonless nights,

urge cormorants to slaughter.

They bind the throats of those greedy birds

so that they surrender

the hapless prey of their dripping beaks

to fill the fisher's basket.

But opposed to this are the many who say

that everything created,

the worm under its stone,

the moss on the stone,

and the stone itself

belong to the Robe of Yama;

and that those who flaunt this sacred truth,

yet seek their soul's salvation,

must realise the wrong they did

by an endless miming in a ghost-life after

of the sinful drama of earthly days.

Also, the Books they teach us

that he, who would arrive most quickly

at the knowledge of Yama's garment,

has for his goal the defining of themes

half-sensed in the timeless weaving—

who winds his shuttle with a thread he has dyed

in the changing forms about him.

If this be you,

then come with me to Old Japan,

and through the door of an ancient play,

enter the life you find there.

The rhythmic miming,

the pattern of movement,

the throb of the gong

and the candle flame

reflect the soul of an elegant race,

living its larger drama.

(He relights the taper from the burning candle and crosses to light the other No candle at the extreme right-front. Then, while making a slow exit through the draw-curtains, he says—

And if in the Fisherman's story,

there is something that pertains to you,

realise it as did the Fisherman,

and unburdened go your way.

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End of Prologue. The Old Priest exits the same way as he came, and, unseen by the audience, rejoins the Young Priest, who by this time is waiting for him at the back of the auditorium.

With ominous suddenness, there is one welling throb from Yama's gong. The curtains rise on a cavernous blackness that is not penetrated by the candle flames.

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Yama:  (The voice insinuating through the darkness.) When the fisher’s torch is quenched——

The Young Priest:  (Leading as he "rows" enthusiastically through the auditorium. Both priests are using their staffs as oars.) On the foam of white waves from Kryosumi we come 

The Old Priest:  (In meditative contrast) with bamboo staffs and robes of saffron. Two pilgrim priests on the foam of white waves.

The Young Priest:  From distant Kryosumi we come.

(A great flood of amber sunlight commences to break over the fore-stage. The two priests melt into it as they draw near.)

The Old Priest:  (On reaching the stage.) And panting on the winding road, we climb the hill of Kamakura.

The Young Priest:  (Softly exultant.) Climb the hill of Kamakura!

(The old priest droops with exhaustion, and leaning on his staff contemplates the world beneath. The younger sits down, and after a moment his head falls forward in sleep.)

The Old Priest:  Because the world is no longer ours,

and this yellow sadly faded,

with naught of shame we rest our limbs

on proffered pallet or bracken bed,

until that hour when Yama’s gong

proclaims the supreme farewell.

(Pause)

The Young Priest:  (Starting up and resuming the journey.)

Away, away!

See, dawn is on the hemp fields.

Now the noonday sun hangs high above,

and we cross the mounds of Tsuru.

(The amber sunlight, which is now at its height, commences to fade.)

The Old Priest:  There over the river

is the village of Isawa!

But here at this shrine,

we shall shelter for the night.

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In an attitude of meditative repose, they sit by the extreme right candle. The amber sunlight has now quite gone, and soon the moon will rise. In the cavernous darkness there is the faint gleam of Yama's third eye, as if an omnipotent presence were slowly materialising there.

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Yama:  (With slightly more intensity than before, and a sob from the gong.) When the fisher’s torch is quenched,

what lamp will be his guide——

The Fisher:  (Carrying his torch and glancing fearfully behind him as he wanders out of the blackness.)

Repentence stalks me through the darkness

and jibes with the words of Him who said,

"For Pity’s sake refrain from slaughter,

lest thou destroy the meanest thing

upon its upward way.”

And if the world had tasked me harshly,

I would be prone to go my way;

but cormorant fishing is a pleasant calling

to ply on summer's streams.

The Young Priest:  (Perceiving him in the distance.)

Hail there, and welcome!

And, if belated at the close of day,

then rest your honourable self with us.

Isawa, though quite near at hand,

is yet across the river.

We are friends, and fain would hear

what turn of the ever-turning wheel

ordained this shrine our tryst.

The Fisher:  (Starting back.)

I linger here before the full of the moon,

and rest my weary birds awhile.

At that charmed hour

the world's great lovers plight their vows,

and become the wedded stars of heaven;

and the poet's song and the sage's lore

merge in a welling ecstasy.

But I—

I hate the staring disk!

It dwarfs the torch flame to a glimmer,

and is a hindrance to good fishing.

The Old Priest:  (Roused to a sorrowful indignation.)

Woe to him who fishes with cormorants,

who binds their throats

and incites to slaughter!

Today he may flourish as the wild cherry tree;

but what of the reckoning' that awaits him after!

The Fisher: The truth you speak

is not unknown to me.

Yet, I would live,

and since a child have sent my boat

in pursuit of my carrion calling.

The Old Priest:  Man prays for mercy to his gods;

yet is a merciless god to the thing he slays.

Why take that life which none can give,

and which all creatures strive to keep?

Where pity is, it is a boon to all,

and killing ill becomes one

who stoops with the weight of hoary years—

who stoops with age as you do!

The Young Priest:  This fisher recalls a memory

of a journey this way some seasons gone.

I rested where this river plunges,

and met one strangely like him.

When I said,

"Thou shalt not kill,"

his face betrayed an awed attention,

and, leading me beneath his rafters,

he lavished an unusual care.

The Fisher: I know that fisher with cormorants.

That fisher with cormorants died!

The Young Priest? Died?

What was the manner of his passing?

The Fisher:  (After seating himself on the ground and putting down his torch.)

On this river of Isawa,

for three leagues up and down

the slaying of all creatures is forbidden;

but at that place you spoke of —

where this river plunges —

some met secretly to loose their birds.

On learning of great catches,

the villagers of near Isawa

planned in pious wrath a snare —

a snare that sped that fisher’s soul

along its shadow-way.

When they leaped upon him, crying,

"Kill him! Kill him!

One life will save the many!"

he wildly pressed his hands together,

protesting that he knew not

of the ban on fishing there.

But none would listen to his wailing,

and with thin stakes he was impaled

beneath the chuckling water. . .

I am the wraith

of that drear fisherman.

The Young Priest:  Oh, strange!

If this be so, if this be true,

then mime before us your repentance.

Yama:  (Striking again, and a little more materialised.)

When the fisher’s torch is quenched.

what lamp will be his guide

across the depthless waters

stretching dark before?

(The two priests and the Fisher look about with a vague uneasiness.)

The Old Priest:  Mime before us your repentance

that we with greater understanding

may plead your cause on high.

The Fisher: What else but mime the sin that binds,

since in the binding is the miming!

Yes; plead my cause on high.

The Old Priest:  (Composing himself for meditation.)

We listen,

and we wing our prayers.

---

But the young priest does not pray. He is drawn into the vortex of the Fisher’s dance-mine, and becomes a part of its onrushing intensity.

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The Fisher:  He waves the torch besmeared with gum.

The Young Priest:  (Swept into it, and with a crescendo of excitement.)

He girts his coarse-spun skirt.

The Fisher: (The crescendo being maintained.)

Then the basket is opened,

The Young Priest:  and those wild sea-birds

The Fisher:  over the waves are suddenly loosened!

Oh, see them distinctly in the lurid torch flare!

They dart

here and there,

and swiftly pounce those piercing beaks.

Plunging and swooning

they seize their prey.

The Old Priest:  (Denouncing this and bringing them back to the realisation of who and what they are.)

In the joy of capture

all sin is forgotten,

and likewise the retribution

in the life hereafter.

---

For a moment, the Fisher and the Young Priest are appalled; but then plunge back into the mime with more intensity than ever.

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The Fisher: Oh, if these waters were but still

the carp would rise

as thick as gold-fish in a bowl.

There! Now the ayas play in the shallows.

Hem them in. Quick!

Give no respite.

(Sudden drop in tension.)

But—but the flame grows dim,

though the gum still flares. . .

Now I remember, and am sad.

It is the cursed moon that comes,

and, since she spoils the torch-light fishing,

I can but go my way.

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The moon is streaming down in a broad diagonal shaft of light that shines fully on the Fisher. He wanders off into the darkness from which he came. The Young Priest, trying to understand what has happened, stands on the left with his back to the auditorium, and pears wistfully after the departing Fisher.

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The Young Priest:  Where began the mime,

and where did it finish?

Surely, he has gone his way.

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Pause. The Old Priest gradually becomes aware that the mime has ceased. He glances about to ascertain if the Fisher has really gone, and then gathers himself to impregnate the stillness with an incantation.

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The Old Priest:  I dip my hand in the shallows.

I gather pebbles from the waves.

On each round stone I trace the Scriptures—

on each wet disk the Holy Law. . .

I cast them to the deeper water,

that their spumy spell

may raise from the depths

some soul that is sunken.

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Pause. Three crashes leap from Yama's gong. Yama has materialised so much more that there now beams from his central eye a glow of sufficient intensity to penetrate the darkness and reveal his form as a swathed shape, against which gleams the gong.

As he speaks, the two priests commence to comprehend this presence, and become transfixed—the younger with awe and fear, the older with ecstatic exultation.

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Yama:  I chime the hour for a soul's passing.

The spirits of the sin-laden

toil endlessly at bitter tasks,

till, in the realisation of action wrongly done,

sweet liberation comes.

With the urging of your prayers,

the cormorant fisher fulfilled the drama of his days.

That which bound him to his sin

is purged away.

His soul has risen from dark waters,

and follows the Lamp of Buddha's Ship

sailing towards the Timeless Goal.

The Young Priest:  (Flinging himself to the ground.)

Yama!

The Old Priest:  (Raising himself joyously and then falling prostrate.)

He who chimes the Hours!

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A triangular pattern is formed, having Yama as its apex, the two prostrate priests for the sides, and the length of the forestage as its base. By this time, it is noticed that the great spreading blackness of Yama’s robe sweeps down and covers the entire stage, and that all the time the action of the play has been moving over it. Little points of light, like stars, commence to twinkle on it as Yama continues speaking, and it seems as if the sky had poured down. In the far distance behind the shrine, there comes the first glow of dawn that transforms Yama into a brooding silhouette of towering proportions.

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Yama:  All that the eyes look upon

Is the mystery of growth and change,

sometimes called birth,

sometimes called death.

All that the eyes look upon is I—

Yama—

who am ever with you…

(Gong)

The Dew is on the Lotus!

(Gong)

The Sunrise comes!

(Curtain and pause.)

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Epilogue:—

The Old Priest emerges from the draw-curtains and goes softly and slowly to the candle right. Meditatively he extinguishes it. Then he does the same with the candle left. Every movement has to be filled with meaning, as if a sacred ritual were being completed. In the darkness that follows the extinguishing of the second candle, the Old Priest makes his exit through the curtains.

(House-lights.)

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