Yoshino Tennnin

吉野天人 The Heavenly Being at Yoshino

1 Source and/or Related Material

Kanze Motomasa’s defunct noh Yoshinogoto “The Zither at Yoshino”

2 Author

Kanze Nobumitsu

3 Repertoire

Kanze

4 Synopsis

A man from the capital (waki) and his friends (tsure) visit Mt. Yoshino (Nara) to view the cherry blossoms, and they meet a woman (shite) who displays a strangely high degree of cultural knowledge about the flowers. They ask her who she is, and she reveals that she is a heavenly maiden from the heavenly realm, and if they wait faithfully she will show them the Gosechi festival dance, then she vanishes. A lesser God of Mt. Yoshino (ai) appears and retells the story in plain speech. WJust then, otherworldly music and strange perfumes waft in from heaven to announce the arrival of the heavenly maiden in her true form (nochishite). She performs the dance associated with the Gosechi Festival, then ascends to the heavens on a cloud.