Kiyotsune

清経 The Nobleman Kiyotsune

1 Source and/or Related Material

The Tale of the Heike 7

2 Author

Zeami

3 Repertoire

Kanze, Hōshō, Komparu, Kongō, Kita

4 Synopsis

After the Heike warrior Kiyotsune drowns himself in the bay of Yanagi-ga-Ura in Buzen Province (Kyūshū), Awazu no Saburō (waki), his retainer, travels to Kyoto to give Kiyotsune’s wife (tsure) a lock of his hair as a keepsake. She is shocked and anguished to learn of Kiyotsune’s fate. Saying that to see his hair makes her sadness grow even deeper, she sends it back to be enshrined at Usa Hachimangū Shrine in Kyūshū. That night, after she cries herself to sleep, Kiyotsune’s spirit (shite) appears to her in a dream. His wife is overjoyed to see him, but she chastises him for committing suicide. He expresses resentment in turn that she refused his hair memento, then tells of his death. Driven from the capital by the Genji, the Heike fled to Kyūshū, and, fearing the Genji warriors, confined themselves to their ships. One day at dawn, realizing the impermanence of this world, Kiyotsune stood at the ship’s prow, where he played a flute and chanted an imayō song and poem, and then, reciting the Nembutsu, he cast himself into the sea. Kiyotsune then describes the torments of the warrior hell into which he has fallen. However, thanks to his invocation of the Buddha’s name in his final moment, he attains salvation.