Sekidera Komachi

関寺小町 Komachi at Sekidera

1 Source and/or Related Material

Kokin wakashū jo kikigaki sanryū shō, Tamatsukuri Komachi sōsuisho, etc

2 Author

Unknown

3 Repertoire

Kanze, Hōshō, Komparu, Kongō, Kita

4 Synopsis

It is the seventh day of the Seventh Month, the day of the Tanabata festival. A monk (waki) from the temple of Sekidera in Ōmi Province (Shiga) goes with his disciples (wakitsure) and a page boy (kokata) to visit an old woman (shite) living in a hut in the mountains, hoping to ask her about the way of waka poetry. She obliges, and when the monk mentions a poem by Ono no Komachi, the old woman reveals that she herself is Komachi, living on in poverty to an impossibly old age. Komachi recalls the glamorous life that she once lived as a beautiful and talented court lady, poet, and lover. Now, however, she lives only for poetry, and she composes a poem to that effect on a strip of paper. The monk invites her to that night’s Tanabata festivities. Watching the page boy dance, she cannot resist getting up and dancing on her cane. At dawn, Komachi leaves the temple to return to her hut.