Higaki

檜垣 Japanese Fence

1 Source and/or Related Material

Later Collection of Japanese Poems 1219

2 Author

Zeami

3 Repertoire

Kanze, Hōshō, Komparu, Kongō, Kita

4 Synopsis

A monk (waki) is practicing austerities at the temple of Kannon at Iwato in Higo Province (modern Kumamoto). He sees a woman (shite) who seems a hundred years old, coming every day to make an offering of water. The monk asks the old woman her name, and she answers that she is the Shirabyōshi dancer named Higaki who wrote a poem about aging which appears in the Goshenshū collection. She asks the ascetic to perform memorial services for her by the shore of the river Shirakawa which she mentions in her poem, and then she disappears. A villager (ai) comes to pray at the temple and tells the monk the story of Higaki, then suggests he hold the memorial service she asked for. The monk goes to the river Shirakawa, and as the sun sets, firelight appears from the windows of a hut, and an old female voice echoes through the fog, singing about the impermanence of the world. The monk asks the woman to show herself, and Higaki appears, expressing shame at her aged appearance. She shows how she draws water to offer to Kannon even as a ghost and performs a shirabyōshi dance as a certain nobleman once requested her to do. She asks again for the consolation of her soul and vanishes.