Koi no omoni

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Scene from the drama

Koi no omoni ( Japanese 戀 重 荷 ), The burden of love , is the title of a Nō drama by Zeami . The piece is a fourth game within the Nō category.

Preliminary remark

The piece is set in the time of Emperor Shirakawa (1053–1129) in early autumn in the palace garden.

The following people occur:

  • Waki: An officer
  • Tsure: Nogyo (女 御), a lady-in-waiting
  • Ai: Servant
  • Shite I: gardener
  • Shite II: the gardener's spirit

action

  1. act
    1. Foreplay. A heavy package is brought in. Nyogo takes a seat. The court official appears with an attribution flute. He explains that he has heard that the gardener, the chrysanthemum warden (菊 守, Kikumori), is in love with a lady-in-waiting, which is not his due. He orders the servant to call the gardener.
    2. The gardener appears called by the servant. The court official tells him that the lady said that if he could pick up the bale and carry it a hundred or a thousand times around the garden, she would show herself to him. Choir.
    3. The gardener tries to pick up the bale, is desperate about the heavy burden and dies of unattainable love. - interlude.
  2. act
    1. Official: “How terrible is love, there is no separation between high and low. The gardener could not bear the burden, he breathed his life in lamentation and resentment. ”(He turns to the lady on the backstage. He tells her what happened and brings her to the front.) The lady in waiting speaks that she regrets how loveless she had been. (She wants to get up, but she can't.)
    2. The spirit of the departed appears with an angry expression. Exchange speech by spirit and chorus. (Gradually the demon's anger subsides. The lady rises as if freed from a heavy burden.) Final chorus.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Woodcut by Tsukioka Kōgyo (月 岡 耕 漁; 1869–1924).
  2. ↑ Since the time of the emperor Kammu (737-806) the title of the emperor's second wife. She was usually the daughter of a minister and was in second place at court after the empress.

literature

  • Peter Weber-Schäfer: The burden of love . In: Twenty-four Nō games. Insel Verlag, 1961. ISBN 3-458-15298-X . Pp. 336 to 338.
  • Hermann Bohner: Koi-no-omoni In: Nō. The individual Nō. German Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia, Tōkyō 1956. Commission publisher Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden. Pp. 138 to 141.