Mutsuo Takahashi's <i>Shinsaku‐noh Samuson:</i> The Japanese Text, an English Translation, and Introduction

When Tokyo was chosen as the venue for the Tenth International Milton Symposium (IMS10), as the Symposium organizer I thought it a great opportunity to introduce Japanese culture to the Conference's overseas participants and at the same time to attempt a cultural fusion between the East and the West. As a noh enthusiast, I long believed a noh dramatization of Samson Agonistes could be possible because Milton composed his poem mindful of the style of Greek tragedy which shares several features common to noh. A noh performance of Samson Agonistes thus became one of two central cultural events that would be featured during the week-long Symposium.1 Supporting my idea, the IMS10 organizing committee subsequently commissioned the distinguished poet Mutsuo Takahashi (1937- ) to adapt Samson Agonistes to a noh play and his Shinsaku-noh Samuson / 新作能 散尊 [New Noh Samson] premiered at the National Noh Theatre in Tokyo on 21 August 2012.2 Not only a modern poet but also a writer of noh, kyogen [interlude comedy], and opera, Takahashi had experience staging new noh plays, including Shinsaku-noh Taka-no-i / 新作能 鷹井 [New Noh Hawk's Well] (1990), which was based on W. B. Yeats's one-act play At the Hawk's Well inspired by Japanese noh drama.3 Understanding the significance of his new work being featured during the first IMS taking place outside of Western Europe and North America, Takahashi discussed his intention in notes attached to the originally published version, at a roundtable discussion for the performance booklet, and also in his pre-performance talk.4 The performance, open to public as well as to the participants in the Symposium, had an unusually large audience for a new noh. The seating capacity of the National Noh Theatre (672 seats) approached a sellout. Japanese audiences have long been familiar with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English plays since the nineteenth century. Robun Kanagaki (1829–94), a playwright and journalist, is credited with the first translation of a work of English Literature (Shakespeare's Hamlet) in 1875 which he published as a newspaper serial. In 1886 he translated Hamlet again, but this time in the style of jōruri [a dramatic narrative] used in bunraku [puppetry] and kabuki [drama with music and dance]. He Japanized the characters’ names through association with the original sound. Thus Hamlet was adapted as葉武烈土倭錦絵 [Hamlet: A Japanese Painting]. In 1884 Shōyo Tsubouchi (1859–1935), a playwright and novelist, took the same approach toward domestication as Kanagaki in his first translation of Julius Caesar into a Japanese dramatic narrative style entitled自由太刀餘波鋭鋒 [Sword of Freedom: Its Last Sharpness]. The popularity of entertainments such as jōruri and kabuki likely accounts for why those translated works by Kanagaki and Tsubouchi in the Japanese style were readily accepted and why they have continued. Akira Kurosawa (1910–98) directed his accomplished films of Macbeth and King Lear using dramatic practices from the Japanese Warring State Period. Yukio Ninagawa (1935–2016) has produced numerous Shakespeare plays and ancient Greek drama also in the Japanese style (Sano 460-61). Milton's Samson Agonistes performed as a Japanese noh play extends this literary practice. As Gordon Campbell observes, “For Japanese members of the audience, the performance afforded an insight into a seventeenth-century English play; for foreigners in the audience, the play offered a point of familiar access to the richness of Japanese culture” (497). In terms of popular culture, Eric C. Brown notes that “Sano urges various ways to popularize Milton,” a vision “partly realized at the 2012 International Milton Symposium in Tokyo when Samson Agonistes was in fact adapted as a Noh play by Mutsuo Takahashi” (10, 337). Why and how were the style of Greek tragedy, Milton's English dramatic poem, and traditional Japanese noh dramaturgy combined in Shinsaku-noh Samuson? In his prefatory material to the first edition of Samson Agonistes (1671), Milton calls attention to Aristotle's definition of tragedy and to the theory of tragic catharsis.5 In his own preface “Of that sort of dramatic poem which is called tragedy,” he suggests his models are the three Greek tragic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Calling his work unconventional—a “dramatic poem” never intended for the stage—Milton suggests Samson Agonistes is static rather than dynamic, presenting, as in Greek drama, its large-scale action of the destruction of the temple of Dagon indirectly through the reporting of the messenger. His servants he [God] with new acquist Of true experience from this great event With peace and consolation hath dismissed, And calm of mind all passion spent. (1755–58) Milton shifts his focus from Samson's heroic exploits told in the biblical Book of Judges to his internal agony on the last day of his life, which gives the poem its title: Samson Agonistes. Throughout the poem, Samson reflects on himself, in contrast to the sparse biblical text. Further, Milton adds the visits by the Danite Chorus and the three characters who visit him in prison and with whom he engages in tense dialogue. Milton also makes a change to the biblical scene in which Samson pulls down the pillars of the temple or the arena. The passage in Judges reads, “Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judg. 16. 28), whereas the messenger of Samson Agonistes reports that Samson “as one who prayed, / Or some great matter in his mind revolved” (1637–38). It is a crucial question whether Milton justifies Samson's last act or not. Samson Agonistes has provoked various interpretations because of its complicated and enigmatic text, and these have continued to increase in the twenty-first century after the 11 September 2001 event in New York. The uncertainty and the ambiguity of this work demonstrate its multilayered and multicultural potential.6 Milton's text is certainly multivalent, deeply related to history, politics, religion, gender, and other cultural and social concerns. Like his own riddle, Samson's last act is hard to interpret. How Samson endures trials proves more important than how many enemies he killed and what kinds of exploits he achieved. Milton's Samson appears as a man of patience and will and as a man heroically struggling, precisely, “agonistes.” All these features evoke associations with Japanese noh. 能 [Noh / Nō], meaning “skill,” is a type of drama dating back to the mid-fourteenth century.7 In noh plays, there are only a few personae, mainly shite [the protagonist], waki [the deuteragonist or character second in importance], and tsure [the tritagonist or character third in importance] who is an attendant of the shite or the waki. These characters appear on the apron stage with little props. The Chorus of eight singers sits in two rows off to the right side of the stage. Four players on fué [the flute], ko-tsuzumi [the hand-drum], oh-tsuzumi /ohkawa [the big-drum], and taiko [the stick-drum] sit at the back of the stage. The Chorus narrates and at times takes over and speaks some of the lines of characters. The Chorus of noh sings both recitative and aria, whereas the Chorus of Greek drama clearly keeps its own position, sometimes sympathizing with and sometimes reacting against the protagonist. Thus noh and Greek drama share some approaches to the use of a chorus, songs, stately dances, and masks. Despite such resemblances, however, are essential differences. Apart from the genzai-noh [“actual noh”: plays of contemporary characters], most noh plays take the form of the mugen-noh [“dream noh”: plays of the dream-like state]. What takes place on the noh stage is in the waki's dream. In the first half of the play, the protagonist, or precisely called mae-jite [the former shite], appears as a ghost in the disguise of a local person before the waki, who is traditionally an itinerant priest. The shite is often accompanied by an attendant called shite-tsure. The shite visits this world in the present from a world in the past, symbolized by hashi-gakari [a bridge-like passageway leading to the left of the apron stage]. The waki asks the stranger who he is and why he has appeared. The protagonist's ghost appears because his soul is still in agony after death due to his guilt in his lifetime. He implores the priest to soothe his agony and calm his soul, and then disappears. In the second half of the play, the protagonist, or more precisely the nochi-jite [the later shite], appears again before the waki in the costume of his lifetime. He represents what happened to him during his lifetime by reciting and dancing. The waki continues to pray for the shite. Being satisfied, even though not completely saved, the shite goes back to that world. Most of these plays are usually called complex mugen-noh consisting of two parts, and classified as the second category of warrior plays called shura-mono/shura-noh. Shura means “a still resentful ghost.” They are plays featuring defeated warriors undergoing after-death sufferings eternally and begging priests for prayers to soothe their souls.8 The waki, although a supporting character as the deuteragonist, has a significant role in the mugen-noh. The shite as the ghost speaks to the waki and tells his story in retrospect. The waki not wearing a mask is usually a contemporary of the audience when the play was written but not a contemporary of the shite. This persona of the waki is peculiar to noh. He is an intermediary between the protagonist and the audience. He functions also as a surrogate for the audience. The ghost of the protagonist enters the dreamworld of the deuteragonist, and, through the waki, enters the subconscious of the audience. In this way, human feelings, not particular but universal, are shared among the actors and the audience. Moreover, the waki functions as a spokesperson for the author of a noh play. Innovatively, Takahashi chose Milton for the waki of his Shinsaku-noh Samuson. As Takahashi explains, the presence of waki is one of the most conspicuous differences between noh drama and Greek tragedy. Greek drama insists upon the three unities: a single day, place, and plot. Conversely, the noh play is free from them. The waki is an intermediary between the past and the present, that world and this world. By his presence, the time and the place of the noh play are not strictly limited. Rather, its structure may be understood outside of the limits of time and place. The plot of Shinsaku-noh Samuson, nonetheless, is notably unified and takes place during the Restoration. The audience encounters Milton bemoaning his misfortune in his study in London. Sensing someone approaching him at midnight, he is determined to speak to him. Eventually a blind old man accompanied by an old woman visits Milton at midnight. He tells the blind poet to listen to his story: he was once a judge of his nation that was occupied by a foreign nation. He overcame a lot of enemies with his prodigious strength. But he was caught by enemies, who put out his eyes and imprisoned him. When he was brought out to the court for their festival, he destroyed the temple and killed all the spectators and himself. He says that he is still suffering from such a sin and, in order to solace and soothe his agony, asks the poet to record his story in a poem. He then disappears. In the Interlude, which is usually takes place between the first part and the second part of the complex mugen-noh play, Milton's daughter in the role of ai [interlude] reads Judges 16 at the request of her father. Thus the ai assures the waki of the identity of the shite and helps the audience to understand the entire plot. In the second part of the play, Samson and Delilah make an appearance in the costumes of their youth and state their names. The couple tell their story. Samson resents being deceived by Delilah and asks her why she is persuading him to praise his enemy's god at the festivity. Delilah explains that she wants to live together happily under an amnesty. Samson, in a love-hate relationship with Delilah, tells her to lead him to the court. After making a show of himself before the spectators, he tells her to let him lean on the main pillars of the temple. He prays to his God for his innate power, then pulls down the pillars and destroys the temple. Screams of the crowd including the couple remain over two thousand years. Samson is still grinding on a karmic millstone even after death, and so he asks Milton to record their story in his elaborate words and, by doing so, to soothe their agony. Thus Milton came to write a poem Samson Agonistes as a requiem.9 The noh play is usually a requiem for the dead whoever they may be. Noh intends to calm the souls of all the dead, who are obsessed with mortal life and in agony in the afterlife. This concept is based on Buddhism. On the noh stage, the real persons in history, who would never have met each other in their lifetime, meet after death. The enemies and allies, the conqueror and the conquered, the winner and the defeated share fundamental human feelings: sadness, remorse, agony, and a desire for salvation. These feelings are not only the ghost's, but also within the heart of all humankind. In a structural analysis of Shinsake-noh Samuson, Makiko Shikimachi out that the first appearance of an and an gives as in to the first category of god As as the old man tells the story of his life, however, the play to the second category of warrior Shikimachi that Samson as a chosen and person the of god plays and that Samson, as a with his power, the of warrior plays It is that Samson and Delilah appear in the plot before The couple over from ancient to seventeenth-century time and place. This great in time and place is however, in terms of the structure of noh drama, as Takahashi explains in to the role of waki. With a of the of the Book of Judges and Samson as well as noh he his Samson story in the of noh, precisely, in the category of warrior plays in the style of complex mugen-noh. is but Moreover, destroyed so it appears But by of continued and continues over two thousand years. destroyed but my I on the used millstone human of and still grinding the millstone of story of agony record in elaborate and my Samson Agonistes were intended to Samson's last I as a writer of Shinsaku-noh Samuson would to Milton's “as a noh is not be more the shite himself that his during his life him even after his death. It is noh not a noh that to Milton on such an Samson the shite and Delilah the by their names to the human to and to that is the of the of the shite who to the past and the other world in the present tense through his agony. Milton the waki, a person who in the also in the present tense by to Samson the shite. the audience remain in the present those who this in the Japanese dramaturgy be to a of of Samson Agonistes. Shinsaku-noh Samuson a fusion of and of Samson in ancient Milton in seventeenth-century the original audience in modern and all of this of Milton to Noh is a of requiem for all the dead, including the of and of or Shinsaku-noh Samuson, which Takahashi has adapted in such a Japanese on the of Milton's work in of a multicultural world and is a of of Milton's dramatic poem. This is based on and from my at IMS10 on 21 August I would to take this opportunity to my to Mutsuo Takahashi and all those who were in the noh The Japanese in this of Milton is the most of the based on the originally published the in the performance and the performed with several August The written the Japanese are based on the Japanese is composed of a of and which is the most and popular in by Mutsuo Takahashi Samson Agonistes and Judges from the by not used to from not used to from I the when I had my not used to from not used to from I the when I had my The of to the Lord The was The Lord under a of After he the and his he himself to the His an he took to his with a and all of How and is human had he when the world By order of the new his was his was his was he the of was and as a of the Lord though to on the was from by of of both my and I was among the common these there is someone this from my the time when I in He is to have but not have I to so after he again who he is I determined to him. In the I someone the and on the that he has I my and for him of taking of of taking of over two thousand What are who make Why into this in The old man as blind as and the old woman taking his what visit this with I came to tell my story. not but I to speak I speak my story. I used to the of a which the enemies of a foreign and occupied long since with my innate I often those their deceived and caught me, put out my and on a millstone with Eventually they brought to the court of their to make of as an I came to my and killed all the there and is but Moreover, destroyed so it appears But by of continued and continues over two thousand years. destroyed but my I on the used millstone human of and still grinding the millstone of story of agony record in elaborate and my has the blind old man accompanied with the old who has also How who have been and with me, the old man and the old with the of my me, this blind my blind in life, I be in the of the I off who have been and with me, the old man and the old have to although I what appears to my eyes is only and so have been and but they have never my It is that the and the the couple of some the of Judges in the for At I take and through the of Judges in the it came to that Samson a woman in the of was And the of the Philistines came unto and unto and his great and by what means may against that may him to him and will one of of And Delilah to Samson, me, I pray thee, great and be to she unto Samson, How I thee, when heart is not with these three and not told great And it came to when she him with her and so that his soul was unto he told her all his and unto hath not a upon for I have been a unto God from my I be then my will from me, and I and be other she him upon her and she called for a and she him to off the of his and she to and his from him. The Philistines took and put out his and brought him down to and him with of and he in the prison the of his to again after he was What a are again, by the the of are the old man and the old woman who as by God and the and in the prison I grinding on a karmic to to This day is a to the God of to the on this and a and from so out to the court of With is and with eyes are put unto As a from the prison to live happily with woman this who deceived put out my a single day, but could live happily with I taking had me, Why have my I still have a I to the court of the told to take and lead How and I The man is by the the woman takes his are they on the court of the The the court is by in each of which is with the have a at the blind and of have The is with his eyes put that blind at and each the crowd out he two all the pillars upon of The crowd in a in agony and with The world to to an In that are his own and the of the woman he and which and last over two thousand years. not and but and in for and In the and are my own and the whom I and All together to let an and at soothe agony even The is into a The two have in the first of the they have their