Izutsu – The Well Stone by Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443)

English Version by Richard Gofton with Akemi Horie

http://www.ahorie.net/izutsu.pdf

A monk is on a pilgrimage and is traveling to all of the holy places in the province. On his way,
he accidentally stumbles upon an abandoned temple with an ancient well.

He recognizes the location as the home of the “Woman of the Well” who “sang verses, waiting
for her absent husband” He says a prayer for them.

The “Ghost” of the woman comes to the well and explains that she comes to it each morning.
She is waiting to be lead to heaven. She says she “lives as in a dream”. The monk sees her and
asks her what she is doing. She remarks how impossible it is for her to have a connection to a
man who lived so long ago.

She tells the monk how Ariwara loved Aritsune’s daughter, but he fell in love with another
woman in a different province. It was dangerous to travel there, but he would make the
journey.

While he was gone, Aritsune’s daughter would pray for his safe return, even though he was
cheating. Ariwara was moved by her devotion and finally stopped cheating.

The chorus tells how the couple fell in love—by comparing each other’s heights while standing
at the well before the grew older and got separated before reuniting and remarrying. They got
married at the well.

The woman reveals to the monk that she is actually the Woman of the Well.

The kyogen interlude is about a man who comes to the well each morning and steals the
flowers that the woman leaves there. The monk catches him and chases him away.

The woman reenters wearing men’s clothing. It is her dead husbands clothing. A man enters
and says the husband’s lines at the same time as the woman.

“Seen – and seeing,

Wrapped in his robe
And wearing his kanmuri,
She does not seem a woman,
But a man –
The image of Narihira”
She looks at her reflection in the well, and sees not herself but her husband before the image
disappears.

TIME

- The non-linear way that memory can reinvent time.

- The history of the couple’s relationship is not told in chronological order, but rather the
story of their relationship jumps around.

GENDER
- The woman’s name is never revealed, she is simply referred to by female titles, “wife”,
“daughter” or “woman”
- The blending of her masculine and feminine identity at the end is presented as a thing of
beauty and magic.
- The idea of gender as something other than linked to sex—as indicated by her
“becoming” a man by wearing the man’s clothes.
- The idea of gender not as a binary—she wears her kimono and her husband’s military
gear at the same time.
- Like a major “torch song” moment of a play.

Similarities to ATSUMORI
- An exploration of a surreal dreamlike world
- Exploring death, and grieving
- One character is revealed to actually be another
- The presence of a Kyogen interlude
- Poetic Text

Differences
- This translation is much more literal, and all of the poetry matches the action more
clearly
-