by Robert J. Baran
Originally published in the ABS Bonsai Journal,
Vol. 26, No. 2, Summer 1992, pp. 3-4, 23.
© 1992 American Bonsai Society, reprinted
by permission
| Many books and articles giving a brief overview of bonsai history have made passing mention to the Japanese play Hachi-no-ki (The Potted Trees). Perhaps a handful have even given a one or two line synopsis of the piece. This current article seeks to provide some indepth background and understanding of this work. | ||||||||||||||||
| The play is apparently based on a 1383 folktale, and that story tells of a supposed incident during the life of the historical Tokiyori Hojo (1226-1263). Tokiyori, at age twenty, succeeded his brother as regent or governor to the Minamoto-clan shogun, the supreme military general. While the shoguns ruled, they and not the hereditary emperors guided the island nation. Tokiyori held his post for ten years, consolidating the regent’s power until his health began failing. Although he continued in fact to rule, Tokiyori shaved his head and retired to a monastery. He then travelled incognito through the countryside in order to see for himself the needs of the people and abuses of the administration. His time in government was marked by a wise economy and a close interest in agriculture. | ||||||||||||||||
| The play itself is in two parts. In the first, a travelling monk, lost in the snow in the dead of winter, happens to come upon the meager residence of Tsuneyo Genzayemon. Formerly in Tokiyori’s employ, Tsuneyo once owned this land in the Sano area, but lost it through a relative’s deception. (If Tsuneyo was also a real person, his life’s story has been lost to history.) Tsuneyo and his wife, hesitant at first, offer what miserable accommodation they have to the traveller and share a poor peasants’ meal of a little boiled millet. To provide heat for this special occasion, but lacking any other fuel, the old man, with Buddhist resignation, decides to burn his only three dwarf potted trees. To the silently listening monk, Tsuneyo tells his story of suffering and poverty, and his long-held loyalty to the shogunate. | ||||||||||||||||
| In the second part of the play, which is set six months later, we find that the monk actually had been Tokiyori himself, travelling in disguise. Impressed with Tsuneyo’s kindness, and wanting to test his claims of loyalty, Tokiyori spreads a rumor from the capital city of Kamakura that war is imminent. An army of the finest and bravest soldiers assembles there to protect the shogun, in all their polished glory, on fattened steeds, with grooms beside them. Tsuneyo is there also, by himself, in worn-out armor, with rusty sword, and leading a slow, emaciated horse. Moved by the old man’s proven loyalty, Tokiyori rewards the impoverished samurai by restoring to him his former lands. In addition, three other pieces of land are deeded to him. The names of these include the words "Ume" (plum), "Sakura" (cherry), and "Matsu" (pine), in gratitude for Tsuneyo’s sacrificed trees. | ||||||||||||||||
| Hachi-no-ki has no definite authorship, but traditionally has been attributed to the playwright Zeami because of stylistic similarities to some of his other works. In fact, Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1444) was Japan’s Shakespeare. With the help of his father, Kan’ami Motosugu, he fused a mixture of secular entertainment, country songs and dances, and Shinto and Buddhist plays with classical literature. Both Zeami and Kan’ami were playwrights, actors, and composers. They also had the critically discerning patronage of Yoshimitsu, the young but politically astute Ashikaga-clan shogun. The classical tradition was revitalized and broadened in its appeal by Zeami’s plays and three major treatises on theater and aesthetics. According to various authorities, his plays numbered anywhere between twenty and ninety. These pieces were based on older plays, legend, or contemporary events, and initially were enjoyed by all levels of society. | ||||||||||||||||
| This new entertainment was eventually called simply "Noh" (‘’talent’’ as in ‘’the display of talent in a performance’’). It was adopted and nurtured by the Zen-dominated atmosphere of the court, and exemplifies the Zen combination of splendor used with restraint. Beautiful and heavily brocaded costumes surround male-only actors who perform minimal symbolic gestures and refined, extremely slow dance steps to deliberately sung or spoken text. The text is usually arcanely worded with many ancient poetic allusions and wordplays. A seated chorus is at stage-left, and at times either acts as narrator, or speaks for one or more of the characters. The stage itself is a curtainless, polished raised platform eighteen feet square, having the audience in front and at stage-right. A Noh theater is immediately recognizable by its unvarying painted backdrop of a huge pine tree growing in the ground. Sparse stage props are also to be noted. | ||||||||||||||||
| In Hachi-no-ki, a single pine branch held up by a square or circular form on the bare stage represents the three small trees to be sacrificed amid the play’s dominant themes of sorrow and purity. This particular play is fairly unique in Noh theater because of the Western-like linear treatment of time and space without the use of any supernatural intervention to develop the characters’ downfall and salvation. The starkness of the opening winter scene is also highlighted by the absence in Hachi-no-ki of what would otherwise be obligatory music for Tsuneyo’s entrance. Unlike many other Noh plays, where masks to represent specific characters or emotions are used, here, they are not worn. | ||||||||||||||||
| In the early 1600’s, the Tokugawa clan emerged as the shoguns and maintained peace for two and a half centuries. Their hold on power was, in part, due to numerous rules and decrees governing many areas of Japanese life. The Tokugawa ritualized Noh performances and music, and set out systems of precise rules and regulations for the four distinct Noh schools. Strict rules were also established for many other activities including flower arrangement, the tea ceremony, and the forming of hachi-no-ki (as Japanese dwarf tree culture was commonly called until the mid-1800’s). | ||||||||||||||||
| As official art and ceremony, Noh became so solemn and symbolic, with an appeal primarily to the educated aristocracy, that a more lively and spectacular form had replaced it for the general public: kabuki theater. Each five to ten page Noh text now took an hour or two to perform. | ||||||||||||||||
| Out of perhaps 2,000 Noh plays, some 800 or so works are extant, most of which were written in the fifteenth century. About 250 survive in the art's repertoire as consummate masterpieces of Japanese literature whose ritualistic enactment must be witnessed in performance with flute, drum and chorus to be truly appreciated. Hachi-no-ki is counted among these currently active plays. | ||||||||||||||||
| Specific excerpts from a very simple English rendering of the text offer insight into such tree raising at the time: | ||||||||||||||||
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| The term "hachi-no-ki" (literally “the bowl’s tree”) implies a deeper container than bonsai (“the tray’s plant”). In the former, the art had not been developed enough to maintain a typical tree in what is now the characteristic shallow pot. | ||||||||||||||||
| By the evidence in this play, we cannot determine if such trees at the time in Japan were only gathered in the wild, or if some were at least partially formed by human intervention (with some trimming perhaps, or by way of rooted cuttings). We cannot necessarily say how big or small they were, how long they may have lived in their containers, or how much the trees conformed to any aesthetic ideals which we know were later applied to the art. Technical specifics are lacking, but that is not surprising considering the medium. | ||||||||||||||||
| The existence of this play indicate that some 600 years ago, dwarf potted tree culture was well-known enough in Japan to be a pivotal element in some piece of folklore which soon became retold in the theater of the court. Historical references within the story itself push back such gardening another century. At least these three types of plants were used, and possibly exhibited at that time, in the early stages of the art. It apparently was not unusual for even a minor member of the aristocracy to care for several trees, or even if reduced to poverty, to still keep a few for the beauty they offered. | ||||||||||||||||
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There will continue to be disagreement over the date of the commencement
of the true practice of bonsai. We can conclude from this oft-mentioned,
but infrequently appreciated play, however, that some form of aesthetically
pleasing dwarf potted tree culture in Japan was indeed being practiced
to a notable degree long before the art included its present array of horticultural
techniques. For while skill does elevate and expand it, the origin
of any form of art lies in the appreciation of a thing of beauty.
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| Thomas Blenman Hare, Zeami’s Style, The Noh Plays of Zeami Motokiyo; Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press; 1986. | ||||||||||||||||
| Donald Keene, No, The Classical Theater of Japan; Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd.; 1966. | ||||||||||||||||
| E. Papinot, Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan; Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc.; 1972. | ||||||||||||||||
| Arthur Waley, The No Plays of Japan; New York: Alfred A. Knopf; 1922. |
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