Sotoba Komachi (Komachi on the Gravepost)

Woodblock from the series Nogaku hyakuban (One Hundred No Dramas)

Episodes from Ono no Komachi’s life became the basis of a set of seven important Noh plays.

The last of the group is called Sotōba Komachi (Gravemarker Komachi).

As a young woman she was pursued by many suitors, most of whom she heartlessly rejected. In her old age she became destitute and wandered about the outskirts of Kyoto reflecting on the world and the vanity of life. In the Noh play Komachi and the Grave Marker (Sotōba komachi), the aged poetess sits down on a gravestone to rest. Two passing priests criticize her disrespect for the dead, but she refutes their doctrinal arguments: I too am a lowly buried timber But if at heart, I’ve still blossoms, Why should they not do for offerings? Surprised that this beggar-like woman should be so intelligent and well read, the priests inquire her name, but the poetess cannot answer them for shame at her present state. She falls into a reverie and recalls her youth when she was being courted by one of her many suitors; when the memory passes she becomes calm again. Yoshitoshi’s Komachi is dignified and still intelligent, alert, and beautiful in her old age. Her robe with its patches of different rich brocades is like the costume the protagonist wears in the Noh play. Later she becomes possessed by the spirit of her unrequited lover Shii no Shosho, who pined to death for her, and she does a slow dance at the gravesite to his memory.