Tsuchigumo (Noh)

Tsuchigumo is a Japanese Noh play. The author is unknown.

Genre, authorship and date

Tsuchigumo is a Noh play. More specifically, it is classified as a genzai Noh, a relatively realistic work featuring human characters and taking place in a linear time line. It is a gobanme-mono, meaning that the Nihyakujū-ban Utai Mokuroku indicates that its author is unknown. In the modern era, it is part of the repertoires of all five of the major schools of Noh.
The story takes place in the Heian period of Japanese history, depicting a popular hero of that era—specifically the late 10th and early 11th centuries—taking down a monstrous spider, but the play itself dates to the significantly later Muromachi period.

Cast of characters

Minamoto no Raikō
Kochō the Handmaiden
A yōkai in the form of a monk
A lone warrior
The tsuchigumo spirit

Plot

Act I

The famed general Minamoto no Yorimitsu, also known as Raikō, is suffering from an illness of the body and mind, and is resting at his mansion. A handmaiden, Kochō, arrives with medicine from the court physician, and after comforting the general, she takes her leave. Raikō's sickness grows ever worse, when a malicious spirit, or yōkai, who has taken the form of a Buddhist monk, appears, and casts a large amount of spider webbing onto Raikō. Raikō, despite his illness, reaches for the well-renowned sword beside his pillow and cuts into the monster. At this point, the monster disappears.

Act II

Hearing the noise, a solitary warrior rushes to the scene. Following the blood that has spilled from the yōkai, the young warrior eventually comes to an old gravesite. A tsuchigumo, or "earth-spider", spirit appears before him, and sprays him with vast quantities of webbing, causing him tremendous pain, but he ultimately wins out and strikes the spider down.

Themes

The work has a relatively direct, "realistic" plot compared with other Noh plays, and its emphasis on martial prowess was likely what earned it favour among the military class.

Influence

The play provided the inspiration for numerous later works of the kabuki theatre, including the tokiwazu piece Kumo no Ito Azusa no Yumihari and the nagauta piece Waga Seko Koi no Aizuchi, which is also called Kumo no Byōshi-mai. The latter work was first performed in 1781, and was part of a late 18th-century trend in kabuki where the actors would speak their lines while performing dances.