FIELD REPORTS
The Dance at Tsurugaoka: In 1186, Shizuka Danced Her Longing for Yoshitsune Before Yoritomo
In 1186, in Kamakura. The captive Shizuka Gozen offered a dance at Tsurugaoka Hachimangū at the request of Yoritomo and Masako. But what Shizuka danced and sang was a song of longing for Yoshitsune, whom Yoritomo hunted. Yoritomo was enraged. Masako defended her, as one woman who understood the longing for Yoshitsune.
On the eighth day of the fourth month of 1186 (Bunji 2), at Tsurugaoka Hachimangū in Kamakura (present-day Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture).
The captive Shizuka Gozen was ordered to dance before the deity. Watching: Minamoto no Yoritomo (this site's id 23), who hunted Yoshitsune, and his wife Masako (this site's id 24).
The shirabyōshi hailed as the finest of the capital turned her sleeves to the beat of the drum, and then began to sing in a clear voice.
The words were the melody Yoritomo least wished to hear — a longing for Yoshitsune.
Commanded to Dance
The fame of Shizuka's dance had reached Kamakura too. Yoritomo demanded a dance of Shizuka under the name of an offering to Tsurugaoka Hachimangū.
It was a dance while captive and heavy with child. Shizuka is said to have refused once.
The humiliation of being told to dance in the very midst of enemy territory while carrying the child of the hunted Yoshitsune.
Yet unable to refuse to the end, Shizuka at last stood before the deity. Other than to dance, she had no means left to show her feeling for Yoshitsune in this place.
Shizu ya Shizu
Shizuka sang thus, the Azuma Kagami records: 'Shizu ya shizu, shizu no odamaki, kurikaeshi — if only I could make the past into the present once more.
' She longed to bring back, if only once more, the past she had spent with him. She went on, 'Treading apart the white snow of the peaks of Mt.
Yoshino, I long for the trace of the one who went in,' longing for Yoshitsune, who had vanished into the snowy peaks.
Before the very face of the enemy's commander, a song openly longing for another man.
It was the pride of a shirabyōshi, and a woman's life-staked confession.
Masako's Mediation
Yoritomo was enraged. To long for the rebel Yoshitsune over himself — what was this?
But his wife Masako soothed her husband. Recalling her own young days, when she had run to the exile Yoritomo against her father's opposition, she is said to have argued, 'Were I in her place, I too would sing the same song.
' As one woman like her, Masako understood Shizuka's devotion. Yoritomo's anger was barely eased, and Shizuka's life was prolonged.
The dancing woman and the defending woman. At the very center of Kamakura's power, the compassion of two women crossed for a moment.
"Though I lose my life for this dance, my longing heart I cannot falsify. What I turn over and over is only those days with him."
PRIMARY SOURCES & ARCHIVES
- PRIMARY
Azuma Kagami
Primary source recording Shizuka's dance at Tsurugaoka Hachimangū
- SCHOLARSHIP
Minamoto no Yoshitsune
Gomi Fumihiko / Iwanami Shinsho
Examines Shizuka's dance and Masako's mediation
- ARCHIVE
Tsurugaoka Hachimangū
Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture
The place where Shizuka offered her dance of longing for Yoshitsune
Visit archive →
RELATED REPORTS
- SA-0077Shizuka Gozen— The finest shirabyōshi of the capital, beloved of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the tragic woman who danced her longing for Yoshitsune before Yoritomo at Tsurugaoka Hachimangū
- SA-0051Minamoto no Yoshitsune— The Genji general who destroyed the Taira at Dannoura, then was killed by his own brother Yoritomo
- SA-0023Minamoto no Yoritomo— The founding shogun who built warrior government as a system that lasted six and a half centuries
- SA-0024Hōjō Masako— The widow who became the first real ruler of the Kamakura Bakufu