The Yasha Pool

The Yasha Pool is a play written by the Japanese author Izumi Kyōka in 1913 and one of the representative works of his aestheticist drama. The story draws on the legend of the Yasha Pool passed down through generations in a Japanese mountain village: long ago the dragon god in the pool on the mountain made a pact with the villagers that they must ring the bell three times a day—morning, noon, and evening—so that the pool would not burst its banks and bring disaster, and the custom was handed down from generation to generation. In modern times only one old man still keeps faith with the legend and rings the bell on time. Before he dies, the old man entrusts the heavy duty of guarding the bell to a young man, Hagiwara Akira, who has come to this place to escape urban civilization, and he and his wife Yuri live a simple and happy life by the pool. Yet the villagers, who have long lost their faith, envy and resent the couple's life, and their rough behavior gradually awakens the long-silent Yasha Pool, and the fragile pact between the human and otherworldly realms faces collapse. Izumi Kyōka deftly uses the image of the "bell" to intercut scenes of the mortal and otherworldly worlds, creating a dual structure in which the mundane and the spectral mirror each other; in a strange and mysterious style he writes of the conflict among human nature, faith, and greed, and of his belief in pure love. The play has been staged many times by nō performers, was made into a film directed by Shinoda Masahiro, and in 2004 was adapted into a stage play by Miike Takashi. This edition is the Chinese translation in the Yiyan–Gutenberg Project, published by CITIC Press.