Ikuta Atsumori - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

A monk opens the play, introducing himself as a disciple of famous priest Hōnen Shōnin, and explaining how Hōnen once found a baby boy in a box at the Kamo Shrine in Kyoto. The monk says that Hōnen raised the boy, and, that many years later, a young woman came forth revealing herself to be the boy's mother, and explaining that his father was Taira no Atsumori. As the boy now longed to see his father's face, Hōnen suggested that he should go to Kamo and pray there for a week.

The monk concludes his introduction by explaining that this is the last day of that week, and that he has come with the boy to Kamo once again, to pray. The boy then tells the monk that he had a dream while praying, in which a voice told him to go to Ikuta Shrine in order to see his father.

Traveling to Ikuta, the pair come upon a small hut, where they decide to ask to spend the night. The man in the hut explains that he is the ghost of Atsumori. Through the intervention of the Kamo kami, Atsumori explains, he has been granted by Yama, the lord of death, a brief opportunity to appear here in the mortal world, to meet his son. He regales his son with the tale of the battle of Ichi-no-tani, in which he was killed. A messenger of Yama then appears, and takes Atsumori with him, back to the realm of the shura, the hell of constant battle.