Ama

Noh piece. Fifth piece. Current piece of the five schools. In the Kanze school, it is written as Ama. An old Noh piece that consists of a legend of a female diver (ama) catching a jewel (tama) in the first act, and a dance of a woman praising Buddha who has attained enlightenment in the second act. The Minister (Daijin), Fujiwara Fusasaki (ko-kata), and his attendants (waki) come down to Shido Bay in Shikoku to mourn his late mother. The female diver (mae shite) appears and tells a passionate tale of a female diver who sacrificed her life for her son to retrieve a jewel that had been stolen by the Dragon Palace, and disappears into the waves after announcing that she is the ghost of the female diver who was the mother of the Minister. The spirit of the mother (go shite) appears at Fusasaki's funeral and dances to express joy at her attaining enlightenment and praise for her son's filial piety. According to the Buddhist theory that it is difficult for a woman to attain nirvana as she remains in her original state, the second shite takes on the appearance of either a female dragon or a male dragon god, representing the process of transforming into a man.

[Masuda Shozo]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

能の曲目。五番目物。五流現行曲。観世流では海士と書く。海女(あま)の珠(たま)取り伝説を前段に、成仏した女の賛仏の舞を後段に構成された古作の能。大臣(だいじん)・藤原房前(ふささき)（子方）は従者（ワキ）らとともに亡母追善のため四国の志渡(しど)の浦に下ってくる。海女（前シテ）が現れ、竜宮に奪われた宝珠をわが子のため命を捨てて取り返した海女のことを激しい仕方話(しかたばなし)の演技（玉ノ段）に語り、自分が大臣の母の海女の亡霊と告げて波に消える。房前の弔いに後シテの母の霊が登場、成仏への喜びとわが子の孝養の賛嘆を舞う。女人はそのままでは成仏しがたいとする仏教の説により、後シテは竜女の姿、あるいは変成男子(へんじょうなんし)の過程を示す男の竜神の扮装(ふんそう)となる。

［増田正造］

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