Tale of the Heike

Calligraphy by a contemporary artist, of the famous opening lines of the Tale of the Heike:
祇園精舎の鐘の聲、諸行無常の響あり。娑羅雙樹の花の色、盛者必衰のことわりをあらはす。おごれる人も久しからず、唯春の夜の夢のごとし。たけき者も遂にほろびぬ、偏に風の前の塵に同じ。

Gion shôja no kane no koe, shogyô mujô no hibiki ari. Shara sôju no hana no iro, shôsha hissui no koto wari wo arawasu. Ogoreru hito mo hisashikarazu, tada haru no yoru no yume no gotoshi. Takeki mono mo tsui ni horobinu, hitoe ni kaze no mae no akuta ni onaji.
The sound of the Gion Shôja temple bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall. The proud do not endure; the mighty fall at last, to be no more than dust before the wind.

• Japanese: 平家物語 (Heike monogatari)

The Tale of the Heike, or Heike monogatari, is among the most famous of the gunki monogatari epic "war tales." Developed out of oral traditions, and in particular the storytelling tradition of the traveling biwa hôshi, the Tale is extant today in a number of differing written versions, ranging in length and style, many of them with variant titles and varying content, ranging as well in date, from the 13th century through today. In general, however, the Tale relates a dramatized, fictionalized, account of the fall of the Taira clan in the late 12th century, with much of the text describing the events of the Genpei War.

Whatever its origin, all extant versions of the tale seem to be related to, or derived from, one another; multiple versions are known to have been in circulation by the end of the 13th century, but if any dramatically differing versions existed, they are not extant today. The versions today considered most typical, or most characteristic, are of middling length, date to the 14th-15th centuries, and are records of versions related orally by the biwa hôshi performers. The version perhaps most widely considered standard is that derived from one recorded by a biwa hôshi named Kakuichi in 1371; generations of biwa hôshi memorized and recited Kakuichi's version of the tale, passing it down through the tradition. This version of the tale, known as the Kakuichi-bon ("Kakuichi Book" or "Kakuichi Text") has also been used as the basis for many modern translations. Important early variant texts which survive include what are called the Engyôbon version, and the 48-chapter Genpei jôsuiki ("Tale of the Rise and Fall of Minamoto and Taira"), which was previously considered an independent work but is now considered a variant version of the Heike itself.

Though the biwa hôshi tradition declined after the Ônin War (1467-1477), eclipsed by other performance forms, the Heike has remained extremely prominent in Japanese traditional performing arts, and literature. The majority of Noh plays in the category of "warrior plays" are based on episodes from the Heike, as are the majority of extant kôwakamai ballads, and numerous jôruri puppet plays and kabuki plays, as well as contemporary novels and NHK Taiga drama television programs.

References

• Helen McCullough trans., The Tale of the Heike, Stanford University Press (1990), 6-9.