Who Is Taira no Atsumori?
The 17-year-old flute-playing noble
Taira no Atsumori was a young Heike noble, the son of Kiyomori's younger brother Tsunemori, who was killed at the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani at the age of seventeen. He was a gifted flute player and carried a famous flute named Saeda ("Little Branch") at his waist.
In the chapter "The Death of Atsumori," he is fleeing toward the Heike ships after the defeat when the Minamoto warrior Kumagai no Naozane calls out, "Will you show your back to an enemy?" Atsumori turns back and is wrestled to the ground. When Kumagai pulls off his helmet, he finds a beautiful boy wearing light makeup, about the same age as his own son. Atsumori refuses to give his name, saying only, "Take my head and ask others who I am," and Kumagai, in tears, takes his head. The flute music heard from inside the Heike camp the night before had been played by this boy.
Atsumori's story became the Noh play Atsumori and the kōwaka dance Atsumori. The famous line "Man's life is but fifty years," which the warlord Oda Nobunaga is said to have loved to dance to, comes from the kōwaka version.
Episodes featuring this character2
NEWEpisode 11
Under the Helmet, a Boy His Son's AgeThe Death of Atsumori
After the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani, Kumagai no Naozane is still hungry for glory. He waves his fan at a young warrior fleeing into the sea, calls him back, and pins him down. Under the helmet is the face of a boy about his own son's age. Then Naozane sees the flute at the boy's hip and remembers the music he heard before dawn.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 14
He Doomed Her ClanThen Came to Visit — The Imperial Visit to Ōhara (Kenreimon-in)
the series finale. Kenreimon-in was the only one of her clan pulled alive from the sea at Dan-no-Ura. Now she spends her days in prayer at a mountain hermitage in Ōhara. One early summer, Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, the man who ordered the war that destroyed her family, comes to see her in secret. She tells him to his face how much she has resented him. Then she begins to tell her life story as a journey through six realms.
19 pages