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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays of Old Japan, by Marie C. Stopes
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-Title: Plays of Old Japan
-       The 'No'
-
-Author: Marie C. Stopes
-
-Release Date: November 2, 2013 [EBook #44092]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS OF OLD JAPAN ***
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@@ -3904,362 +3869,4 @@ woodcut and wood-cut
 
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44092 ***
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays of Old Japan, by Marie C. Stopes
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Plays of Old Japan
-       The 'No'
-
-Author: Marie C. Stopes
-
-Release Date: November 2, 2013 [EBook #44092]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS OF OLD JAPAN ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Note
-
-Italic text is indicated by _underscores_, bold by ~swung dashes~, and
-non-italic text within italic blocks by +plus signs+.
-
-
-
-
-  PLAYS OF OLD JAPAN
-  THE NO
-  BY MARIE C. STOPES
-
-
-
-
- ~EPOCHS OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART.~ By ERNEST F. FENOLLOSA. In two
- Vols. Crown 4to. Illustrated. ~36s.~ net.
-
- ~A HISTORY OF JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTS.~ By W. VON SEIDLITZ. Illustrated
- in Colour and Black and White. One Vol. Crown 4to. ~25s.~ net.
-
- ~JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS.~ By OSMAN EDWARDS. With twelve
- Coloured Plates by Japanese Artists. One Vol. Demy 8vo. ~10s.~ net.
-
- ~KAKEMONA: Japanese Sketches.~ By A. HERBAGE EDWARDS. One Vol. Crown
- 8vo. ~7s. 6d.~ net.
-
- ~A HISTORY OF JAPANESE LITERATURE.~ By W. G. ASTON. One Vol. Large
- Crown 8vo. ~6s.~
-
- ~IN JAPAN: Pilgrimages to the Shrines of Art.~ By GASTON MIGEON,
- translated by FLORENCE SIMMONDS. One Vol. Crown 8vo. Illustrated.
- ~6s.~ net.
-
- ~THE JAPANESE DANCE.~ By M. A. HINCKS. One Vol. Crown 8vo.
- Illustrated. ~2s. 6d.~ net.
-
-
-LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
-
-
-[Illustration: AN ACTOR OF THE _NO_ IN FULL COSTUME
-
-TADANORI
-
-_This plate, taken from a Japanese coloured woodcut, illustrates well
-the voluminous nature of the mediæval ceremonial garments. The figure
-is that of an ancient warrior of the Taira clan, to which Kagekiyo
-belonged (+see p. 53+), who was noted also for the high quality of
-his poetry. He composed a special verse, which he fastened in an arrow
-that he always carried in his quiver, and that proved to be the means
-of identification when he was found by his enemies, dead in the field
-of battle. In the illustration one may particularly note the mask,
-with the eyebrows painted so high on the forehead that they are above
-the fillet band. The feet are not bare, but are covered with the white
-+tabi+, or cotton boots with soft soles and a separate division
-for the big toe, in which the +No+ dancers always perform their
-parts._
-]
-
-
-
-
-  PLAYS OF OLD JAPAN
-  THE 'NO'
-
-  BY
-  MARIE C. STOPES
-  D.SC., PH.D., F.L.S.
-
-  TOGETHER WITH TRANSLATIONS OF THE DRAMAS BY M. C. STOPES
-  AND
-  PROFESSOR JOJI SAKURAI
-  D.SC., LL.D.
-
-  WITH A PREFACE BY HIS EXCELLENCY
-  BARON KATO
-  THE JAPANESE AMBASSADOR
-
-  _ILLUSTRATED_
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  LONDON      MCMXIII
-  WILLIAM HEINEMANN
-
-
-
-
-_Copyright and all translation and dramatic right reserved by Marie C.
-Stopes_
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-By His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador
-
-
-The _utai_ does not appeal to the uneducated, and for that reason its
-devotees have practically been confined to the gentle and aristocratic
-classes. In the days before the educational system of Japan was
-established on Western lines, boys of the _Samurai_ class in many parts
-of the country were taught to chant the _utai_ in their schools as a
-part of their curriculum, the object being to ennoble their character
-by imbuing them with the spirit of the olden times, and also to provide
-for them a healthy means of recreation in their manhood. Along with
-many other institutions, it declined in favour in consequence of
-the great social and political upheaval which ushered in the era of
-_Meiji_; and for some time afterwards the people were too much occupied
-with various material aspects of life to find any leisure for the
-cultivation of the art, so much so that its professional exponents,
-meeting with no public support, had to give up the forlorn attempt to
-continue their task and to look elsewhere for a means of earning their
-livelihood.
-
-With the consolidation of the new régime many old things took a new
-lease of life, the _utai_ being one of them. Not only has the _utai_
-revived, but those who ought to know say that never in the long history
-of its existence has it been so extensively patronised as it is to-day.
-Patrons of the art are by no means confined to the aristocratic
-classes, albeit it is not so popular as the ordinary theatrical play,
-and never could be from the nature of the thing.
-
-This book will, therefore, well repay study on the part of any one
-desirous of knowing and appreciating the working of the Japanese mind,
-and the author and her colleague are rendering a good service to the
-public of the West by initiating them into the subject. As the author
-frankly admits, to translate the _utai_ into a European language is a
-most difficult task, and, in my opinion, it is a well-nigh impossible
-one. The meaning of the original may be conveyed--its spirit to a
-certain extent--but never the peculiarities of the original language,
-on which the beauty of the _utai_ mainly rests. It was very brave of
-Dr. Marie Stopes and Prof. Sakurai to undertake what I should deem an
-impossible task, and I am glad to be able to extend to them my sincere
-congratulations on their remarkable achievement. They have succeeded
-in their work to the best extent any one can hope to succeed, and in
-my opinion have placed Western students of Japanese art and literature
-under a debt of gratitude to them.
-
-  TAKAAKI KATO.
-
-  _Japanese Embassy, London._
-  _November 1912._
-
-
-
-
-LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
-                _To face page_
-
-  TADANORI      _Frontispiece_
-
-  VIEW OF THE NO STAGE      10
-
-  A COUNTRY POETESS         14
-
-  MIIDERA                   16
-
-  SOSHIARI-GOMACHI          24
-
-  THE MAIDEN'S TOMB         38
-
-  SUMIDAGAWA                76
-
-
-
-
-TO THE READER
-
-
-Their poetry is the expressed essence of the Japanese. It represents
-them as the Victory of Samothrace represents the people of Greece, as
-the scent represents the rose. Chamberlain says, "The one original
-product of the Japanese mind is the native poetry"--their painting,
-their porcelain, their ceremonials, are modifications of Chinese
-classics, but their poetry is their very own. Among the greatest and
-most characteristic treasures of the native literature, the Japanese
-rank their ancient "lyric dramas," the _No_. As Synge and the Irish
-poets speak for the Irish people the things that matter most to them
-and that yet go all unexpressed in their outward life, in the same
-sense, only to a greater extent, do the _No_ dramas represent the old
-spirit of Japan.
-
-In Japanese the texts of the _No_ dramas, all of which were written
-before the sixteenth century, are collected in a great work, the
-_Yokyoku Tsukai_, in which various editions give as many as two hundred
-and thirty-five to two hundred and sixty-two _utai_, as the librettos
-of the _No_ are called. Yet these treasures are practically unknown to
-the reading public of the West, notwithstanding the interest that has
-been taken in "things Japanese." Scholars certainly have paid them some
-attention, and a few _utai_ have been rendered into English, but in
-most cases these translations are such as appeal primarily to scholars,
-and do not reach the wider public. Chamberlain's _Classical Poetry of
-the Japanese_, in which some of the _utai_ find a place, is perhaps the
-only exception to the general statement that no rendering of any of
-these plays has yet been made which is calculated to win those readers
-who do not delve in the Transactions of learned societies nor read
-transliterated texts in weighty volumes, but who, nevertheless, delight
-in the great literatures of the world.
-
-One of the reasons for this is certainly the extreme remoteness of the
-subject from everything to which we are accustomed, and the difficulty
-of translating into our own the obscure language of these mediæval
-texts.
-
-All students of Japanese are agreed about the excessive difficulty of
-making any rendering from the _utai_ which combines fidelity to the
-original with lucidity in a European language.
-
-Yet these old plays are unique, exquisite, individual, and so full of
-charm that it is a great loss to the Western world that they should be
-entirely removed from our ken by being hedged in and shut away from
-us by the difficulties of language. It is clearly some one's duty to
-translate, not merely the words of these plays, but their meaning and
-spirit, so that the Western public may have partial access at least to
-the source that delights, and has delighted for centuries, the best
-minds of our Allies in the East. No translation can ever convey more
-than a fraction of the power, beauty, and individual characteristics
-of the original, but it is my hope that there may be found between
-these covers something of the delicacy and charm of the _No_, some hint
-of their peculiar flavour and effect. If this consummation is in any
-single case achieved by this book, it will be, I fancy, only after the
-whole of it has been read and laid down; when a faint spirit of the
-_No_ may take shape in the reader's mind.
-
-Mountains blue in the distance before which we stand enthralled are
-composed of grey rough stone and broken screes when viewed at nearer
-quarters--yet we enjoy not less the illusory blue. The words of a
-stirring poem that wafts us into a fairy land of dreams are each one
-commonplace enough, and each can be reduced to its elements, _a_, _b_,
-_c_, _d_, _e_,--twenty-six of them, which can be ranged in a straight
-line.
-
-And so it is with the _No_. They must not be too much analysed and
-inquired into. Their language is simple, almost to baldness in places,
-it is true, but their simple elements create a wonderland of illusion.
-In Japanese they have the power to make the spirit soar into the
-borders of the enchanted regions of romance; and when acted the plays
-make one ache with _Weltschmerz_ in a way that shows that their place
-is among the great things of our world, elemental in their simplicity.
-Then it must not be forgotten that the text of the drama as presented
-is accompanied by music, and is chanted by highly trained actors in a
-beautiful setting. Who would think of judging Wagner from the texts
-of his librettos alone, and of ignoring his power as a scene creator
-and a musician? The texts of the _No_ are largely prosy, if you will.
-Mr. Sansom recently censured me, and with me the leading Japanese
-authorities on the subject, for our appreciation of the poetry of the
-_No_. He would have us believe that the steady popularity of these
-plays for six hundred years among the leading men of the country, from
-priests and poets to princes and warriors, is due to over-estimation,
-and that they are, after all, mostly prose of no high quality. In a
-language so widely diverging from our own in its construction and
-mode of thought as Japanese, the details of the literary style and
-composition are beyond reach of my judgment. As the Japanese for
-so long have been consistent in their admiration of the literary
-construction of the _No_, I am content in that matter to accept their
-verdict. But of the atmosphere and general effect of the plays I can
-judge for myself, and I find them among the supremely great things in
-world-literature. That Mr. Sansom does not, depends on his own taste in
-the matter. I have, in these modern days of unshackled opinion, heard
-people openly announce that they saw nothing in Shakespeare! I fancy
-that if we could translate literally into the English language the
-song of the nightingale to its mate, it would be found to be largely
-composed of mundane affairs and prosy gossip about its neighbours, the
-weather and the marauding school-boy. But is it to us any the less
-romantic and glorious in association? There is a focal distance for
-every work of art, and if we choose to overstep it and go and rub our
-noses against the canvas of supreme genius, we will only find smeary
-paint and an unpleasant odour. So, acknowledging the prosy elements in
-the texts of the _No_ I have attempted to render, I present them in the
-hope that there will be some readers who will see through the shrouding
-veils of a foreign language something of the features of the eternal
-loveliness of the original. My great regret is the imperfections of
-my handling of these delicate fantasies. But with the exceptional
-knowledge and gifts of my collaborator in the translations, Prof.
-Sakurai, the standard of detailed accuracy has been kept up to a point
-which will, I trust, make these translations not entirely unworthy
-of a scholar's perusal (but see p. 32); nevertheless, the reader whom
-my heart desires is not one to take too close an inspection of each
-detail, but one who will catch the spirit of the whole. None of the
-four plays that follow have been translated by any one else,[1] so far
-as I can discover; so that, as they break new ground for it, the public
-will perhaps be lenient and sympathetic towards these efforts.
-
-
-Concerning the Place the _No_ takes in Japan to-day
-
-In Japan to-day there still lingers much of the old aristocratic scorn
-of the common theatre, but the theatres which are dedicated to the
-performance of the _No_ have no such stigma attached to them. Indeed,
-these performances are almost entirely supported by the gentle and
-aristocratic classes. The interest of intellectual men in these plays
-is not even satisfied with on-looking, and many of the leading men
-of the day in Tokio--lawyers, university professors, statesmen and
-aristocrats--study the chants and songs and give private recitals of
-them. A few even undertake the arduous training necessary to act a
-complete part, including the "dancing," and then the gentlemen are
-proud to appear with distinguished professionals. The only comparable
-enthusiasm in our country is that of the Shakespeare societies; but
-even to act, and act well, a part in a Shakespeare play requires
-an amount of application trivial in comparison with that necessary
-completely to master a rôle in one of the _No_. For in "singing" the
-_utai_ not only is every minute inflection of the voice prescribed and
-regulated according to the severest rules, but every movement of the
-body, every step and movement even of the toes or little fingers in
-the "dance" that accompanies it, is most strictly governed by an iron
-tradition, and the secret of some of the parts is only in the hands of
-a few masters.
-
-Mr. Sansom quotes, in an unsympathetic spirit, the opinion of Mr.
-Tanaka Shohei, but as this opinion represents in substance that of a
-number of the leading Japanese who interest themselves in the subject,
-I think it may very well be given as an expression of current opinion
-of the _No_: "From every point of view it is one of the pre-eminent
-arts of the world. It is the flower of the Yamato stock. Every art
-reflects the spirit of a given people at a given time, and, remembering
-this, we must hold it remarkable that the affections of our people
-should be retained by an art which arose six hundred years ago. In the
-West there is no art with such a pedigree. This shows that the _No_
-represents the national spirit, and is complete in every respect."
-
-A Japanese professor, writing to me, says, "A _No_ drama is always
-very simple in its plot, and it is chiefly its peculiar poetical
-construction and ring which appeal so much to our emotion and give the
-charm it possesses." Another opinion is quoted by Mr. Osman Edwards:
-"The words (of the _No_) are gorgeous, splendid and even magnificent as
-are the costumes."
-
-The charm of the _No_ is a cumulative one, and its power of
-conveying much meaning in simple action is largely augmented by the
-suggestiveness of the interwoven allusions to the classical poems
-partly quoted or suggested in the words of the texts. Almost every word
-carries more than its face value, and has been enriched by centuries of
-usage in innumerable poetical and traditional connections.
-
-
-Concerning the past History of the _No_
-
-The _No_, as they are now preserved, date principally from the
-fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and all of them are prior
-to the sixteenth century. Their development took place under the
-Ashikaga Shogunate, particularly in the reign of the Shogun Yoshimitsu
-(1368-1394), when they soon became exceedingly successful among the
-nobles. They are to a large extent compounded from much older elements
-which existed in a more incoherent form prior to the fourteenth
-century; but they may be described as crystallising and taking their
-distinctive form under the hands of _Kiyotsugu_, who lived from 1355 to
-1406. It is of great interest to note how closely the dates of our own
-Chaucer (1340-1400) correspond with those of the great Japanese master.
-What world-phase brought two such men to the front at the same time in
-the two island empires, all unknown to each other? Kiyotsugu was the
-founder of the _No_ proper, and one of his pieces is given on p. 39. It
-is certain that he did not suddenly evolve this type of drama, but took
-the elements that were to hand and fused them together with the flux
-of his personal genius. Chief among the material available were the
-_Kagura_ or pantomime dances which were performed at Shinto festivals
-on temporary wooden platforms. Direct descendants of these, nearly in
-their original form, have lingered on till the present day. I have seen
-performances on the rough temporary platforms, where the actors were
-gaudily but cheaply decked and where the crowded audience was almost
-entirely composed of the common people who stood semi-scornful for a
-few moments, or were detained for a long time while passing on their
-daily business. The antiquity of such performances can be imagined
-from the fact that in the _Kojiki_, which was written in 712 A.D.,
-they were described as being ancient and their origin was associated
-with the sun goddess. The mythical story of their origin is one of the
-well-known tales of Japan. The sun goddess, Amaterasu, was offended and
-retired to a cave, withdrawing her luminous beauty from the world. As
-may be imagined, this was very inconvenient for every one, including
-the rest of the gods, who in their distress assembled on the dry bed of
-the River of Heaven. (This is the Milky Way, and to one who knows the
-mountain rivers of Japan it gives a very telling little touch, for the
-dry bed of a Japanese river is a broad curve of round white stones.)
-They endeavoured in many ways to lure the sun goddess out of her cave,
-and at last they invented a dance and performed it on the top of an
-inverted empty tub, which echoed when the dancer stamped. This excited
-her curiosity, and the goddess was successfully drawn out of her
-hiding-place, the light of her radiance once more blessed the earth,
-and all was right again with gods and men. The stamping on the hollow
-tub is still suggested in the "dancing" of the _No_, where the actor
-raises his foot and stamps once or twice with force enough to make the
-specially prepared wooden floor of the stage echo with a characteristic
-sound.
-
-It is quite probable that the actual words of the _utai_ (librettos)
-of the _No_ were partly, if not entirely, written by Buddhist monks,
-and Kiyotsugu was only responsible for bringing the whole together and
-stage managing and stereotyping the plays.
-
-Following Kiyotsugu, who died in 1406, was his son _Motokiyo_ (one of
-whose plays will be found on p. 56), who lived from 1373-1455. As well
-as adding to the number of the actual plays (as many as ninety-three
-are attributed to him) he greatly improved the music. By the time of
-his nephew some of the several different schools of _No_ interpreters,
-which are still in existence, had sprung up.
-
-The ruling Shoguns paid great attention to the _No_. Kiyotsugu the
-founder was taken by the Shogun into his immediate service and was even
-given the rank of a small daimio. Both Hideoshi and Iyeyasu, two of the
-greatest men in Japanese history, were not only fond of witnessing the
-plays, but it is reported that they actually took part in them among
-the actors.
-
-
-Concerning the Presentation of the _No_
-
-A single _No_ play is not a lengthy performance, the average time for
-its complete presentation being merely one hour. But a performance of
-_No_ at a theatre generally lasts a whole day (except at special short
-performances, mostly arranged in connection with festivities), because
-half-a-dozen pieces are on the programme, and between each is given one
-of the "mad-words," or _Hiogen_, which are short, ludicrous farces, and
-which serve to relieve the tension of the higher, and generally tragic
-pieces.
-
-
-The Theatre
-
-The theatres, which are specially built for the _No_ performances,
-are smaller than the common theatres. The stage is a square platform,
-generally measuring about eighteen feet, which stands towards the
-middle, so that the audience sit on three sides of it. This stage has
-its own beautifully curved roof, which is separated from the roof over
-the audience by a slight gap, and is reminiscent of the time when the
-_No_ were performed on the outdoor wooden platforms while the audience
-stood round in rain or shine. On the stage itself are two pillars of
-smooth wood, which support its roof (see diagram facing p. 10). The
-stage is horizontal and is raised a few feet above the ground; it is
-made of very smooth and peculiarly resonant boarding, which is of
-special importance in the "dancing," in the course of which the actor
-has to stamp at intervals with his shoeless feet and yet to make
-a loud, though deadened sound. Let us not forget the inverted tub and
-the sun goddess. This feature of the dancing is not to be despised,
-for its effectiveness is notable. By the kindness of the Secretary of
-the Royal Society of Literature I am allowed to reproduce my plan of
-the _No_ stage[2] from their Transactions, so I am tempted to quote
-also a paragraph describing it. "Leading to the stage is a gallery
-nine feet wide, along which the actors pass very slowly on their way
-from the green-room to the stage, and pause at each of the three pine
-trees stationed along it. A curtain shuts the end of the gallery from
-the green-room. All the woodwork is unpainted and unstained, though
-very highly polished, and there is neither scenery nor appliances to
-break the harmony. The three actual pine trees and a flat painted pine
-on the wall at the back of the stage are all the ornament there is."
-The wood-cut facing p. 10 is an illustration of this stage taken from
-a Japanese print. It represents an "undress" recital, but shows well
-the build of the stage itself. The pine tree which is painted on the
-bare boards at the back is not realistic, but is much conventionalised,
-with solid emerald green masses of foliage and a twisted trunk. It is
-like those trees which are seen in symbolic pictures and on ancient
-ceremonial embroideries such as are used at weddings and at the New
-Year time. The pine tree, and all it has come to mean to the Japanese
-as a symbol, is closely associated with the _No_. Deeply interwoven in
-the national sentiment is the play _Takasago_, which is the story of
-the faithful spirits of the pine tree and is perhaps the most important
-and most beloved of all the _No_.
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 2.
-
-VIEW OF THE NO STAGE
-
-_To the left is the gallery along which the actors enter. On the stage
-is a figure in ordinary ceremonial dress, not in costume, reciting a
-piece with the aid only of a fan. Note the beautifully elaborate roof
-belonging to the stage itself. The pieces of blue sky in the right and
-centre which break into it, like the clouds in the left foreground, are
-a conceit of the artist, but the blue sky to the left indicates with
-verisimilitude the open space surrounding the stage._ ]
-
-[Illustration:
-
- Diagram of stage arrangement in the _No_, showing also the position of
- the audience.
-
- On the stage the chorus is represented by crosses, the leader of the
- chorus marked [Illustration: circle with cross].
-
- The numbers I and II represent the positions during most of the action
- of the leading actors.
-
- I represents the _shite_.
-
- II represents the _waki_.
-
- The encircled numbers show the positions of the musicians, who are
- stationary during the piece.
-
-  1. The _taiko_ player.
-  2. The _otsuzumi_ player.
-  3. The _kotsuzumi_ player.
-  4. The _fue_ player.
-
- The squares at the front of the stage represent the two pillars
- supporting its roof.
-
-_Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of Literature._ ]
-
-
-The Chorus
-
-Quoting again from my paper: "Before the play begins the chorus comes
-in, robed in blue or blue-grey, and enters into the colour scheme. The
-men squat on their heels with their legs folded straight and flat along
-the boards on the right of the stage, and before them lie their fans,
-which remain closed through the whole play, but are raised upright
-while they are singing. The chorus chants at intervals throughout the
-piece, sometimes informing the audience of the events supposed to be
-taking place, or to have taken place, sometimes moralising on the
-fate or feelings of the hero or heroine, sometimes describing their
-emotions, sometimes even instructing them. While they are doing this
-their fans are raised upright, with one end touching the ground, and
-are laid down again directly the words are finished. The Japanese
-name for the chorus is _ji_, a word meaning also 'ground'--the ground
-colour, as it were, on which the figures of the drama are painted." As
-is natural, such an arrangement of chorus and stage recalls the Greek
-plays. The comparisons and contrasts between this and the Greek, which
-spring immediately to one's mind, have already been published by Prof.
-Chamberlain and others, who have given some account of the _No_, and to
-whose works reference should be made (see list on p. 103).
-
-
-The Music
-
-The music is an important feature of the _No_ plays, when they are
-completely presented. Indeed, the whole play can be more fairly
-compared with opera than with anything else on our stage, though the
-"singing" is very different from ours. The songs are given with a
-curious voice in which suppressed breathing is an item of value. Other
-parts of the play are chanted in unison, and even the prose "words"
-are intoned in a unique way which removes them absolutely from the
-realm of ordinary speaking, and makes them--to a foreigner--practically
-indistinguishable from the songs. There are, in addition to this vocal
-music, four instruments, and the players of these are distinct from the
-chorus and do not enter into its chanting at all, except sometimes with
-a sudden sharp Ha! or something which I confess I can only describe as
-being like the howl of a cat, and which did not seem to me to add to
-the impressiveness of the music, but to detract from it.
-
-The musicians enter the theatre and take their place on the stage,
-in the places indicated in the diagram, after the chorus is seated
-and before the actors appear. In a full set of musicians the first is
-the performer on the _taiko_, who plays a flat drum set in a wooden
-stand on the floor, ornamented with a gorgeous scarlet silk tassel
-of such size and brilliance as to lend a vivid beauty to the quiet
-colour scheme. The next musician is the player of the _otsuzumi_, which
-is a kind of elongated drum held on his knee. The _kotsuzumi_ is an
-hour-glass-shaped drum, which is held on the shoulder. Both Profs.
-Chamberlain and Dickins call this a tambourine, but that name gives
-an entirely wrong impression both of the shape and the sound of this
-instrument. The last musician plays the _fue_ or flute.
-
-Most Westerners are content to call this music "a discord." It is
-therefore pleasant to find Mr. Sansom saying, "At times the flute
-strikes in with a long-drawn note that has a strange and moving quality
-of sadness." Personally, with the exception of the single interjected
-cries, the music appealed to me as being in complete harmony with the
-pieces and as adding greatly to their charm and meaning.
-
-
-The Actors
-
-The actors enter from behind the curtain at the end of the gallery
-leading to the stage. They move towards the stage one by one, and very
-slowly, with long intervals between each step, every motion of which
-has been decreed for centuries. Captain Brinkley says, "It is, indeed,
-more than doubtful whether any other people ever developed such an
-expressive vocabulary of motion, such impressive eloquence of gesture.
-These masked dancers of the _No_, deprived of the important assistance
-of facial expression, and limited to a narrow range of cadence,
-nevertheless succeeded in investing their performance with a character
-of noble dignity and profound intensity of sentiment." The actors pause
-at each of the pine trees which stand by the gallery to mark a stage in
-their progress. Only men act, and for the women's parts they wear the
-conventional masks with the white, narrow face and the eyebrows painted
-high up on the middle of the forehead, which is the classical
-standard of female beauty. Masks are also worn by those representing
-demons or ghosts, and these masks are much on the same plan as those
-worn by children on the fifth of November. They are made of carved wood
-with a slit for the mouth and two holes for the eyes. They are palpably
-masks put over the face and make no pretence at verisimilitude; indeed,
-sometimes the girl's mask may be openly tied on with a fillet ribbon
-across the forehead. They are clearly illustrated in the plates facing
-pages 14 and 76, where the white mask-face is put so as to show quite
-frankly the tanned and corrugated neck of the elderly actor. Wild bushy
-heads of long hair are also worn by those taking the part of demons,
-and sometimes by the ghosts, as is seen in the plate facing p. 76,
-where the little figure represents the ghost in the _Sumidagawa_.
-
-
-The Costumes
-
-Though in other respects the _No_ staging is so simply organised, the
-costumes of the actors are sumptuous and completely representative of
-the parts the actors are playing. The various robes are all of mediæval
-cut and fashion, and are mostly very stiff with opulent brocades or
-embroideries. Some of the styles are shown in the various illustrations
-in this book, and it will at once be noticed that they are all
-elaborate and richly coloured. While the cut of most of the garments is
-something akin to the simple _kimono_ and _hakama_ (divided skirt worn
-by the men when fully dressed) of the present day, they are on a more
-massive scale with great stiff boufflé divided skirts (as the figure in
-plate 3, p. 14, shows particularly well), and with the kimono sleeves
-so wide and stiff that the wearer seems almost three times his normal
-width. The figure on the Frontispiece illustrates such excessively
-voluminous and elaborate dress. The garments may be worn in overlaid
-series, showing beneath a rich overdress the edges of many equally fine
-under-robes, and of course armour and accoutrements are carried by
-those representing the ancient warriors.
-
-The costumes of the _No_ are in truth the treasures of a museum, put to
-actual use.
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 3.
-
-A COUNTRY POETESS
-
-_The figure of a country girl, who was also a poetess, and sent a
-subtle verse in reply to a noble who sought to obtain some of the
-plant growing by her cottage (as represented on the stage by the
-bower to the left of the cut.) The figure shows well the ceremonial
-dress, of scarlet +hakama+, or divided skirt, with flowing,
-voluminous +kimono+ over it. At the throat can be seen the series
-of under-dresses, of which only the edge of each appears. The massive
-folds over the head are not some head-dress, as might at first be
-thought, but the folds of the long kimono sleeve falling back over the
-arm which is raised above the head. The squatting figure to the right
-is that of a priest, who comes into the story of this +No+._ ]
-
-
-Properties
-
-There are few or no "stage properties" of any kind. Just as there is no
-scenery and the images of the places in which the action lies must be
-evolved in their own minds by the spectators, guided by the descriptive
-passages of the play; so also there are no appliances. If the actors,
-for instance, have to enter a boat and be rowed across a stream, they
-will perhaps merely step over a bamboo pole. If one of the characters
-has to ladle up water and offer it to a fainting warrior, the whole
-action is accomplished with a fan. Sometimes there may be a little in
-the way of properties--for example, the arbour-like bowers in plate
-3, p. 14, which are drawn on to the stage and represent dwellings,
-and in plate 4, p. 16, where the little temple bell is brought into
-the action. But even in such cases the actors have to create an
-illusion round the accessories by their words and motions.
-
-We scarcely need to be reminded that Shakespeare's plays were
-originally written for a stage which had but little more in the way of
-properties, and that even to-day there are not a few persons who feel
-that Shakespeare's finest passages do not gain but actually lose by the
-life-like and elaborate settings of the modern stage.
-
-When one hears the _No_ called archaic and primitive because of their
-absence of scenery and the child-like simplicity and artlessness of the
-properties one feels it is by a critic who is confusing values. "Words
-which unaided can hold an audience, a drama which can paint the scene
-directly on the mind with little intervention of the eye, is surely not
-rightly described as primitive."
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 4.
-
-MIIDERA
-
-_This print, taken from a Japanese coloured woodcut, illustrates
-the central figure of a +No+ drama, with the single, most
-characteristic piece of stage "property," belonging to the play. The
-figure is that of a mother, well-nigh mad with grief at the loss of her
-child, (note the bamboo in her hand, a symbol of her state) who sets
-out to seek him. She finds the little one at the Temple of Miidera, a
-view of which is inset in the black circle on the left of the print.
-The model of a temple bell in red lacquer beneath this is mounted on
-roller feet, and is an illustration of the piece of property which is
-all that represents the temple on the stage, and is a good example of
-the simplicity of the stage-mounting of the +No+ pieces._ ]
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 5.
-
-SOSHIARI-GOMACHI
-
-_This plate, taken from a Japanese coloured woodcut, illustrates the
-+No+ of which Komachi is the heroine. She was a poetess of great
-beauty and poetic gifts, and many distinguished poets were very jealous
-of her. On the occasion of one of the competitions of verse before
-the Emperor (the figure on the extreme right with scarlet skirts) one
-of her enemies attempted to prove that her verse was plagiarized and
-that he had it already in his own collection. She proves his fraud by
-washing out the verse which he had just written into his book after
-hearing it, showing that it was not printed with the rest. This she is
-about to do in the picture. The story continues that after his exposure
-he tried to commit suicide to escape disgrace, but she generously
-prevented him. The mask worn by the actor who takes her part well
-illustrates the classic type of beauty in Japan. The eyebrows are
-shaved off, and painted on high upon the forehead beneath the hair. In
-the action she uses a fan to express the business of washing out the
-interpolated verses +(see p. 16)+. The oblong article to the right
-represents the table on which a copy of her verses was laid in the
-competition._ ]
-
-
-The Audience
-
-Prof. Aston, in his _History of Japanese Literature_, says (p. 200):
-"Representations (of the _No_) are still given in Tokio, Kioto and
-other places, by the descendants or successors of the old managers who
-founded the art ... and are attended by small but select audiences
-composed almost entirely of ex-Daimios or military nobles and their
-ex-retainers. To the vulgar the _No_ are completely unintelligible."
-The contrast between the audiences at the _No_ and at the common
-theatre is very marked, but then it must be remembered that practically
-no one of culture or refinement attends the common theatre, and
-practically every one of that class is interested in the _No_. Owing
-to the present social conditions in Japan, however, the audiences at
-the _No_ pieces are not so small or so restricted as this would lead us
-to believe if we did not remember that ex-daimios and military nobles
-have entered almost every social grade; many, indeed most, of the
-common police are Samurai, excessively poor students of the University
-or school teachers, and even rickshaw-men may be the representatives
-of the proud old families. When, a little more than forty years ago,
-the great social upheaval and re-organisation of Japan took place, and
-the nobles and Samurai lost their privileged positions, though they
-were given positions of honourable standing so far as possible, many
-of them entered the ranks of what we would call the "common people";
-and so it happens that to-day there are permeating nearly the whole
-of society, in all its grades, some of the old cultured class. Among
-policemen, rickshaw-men and gardeners one may come across men of deep
-classical interests and knowledge, and a poor student living on a few
-shillings a week may spend his evenings chanting the _No_ songs to the
-moon. Indeed, while I was in Tokio such a one lived near the house in
-which I dwelt for a few months. I never met him personally, because I
-did not wish to destroy the wonderful impression of melancholy romance
-and weird beauty which his chanting gave me. The many evenings that I
-sat alone on my balcony, looking toward Fuji mountain, behind which the
-sun had set, and heard in the swiftly passing twilight and under the
-glittering oriental stars the mournful, tragic chants of the _No_ which
-this young man was practising, have left their life-long impression
-on me, and perhaps account for the deeper love and understanding of
-the _No_ which have come to me than to the foreigners who hear only a
-few performances in a theatre. Yet this young man lived in what could
-scarcely be called more than a hovel, and he is representative of
-thousands now so living in Japan.
-
-Consequently one must remember that though the audience of a _No_
-theatre is "select" in the real sense, it is not by any means entirely
-composed of wealthy folk.
-
-All who can afford to do so come in full ceremonial dress, which is
-sombre-coloured both for men and women, for custom only allows the
-brilliant colours to be donned by children and young girls. Most of the
-audience arrives by nine o'clock in the morning, and remains till three
-or four in the afternoon. The "boxes" are little matted compartments
-marked off on the floor, with railings round them but six inches high,
-and every one sits on his folded-up legs on a cushion on the floor. As
-will be seen in the diagram (p. 10) the audience sits round three sides
-of the stage. In the winter they will have a little charcoal fire in
-the box beside them, and will sit warming their hands over it as they
-watch the piece.
-
-
-Concerning the Effect of the _No_ on the Audience and on me
-
-In a common theatre the audience talks, eats, and even plays games
-between the scenes of the play, and gives its best attention during
-a murder or a very realistic hara-kiri, when the blood trickles
-in lifelike fashion out of the actor's mouth as he writhes for
-half-an-hour in his death agonies with a crimson gash across his
-middle. I shall never forget a scene of the kind which nearly did for
-me altogether, but which stirred the whole audience to breathless
-attention. During a performance of the _No_, on the other hand, most
-of the audience listen absorbedly to the whole piece, many being well
-able to check or criticise the actor if he should make the slightest
-slip, as they are personally acquainted with the parts. Others follow
-the chanting with a book of the text in their hands, and thus secure
-themselves against losing a word; for the _No_ is like our own opera
-in this, that unless one is well acquainted with the words of the
-piece they are apt to be lost here and there. Each one of the audience
-has some knowledge of classical poetry, and according to the degree
-of this knowledge is the enjoyment of the thousand allusions and part
-quotations and adaptations that are in the plays. With each recognised
-reference to some classic poem or story, the richer does the suggestion
-of the whole become, for a word or a phrase which has but little
-meaning in itself becomes fragrant and beautiful when it carries with
-it the perfume of a thousand lovely and suggestive memories. Also
-working upon the sensitive audience all the time, there is the psychic
-effect of the beautiful and harmonious colouring and of the potent
-music. The psychological effect of music is a power which we all
-vaguely recognise, but few of us begin to understand. Nevertheless,
-I hold it as certain that for the time being it physically as well
-as spiritually affects us, and that when we are tuned to the throb
-and rhythm of fundamentally great and _right_ music, though we are
-no nearer to an intellectual understanding of the root things of the
-universe, yet we are actually nearer a spiritual oneness with, and
-hence a sort of comprehension of them. The music of the _No_, founded
-on a different scale from our own, has a very peculiar effect, yet one
-in complete harmony with the mental conceptions of the plays.
-
-And to this effect the audience of the _No_ is pre-eminently exposed,
-for all the surrounding conditions are calculated to enhance and aid
-it: the magnetic effect of the quiet, intellectual audience on itself;
-the beautiful simplicity and harmony of the colour scheme within the
-theatre; the dignity and impersonalness of the actors fulfilling their
-anciently prescribed actions; the allusions and suggestions of the
-poems, the descriptions of natural beauties and the frequent references
-to religious and philosophical ideas; when combined with the strange
-and solemn music of the singers create together within the heart of the
-observer a something which is well nigh sublime.
-
-Going to the _No_ as a stranger and a foreigner, to whom almost all the
-allusions and suggestions of classical quotation were lost--to whom no
-thrills could be communicated by the mention of a single word (just
-think for a moment what feelings the one name _Deirdre of the Sorrows_
-creates in you if you know the Irish stories and have seen Synge's
-play. Well, just such feelings are created in a Japanese by single
-words and names, which to us appear prosy or unintelligible), yet even
-I was caught in the power of the whole creation of the _No_. To my
-earlier words I still adhere: "There is in the whole a ring of fire and
-splendour, of pain and pathos, which none but a cultured Japanese can
-fully appreciate, but which we Westerners might hear, though the sounds
-be muffled, if we would only incline our ears." Those who find the _No_
-plays prosy and of mediocre merit, have but partially comprehended them
-through having been too intent upon the "letter of the law."
-
-
-Concerning the dramatic Construction of the _No_
-
-True "dramatic" qualities are almost entirely absent from the _No_;
-there is no interplay of the characters, no working up of a story to
-some moving, dramatic and apparently inevitable conclusion. Nor are
-the unities of time and place in the least regarded. Even centuries
-may be supposed to elapse in the course of the story of a play, and an
-actor may be represented as travelling far while declaiming a short
-speech. An outline scheme of the plot which would be found to fit
-the majority of the plays is as follows: The hero or heroine, or the
-secondary character, sets out upon a journey, generally in search of
-some person or to fulfil some duty or religious object, and on this
-journey passes some famous spot. In the course of long and generally
-wearying wanderings, a recital of which gives an opportunity for the
-descriptions of natural beauties, this living person meets some god, or
-the ghost or re-incarnated spirit of some person of note, or perhaps
-the altered and melancholy wreck of some one of former grand estate.
-Generally at first this ghost or spirit is not recognised, and the
-living hero converses with it about the legends or histories attached
-to the locality. Usually then toward the end the ghost makes itself
-known as the spirit of the departed hero for which the spot is famous.
-Often a priest forms one of the characters, and then the ghost may be
-soothed by his prayers and exhortations. There is generally some moral
-teaching interwoven with the story, the hero or the ghost exemplifying
-filial or paternal duty, patriotism, or some such quality; while there
-is a thread of Buddhistic teaching throughout. In this the main theme
-is the transitoriness of human life, and at the same time is presented
-a view of all the pain and misery people may endure when they are not
-rendered superior to it by a recognition of the higher philosophy that
-teaches that the whole universe is a dream, from whose toils the freed
-spirit can escape.
-
-The primitive complement of actors was probably two, but few plays have
-so small a number. Three or perhaps four actors is the usual, and six,
-with a few exceptions, is the highest number for a complete cast.
-
- 1. The hero or protagonist is called the _shite_.
-
- 2. The companion or assistant to the hero is the _tsure_.
-
- 3. The balance of the story is preserved by a sort of deuteragonist
- called the _waki_, who may also have his _tsure_.
-
- 4. A child part may be added to enrich or add pathos to the play (as
- in the _Sumida River_ for example), and he is called the _kokata_.
-
- 5. Then there may be the _ahi_, or supplementary actor.
-
-The actors do not perform many evolutions on the stage, and though
-their movements are in harmony with the story to some extent, they tend
-to remain more or less in the relative positions that are indicated on
-the plan of the stage facing p. 10.
-
-
-Concerning the literary Style of the original texts of the _No_
-
-The text of the _No_ is composed of a mixture of somewhat stilted and
-archaic prose, incompletely phrased portions, and poetry in correct
-metrical form. The strictly compressed and regulated five and seven
-syllabled lines of the short, standard verses of Japan are here
-scattered somewhat irregularly. Indeed, the general text of the _No_
-may perhaps best be described as poetry but half dissolved in prose;
-or, to use another simile, as an archipelago of little islets of poetry
-in a sea of prose, each islet surrounded and connected by sandy shores
-and bars which have been reduced almost to sea level.
-
-All through the pieces there is an immense number of plays upon
-words, of "pillow" and "pivot" words, of short quotations from and
-allusions to classical poetry, so that the text simply bristles with
-opportunities for literary "commentators." The excessive amount of
-classical allusion and quotation, while it does not appeal at all to
-us, is one of the features which principally delights the Japanese
-literati. For this is considered not only to show the degree of
-knowledge which the author possessed, but also to add greatly to the
-richness and suggestiveness of the piece by bringing to the memory
-other cognate scenes and ideas. The merit of the frequent quotations
-being that they allow of great compression and terseness of style, so
-that in a few words an author can bring a series of scenes before the
-mind of his audience.
-
-So much we can understand, but the "pillow" and "pivot" words are
-without parallel in our own language. By means of them the subject may
-be diverted to some idea which appears, to our way of thinking, totally
-unconnected. For instance, in the _Sumida River_ (see p. 83) the use
-of the root word for _repute_ by the Ferryman makes the Mother, in
-the following line, recall and quote a classic poem on quite another
-subject which has the same root word in it. The link connecting the
-two subjects being merely the one root word which is common to both,
-and which is called the pivot word, the value of which is, of course,
-entirely lost in translation. In English, unconnected ideas alone
-are left. Some examples of such devices are mentioned in the notes
-following the translations of the plays at the end of the book, but
-throughout the _utai_ they are of perpetual recurrence and are far too
-frequent to be mentioned every time they appear. In his _Classical
-Poetry of the Japanese_, Prof. Chamberlain gives an account of the
-pivot words, and he admires their "dissolving view" effects, but Aston
-thinks them frivolous and a sign of decadence. These "pivot words"
-as well as the "pillow words," though they are so prevalent in its
-literature, are not at all confined to the _utai_ of the _No_, but are
-characteristic of the whole of the early Japanese verse. The "pillow
-words" (called _makura-kotoba_ in Japanese) have been collected by
-Prof. F. F. V. Dickins[3] recently, and he says, "The _makura-kotoba_
-form the characteristic embellishment of the early _uta_ of Japan, and
-of all subsequent Japanese, as distinguished from Japano-Chinese verse."
-
-As regards rhyme, there is no use of such rhyming as characterises our
-own verse; and this may partly depend on the structure of the Japanese
-language. Japanese words are not composed of letters as they are with
-us, but of syllables; every consonant is associated with all the
-vowels. Thus the words are compounded of a larger number of elements
-than with us, but each ends in one of the five vowels or in _n_. The
-elements are _ka_, _ki_, _ko_, _ta_, _ti_, _tu_, _te_, _to_, and so on.
-This will at once be evident if we examine a few words of romanised
-Japanese. For example, the first line of the play _Tamura_ is _Hina no
-myakoji hedate kite_.
-
-In the _utai_, though there is no terminal rhyming, there is sometimes
-a tendency to repeat the same syllable more than once in a phrase, with
-the deliberate intention of accentuating it.
-
-
-Concerning the Difficulties of Translation
-
-Only half-a-dozen of the complete _No_ and portions of a few others
-have been translated into English from all the many Japanese originals
-that are available. But this is scarcely surprising. In translating
-any of the _No_ there are two supreme difficulties to be encountered.
-The first depends on the organic remoteness of the Japanese language
-from our own, which is common to any translation from the Japanese;
-and the second is the peculiar difficulty of translating the _utai_
-because the exact meaning of many portions of them is disputed even
-by Japanese authorities, and then even where the meaning may be clear
-to a Japanese expert the compression of the language is so great that
-it cannot literally be rendered into a European language. From a
-French or German, even from a Russian original, a literal translation
-is comprehensible even if it is not beautiful in English. A literal
-English translation from a Japanese original is arrant nonsense. The
-Japanese language is not merely unlike ours; the whole mode and order
-of the thought upon which it is founded is on an entirely different
-plan from our own. The more conscientious the translator the greater
-his difficulty. It is easy enough to translate "_O yasumi nasai_"
-as "good-night," but how are we to say in English what it really
-means, _i. e._ approximately "honourably deign to take rest," without
-appearing remote and stilted? And that is just a simple little common
-phrase; when the Japanese to be translated is contorted and coruscated
-with "pillow words" and "pivot words," with a phrase from an old
-classical poem of which the reader is supposed to know the whole, and
-cannot "see the point" unless he does so, what is the translator to
-do? But suppose, further, that a couple of the words are the subject
-of learned controversy, as is frequently the case, is it likely two
-translations will coincide?
-
-
-Concerning the Translations of others, as well as those in this Book
-
-There are three principal lines that a much-to-be-pitied translator
-may take. (1) He may give up in despair any attempt at being literal.
-He belongs, let us say, to the school that think it best to translate
-"_O yasumi nasai_" as "good-night." He has this pre-eminent virtue that
-he will give us at least a version which can be read as English. And
-there is much to be said for this mode of treatment. (2) On the other
-hand, a great contrast to translator No. 1 is he who desires to give
-a literal version of the Japanese, and who does not care in the least
-whether it sounds smooth and finished in English. (3) Then there is the
-last, and perhaps the most misguided of all, who cares a great deal to
-convey the true Japanese impression and also tries to polish and round
-off the English so that it may not appear too stilted or too rough, but
-may convey to the English reader something of the true spirit of the
-Japanese without always diverting his attention to some peculiarity of
-the rendering's bodily form. As I myself have endeavoured to supply the
-third type of translations, I may be allowed to enlarge a little on the
-attitude of mind of one making the attempt.
-
-M. Bergson, in his inimitable book on laughter, says, "Where lies the
-comic element in this sentence, taken from a funeral speech and quoted
-by a German philosopher: 'He was virtuous, and plump'? It lies in the
-fact that our attention is suddenly recalled from the soul to the
-body." The sudden intrusion of the body, particularly the imperfect or
-ill-managed body, is the source of most of the comic element in human
-life.
-
-Hence, recognising this fatal pitfall, I have felt it essential to make
-the _body_ of my translations as little irritating and noticeable as
-possible, while at the same time preserving, as far as the language
-will allow, complete truthfulness to the spirit of the original. All
-my sympathies are with the translators in class No. 2, and were our
-universe not organised in the humorous way that M. Bergson has pointed
-out, I should have ranked myself with them, and attempted to give only
-a literal rendering of the Japanese. But such translations never allow
-us for a moment to forget the English body of the original Japanese
-spirit, because the body they give it is out of joint, abnormal in our
-eyes, and therefore it absorbs our attention or renders ridiculous the
-hints it conveys that the spirit it encloses may have aspired to soar.
-
-Let me illustrate by quotation--
-
-Dickins's[4] most scholarly and valuable translation keeps one's
-attention always in the realm of intellectual interest, and it is his
-intention to be strictly in accord with the original. His version is
-partly in prose and partly in this form--
-
-    "across the surf he
-  upon the shipway oareth,
-    gentle the skies are,
-  the spring-winds softly blowing--
-    what tale of days shall
-  his bark in the cloudy distance
-    sail o'er the sea-plain
-  till Haruma he reacheth."
-
-With this it is interesting to compare Aston's translation, which is
-largely prose. The lines quoted above from Dickins are rendered by
-Aston[5] as follows: "With waves that rise along the shore, and a
-genial wind of spring upon the ship-path, how many days pass without a
-trace of him we know not, until at length he has reached the longed-for
-bay of Takasago, on the coast of Harima."
-
-This play of _Takasago_ is often quoted and is much beloved by the
-Japanese, and some of the verses from it are invariably chanted at the
-wedding festivals. The beginning of the famous chorus is thus rendered
-by Aston (p. 209)--
-
-  "On the four seas
-  Still are the waves;
-  The world is at peace.
-  Soft blow the time-winds,[6]
-  Rustling not the branches.
-  In such an age
-  Blest are the very firs,
-  In that they meet
-  To grow old together."
-
-Captain Brinkley's translation of _Ataka_ is in somewhat similar style
-to the preceding, a mixture of prose and "verse" of short lines like
-the following example--
-
-  "From traveller's vestment
-  Pendent bells ring notes
-  Of pilgrims' foot-falls;
-  And from road-stained sleeves
-  Pendent dew-drops presage
-  Tears of last meetings."
-
-To the same school of translators belongs Mr. Sansom,[7] though he
-is slightly less literal than Mr. Dickins. He renders the exquisite
-fragment from the _Sakuragawa_ as follows--
-
-  "The waters flow, the flowers fall,
-  forever lasts the Spring,
-  The moon shines cold, the wind blows high,
-  the cranes do not fly home.
-  The flowers that grow in the rocks
-  are scarlet, and light up the stream.
-  The trees that grow by the caverns
-  are green and contain the breeze
-  The blossoms open like brocade,
-  the brimming pools are deep and blue."
-
-All the time we are reading this the magic of suggestion is working,
-and we would fain let our minds float away into the land of spring;
-but our attention is brought plumping down to the bodily presentation
-of the thoughts and our intellect is set at work to see how the lines
-might have been made to scan, or to run in some form of rhythm. So long
-as they do just scan and have a passable rhythm, we do not think of the
-poetical qualities of the translation, but when they jolt us along our
-attention is constantly diverted from the higher theme to the lesser
-subject of English grammar and versification.
-
-So that I have endeavoured in my translations to make the lines run
-smoothly enough to be read aloud without much irritation; and though I
-have doubtless not fully succeeded, I have tried to give them as much
-verbal beauty as was possible within the narrow limits afforded me by
-the literal Japanese meaning. In this my collaborator, Prof. Sakurai,
-has held the rein on me at times when I would have liked to run away
-with some poetical conceits, and it is owing entirely to his tireless
-exertions that the result has a fair degree of accuracy. I must relieve
-him of too great a responsibility, however, for I confess that here and
-there where it seemed to me imperative to put in a word or two more
-than was in the original in order to convey the necessary impression
-to an English reader, or where several lines of metre would have been
-upset if he wouldn't let me have the word I wanted, I have just taken
-the bit between my teeth and run away from him. But this has happened
-seldom, and on the whole I think it will be found that the English
-version bears close comparison with the Japanese.
-
-Now a word regarding the type of verse that is used by those who
-translate into a recognisable English form. Of these the translations
-in Prof. Chamberlain's _Classical Poetry of the Japanese_ of four
-of the finest and most renowned _utai_ of the _No_ are models to be
-considered by any later translator. Prof. Chamberlain puts the "words"
-into prose, and the "songs" into rhymed verse.
-
-The chorus at the end of the _Robe of Feathers_ is a good example of
-this easily flowing verse (p. 146)--
-
-  "Dance on, sweet maiden, through the happy hours!
-  Dance on, sweet maiden, while the magic flow'rs
-  Crowning thy tresses flutter in the wind
-  Rais'd by thy waving pinions intertwin'd!
-  Dance on! for ne'er to mortal dance 'tis giv'n
-  To vie with that sweet dance thou bring'st from heav'n:
-  And when, cloud-soaring, thou shalt all too soon
-  Homeward return to the full-shining moon,
-  Then hear our pray'rs, and from thy bounteous hand
-  Pour sev'nfold treasures on our happy land;
-  Bless ev'ry coast, refresh each panting field,
-  That earth may still her proper increase yield!"
-
-But to my ear such consistently rhymed verse does not convey any
-suggestion of the sound of the Japanese chants. As Captain Brinkley
-has it, "by obeying the exigencies of rhyme, whereas the original
-demands rhythm only ('the learned sinologues, their translators'),
-have obtained elegance at the partial expense of fidelity." It is true
-that a less formal versifying, such as I have used, does not represent
-truly the Japanese effect either--nothing can; but it seems less out
-of harmony with its character than do the rhyming stanzas. Then also
-I found that short rhymed lines render one liable to strain the sense
-a little in order to make things fit in. Longer lines, without such
-regular rhyming, allow one more play, and this enables one to follow
-the words suggested directly by the Japanese. Since then also Prof.
-Chamberlain's own taste has changed and he has "gone over to the camp
-of the literalists."
-
-In two of the pieces I have put the "words" into a longer metre to
-indicate the difference between them and the "songs." But I find this
-makes an added difficulty for any one reading aloud, without much
-enhancing the accuracy of the whole, so that in _Kagekiyo_ I have made
-no distinction between the various parts of the text. In listening to a
-Japanese _No_ performance one could not really tell where the "words"
-left off and the "songs" began, and also, as I have previously noted
-(p. 24), the poems are connected to the prose by irregularly dispersed
-poetical lines. Finally,
-
-
-In Conclusion
-
-as none of the prose in the least corresponds to our prose, and as
-it is not given in the ordinary speaking voice of the Japanese, but
-is always specially intoned, it seems to me much more suitable and
-harmonious to render the whole _utai_ in verse of various kinds.
-
-Even this little book has been the task of years, despite its many
-imperfections. It was undertaken primarily because I delighted in the
-_No_, and the labour of bringing it through the Press was rendered
-lighter by the hope that it might give pleasure to the English reading
-public to see, even "through a glass darkly," something of the beauty
-of this unexplored literature. I have already described the effect
-these plays have on the Japanese and on me. That I have caught perhaps
-an echo of their spirit I am encouraged to think, because on the two
-occasions when one or other of these translations have been read to
-audiences it has been reported to me that several of those who heard
-them were in tears. That strikes the right note. For with all their
-literary richness and their descriptions of beautiful scenes and of
-heroic deeds, the ground note of the _No_ is human tragedy. Their
-tragedy is of the fundamental, elemental kind that depends upon the
-very nature of our being, that turns upon the terrible fact which
-the trivialities of the material world so readily delude us into
-forgetting--that we are fleeting as a drop of dew.
-
-  MARIE C. STOPES.
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[1] _The Sumida River_ formed the subject of a paper read before the
-Royal Society of Literature. The translators acknowledge with gratitude
-the kindness of the Council in allowing them to republish the major
-part of the verse in the form in which it appeared in the Transactions
-of the Royal Society of Literature in 1909.
-
-[2] _Trans. Roy. Soc. Literature_, _London_, vol. 29, pp. 156-7.
-
-[3] _Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan_, vol. 35, pt. 4. 1908.
-
-[4] _Primitive and Mediæval Japanese Texts_, p. 399.
-
-[5] _History of Japanese Literature_, p. 207.
-
-[6] The land and sea breezes, which blow regularly only in fine weather.
-
-[7] _Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan_, vol. 38, pt. 3, p. 174.
-
-
-
-
-THE MAIDEN'S TOMB
-
-
-Authorship of the Play
-
-This piece is now commonly attributed to _Kiyotsugu_, and is supposed
-to have been produced at the end of the fourteenth century. Its exact
-date is not known, but Kiyotsugu was born in 1354 and died in 1406; yet
-it is most likely that he was an adapter and not the original author of
-the _utai_, parts of which were probably written long before his time.
-The play is still one of the most important of the _No_, and is indeed
-a test piece, as parts of the _Shite's_ chanting are exceptionally
-difficult. A foreigner cannot judge of this, but from my own point of
-view it is perhaps the finest of all the _No_.
-
-
-Outline of the Story
-
-The play is based on a story told--or rather written down, for it was
-probably told long before then--a thousand years ago in the _Yamato
-Monogatari_, or _Tales of Japan_. It is the story of the love of two
-men for one woman, and the fatal consequences thereof for all concerned.
-
-UNAI, a maiden living near Ikuta, was loved by two equally gifted
-men. On the selfsame day they each sent her a letter declaring their
-passion, but she could not decide between them, fearing the anger of
-either rejected suitor. Her father determined that the one who shot
-most accurately should win her, but in the contest the two men pierced
-the same wing of the same bird with their arrows. This bird was a
-mandarin duck, a creature whose lifelong faithfulness to its mate was
-proverbial in Japan. The girl felt bitterly that she was to blame for
-the death of the bird and the misery its mate endured, as well as for
-the strife between the two men. Hence she drowned herself. Then the two
-men, visiting her tomb, were filled with remorse, and killed each other
-beside her grave. This, however, only added to the girl's guilt, and
-much of the play is taken up with vivid descriptions of her agonising
-torments in the eight hells believed in by popular Buddhism.
-
-The play opens with a traveller Priest passing the village of Ikuta on
-his way to the capital. It is early spring, and the village maidens
-are out gathering the first green shoots of the "seven herbs," which
-used to be eaten at the beginning of the year as a kind of ceremony.
-The city folk make this herb-gathering a pleasure picnic, but the
-poor girls going out of necessity into the biting cold of January are
-envious of those who are better off in cities. The spirit of the long
-dead UNAI has joined them in the form of a young girl, but she takes
-part in the opening dialogue. The "Maiden's (_i. e._ UNAI'S) Tomb"
-is one of the famous places in the district, and the Priest asks to
-see it. UNAI'S spirit remains behind when the village girls have been
-driven home by the cold, and she conducts the Priest to the tomb,
-conversing with him, and telling him the story of UNAI. Her spirit's
-materialisation as a maiden then vanishes, and UNAI appears as a Ghost,
-for whom the Priest prays. The Ghost laments over the tomb, and the
-Chorus gives expression to her longing for the human world. The Ghost
-expresses her thankfulness for the prayer uttered by the Priest, and
-recounts her agonising sufferings in the eight hells. The Priest makes
-some effort, but not a very determined one, to inculcate in the poor
-Ghost the higher Buddhistic belief that all these things, even the
-hells, are delusions, and her mind could free herself of them. The play
-closes with the Chorus telling of her miseries in hell.
-
-
-Comments on the Play
-
-In its construction, and its presentment of the story as a whole, this
-play resembles strikingly one of the beautiful tryptic colour prints
-of Japan, in which an exquisite, softly coloured garden or woodland
-foreground, shaded with delicate mists, brings into intense relief
-the vivid figure of an armoured warrior going out to battle. In the
-opening passages of this play we have the soft, misted foreground,
-with the tender green shoots of the early spring-time. One sees the
-thin, frosted ice pushing aside the sprouting plants, and the scene is
-enhanced and the description of it embroidered by poetic references to
-the details of the picture. But among the maidens is one, outwardly
-like others, so that they do not recognise the difference themselves,
-but yet one who is a tragic figure, a temporary reincarnation of a
-spirit from hell. Then with the Priest the spirit converses, and paints
-in vivid colours this central figure, for whom the whole scene forms
-but the setting.
-
-To us in the West the moral attitude of the play seems very strange.
-From her initial 'sin' in being sufficiently beautiful to attract the
-love of two men, and her guilt in causing the death of the mandarin
-duck (in a Buddhistic country no small crime), we see crime after crime
-laid upon the maiden's head. And all the time in our eyes she appears
-utterly innocent of everything save a too ready yielding to a tender
-conscience, and a willingness to take blame upon herself. Hapless
-maiden, how different is this treatment of hers from that accorded in
-the West to charming girls. In Old Japan not all the eight hells would
-have been accounted sufficient for Helen of Troy.
-
-In its religious attitude we see the popular beliefs of Buddhism
-contrasted with the higher form of the same religion. The
-circumstantial details of the hells and punishments were believed in by
-the common folk, but as the Priest says (on p. 49) all was delusion,
-both in the world and in heaven or hell, and the soul could escape from
-its torments by a recognition of this higher fact.
-
-  If only thou wouldst once but cast away
-  The clouds of thy delusions, thou wouldst be
-  Freed from thy many sins and from all ills.
-
-
-
-
-THE MAIDEN'S TOMB[8]
-
-
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
-
-
-  The Maiden UNAI (really her spirit temporarily
-  incarnated as a maiden)                        (_Shite_)
-
-  Two of the Village Maidens                     (_Tsure_)
-
-  A Priest                                       (_Waki_)
-
-  The Ghost of the Maiden UNAI                   (_Nochi-jite_)
-
-  Chorus
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 6.
-
-THE MAIDEN'S TOMB
-
-_This illustration, from a Japanese coloured woodcut, shows the figure
-of the maiden Unai (+see p. 35+), who wears a dress resembling
-that still worn by country maidens, though with the volume of the
-garment and the size of the patterns both a little more exaggerated
-than those which are now customary. The designer of the woodcut has put
-in symbolic and formalized representations of the Mandarin ducks and
-the flames of hell-fire which were among Unai's torments._ ]
-
-
-SCENE
-
-The fields of ONO near the hamlet of IKUTA in Settsu, in the early
-spring.
-
-[_The PRIEST enters_]
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Far through the country has my journey lain,
-  Far through the country has my journey lain,
-  And to the capital I speed my way.
-
-  I, a priest, am from the country, from the Western districts
-        coming.[9]
-  To the capital, which hitherto my eyes have never seen.
-
-  The paths along the coast are manifold,
-  The paths along the coast are manifold,
-  That on this journey I have traced, and oft
-  My way has lain by boat across the sea.
-  Over the sea and mountains stretching wide
-  I watched the sun rise up and set again,
-  And now I reach Ikuta which I know
-  Only by name as in Tsu province fair,
-  The hamlet of Ikuta now I reach.
-
-
-SPIRIT AND MAIDENS
-
-  Green shoots we gather, young green shoots of spring,
-  And here in Ono by Ikuta blows
-  The morning breeze so chill, so chill and strong
-  It turns and billows out our flapping sleeves.[10]
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  While in the distant mountains, on the pines
-  The snow has even yet not disappeared.
-
-
-SPIRIT AND MAIDENS
-
-  Oh, near the Capital the time has come
-  To gather in the fields the shoots of spring.
-  It makes our hearts glad just to think of that.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  But from the Capital this place is far,
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  And we are country folk and therefore live
-  A humble life here by Ikuta's sea.
-  Our lives and work are of the lowliest
-  And to the field of Ono every year
-  Without the thought of pleasure do we come.[11]
-  The footmarks of the many village folk
-  That go to gather the young shoots of spring
-  Have left wide tracks across the snowy field.
-
-  And tread a path, where else there would be none.
-  And tread a path, where else there would be none.
-
-  The young green shoots that grow on field and marsh
-  We now must gather. When the snow has gone
-  They will already have become too old--
-  Though still the wind blows cold thro' shady copse
-  And on the field of Ono lies the snow,
-  The seven herbs of early spring-time sprout
-  In Ikuta then let us pluck the shoots,
-  In Ikuta then let us pluck the shoots.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  O good people, will you tell me if toward Ikuta I'm nearing?
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  As thou dost know the name of Ikuta
-  There should have been no need to ask us that!
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  Dost thou not know it from the many views
-  That scattered far and wide portray the place?
-
-  First of all, dost thou not know it as the forest of Ikuta?
-  See, the many clustered tree tops which are true to this its name.[12]
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  And there the stream thou hast now deigned to cross,
-  It is the far-famed river Ikuta.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  In the early breath of spring-time (like the shallows of the river)
-  Do we gather, 'neath the snowy cloak, the young shoots of the field.
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  And this field, too, where little sprouts as yet
-  Are growing, why as Ono know'st it not?[13]
-
-
-SPIRIT AND MAIDENS
-
-  The sweet wild cherry blossoms that do grow
-  In Miyoshino and in Shiga too,
-  The maple leaves of Tatsuta and those
-  Of Hatsuse--they would be surely known
-  By those who lived beside the poet's home.
-  But we, though living in this place know not
-  The forest or the copse of Ikuta.
-  So ask us not, for we know nothing here.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Ah yes. Unfolding now before my eyes
-  The views I know--the forest, river, sea,
-  And mist, the scenes of Ono now expand!
-
-  And the far-famed tomb of Ikuta, the Maiden's Tomb, where is it?
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  Ah, in truth, the Maiden's Tomb! That is a place that I have heard of;
-  Whereabout it is I know not, yea, I know not in the least.
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  But prithee, traveller, these useless things
-  We beg thee ask us not, we prize the time[14]
-  When we can gather these young shoots of spring.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  And thou thyself, too, journeyest in haste,
-  So wherefore dost thou tarry with us here?
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  Thereon an ancient poem has the words--
-
-
-CHORUS[15]
-
-I
-
-  "A charming hindrance to the traveller
-  Are they who pluck young shoots in Ono's field
-  In Ikuta."[16] Why ask then useless things?
-
-II
-
-  "Thou, Watchman of the field of Tobuhi
-    That lies in Kasugano, go and see,"
-  "Thou, Watchman of the field of Tobuhi
-    That lies in Kasugano, go and see
-    If it is not yet time to pluck the shoots."[17]
-  Thou, traveller, that to the capital
-  Likewise dost haste, how many days hast thou?
-  "For his sake do I go to the spring fields
-    To gather the young shoots, though on my robe
-    Cling still the cold, unmelted flakes of snow."[18]
-  Let us then gather, snowy though it be
-  And on the marsh the thin ice still remains,
-  Pushing aside the sprouting watercress,
-  Let us then gather the green-coloured shoots
-  Let us then gather the green-coloured shoots.
-
-III
-
-  Would there be much to gather? For the spring
-  Is very early yet--and young shoots hide.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  "The spring-time comes, but as I see the snow
-    Upon the plain, I think of the old year."[19]
-  The young green shoots of this year still are few
-  So we must gather those with older leaves.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  And yet, although the leaves are old and sere
-  The young green shoots are fresh as the new year.
-  Guard then thyself, thou field of the young spring!
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  To the field of spring,
-  To the field of spring,
-  To pluck violets
-  He came, and then
-  Only purple leaves
-  Of the weeds culled he
-  Who came gathering.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Ah, yes, the colour of affinity[20]
-  Has brought to my sad thought the memory
-  Of Love's light bridge which was asunder torn.[21]
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  The aged stems of plants once gone to seed
-  In Sano district still may sprout again,
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  And their green colour will be purple dyed.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  The Shepherd's Purse of Choan--[22]
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  And the hot shepherd's purse, a useless thing,
-  And other herbs white rooted, like the dawn,[23]
-  Which, hidden by the snow we may mistake
-  And gather in the place of those we want.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  The morning breeze in Ono still is cold
-  The lower branches of the pine trees still
-  Are weighted down with snow. Where hides the spring
-  We cannot tell. And though the river breeze
-  Blows cold, our billowing sleeves are colder far.
-  Let us go home, although we leave unplucked
-  Some of the young green shoots, let us go home.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Now there is something I would speak of unto thee if thou permittest--
-  All the maidens who were gathering the young greens have departed
-  Save thyself, and wherefore then art thou alone remaining with me?
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  For the Maiden's Tomb but just now thou didst ask me. I will show
-        thee.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Yes, indeed, I do desire to see it and I pray thee show me.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  This way honourably follow. And the Maiden's Tomb is this!
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  What its history, and why then, is the Maiden's Tomb so calléd?
-  Pray minutely tell the story.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-                               Then will I the tale unfold.
-  Once upon a time a maiden who was called Unai did live here,
-  And two men there were, called Chinu and Sasada, and they loved her.
-  And to her upon the same day, in the same hour, both declaring
-  Fervent love, they sent two letters. But she thought that if she
-        yielded
-  Unto one, the other's anger would be deep, and so to neither
-  Would she yield (and then her father said the truest shot should
-        win her).
-  But upon Ikuta's river did the two men's flying arrows
-  Pierce together but one water-fowl, and pierce the selfsame wing.
-
-  And then I thought, how cruel now I am.[24]
-  The wild fowl's troth, though plighted deep and true
-  Is broken for me, and the happy pair--
-  Mandarin ducks--for my poor sake must bear
-  The pain of separation. Piteous!
-  So, with my life dismayed, I'd throw myself
-  Into Ikuta river's flowing tide[25]
-  Here in the land of Tsu. Ikuta stands
-  Merely a name to such a one as I.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  These were her last words, as she took her way
-  Into the river's water. When they found
-  They buried her beneath this mound of clay.
-  Then the two men, her lovers, came to seek
-  Her tomb. No longer will we live, they said,
-  And like the stream of Ikuta, the tide
-  Of their remorse rose up. Each with his sword
-  Ended the other's life.
-
-  And that was too my sin! That too my sin!
-  What can become of such a one, so full
-  Of sins? I pray thee therefore give me help!
-  So saying 'neath the tomb once more she sank
-  Yea, down beneath the tomb once more she sank.
-
-[_Ghost of UNAI appears_]
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Short as a young stag's horns in summer time[26]
-  The night of sleep! The weeds grow on her tomb,
-  And from their shade appears again the ghost.
-  I'll raise the voice of prayer. "Thou spirit soul,
-  Awake thyself to understanding true,
-  Enter Nirvana casting off from thee
-  Delusions of thy life and of thy death."[27]
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  Oh, the wide field, how desolate it is--
-  My own deserted tomb and nothing else!
-  Only wild beasts contending for the dead
-  Which come and go in gloom, and o'er the tomb
-  The watching spirits flying in the wind
-  That circling ever beats upon the pines.
-  The heaven's lightening, and the morning dew
-  Are still before my eyes, and symbolise
-  The world of Earth, as transient as they.
-  How many of the lonely tombs are those
-  Of Youth, whose lives are so unlike the name
-  Of Ikuta, so-called the field of life.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  A man comes from the world I left long since.
-  How thankful am I. 'Tis the voice of prayer!
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-I
-
-  O human world. How much I long for thee.
-
-II
-
-  A [living] man while spending [in this world]
-  Even a single day and single night,
-  A [living] man while spending [in this world]
-  Even a single day and single night,
-  Eight billion and four thousand things has he
-  To think about. But how much more have I,
-  I, who left long ago the pleasant world--
-  'Twas in the reign of Tenchi and by now
-  The second Horikawa holds his sway.
-  Oh, that once more unto the pleasant world
-  I might return. How long in shady weeds
-  And 'neath the moss, how long I buried lie!
-  But worse, not buried under the cool earth
-  I suffer from a roasting heat and burn,
-  Within a flaming dwelling-place, behold!
-  Within a flaming dwelling-place, behold!
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Alas! How truly piteous is thy state,
-  If only thou wouldst once but cast away
-  The clouds of thy delusions, thou wouldst be
-  Freed from thy many sins and from all ills.
-  "From evils all, and sins, from hells and fiends,
-    Illnesses all and deaths, be thou set free."
-  Oh, quickly float thyself in buoyant thought!
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  Ah, grateful am I, for the voice of prayer
-  Has reached my ears, and tho' my sufferings
-  Do know no intermission, in hot hell
-  The smoke clears back a moment, and I see
-  A little open space. How glad I am!
-
-  Oh, how terrible! Who art thou? What! Of Sasada the spirit?
-  And thou art the ghost of Chinu? And from right and left you hold me
-  By the hands, and saying to me "Come, come, come." Though they
-        torment me
-  I don't dare to leave the shelter of my burning house; for no one,
-  Nothing, is there to rely on. And I see another spirit
-  Flying from afar towards me. Oh, how terrible! I see it,
-  'Tis the duck, and turned to iron, turned to steel it is before me!
-
-  With beaks of steel like naked swords the bird
-    Pecks at my head and feasts upon my brain.
-  Is it because of crimes I did commit?
-    Oh, how resentful is it, cruel bird!
-
-  Oh! I pray thee, Priest, I pray thee, from these sufferings
-        relieve me!
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  "The time of torment fierce has now arrived."
-  The spirit had not finished saying this,
-  When o'er the tomb flew out a band of flame.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  And then its light became a hellish fiend,
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Who raised the torture rod, and drove at her.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  Before me is a sea if I attempt
-  But to advance
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  While flames are in the rear.
-
-GHOST
-
-  And on the left.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  And on the right as well.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  By water and by fire am I now held
-  In double torment.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Helpless utterly.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  When to the pillar of the burning house
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  I reach my hands, and do attempt to cling
-  At once the column bursts out into flame--
-  The blazing pillar must I then embrace.
-  Oh, scorching heat! Oh, unendurable!
-  The whole five members of my body turned
-  Into black smoke by this fierce burning fire.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  And then when I arose--
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  And then when I arose, a jailor fiend
-  Applied the torture-rod, and drove me out.
-  I left the house and wandered through eight hells
-  And there all suffering I underwent.
-  Now I would show thee how I blotted out
-  My many sins. Before thee lie the scenes
-  First in the hell of all equality,[28]
-  Then in the hell of black rope, devil led,
-  And driven to the hell of gathering,
-  Where all assemble. Then the hell of cries,
-  Of bitter cries, came next, and then of heat,
-  Of utmost heat, and then the hell of depth,
-  Depth infinite, into whose space I fell
-  Feet upwards and head downwards for three years
-  And three months more, in agony the while.
-  And after that a little interval--
-  The devils left me and the flames expired,
-  I thought there was a respite to my pain,
-  But then the darkness grew more terrible
-  And to my burning house I would return
-  I thought--but where then was it? To myself
-  I asked the question in the pitchy dark.
-  And seeking, seeking, to and fro I groped.
-  "The Maiden's Tomb"--I searched it everywhere,
-  And now at last I find "The Maiden's Tomb."
-  Like flying dews leaving a grassy shade,
-  Like flying dews leaving a grassy shade,
-  The spirit's form has once more disappeared
-  The spirit's shadow has now vanished.
-
-
-END OF "THE MAIDEN'S TOMB"
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-(The play ends thus abruptly, leaving us in doubt as to whether or not
-the Priest's admonition prevailed, and she escaped into Nirvana.)
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[8] Page 39--This piece in the current original is called
-_Motome-zuka_, which means, the "Sought Tomb." In older versions it
-was previously called _Otome-zuka_, meaning the "Maiden's Tomb," by
-which name the story was also known in the _Yamato Monogatari_ ("Tales
-of Japan"), written nearly a thousand years ago. _Otome_ and _motome_
-sounding so similar in Japanese, and, as the two men came _seeking_ the
-tomb, the name was changed in the text of the Japanese No, but as the
-older name both has priority and is more euphonious I revert to the
-older title.
-
-This piece is one of the eleven most important _utais_, and the
-_Shite's_ part is a particularly difficult one to chant.
-
-[9] The long lines are translations of the "words" in the play. As
-these words are not ordinary prose it seems better not to put them into
-English prose from which they are so remote. (See p. 33.)
-
-[10] Page 40--The original reads:--_Ikuta on Ono no asakazeni nao
-saekaeru tamoto kana_. Here the meaning is very confused, the word for
-sleeves (_tamoto_) following in the Japanese mind from _kaeru_ (which
-means to turn) in _saekaeru_ (it is cold).
-
-[11] Page 40--This brings a picture to mind of the contrast between
-city and country life. An old institution among the well-to-do people
-of the capital is to make a pleasure picnic for the gathering of the
-young green shoots in very early spring. It was a general custom to eat
-the "seven greens" on the seventh day of January each year, and the
-poor people in the country hamlets make it one of their slender sources
-of revenue, to gather these green shoots early in January, for the city
-market.
-
-[12] Page 41--_Ikuta_, the name of the hamlet, has the same _sound_,
-though it is written differently, as the Chinese character for numerous.
-
-[13] Page 42--The Chinese character for the name _Ono_ reads "little
-field"; then there is the suggestion that there is little in the way of
-green sprouts yet.
-
-[14] Page 42--The word "prize" is left out in the original out of
-politeness.
-
-[15] The three parts of this song are chanted in different tones.
-
-[16] Page 43--Quotation from an old poem. The stanza speaks of the
-attractiveness of village maidens gathering young leaves.
-
-[17] Page 43--Quotation from an old poem. The owner of the field is
-hoping that the time will soon come for plucking the shoots. He is
-impatient, and sends the watchman to see if it is not yet time. This
-idea leads up to "Likewise dost haste" in one of the following lines.
-
-[18] Page 43--A part of another old stanza.
-
-[19] Page 44--Still another quotation from an old poem, introduced for
-the word _furu_. "To fall" and "old" are both _furu_ in Japanese, and
-"older leaves" in one of the following lines is _furu ha_.
-
-[20] Page 44--_i. e._ Purple. As is common in Japanese poetry, the word
-purple is not actually used, but is called "the related colour." As a
-colour the Japanese word _Murasaki_ is purple, and it is also applied
-to a herb with deep purple-coloured flowers. This plant's colour is
-so intensely purple that all the herbs growing near it are supposed
-to show the same colour. From such an idea purple colour is known in
-poetry as _Yukari no iro_ (the related colour). In the present lines
-part of an old stanza is introduced for the sake of recalling the word
-_murasaki_, and this in turn leads on to _yukari no na_ in the first
-line of the Chorus.
-
-[21] Page 44--According to an old tale a lover, crossing a pontoon
-bridge, fell between the boats and was drowned. The Chorus supposes the
-heroine to be thinking, "Like this man I too died because of love, and
-the 'Bridge of Love' is a name which is _related_ (see note 11) to my
-own destiny."
-
-[22] Page 45--The Shepherd's Purse is one of the seven herbs. Choan is
-in China, and the old name of China was _Kara_, so that the mention of
-Choan brings _Kara_ to mind, which in turn suggests the word _karai_,
-hot, used in the next line.
-
-[23] Page 45--The dawn is sometimes called the "whitening" in Japanese.
-
-[24] Note the change of person, of course she has really been speaking
-of herself from the beginning.
-
-[25] Page 47--_Ikuta_ means the living field, or field of life, and as
-she is about to die the name is meaningless to her.
-
-[26] Page 47--Depending on an old poem in which the short growth of the
-summer horns is used to express the idea of brief time. An alternative
-translation of this line would be, "Short is my night's sleep, short
-are a stag's horns," but these words do not convey to an English reader
-anything like the meaning the Japanese carries. In the original the
-word _tsuka_ means either a "tomb" or a "grasp," and it acts as a pivot
-word. In the sense of "tomb" it leads to the weeds growing on her tomb,
-which is the essential part; and in the sense of "grasp" it suggests
-shortness, and inasmuch as a stag's horns are so short in summer as to
-be within the grasp of a hand, their shortness is suggested, and this
-in turn suggests a night's sleep in summer. This train of thought would
-probably not occur had it not been rendered a classical picture by an
-old and well-known stanza.
-
-[27] Page 48--He is using the words of the Buddhist scriptures. Though
-in popular belief the hells and torments, as well as the world, exist,
-yet the higher philosophy of Buddhism holds that all is appearance
-only, and that the soul that realises this frees itself from the
-sufferings and restrictions of the grosser existence.
-
-[28] Page 52--Popular Buddhistic teaching postulates eight hells, (1)
-The hell of equality, where all sinners go first. (2) The hell of black
-rope, where they are tied and led by devil-jailors to (3) the hell
-of gathering. Then comes (4) the hell of cries, (5) of bitter cries,
-(6) the hell of heat, (7) of utmost heat, and lastly (8) the hell of
-infinite depth.
-
-
-
-
-KAGEKIYO[29]
-
-
-Authorship of the Play
-
-This Play was probably written about 1410; at any rate in the first
-quarter of the fifteenth century. Its author was _Motokiyo_, who was
-born in 1374 and who died in 1455. He was the eldest son of the famous
-Kiyotsugu (see p. 7).
-
-
-Outline of the Story
-
-The time of the action of the play is about the year 1190, and
-Kagekiyo, the hero of the story, is a very renowned warrior of the
-Taira clan. The Taira and the Minamoto (Gen) clans were rivals and were
-perpetually at war; during the years 1156-1185 more particularly this
-struggle culminated, when Japan had her "Wars of the Roses."
-
-Kagekiyo, known as the Boisterous, owing to his uneven temper and ready
-appeals to arms, was a famous warrior of the Taira clan, and when the
-Minamoto Shogunate was established at Kamakura, Kagekiyo was exiled to
-a distant place in Hiuga, where he became blind and passed a miserable
-existence as a beggar. He had a daughter called Hitomaru, whom he left
-in Kamakura in the charge of a lady. At the time of the play, Hitomaru
-has just grown up to be a young lady, but she had a great desire to
-meet her father, and so set out with a servant to seek him. She has a
-long and arduous journey to the place of her father's exile, and after
-enduring considerable hardships she at last finds Kagekiyo's retreat.
-She and her servant encounter a villager who assists them in the final
-search for Kagekiyo, and they make inquiries of a blind beggar dwelling
-in a miserable straw hut. This beggar is actually Kagekiyo, but at
-first he refuses to answer them or to acknowledge it, out of shame and
-consideration for his daughter. Ultimately, however, he recounts to her
-some of his adventures, and then he commands her to leave him and they
-part for ever.
-
-
-Comments on the Play
-
-In this play there is perhaps less description of the beauties of
-Nature than in many of the _No_, but the opening lines are particularly
-fraught with the meaning which permeates the whole play.
-
-  The dew remains until the wind doth blow.
-
-The comparison of human life to a drop of dew is one frequently made in
-the literature of the _No_. Throughout this play there are many phrases
-showing how deeply the characters feel the transitoriness of human
-life. After Hitomaru's longing for a place to rest a little while,
-Kagekiyo exclaims--
-
-  Nay, in the three worlds there is not a place.
-
-Kagekiyo's behaviour to his child, and his reception of her after
-her long search for him, appears to us to be most cruel; but it is,
-nevertheless, based on the conceptions of the chivalry of his time.
-Kagekiyo's leading thought was the really unselfish desire to keep the
-shame of his condition from touching his daughter. His first wish is
-that she shall not even recognise or speak with him; but when this is
-frustrated, he commands both the servant and the villager to send her
-back immediately their short meeting is over. And yet he does not seek
-even a moment's embrace, nor does he use an endearing phrase to his
-daughter. The play is a good illustration of the way that the old codes
-of Japanese chivalry imposed courses of action which seem now in this
-softer age well-nigh inhuman in their repression and conquest of the
-natural feelings.
-
-
-
-
-KAGEKIYO[30]
-
-
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
-
-
-  Kagekiyo                           _Shite_
-  Hitomaru, Kagekiyo's daughter      _Tsure_
-  Servant to Hitomaru
-  Villager                           _Waki_
-  Chorus
-
-
-SCENE
-
- A mountain side at Miyasaki in the province of Hiuga. Time about 1190.
-
-
-HITOMARU AND SERVANT
-
-  The dew remains until the wind doth blow,
-  The dew remains until the wind doth blow.
-  My own life fleeting as a drop of dew,
-  What will become of me as time does pass?
-
-
-HITOMARU
-
-  My name is Hitomaru, and I am
-  A maiden, who in Kamakura[31] dwells.
-  My father's name is Kagekiyo, called
-  By some the Boisterous, and he is a friend
-  Of the Hei[32] clan, the Taira family
-  And so is by the Gen[32] house hated much.
-  To Miyasaki exiled, in Hiuga
-  He deigns, in shame, long months and years to pass.
-  To travel unaccustomed, I am tired,
-  And yet inevitable weariness
-  I mitigate by thinking of my quest,
-  And I am strengthened for my father's sake.
-
-
-HITOMARU AND SERVANT
-
-  The tears of anxious sleep run down my cheek
-  And to the dew upon the pillowing grass
-  Add drops that drench my sleeves.
-
-  From Sagami the province we set out,
-  From Sagami the province we set out,
-  Asking from those we met, the road to take
-  Toward our destination. And we passed
-  The province Totomi,[33] and crossed by boat
-  The distant bay. And Mikana we passed,
-  By Mikana, spanned o'er with bridges eight.
-  Oh, would that we could grow accustomed soon
-  To our short nights of sleep that we might dream
-  Of the high capital above the clouds,
-  Of the high capital above the clouds.
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Endeavoured as you honourably have
-  To hasten on the way, already now
-  This is Miyasaki, as it is called,
-  To Hiuga you have honourably come.
-  This is the place to honourably ask
-  Your honourable father's whereabouts.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-[_Evident to the audience, but supposed to be hidden from the other
-actors._]
-
-  The pine trees that have seen long months and years
-  Entwine themselves to form the arching bowers.
-  Yet I, debarred from the clear light of day
-  Discern no sign that time is passing by.
-  Here idly in a dark and lowly hut
-  I sleep the time away. The seasons change
-  But not for heat nor cold my clothes are planned
-  And to a skeleton my frame has waned.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  If one has got to leave the world, then black,
-  Black should his sleeves be dyed. Then surely black
-  His sleeves should all be dyed, and yet my sleeves--
-  Oh, more inglorious! So utterly
-  Worn out and waned my state that I myself
-  Feel much averse unto my wretched self.
-  So who could be benevolent enough
-  To visit such a state of misery?
-  No one inquiring of my misery
-    Will ever come.
-  No one inquiring of my misery
-    Will ever come.
-
-
-HITOMARU
-
-  Incredible that one should dwell within
-  That wretched hut, it does not seem to be
-  Fit for a habitation. Strangely though
-  I heard a voice proceeding from its wall.
-  A beggar's dwelling it must be. I fear,
-  And from the lowly dwelling keep away.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  That autumn now has come I cannot see,
-  And yet I feel it for the wind has brought
-  Tidings from somewhere, tho' I know not whence.
-
-
-HITOMARU
-
-  Ah, knowing not my father's whereabouts
-  In misery I wander, with no place
-  Where I can rest even a little while.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  Nay, in the three worlds there is not a place,
-  'Tis only in the heavenly expanse.[34]
-  Choose any man and ask him, he will say
-  "Where else!" And what else could he ever say?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  How now, you in the thatched hut, I would ask
-  A question of you.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  Well; what is it then?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Knowest thou where dwells an exiled man?
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  An exile though he be, what is his name?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  The Boist'rous Kagekiyo is he called,
-  And of the Taira house, a warrior.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  Yes, yes, I think that I have heard of him,
-  Though being blind the man I've never seen.
-  Miserable, his honourable state!
-  To hear of which stirs pity in my breast.
-  Pray then inquire elsewhere the full account.
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Then hereabouts he does not seem to be.
-
-[_To his mistress_]
-
-  But further on we should inquire again
-  If you will honourably now proceed.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  She who has just been here--Why! is she not
-  The very child of this selfsame blind man?
-  Once, very long ago, at Atsuta
-  I met a woman, and this child I got.
-  It was a girl,[35] and so I trusted her
-  To Kamegaegatsu's châtelaine.
-  Now grieving parent meets with child estranged;
-  She, speaking to her father, knows it not.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Her form unseen, although I hear her voice,
-  How sad my blindness is! Without a word
-  I let her pass. And yet such action is
-  Due truly to the bond of parent's love,
-  Due truly to the bond of parent's love.
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  How now, you there! Art thou a villager?
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  And to the Villager what hast thou then
-  Of honourable business?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-                          Dost thou know
-  Where lives an exiled man?
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-                             What sort of man--
-  An exile though he be--of whom you ask?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  A warrior of the Hei house, and called
-  Kagekiyo the Boist'rous, him I seek.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  Just now as thou hast come along this way
-  Upon the hill-side, was there not a hut,
-  A hut with thatch, and somebody within?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Yes, a blind beggar sat within the hut.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  Aye. That blind beggar is the man you seek,
-  The very Kagekiyo whom you seek!
-  How strange! When I said Kagekiyo's name
-  That honourable lady there did deign
-  To show a look of sadness. Why was that?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Thy wonder is most reasonable. Naught
-  Shall I conceal from thee. Kagekiyo's
-  Most honourable daughter is the maid
-  Who hopes once more her honoured sire to meet.
-  That being so, and as from far away
-  She has come hither, I pray thee devise
-  Some proper way of speaking face to face
-  With Kagekiyo.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-                 Oh, unutterable!
-  Is she his honourable daughter then?
-  Well, calm your heart, and pray you deign to hear.
-  The sight of both eyes Kagekiyo lost;
-  So helpless, he cut short his hair and called
-  Himself Kotau of Hiuga and he begs
-  For his poor living from the travellers,
-  And with the pity of such lowly folk
-  As we ourselves, he just sustains his life.
-  And that he doth not tell his name must be
-  Shame for the contrast with the olden days.
-  At once I shall go with you and call out
-  "Kagekiyo"--and if it is his name
-  Then will he answer and you can observe
-  Him face to face, and of the distant past
-  And of the present you shall tell him all.
-  Pray come this way.
-
-                      Holloa! in the thatched hut
-  Is Kagekiyo there within? Is there
-  The boisterous Kagekiyo?
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-                           Worrying,
-  Worrying, even if my state were well.
-  And even though these people came from home,
-  Shame for this very self compels me now
-  Without my name to let them go--and yet--
-  And yet it rends my heart and the sad tears
-  As of a thousand streams run down my sleeves.
-  I waken with the thought that earthly things
-  Are naught, and but as visions in a dream.
-  I am resolved in this world now to be
-  As one who is not, and if they will call
-  This beggar Kagekiyo, why reply?
-  Moreover in this province I've a name--
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  That name in Hiuga facing to the sun,[36]
-  In Hiuga, facing to the sun is not
-  The name they call, but they return to one
-  Of the old days, discarded long ago,
-  Which with my helplessly dropped bow I dropped.
-  Wild thoughts again I never will excite
-  And yet I'm angry.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-                     Though while here I live
-  In this place.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-                 While I live
-  In this place; if I stir the hate of those
-  With means, how helpless would I be! and like
-  A blind man who had lost his walking-stick.
-  A crippled man am I, and yet I dared
-  Unreasonable words to use in wrath.
-  Forgive I pray!
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  Blind are my eyes and yet--
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Blind are my eyes and yet I surely know
-  Another's thought hid in a single word.
-  And if upon the mountains blows the wind
-  Against the pine trees, I can tell its source,
-  Whether it comes from snow or unseen flowers,--
-  Flowers only seen in dreams from which to wake
-  Is to regret! Again if in the bay
-  Upon the rough sea beaches dashing waves
-  Are heard, then I well know the evening tide
-  Is rising. Aye, to the great Taira clan
-  I do belong, and so to pleasure them
-  I'd give recitals of those olden days.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  How now, I wish to say a word to thee,
-  For it has troubled me that I just now
-  Used such quick-tempered words. For what I said
-  I pray thee pardon me.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-                         Well, that is naught.
-  So never mind it. And, has no one come,
-  To make inquiries here before I came?
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  No, no. Except thy calling, none has been.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  Ho! 'Tis a lie thou sayest. Certainly
-  Did Kagekiyo's noble daughter come.
-  Wherefore dost thou conceal? It is because
-  I feel her story is so pitiful
-  That I've come here with her.
-
-[_To HITOMARU_]
-
-                                So now at once
-  Meet with your father, see him face to face
-
-[_KAGEKIYO keeps silence_]
-
-
-HITOMARU
-
-  Pray, it is I, I who have come to you.
-  Cruel! The rain, the wind, the dew and frost
-  I minded not along that distant road,
-  While coming to you! And all this, alas,
-  Becomes as nothing! Does a Father's love
-  Depend upon the nature of the child?[37]
-  Ah, heartless!
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-                 Up till now I hoped to hide,
-  But now I am found out I am ashamed.
-  To hide my fleeting[38] self there is no place.
-
-[_To HITOMARU_]
-
-  If, in thy flowering form thou shouldst proclaim
-  That we are child and parent, then thy name
-  Thou wouldst announce,[39] and when I think on this
-  I am resolved we part. Pray do not feel
-  Thy father harsh and this mere heartlessness!
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Ah, truly is it sad! In olden times
-  I welcomed even strangers when they called,
-  And was displeased if they should pass me by.
-  And now its recompense! How sad it is!
-  To think that I had hoped that my own child
-  Should not have called on me. Alas, how sad!
-  When in their warships were the Taira clan,
-  When in their warships were the Taira clan,
-  So many were there that their shoulders touched
-  And in the crowded space the knees were crossed.
-  There scarce was room to live[40] beneath the moon--
-  And Kagekiyo more than any else
-  Was on the flagship indispensable.
-  His fellow officers and all the rest
-  Though rich in valour and in tactic powers
-  He did o'ertop. And as the ship is steered
-  By him who holds the rudder, so did he
-  Lead in the army and no difference
-  Ever occurred between him and his men.
-  All envied him, but now he is most like
-  A Unicorn, infirm with hoary age
-  And rather worse than a mere useless horse.[41]
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  How now, Kagekiyo, I'd speak with thee!
-  Thy daughter's wish is there, and she would hear
-  Of thy heroic deeds at Yashima
-  So tell her the brave story. Let her hear.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  'Tis somewhat unbecoming, her request!
-  Yet as she came from far and for my sake,
-  I'll tell the story, but when it is done
-  Pray send her home again immediately.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  That shall be done. Thy story finished, I
-  Will send her back at once.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-                              Well then. The time
-  Was drawing toward the end of the third month
-  Of the third year of _Ju-ei_,[42] and our clan
-  Were in their warships while upon the land
-  The hordes of Minamoto gathered near.
-  Two armies were opposed upon the coast
-  And each one wished a contest to decide.
-  Then Noritsune, Lord of Noto, spoke
-  To all his people--"In our last year's fights
-  From Muroyama down in Harima
-  To Mizushima, Hiyodorigoe
-  And all, we never had one victory.
-  To Yoshitsune's[43] tactics this was due.
-  "By some means or another we must slay
-  This Kuro, and suggestions we desire
-  Of some good plan;" he deigned to say to them.
-  Then Kagekiyo in his mind resolved
-  That Hangwan was no devil nor a god,
-  So if I throw away my life for his,
-  I thought, it will be easy, so that this
-  To Noritsune was my last farewell.
-  And as I landed the Gen warriors
-  Did dash towards me to destroy my life.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  This Kagekiyo saw,
-  This Kagekiyo saw, and crying out
-  "How clamorous!" He struck out with his sword
-  That in the evening sun flashed brilliantly.
-  Th' opposing warriors at once gave way,
-  And he pursued, that they should not escape.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  This is deplorable for every one--
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  This is deplorable for every one!
-  'Tis mutual shame alike for the Gen clan
-  And for the Hei clan to look upon
-  So shouted I--thinking to stop one man
-  Is easy, and so underneath my arm
-  Carrying my sword--"A warrior am I
-  Of the great Hei clan, Kagekiyo
-  Some call the Boisterous," and thus crying out
-  To seize them I pursued them. Then I caught
-  On Mihonoya's helmet, but it slipped.
-  Again I caught, but once again it slipped
-  And thus three times did he escape, though I
-  Determined that he should not flee, for he,
-  He was the foe that I had chosen.
-  Eiya! As with the whole strength of my arms
-  I pulled, and as I hauled the cape broke off,
-  And part stayed in my hand,[44] but he escaped.
-  When at some distance from me, he turned back
-  And said, "Now thou art mighty strong of arm
-  Although thou didst allow me to escape."
-  Then Kagekiyo answered back, "The strength
-  Lies in the neck bone of Mihonoya."
-  So smiling, did we part to left and right.[45]
-
-  He who has told the tale of olden days--
-  Days ne'er forgotten--is now sadly waned
-  And e'en confused in mind. Ah, what a shame!
-  The end of all this woe of life is near,
-  For in this world at most my time is short.
-  At once return,[46] and when I am no more
-  I pray thee deign to offer prayers for me.
-  That in dark places there shall be a light
-  For this blind man, and over evil roads
-  A bridge. So will I look upon thy prayers.
-  "I stay," said he, and she "I go,"
-  His ears retained but her one word "I go."
-  And thus between the parent and the child
-  This was the legacy at last exchanged--
-  Between the parent and the child exchanged.
-
-
-END OF "KAGEKIYO"
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[29] Page 53--Kagekiyo's full name is _Aku-Shichibioe Kagekiyo_.
-_Aku_--literally means "wicked"; but sometimes has a special meaning of
-"wild" or "boisterous," as in the present case, where it intimates that
-the man is rough in manners and strong in arms.
-
-[30] I have put this all in one metre, making no difference between the
-"words" and "song." (See p. 33.)
-
-[31] Page 56--In the original it reads, "Kamegaegayatsu in Kamakura";
-but as this will not fit into any possible metre the first word is left
-out.
-
-[32] Page 56--_Taira_ becomes _Hei_ when compounded with a following
-character; thus Taira House is _Hei-Ke_. Similarly "Minamoto" becomes
-_Gen_, thus _Gen-ji_ is the Minamoto family.
-
-[33] Page 57--_Totomi_, the name of one of the provinces through which
-they came, means "distant bay." Also _to_ or _tou_ with a different
-ideagraph means "to ask." _Mikana_, the name of another province
-through which they passed, means "three rivers," which leads to the
-idea of bridges. But more than that, Mikana is noted for its eight
-bridges, spanning over the streams which branch off like the legs
-of a spider, which is _kumo_ in Japanese; and this idea leads on to
-that of "clouds," which are pronounced _kumo_, though written with a
-different ideagraph. The idea of "clouds" leads on, finally, to that
-of the "capital," where only those of high rank "above the clouds" are
-dwelling.
-
-[34] Page 59--Kagekiyo takes up Hitomaru's words, originally used in a
-simple, physical sense, and applies them to the spiritual world. It is,
-nevertheless, not supposed to be a dialogue; each is soliloquising.
-
-[35] Page 60--And therefore could play no part in his warlike schemes.
-
-[36] Page 63--The Chinese character for the name of the province means
-"facing the sun."
-
-[37] Page 65--Meaning that if she had been a boy he would have welcomed
-her; but now he takes no account of her hardships and difficulties in
-reaching him.
-
-[38] The words used give a suggestion of dew-like.
-
-[39] Page 65--Proclaiming herself the child of an exile and beggar, to
-her social detriment.
-
-[40] Page 66--The word _sumu_, "to live," also signifies "clear," which
-is associated in poetry with the moon, which in its turn leads to the
-thought of shadow, _Kage_ leading to Kagekiyo.
-
-[41] Page 66--A mythical animal, of which the nearest translation is
-perhaps the unicorn. There is a proverb which states that though it is
-the king of beasts, when old it is worse than a useless horse.
-
-[42] Page 67--That is in the year 1185.
-
-[43] Page 67--Yoshitsune's complete name was _Kuro Hang wan
-Yoshitsune_. One of these, or all three names may be applied to him. As
-the three names make an impossible encumbrance for a line I only give
-him one, even where the Japanese original calls him by his full name.
-
-[44] Page 68--The jointed cape of his opponent's armour.
-
-[45] Page 68--The Minamoto clan were victorious, and when in power they
-banished Kagekiyo as a specially dangerous enemy.
-
-[46] The Chorus here speaks for Kagekiyo to Hitomaru.
-
-
-
-
-TAMURA
-
-RÉSUMÉ OF TAMURA
-
-
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
-
-
- _Shite_: The Spirit of TAMURAMARU, a renowned warrior, in the first
- part appearing as a youth, and in the second as a warrior.
-
- _Waki_: A Travelling Priest.
-
- _Chorus._
-
-
-SCENE
-
- The temple ground of Kiyomizu in Kioto, in March. The shrine of
- Tamuramaru is erected in this ground.
-
-There are only two actors in this piece, and it is even less dramatic
-than the preceding. As it does not lend itself so well to complete
-translation, I shall give the piece merely as a _résumé_, with a few
-of the more beautiful lines rendered _in extenso_. This drama is
-an admirable example of the use of a delicately toned, flower-like
-foreground, as a setting for the warlike figure who recites tales of
-his strenuous life, which is so characteristic of the construction of
-the _No_.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-The PRIEST enters first, and, as is often the case at the beginning of
-a _No_, he recites an account of his hurried journey in the spring,
-past the provincial capitals to the "nine-fold capital of the Emperor"
-(Kioto). He speaks of the mild sky of the spring with the sun shrouded
-by soft haze, and announces that he has now arrived at the Temple of
-Kiyomizu (meaning clear water) with its peaceful waterfalls.
-
-The YOUTH (Tamuramaru) now appears with a broom in his hand. He says:
-"The spring has returned, and the flowers in their prime beauty make
-natural offerings for the Goddess of the Temple. Though there are
-many places famous for their blossoms they do not equal these, which
-are illuminated by the light of Kannon's[47] mercy, and this divine
-mercy, bright as the autumn moon, even penetrates the village of the
-ten evils and shines upon the lake of the five vices. These flowers
-look like snow in the garden of the gods or white sand on the shore of
-heaven's sea, in which the mist and the clouds are all buried. So many
-of them there are, and all are cherry flowers, some eight-fold, some
-single-fold, as is the way in the spring of the nine-fold capital. And
-all the mountains far and near likewise reflect the season of flowers."
-
-Beholding the Youth sweeping the petals, the PRIEST asks him if he is
-the flower keeper. To this the YOUTH replies in the affirmative, saying
-that he serves the Goddess of the Temple and that as he always sweeps
-the petals in the season he may be looked on as the flower keeper, or
-at any rate as one in the service of the Temple.
-
-The PRIEST then asks him to relate minutely the history of the Temple.
-Into this narrative the Youth plunges directly, stating that the Temple
-was built in the second year of Daido[48] and founded by the wish of
-Tamuramaru of Sakanoue. He continues to relate that there was once a
-priest called Kenshin who had a great desire to behold the real form
-of Kannon, and after his prayer he once saw a golden-coloured light
-on the upper stream of the river Kotsu. He followed it and found an
-old man, who said that he was Gyoe-Koji and told Kenshin to discover
-a patron who would found a magnificent temple. But this so-called
-Gyoe-Koji was really Kannon herself, and Tamuramaru was the patron of
-whom she spoke. The CHORUS then speaks, for the Youth, of the universal
-benevolence of Kannon, symbolised by her thousand merciful hands, every
-one of which is ready to be extended to those in need, in answer to
-their prayers.
-
-The PRIEST declares that he has met an interesting person, and asks for
-further information about the famous places around, questioning the
-Youth about one to the south, where a mound is to be seen, and then
-one to the north, whence an evening bell is heard. The YOUTH, after
-replying that the one is the Seikan Temple and the other the Temple of
-Washinowo, both famous in poetry, calls the attention of the Priest
-to the moon rising from behind the Otowa mountain, and observes that
-as the moon casts its peaceful light upon the cherry blossoms it is a
-sight truly worth seeing.
-
-The PRIEST says--
-
-  This is a season to be prized indeed,
-  This passing moment of a heartless Time
-  That flies so swiftly in the midst of Spring.
-
-The YOUTH and the PRIEST both repeat: "A precious moment indeed!" Then
-together they recite an old poem: "As precious as a thousand pieces of
-gold is one moment of a spring evening with flowers of pure perfume and
-the moon of silver brightness," the YOUTH adding, "Ay, more precious
-still is this very moment!"
-
-The CHORUS chants in further praise of the flowers in the Temple
-ground--
-
-  The moon between the cherry trees shines clear
-  And petals softly falling in the breeze
-  Dance in the air like gleaming flakes of snow
-  And make our hearts dance with them, light and glad.
-
-A second chant of the CHORUS enlarges on the beauty of the flowers,
-the greenness of foliage, the softness of the breeze and the charm of
-the waterfall of Otowa, and concludes by referring once more to the
-merciful light of the Goddess of the Temple, which is extended even to
-inanimate objects, such as trees, and which accounts for the exquisite
-scenery of the surroundings.
-
-The CHORUS then asks (for the Priest) the name of the Youth, who does
-not appear to be an ordinary person. To this the YOUTH replies: "A
-nameless man am I, but if thou wishest to know who I am, observe where
-I am going." The CHORUS explains that the Youth then opens the door
-of the Shrine of Tamuramaru, which is brightly lit by the moon, and
-disappears within.
-
-The second part of the Play opens with the PRIEST saying: "Under the
-shadow of a cherry tree all through the night I stand, the petals fall
-and dance in the air, the moon shines brilliant and clear, and in these
-beautiful surroundings I say the midnight prayer."
-
-TAMURAMARU then appears in the form of a warrior, saying: "How thankful
-am I to hear the voice of prayer, the midnight prayer from a passing
-stranger! 'Tis Kannon's mercy, her help. Oh, how grateful I am!"
-
-The PRIEST observes how strange it is that he sees a manly figure in
-the light of the glittering flowers, and asks who it is.
-
-To this TAMURAMARU replies that he has now nothing to conceal, and
-begins to tell the story of his life by stating that in the reign of
-Emperor Heize[49] he was Tamuramaru of Sakanoue, who was to conquer the
-Eastern barbarians, the fiends, and that by the help of the Goddess
-of this Temple he had power to do it. The story is then told by the
-CHORUS, who recounts that, according to the Emperor's declaration, the
-powerful and rebellious fiends in Seishu must be put down and peace
-must be restored. Tamuramaru collected the army, and when ready to
-start he came to this Temple and prayed to Kannon that he might gain
-the victory. "There was a strange but good omen," breaks in TAMURAMARU,
-and the CHORUS goes on to recount with what exultation he set out at
-once to strike at the rebels.
-
-Another chant of the CHORUS describes the march of Tamuramaru and
-his army to the seat of the rebels. They travelled far, going over
-the mountain pass of Osaka and through the forest of Awazu; stopping
-to adore the Temple of Ishiyama, noted for its mirage, where also
-Kannon is enshrined; and crossing over the long bridge of Seta, which
-resounded gallantly as horses trotted over it. At last they reached
-the province of Isé (or Seishu), and, convinced of their victory, for
-they were waging a just war, were more encouraged than ever, every one
-of them desiring to show his bravery and strike the first blow at the
-rebels. Happily, moreover, with the help of Kannon, the fiends, though
-they were numerous, were unconscious of their arrival.
-
-With thundering voice, which shook trees and rivers, even the
-mountains, and which echoed through the heavens and reached to the
-deepest earth, TAMURAMARU then spoke thus: "You, fiends, hear what I
-say. In older times there was once a rebel called Chikata, and the
-heavenly punishment descended upon him and the fiends who served him,
-and they were at once defeated."
-
-The CHORUS then describes how the fiends came on in battle, raising
-thick clouds and pouring down iron-fire, and by their magic art
-creating thousands of armed men. They looked like the sea of Isé, or
-the forest of Ano, so mighty were they and so numerous!
-
-TAMURAMARU breaks in: "There behold, how astonishing!" and the
-CHORUS goes on to explain that over his own army the light of the
-thousand-handed Kannon appeared, flying in space, with a bow of mercy
-and arrows of wisdom in each of her thousand hands, so that the arrows
-poured down like rain and hail over the enemy till all were struck and
-not one was left alive. Hence it was by Kannon's power that the victory
-was gained, and to her should be rendered eternal gratitude.
-
-The play, which was written essentially in praise of the virtues and
-powers of Kannon, is attributed to Motokiyo, the author of Kagekiyo
-(see p. 53).
-
-
-END OF "TAMURA"
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[47] Or Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, one of the principal deities in
-the popular religion of Japan to-day.
-
-[48] = 807 A.D.
-
-[49] The reign of Emperor Heize = 806-809 A.D.
-
-
-
-
-THE SUMIDA RIVER
-
-
-Authorship of the Play
-
-The play is attributed to _Motomasa_, who was a grandchild of the
-famous Kiyotsugu (see p. 7) and who died in 1459. The exact date of its
-composition is uncertain, but it was most likely within the first half
-of the fifteenth century.
-
-
-Outline of the Story
-
-A little child, the only son of his widowed mother (and owing to the
-laws regarding the continuation of families in Japan that means much
-more there than it does in Europe), was kidnapped from his home. The
-play opens a year after this had happened, and we meet the mother
-hurrying toward the Sumida river, which she crosses in the ferry. She
-has had a long journey from the City Royal (Kioto) in her search for
-the child. While she is in the ferry, the ferryman tells the passengers
-of a festival to be held in the place that evening in memory of a
-little lad who died on the road just a year ago. The mother questions
-him, and learns that it is _her_ child for whom the villagers are about
-to meet in prayer. The ferryman prevails on her to join in the prayers,
-and for a moment the ghost of the little one appears and speaks with
-her.
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 7.
-
-SUMIDAGAWA
-
-_This illustration from a Japanese coloured woodcut is not so good as
-could be desired, but was the only one available. It shows the Mother
-on the left, and reveals the simple, open way in which the actor wears
-the woman's mask. The little rectangular instrument at her feet is that
-used for striking the gong of prayer (+see p. 92+). The small
-figure to the right is the ghost of the little son who died, and whom
-she has set out to seek. Notice his entirely unnatural wig of hair. In
-the square insets above him are representations of the "Birds of the
-City Royal" (+see p. 83+) spoken of so much in the text, and the
-words "I adore the Eternal Buddha" in Chinese ideographs._ ]
-
-
-Comments on the Play
-
-In this _No_ there is much greater expression of tender, human
-sentiment than is common in the pieces. It contains also several
-charming descriptions of Nature, sometimes with a deeper meaning
-beneath them. For example--
-
-  If one but waits
-  The wind vibrates
-  The branches of the pine trees till they speak.
-
-Throughout the piece also there are very many allusions to and plays
-upon classical verses, particularly in relation to the "Bird of the
-City Royal" and Narihira's poems (see p. 83).
-
-The predominating thought in the piece, however, is the Buddhistic
-conception of the transitoriness of human life, and of the frail nature
-even of the bond that unites a loving mother and her child.
-
-  Fleeting as are the gleaming drops of dew,
-  Desolate as the moor of Makuzu
-  In autumn, is this world of lost delight.
-
-
-
-
-THE SUMIDA RIVER
-
-A TRANSLATION OF THE JAPANESE _NO, SUMIDA GAWA_
-
-
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
-
-
-  The Mother                _Shite_
-  The Ferryman              _Waki_
-  A Traveller.
-  Spirit of the Child.
-  The Chorus.
-
-
-SCENE
-
- The banks of the Sumida River in the province of Musashi, toward
- evening.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  I am he who plies the ferry in the province of Musashi,
-  Over Sumida, the river, known to many far and wide.
-  And to-day my boat must hurry with its many loads of people,
-  For our village holds a festival of universal prayer.
-  On this day both priest and layman with no thought of their
-        distinction
-  Will remember this great matter and assemble one and all.
-
-
-TRAVELLER [_Song_]
-
-  The goal of my long journey is the East,
-  The goal of my long journey is the East,
-  Far Azuma,[50] and like its distance stretch
-  My days of travel, long in weary thought.
-
-[_Words_]
-
-  From the capital I travel,[51] I who now am speaking to you,
-  And I journey on to Azuma to visit there a friend.
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  Behind me rise the mountains I have passed
-  Faint in the distance as the clouds and mists.
-  Behind me rise the mountains I have passed
-  Faint in the distance as the clouds and mists.
-  O'er many a mountain path my way has lain,
-  Wide province after province have I crossed.
-  Before me now lies the great Sumida,
-  The river of renown, and at my feet
-  The waiting ferry do I now behold,
-  The waiting ferry do I now behold.
-
-[_Words_]
-
-  I have hurried, for already, 'tis the ferry of the river,
-  And behold, the boat is leaving, I must enter it at once.
-  What ho! Boatman! stay a moment. I would travel in your boat.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Very good, sir! Now at once though, may it please you to get in.
-  Yet I first would like to ask you, what is that loud noise behind you,
-  There behind, whence you have travelled. What's the matter, may I ask?
-
-
-TRAVELLER [_Words_]
-
-  'Tis a woman who is coming from the capital and acting
-  Like a mad thing in a queer ecstatic way. I saw her there.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Oh, in that case let us tarry till the mad thing can o'ertake us,
-  We can stay the boat a little, for this way she'll surely come.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_][52]
-
-  Darkness entire can never hold its sway
-  Within a mother's heart, and yet for love
-  Of her sweet child she is a wanderer.
-  Ah! painfully I know for the first time
-  The bitter truth contained within these words.
-  I ask all those who pass
-  Along the snowy way[53]
-  To Azuma to say
-  Where lies my little love.
-  There is no news. Alas!
-  No answer can I find.
-  Shall I then ask the wind
-  That blows unseen above?
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  If one but waits
-  The wind vibrates
-  The branches of the pine trees till they speak.
-  If one stays still
-  He often will
-  Have brought to him the tidings he does seek.[54]
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  Fleeting as are the gleaming drops of dew,
-  Desolate as the moor of Makuzu
-  In autumn, is this world of lost delight.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Fretted with sorrow pass her day and night.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  I am a woman who had lived for years
-  At Kitajirikawa in the capital;
-  When suddenly I lost my only child,
-  Lured from me by a man who kidnapped him.
-  They told me that beyond Osaka's pass[55],
-  Far to the East, to Azuma, he went.
-  And since I heard it I have felt my mind
-  Losing its hold on ordinary things,
-  Set only, full of love, upon the way
-  The child did follow. Tracing out the marks
-  Of his dear feet, I wander here and there.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-I
-
-  Thousands of miles the journey is in length,
-  Yet never does the parent's heart forget
-  The child she loves and seeks. So do we hear.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-II
-
-  The nature of the bond[56] is transient,
-  The bond is transient in this world, and yet
-  Parent and child are destined not to live
-  In loving union even this short while.
-  But, like the four birds in the fable old,[57]
-  Between them cruel separation lies.
-  And now, alas! the mother's loving search
-  Of her young child has come to its sad end,
-  For she has reached the river Sumida,[58]
-  The river Sumida that flows between
-  The province Shimotsuke and Musashi.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Pray, O Boatman, kindly let me also enter in your ferry.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Who, then, art thou? Whither going? And from whence hast thou
-        just come?
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  From the capital I travel, to Azuma, seeking some one.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words, in jest_]
-
-  As thou art, then, from the city, and seem also to be mad,
-  Entertain us, show us something that is curious or funny.
-  If thou do'st not, I'll not let thee travel now upon this boat.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Oh, how vexing! I expected on the ferry of Sumida,
-  Which is so renowned, the answer--"Enter now upon my boat,
-  For the day is not yet over." But instead of that thou sayest--
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  Thou deign'st to say that I am from the city,
-  And by the custom, must not use thy boat.[59]
-  But o'er great Sumida thy ferry passes,
-  And so thy words do scarce become thee well.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  It is true; thou art a person from the distant City Royal,
-  And thy gentle nurture tallies with its reputation here.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Ah! That word![60] I do remember. It was here that Narihira
-  That the famous Narihira[61] wrote beside this very ferry:
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  Bird of the Royal City--come!
-  I ask of you a boon, if true,
-  The name that they have given you:
-  Is she alive--the one I love--
-  Is she? Or is she not?
-
-  Pray, O Boatman, over yonder is a white bird that we know not
-  In the capital. By what name do you call it in this part?
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  That bird is indeed a seagull, flying in from the wide ocean.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  They may call it gull or plover, what they wish to by the sea,
-  But when standing here by Sumida with that white bird before us
-  Why did you not name it rightly, as the Bird of City Royal?
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_][62]
-
-  Yes, truly, truly, I have sadly erred.
-  This is the place far famed for that same bird.
-  I had in very truth the thing forgot
-  And though this is the place the thought came not.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  The gull of the wide sea brings to thought
-  The waves of the evening tide.[63]
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_]
-
-  And the roll of the waves to our minds has brought
-  The past when Narihira cried.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  "Is she or is she not?" To the Bird he spied.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_]
-
-  His thought was a lover parted from his side.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  The same thought guides me, for I seek
-  My loving child. To all I speak,
-  Asking if any news there be
-  Of where my child lies hid from me.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_]
-
-  For a lover to pine
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  For a child to seek
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  Is in the same way
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  When love does speak.
-
-
-CHORUS [_Song_]
-
-  O Bird of the Royal City, come!
-  For I ask, too, a boon of you.
-  In Azuma, the child I love
-  Is he, or is he not?
-  Ah! though I ask and ask, it answers not!
-  Vexing art thou! Bird of the Royal City--
-  A country bird wouldst thou be better called!
-  Yet this same bird comes singing to the banks
-  Of Horie River, where the boats race past.
-  That river is in Naniwa, and this
-  The Sumida, flows down through Azuma.
-  When one reflects on this, how vastly far
-  In my lone journey do I seem to come.
-  That being so---- Lo! Ferryman, I pray
-  The boat is full, but still is room for me,
-  So let me enter, Ferryman, I say,
-  So let me enter, and then push away.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Such a tender-hearted, mad thing as this woman never has been!
-  Come aboard at once, but notice that the ferry is a swift one.
-  Take good care to step in gently.
-    [_To the TRAVELLER_] You, sir, too, I pray come on.
-
-
-TRAVELLER [_Words_]
-
-  May I ask, what is that yonder where the people by the willow
-  Are assembled in great numbers? Why should they be waiting there?
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Well, that is a public meeting for a universal prayer.
-  I would tell you, while we're crossing, if you'll listen to the tale,
-  The sad story in connection with this festival of ours.
-  It was last year, in the third month, on the fifteenth day, I reckon,
-  Yes! That is so, and to-day we have the very selfsame day,
-  That a kidnapper did journey from the capital, and with him
-  Was a lad whom he had purchased, twelve or thirteen years of age,
-  He was going to the north-east, but the child was not yet hardened
-  And the long fatiguing journey made him very sadly ill.
-  It was just here by the river that he could go no step farther,
-  But fell down, and there remained. Oh! a heartless man was with him!
-  And the child in that condition by the roadside simply lying
-  Was abandoned by the merchant who went off to the north-east.
-  Then the people of the district nursed and tenderly did treat him
-  (Though I fancy it was really just the Karma of his past),[64]
-  Something in his childish features and his little ways they noted,
-  As if he were of importance, so they watched him carefully.
-  Worse and worse, however, fared he, till the end seemed just
-        approaching,
-  Then they asked him--"Who now art thou? and from whence hast thou
-        just come?"
-  And his father's surname asked I, and the province of his birthplace:
-  "In the capital my home is, and at Kitajirikawa."
-  So he answered; "And my father, who is dead, was Yoshida.
-  I, his one child, had been living with my loving mother only,
-  But was kidnapped, and was taken far away, and hence my illness.
-  Truly, often am I thinking of the people in the city,
-  Of their hands and feet and shadows,[65] even, often fondly thinking.
-  As beside the road I'm dying, deign just here to bury me.
-  And to mark the spot I pray thee, be so kind, and plant a willow."
-  Feebly spoke he, and repeated four or five times a calm prayer,
-  Then it ended. A sad story, is it not, that I have told you?
-  As I see now, in this boat, there are some people from the city,
-  Unintentioned though it may be, you will honourably join us
-  And your lamentation offer with our prayers on this occasion?
-  What! The shore! With this long story we have quickly come to land.
-  For _you_ it is unimportant. Now, I pray you, disembark.
-
-
-TRAVELLER [_Words_]
-
-  Truly, here to-day I'll linger, and a prayer with you will say.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  How now! Why does that mad woman not come here from out the boat?
-  Come, at once! Come up, I beg you! Yet how tender-hearted is she!
-  Having simply heard the story she is truly shedding tears.
-  Yet at once, I really beg you, you must come out of the boat.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Pray, O Boatman, of that story, what, I beg you, is the date?
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  'Twas last year, and in the third month; and, moreover, this same day.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  And that child, what age?
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  Twelve years.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  Ah!--his name?
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  Umewakamaru was he.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  And his father's surname know you?
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  'Twas a certain Yoshida.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  And since then, the parents, have they never sent to make inquiries?
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  No, no relatives inquiring ever came.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  But sure the mother!
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  It is strange beyond believing, but 'tis true--I answer No!
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  Alas! Nor kith nor kin. It is too true!
-  His parents even did not come to you.
-  It must be. Yet, O Heavens, how sad! _That_ child
-  Is him I seek. I, whom you now called wild.
-  O Heavens. O mercy. It must be a dream!
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Oh, unutterable sorrow. Until now it lay outside me;
-  It was other people's business. Now you say it was _thy_ child?
-  Pitiful! But wherefore grievest? He is now beyond recall.
-  Come this way and I will show thee where his grave lies. Now
-        'tis near.
-  _This_ the tomb of him who left us. Offer now thy deep-felt prayers.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  E'en though I feared it might be so, till now
-  Hope led me on to make this journey long
-  To distant, unfamiliar Azuma;
-  But at the end of the sad way I find
-  Naught in this world but mark of where he lies.
-  Ah! Cruel is it!--If his fate was death--
-  That he should leave his birthplace and have come
-  To a road corner in strange Azuma,
-  And mingled with the roadside earth to lie
-  Beneath a tangled mass of spring-time's weeds,
-  Beneath this very ground so it doth seem.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-I
-
-  Then shown unto the mother in earth's form,
-  May there appear the dear one of her world.
-
-II
-
-  The one is taken who might be of use!
-  The one is taken who might be of use!
-  The one whose work is over does remain,
-  The mother, like a withered broom tree left,[66]
-  In whose mind comes and goes his likeness dear,
-  As things are wont in this uncertain world.
-  To man at any moment may come grief,
-  Like heartless storm that shatters blooming boughs
-  The voice of such a storm has called up clouds
-  That fly unsettled and have hid the moon
-  That else had lit the long night of her life.
-  Yea, verily how fleeting must the world
-  Appear to her before us now. Alas!
-  Yea, verily how fleeting must the world
-  Appear to her before us now. Alas!
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Now, however much thou grievest, 'tis of no avail whatever;
-  Join then with us in the prayer for his good in future worlds.
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  The moon has risen, and the river breeze
-  Blows cool. 'Tis late already, and the gong
-  Tolls out, and we should be upon our knees.[67]
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  But still the mother in her agony
-  No prayer can voice, but only weeping lie
-  Upon the ground that hides her darling joy.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Yea! 'tis sorrowful, though others have assembled in large numbers,
-  It is _thy_ prayer that his spirit surely would rejoice to hear.
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  I place the gong[68] now in the mother's hand.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  True, 'tis for my child's sake, as I am told,
-  And in my own hands now the gong I hold.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_]
-
-  As grief is checked and voices cleared for prayer.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  In unison we pray this moonlit night.
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  Our thoughts united, to the West[69] we turn.
-
-
-THE MOTHER AND FERRYMAN
-
-  Thee I adore, Eternal Buddha great,
-  Who still the same, for six-and-thirty times
-  A million million worlds of Paradise,[70]
-  For ever in the west dost permeate.
-  Thee I adore, Eternal Buddha great.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  Thee I adore, Eternal Buddha great.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  And to my prayer the river Sumida
-  Adds its loud voice the breeze.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  If true thy name, Bird of the City Royal,
-  Add too thy voice, for this the city's child.
-
-
-CHILD[71] AND CHORUS
-
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Oh, that was my child's voice praying, he that said the prayer
-        just now.
-  His voice was it, I am certain, and within this mound it seemed.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  As you say, we also heard it. And we now will cease our praying,
-  Thou his mother art, and solely, honourably deign to pray.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  Even if nothing but his voice return,
-  I would that I could hear that voice again.
-
-
-CHILD
-
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-
-
-CHORUS [_Song_]
-
-  The voice is heard, and like a shadow too
-  Within, can one a little form discern.
-
-[_The Spirit of the Child appears_]
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  Is it my child?
-
-
-CHILD
-
-  Ah! Mother! Is it you?
-
-[_The Spirit disappears_]
-
-
-CHORUS [_Song_]
-
-  The mutual clasp of hand in hand exchanged,
-  Once more he vanished as he first had come,
-  But in her thought increasingly the form
-  Of his reflection did repeat itself
-  As in a polished mirror, to and fro.
-  While gazing at the vision came the dawn
-  And dimly flushed the sky, till naught was left.
-  While what appeared to be the child is now
-  A mound grown thickly o'er with tangled weeds,
-  It has become naught but a rushy marsh,
-  A mark of what was once so very dear.
-  Ah, pitiful indeed is this our life
-  Ah, pitiful indeed is this our life!
-
-
-END OF "THE SUMIDA RIVER"
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[50] Page 78--_Azuma_ is a name for the east of Japan, really the
-region surrounding Tokio (literally the eastern capital).
-
-[51] The old capital in the west, Kioto.
-
-[52] Page 80--This is a particularly difficult passage. I had
-previously rendered the lines more freely than the rest of the
-translation, in an endeavour to construct a consecutive verse which
-might keep the attention of an English reader. In its present form
-the verse is perhaps nearer the original, but no entirely _literal_
-translation is possible of a passage so full of the essentially
-Japanese "pillow" and "pivot" words. At the outset the Mother quotes a
-few words from an old poem.
-
-[53] Page 80--The Japanese word _yuki_ means both "snow" and "going."
-
-[54] Page 81--Most of these three lines is added for the sake of
-rounding off the thought in English.
-
-[55] Page 81--This is not the large commercial town of the same name.
-
-[56] Page 82--The bond of the relationship between a parent and
-child. According to the Buddhistic belief, re-incarnation in the same
-relations of parent and child holds only for this world. (That between
-lovers is generally supposed to be of longer duration.)
-
-[57] Page 82--Reference to an old Chinese fable of a bird who had four
-young, and was bitterly distressed when the time came for them to fly
-away.
-
-[58] Page 82--_Sumi_ means the corner, or end of everything.
-
-[59] Page 83--Local ferries sometimes hindered strangers from the city,
-but she intimates that the Sumida is a river of too great importance to
-expect such treatment on it.
-
-[60] Page 83--"That word" is the word for "repute," which has a root
-the same as "if true the name" in the famous poem which she quotes. The
-line depends on one of the Japanese "pivot words."
-
-[61] Page 83--Narihira is one of the well-known early poets of Japan,
-he died in 880. Chamberlain, in his _Classical Poetry of the Japanese_,
-quotes an opinion of Tsurayuki (who died in 946) on Narihira. He says:
-"Narihira's stanzas are so pregnant with meaning that the words suffice
-not to express it. He is like a closed flower that hath lost its
-colour, but whose fragrance yet remaineth." Narihira is noted among the
-classical poets for his conciseness and frequent obscurity.
-
-[62] Page 84--She is vexed with him for not entering into the spirit of
-the place and realising the quotation she has just given.
-
-[63] Page 84--These lines depend on pivot words, which by playing upon
-the root words in the Japanese, connect the ideas prettily.
-
-[64] Page 87--And therefore it appeared to them hopeless to expect him
-to recover from the illness.
-
-[65] Page 88--The _shadows_ of people are much more real in Japan
-than here. The shadow pictures that are continually thrown on the
-white paper screens separating the rooms must fill a large place in
-the memory of one who has lived in Japan; and, too, it is often only
-the _feet_ of a passing noiseless maiden that one can see through the
-openwork base of these screens while one lies on the quilts on the
-matted floors.
-
-[66] Page 91--This arises as a play on the words _Hawa_, a mother, and
-_hawaki_, a broom tree, and also refers to a legend about a broom tree
-which appeared and disappeared.
-
-[67] Page 92--Time, therefore, for midnight prayer.
-
-[68] Page 92--The gong in the Buddhist shrines is struck by the one who
-prays.
-
-[69] Page 92--The West is the direction of the Buddhist heavens.
-
-[70] Page 93--The words are from the Buddhist scriptures, according to
-which there are thirty-six million million worlds, all presided over by
-emanations of the same Buddha.
-
-[71] The voice of the Child's Spirit is heard accompanied by the
-Chorus's chant.
-
-
-
-
-ENGLISH BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE _NO_.
-
-
-There is no English book entirely on the _No_, but the following Works
-contain chapters on, and translations of, some of them.
-
- ASTON, W. G. "A History of Japanese Literature." Heinemann, London,
- 1899. See pp. 199-213.
-
- BRINKLEY, F. "Japan: its History, Arts and Literature," vol. iii.
- Jack, London, 1903. See pp. 28-48.
-
- CHAMBERLAIN, B. H. "The Classical Poetry of the Japanese." Boston,
- 1880. See pp. 137-185. Reprinted with additions and deletions as
- "Japanese Poetry." London, 1911. See pp. 109-144.
-
- DICKINS, F. V. "Primitive and Mediæval Japanese Texts translated into
- English." Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1906. See pp. 391-412. Also volume
- of romanized texts of the same.
-
- EDWARDS, O. "Japanese Plays and Playfellows." London, 1901. See pp.
- 39-61.
-
- SANSOM, G. B. "Translations from Lyrical Drama: 'No.'" Trans. Asiatic
- Soc. Japan, 1911, vol. xxxviii, part 3, pp. 125-176.
-
- STOPES, M. C. "A Japanese Mediæval Drama." Trans. Royal Soc.
- Literature, London, 1909, vol. xxix, part 3, pp. 153-178.
-
-
-
-
-_By the same Author_
-
-A Journal from Japan
-
-By Dr. Marie C. Stopes
-
- _The Diary of a year and a half's travel into the wilds of Japan, as
- well as of sojourn in its capital_
-
-
-The _Spectator_ says:
-
- "A most interesting and illuminating work."
-
-The _Athenæum_ says:
-
- "Remarkably naïve and fresh."
-
-The _Literary World_ says:
-
- "Has a peculiar freshness and vivacity added to a clear style."
-
-The _Daily Telegraph_ says:
-
- "Should take its place among the very best works on the Far East."
-
-The _Nation_ says:
-
- "The lighter touches are fresh and distinctly amusing."
-
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-Transcriber's Note
-
-
-Illustrations have been moved next to the text to which they refer.
-Their locations may no longer correspond to the List of Illustrations.
-
-The printed text contained both footnotes and endnotes. These have been
-combined, and all notes moved to the end of each chapter. A footnote
-on p. 39 ("The numbers refer to notes at the end of the volume.")
-explaining the printed system has been removed.
-
-
-The following apparent errors have been corrected:
-
-Advertisement page "~10s~" changed to "~10s.~"
-
-p. 11 (note) "pp. 156-7" changed to "pp. 156-7."
-
-Illustration (plan of stage) "at the ront" changed to "at the front"
-
-p. 15 "_kakama_" changed to "_hakama_"
-
-p. 30 "The world is at peace:/Soft blows" changed to "The world is at
-peace./Soft blow"
-
-p. 30 "very firs/In that they meet." changed to "very firs,/In that
-they meet"
-
-p. 31 (note) "p. 174" changed to "p. 174."
-
-p. 57 "Totomi" changed to "Totomi"
-
-p. 81 "to Asuma" changed to "to Azuma"
-
-p. 103 "Playfellows." changed to "Playfellows.""
-
-p. 104 "amusing.'" changed to "amusing."
-
-
-The following possible errors have not been changed:
-
-p. iv right
-
-p. 31 contain the breeze
-
-p. 41 spring-time sprout
-
-pp. 55-56 The line "When in their warships were the Taira clan," was
-repeated
-
-p. 65 face to face
-
-p. 67 Mismatched quotation marks following "In our last
-
-p. 68 to look upon
-
-
-The following are used inconsistently:
-
-daimios and Daimios
-
-ideagraph and ideograph
-
-Kuro and Kuro
-
-lifelike and life-like
-
-lifelong and life-long
-
-otsuzumi and otsuzumi
-
-reincarnation and re-incarnation
-
-woodcut and wood-cut
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays of Old Japan, by Marie C. Stopes
-
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@@ -5167,383 +5128,6 @@ Chorus’s chant.</p></div></div>
 
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 </body>
 </html>
diff --git a/44092.txt b/44092.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 5a11108..0000000
--- a/44092.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,4265 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays of Old Japan, by Marie C. Stopes
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Plays of Old Japan
-       The 'No'
-
-Author: Marie C. Stopes
-
-Release Date: November 2, 2013 [EBook #44092]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS OF OLD JAPAN ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Note
-
-Italic text is indicated by _underscores_, bold by ~swung dashes~, and
-non-italic text within italic blocks by +plus signs+.
-
-
-
-
-  PLAYS OF OLD JAPAN
-  THE NO
-  BY MARIE C. STOPES
-
-
-
-
- ~EPOCHS OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART.~ By ERNEST F. FENOLLOSA. In two
- Vols. Crown 4to. Illustrated. ~36s.~ net.
-
- ~A HISTORY OF JAPANESE COLOUR-PRINTS.~ By W. VON SEIDLITZ. Illustrated
- in Colour and Black and White. One Vol. Crown 4to. ~25s.~ net.
-
- ~JAPANESE PLAYS AND PLAYFELLOWS.~ By OSMAN EDWARDS. With twelve
- Coloured Plates by Japanese Artists. One Vol. Demy 8vo. ~10s.~ net.
-
- ~KAKEMONA: Japanese Sketches.~ By A. HERBAGE EDWARDS. One Vol. Crown
- 8vo. ~7s. 6d.~ net.
-
- ~A HISTORY OF JAPANESE LITERATURE.~ By W. G. ASTON. One Vol. Large
- Crown 8vo. ~6s.~
-
- ~IN JAPAN: Pilgrimages to the Shrines of Art.~ By GASTON MIGEON,
- translated by FLORENCE SIMMONDS. One Vol. Crown 8vo. Illustrated.
- ~6s.~ net.
-
- ~THE JAPANESE DANCE.~ By M. A. HINCKS. One Vol. Crown 8vo.
- Illustrated. ~2s. 6d.~ net.
-
-
-LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
-
-
-[Illustration: AN ACTOR OF THE _NO_ IN FULL COSTUME
-
-TADANORI
-
-_This plate, taken from a Japanese coloured woodcut, illustrates well
-the voluminous nature of the mediaeval ceremonial garments. The figure
-is that of an ancient warrior of the Taira clan, to which Kagekiyo
-belonged (+see p. 53+), who was noted also for the high quality of
-his poetry. He composed a special verse, which he fastened in an arrow
-that he always carried in his quiver, and that proved to be the means
-of identification when he was found by his enemies, dead in the field
-of battle. In the illustration one may particularly note the mask,
-with the eyebrows painted so high on the forehead that they are above
-the fillet band. The feet are not bare, but are covered with the white
-+tabi+, or cotton boots with soft soles and a separate division
-for the big toe, in which the +No+ dancers always perform their
-parts._
-]
-
-
-
-
-  PLAYS OF OLD JAPAN
-  THE 'NO'
-
-  BY
-  MARIE C. STOPES
-  D.SC., PH.D., F.L.S.
-
-  TOGETHER WITH TRANSLATIONS OF THE DRAMAS BY M. C. STOPES
-  AND
-  PROFESSOR JOJI SAKURAI
-  D.SC., LL.D.
-
-  WITH A PREFACE BY HIS EXCELLENCY
-  BARON KATO
-  THE JAPANESE AMBASSADOR
-
-  _ILLUSTRATED_
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  LONDON      MCMXIII
-  WILLIAM HEINEMANN
-
-
-
-
-_Copyright and all translation and dramatic right reserved by Marie C.
-Stopes_
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-By His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador
-
-
-The _utai_ does not appeal to the uneducated, and for that reason its
-devotees have practically been confined to the gentle and aristocratic
-classes. In the days before the educational system of Japan was
-established on Western lines, boys of the _Samurai_ class in many parts
-of the country were taught to chant the _utai_ in their schools as a
-part of their curriculum, the object being to ennoble their character
-by imbuing them with the spirit of the olden times, and also to provide
-for them a healthy means of recreation in their manhood. Along with
-many other institutions, it declined in favour in consequence of
-the great social and political upheaval which ushered in the era of
-_Meiji_; and for some time afterwards the people were too much occupied
-with various material aspects of life to find any leisure for the
-cultivation of the art, so much so that its professional exponents,
-meeting with no public support, had to give up the forlorn attempt to
-continue their task and to look elsewhere for a means of earning their
-livelihood.
-
-With the consolidation of the new regime many old things took a new
-lease of life, the _utai_ being one of them. Not only has the _utai_
-revived, but those who ought to know say that never in the long history
-of its existence has it been so extensively patronised as it is to-day.
-Patrons of the art are by no means confined to the aristocratic
-classes, albeit it is not so popular as the ordinary theatrical play,
-and never could be from the nature of the thing.
-
-This book will, therefore, well repay study on the part of any one
-desirous of knowing and appreciating the working of the Japanese mind,
-and the author and her colleague are rendering a good service to the
-public of the West by initiating them into the subject. As the author
-frankly admits, to translate the _utai_ into a European language is a
-most difficult task, and, in my opinion, it is a well-nigh impossible
-one. The meaning of the original may be conveyed--its spirit to a
-certain extent--but never the peculiarities of the original language,
-on which the beauty of the _utai_ mainly rests. It was very brave of
-Dr. Marie Stopes and Prof. Sakurai to undertake what I should deem an
-impossible task, and I am glad to be able to extend to them my sincere
-congratulations on their remarkable achievement. They have succeeded
-in their work to the best extent any one can hope to succeed, and in
-my opinion have placed Western students of Japanese art and literature
-under a debt of gratitude to them.
-
-  TAKAAKI KATO.
-
-  _Japanese Embassy, London._
-  _November 1912._
-
-
-
-
-LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
-                _To face page_
-
-  TADANORI      _Frontispiece_
-
-  VIEW OF THE NO STAGE      10
-
-  A COUNTRY POETESS         14
-
-  MIIDERA                   16
-
-  SOSHIARI-GOMACHI          24
-
-  THE MAIDEN'S TOMB         38
-
-  SUMIDAGAWA                76
-
-
-
-
-TO THE READER
-
-
-Their poetry is the expressed essence of the Japanese. It represents
-them as the Victory of Samothrace represents the people of Greece, as
-the scent represents the rose. Chamberlain says, "The one original
-product of the Japanese mind is the native poetry"--their painting,
-their porcelain, their ceremonials, are modifications of Chinese
-classics, but their poetry is their very own. Among the greatest and
-most characteristic treasures of the native literature, the Japanese
-rank their ancient "lyric dramas," the _No_. As Synge and the Irish
-poets speak for the Irish people the things that matter most to them
-and that yet go all unexpressed in their outward life, in the same
-sense, only to a greater extent, do the _No_ dramas represent the old
-spirit of Japan.
-
-In Japanese the texts of the _No_ dramas, all of which were written
-before the sixteenth century, are collected in a great work, the
-_Yokyoku Tsukai_, in which various editions give as many as two hundred
-and thirty-five to two hundred and sixty-two _utai_, as the librettos
-of the _No_ are called. Yet these treasures are practically unknown to
-the reading public of the West, notwithstanding the interest that has
-been taken in "things Japanese." Scholars certainly have paid them some
-attention, and a few _utai_ have been rendered into English, but in
-most cases these translations are such as appeal primarily to scholars,
-and do not reach the wider public. Chamberlain's _Classical Poetry of
-the Japanese_, in which some of the _utai_ find a place, is perhaps the
-only exception to the general statement that no rendering of any of
-these plays has yet been made which is calculated to win those readers
-who do not delve in the Transactions of learned societies nor read
-transliterated texts in weighty volumes, but who, nevertheless, delight
-in the great literatures of the world.
-
-One of the reasons for this is certainly the extreme remoteness of the
-subject from everything to which we are accustomed, and the difficulty
-of translating into our own the obscure language of these mediaeval
-texts.
-
-All students of Japanese are agreed about the excessive difficulty of
-making any rendering from the _utai_ which combines fidelity to the
-original with lucidity in a European language.
-
-Yet these old plays are unique, exquisite, individual, and so full of
-charm that it is a great loss to the Western world that they should be
-entirely removed from our ken by being hedged in and shut away from
-us by the difficulties of language. It is clearly some one's duty to
-translate, not merely the words of these plays, but their meaning and
-spirit, so that the Western public may have partial access at least to
-the source that delights, and has delighted for centuries, the best
-minds of our Allies in the East. No translation can ever convey more
-than a fraction of the power, beauty, and individual characteristics
-of the original, but it is my hope that there may be found between
-these covers something of the delicacy and charm of the _No_, some hint
-of their peculiar flavour and effect. If this consummation is in any
-single case achieved by this book, it will be, I fancy, only after the
-whole of it has been read and laid down; when a faint spirit of the
-_No_ may take shape in the reader's mind.
-
-Mountains blue in the distance before which we stand enthralled are
-composed of grey rough stone and broken screes when viewed at nearer
-quarters--yet we enjoy not less the illusory blue. The words of a
-stirring poem that wafts us into a fairy land of dreams are each one
-commonplace enough, and each can be reduced to its elements, _a_, _b_,
-_c_, _d_, _e_,--twenty-six of them, which can be ranged in a straight
-line.
-
-And so it is with the _No_. They must not be too much analysed and
-inquired into. Their language is simple, almost to baldness in places,
-it is true, but their simple elements create a wonderland of illusion.
-In Japanese they have the power to make the spirit soar into the
-borders of the enchanted regions of romance; and when acted the plays
-make one ache with _Weltschmerz_ in a way that shows that their place
-is among the great things of our world, elemental in their simplicity.
-Then it must not be forgotten that the text of the drama as presented
-is accompanied by music, and is chanted by highly trained actors in a
-beautiful setting. Who would think of judging Wagner from the texts
-of his librettos alone, and of ignoring his power as a scene creator
-and a musician? The texts of the _No_ are largely prosy, if you will.
-Mr. Sansom recently censured me, and with me the leading Japanese
-authorities on the subject, for our appreciation of the poetry of the
-_No_. He would have us believe that the steady popularity of these
-plays for six hundred years among the leading men of the country, from
-priests and poets to princes and warriors, is due to over-estimation,
-and that they are, after all, mostly prose of no high quality. In a
-language so widely diverging from our own in its construction and
-mode of thought as Japanese, the details of the literary style and
-composition are beyond reach of my judgment. As the Japanese for
-so long have been consistent in their admiration of the literary
-construction of the _No_, I am content in that matter to accept their
-verdict. But of the atmosphere and general effect of the plays I can
-judge for myself, and I find them among the supremely great things in
-world-literature. That Mr. Sansom does not, depends on his own taste in
-the matter. I have, in these modern days of unshackled opinion, heard
-people openly announce that they saw nothing in Shakespeare! I fancy
-that if we could translate literally into the English language the
-song of the nightingale to its mate, it would be found to be largely
-composed of mundane affairs and prosy gossip about its neighbours, the
-weather and the marauding school-boy. But is it to us any the less
-romantic and glorious in association? There is a focal distance for
-every work of art, and if we choose to overstep it and go and rub our
-noses against the canvas of supreme genius, we will only find smeary
-paint and an unpleasant odour. So, acknowledging the prosy elements in
-the texts of the _No_ I have attempted to render, I present them in the
-hope that there will be some readers who will see through the shrouding
-veils of a foreign language something of the features of the eternal
-loveliness of the original. My great regret is the imperfections of
-my handling of these delicate fantasies. But with the exceptional
-knowledge and gifts of my collaborator in the translations, Prof.
-Sakurai, the standard of detailed accuracy has been kept up to a point
-which will, I trust, make these translations not entirely unworthy
-of a scholar's perusal (but see p. 32); nevertheless, the reader whom
-my heart desires is not one to take too close an inspection of each
-detail, but one who will catch the spirit of the whole. None of the
-four plays that follow have been translated by any one else,[1] so far
-as I can discover; so that, as they break new ground for it, the public
-will perhaps be lenient and sympathetic towards these efforts.
-
-
-Concerning the Place the _No_ takes in Japan to-day
-
-In Japan to-day there still lingers much of the old aristocratic scorn
-of the common theatre, but the theatres which are dedicated to the
-performance of the _No_ have no such stigma attached to them. Indeed,
-these performances are almost entirely supported by the gentle and
-aristocratic classes. The interest of intellectual men in these plays
-is not even satisfied with on-looking, and many of the leading men
-of the day in Tokio--lawyers, university professors, statesmen and
-aristocrats--study the chants and songs and give private recitals of
-them. A few even undertake the arduous training necessary to act a
-complete part, including the "dancing," and then the gentlemen are
-proud to appear with distinguished professionals. The only comparable
-enthusiasm in our country is that of the Shakespeare societies; but
-even to act, and act well, a part in a Shakespeare play requires
-an amount of application trivial in comparison with that necessary
-completely to master a role in one of the _No_. For in "singing" the
-_utai_ not only is every minute inflection of the voice prescribed and
-regulated according to the severest rules, but every movement of the
-body, every step and movement even of the toes or little fingers in
-the "dance" that accompanies it, is most strictly governed by an iron
-tradition, and the secret of some of the parts is only in the hands of
-a few masters.
-
-Mr. Sansom quotes, in an unsympathetic spirit, the opinion of Mr.
-Tanaka Shohei, but as this opinion represents in substance that of a
-number of the leading Japanese who interest themselves in the subject,
-I think it may very well be given as an expression of current opinion
-of the _No_: "From every point of view it is one of the pre-eminent
-arts of the world. It is the flower of the Yamato stock. Every art
-reflects the spirit of a given people at a given time, and, remembering
-this, we must hold it remarkable that the affections of our people
-should be retained by an art which arose six hundred years ago. In the
-West there is no art with such a pedigree. This shows that the _No_
-represents the national spirit, and is complete in every respect."
-
-A Japanese professor, writing to me, says, "A _No_ drama is always
-very simple in its plot, and it is chiefly its peculiar poetical
-construction and ring which appeal so much to our emotion and give the
-charm it possesses." Another opinion is quoted by Mr. Osman Edwards:
-"The words (of the _No_) are gorgeous, splendid and even magnificent as
-are the costumes."
-
-The charm of the _No_ is a cumulative one, and its power of
-conveying much meaning in simple action is largely augmented by the
-suggestiveness of the interwoven allusions to the classical poems
-partly quoted or suggested in the words of the texts. Almost every word
-carries more than its face value, and has been enriched by centuries of
-usage in innumerable poetical and traditional connections.
-
-
-Concerning the past History of the _No_
-
-The _No_, as they are now preserved, date principally from the
-fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and all of them are prior
-to the sixteenth century. Their development took place under the
-Ashikaga Shogunate, particularly in the reign of the Shogun Yoshimitsu
-(1368-1394), when they soon became exceedingly successful among the
-nobles. They are to a large extent compounded from much older elements
-which existed in a more incoherent form prior to the fourteenth
-century; but they may be described as crystallising and taking their
-distinctive form under the hands of _Kiyotsugu_, who lived from 1355 to
-1406. It is of great interest to note how closely the dates of our own
-Chaucer (1340-1400) correspond with those of the great Japanese master.
-What world-phase brought two such men to the front at the same time in
-the two island empires, all unknown to each other? Kiyotsugu was the
-founder of the _No_ proper, and one of his pieces is given on p. 39. It
-is certain that he did not suddenly evolve this type of drama, but took
-the elements that were to hand and fused them together with the flux
-of his personal genius. Chief among the material available were the
-_Kagura_ or pantomime dances which were performed at Shinto festivals
-on temporary wooden platforms. Direct descendants of these, nearly in
-their original form, have lingered on till the present day. I have seen
-performances on the rough temporary platforms, where the actors were
-gaudily but cheaply decked and where the crowded audience was almost
-entirely composed of the common people who stood semi-scornful for a
-few moments, or were detained for a long time while passing on their
-daily business. The antiquity of such performances can be imagined
-from the fact that in the _Kojiki_, which was written in 712 A.D.,
-they were described as being ancient and their origin was associated
-with the sun goddess. The mythical story of their origin is one of the
-well-known tales of Japan. The sun goddess, Amaterasu, was offended and
-retired to a cave, withdrawing her luminous beauty from the world. As
-may be imagined, this was very inconvenient for every one, including
-the rest of the gods, who in their distress assembled on the dry bed of
-the River of Heaven. (This is the Milky Way, and to one who knows the
-mountain rivers of Japan it gives a very telling little touch, for the
-dry bed of a Japanese river is a broad curve of round white stones.)
-They endeavoured in many ways to lure the sun goddess out of her cave,
-and at last they invented a dance and performed it on the top of an
-inverted empty tub, which echoed when the dancer stamped. This excited
-her curiosity, and the goddess was successfully drawn out of her
-hiding-place, the light of her radiance once more blessed the earth,
-and all was right again with gods and men. The stamping on the hollow
-tub is still suggested in the "dancing" of the _No_, where the actor
-raises his foot and stamps once or twice with force enough to make the
-specially prepared wooden floor of the stage echo with a characteristic
-sound.
-
-It is quite probable that the actual words of the _utai_ (librettos)
-of the _No_ were partly, if not entirely, written by Buddhist monks,
-and Kiyotsugu was only responsible for bringing the whole together and
-stage managing and stereotyping the plays.
-
-Following Kiyotsugu, who died in 1406, was his son _Motokiyo_ (one of
-whose plays will be found on p. 56), who lived from 1373-1455. As well
-as adding to the number of the actual plays (as many as ninety-three
-are attributed to him) he greatly improved the music. By the time of
-his nephew some of the several different schools of _No_ interpreters,
-which are still in existence, had sprung up.
-
-The ruling Shoguns paid great attention to the _No_. Kiyotsugu the
-founder was taken by the Shogun into his immediate service and was even
-given the rank of a small daimio. Both Hideoshi and Iyeyasu, two of the
-greatest men in Japanese history, were not only fond of witnessing the
-plays, but it is reported that they actually took part in them among
-the actors.
-
-
-Concerning the Presentation of the _No_
-
-A single _No_ play is not a lengthy performance, the average time for
-its complete presentation being merely one hour. But a performance of
-_No_ at a theatre generally lasts a whole day (except at special short
-performances, mostly arranged in connection with festivities), because
-half-a-dozen pieces are on the programme, and between each is given one
-of the "mad-words," or _Hiogen_, which are short, ludicrous farces, and
-which serve to relieve the tension of the higher, and generally tragic
-pieces.
-
-
-The Theatre
-
-The theatres, which are specially built for the _No_ performances,
-are smaller than the common theatres. The stage is a square platform,
-generally measuring about eighteen feet, which stands towards the
-middle, so that the audience sit on three sides of it. This stage has
-its own beautifully curved roof, which is separated from the roof over
-the audience by a slight gap, and is reminiscent of the time when the
-_No_ were performed on the outdoor wooden platforms while the audience
-stood round in rain or shine. On the stage itself are two pillars of
-smooth wood, which support its roof (see diagram facing p. 10). The
-stage is horizontal and is raised a few feet above the ground; it is
-made of very smooth and peculiarly resonant boarding, which is of
-special importance in the "dancing," in the course of which the actor
-has to stamp at intervals with his shoeless feet and yet to make
-a loud, though deadened sound. Let us not forget the inverted tub and
-the sun goddess. This feature of the dancing is not to be despised,
-for its effectiveness is notable. By the kindness of the Secretary of
-the Royal Society of Literature I am allowed to reproduce my plan of
-the _No_ stage[2] from their Transactions, so I am tempted to quote
-also a paragraph describing it. "Leading to the stage is a gallery
-nine feet wide, along which the actors pass very slowly on their way
-from the green-room to the stage, and pause at each of the three pine
-trees stationed along it. A curtain shuts the end of the gallery from
-the green-room. All the woodwork is unpainted and unstained, though
-very highly polished, and there is neither scenery nor appliances to
-break the harmony. The three actual pine trees and a flat painted pine
-on the wall at the back of the stage are all the ornament there is."
-The wood-cut facing p. 10 is an illustration of this stage taken from
-a Japanese print. It represents an "undress" recital, but shows well
-the build of the stage itself. The pine tree which is painted on the
-bare boards at the back is not realistic, but is much conventionalised,
-with solid emerald green masses of foliage and a twisted trunk. It is
-like those trees which are seen in symbolic pictures and on ancient
-ceremonial embroideries such as are used at weddings and at the New
-Year time. The pine tree, and all it has come to mean to the Japanese
-as a symbol, is closely associated with the _No_. Deeply interwoven in
-the national sentiment is the play _Takasago_, which is the story of
-the faithful spirits of the pine tree and is perhaps the most important
-and most beloved of all the _No_.
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 2.
-
-VIEW OF THE NO STAGE
-
-_To the left is the gallery along which the actors enter. On the stage
-is a figure in ordinary ceremonial dress, not in costume, reciting a
-piece with the aid only of a fan. Note the beautifully elaborate roof
-belonging to the stage itself. The pieces of blue sky in the right and
-centre which break into it, like the clouds in the left foreground, are
-a conceit of the artist, but the blue sky to the left indicates with
-verisimilitude the open space surrounding the stage._ ]
-
-[Illustration:
-
- Diagram of stage arrangement in the _No_, showing also the position of
- the audience.
-
- On the stage the chorus is represented by crosses, the leader of the
- chorus marked [Illustration: circle with cross].
-
- The numbers I and II represent the positions during most of the action
- of the leading actors.
-
- I represents the _shite_.
-
- II represents the _waki_.
-
- The encircled numbers show the positions of the musicians, who are
- stationary during the piece.
-
-  1. The _taiko_ player.
-  2. The _otsuzumi_ player.
-  3. The _kotsuzumi_ player.
-  4. The _fue_ player.
-
- The squares at the front of the stage represent the two pillars
- supporting its roof.
-
-_Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of Literature._ ]
-
-
-The Chorus
-
-Quoting again from my paper: "Before the play begins the chorus comes
-in, robed in blue or blue-grey, and enters into the colour scheme. The
-men squat on their heels with their legs folded straight and flat along
-the boards on the right of the stage, and before them lie their fans,
-which remain closed through the whole play, but are raised upright
-while they are singing. The chorus chants at intervals throughout the
-piece, sometimes informing the audience of the events supposed to be
-taking place, or to have taken place, sometimes moralising on the
-fate or feelings of the hero or heroine, sometimes describing their
-emotions, sometimes even instructing them. While they are doing this
-their fans are raised upright, with one end touching the ground, and
-are laid down again directly the words are finished. The Japanese
-name for the chorus is _ji_, a word meaning also 'ground'--the ground
-colour, as it were, on which the figures of the drama are painted." As
-is natural, such an arrangement of chorus and stage recalls the Greek
-plays. The comparisons and contrasts between this and the Greek, which
-spring immediately to one's mind, have already been published by Prof.
-Chamberlain and others, who have given some account of the _No_, and to
-whose works reference should be made (see list on p. 103).
-
-
-The Music
-
-The music is an important feature of the _No_ plays, when they are
-completely presented. Indeed, the whole play can be more fairly
-compared with opera than with anything else on our stage, though the
-"singing" is very different from ours. The songs are given with a
-curious voice in which suppressed breathing is an item of value. Other
-parts of the play are chanted in unison, and even the prose "words"
-are intoned in a unique way which removes them absolutely from the
-realm of ordinary speaking, and makes them--to a foreigner--practically
-indistinguishable from the songs. There are, in addition to this vocal
-music, four instruments, and the players of these are distinct from the
-chorus and do not enter into its chanting at all, except sometimes with
-a sudden sharp Ha! or something which I confess I can only describe as
-being like the howl of a cat, and which did not seem to me to add to
-the impressiveness of the music, but to detract from it.
-
-The musicians enter the theatre and take their place on the stage,
-in the places indicated in the diagram, after the chorus is seated
-and before the actors appear. In a full set of musicians the first is
-the performer on the _taiko_, who plays a flat drum set in a wooden
-stand on the floor, ornamented with a gorgeous scarlet silk tassel
-of such size and brilliance as to lend a vivid beauty to the quiet
-colour scheme. The next musician is the player of the _otsuzumi_, which
-is a kind of elongated drum held on his knee. The _kotsuzumi_ is an
-hour-glass-shaped drum, which is held on the shoulder. Both Profs.
-Chamberlain and Dickins call this a tambourine, but that name gives
-an entirely wrong impression both of the shape and the sound of this
-instrument. The last musician plays the _fue_ or flute.
-
-Most Westerners are content to call this music "a discord." It is
-therefore pleasant to find Mr. Sansom saying, "At times the flute
-strikes in with a long-drawn note that has a strange and moving quality
-of sadness." Personally, with the exception of the single interjected
-cries, the music appealed to me as being in complete harmony with the
-pieces and as adding greatly to their charm and meaning.
-
-
-The Actors
-
-The actors enter from behind the curtain at the end of the gallery
-leading to the stage. They move towards the stage one by one, and very
-slowly, with long intervals between each step, every motion of which
-has been decreed for centuries. Captain Brinkley says, "It is, indeed,
-more than doubtful whether any other people ever developed such an
-expressive vocabulary of motion, such impressive eloquence of gesture.
-These masked dancers of the _No_, deprived of the important assistance
-of facial expression, and limited to a narrow range of cadence,
-nevertheless succeeded in investing their performance with a character
-of noble dignity and profound intensity of sentiment." The actors pause
-at each of the pine trees which stand by the gallery to mark a stage in
-their progress. Only men act, and for the women's parts they wear the
-conventional masks with the white, narrow face and the eyebrows painted
-high up on the middle of the forehead, which is the classical
-standard of female beauty. Masks are also worn by those representing
-demons or ghosts, and these masks are much on the same plan as those
-worn by children on the fifth of November. They are made of carved wood
-with a slit for the mouth and two holes for the eyes. They are palpably
-masks put over the face and make no pretence at verisimilitude; indeed,
-sometimes the girl's mask may be openly tied on with a fillet ribbon
-across the forehead. They are clearly illustrated in the plates facing
-pages 14 and 76, where the white mask-face is put so as to show quite
-frankly the tanned and corrugated neck of the elderly actor. Wild bushy
-heads of long hair are also worn by those taking the part of demons,
-and sometimes by the ghosts, as is seen in the plate facing p. 76,
-where the little figure represents the ghost in the _Sumidagawa_.
-
-
-The Costumes
-
-Though in other respects the _No_ staging is so simply organised, the
-costumes of the actors are sumptuous and completely representative of
-the parts the actors are playing. The various robes are all of mediaeval
-cut and fashion, and are mostly very stiff with opulent brocades or
-embroideries. Some of the styles are shown in the various illustrations
-in this book, and it will at once be noticed that they are all
-elaborate and richly coloured. While the cut of most of the garments is
-something akin to the simple _kimono_ and _hakama_ (divided skirt worn
-by the men when fully dressed) of the present day, they are on a more
-massive scale with great stiff bouffle divided skirts (as the figure in
-plate 3, p. 14, shows particularly well), and with the kimono sleeves
-so wide and stiff that the wearer seems almost three times his normal
-width. The figure on the Frontispiece illustrates such excessively
-voluminous and elaborate dress. The garments may be worn in overlaid
-series, showing beneath a rich overdress the edges of many equally fine
-under-robes, and of course armour and accoutrements are carried by
-those representing the ancient warriors.
-
-The costumes of the _No_ are in truth the treasures of a museum, put to
-actual use.
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 3.
-
-A COUNTRY POETESS
-
-_The figure of a country girl, who was also a poetess, and sent a
-subtle verse in reply to a noble who sought to obtain some of the
-plant growing by her cottage (as represented on the stage by the
-bower to the left of the cut.) The figure shows well the ceremonial
-dress, of scarlet +hakama+, or divided skirt, with flowing,
-voluminous +kimono+ over it. At the throat can be seen the series
-of under-dresses, of which only the edge of each appears. The massive
-folds over the head are not some head-dress, as might at first be
-thought, but the folds of the long kimono sleeve falling back over the
-arm which is raised above the head. The squatting figure to the right
-is that of a priest, who comes into the story of this +No+._ ]
-
-
-Properties
-
-There are few or no "stage properties" of any kind. Just as there is no
-scenery and the images of the places in which the action lies must be
-evolved in their own minds by the spectators, guided by the descriptive
-passages of the play; so also there are no appliances. If the actors,
-for instance, have to enter a boat and be rowed across a stream, they
-will perhaps merely step over a bamboo pole. If one of the characters
-has to ladle up water and offer it to a fainting warrior, the whole
-action is accomplished with a fan. Sometimes there may be a little in
-the way of properties--for example, the arbour-like bowers in plate
-3, p. 14, which are drawn on to the stage and represent dwellings,
-and in plate 4, p. 16, where the little temple bell is brought into
-the action. But even in such cases the actors have to create an
-illusion round the accessories by their words and motions.
-
-We scarcely need to be reminded that Shakespeare's plays were
-originally written for a stage which had but little more in the way of
-properties, and that even to-day there are not a few persons who feel
-that Shakespeare's finest passages do not gain but actually lose by the
-life-like and elaborate settings of the modern stage.
-
-When one hears the _No_ called archaic and primitive because of their
-absence of scenery and the child-like simplicity and artlessness of the
-properties one feels it is by a critic who is confusing values. "Words
-which unaided can hold an audience, a drama which can paint the scene
-directly on the mind with little intervention of the eye, is surely not
-rightly described as primitive."
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 4.
-
-MIIDERA
-
-_This print, taken from a Japanese coloured woodcut, illustrates
-the central figure of a +No+ drama, with the single, most
-characteristic piece of stage "property," belonging to the play. The
-figure is that of a mother, well-nigh mad with grief at the loss of her
-child, (note the bamboo in her hand, a symbol of her state) who sets
-out to seek him. She finds the little one at the Temple of Miidera, a
-view of which is inset in the black circle on the left of the print.
-The model of a temple bell in red lacquer beneath this is mounted on
-roller feet, and is an illustration of the piece of property which is
-all that represents the temple on the stage, and is a good example of
-the simplicity of the stage-mounting of the +No+ pieces._ ]
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 5.
-
-SOSHIARI-GOMACHI
-
-_This plate, taken from a Japanese coloured woodcut, illustrates the
-+No+ of which Komachi is the heroine. She was a poetess of great
-beauty and poetic gifts, and many distinguished poets were very jealous
-of her. On the occasion of one of the competitions of verse before
-the Emperor (the figure on the extreme right with scarlet skirts) one
-of her enemies attempted to prove that her verse was plagiarized and
-that he had it already in his own collection. She proves his fraud by
-washing out the verse which he had just written into his book after
-hearing it, showing that it was not printed with the rest. This she is
-about to do in the picture. The story continues that after his exposure
-he tried to commit suicide to escape disgrace, but she generously
-prevented him. The mask worn by the actor who takes her part well
-illustrates the classic type of beauty in Japan. The eyebrows are
-shaved off, and painted on high upon the forehead beneath the hair. In
-the action she uses a fan to express the business of washing out the
-interpolated verses +(see p. 16)+. The oblong article to the right
-represents the table on which a copy of her verses was laid in the
-competition._ ]
-
-
-The Audience
-
-Prof. Aston, in his _History of Japanese Literature_, says (p. 200):
-"Representations (of the _No_) are still given in Tokio, Kioto and
-other places, by the descendants or successors of the old managers who
-founded the art ... and are attended by small but select audiences
-composed almost entirely of ex-Daimios or military nobles and their
-ex-retainers. To the vulgar the _No_ are completely unintelligible."
-The contrast between the audiences at the _No_ and at the common
-theatre is very marked, but then it must be remembered that practically
-no one of culture or refinement attends the common theatre, and
-practically every one of that class is interested in the _No_. Owing
-to the present social conditions in Japan, however, the audiences at
-the _No_ pieces are not so small or so restricted as this would lead us
-to believe if we did not remember that ex-daimios and military nobles
-have entered almost every social grade; many, indeed most, of the
-common police are Samurai, excessively poor students of the University
-or school teachers, and even rickshaw-men may be the representatives
-of the proud old families. When, a little more than forty years ago,
-the great social upheaval and re-organisation of Japan took place, and
-the nobles and Samurai lost their privileged positions, though they
-were given positions of honourable standing so far as possible, many
-of them entered the ranks of what we would call the "common people";
-and so it happens that to-day there are permeating nearly the whole
-of society, in all its grades, some of the old cultured class. Among
-policemen, rickshaw-men and gardeners one may come across men of deep
-classical interests and knowledge, and a poor student living on a few
-shillings a week may spend his evenings chanting the _No_ songs to the
-moon. Indeed, while I was in Tokio such a one lived near the house in
-which I dwelt for a few months. I never met him personally, because I
-did not wish to destroy the wonderful impression of melancholy romance
-and weird beauty which his chanting gave me. The many evenings that I
-sat alone on my balcony, looking toward Fuji mountain, behind which the
-sun had set, and heard in the swiftly passing twilight and under the
-glittering oriental stars the mournful, tragic chants of the _No_ which
-this young man was practising, have left their life-long impression
-on me, and perhaps account for the deeper love and understanding of
-the _No_ which have come to me than to the foreigners who hear only a
-few performances in a theatre. Yet this young man lived in what could
-scarcely be called more than a hovel, and he is representative of
-thousands now so living in Japan.
-
-Consequently one must remember that though the audience of a _No_
-theatre is "select" in the real sense, it is not by any means entirely
-composed of wealthy folk.
-
-All who can afford to do so come in full ceremonial dress, which is
-sombre-coloured both for men and women, for custom only allows the
-brilliant colours to be donned by children and young girls. Most of the
-audience arrives by nine o'clock in the morning, and remains till three
-or four in the afternoon. The "boxes" are little matted compartments
-marked off on the floor, with railings round them but six inches high,
-and every one sits on his folded-up legs on a cushion on the floor. As
-will be seen in the diagram (p. 10) the audience sits round three sides
-of the stage. In the winter they will have a little charcoal fire in
-the box beside them, and will sit warming their hands over it as they
-watch the piece.
-
-
-Concerning the Effect of the _No_ on the Audience and on me
-
-In a common theatre the audience talks, eats, and even plays games
-between the scenes of the play, and gives its best attention during
-a murder or a very realistic hara-kiri, when the blood trickles
-in lifelike fashion out of the actor's mouth as he writhes for
-half-an-hour in his death agonies with a crimson gash across his
-middle. I shall never forget a scene of the kind which nearly did for
-me altogether, but which stirred the whole audience to breathless
-attention. During a performance of the _No_, on the other hand, most
-of the audience listen absorbedly to the whole piece, many being well
-able to check or criticise the actor if he should make the slightest
-slip, as they are personally acquainted with the parts. Others follow
-the chanting with a book of the text in their hands, and thus secure
-themselves against losing a word; for the _No_ is like our own opera
-in this, that unless one is well acquainted with the words of the
-piece they are apt to be lost here and there. Each one of the audience
-has some knowledge of classical poetry, and according to the degree
-of this knowledge is the enjoyment of the thousand allusions and part
-quotations and adaptations that are in the plays. With each recognised
-reference to some classic poem or story, the richer does the suggestion
-of the whole become, for a word or a phrase which has but little
-meaning in itself becomes fragrant and beautiful when it carries with
-it the perfume of a thousand lovely and suggestive memories. Also
-working upon the sensitive audience all the time, there is the psychic
-effect of the beautiful and harmonious colouring and of the potent
-music. The psychological effect of music is a power which we all
-vaguely recognise, but few of us begin to understand. Nevertheless,
-I hold it as certain that for the time being it physically as well
-as spiritually affects us, and that when we are tuned to the throb
-and rhythm of fundamentally great and _right_ music, though we are
-no nearer to an intellectual understanding of the root things of the
-universe, yet we are actually nearer a spiritual oneness with, and
-hence a sort of comprehension of them. The music of the _No_, founded
-on a different scale from our own, has a very peculiar effect, yet one
-in complete harmony with the mental conceptions of the plays.
-
-And to this effect the audience of the _No_ is pre-eminently exposed,
-for all the surrounding conditions are calculated to enhance and aid
-it: the magnetic effect of the quiet, intellectual audience on itself;
-the beautiful simplicity and harmony of the colour scheme within the
-theatre; the dignity and impersonalness of the actors fulfilling their
-anciently prescribed actions; the allusions and suggestions of the
-poems, the descriptions of natural beauties and the frequent references
-to religious and philosophical ideas; when combined with the strange
-and solemn music of the singers create together within the heart of the
-observer a something which is well nigh sublime.
-
-Going to the _No_ as a stranger and a foreigner, to whom almost all the
-allusions and suggestions of classical quotation were lost--to whom no
-thrills could be communicated by the mention of a single word (just
-think for a moment what feelings the one name _Deirdre of the Sorrows_
-creates in you if you know the Irish stories and have seen Synge's
-play. Well, just such feelings are created in a Japanese by single
-words and names, which to us appear prosy or unintelligible), yet even
-I was caught in the power of the whole creation of the _No_. To my
-earlier words I still adhere: "There is in the whole a ring of fire and
-splendour, of pain and pathos, which none but a cultured Japanese can
-fully appreciate, but which we Westerners might hear, though the sounds
-be muffled, if we would only incline our ears." Those who find the _No_
-plays prosy and of mediocre merit, have but partially comprehended them
-through having been too intent upon the "letter of the law."
-
-
-Concerning the dramatic Construction of the _No_
-
-True "dramatic" qualities are almost entirely absent from the _No_;
-there is no interplay of the characters, no working up of a story to
-some moving, dramatic and apparently inevitable conclusion. Nor are
-the unities of time and place in the least regarded. Even centuries
-may be supposed to elapse in the course of the story of a play, and an
-actor may be represented as travelling far while declaiming a short
-speech. An outline scheme of the plot which would be found to fit
-the majority of the plays is as follows: The hero or heroine, or the
-secondary character, sets out upon a journey, generally in search of
-some person or to fulfil some duty or religious object, and on this
-journey passes some famous spot. In the course of long and generally
-wearying wanderings, a recital of which gives an opportunity for the
-descriptions of natural beauties, this living person meets some god, or
-the ghost or re-incarnated spirit of some person of note, or perhaps
-the altered and melancholy wreck of some one of former grand estate.
-Generally at first this ghost or spirit is not recognised, and the
-living hero converses with it about the legends or histories attached
-to the locality. Usually then toward the end the ghost makes itself
-known as the spirit of the departed hero for which the spot is famous.
-Often a priest forms one of the characters, and then the ghost may be
-soothed by his prayers and exhortations. There is generally some moral
-teaching interwoven with the story, the hero or the ghost exemplifying
-filial or paternal duty, patriotism, or some such quality; while there
-is a thread of Buddhistic teaching throughout. In this the main theme
-is the transitoriness of human life, and at the same time is presented
-a view of all the pain and misery people may endure when they are not
-rendered superior to it by a recognition of the higher philosophy that
-teaches that the whole universe is a dream, from whose toils the freed
-spirit can escape.
-
-The primitive complement of actors was probably two, but few plays have
-so small a number. Three or perhaps four actors is the usual, and six,
-with a few exceptions, is the highest number for a complete cast.
-
- 1. The hero or protagonist is called the _shite_.
-
- 2. The companion or assistant to the hero is the _tsure_.
-
- 3. The balance of the story is preserved by a sort of deuteragonist
- called the _waki_, who may also have his _tsure_.
-
- 4. A child part may be added to enrich or add pathos to the play (as
- in the _Sumida River_ for example), and he is called the _kokata_.
-
- 5. Then there may be the _ahi_, or supplementary actor.
-
-The actors do not perform many evolutions on the stage, and though
-their movements are in harmony with the story to some extent, they tend
-to remain more or less in the relative positions that are indicated on
-the plan of the stage facing p. 10.
-
-
-Concerning the literary Style of the original texts of the _No_
-
-The text of the _No_ is composed of a mixture of somewhat stilted and
-archaic prose, incompletely phrased portions, and poetry in correct
-metrical form. The strictly compressed and regulated five and seven
-syllabled lines of the short, standard verses of Japan are here
-scattered somewhat irregularly. Indeed, the general text of the _No_
-may perhaps best be described as poetry but half dissolved in prose;
-or, to use another simile, as an archipelago of little islets of poetry
-in a sea of prose, each islet surrounded and connected by sandy shores
-and bars which have been reduced almost to sea level.
-
-All through the pieces there is an immense number of plays upon
-words, of "pillow" and "pivot" words, of short quotations from and
-allusions to classical poetry, so that the text simply bristles with
-opportunities for literary "commentators." The excessive amount of
-classical allusion and quotation, while it does not appeal at all to
-us, is one of the features which principally delights the Japanese
-literati. For this is considered not only to show the degree of
-knowledge which the author possessed, but also to add greatly to the
-richness and suggestiveness of the piece by bringing to the memory
-other cognate scenes and ideas. The merit of the frequent quotations
-being that they allow of great compression and terseness of style, so
-that in a few words an author can bring a series of scenes before the
-mind of his audience.
-
-So much we can understand, but the "pillow" and "pivot" words are
-without parallel in our own language. By means of them the subject may
-be diverted to some idea which appears, to our way of thinking, totally
-unconnected. For instance, in the _Sumida River_ (see p. 83) the use
-of the root word for _repute_ by the Ferryman makes the Mother, in
-the following line, recall and quote a classic poem on quite another
-subject which has the same root word in it. The link connecting the
-two subjects being merely the one root word which is common to both,
-and which is called the pivot word, the value of which is, of course,
-entirely lost in translation. In English, unconnected ideas alone
-are left. Some examples of such devices are mentioned in the notes
-following the translations of the plays at the end of the book, but
-throughout the _utai_ they are of perpetual recurrence and are far too
-frequent to be mentioned every time they appear. In his _Classical
-Poetry of the Japanese_, Prof. Chamberlain gives an account of the
-pivot words, and he admires their "dissolving view" effects, but Aston
-thinks them frivolous and a sign of decadence. These "pivot words"
-as well as the "pillow words," though they are so prevalent in its
-literature, are not at all confined to the _utai_ of the _No_, but are
-characteristic of the whole of the early Japanese verse. The "pillow
-words" (called _makura-kotoba_ in Japanese) have been collected by
-Prof. F. F. V. Dickins[3] recently, and he says, "The _makura-kotoba_
-form the characteristic embellishment of the early _uta_ of Japan, and
-of all subsequent Japanese, as distinguished from Japano-Chinese verse."
-
-As regards rhyme, there is no use of such rhyming as characterises our
-own verse; and this may partly depend on the structure of the Japanese
-language. Japanese words are not composed of letters as they are with
-us, but of syllables; every consonant is associated with all the
-vowels. Thus the words are compounded of a larger number of elements
-than with us, but each ends in one of the five vowels or in _n_. The
-elements are _ka_, _ki_, _ko_, _ta_, _ti_, _tu_, _te_, _to_, and so on.
-This will at once be evident if we examine a few words of romanised
-Japanese. For example, the first line of the play _Tamura_ is _Hina no
-myakoji hedate kite_.
-
-In the _utai_, though there is no terminal rhyming, there is sometimes
-a tendency to repeat the same syllable more than once in a phrase, with
-the deliberate intention of accentuating it.
-
-
-Concerning the Difficulties of Translation
-
-Only half-a-dozen of the complete _No_ and portions of a few others
-have been translated into English from all the many Japanese originals
-that are available. But this is scarcely surprising. In translating
-any of the _No_ there are two supreme difficulties to be encountered.
-The first depends on the organic remoteness of the Japanese language
-from our own, which is common to any translation from the Japanese;
-and the second is the peculiar difficulty of translating the _utai_
-because the exact meaning of many portions of them is disputed even
-by Japanese authorities, and then even where the meaning may be clear
-to a Japanese expert the compression of the language is so great that
-it cannot literally be rendered into a European language. From a
-French or German, even from a Russian original, a literal translation
-is comprehensible even if it is not beautiful in English. A literal
-English translation from a Japanese original is arrant nonsense. The
-Japanese language is not merely unlike ours; the whole mode and order
-of the thought upon which it is founded is on an entirely different
-plan from our own. The more conscientious the translator the greater
-his difficulty. It is easy enough to translate "_O yasumi nasai_"
-as "good-night," but how are we to say in English what it really
-means, _i. e._ approximately "honourably deign to take rest," without
-appearing remote and stilted? And that is just a simple little common
-phrase; when the Japanese to be translated is contorted and coruscated
-with "pillow words" and "pivot words," with a phrase from an old
-classical poem of which the reader is supposed to know the whole, and
-cannot "see the point" unless he does so, what is the translator to
-do? But suppose, further, that a couple of the words are the subject
-of learned controversy, as is frequently the case, is it likely two
-translations will coincide?
-
-
-Concerning the Translations of others, as well as those in this Book
-
-There are three principal lines that a much-to-be-pitied translator
-may take. (1) He may give up in despair any attempt at being literal.
-He belongs, let us say, to the school that think it best to translate
-"_O yasumi nasai_" as "good-night." He has this pre-eminent virtue that
-he will give us at least a version which can be read as English. And
-there is much to be said for this mode of treatment. (2) On the other
-hand, a great contrast to translator No. 1 is he who desires to give
-a literal version of the Japanese, and who does not care in the least
-whether it sounds smooth and finished in English. (3) Then there is the
-last, and perhaps the most misguided of all, who cares a great deal to
-convey the true Japanese impression and also tries to polish and round
-off the English so that it may not appear too stilted or too rough, but
-may convey to the English reader something of the true spirit of the
-Japanese without always diverting his attention to some peculiarity of
-the rendering's bodily form. As I myself have endeavoured to supply the
-third type of translations, I may be allowed to enlarge a little on the
-attitude of mind of one making the attempt.
-
-M. Bergson, in his inimitable book on laughter, says, "Where lies the
-comic element in this sentence, taken from a funeral speech and quoted
-by a German philosopher: 'He was virtuous, and plump'? It lies in the
-fact that our attention is suddenly recalled from the soul to the
-body." The sudden intrusion of the body, particularly the imperfect or
-ill-managed body, is the source of most of the comic element in human
-life.
-
-Hence, recognising this fatal pitfall, I have felt it essential to make
-the _body_ of my translations as little irritating and noticeable as
-possible, while at the same time preserving, as far as the language
-will allow, complete truthfulness to the spirit of the original. All
-my sympathies are with the translators in class No. 2, and were our
-universe not organised in the humorous way that M. Bergson has pointed
-out, I should have ranked myself with them, and attempted to give only
-a literal rendering of the Japanese. But such translations never allow
-us for a moment to forget the English body of the original Japanese
-spirit, because the body they give it is out of joint, abnormal in our
-eyes, and therefore it absorbs our attention or renders ridiculous the
-hints it conveys that the spirit it encloses may have aspired to soar.
-
-Let me illustrate by quotation--
-
-Dickins's[4] most scholarly and valuable translation keeps one's
-attention always in the realm of intellectual interest, and it is his
-intention to be strictly in accord with the original. His version is
-partly in prose and partly in this form--
-
-    "across the surf he
-  upon the shipway oareth,
-    gentle the skies are,
-  the spring-winds softly blowing--
-    what tale of days shall
-  his bark in the cloudy distance
-    sail o'er the sea-plain
-  till Haruma he reacheth."
-
-With this it is interesting to compare Aston's translation, which is
-largely prose. The lines quoted above from Dickins are rendered by
-Aston[5] as follows: "With waves that rise along the shore, and a
-genial wind of spring upon the ship-path, how many days pass without a
-trace of him we know not, until at length he has reached the longed-for
-bay of Takasago, on the coast of Harima."
-
-This play of _Takasago_ is often quoted and is much beloved by the
-Japanese, and some of the verses from it are invariably chanted at the
-wedding festivals. The beginning of the famous chorus is thus rendered
-by Aston (p. 209)--
-
-  "On the four seas
-  Still are the waves;
-  The world is at peace.
-  Soft blow the time-winds,[6]
-  Rustling not the branches.
-  In such an age
-  Blest are the very firs,
-  In that they meet
-  To grow old together."
-
-Captain Brinkley's translation of _Ataka_ is in somewhat similar style
-to the preceding, a mixture of prose and "verse" of short lines like
-the following example--
-
-  "From traveller's vestment
-  Pendent bells ring notes
-  Of pilgrims' foot-falls;
-  And from road-stained sleeves
-  Pendent dew-drops presage
-  Tears of last meetings."
-
-To the same school of translators belongs Mr. Sansom,[7] though he
-is slightly less literal than Mr. Dickins. He renders the exquisite
-fragment from the _Sakuragawa_ as follows--
-
-  "The waters flow, the flowers fall,
-  forever lasts the Spring,
-  The moon shines cold, the wind blows high,
-  the cranes do not fly home.
-  The flowers that grow in the rocks
-  are scarlet, and light up the stream.
-  The trees that grow by the caverns
-  are green and contain the breeze
-  The blossoms open like brocade,
-  the brimming pools are deep and blue."
-
-All the time we are reading this the magic of suggestion is working,
-and we would fain let our minds float away into the land of spring;
-but our attention is brought plumping down to the bodily presentation
-of the thoughts and our intellect is set at work to see how the lines
-might have been made to scan, or to run in some form of rhythm. So long
-as they do just scan and have a passable rhythm, we do not think of the
-poetical qualities of the translation, but when they jolt us along our
-attention is constantly diverted from the higher theme to the lesser
-subject of English grammar and versification.
-
-So that I have endeavoured in my translations to make the lines run
-smoothly enough to be read aloud without much irritation; and though I
-have doubtless not fully succeeded, I have tried to give them as much
-verbal beauty as was possible within the narrow limits afforded me by
-the literal Japanese meaning. In this my collaborator, Prof. Sakurai,
-has held the rein on me at times when I would have liked to run away
-with some poetical conceits, and it is owing entirely to his tireless
-exertions that the result has a fair degree of accuracy. I must relieve
-him of too great a responsibility, however, for I confess that here and
-there where it seemed to me imperative to put in a word or two more
-than was in the original in order to convey the necessary impression
-to an English reader, or where several lines of metre would have been
-upset if he wouldn't let me have the word I wanted, I have just taken
-the bit between my teeth and run away from him. But this has happened
-seldom, and on the whole I think it will be found that the English
-version bears close comparison with the Japanese.
-
-Now a word regarding the type of verse that is used by those who
-translate into a recognisable English form. Of these the translations
-in Prof. Chamberlain's _Classical Poetry of the Japanese_ of four
-of the finest and most renowned _utai_ of the _No_ are models to be
-considered by any later translator. Prof. Chamberlain puts the "words"
-into prose, and the "songs" into rhymed verse.
-
-The chorus at the end of the _Robe of Feathers_ is a good example of
-this easily flowing verse (p. 146)--
-
-  "Dance on, sweet maiden, through the happy hours!
-  Dance on, sweet maiden, while the magic flow'rs
-  Crowning thy tresses flutter in the wind
-  Rais'd by thy waving pinions intertwin'd!
-  Dance on! for ne'er to mortal dance 'tis giv'n
-  To vie with that sweet dance thou bring'st from heav'n:
-  And when, cloud-soaring, thou shalt all too soon
-  Homeward return to the full-shining moon,
-  Then hear our pray'rs, and from thy bounteous hand
-  Pour sev'nfold treasures on our happy land;
-  Bless ev'ry coast, refresh each panting field,
-  That earth may still her proper increase yield!"
-
-But to my ear such consistently rhymed verse does not convey any
-suggestion of the sound of the Japanese chants. As Captain Brinkley
-has it, "by obeying the exigencies of rhyme, whereas the original
-demands rhythm only ('the learned sinologues, their translators'),
-have obtained elegance at the partial expense of fidelity." It is true
-that a less formal versifying, such as I have used, does not represent
-truly the Japanese effect either--nothing can; but it seems less out
-of harmony with its character than do the rhyming stanzas. Then also
-I found that short rhymed lines render one liable to strain the sense
-a little in order to make things fit in. Longer lines, without such
-regular rhyming, allow one more play, and this enables one to follow
-the words suggested directly by the Japanese. Since then also Prof.
-Chamberlain's own taste has changed and he has "gone over to the camp
-of the literalists."
-
-In two of the pieces I have put the "words" into a longer metre to
-indicate the difference between them and the "songs." But I find this
-makes an added difficulty for any one reading aloud, without much
-enhancing the accuracy of the whole, so that in _Kagekiyo_ I have made
-no distinction between the various parts of the text. In listening to a
-Japanese _No_ performance one could not really tell where the "words"
-left off and the "songs" began, and also, as I have previously noted
-(p. 24), the poems are connected to the prose by irregularly dispersed
-poetical lines. Finally,
-
-
-In Conclusion
-
-as none of the prose in the least corresponds to our prose, and as
-it is not given in the ordinary speaking voice of the Japanese, but
-is always specially intoned, it seems to me much more suitable and
-harmonious to render the whole _utai_ in verse of various kinds.
-
-Even this little book has been the task of years, despite its many
-imperfections. It was undertaken primarily because I delighted in the
-_No_, and the labour of bringing it through the Press was rendered
-lighter by the hope that it might give pleasure to the English reading
-public to see, even "through a glass darkly," something of the beauty
-of this unexplored literature. I have already described the effect
-these plays have on the Japanese and on me. That I have caught perhaps
-an echo of their spirit I am encouraged to think, because on the two
-occasions when one or other of these translations have been read to
-audiences it has been reported to me that several of those who heard
-them were in tears. That strikes the right note. For with all their
-literary richness and their descriptions of beautiful scenes and of
-heroic deeds, the ground note of the _No_ is human tragedy. Their
-tragedy is of the fundamental, elemental kind that depends upon the
-very nature of our being, that turns upon the terrible fact which
-the trivialities of the material world so readily delude us into
-forgetting--that we are fleeting as a drop of dew.
-
-  MARIE C. STOPES.
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[1] _The Sumida River_ formed the subject of a paper read before the
-Royal Society of Literature. The translators acknowledge with gratitude
-the kindness of the Council in allowing them to republish the major
-part of the verse in the form in which it appeared in the Transactions
-of the Royal Society of Literature in 1909.
-
-[2] _Trans. Roy. Soc. Literature_, _London_, vol. 29, pp. 156-7.
-
-[3] _Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan_, vol. 35, pt. 4. 1908.
-
-[4] _Primitive and Mediaeval Japanese Texts_, p. 399.
-
-[5] _History of Japanese Literature_, p. 207.
-
-[6] The land and sea breezes, which blow regularly only in fine weather.
-
-[7] _Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan_, vol. 38, pt. 3, p. 174.
-
-
-
-
-THE MAIDEN'S TOMB
-
-
-Authorship of the Play
-
-This piece is now commonly attributed to _Kiyotsugu_, and is supposed
-to have been produced at the end of the fourteenth century. Its exact
-date is not known, but Kiyotsugu was born in 1354 and died in 1406; yet
-it is most likely that he was an adapter and not the original author of
-the _utai_, parts of which were probably written long before his time.
-The play is still one of the most important of the _No_, and is indeed
-a test piece, as parts of the _Shite's_ chanting are exceptionally
-difficult. A foreigner cannot judge of this, but from my own point of
-view it is perhaps the finest of all the _No_.
-
-
-Outline of the Story
-
-The play is based on a story told--or rather written down, for it was
-probably told long before then--a thousand years ago in the _Yamato
-Monogatari_, or _Tales of Japan_. It is the story of the love of two
-men for one woman, and the fatal consequences thereof for all concerned.
-
-UNAI, a maiden living near Ikuta, was loved by two equally gifted
-men. On the selfsame day they each sent her a letter declaring their
-passion, but she could not decide between them, fearing the anger of
-either rejected suitor. Her father determined that the one who shot
-most accurately should win her, but in the contest the two men pierced
-the same wing of the same bird with their arrows. This bird was a
-mandarin duck, a creature whose lifelong faithfulness to its mate was
-proverbial in Japan. The girl felt bitterly that she was to blame for
-the death of the bird and the misery its mate endured, as well as for
-the strife between the two men. Hence she drowned herself. Then the two
-men, visiting her tomb, were filled with remorse, and killed each other
-beside her grave. This, however, only added to the girl's guilt, and
-much of the play is taken up with vivid descriptions of her agonising
-torments in the eight hells believed in by popular Buddhism.
-
-The play opens with a traveller Priest passing the village of Ikuta on
-his way to the capital. It is early spring, and the village maidens
-are out gathering the first green shoots of the "seven herbs," which
-used to be eaten at the beginning of the year as a kind of ceremony.
-The city folk make this herb-gathering a pleasure picnic, but the
-poor girls going out of necessity into the biting cold of January are
-envious of those who are better off in cities. The spirit of the long
-dead UNAI has joined them in the form of a young girl, but she takes
-part in the opening dialogue. The "Maiden's (_i. e._ UNAI'S) Tomb"
-is one of the famous places in the district, and the Priest asks to
-see it. UNAI'S spirit remains behind when the village girls have been
-driven home by the cold, and she conducts the Priest to the tomb,
-conversing with him, and telling him the story of UNAI. Her spirit's
-materialisation as a maiden then vanishes, and UNAI appears as a Ghost,
-for whom the Priest prays. The Ghost laments over the tomb, and the
-Chorus gives expression to her longing for the human world. The Ghost
-expresses her thankfulness for the prayer uttered by the Priest, and
-recounts her agonising sufferings in the eight hells. The Priest makes
-some effort, but not a very determined one, to inculcate in the poor
-Ghost the higher Buddhistic belief that all these things, even the
-hells, are delusions, and her mind could free herself of them. The play
-closes with the Chorus telling of her miseries in hell.
-
-
-Comments on the Play
-
-In its construction, and its presentment of the story as a whole, this
-play resembles strikingly one of the beautiful tryptic colour prints
-of Japan, in which an exquisite, softly coloured garden or woodland
-foreground, shaded with delicate mists, brings into intense relief
-the vivid figure of an armoured warrior going out to battle. In the
-opening passages of this play we have the soft, misted foreground,
-with the tender green shoots of the early spring-time. One sees the
-thin, frosted ice pushing aside the sprouting plants, and the scene is
-enhanced and the description of it embroidered by poetic references to
-the details of the picture. But among the maidens is one, outwardly
-like others, so that they do not recognise the difference themselves,
-but yet one who is a tragic figure, a temporary reincarnation of a
-spirit from hell. Then with the Priest the spirit converses, and paints
-in vivid colours this central figure, for whom the whole scene forms
-but the setting.
-
-To us in the West the moral attitude of the play seems very strange.
-From her initial 'sin' in being sufficiently beautiful to attract the
-love of two men, and her guilt in causing the death of the mandarin
-duck (in a Buddhistic country no small crime), we see crime after crime
-laid upon the maiden's head. And all the time in our eyes she appears
-utterly innocent of everything save a too ready yielding to a tender
-conscience, and a willingness to take blame upon herself. Hapless
-maiden, how different is this treatment of hers from that accorded in
-the West to charming girls. In Old Japan not all the eight hells would
-have been accounted sufficient for Helen of Troy.
-
-In its religious attitude we see the popular beliefs of Buddhism
-contrasted with the higher form of the same religion. The
-circumstantial details of the hells and punishments were believed in by
-the common folk, but as the Priest says (on p. 49) all was delusion,
-both in the world and in heaven or hell, and the soul could escape from
-its torments by a recognition of this higher fact.
-
-  If only thou wouldst once but cast away
-  The clouds of thy delusions, thou wouldst be
-  Freed from thy many sins and from all ills.
-
-
-
-
-THE MAIDEN'S TOMB[8]
-
-
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONAE
-
-
-  The Maiden UNAI (really her spirit temporarily
-  incarnated as a maiden)                        (_Shite_)
-
-  Two of the Village Maidens                     (_Tsure_)
-
-  A Priest                                       (_Waki_)
-
-  The Ghost of the Maiden UNAI                   (_Nochi-jite_)
-
-  Chorus
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 6.
-
-THE MAIDEN'S TOMB
-
-_This illustration, from a Japanese coloured woodcut, shows the figure
-of the maiden Unai (+see p. 35+), who wears a dress resembling
-that still worn by country maidens, though with the volume of the
-garment and the size of the patterns both a little more exaggerated
-than those which are now customary. The designer of the woodcut has put
-in symbolic and formalized representations of the Mandarin ducks and
-the flames of hell-fire which were among Unai's torments._ ]
-
-
-SCENE
-
-The fields of ONO near the hamlet of IKUTA in Settsu, in the early
-spring.
-
-[_The PRIEST enters_]
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Far through the country has my journey lain,
-  Far through the country has my journey lain,
-  And to the capital I speed my way.
-
-  I, a priest, am from the country, from the Western districts
-        coming.[9]
-  To the capital, which hitherto my eyes have never seen.
-
-  The paths along the coast are manifold,
-  The paths along the coast are manifold,
-  That on this journey I have traced, and oft
-  My way has lain by boat across the sea.
-  Over the sea and mountains stretching wide
-  I watched the sun rise up and set again,
-  And now I reach Ikuta which I know
-  Only by name as in Tsu province fair,
-  The hamlet of Ikuta now I reach.
-
-
-SPIRIT AND MAIDENS
-
-  Green shoots we gather, young green shoots of spring,
-  And here in Ono by Ikuta blows
-  The morning breeze so chill, so chill and strong
-  It turns and billows out our flapping sleeves.[10]
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  While in the distant mountains, on the pines
-  The snow has even yet not disappeared.
-
-
-SPIRIT AND MAIDENS
-
-  Oh, near the Capital the time has come
-  To gather in the fields the shoots of spring.
-  It makes our hearts glad just to think of that.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  But from the Capital this place is far,
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  And we are country folk and therefore live
-  A humble life here by Ikuta's sea.
-  Our lives and work are of the lowliest
-  And to the field of Ono every year
-  Without the thought of pleasure do we come.[11]
-  The footmarks of the many village folk
-  That go to gather the young shoots of spring
-  Have left wide tracks across the snowy field.
-
-  And tread a path, where else there would be none.
-  And tread a path, where else there would be none.
-
-  The young green shoots that grow on field and marsh
-  We now must gather. When the snow has gone
-  They will already have become too old--
-  Though still the wind blows cold thro' shady copse
-  And on the field of Ono lies the snow,
-  The seven herbs of early spring-time sprout
-  In Ikuta then let us pluck the shoots,
-  In Ikuta then let us pluck the shoots.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  O good people, will you tell me if toward Ikuta I'm nearing?
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  As thou dost know the name of Ikuta
-  There should have been no need to ask us that!
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  Dost thou not know it from the many views
-  That scattered far and wide portray the place?
-
-  First of all, dost thou not know it as the forest of Ikuta?
-  See, the many clustered tree tops which are true to this its name.[12]
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  And there the stream thou hast now deigned to cross,
-  It is the far-famed river Ikuta.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  In the early breath of spring-time (like the shallows of the river)
-  Do we gather, 'neath the snowy cloak, the young shoots of the field.
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  And this field, too, where little sprouts as yet
-  Are growing, why as Ono know'st it not?[13]
-
-
-SPIRIT AND MAIDENS
-
-  The sweet wild cherry blossoms that do grow
-  In Miyoshino and in Shiga too,
-  The maple leaves of Tatsuta and those
-  Of Hatsuse--they would be surely known
-  By those who lived beside the poet's home.
-  But we, though living in this place know not
-  The forest or the copse of Ikuta.
-  So ask us not, for we know nothing here.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Ah yes. Unfolding now before my eyes
-  The views I know--the forest, river, sea,
-  And mist, the scenes of Ono now expand!
-
-  And the far-famed tomb of Ikuta, the Maiden's Tomb, where is it?
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  Ah, in truth, the Maiden's Tomb! That is a place that I have heard of;
-  Whereabout it is I know not, yea, I know not in the least.
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  But prithee, traveller, these useless things
-  We beg thee ask us not, we prize the time[14]
-  When we can gather these young shoots of spring.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  And thou thyself, too, journeyest in haste,
-  So wherefore dost thou tarry with us here?
-
-
-MAIDENS
-
-  Thereon an ancient poem has the words--
-
-
-CHORUS[15]
-
-I
-
-  "A charming hindrance to the traveller
-  Are they who pluck young shoots in Ono's field
-  In Ikuta."[16] Why ask then useless things?
-
-II
-
-  "Thou, Watchman of the field of Tobuhi
-    That lies in Kasugano, go and see,"
-  "Thou, Watchman of the field of Tobuhi
-    That lies in Kasugano, go and see
-    If it is not yet time to pluck the shoots."[17]
-  Thou, traveller, that to the capital
-  Likewise dost haste, how many days hast thou?
-  "For his sake do I go to the spring fields
-    To gather the young shoots, though on my robe
-    Cling still the cold, unmelted flakes of snow."[18]
-  Let us then gather, snowy though it be
-  And on the marsh the thin ice still remains,
-  Pushing aside the sprouting watercress,
-  Let us then gather the green-coloured shoots
-  Let us then gather the green-coloured shoots.
-
-III
-
-  Would there be much to gather? For the spring
-  Is very early yet--and young shoots hide.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  "The spring-time comes, but as I see the snow
-    Upon the plain, I think of the old year."[19]
-  The young green shoots of this year still are few
-  So we must gather those with older leaves.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  And yet, although the leaves are old and sere
-  The young green shoots are fresh as the new year.
-  Guard then thyself, thou field of the young spring!
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  To the field of spring,
-  To the field of spring,
-  To pluck violets
-  He came, and then
-  Only purple leaves
-  Of the weeds culled he
-  Who came gathering.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Ah, yes, the colour of affinity[20]
-  Has brought to my sad thought the memory
-  Of Love's light bridge which was asunder torn.[21]
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  The aged stems of plants once gone to seed
-  In Sano district still may sprout again,
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  And their green colour will be purple dyed.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  The Shepherd's Purse of Choan--[22]
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  And the hot shepherd's purse, a useless thing,
-  And other herbs white rooted, like the dawn,[23]
-  Which, hidden by the snow we may mistake
-  And gather in the place of those we want.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  The morning breeze in Ono still is cold
-  The lower branches of the pine trees still
-  Are weighted down with snow. Where hides the spring
-  We cannot tell. And though the river breeze
-  Blows cold, our billowing sleeves are colder far.
-  Let us go home, although we leave unplucked
-  Some of the young green shoots, let us go home.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Now there is something I would speak of unto thee if thou permittest--
-  All the maidens who were gathering the young greens have departed
-  Save thyself, and wherefore then art thou alone remaining with me?
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  For the Maiden's Tomb but just now thou didst ask me. I will show
-        thee.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Yes, indeed, I do desire to see it and I pray thee show me.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-  This way honourably follow. And the Maiden's Tomb is this!
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  What its history, and why then, is the Maiden's Tomb so called?
-  Pray minutely tell the story.
-
-
-SPIRIT
-
-                               Then will I the tale unfold.
-  Once upon a time a maiden who was called Unai did live here,
-  And two men there were, called Chinu and Sasada, and they loved her.
-  And to her upon the same day, in the same hour, both declaring
-  Fervent love, they sent two letters. But she thought that if she
-        yielded
-  Unto one, the other's anger would be deep, and so to neither
-  Would she yield (and then her father said the truest shot should
-        win her).
-  But upon Ikuta's river did the two men's flying arrows
-  Pierce together but one water-fowl, and pierce the selfsame wing.
-
-  And then I thought, how cruel now I am.[24]
-  The wild fowl's troth, though plighted deep and true
-  Is broken for me, and the happy pair--
-  Mandarin ducks--for my poor sake must bear
-  The pain of separation. Piteous!
-  So, with my life dismayed, I'd throw myself
-  Into Ikuta river's flowing tide[25]
-  Here in the land of Tsu. Ikuta stands
-  Merely a name to such a one as I.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  These were her last words, as she took her way
-  Into the river's water. When they found
-  They buried her beneath this mound of clay.
-  Then the two men, her lovers, came to seek
-  Her tomb. No longer will we live, they said,
-  And like the stream of Ikuta, the tide
-  Of their remorse rose up. Each with his sword
-  Ended the other's life.
-
-  And that was too my sin! That too my sin!
-  What can become of such a one, so full
-  Of sins? I pray thee therefore give me help!
-  So saying 'neath the tomb once more she sank
-  Yea, down beneath the tomb once more she sank.
-
-[_Ghost of UNAI appears_]
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Short as a young stag's horns in summer time[26]
-  The night of sleep! The weeds grow on her tomb,
-  And from their shade appears again the ghost.
-  I'll raise the voice of prayer. "Thou spirit soul,
-  Awake thyself to understanding true,
-  Enter Nirvana casting off from thee
-  Delusions of thy life and of thy death."[27]
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  Oh, the wide field, how desolate it is--
-  My own deserted tomb and nothing else!
-  Only wild beasts contending for the dead
-  Which come and go in gloom, and o'er the tomb
-  The watching spirits flying in the wind
-  That circling ever beats upon the pines.
-  The heaven's lightening, and the morning dew
-  Are still before my eyes, and symbolise
-  The world of Earth, as transient as they.
-  How many of the lonely tombs are those
-  Of Youth, whose lives are so unlike the name
-  Of Ikuta, so-called the field of life.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  A man comes from the world I left long since.
-  How thankful am I. 'Tis the voice of prayer!
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-I
-
-  O human world. How much I long for thee.
-
-II
-
-  A [living] man while spending [in this world]
-  Even a single day and single night,
-  A [living] man while spending [in this world]
-  Even a single day and single night,
-  Eight billion and four thousand things has he
-  To think about. But how much more have I,
-  I, who left long ago the pleasant world--
-  'Twas in the reign of Tenchi and by now
-  The second Horikawa holds his sway.
-  Oh, that once more unto the pleasant world
-  I might return. How long in shady weeds
-  And 'neath the moss, how long I buried lie!
-  But worse, not buried under the cool earth
-  I suffer from a roasting heat and burn,
-  Within a flaming dwelling-place, behold!
-  Within a flaming dwelling-place, behold!
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Alas! How truly piteous is thy state,
-  If only thou wouldst once but cast away
-  The clouds of thy delusions, thou wouldst be
-  Freed from thy many sins and from all ills.
-  "From evils all, and sins, from hells and fiends,
-    Illnesses all and deaths, be thou set free."
-  Oh, quickly float thyself in buoyant thought!
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  Ah, grateful am I, for the voice of prayer
-  Has reached my ears, and tho' my sufferings
-  Do know no intermission, in hot hell
-  The smoke clears back a moment, and I see
-  A little open space. How glad I am!
-
-  Oh, how terrible! Who art thou? What! Of Sasada the spirit?
-  And thou art the ghost of Chinu? And from right and left you hold me
-  By the hands, and saying to me "Come, come, come." Though they
-        torment me
-  I don't dare to leave the shelter of my burning house; for no one,
-  Nothing, is there to rely on. And I see another spirit
-  Flying from afar towards me. Oh, how terrible! I see it,
-  'Tis the duck, and turned to iron, turned to steel it is before me!
-
-  With beaks of steel like naked swords the bird
-    Pecks at my head and feasts upon my brain.
-  Is it because of crimes I did commit?
-    Oh, how resentful is it, cruel bird!
-
-  Oh! I pray thee, Priest, I pray thee, from these sufferings
-        relieve me!
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  "The time of torment fierce has now arrived."
-  The spirit had not finished saying this,
-  When o'er the tomb flew out a band of flame.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  And then its light became a hellish fiend,
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Who raised the torture rod, and drove at her.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  Before me is a sea if I attempt
-  But to advance
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  While flames are in the rear.
-
-GHOST
-
-  And on the left.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  And on the right as well.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  By water and by fire am I now held
-  In double torment.
-
-
-PRIEST
-
-  Helpless utterly.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  When to the pillar of the burning house
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  I reach my hands, and do attempt to cling
-  At once the column bursts out into flame--
-  The blazing pillar must I then embrace.
-  Oh, scorching heat! Oh, unendurable!
-  The whole five members of my body turned
-  Into black smoke by this fierce burning fire.
-
-
-GHOST
-
-  And then when I arose--
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  And then when I arose, a jailor fiend
-  Applied the torture-rod, and drove me out.
-  I left the house and wandered through eight hells
-  And there all suffering I underwent.
-  Now I would show thee how I blotted out
-  My many sins. Before thee lie the scenes
-  First in the hell of all equality,[28]
-  Then in the hell of black rope, devil led,
-  And driven to the hell of gathering,
-  Where all assemble. Then the hell of cries,
-  Of bitter cries, came next, and then of heat,
-  Of utmost heat, and then the hell of depth,
-  Depth infinite, into whose space I fell
-  Feet upwards and head downwards for three years
-  And three months more, in agony the while.
-  And after that a little interval--
-  The devils left me and the flames expired,
-  I thought there was a respite to my pain,
-  But then the darkness grew more terrible
-  And to my burning house I would return
-  I thought--but where then was it? To myself
-  I asked the question in the pitchy dark.
-  And seeking, seeking, to and fro I groped.
-  "The Maiden's Tomb"--I searched it everywhere,
-  And now at last I find "The Maiden's Tomb."
-  Like flying dews leaving a grassy shade,
-  Like flying dews leaving a grassy shade,
-  The spirit's form has once more disappeared
-  The spirit's shadow has now vanished.
-
-
-END OF "THE MAIDEN'S TOMB"
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-(The play ends thus abruptly, leaving us in doubt as to whether or not
-the Priest's admonition prevailed, and she escaped into Nirvana.)
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[8] Page 39--This piece in the current original is called
-_Motome-zuka_, which means, the "Sought Tomb." In older versions it
-was previously called _Otome-zuka_, meaning the "Maiden's Tomb," by
-which name the story was also known in the _Yamato Monogatari_ ("Tales
-of Japan"), written nearly a thousand years ago. _Otome_ and _motome_
-sounding so similar in Japanese, and, as the two men came _seeking_ the
-tomb, the name was changed in the text of the Japanese No, but as the
-older name both has priority and is more euphonious I revert to the
-older title.
-
-This piece is one of the eleven most important _utais_, and the
-_Shite's_ part is a particularly difficult one to chant.
-
-[9] The long lines are translations of the "words" in the play. As
-these words are not ordinary prose it seems better not to put them into
-English prose from which they are so remote. (See p. 33.)
-
-[10] Page 40--The original reads:--_Ikuta on Ono no asakazeni nao
-saekaeru tamoto kana_. Here the meaning is very confused, the word for
-sleeves (_tamoto_) following in the Japanese mind from _kaeru_ (which
-means to turn) in _saekaeru_ (it is cold).
-
-[11] Page 40--This brings a picture to mind of the contrast between
-city and country life. An old institution among the well-to-do people
-of the capital is to make a pleasure picnic for the gathering of the
-young green shoots in very early spring. It was a general custom to eat
-the "seven greens" on the seventh day of January each year, and the
-poor people in the country hamlets make it one of their slender sources
-of revenue, to gather these green shoots early in January, for the city
-market.
-
-[12] Page 41--_Ikuta_, the name of the hamlet, has the same _sound_,
-though it is written differently, as the Chinese character for numerous.
-
-[13] Page 42--The Chinese character for the name _Ono_ reads "little
-field"; then there is the suggestion that there is little in the way of
-green sprouts yet.
-
-[14] Page 42--The word "prize" is left out in the original out of
-politeness.
-
-[15] The three parts of this song are chanted in different tones.
-
-[16] Page 43--Quotation from an old poem. The stanza speaks of the
-attractiveness of village maidens gathering young leaves.
-
-[17] Page 43--Quotation from an old poem. The owner of the field is
-hoping that the time will soon come for plucking the shoots. He is
-impatient, and sends the watchman to see if it is not yet time. This
-idea leads up to "Likewise dost haste" in one of the following lines.
-
-[18] Page 43--A part of another old stanza.
-
-[19] Page 44--Still another quotation from an old poem, introduced for
-the word _furu_. "To fall" and "old" are both _furu_ in Japanese, and
-"older leaves" in one of the following lines is _furu ha_.
-
-[20] Page 44--_i. e._ Purple. As is common in Japanese poetry, the word
-purple is not actually used, but is called "the related colour." As a
-colour the Japanese word _Murasaki_ is purple, and it is also applied
-to a herb with deep purple-coloured flowers. This plant's colour is
-so intensely purple that all the herbs growing near it are supposed
-to show the same colour. From such an idea purple colour is known in
-poetry as _Yukari no iro_ (the related colour). In the present lines
-part of an old stanza is introduced for the sake of recalling the word
-_murasaki_, and this in turn leads on to _yukari no na_ in the first
-line of the Chorus.
-
-[21] Page 44--According to an old tale a lover, crossing a pontoon
-bridge, fell between the boats and was drowned. The Chorus supposes the
-heroine to be thinking, "Like this man I too died because of love, and
-the 'Bridge of Love' is a name which is _related_ (see note 11) to my
-own destiny."
-
-[22] Page 45--The Shepherd's Purse is one of the seven herbs. Choan is
-in China, and the old name of China was _Kara_, so that the mention of
-Choan brings _Kara_ to mind, which in turn suggests the word _karai_,
-hot, used in the next line.
-
-[23] Page 45--The dawn is sometimes called the "whitening" in Japanese.
-
-[24] Note the change of person, of course she has really been speaking
-of herself from the beginning.
-
-[25] Page 47--_Ikuta_ means the living field, or field of life, and as
-she is about to die the name is meaningless to her.
-
-[26] Page 47--Depending on an old poem in which the short growth of the
-summer horns is used to express the idea of brief time. An alternative
-translation of this line would be, "Short is my night's sleep, short
-are a stag's horns," but these words do not convey to an English reader
-anything like the meaning the Japanese carries. In the original the
-word _tsuka_ means either a "tomb" or a "grasp," and it acts as a pivot
-word. In the sense of "tomb" it leads to the weeds growing on her tomb,
-which is the essential part; and in the sense of "grasp" it suggests
-shortness, and inasmuch as a stag's horns are so short in summer as to
-be within the grasp of a hand, their shortness is suggested, and this
-in turn suggests a night's sleep in summer. This train of thought would
-probably not occur had it not been rendered a classical picture by an
-old and well-known stanza.
-
-[27] Page 48--He is using the words of the Buddhist scriptures. Though
-in popular belief the hells and torments, as well as the world, exist,
-yet the higher philosophy of Buddhism holds that all is appearance
-only, and that the soul that realises this frees itself from the
-sufferings and restrictions of the grosser existence.
-
-[28] Page 52--Popular Buddhistic teaching postulates eight hells, (1)
-The hell of equality, where all sinners go first. (2) The hell of black
-rope, where they are tied and led by devil-jailors to (3) the hell
-of gathering. Then comes (4) the hell of cries, (5) of bitter cries,
-(6) the hell of heat, (7) of utmost heat, and lastly (8) the hell of
-infinite depth.
-
-
-
-
-KAGEKIYO[29]
-
-
-Authorship of the Play
-
-This Play was probably written about 1410; at any rate in the first
-quarter of the fifteenth century. Its author was _Motokiyo_, who was
-born in 1374 and who died in 1455. He was the eldest son of the famous
-Kiyotsugu (see p. 7).
-
-
-Outline of the Story
-
-The time of the action of the play is about the year 1190, and
-Kagekiyo, the hero of the story, is a very renowned warrior of the
-Taira clan. The Taira and the Minamoto (Gen) clans were rivals and were
-perpetually at war; during the years 1156-1185 more particularly this
-struggle culminated, when Japan had her "Wars of the Roses."
-
-Kagekiyo, known as the Boisterous, owing to his uneven temper and ready
-appeals to arms, was a famous warrior of the Taira clan, and when the
-Minamoto Shogunate was established at Kamakura, Kagekiyo was exiled to
-a distant place in Hiuga, where he became blind and passed a miserable
-existence as a beggar. He had a daughter called Hitomaru, whom he left
-in Kamakura in the charge of a lady. At the time of the play, Hitomaru
-has just grown up to be a young lady, but she had a great desire to
-meet her father, and so set out with a servant to seek him. She has a
-long and arduous journey to the place of her father's exile, and after
-enduring considerable hardships she at last finds Kagekiyo's retreat.
-She and her servant encounter a villager who assists them in the final
-search for Kagekiyo, and they make inquiries of a blind beggar dwelling
-in a miserable straw hut. This beggar is actually Kagekiyo, but at
-first he refuses to answer them or to acknowledge it, out of shame and
-consideration for his daughter. Ultimately, however, he recounts to her
-some of his adventures, and then he commands her to leave him and they
-part for ever.
-
-
-Comments on the Play
-
-In this play there is perhaps less description of the beauties of
-Nature than in many of the _No_, but the opening lines are particularly
-fraught with the meaning which permeates the whole play.
-
-  The dew remains until the wind doth blow.
-
-The comparison of human life to a drop of dew is one frequently made in
-the literature of the _No_. Throughout this play there are many phrases
-showing how deeply the characters feel the transitoriness of human
-life. After Hitomaru's longing for a place to rest a little while,
-Kagekiyo exclaims--
-
-  Nay, in the three worlds there is not a place.
-
-Kagekiyo's behaviour to his child, and his reception of her after
-her long search for him, appears to us to be most cruel; but it is,
-nevertheless, based on the conceptions of the chivalry of his time.
-Kagekiyo's leading thought was the really unselfish desire to keep the
-shame of his condition from touching his daughter. His first wish is
-that she shall not even recognise or speak with him; but when this is
-frustrated, he commands both the servant and the villager to send her
-back immediately their short meeting is over. And yet he does not seek
-even a moment's embrace, nor does he use an endearing phrase to his
-daughter. The play is a good illustration of the way that the old codes
-of Japanese chivalry imposed courses of action which seem now in this
-softer age well-nigh inhuman in their repression and conquest of the
-natural feelings.
-
-
-
-
-KAGEKIYO[30]
-
-
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONAE
-
-
-  Kagekiyo                           _Shite_
-  Hitomaru, Kagekiyo's daughter      _Tsure_
-  Servant to Hitomaru
-  Villager                           _Waki_
-  Chorus
-
-
-SCENE
-
- A mountain side at Miyasaki in the province of Hiuga. Time about 1190.
-
-
-HITOMARU AND SERVANT
-
-  The dew remains until the wind doth blow,
-  The dew remains until the wind doth blow.
-  My own life fleeting as a drop of dew,
-  What will become of me as time does pass?
-
-
-HITOMARU
-
-  My name is Hitomaru, and I am
-  A maiden, who in Kamakura[31] dwells.
-  My father's name is Kagekiyo, called
-  By some the Boisterous, and he is a friend
-  Of the Hei[32] clan, the Taira family
-  And so is by the Gen[32] house hated much.
-  To Miyasaki exiled, in Hiuga
-  He deigns, in shame, long months and years to pass.
-  To travel unaccustomed, I am tired,
-  And yet inevitable weariness
-  I mitigate by thinking of my quest,
-  And I am strengthened for my father's sake.
-
-
-HITOMARU AND SERVANT
-
-  The tears of anxious sleep run down my cheek
-  And to the dew upon the pillowing grass
-  Add drops that drench my sleeves.
-
-  From Sagami the province we set out,
-  From Sagami the province we set out,
-  Asking from those we met, the road to take
-  Toward our destination. And we passed
-  The province Totomi,[33] and crossed by boat
-  The distant bay. And Mikana we passed,
-  By Mikana, spanned o'er with bridges eight.
-  Oh, would that we could grow accustomed soon
-  To our short nights of sleep that we might dream
-  Of the high capital above the clouds,
-  Of the high capital above the clouds.
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Endeavoured as you honourably have
-  To hasten on the way, already now
-  This is Miyasaki, as it is called,
-  To Hiuga you have honourably come.
-  This is the place to honourably ask
-  Your honourable father's whereabouts.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-[_Evident to the audience, but supposed to be hidden from the other
-actors._]
-
-  The pine trees that have seen long months and years
-  Entwine themselves to form the arching bowers.
-  Yet I, debarred from the clear light of day
-  Discern no sign that time is passing by.
-  Here idly in a dark and lowly hut
-  I sleep the time away. The seasons change
-  But not for heat nor cold my clothes are planned
-  And to a skeleton my frame has waned.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  If one has got to leave the world, then black,
-  Black should his sleeves be dyed. Then surely black
-  His sleeves should all be dyed, and yet my sleeves--
-  Oh, more inglorious! So utterly
-  Worn out and waned my state that I myself
-  Feel much averse unto my wretched self.
-  So who could be benevolent enough
-  To visit such a state of misery?
-  No one inquiring of my misery
-    Will ever come.
-  No one inquiring of my misery
-    Will ever come.
-
-
-HITOMARU
-
-  Incredible that one should dwell within
-  That wretched hut, it does not seem to be
-  Fit for a habitation. Strangely though
-  I heard a voice proceeding from its wall.
-  A beggar's dwelling it must be. I fear,
-  And from the lowly dwelling keep away.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  That autumn now has come I cannot see,
-  And yet I feel it for the wind has brought
-  Tidings from somewhere, tho' I know not whence.
-
-
-HITOMARU
-
-  Ah, knowing not my father's whereabouts
-  In misery I wander, with no place
-  Where I can rest even a little while.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  Nay, in the three worlds there is not a place,
-  'Tis only in the heavenly expanse.[34]
-  Choose any man and ask him, he will say
-  "Where else!" And what else could he ever say?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  How now, you in the thatched hut, I would ask
-  A question of you.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  Well; what is it then?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Knowest thou where dwells an exiled man?
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  An exile though he be, what is his name?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  The Boist'rous Kagekiyo is he called,
-  And of the Taira house, a warrior.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  Yes, yes, I think that I have heard of him,
-  Though being blind the man I've never seen.
-  Miserable, his honourable state!
-  To hear of which stirs pity in my breast.
-  Pray then inquire elsewhere the full account.
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Then hereabouts he does not seem to be.
-
-[_To his mistress_]
-
-  But further on we should inquire again
-  If you will honourably now proceed.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  She who has just been here--Why! is she not
-  The very child of this selfsame blind man?
-  Once, very long ago, at Atsuta
-  I met a woman, and this child I got.
-  It was a girl,[35] and so I trusted her
-  To Kamegaegatsu's chatelaine.
-  Now grieving parent meets with child estranged;
-  She, speaking to her father, knows it not.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Her form unseen, although I hear her voice,
-  How sad my blindness is! Without a word
-  I let her pass. And yet such action is
-  Due truly to the bond of parent's love,
-  Due truly to the bond of parent's love.
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  How now, you there! Art thou a villager?
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  And to the Villager what hast thou then
-  Of honourable business?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-                          Dost thou know
-  Where lives an exiled man?
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-                             What sort of man--
-  An exile though he be--of whom you ask?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  A warrior of the Hei house, and called
-  Kagekiyo the Boist'rous, him I seek.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  Just now as thou hast come along this way
-  Upon the hill-side, was there not a hut,
-  A hut with thatch, and somebody within?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Yes, a blind beggar sat within the hut.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  Aye. That blind beggar is the man you seek,
-  The very Kagekiyo whom you seek!
-  How strange! When I said Kagekiyo's name
-  That honourable lady there did deign
-  To show a look of sadness. Why was that?
-
-
-SERVANT
-
-  Thy wonder is most reasonable. Naught
-  Shall I conceal from thee. Kagekiyo's
-  Most honourable daughter is the maid
-  Who hopes once more her honoured sire to meet.
-  That being so, and as from far away
-  She has come hither, I pray thee devise
-  Some proper way of speaking face to face
-  With Kagekiyo.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-                 Oh, unutterable!
-  Is she his honourable daughter then?
-  Well, calm your heart, and pray you deign to hear.
-  The sight of both eyes Kagekiyo lost;
-  So helpless, he cut short his hair and called
-  Himself Kotau of Hiuga and he begs
-  For his poor living from the travellers,
-  And with the pity of such lowly folk
-  As we ourselves, he just sustains his life.
-  And that he doth not tell his name must be
-  Shame for the contrast with the olden days.
-  At once I shall go with you and call out
-  "Kagekiyo"--and if it is his name
-  Then will he answer and you can observe
-  Him face to face, and of the distant past
-  And of the present you shall tell him all.
-  Pray come this way.
-
-                      Holloa! in the thatched hut
-  Is Kagekiyo there within? Is there
-  The boisterous Kagekiyo?
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-                           Worrying,
-  Worrying, even if my state were well.
-  And even though these people came from home,
-  Shame for this very self compels me now
-  Without my name to let them go--and yet--
-  And yet it rends my heart and the sad tears
-  As of a thousand streams run down my sleeves.
-  I waken with the thought that earthly things
-  Are naught, and but as visions in a dream.
-  I am resolved in this world now to be
-  As one who is not, and if they will call
-  This beggar Kagekiyo, why reply?
-  Moreover in this province I've a name--
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  That name in Hiuga facing to the sun,[36]
-  In Hiuga, facing to the sun is not
-  The name they call, but they return to one
-  Of the old days, discarded long ago,
-  Which with my helplessly dropped bow I dropped.
-  Wild thoughts again I never will excite
-  And yet I'm angry.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-                     Though while here I live
-  In this place.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-                 While I live
-  In this place; if I stir the hate of those
-  With means, how helpless would I be! and like
-  A blind man who had lost his walking-stick.
-  A crippled man am I, and yet I dared
-  Unreasonable words to use in wrath.
-  Forgive I pray!
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  Blind are my eyes and yet--
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Blind are my eyes and yet I surely know
-  Another's thought hid in a single word.
-  And if upon the mountains blows the wind
-  Against the pine trees, I can tell its source,
-  Whether it comes from snow or unseen flowers,--
-  Flowers only seen in dreams from which to wake
-  Is to regret! Again if in the bay
-  Upon the rough sea beaches dashing waves
-  Are heard, then I well know the evening tide
-  Is rising. Aye, to the great Taira clan
-  I do belong, and so to pleasure them
-  I'd give recitals of those olden days.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  How now, I wish to say a word to thee,
-  For it has troubled me that I just now
-  Used such quick-tempered words. For what I said
-  I pray thee pardon me.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-                         Well, that is naught.
-  So never mind it. And, has no one come,
-  To make inquiries here before I came?
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  No, no. Except thy calling, none has been.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  Ho! 'Tis a lie thou sayest. Certainly
-  Did Kagekiyo's noble daughter come.
-  Wherefore dost thou conceal? It is because
-  I feel her story is so pitiful
-  That I've come here with her.
-
-[_To HITOMARU_]
-
-                                So now at once
-  Meet with your father, see him face to face
-
-[_KAGEKIYO keeps silence_]
-
-
-HITOMARU
-
-  Pray, it is I, I who have come to you.
-  Cruel! The rain, the wind, the dew and frost
-  I minded not along that distant road,
-  While coming to you! And all this, alas,
-  Becomes as nothing! Does a Father's love
-  Depend upon the nature of the child?[37]
-  Ah, heartless!
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-                 Up till now I hoped to hide,
-  But now I am found out I am ashamed.
-  To hide my fleeting[38] self there is no place.
-
-[_To HITOMARU_]
-
-  If, in thy flowering form thou shouldst proclaim
-  That we are child and parent, then thy name
-  Thou wouldst announce,[39] and when I think on this
-  I am resolved we part. Pray do not feel
-  Thy father harsh and this mere heartlessness!
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Ah, truly is it sad! In olden times
-  I welcomed even strangers when they called,
-  And was displeased if they should pass me by.
-  And now its recompense! How sad it is!
-  To think that I had hoped that my own child
-  Should not have called on me. Alas, how sad!
-  When in their warships were the Taira clan,
-  When in their warships were the Taira clan,
-  So many were there that their shoulders touched
-  And in the crowded space the knees were crossed.
-  There scarce was room to live[40] beneath the moon--
-  And Kagekiyo more than any else
-  Was on the flagship indispensable.
-  His fellow officers and all the rest
-  Though rich in valour and in tactic powers
-  He did o'ertop. And as the ship is steered
-  By him who holds the rudder, so did he
-  Lead in the army and no difference
-  Ever occurred between him and his men.
-  All envied him, but now he is most like
-  A Unicorn, infirm with hoary age
-  And rather worse than a mere useless horse.[41]
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  How now, Kagekiyo, I'd speak with thee!
-  Thy daughter's wish is there, and she would hear
-  Of thy heroic deeds at Yashima
-  So tell her the brave story. Let her hear.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  'Tis somewhat unbecoming, her request!
-  Yet as she came from far and for my sake,
-  I'll tell the story, but when it is done
-  Pray send her home again immediately.
-
-
-VILLAGER
-
-  That shall be done. Thy story finished, I
-  Will send her back at once.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-                              Well then. The time
-  Was drawing toward the end of the third month
-  Of the third year of _Ju-ei_,[42] and our clan
-  Were in their warships while upon the land
-  The hordes of Minamoto gathered near.
-  Two armies were opposed upon the coast
-  And each one wished a contest to decide.
-  Then Noritsune, Lord of Noto, spoke
-  To all his people--"In our last year's fights
-  From Muroyama down in Harima
-  To Mizushima, Hiyodorigoe
-  And all, we never had one victory.
-  To Yoshitsune's[43] tactics this was due.
-  "By some means or another we must slay
-  This Kuro, and suggestions we desire
-  Of some good plan;" he deigned to say to them.
-  Then Kagekiyo in his mind resolved
-  That Hangwan was no devil nor a god,
-  So if I throw away my life for his,
-  I thought, it will be easy, so that this
-  To Noritsune was my last farewell.
-  And as I landed the Gen warriors
-  Did dash towards me to destroy my life.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  This Kagekiyo saw,
-  This Kagekiyo saw, and crying out
-  "How clamorous!" He struck out with his sword
-  That in the evening sun flashed brilliantly.
-  Th' opposing warriors at once gave way,
-  And he pursued, that they should not escape.
-
-
-KAGEKIYO
-
-  This is deplorable for every one--
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  This is deplorable for every one!
-  'Tis mutual shame alike for the Gen clan
-  And for the Hei clan to look upon
-  So shouted I--thinking to stop one man
-  Is easy, and so underneath my arm
-  Carrying my sword--"A warrior am I
-  Of the great Hei clan, Kagekiyo
-  Some call the Boisterous," and thus crying out
-  To seize them I pursued them. Then I caught
-  On Mihonoya's helmet, but it slipped.
-  Again I caught, but once again it slipped
-  And thus three times did he escape, though I
-  Determined that he should not flee, for he,
-  He was the foe that I had chosen.
-  Eiya! As with the whole strength of my arms
-  I pulled, and as I hauled the cape broke off,
-  And part stayed in my hand,[44] but he escaped.
-  When at some distance from me, he turned back
-  And said, "Now thou art mighty strong of arm
-  Although thou didst allow me to escape."
-  Then Kagekiyo answered back, "The strength
-  Lies in the neck bone of Mihonoya."
-  So smiling, did we part to left and right.[45]
-
-  He who has told the tale of olden days--
-  Days ne'er forgotten--is now sadly waned
-  And e'en confused in mind. Ah, what a shame!
-  The end of all this woe of life is near,
-  For in this world at most my time is short.
-  At once return,[46] and when I am no more
-  I pray thee deign to offer prayers for me.
-  That in dark places there shall be a light
-  For this blind man, and over evil roads
-  A bridge. So will I look upon thy prayers.
-  "I stay," said he, and she "I go,"
-  His ears retained but her one word "I go."
-  And thus between the parent and the child
-  This was the legacy at last exchanged--
-  Between the parent and the child exchanged.
-
-
-END OF "KAGEKIYO"
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[29] Page 53--Kagekiyo's full name is _Aku-Shichibioe Kagekiyo_.
-_Aku_--literally means "wicked"; but sometimes has a special meaning of
-"wild" or "boisterous," as in the present case, where it intimates that
-the man is rough in manners and strong in arms.
-
-[30] I have put this all in one metre, making no difference between the
-"words" and "song." (See p. 33.)
-
-[31] Page 56--In the original it reads, "Kamegaegayatsu in Kamakura";
-but as this will not fit into any possible metre the first word is left
-out.
-
-[32] Page 56--_Taira_ becomes _Hei_ when compounded with a following
-character; thus Taira House is _Hei-Ke_. Similarly "Minamoto" becomes
-_Gen_, thus _Gen-ji_ is the Minamoto family.
-
-[33] Page 57--_Totomi_, the name of one of the provinces through which
-they came, means "distant bay." Also _to_ or _tou_ with a different
-ideagraph means "to ask." _Mikana_, the name of another province
-through which they passed, means "three rivers," which leads to the
-idea of bridges. But more than that, Mikana is noted for its eight
-bridges, spanning over the streams which branch off like the legs
-of a spider, which is _kumo_ in Japanese; and this idea leads on to
-that of "clouds," which are pronounced _kumo_, though written with a
-different ideagraph. The idea of "clouds" leads on, finally, to that
-of the "capital," where only those of high rank "above the clouds" are
-dwelling.
-
-[34] Page 59--Kagekiyo takes up Hitomaru's words, originally used in a
-simple, physical sense, and applies them to the spiritual world. It is,
-nevertheless, not supposed to be a dialogue; each is soliloquising.
-
-[35] Page 60--And therefore could play no part in his warlike schemes.
-
-[36] Page 63--The Chinese character for the name of the province means
-"facing the sun."
-
-[37] Page 65--Meaning that if she had been a boy he would have welcomed
-her; but now he takes no account of her hardships and difficulties in
-reaching him.
-
-[38] The words used give a suggestion of dew-like.
-
-[39] Page 65--Proclaiming herself the child of an exile and beggar, to
-her social detriment.
-
-[40] Page 66--The word _sumu_, "to live," also signifies "clear," which
-is associated in poetry with the moon, which in its turn leads to the
-thought of shadow, _Kage_ leading to Kagekiyo.
-
-[41] Page 66--A mythical animal, of which the nearest translation is
-perhaps the unicorn. There is a proverb which states that though it is
-the king of beasts, when old it is worse than a useless horse.
-
-[42] Page 67--That is in the year 1185.
-
-[43] Page 67--Yoshitsune's complete name was _Kuro Hang wan
-Yoshitsune_. One of these, or all three names may be applied to him. As
-the three names make an impossible encumbrance for a line I only give
-him one, even where the Japanese original calls him by his full name.
-
-[44] Page 68--The jointed cape of his opponent's armour.
-
-[45] Page 68--The Minamoto clan were victorious, and when in power they
-banished Kagekiyo as a specially dangerous enemy.
-
-[46] The Chorus here speaks for Kagekiyo to Hitomaru.
-
-
-
-
-TAMURA
-
-RESUME OF TAMURA
-
-
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONAE
-
-
- _Shite_: The Spirit of TAMURAMARU, a renowned warrior, in the first
- part appearing as a youth, and in the second as a warrior.
-
- _Waki_: A Travelling Priest.
-
- _Chorus._
-
-
-SCENE
-
- The temple ground of Kiyomizu in Kioto, in March. The shrine of
- Tamuramaru is erected in this ground.
-
-There are only two actors in this piece, and it is even less dramatic
-than the preceding. As it does not lend itself so well to complete
-translation, I shall give the piece merely as a _resume_, with a few
-of the more beautiful lines rendered _in extenso_. This drama is
-an admirable example of the use of a delicately toned, flower-like
-foreground, as a setting for the warlike figure who recites tales of
-his strenuous life, which is so characteristic of the construction of
-the _No_.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-The PRIEST enters first, and, as is often the case at the beginning of
-a _No_, he recites an account of his hurried journey in the spring,
-past the provincial capitals to the "nine-fold capital of the Emperor"
-(Kioto). He speaks of the mild sky of the spring with the sun shrouded
-by soft haze, and announces that he has now arrived at the Temple of
-Kiyomizu (meaning clear water) with its peaceful waterfalls.
-
-The YOUTH (Tamuramaru) now appears with a broom in his hand. He says:
-"The spring has returned, and the flowers in their prime beauty make
-natural offerings for the Goddess of the Temple. Though there are
-many places famous for their blossoms they do not equal these, which
-are illuminated by the light of Kannon's[47] mercy, and this divine
-mercy, bright as the autumn moon, even penetrates the village of the
-ten evils and shines upon the lake of the five vices. These flowers
-look like snow in the garden of the gods or white sand on the shore of
-heaven's sea, in which the mist and the clouds are all buried. So many
-of them there are, and all are cherry flowers, some eight-fold, some
-single-fold, as is the way in the spring of the nine-fold capital. And
-all the mountains far and near likewise reflect the season of flowers."
-
-Beholding the Youth sweeping the petals, the PRIEST asks him if he is
-the flower keeper. To this the YOUTH replies in the affirmative, saying
-that he serves the Goddess of the Temple and that as he always sweeps
-the petals in the season he may be looked on as the flower keeper, or
-at any rate as one in the service of the Temple.
-
-The PRIEST then asks him to relate minutely the history of the Temple.
-Into this narrative the Youth plunges directly, stating that the Temple
-was built in the second year of Daido[48] and founded by the wish of
-Tamuramaru of Sakanoue. He continues to relate that there was once a
-priest called Kenshin who had a great desire to behold the real form
-of Kannon, and after his prayer he once saw a golden-coloured light
-on the upper stream of the river Kotsu. He followed it and found an
-old man, who said that he was Gyoe-Koji and told Kenshin to discover
-a patron who would found a magnificent temple. But this so-called
-Gyoe-Koji was really Kannon herself, and Tamuramaru was the patron of
-whom she spoke. The CHORUS then speaks, for the Youth, of the universal
-benevolence of Kannon, symbolised by her thousand merciful hands, every
-one of which is ready to be extended to those in need, in answer to
-their prayers.
-
-The PRIEST declares that he has met an interesting person, and asks for
-further information about the famous places around, questioning the
-Youth about one to the south, where a mound is to be seen, and then
-one to the north, whence an evening bell is heard. The YOUTH, after
-replying that the one is the Seikan Temple and the other the Temple of
-Washinowo, both famous in poetry, calls the attention of the Priest
-to the moon rising from behind the Otowa mountain, and observes that
-as the moon casts its peaceful light upon the cherry blossoms it is a
-sight truly worth seeing.
-
-The PRIEST says--
-
-  This is a season to be prized indeed,
-  This passing moment of a heartless Time
-  That flies so swiftly in the midst of Spring.
-
-The YOUTH and the PRIEST both repeat: "A precious moment indeed!" Then
-together they recite an old poem: "As precious as a thousand pieces of
-gold is one moment of a spring evening with flowers of pure perfume and
-the moon of silver brightness," the YOUTH adding, "Ay, more precious
-still is this very moment!"
-
-The CHORUS chants in further praise of the flowers in the Temple
-ground--
-
-  The moon between the cherry trees shines clear
-  And petals softly falling in the breeze
-  Dance in the air like gleaming flakes of snow
-  And make our hearts dance with them, light and glad.
-
-A second chant of the CHORUS enlarges on the beauty of the flowers,
-the greenness of foliage, the softness of the breeze and the charm of
-the waterfall of Otowa, and concludes by referring once more to the
-merciful light of the Goddess of the Temple, which is extended even to
-inanimate objects, such as trees, and which accounts for the exquisite
-scenery of the surroundings.
-
-The CHORUS then asks (for the Priest) the name of the Youth, who does
-not appear to be an ordinary person. To this the YOUTH replies: "A
-nameless man am I, but if thou wishest to know who I am, observe where
-I am going." The CHORUS explains that the Youth then opens the door
-of the Shrine of Tamuramaru, which is brightly lit by the moon, and
-disappears within.
-
-The second part of the Play opens with the PRIEST saying: "Under the
-shadow of a cherry tree all through the night I stand, the petals fall
-and dance in the air, the moon shines brilliant and clear, and in these
-beautiful surroundings I say the midnight prayer."
-
-TAMURAMARU then appears in the form of a warrior, saying: "How thankful
-am I to hear the voice of prayer, the midnight prayer from a passing
-stranger! 'Tis Kannon's mercy, her help. Oh, how grateful I am!"
-
-The PRIEST observes how strange it is that he sees a manly figure in
-the light of the glittering flowers, and asks who it is.
-
-To this TAMURAMARU replies that he has now nothing to conceal, and
-begins to tell the story of his life by stating that in the reign of
-Emperor Heize[49] he was Tamuramaru of Sakanoue, who was to conquer the
-Eastern barbarians, the fiends, and that by the help of the Goddess
-of this Temple he had power to do it. The story is then told by the
-CHORUS, who recounts that, according to the Emperor's declaration, the
-powerful and rebellious fiends in Seishu must be put down and peace
-must be restored. Tamuramaru collected the army, and when ready to
-start he came to this Temple and prayed to Kannon that he might gain
-the victory. "There was a strange but good omen," breaks in TAMURAMARU,
-and the CHORUS goes on to recount with what exultation he set out at
-once to strike at the rebels.
-
-Another chant of the CHORUS describes the march of Tamuramaru and
-his army to the seat of the rebels. They travelled far, going over
-the mountain pass of Osaka and through the forest of Awazu; stopping
-to adore the Temple of Ishiyama, noted for its mirage, where also
-Kannon is enshrined; and crossing over the long bridge of Seta, which
-resounded gallantly as horses trotted over it. At last they reached
-the province of Ise (or Seishu), and, convinced of their victory, for
-they were waging a just war, were more encouraged than ever, every one
-of them desiring to show his bravery and strike the first blow at the
-rebels. Happily, moreover, with the help of Kannon, the fiends, though
-they were numerous, were unconscious of their arrival.
-
-With thundering voice, which shook trees and rivers, even the
-mountains, and which echoed through the heavens and reached to the
-deepest earth, TAMURAMARU then spoke thus: "You, fiends, hear what I
-say. In older times there was once a rebel called Chikata, and the
-heavenly punishment descended upon him and the fiends who served him,
-and they were at once defeated."
-
-The CHORUS then describes how the fiends came on in battle, raising
-thick clouds and pouring down iron-fire, and by their magic art
-creating thousands of armed men. They looked like the sea of Ise, or
-the forest of Ano, so mighty were they and so numerous!
-
-TAMURAMARU breaks in: "There behold, how astonishing!" and the
-CHORUS goes on to explain that over his own army the light of the
-thousand-handed Kannon appeared, flying in space, with a bow of mercy
-and arrows of wisdom in each of her thousand hands, so that the arrows
-poured down like rain and hail over the enemy till all were struck and
-not one was left alive. Hence it was by Kannon's power that the victory
-was gained, and to her should be rendered eternal gratitude.
-
-The play, which was written essentially in praise of the virtues and
-powers of Kannon, is attributed to Motokiyo, the author of Kagekiyo
-(see p. 53).
-
-
-END OF "TAMURA"
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[47] Or Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, one of the principal deities in
-the popular religion of Japan to-day.
-
-[48] = 807 A.D.
-
-[49] The reign of Emperor Heize = 806-809 A.D.
-
-
-
-
-THE SUMIDA RIVER
-
-
-Authorship of the Play
-
-The play is attributed to _Motomasa_, who was a grandchild of the
-famous Kiyotsugu (see p. 7) and who died in 1459. The exact date of its
-composition is uncertain, but it was most likely within the first half
-of the fifteenth century.
-
-
-Outline of the Story
-
-A little child, the only son of his widowed mother (and owing to the
-laws regarding the continuation of families in Japan that means much
-more there than it does in Europe), was kidnapped from his home. The
-play opens a year after this had happened, and we meet the mother
-hurrying toward the Sumida river, which she crosses in the ferry. She
-has had a long journey from the City Royal (Kioto) in her search for
-the child. While she is in the ferry, the ferryman tells the passengers
-of a festival to be held in the place that evening in memory of a
-little lad who died on the road just a year ago. The mother questions
-him, and learns that it is _her_ child for whom the villagers are about
-to meet in prayer. The ferryman prevails on her to join in the prayers,
-and for a moment the ghost of the little one appears and speaks with
-her.
-
-[Illustration: PLATE 7.
-
-SUMIDAGAWA
-
-_This illustration from a Japanese coloured woodcut is not so good as
-could be desired, but was the only one available. It shows the Mother
-on the left, and reveals the simple, open way in which the actor wears
-the woman's mask. The little rectangular instrument at her feet is that
-used for striking the gong of prayer (+see p. 92+). The small
-figure to the right is the ghost of the little son who died, and whom
-she has set out to seek. Notice his entirely unnatural wig of hair. In
-the square insets above him are representations of the "Birds of the
-City Royal" (+see p. 83+) spoken of so much in the text, and the
-words "I adore the Eternal Buddha" in Chinese ideographs._ ]
-
-
-Comments on the Play
-
-In this _No_ there is much greater expression of tender, human
-sentiment than is common in the pieces. It contains also several
-charming descriptions of Nature, sometimes with a deeper meaning
-beneath them. For example--
-
-  If one but waits
-  The wind vibrates
-  The branches of the pine trees till they speak.
-
-Throughout the piece also there are very many allusions to and plays
-upon classical verses, particularly in relation to the "Bird of the
-City Royal" and Narihira's poems (see p. 83).
-
-The predominating thought in the piece, however, is the Buddhistic
-conception of the transitoriness of human life, and of the frail nature
-even of the bond that unites a loving mother and her child.
-
-  Fleeting as are the gleaming drops of dew,
-  Desolate as the moor of Makuzu
-  In autumn, is this world of lost delight.
-
-
-
-
-THE SUMIDA RIVER
-
-A TRANSLATION OF THE JAPANESE _NO, SUMIDA GAWA_
-
-
-
-
-DRAMATIS PERSONAE
-
-
-  The Mother                _Shite_
-  The Ferryman              _Waki_
-  A Traveller.
-  Spirit of the Child.
-  The Chorus.
-
-
-SCENE
-
- The banks of the Sumida River in the province of Musashi, toward
- evening.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  I am he who plies the ferry in the province of Musashi,
-  Over Sumida, the river, known to many far and wide.
-  And to-day my boat must hurry with its many loads of people,
-  For our village holds a festival of universal prayer.
-  On this day both priest and layman with no thought of their
-        distinction
-  Will remember this great matter and assemble one and all.
-
-
-TRAVELLER [_Song_]
-
-  The goal of my long journey is the East,
-  The goal of my long journey is the East,
-  Far Azuma,[50] and like its distance stretch
-  My days of travel, long in weary thought.
-
-[_Words_]
-
-  From the capital I travel,[51] I who now am speaking to you,
-  And I journey on to Azuma to visit there a friend.
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  Behind me rise the mountains I have passed
-  Faint in the distance as the clouds and mists.
-  Behind me rise the mountains I have passed
-  Faint in the distance as the clouds and mists.
-  O'er many a mountain path my way has lain,
-  Wide province after province have I crossed.
-  Before me now lies the great Sumida,
-  The river of renown, and at my feet
-  The waiting ferry do I now behold,
-  The waiting ferry do I now behold.
-
-[_Words_]
-
-  I have hurried, for already, 'tis the ferry of the river,
-  And behold, the boat is leaving, I must enter it at once.
-  What ho! Boatman! stay a moment. I would travel in your boat.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Very good, sir! Now at once though, may it please you to get in.
-  Yet I first would like to ask you, what is that loud noise behind you,
-  There behind, whence you have travelled. What's the matter, may I ask?
-
-
-TRAVELLER [_Words_]
-
-  'Tis a woman who is coming from the capital and acting
-  Like a mad thing in a queer ecstatic way. I saw her there.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Oh, in that case let us tarry till the mad thing can o'ertake us,
-  We can stay the boat a little, for this way she'll surely come.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_][52]
-
-  Darkness entire can never hold its sway
-  Within a mother's heart, and yet for love
-  Of her sweet child she is a wanderer.
-  Ah! painfully I know for the first time
-  The bitter truth contained within these words.
-  I ask all those who pass
-  Along the snowy way[53]
-  To Azuma to say
-  Where lies my little love.
-  There is no news. Alas!
-  No answer can I find.
-  Shall I then ask the wind
-  That blows unseen above?
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  If one but waits
-  The wind vibrates
-  The branches of the pine trees till they speak.
-  If one stays still
-  He often will
-  Have brought to him the tidings he does seek.[54]
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  Fleeting as are the gleaming drops of dew,
-  Desolate as the moor of Makuzu
-  In autumn, is this world of lost delight.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  Fretted with sorrow pass her day and night.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  I am a woman who had lived for years
-  At Kitajirikawa in the capital;
-  When suddenly I lost my only child,
-  Lured from me by a man who kidnapped him.
-  They told me that beyond Osaka's pass[55],
-  Far to the East, to Azuma, he went.
-  And since I heard it I have felt my mind
-  Losing its hold on ordinary things,
-  Set only, full of love, upon the way
-  The child did follow. Tracing out the marks
-  Of his dear feet, I wander here and there.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-I
-
-  Thousands of miles the journey is in length,
-  Yet never does the parent's heart forget
-  The child she loves and seeks. So do we hear.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-II
-
-  The nature of the bond[56] is transient,
-  The bond is transient in this world, and yet
-  Parent and child are destined not to live
-  In loving union even this short while.
-  But, like the four birds in the fable old,[57]
-  Between them cruel separation lies.
-  And now, alas! the mother's loving search
-  Of her young child has come to its sad end,
-  For she has reached the river Sumida,[58]
-  The river Sumida that flows between
-  The province Shimotsuke and Musashi.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Pray, O Boatman, kindly let me also enter in your ferry.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Who, then, art thou? Whither going? And from whence hast thou
-        just come?
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  From the capital I travel, to Azuma, seeking some one.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words, in jest_]
-
-  As thou art, then, from the city, and seem also to be mad,
-  Entertain us, show us something that is curious or funny.
-  If thou do'st not, I'll not let thee travel now upon this boat.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Oh, how vexing! I expected on the ferry of Sumida,
-  Which is so renowned, the answer--"Enter now upon my boat,
-  For the day is not yet over." But instead of that thou sayest--
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  Thou deign'st to say that I am from the city,
-  And by the custom, must not use thy boat.[59]
-  But o'er great Sumida thy ferry passes,
-  And so thy words do scarce become thee well.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  It is true; thou art a person from the distant City Royal,
-  And thy gentle nurture tallies with its reputation here.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Ah! That word![60] I do remember. It was here that Narihira
-  That the famous Narihira[61] wrote beside this very ferry:
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  Bird of the Royal City--come!
-  I ask of you a boon, if true,
-  The name that they have given you:
-  Is she alive--the one I love--
-  Is she? Or is she not?
-
-  Pray, O Boatman, over yonder is a white bird that we know not
-  In the capital. By what name do you call it in this part?
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  That bird is indeed a seagull, flying in from the wide ocean.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  They may call it gull or plover, what they wish to by the sea,
-  But when standing here by Sumida with that white bird before us
-  Why did you not name it rightly, as the Bird of City Royal?
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_][62]
-
-  Yes, truly, truly, I have sadly erred.
-  This is the place far famed for that same bird.
-  I had in very truth the thing forgot
-  And though this is the place the thought came not.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  The gull of the wide sea brings to thought
-  The waves of the evening tide.[63]
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_]
-
-  And the roll of the waves to our minds has brought
-  The past when Narihira cried.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  "Is she or is she not?" To the Bird he spied.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_]
-
-  His thought was a lover parted from his side.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  The same thought guides me, for I seek
-  My loving child. To all I speak,
-  Asking if any news there be
-  Of where my child lies hid from me.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_]
-
-  For a lover to pine
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  For a child to seek
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  Is in the same way
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  When love does speak.
-
-
-CHORUS [_Song_]
-
-  O Bird of the Royal City, come!
-  For I ask, too, a boon of you.
-  In Azuma, the child I love
-  Is he, or is he not?
-  Ah! though I ask and ask, it answers not!
-  Vexing art thou! Bird of the Royal City--
-  A country bird wouldst thou be better called!
-  Yet this same bird comes singing to the banks
-  Of Horie River, where the boats race past.
-  That river is in Naniwa, and this
-  The Sumida, flows down through Azuma.
-  When one reflects on this, how vastly far
-  In my lone journey do I seem to come.
-  That being so---- Lo! Ferryman, I pray
-  The boat is full, but still is room for me,
-  So let me enter, Ferryman, I say,
-  So let me enter, and then push away.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Such a tender-hearted, mad thing as this woman never has been!
-  Come aboard at once, but notice that the ferry is a swift one.
-  Take good care to step in gently.
-    [_To the TRAVELLER_] You, sir, too, I pray come on.
-
-
-TRAVELLER [_Words_]
-
-  May I ask, what is that yonder where the people by the willow
-  Are assembled in great numbers? Why should they be waiting there?
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Well, that is a public meeting for a universal prayer.
-  I would tell you, while we're crossing, if you'll listen to the tale,
-  The sad story in connection with this festival of ours.
-  It was last year, in the third month, on the fifteenth day, I reckon,
-  Yes! That is so, and to-day we have the very selfsame day,
-  That a kidnapper did journey from the capital, and with him
-  Was a lad whom he had purchased, twelve or thirteen years of age,
-  He was going to the north-east, but the child was not yet hardened
-  And the long fatiguing journey made him very sadly ill.
-  It was just here by the river that he could go no step farther,
-  But fell down, and there remained. Oh! a heartless man was with him!
-  And the child in that condition by the roadside simply lying
-  Was abandoned by the merchant who went off to the north-east.
-  Then the people of the district nursed and tenderly did treat him
-  (Though I fancy it was really just the Karma of his past),[64]
-  Something in his childish features and his little ways they noted,
-  As if he were of importance, so they watched him carefully.
-  Worse and worse, however, fared he, till the end seemed just
-        approaching,
-  Then they asked him--"Who now art thou? and from whence hast thou
-        just come?"
-  And his father's surname asked I, and the province of his birthplace:
-  "In the capital my home is, and at Kitajirikawa."
-  So he answered; "And my father, who is dead, was Yoshida.
-  I, his one child, had been living with my loving mother only,
-  But was kidnapped, and was taken far away, and hence my illness.
-  Truly, often am I thinking of the people in the city,
-  Of their hands and feet and shadows,[65] even, often fondly thinking.
-  As beside the road I'm dying, deign just here to bury me.
-  And to mark the spot I pray thee, be so kind, and plant a willow."
-  Feebly spoke he, and repeated four or five times a calm prayer,
-  Then it ended. A sad story, is it not, that I have told you?
-  As I see now, in this boat, there are some people from the city,
-  Unintentioned though it may be, you will honourably join us
-  And your lamentation offer with our prayers on this occasion?
-  What! The shore! With this long story we have quickly come to land.
-  For _you_ it is unimportant. Now, I pray you, disembark.
-
-
-TRAVELLER [_Words_]
-
-  Truly, here to-day I'll linger, and a prayer with you will say.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  How now! Why does that mad woman not come here from out the boat?
-  Come, at once! Come up, I beg you! Yet how tender-hearted is she!
-  Having simply heard the story she is truly shedding tears.
-  Yet at once, I really beg you, you must come out of the boat.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Pray, O Boatman, of that story, what, I beg you, is the date?
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  'Twas last year, and in the third month; and, moreover, this same day.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  And that child, what age?
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  Twelve years.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  Ah!--his name?
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  Umewakamaru was he.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  And his father's surname know you?
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  'Twas a certain Yoshida.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  And since then, the parents, have they never sent to make inquiries?
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  No, no relatives inquiring ever came.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  But sure the mother!
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  It is strange beyond believing, but 'tis true--I answer No!
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  Alas! Nor kith nor kin. It is too true!
-  His parents even did not come to you.
-  It must be. Yet, O Heavens, how sad! _That_ child
-  Is him I seek. I, whom you now called wild.
-  O Heavens. O mercy. It must be a dream!
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Oh, unutterable sorrow. Until now it lay outside me;
-  It was other people's business. Now you say it was _thy_ child?
-  Pitiful! But wherefore grievest? He is now beyond recall.
-  Come this way and I will show thee where his grave lies. Now
-        'tis near.
-  _This_ the tomb of him who left us. Offer now thy deep-felt prayers.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  E'en though I feared it might be so, till now
-  Hope led me on to make this journey long
-  To distant, unfamiliar Azuma;
-  But at the end of the sad way I find
-  Naught in this world but mark of where he lies.
-  Ah! Cruel is it!--If his fate was death--
-  That he should leave his birthplace and have come
-  To a road corner in strange Azuma,
-  And mingled with the roadside earth to lie
-  Beneath a tangled mass of spring-time's weeds,
-  Beneath this very ground so it doth seem.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-I
-
-  Then shown unto the mother in earth's form,
-  May there appear the dear one of her world.
-
-II
-
-  The one is taken who might be of use!
-  The one is taken who might be of use!
-  The one whose work is over does remain,
-  The mother, like a withered broom tree left,[66]
-  In whose mind comes and goes his likeness dear,
-  As things are wont in this uncertain world.
-  To man at any moment may come grief,
-  Like heartless storm that shatters blooming boughs
-  The voice of such a storm has called up clouds
-  That fly unsettled and have hid the moon
-  That else had lit the long night of her life.
-  Yea, verily how fleeting must the world
-  Appear to her before us now. Alas!
-  Yea, verily how fleeting must the world
-  Appear to her before us now. Alas!
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Now, however much thou grievest, 'tis of no avail whatever;
-  Join then with us in the prayer for his good in future worlds.
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  The moon has risen, and the river breeze
-  Blows cool. 'Tis late already, and the gong
-  Tolls out, and we should be upon our knees.[67]
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  But still the mother in her agony
-  No prayer can voice, but only weeping lie
-  Upon the ground that hides her darling joy.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  Yea! 'tis sorrowful, though others have assembled in large numbers,
-  It is _thy_ prayer that his spirit surely would rejoice to hear.
-
-[_Song_]
-
-  I place the gong[68] now in the mother's hand.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  True, 'tis for my child's sake, as I am told,
-  And in my own hands now the gong I hold.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Song_]
-
-  As grief is checked and voices cleared for prayer.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  In unison we pray this moonlit night.
-
-
-FERRYMAN
-
-  Our thoughts united, to the West[69] we turn.
-
-
-THE MOTHER AND FERRYMAN
-
-  Thee I adore, Eternal Buddha great,
-  Who still the same, for six-and-thirty times
-  A million million worlds of Paradise,[70]
-  For ever in the west dost permeate.
-  Thee I adore, Eternal Buddha great.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  Thee I adore, Eternal Buddha great.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  And to my prayer the river Sumida
-  Adds its loud voice the breeze.
-
-
-CHORUS
-
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-
-
-THE MOTHER
-
-  If true thy name, Bird of the City Royal,
-  Add too thy voice, for this the city's child.
-
-
-CHILD[71] AND CHORUS
-
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Words_]
-
-  Oh, that was my child's voice praying, he that said the prayer
-        just now.
-  His voice was it, I am certain, and within this mound it seemed.
-
-
-FERRYMAN [_Words_]
-
-  As you say, we also heard it. And we now will cease our praying,
-  Thou his mother art, and solely, honourably deign to pray.
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  Even if nothing but his voice return,
-  I would that I could hear that voice again.
-
-
-CHILD
-
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-  I adore thee, O Eternal Buddha.
-
-
-CHORUS [_Song_]
-
-  The voice is heard, and like a shadow too
-  Within, can one a little form discern.
-
-[_The Spirit of the Child appears_]
-
-
-THE MOTHER [_Song_]
-
-  Is it my child?
-
-
-CHILD
-
-  Ah! Mother! Is it you?
-
-[_The Spirit disappears_]
-
-
-CHORUS [_Song_]
-
-  The mutual clasp of hand in hand exchanged,
-  Once more he vanished as he first had come,
-  But in her thought increasingly the form
-  Of his reflection did repeat itself
-  As in a polished mirror, to and fro.
-  While gazing at the vision came the dawn
-  And dimly flushed the sky, till naught was left.
-  While what appeared to be the child is now
-  A mound grown thickly o'er with tangled weeds,
-  It has become naught but a rushy marsh,
-  A mark of what was once so very dear.
-  Ah, pitiful indeed is this our life
-  Ah, pitiful indeed is this our life!
-
-
-END OF "THE SUMIDA RIVER"
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[50] Page 78--_Azuma_ is a name for the east of Japan, really the
-region surrounding Tokio (literally the eastern capital).
-
-[51] The old capital in the west, Kioto.
-
-[52] Page 80--This is a particularly difficult passage. I had
-previously rendered the lines more freely than the rest of the
-translation, in an endeavour to construct a consecutive verse which
-might keep the attention of an English reader. In its present form
-the verse is perhaps nearer the original, but no entirely _literal_
-translation is possible of a passage so full of the essentially
-Japanese "pillow" and "pivot" words. At the outset the Mother quotes a
-few words from an old poem.
-
-[53] Page 80--The Japanese word _yuki_ means both "snow" and "going."
-
-[54] Page 81--Most of these three lines is added for the sake of
-rounding off the thought in English.
-
-[55] Page 81--This is not the large commercial town of the same name.
-
-[56] Page 82--The bond of the relationship between a parent and
-child. According to the Buddhistic belief, re-incarnation in the same
-relations of parent and child holds only for this world. (That between
-lovers is generally supposed to be of longer duration.)
-
-[57] Page 82--Reference to an old Chinese fable of a bird who had four
-young, and was bitterly distressed when the time came for them to fly
-away.
-
-[58] Page 82--_Sumi_ means the corner, or end of everything.
-
-[59] Page 83--Local ferries sometimes hindered strangers from the city,
-but she intimates that the Sumida is a river of too great importance to
-expect such treatment on it.
-
-[60] Page 83--"That word" is the word for "repute," which has a root
-the same as "if true the name" in the famous poem which she quotes. The
-line depends on one of the Japanese "pivot words."
-
-[61] Page 83--Narihira is one of the well-known early poets of Japan,
-he died in 880. Chamberlain, in his _Classical Poetry of the Japanese_,
-quotes an opinion of Tsurayuki (who died in 946) on Narihira. He says:
-"Narihira's stanzas are so pregnant with meaning that the words suffice
-not to express it. He is like a closed flower that hath lost its
-colour, but whose fragrance yet remaineth." Narihira is noted among the
-classical poets for his conciseness and frequent obscurity.
-
-[62] Page 84--She is vexed with him for not entering into the spirit of
-the place and realising the quotation she has just given.
-
-[63] Page 84--These lines depend on pivot words, which by playing upon
-the root words in the Japanese, connect the ideas prettily.
-
-[64] Page 87--And therefore it appeared to them hopeless to expect him
-to recover from the illness.
-
-[65] Page 88--The _shadows_ of people are much more real in Japan
-than here. The shadow pictures that are continually thrown on the
-white paper screens separating the rooms must fill a large place in
-the memory of one who has lived in Japan; and, too, it is often only
-the _feet_ of a passing noiseless maiden that one can see through the
-openwork base of these screens while one lies on the quilts on the
-matted floors.
-
-[66] Page 91--This arises as a play on the words _Hawa_, a mother, and
-_hawaki_, a broom tree, and also refers to a legend about a broom tree
-which appeared and disappeared.
-
-[67] Page 92--Time, therefore, for midnight prayer.
-
-[68] Page 92--The gong in the Buddhist shrines is struck by the one who
-prays.
-
-[69] Page 92--The West is the direction of the Buddhist heavens.
-
-[70] Page 93--The words are from the Buddhist scriptures, according to
-which there are thirty-six million million worlds, all presided over by
-emanations of the same Buddha.
-
-[71] The voice of the Child's Spirit is heard accompanied by the
-Chorus's chant.
-
-
-
-
-ENGLISH BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE _NO_.
-
-
-There is no English book entirely on the _No_, but the following Works
-contain chapters on, and translations of, some of them.
-
- ASTON, W. G. "A History of Japanese Literature." Heinemann, London,
- 1899. See pp. 199-213.
-
- BRINKLEY, F. "Japan: its History, Arts and Literature," vol. iii.
- Jack, London, 1903. See pp. 28-48.
-
- CHAMBERLAIN, B. H. "The Classical Poetry of the Japanese." Boston,
- 1880. See pp. 137-185. Reprinted with additions and deletions as
- "Japanese Poetry." London, 1911. See pp. 109-144.
-
- DICKINS, F. V. "Primitive and Mediaeval Japanese Texts translated into
- English." Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1906. See pp. 391-412. Also volume
- of romanized texts of the same.
-
- EDWARDS, O. "Japanese Plays and Playfellows." London, 1901. See pp.
- 39-61.
-
- SANSOM, G. B. "Translations from Lyrical Drama: 'No.'" Trans. Asiatic
- Soc. Japan, 1911, vol. xxxviii, part 3, pp. 125-176.
-
- STOPES, M. C. "A Japanese Mediaeval Drama." Trans. Royal Soc.
- Literature, London, 1909, vol. xxix, part 3, pp. 153-178.
-
-
-
-
-_By the same Author_
-
-A Journal from Japan
-
-By Dr. Marie C. Stopes
-
- _The Diary of a year and a half's travel into the wilds of Japan, as
- well as of sojourn in its capital_
-
-
-The _Spectator_ says:
-
- "A most interesting and illuminating work."
-
-The _Athenaeum_ says:
-
- "Remarkably naive and fresh."
-
-The _Literary World_ says:
-
- "Has a peculiar freshness and vivacity added to a clear style."
-
-The _Daily Telegraph_ says:
-
- "Should take its place among the very best works on the Far East."
-
-The _Nation_ says:
-
- "The lighter touches are fresh and distinctly amusing."
-
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-Transcriber's Note
-
-
-Illustrations have been moved next to the text to which they refer.
-Their locations may no longer correspond to the List of Illustrations.
-
-The printed text contained both footnotes and endnotes. These have been
-combined, and all notes moved to the end of each chapter. A footnote
-on p. 39 ("The numbers refer to notes at the end of the volume.")
-explaining the printed system has been removed.
-
-
-The following apparent errors have been corrected:
-
-Advertisement page "~10s~" changed to "~10s.~"
-
-p. 11 (note) "pp. 156-7" changed to "pp. 156-7."
-
-Illustration (plan of stage) "at the ront" changed to "at the front"
-
-p. 15 "_kakama_" changed to "_hakama_"
-
-p. 30 "The world is at peace:/Soft blows" changed to "The world is at
-peace./Soft blow"
-
-p. 30 "very firs/In that they meet." changed to "very firs,/In that
-they meet"
-
-p. 31 (note) "p. 174" changed to "p. 174."
-
-p. 57 "Totomi" changed to "Totomi"
-
-p. 81 "to Asuma" changed to "to Azuma"
-
-p. 103 "Playfellows." changed to "Playfellows.""
-
-p. 104 "amusing.'" changed to "amusing."
-
-
-The following possible errors have not been changed:
-
-p. iv right
-
-p. 31 contain the breeze
-
-p. 41 spring-time sprout
-
-pp. 55-56 The line "When in their warships were the Taira clan," was
-repeated
-
-p. 65 face to face
-
-p. 67 Mismatched quotation marks following "In our last
-
-p. 68 to look upon
-
-
-The following are used inconsistently:
-
-daimios and Daimios
-
-ideagraph and ideograph
-
-Kuro and Kuro
-
-lifelike and life-like
-
-lifelong and life-long
-
-otsuzumi and otsuzumi
-
-reincarnation and re-incarnation
-
-woodcut and wood-cut
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays of Old Japan, by Marie C. Stopes
-
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