which approximated more and more to secular plays without ever
entirely losing its official character. The ghosts faded out, the
Buddhist influence grew less marked, for it had to traverse the
tyranny of Nobunaga, who patronised Christianity and destroyed the
monasteries of Hiei-zan. But henceforward, as an aristocratic
institution, the _Nō_ was to retain its popularity, though since
the sixteenth century none have been written. A programme is
still extant on which the two greatest names in Japanese history,
those of Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu, star the list of performers. The
actors were treated as _samurai_, military retainers, though the
performers in popular _shibai_ (theatres) were held in contempt.
In the latest specimens knighthood is the invariable theme, set to
more various music and illustrated by more violent posturing.
Throughout the Tokugawa era (1602-1868) every Daimyō who could
afford it maintained a troupe of _Nō_ players to reproduce for his
edification the thoughts and habits of mediæval art. Old costumes,
old masks, old music were faithfully preserved; no innovation of
text or interpretation was allowed by the hereditary custodians and
directors. And since the shock of the Restoration a reaction has
set in, favouring their revival.
At present there are in Tōkyō six troupes of _Nō_ players, with
a _répertoire_ of from two to three hundred plays. These retain
so firm a hold on cultured conservatives--the younger generation
finds them slow--that Mr. Matsumoto Keichi, one of the leading
publishers, is now issuing a series of one hundred and eighty-three
illustrative colour prints--_Nō no ye_--whose fine drawing and
delicately blent hues are as superior to the flamboyant aniline
horror by which the Nihon-bashi print-seller advertises the newest
blood-and-thunder melodrama as that itself is inferior to the
aristocratically-nurtured _Nō_. Reproduced as faithfully as may
be, the pictures of Mr. Kogyo will, I hope, impress the reader
with the archaic simplicity and beauty of the original design,
provided that he have the gift of sympathetic intuition, so as
to divine what tale of terror, what burden of grief, obscure to
him, is yet manifest enough behind quaint mask and rigid gesture
to the heirs of national hagiology. The solemnity and pathos of
each dramatised incident in the life of hero or saint is emphasised
by the time-honoured locutions of mediæval Japanese, which of
course convey by mere association, as Elizabethan English to us,
the tone and atmosphere of dead centuries. Yet, independently
of the musical old speech, so cumbrous and so courteous, it is
impossible to miss the meaning of these tiny tragedies, enacted
as they are by instinctive masters of gesticular eloquence. The
writer was particularly fortunate in gaining admission to a series
of _Nō_ produced by the Umewaka company or society, which has this
advantage over the other five organisations, diverging on points of
textual accuracy and stage ritual, that it traces unbroken descent
through its chief from the Kanza school of music appertaining to
the Yusaki family of Nara. When Commodore Perry forced open the
door of the East in 1854, hitherto closed for more than two hundred
years to Western barbarians, Mr. Umewaka captained a little band of
_Nō_ players attached to the then all-powerful household of Keiki,
the last of the Tokugawa Shōguns.
Then followed bloody civil war, the bombardment of Kago-shima
and Shimonoseki, and the restoration of the Emperor to supreme
power. The ex-Shōgun immured himself, a private gentleman, in
strict seclusion. His company of players was of course disbanded,
but little by little, from rare representations in the houses of
friends to more frequent revivals, consequent on growing fame,
their erudite and enthusiastic chief was able to found his
present very flourishing society. One gentleman, an ex-Daimyō,
presented the troupe with a large stage of polished pine from his
dismantled castle; a second contributed a priceless store of plays
in manuscript; Mr. Umewaka himself brought the best gift of all,
profound and practical knowledge of the stage technique, which is
curiously elaborate in spite of seeming simplicity, and bristles
with professional secrets. The orchestra consisted on this occasion
of a flute and two _taiko_, drums shaped like a sand-glass and
rapped smartly with the open palm. At irregular intervals, timed no
doubt by the exigencies of the text, the musicians emitted a series
of staccato cries or wailing notes, which seemed to punctuate the
passion of the player and insensibly tightened the tension of the
auditor’s nerves. In two rows of three on the right of the stage
sat the chorus, six most “reverend signiors” in the stiff costume
of Samurai, who intervened now and again with voice and fan, the
manipulation of the latter varying with the quality of the strains
assigned to the singers. In placid moments the fan would sway
gently to and fro, rocked on the waves of quasi-Gregorian chanting,
but, when blows fell or apparitions rose, it was planted, menacing
and erect, like a danger-signal before the choralist’s cushion. The
musicians were seated on low stools at the back of the stage before
a long screen of conventional design, in which green pines trailed
across a gold ground, harmonising admirably with the sober blues
and browns of their _kimono_.
A glance at the programme gave assurance of prolonged and varied
entertainment, since no less than five religious plays and three
_kiōgen_ (lit. mad words), or farcical interludes, were announced
in the following order:
1. _Shunkwan_, the High-Priest in Exile.
2. _Koi no Omone_, the Burden of Love.
3. _Aoi no Uye_, the Sick Wife.
4. _Funa Benkei_, Benkei at Sea.
5. _Tsuchigumo_, the Earth-Spider.
_Kiōgen._
1. _Kitsune-Tsuki_, Possession by Foxes.
2. _Roku Jizō_, the Six Jizō.
3. _Fukuro Yamabusshi_, the Owl-Priest.
By an hour before noon the audience, seated on cushions in little
pews holding four or six persons, had composed itself to that air
of thoughtful anticipation which I had hitherto associated with
devotees of Ibsen or Wagner. Many peered through gold spectacles at
the copies of the antique text, whose phraseology was not without
difficulties even for the scholars and artists present; the women’s
faces were far graver and more thoughtful than one usually sees
in the land of laughing _musumé_; the prevailing grey and black
worn by women and men suffered sporadic invasions of bright colour
wherever you saw children settling, like human butterflies. For
these, though their ears availed them little, could follow with
wondering eyes the strange succession of gorgeous or terrible
figures--warriors and spectres and court-ladies--evoked for their
delight.
[Illustration: Shunkwan in exile.]
The story of Shunkwan, however, was quite devoid of spectacular
appeal. Exiled in 1177 with other rebellious priests by Kiyomori,
the ruthless Taira chief, to Devil’s Island (Kikai-gashima), he is
discovered celebrating with his companions an oblation to Kumano
Gongen and praying for speedy restitution to his fatherland.
Pitiful indeed is the case of these banished suppliants, who wear
the blue-and-white hempen skirts of fishermen and whose penury
is such that they are obliged to bring the god water instead of
_saké_, sand instead of rice, and hempen fetters instead of white
prayer-cord. Kumano Gongen hears and answers their petition. An
imperial messenger arrives from Kyōto with a letter from the
daughter of Shunkwan, announcing that the Son of Heaven, Lord of
the Land of the Rising Sun, has been graciously pleased to recall
his erring subjects, pardoning their offences and inviting their
prayers for an expected heir to the throne. Beaming with grateful
joy, the old man now scans the imperial mandate more closely,
only to find that his own name is omitted from the list of those
forgiven. Yasugori and Moritsuné will be taken, but he, Shunkwan,
must be left. In vain do his fellow-exiles lament and protest; all
know that the Son of Heaven’s decree must be obeyed to the letter.
Accordingly, the others embark, while their disappointed chief
falls, speechless and hopeless, on the shore. A simple, poignant
story! So touchingly interpreted, that the primitive and even
ludicrous makeshifts of the mounting seemed hardly incongruous! The
mooring and unmooring of the boat, for which the crudest parody in
outline of rope and wood did duty, and the final embarkation (as
represented in the picture) were gravely accomplished in complete
immunity from ill-timed laughter; the messenger’s grotesque
_hakama_, elongated trousers, trailing a good yard behind the feet,
that the wearer might seem to walk on his knees while about his
master’s business, provoked no smile; in fact, any trivial details
and defects were swallowed up in the prodigious earnestness of the
actors. The part of Shunkwan was played by Mr. Umewaka himself with
much pathos, depending entirely on tone, carriage, and gesture,
since all facial expression is barred by the strict convention of
playing the _Nō_ in masks. While the presentation of spectres and
supernatural beings must be facilitated by this custom, since many
of the masks are masterpieces of imaginative skill, yet, where the
interest is purely human, that illusion at which all drama aims is
proportionately diminished.
Now came the children’s turn to laugh at the first of the _kiōgen_,
entitled _Kitsune Tsuki_, “Possession by foxes.” Most of the
comical interludes deal with rustic stupidity or cunning, and all
refer in some way to religious belief or practice. If one may
judge by the ubiquity of his images, the fox is the most sacred
animal in Japan. No shrines are so numerous as those of Inari,
the rice-goddess, and before each stand two white foxes, with
snarling lips and teeth clenched on a mysterious golden object,
which completely baffled the curiosity of M. Loti, though later
writers declare it to be no more than a key, symbolising the
portal of wealth unlocked by divine favour. But Inari herself is
completely eclipsed in popular awe by her attendant foxes. It is
they who, if not propitiated, ruin the rice crop; they who have
the power, like the werewolf, of assuming human shape and of
“possessing” unfortunate beings, whose only chance of delivery lies
in exorcism by a priest. In the case of the _kiōgen_ now presented
this superstition had been turned to comical use. We learned that
Farmer Tanaka had sent two of his men into the fields with rattles
to scare away birds, laying on them many injunctions to beware of
the dæmonic fox, Kitsune, whose exploits had lately made him the
terror of that neighbourhood. The warning is but too effectual.
So full are the watchers’ minds of the dread of fox-possession,
that, when their master appears with a jug of _saké_ in his hand
as a reward and refreshment after labour, they believe him to
be Kitsune, the tempter, and thrash him soundly out of his own
rice-field!
Some have asserted that love, the romantic and chivalrous love of
Western literature, is absent alike from the art and letters of
Japan. Nevertheless, what could be more romantic than the title
and plot of the play, attributed to the Emperor Gohanazono though
signed by Motokiyo--“Koi no Omoni,” “The Burden of Love”? The
lover is Yamashina Shoji, an old man of high birth, but miserably
poor, to whom out of charity has been entrusted the tending of the
Emperor’s chrysanthemums. A court-lady, seen by chance one day as
he raised his head from the flowers, inspires a passion which he
feels to be beyond hope or cure. He confides his unhappiness to
one of the courtiers, who counsels him to carry a burden round
and round the garden many times, until, haply, the lady “seeing,
may relent.” This he does. At first the burden seems light as
air, being buoyantly borne, but gradually it grows heavier and
heavier, until at last he staggers to the ground, crushed to death
by unavailing love. Soon after his ghost appears, a melancholy
spectre with long white hair and gown of silver-grey, with
wattled staff and eyes of hollow gold. At this point all chivalry
certainly vanishes, for the angry apparition stamps and glares,
and, shaking locks and staff, stoutly chides the beauty for her
callous cruelty. The lady does not once intervene, but throughout
the piece sits motionless, a figure rather than a person, her eyes
fixed on the burden itself, as it lies, concrete and symbolic,
wrapped in apple-green brocade, near the front-centre of the
stage. This inclusion of a significant silent object among the
_dramatis personæ_ is curiously effective. The sight of Yamashina
tottering beneath a physical weight would have made clumsy prose of
a beautiful poetic truth. His feelings are better conveyed by the
dirge-like song and lugubrious posturing, which poverty of language
compels one to miscall a “dance.” Full of dignity and fine gesture
is the ghost’s rebuke. Slowly revolving on his heels, or tossing
back his streaming, silvery hair, now dashing his staff upon the
ground, now raising his _kimono_ sleeve slowly to hide his face,
one felt that this weird figure was expressing elemental passion in
a language more elemental than speech. I cannot say as much for the
lady, whose coronet of thin gold with silver crescent in front and
pendent pagoda-bells on either side, surmounting a mask of singular
ugliness, seemed the fantastic headpiece of a crude idol very
foolishly idealised. But it served to illustrate, with an irony
which the imperial author had not intended, the so grievous “burden
of love.”
Kyōto court-life of the twelfth century, painted for posterity in
the famous, interminable pages of “Genji Monogatari,” one of the
oldest achievements of the lady-novelist, has found less tedious
and equally faithful presentment in such dramatic miniatures as
“Aoi no Uye,” Prince Genji’s long-suffering wife. Jealousy is the
keynote of this lyrical play--that insatiable, self-torturing
jealousy which is the hardest of demons to expel. Again I noticed
a piece of curious, silent symbolism. The poor, demoniac wife, who
gives her name to the play, does not appear, either as person or
figure: in her stead a long strip of folded brocade, suggesting
a bed of sickness, lies immediately behind the footlights. Thus,
though sub-conscious of her entity, the spectator is compelled to
focus all attention on the apparition, which takes double form.
First comes the spirit of the Princess Rokujo, who takes vengeance
on her false lover (Genji is the Don Juan of Japan) by haunting
the helpless Aoi in the shape of a pale wailing woman. A _miko_,
or Shintō priestess, is summoned to exorcise the intruder. In vain
she rubs her green rosary, muttering fervid prayers: the spirit
wails more loudly, more intolerably, and only yields at last to
the fiercer spells and rougher wrestling of soul with soul on the
part of a mountain-priest. But his victory is short-lived, for a
terrible phantom, the Devil of Jealousy, wearing the famous Hanja
mask, replaces Rokujo. Inch by inch the priest falls back, as the
grinning demon with gilt horns and pointed ears slowly unveiled
from a shroudlike hood glides forward to smite him with menacing
crutch. To and fro the battle rages beside the prostrate Aoi no
Uye; neither holy man nor devil will give way; the screaming and
shrill fifing of the musicians rise to frenzied pitch; adjuration
succeeds adjuration, until the evil spirit is finally driven away.
Nothing can exceed the realism of this scene, so masterfully played
that the hardiest agnostic must be indeed fancy-proof if he cannot
feel something of the awe inspired into believers by this terrific
duel. Moreover, this is exactly the sort of incident which exhibits
to the full extent of their potency the peculiar characteristics of
_Nō_ drama. What human face, however disguised and distorted, could
rival the malignant horror of a Japanese mask? What mincing and
gibing Mephistopheles could compare for a moment with the devilish
ingenuity and suspense of this posture-pantomime, with its endless
feints and threats and sallies and retreats? And how the anguish of
battle is enhanced by the “barbaric yawp” and sharp, intermittent
drum-taps, which excite without distracting the spell-bound
audience! So abrupt and discreet is the interjected cry of the
immobile musicians that one might easily take it for the defiant or
hortative outburst of an invisible spirit attracted to the ghostly
combat. Indeed, all that is wild and primitive in these _enfants
sauvages_ of Melpomene is chastened into harmony by the innate
sobriety of Japanese art. The creative instinct works within small
limits by small means, but with these means it contrives to project
on its tiny stage a vital suggestion of the largest issues. The
gods become marionettes for an hour, without wholly losing their
godhead.
Good-humoured drollery, of which the gods come in for a fair
share, is no more alien to the Japanese than it was to the Greek
temperament. And if one had to guess which divinity or divinities
are regarded with more affection than awe by such light-hearted
worshippers, one would certainly name the Rokujizō, or six Jizō.
While Buddha and Kwannon, Tenjin and Inari, dwell in small or
stately temples, augustly apart, the six Jizō sit sociably in a
row by the road-side or on the outskirts of a shrine, protected
(if protected at all) from the weather by a plain wooden shed. For
they belong to the class of open-air minor deities familiarly known
as “wet gods.” Yet they play a large part in the emotional life of
the people. Patrons of travellers, women, and children, they bear
the semblance of a shaven priest with benevolent countenance, whose
neck is generally encircled with a child’s bib of coloured wool,
while his hand holds an emblematic jewel, a lotus, a pilgrim’s
staff, an incense-box, a rosary, or sometimes an infant. In most
villages and near many schools will you find the six Jizō, for
the country people, loving their children, cherish the children’s
patron-saint with particular attachment. The amusing _kiōgen_ named
“Rokujizō” seemed to please the younger members of our audience
infinitely more than the romantic and spectral dramas which
preceded it. A pious farmer, anxious to attest his gratitude for a
good harvest, resolves to put up six Jizō effigies in his fields,
and, seeking a sculptor to carry out his design, falls in with a
knavish fellow who boasts that he can carve statues more quickly
than any one else in the world, and promises that the six shall be
finished by the following day. The bargain is concluded. Then the
pseudo-sculptor persuades three confederates to personate Jizō,
entrusting them with the jewel, the staff, and the other symbols.
As soon as they are well posed as living statuary, he brings the
farmer to admire them, and, pretending that the other three are at
the opposite end of the field, sends the extemporised gods by a
short cut to anticipate the buyer’s arrival. He, however, though
duly impressed, desires to see the first three again, and then
again the second three, until the impersonators, tired with running
backwards and forwards, forget what pose and what emblem to assume,
entirely destroying all illusion by their ridiculous perplexity.
The farmer discovers the trick, and administers a sound drubbing to
the fraudulent artist, while the Jizō make their escape. The humour
of this naturally depends on the “business” of the performers,
since no pretence is made to literary merit in the dialogue, which
is couched in colloquial Japanese of the same period as the lyrical
dramas themselves--that is, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth
century.
The most important, if not the most interesting, item in the
programme was a little historic play in two scenes, entitled “Funa
Benkei,” or “Benkei at Sea.” No figure in Japanese annals is so
popular as Benkei, the devil youth (_Oniwaka_), credited with
eight feet of stature, unless it be Yoshitsune, the valiant boy,
who vanquished the giant in single combat on Gojō Bridge in Kyōto,
and thus acquired a loyal and invincible henchman. The numberless
adventures in which Benkei by strength or cunning ensures the
success of Yoshitsune have been utilised again and again by
painters and playwrights. Unfortunately, the fruits of victory are
always snatched from Yoshitsune’s grasp by the jealous despotism
of his elder brother, Yoritomo, the terrible chief of the Minamoto
faction. When the play opens he is discovered with a handful of
faithful followers at Omono-no-ura, whither he has fled to escape
the machinations of his brother; but further progress is delayed by
the arrival of Shizuka, a beautiful geisha, who entreats permission
to bid him farewell. Benkei refuses to allow this, and asserts
that his master wishes her to return at once to Kamakura, the
capital, without an audience. But the girl will not believe that
her lover has sent so harsh a message, and insists on dancing once
more before him. Shizuka’s dance is very elaborate and beautiful,
though a little tedious for the European, who has not been trained
to appreciate the symbolic import of woven measure and waving
arm. At the outset a tall golden head-dress, in shape like an
elongated Phrygian cap, is carefully placed on her head. In this
she revolves and slowly, slowly expresses by that choregraphic
language--which the profane would take years to acquire--all her
passion and despair at losing her lover and lord. Yoshitsune,
deeply moved, gives her a _saké_ cup, as a sign that she may
carouse with him for the last time; but Benkei, sternly insensible
to dalliance, bids her withdraw and gives orders to set sail.
Once more the performers take their places in a primitive piece of
framework representing a boat, while the resources of orchestra and
helmsman are taxed to their utmost in the endeavour to simulate a
storm. The fife screams, the drums thunder, the steersman stamps
his foot, and suddenly out of the furious tempest rise grim
spectres with black, fleecy hair, gilt horns, and blood-stained
halberds. These are the ghosts of the Taira clan, slaughtered
by the Minamoto in a great sea-fight at Dan-no-ura, two years
before--a battle which might be termed the Bosworth Field of the
great civil war which devastated Japan in the latter half of the
twelfth century. Yoshitsune with youthful heat (he is always a boy
in the _Nō_ dramas) lunges at the phantoms and shouts his war-cry,
but Benkei (who adds the functions of a priest to his other
accomplishments) strikes down his sword, and, producing a rosary,
hurls a volley of exorcising prayers at the discomfited ghosts. As
always, the play ends in David’s deliverance from danger by the
resourcefulness of Goliath.
“Tsuchigumo,” the Earth-Spider, the last piece performed, is
founded on a curious legend, whose chief merit may be that it
affords excuse for a fantastic stage-picture. It seems that a band
of robbers, who lived in caves and were known by the nickname
of earth-spiders, were routed from their lairs and exterminated
by Kintaro, servant of Yoremitsu, whose valour was much enhanced
in popular estimation by the flattering rumour that the defeated
pests were not men at all, but a race of enormous demon-insects.
Accordingly, the climax of “Tsuchigumo” is a stirring encounter
between Imperial Guards, armed with swords and spears, and masked
monsters, who entangle their weapons and baffle their aim in a
cloud of long gauzy filaments, resembling the threads of a spider’s
web. The piece is pure pantomime, owing even less than usual to
music, incident, or poetic style. “The Owl-Priest,” the last of the
_kiōgen_, calls for no description.
[Illustration: Kintaro fights the Earth-spider.]