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On a moonlight night, on a snowy morning, or when the flowers are in blossom and with hearts free from care we are conversing with a friend, it adds to our pleasures if the wine-cup is produced.” Kenko goes so far as to allow that with intimate friends it is permissible occasionally to drink deeply. TZURE-DZURE-GUSA 193 “There is no greater pleasure than alone, by the light of a lamp, to open a book and make the men of the unseen world our companions.” “Nothing opens one’s eyes so much as travel, no matter where.” “T love to shut myself up in a mountain temple and attend to the services to Buddha. Here there is no tedium, and one feels that his heart is being purged of its impurities,” THE SEASONS—SPRING “It is change that in all things touches us with sym- pathy. Every one says, and not without some reason, that it is chiefly the autumn which inspires this feeling. But it appears to me that the aspects of nature in spring, more than at any other time, make our hearts swell with emotion. The songs of birds are especially suggestive of this season. With the increasing warmth the herbage in the hedge comes into bud, and as the spring grows deeper the hazes are diffused abroad and the flowers show themselves in all their glory. Sometimes with continual storms of wind and rain they are dispersed agitatedly, and nothing but green leaves 1s left. All this affects our hearts with constant trepidation. “The flowering orange has a great fame. But it is the perfume of the plum-tree which makes us think longingly of the past. Then there are the gaily-coloured kerria and the wistaria of obscurer hues. All these have many feelings associated with them which it is impossible to leave unmarked.” “Tn our hours of quiet thought, who is there who has no yearnings for all that has passed away ? 194 JAPANESE LITERATURE ‘“When every one has retired to rest, to while away the long hours of night we put in order our little odds and ends of property. Among scraps of paper thrown away as not worth preserving, a handwriting or a_ sketch _ thrown off for amusement by one who is no more, catches the eye and brings up vividly the time when it was made. It 1s affecting too, after years have passed, to find a letter even from one who is still alive, and to think that it was written at such a date, on such an occasion. “The articles their hands were familiar with remain unchanged (¢ey have no hearts!) for all the long years that have elapsed. Alas! alas!” “The man who writes a bad hand should not be deterred by that circumstance from scribbling letters. Otherwise he gets his friends to write for him, which is a nuisance.” “ He isa fool who spends his life in the pursuit of fame or gain.” “The venerable priest Hozen, being asked by a man whose drowsiness at prayers interfered with his religious duties, how he should remove this hindrance to devo- tion, replied, ‘Pray earnestly enough to keep yourself awake.’ This was an admirable answer. “The same priest said, ‘If you think your salvation is assured, it is assured; if you think it is not assured, it is not assured.’ This is also an admirable saying. “Another admirable speech of his was to this effect: ‘If, notwithstanding that you are perplexed by doubts, you continue your prayers, you will be saved.” Kenko with some friends once attended a race-meeting, not, one would think, a fit place for a Buddhist recluse to be seen. A crowd got between their carriage and the course, shutting out their view. a a ae TZURE-DZURE-GUSA 195 “We all got down and tried to push our way forward to the rails, but the press was too great for us to get passage. At this juncture we observed a priest who had climbed up a tree and seated himself in a fork to see better. Being drowsy, he was continually dozing over, and awaking just in time to save himself from falling. Everybody shouted and jeered at him. ‘What a fool,’ cried they, ‘this fellow is to let himself fall asleep so calmly in such a dangerous position!’ Upon this a thought flashed on me, and I exclaimed, ‘ Yet here are we, spending our time in sight-seeing, forgetful that death may overtake us at any moment. We are bigger fools even than that priest.’ The people in front of us all looked round and said, ‘Nothing can be more true. It is indeed utter folly. Come this way, gentlemen.’ So they opened a passage and allowed us to come forward. Now this remark of mine might have occurred to any- body. I suppose it was the .unexpectedness of it at this time which caused it to make an impression. Men are not sticks or stones, and a word spoken at a favourable moment sometimes finds its way to the heart.” A commentator says that “this chapter is intended to impress us with the uncertainty of human things.” The reader may draw his own moral. “Beware of putting off the practice of religion until your old age. The ancient tombs are mostly those of young people.” “When we hear a man’s name we try to form to our- selves some idea of his appearance, but we invariably find, on afterwards making his acquaintance, that we have been quite wrong.” “T wonder if it is only I who have sometimes the feeling that speeches which I have heard or sights that I have 196 JAPANESE LITERATURE seen were already seen or heard by me at some past time—when, I cannot tell.” “THINGS WHICH ARE IN BAD TASTE Too much furniture in one’s living room. Too many pens in a stand. Too many Buddhas.in a private shrine. Too many rocks, trees, and herbs in a garden. Too many children in a house. Too many words when men meet. Too many books in a book-case there can never be, nor too much litter in a dust-heap.” “Tt is not only when we look at the moon or flowers with our eyes that they give us pleasure. On a spring day, though we do not leave our house; on a moonlight night, though we remain in our ‘chamber, the mere thought of them is exceedingly cheering and delightful.” If Wordsworth had been a Japanese scholar, he might have been charged with plagiarising from this passage his “inward eye That ts the bliss of solitude.” CHAPTER III POETRY—THE NO OR LYRICAL DRAMA— KIOGEN OR FARCE THE manufacture of Tanka at the court of the Mikado proceeded, as usual, during these periods of Japanese history. They were duly collected into anthologies from time to time; but as they present no features specially worthy of notice, and as they .are admit- tedly much inferior in merit to the verse of: earlier times, it is needless to dwell upon them here. A far greater interest belongs to a new development of the poetic art which now demands our attention, namely, the No or lyrical drama. Like the ancient Greek tragedies and the mystery plays of the Middle Ages, the drama in Japan was in its beginnings closely associated with religion. Its im- mediate parent was the Kagura, a pantomimic dance, which is performed at this day to the sound of fife and drum at Shinto festivals, on a platform provided for the purpose. The antiquity of the Kagura may be inferred from the fact that when the Kazk7 (A.D. 712) and the Nihong? (A.D. 720) were written, there was already a myth current which was intended as an explanation of its origin. The Sun Goddess, it is related, disgusted at the unseemly pranks of her brother Susa-no-wo, shut herself up in the rock-cave of heaven and left 14 197 198 JAPANESE LITERATURE the world to darkness. Upon this the gods assembled in their myriads in the dry bed of the River of Heaven (the Milky Way), and among other expedients which they devised for luring her out of her retirement they caused Ame-no-Uzume (the Terrible Female of heaven) to array herself in a fantastical manner, and standing on an inverted tub, which gave out:a hollow sound when she stamped on it, to perform a mimic dance which had the desired effect. The same works give elsewhere a story which was meant to supply an explanation of another pantomime which was performed in the Mikado’s palace by the Hayato or guards. It runs as follows :—There were two brother deities, the elder of whom, Ho-no-Susori, was a hunter, and the younger, Hiko Hohodemi, a fisherman. The two brothers having quarrelled, the younger used against his brother a talisman given him by his father-in-law, the God of the Sea, by virtue of which the tide rose and submerged Ho-no-Susori. The latter then begged for pardon, and promised to be his brother’s bonds- man and mime to all generations; whereupon, by the power of another talisman, the tide retired and his life was spared. The younger brother was the ancestor of the Mikados, and the elder of the Hayato, who in memory of this were accustomed to perform a dance, in which the drowning struggles of Ho-no-Susori were imitated. The actors were naked to the waist-cloth, and smeared their hands and faces with red earth; reminding us of the wine-lees of Thespis and _ his crew. There is frequent mention in subsequent Japanese history of pantomime performances, some of which NO 199 were secular, and others of a more or less sacred character. When the dance and music of the Kagura were supplemented by a spoken dialogue, the No were the result. The addition of words is said to have been suggested by the chanted recitations of the Hezke Monogatari by itinerant bonzes, and there is much in the language of the No to countenance this supposition. It is certain that the authors were well acquainted with it, and also with the Gempet Setsuzkt and the Tazhetkz. The beginnings of the No date from the fourteenth century. They were at first purely religious perform- ances, intended to propitiate the chief deities of the Shinto religion, and were acted exclusively in connection with their shrines.