English
The wedding company, fatigued with their enjoyment of the previous night, slept soundly late into the next morning. When the door was opened, there was Kiuroku in his travelling garb. He walked in with an air of being at home, his heart full of love for the wife he had not seen for so long. He entered the disordered sleeping- chamber, which was lighted up by a ray of sunshine from the southern window. A feeling of pride came over him when he caught a glimpse of his wife’s hair, which was more beautiful than ever. ‘The prettiest woman in this village,’ he thought to himself. But observing her companion, his dream was shattered. The woman, too, waking from her joy, burst into tears, and Mokubei came out, looking much embarrassed. Witha strange expression on his countenance, ‘ What is this ?’ asked Kiuroku. Mokubei explained what had happened, laying the blame of this terrible misadventure on fate. What made things worse was the presence of so many people, and the fact that Mokubei had for a long time been on bad terms with Kiuroku. But Kiuroku, showing him a more friendly cheer than usual, collected himself and related the story of his sufferings when cast away on the remote sea. When he had done he calmly stabbed his wife, cut down Mokubei, and with the same sword put an end to himself. What a heroic winding-up of the matter for a mere rustic !” CHILDREN’S TALES To the fiction of the seventeenth century belong a number of children’s tales,1 which retain their popularity 1 Most of these have been translated by Mr. Mitford in his Zales of Old Japan, POPULAR DRAMA 273 even at the present day, unless they have been swept away of late years by the advancing tide of European civilisation. Though they bear a general resemblance to such stories as Cizderella, and appear in various forms, I am inclined to think that they are not really folk-lore, but had definite authors, whose names have long been forgotten. The Nedzumi no Yomeiri (“ Rat's Wedding”) dates from before 1661, while of the Saru-kant. Kassen (“Battle of the Ape and the Crab”) and the Shitakin Suzume (“Tongue-cut Sparrow ”) we have “new editions” which bear the date of Hoyei (1704-1711). Others are ~ Momotaro (“ Little Peachling”’), Hana Sakaye Jijt (“ The Old Man who made Trees to Blossom”), Usagi no Katakt- ucht (“The Hare’s Revenge”), and Urashima Tard (a version of the legend told above, p. 39). The novelist Bakin, a very competent authority on folk-lore, was much interested in these tules, and has been at the pains to ransack Chinese and Japanese litera- ture for anything which might be thought to suggest the incidents related in them. THE POPULAR. DRAMA—CHIKAMATSU It would not be quite correct to say that the popular drama owed nothing to the No. Put it certainly followed a different and independent line of development. Its literary progenitor is the Zazheckz, which, it may be re- membered, was chanted or recited in public by men who made this their profession. The Zazhketk¢ was followed by more or less dramatic stories, which were recited by | a single person seated before a desk, to the accompani- ment of taps of a fan to mark the time or to give emphasis. To this was subsequently added the music of the sami- 1 See his Yensehi Zasshi, vol. iv. 274 JAPANESE LITERATURE sen, a three-stringed guitar recently introduced from Loochoo. A favourite story for this purpose was the Joruri jiu-ni dan Soshi, written towards the end of the Muromachi period. It relates the loves of the famous Yoshitsune with a heroine whose name, Joruri, is now used as a synonym for a whole class of dramatic com- — positions. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century we hear of Joruri-Katari (chanters of Joruri) at Yedo, for whom two authors named Oka Seibei and Yonomiya Yajiro are said to have written. a number of pieces, some of which, known as Kompzra-bon, are still in ex- istence. They relate the adventures of a hero named Kompira, nine feet two inches high, with a face so red that nothing could be redder, whose doughty deeds in quelling demons and slaying savage beasts are still the delight of the Japanese schoolboy. The first Kabuki Shibai, or popular theatre, as distin- guished from the No Shibai, and from the Ayatsuri Shibai, or marionette theatre, is said to have been established at kidto early in the seventeenth century. Weare told that a priestess of the great temple of Kidzuki in Idzumo, named O Kuni, having made the acquaintance of one Nagoya Sanzaburo, ran away with him to Kidto. There they got together a number of dancing-girls and gave performances on the bank of the river Kamo, where the Theatre Street stands at the present day. O Kuniasa priestess would naturally be acquainted with the panto- mimic dances performed in honour of the Shinto gods, and was doubtless herself a trained dancer and mime. Owing to certain abuses, the employment of women as actors was put a stop to by the authorities. Their place was taken by boys, but this also was eventually prohibited. CHIKAMATSU 278 A marionette theatre was next established. In 1661 it was transferred to Osaka, where it was famous in sub- sequent dramatic history as the Takemoto Za. The marionette theatre is still popular in Japan. The puppets are elaborate contrivances, fitted with machinery for rolling the eyeballs, raising the eyebrows, opening and closing the mouth, moving the fingers so as to grasp and flirt a fan, and so on. The popularity of the Takemoto Za procured it several rivals, the most celebrated of which was the Toyotake Za. The fame of the Takemoto Za was chiefly owing to the genius of CHIKAMATSU MONZAYEMON, who is unquestion- ably the most prominent figure in the history of the Japanese drama. The birthplace of this remarkable man has been as much disputed as that of Homer. The most probable statement is that he was a Samurai of Hagi, in Choshiu, where he was born in 1653. It is said that in his boyhood he became a priest. He himself tells us that he was a retainer of more than one noble house in kidto. For some reason his services ceased, and he became a Ronin. The Ronin, that is, a Samurai who has been dismissed for misconduct, or whose indocile temper has found the severe discipline of the Yash:kt irksome beyond endurance, is a very familiar personage during the Yedo period of Japanese history, not only in fiction, but in real life. Countless deeds of desperate courage and many atrocious crimes are related of them, among which may be mentioned the well-known revenge of the forty-seven Ronins and their subsequent suicide, and the murderous attacks on the British Legation in 1861 and 1862. In the early days of foreign intercourse with Japan, Ronin was a word of fear to all quiet, law-abiding people. It is significant that the principal playwright | , | 276 JAPANESE LITERATURE as well as the most eminent novelist (Bakin) of this — period should both belong to the ranks of these hommes déclassés. After leaving the service of the Kidto nobles, Chika- matsu wrote a number of stories and pieces of no great — merit for dramatic performance at Kidto. One of these, formerly attributed to Saikaku, is the Kazzn Yashima, which bears traces of a study of the older No drama and Kidgen. Its subject is an episode in the life of Yoshit- sune. Chikamatsu’s earliest dated work was written in 1685. In 1690 he took up his residence in Osaka, when | his connection with the Takemoto marionette theatre began. From this time until his death in 1724, he pro-— duced in rapid succession a number of dramas which, whatever their faults, leave no doubt of his possessing a fertile and inventive genius. On a superficial examination of one of Chikamatsu’s plays, a European reader might fail to recognise the fact that it is a drama at all, and take it for a romance with rather more than the usual proportion of dialogue. All the Joruri contain a large narrative element of a more or less poetical character. This part of the play is chanted to music by a chorus seated on a platform overlooking the stage on the spectator’s right, where also the persons sit who declaim the speeches of the puppet actors. It is the narrative part which is more especially designated by the term Joruri. The chorus which recites it is the true successor of the Joruri-Katari or dramatic reciters above mentioned, and is the nucleus of the whole, the dialogue being at first merely subsidiary. It not only supplies a thread of story to connect the scenes represented by the puppets on the stage, but aids the imagination of the audience by describing expressions of countenance, — \ CHIKAMATSU 277, scenery, and much more that the resources of a theatre, __and especially of a marionette theatre, fail to convey. On closer examination, however, it becomes apparent _ that Chikamatsu’s works are not really romances, but stage-plays. They have a well-marked movement of plot from the opening scene up to the final catastrophe ; they abound in dramatic situations, and many of the scenes are obviously designed with a view to spectacular effect. These things were new in Japan, and to Chika- matsu therefore belongs the credit of being the creator of the Japanese drama. Chikamatsu’s plays are classified by the Japanese as Jidai-Mono or historical plays, and Sewa-Mono or dramas of life and manners. With the exception of a few in three acts, they are all plays of five acts; but whether the choice of this consecrated number had anything to do with the fact that the Dutch were in the habit of visiting the theatres of Kidto and Osaka on their periodical journeys to Yedo to pay their respects to the Shogun, | have not been able to ascertain.