# The Spirit of Japanese Poetry/Chapter 3

III
NO: THE JAPANESE PLAY OF SILENCE
I
The word dignity, applied to the dramatic art, may mystify you, though it may not necessarily mislead you, because it is often mistaken for the pessimism which is apology at best. In emphasising the independence of the Japanese No drama, I have in mind the special audience it created with the patience of centuries. When I say that it has no need to wait on its audience, I have in my mind the fact that it was that very audience which originated and perfected it as we see it to-day on the stage of Kanze, or Hosho, or Umewaka, or Yamashina, or Kudan, of Tokyo. It is not too much to say that the audience, not more than three hundred in number for each performance—is that not a large enough audience?—are all of them No actors themselves. It is beautiful to see them, like fully flowed water blessed by sunlight, in the appreciation which ​is realised through silence, its highest reach seen in their motionlessness of posture. It is true, though it may sound arbitrary to say it, that the real actors on the stage–not more than three in one play, as it is the simplest affair, this No (is that not enough characters, again I ask, to make poetry move?)–find their secret of fire or passion where the audience lose themselves. This No house is a sacred hall dedicated to poetry and song, where the actors and audience go straight into the heart of prayer in creating the most intense atmosphere of grayness, the most suggestive colour in all Japanese art, which is the twilight soared out of time and place; it is a divine sanctuary where the vexation of the outer world and the realism of modern life leave to follow, when on the stage, the eight persons of the chorus in two rows, with profile to the audience, and the musicians, a flute and two tambourines, with their backs to the wooden end wall at the back of the stage, take their own proper places, and the flute sends out, as the beginning of the performance, the thrill of invocation ages old, as if a cicada whose ghost-voice curses the present Japanese “civilisation.” It is an oasis in the human desert of modern life, this little hall of the No play, where I often spend the whole day, as the performance begins usually as early as nine o’clock in the morning, and gain the thought that artistic Japan is not wholly lost; and I feel there ​happiness and sorrow rhythmically commingled, a human feeling already joined with deathlessness, seeing right before me the great ghost of the Past and Eternity, because the Present slips away like a mouse chased by sunlight.
You know well enough there is a great deal of cant in the term “appreciative audience” of modern usage in theatrical reviews or papers. When we must spend two or three years in realising how many others fail in becoming No appreciators, it means that those elected in this particular art, where appreciation is not less, perhaps is greater, than the acting itself, will find their own lives vitalised with the sense of power in Japanese weariness. When we feel the beauty of the monotony of the No drama that is gained by the sacrifice of variety, I think that our work of appreciation is just started. I cannot forget the impression carved on my mind, which was then roughened, stiffened, by the toss of Western life of quite many years, when I first entered Hosho’s No house some ten years ago. It was the month of October, with maple-leaves and passion-flowers fallen, with birds and love flung away, whose gray heart was in perfect accord with this No performance. I smiled to my friend, who was a great appreciator, playfully but none the less delightedly, when I noticed the “honourable names” of those occupants, lords or barons or what not, written on the wooden ​tablets stuck on each box. I think I must have felt even uncomfortable on seeing myself among the select few. My plebeian mind, which was familiar with the general theatre-goers of other common houses created by advertisements, was struck by the sight of the dresses in quieter shade of the lady audience, even those of the younger ladies who put aside their wild whims to satisfy and not to break the quiet atmosphere of the No house; and I was surprised at the general quietude that overflowed from the hearts of artistic sensibility. The audience make me think of the people in the tea-room or Sukiya for a ceremonial sip of tea, wrapped in silence and grayness; what difference is there between the three hundred people in the hall, and the five persons that are the usual number to be put in the tea-room, since the theory of the non-existence of space to the enlightened has much meaning? When I saw the people here in the hall move in and out of the boxes, without spoken words, like silent birds from twig to twig, with a slight bow that was beautiful, the web-like passways again reminded me of a roji or garden path connecting the portico where the guests wait, with the tea-room where, you have to break away from the dust and din of the world, to prepare yourself for the aesthetic enjoyment of the tea. Such a comparison, I admit, may sound too elaborate or even improbable. But ​the point I wish to make is that the passways of the No hall mean more than the pathways of the pits of common theatres. If you cannot connect them with the “garden path” I would be glad to suggest to you, as a tea-master might when you step through the twilight by the moss-covered granite lantern in the roji, to think for a while of the shadow of summer foliage, or the stretch of a sea, or the slow fall of the evening moon, even after you have entered your own box, and be ready to enter the artistic world created by your heart gray and cold, and then you have to open the book of the libretto on your knees as the others do, with the sight of the chorus taking their own seats on the stage.
There is no other stage like this No stage, so small, being twenty-five feet square at the largest, all opened except the wall facing to the audience, where the painted old pine-tree, as old as the world, as gray as poetry, looms as if a symbol of eternity out of the mist–(think of the play of Takasago, the hosts of pine-trees in the shapes of an old man and woman singing deathlessness and peace)–the long gallery or bridge on the same level connected with the stage on the right, along which the No actors move as spectres and make the performance complete, the passage of a beginning and ending, I might say Life and Death. When you see the roof, you will be impressed by the dignity of existence itself which ​the Western stage has not; but, as you can create the portion called Kakoi or enclosure for the temporary purpose of a tea-gathering by the device of screens, so you can build the No stage at any time in your Japanese house, three or four rooms being combined when the most obedient screens slip away. And it is your poetical imagination–thank Heaven, imagination is everything for this No–to perfectly fill in the utter lack of stage scenery and furniture; though there are many occasions, to be sure, when you might be doubtful of your power of imagination as to imagine the deep valley of Arashiyama of cherry-tree fame with a few paper-made cherry-blossom twigs, the big bell-tower with the paper-made bell hung from a shaking wooden frame, and, too extraordinary still, to fancy the ship, water, oars, of course, from a bamboo pole. I dare say, however, it will delight minds tired from the burden of the spectacular show in the West; indeed, the time may be already at hand, or at any rate quite near, when the Western stage will heed the lesson of Japanese simplicity, particularly of this No drama, whose archaism might give a divine hint how to sift the confusion and to rhyme beauty and life with emphasis. I believe you will be moved, as I have been moved, and again will be on future occasions, now to smile and then to cry with the actors wearing the self-same mask of painted wood–(you know that No ​is the mask play to speak directly, although that is not an exact translation)–which, marvellously enough, seems to differentiate the most delicate shades of human sensibility; we should thank our own imagination which turns the wood to a spirit more alive than you or I, when neither the actors nor the mask-carvers can satisfactorily express their secret. I know that the mask is made to reserve its feeling, and the actors wonderfully well protect themselves from falling into the bathos of the so-called realism through the virtue of poetry and prayer; and when I realise it is from the same old humanity that tears and smiles, brothers or sisters by blood relation, spring forth, their difference being only a little shade of colour, the mystery that the No hall performs on our human minds will be explained to a great measure. This is the house of fancy where those who can only find strength from the crudity of their five senses have no right to step in, but the silent worshippers of the Imperfect will congregate for the holy exercise of ritual of their imagination; it is not the whole truth to say that it is the No’s dignity to command you to believe in its representation, though you may incline to think otherwise, as for instance in the case where a No character of a lady, whose voice and posture are not different from a man’s, is resented on the stage, but it is for your poetical mind flatly to object to seeing the superficial ​reality, and to surrender all criticisms for the sake of appreciation. Indeed, the actual expression of the No stage is ever so slight and ephemeral, like many other artistic expressions, the sighs of crickets or shivers of flowers; we have gained, as we behold it, great brevity at an almost astonishing cost of human energy. It goes without saying that the plays themselves are brief; and I have many reasons to be thankful that the stage has never been troubled with the dropping curtain from the beginning till to-day, because the curtain only serves, in my opinion, to bar the stage, to remind us always that we have to restrain ourselves and not come into too close communication with the actors. And what use is the No hall if you cannot drop the curtain in your imagination? although it may not be so often as in other theatres even at this No hall, you have sometimes to drop the curtain yourself before the play is finished.
I have had occasion before to associate the No hall with the tea-room where, through the fragrance of tea, the melody of the boiling kettle, and the curl of incense, you will slowly but surely enter the twilight land of the Unknowable; when you are told that both of them were practically formed, encouraged, and developed under the rule of the Ashikaga lords from the early fourteenth century down to the close of the sixteenth century, who attempted, and even ​succeeded in their attempt, to invigorate human lives with that simple lesson of simplicity, the comparison, I think, will not seem a mere spiritual speculation. And was there ever a time like to-day when the complex is replacing the homogeneous, when we need such a lesson in all the aspects of life? What variety and richness have we earned, I ask, from making the entire sacrifice of that simplicity? I am glad to say that the No drama has fully revived from the temporary oblivion of fifty years ago, and has two or three hundred appreciators at each performance; if we treat it as a case of protest, I would say that protest is the thing we need most to-day. Whenever we think of the No plays, our thanks are first turned to Yoshimitsu, the third great lord of the Ashikaga government, the mighty propagandist of the tea-ceremonies and the No drama; and we must not forget Yoshimasa, the eighth lord who almost completed the drama as we have it to-day. It was the greatness of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the wonderful fighter of Japan, to leave his name associated with Soyeki or Rikyu, the greatest of all tea-masters, and also with the No actors. When we remember that the simplicity and archaism of the so-called tea-ceremony grew out of the purism of the Zen monastery or priest hall of meditation, it will be clear enough that the No drama must have an equal connection with ​Buddhism; in fact, there is no play among those three hundred plays in existence which has no appearance of a priest whose divine power of meditation or prayer invariably leads the ghost of a warrior or a lady, or a flower, or a tree into the blessing of Nirvana. To call the No the ghost play has no real meaning, any more than to call it a priest play; the main point is to tell the human tragedy rather than comedy of the old stories and legends seen through the Buddhistic flash of understanding, as most of the plays were written by priests or by those people most influenced by Buddhism, as was quite natural in those days. The names of the authors, alas, are forgotten, or they hid their own names by choice. Even when some of their names, Seami and Otoami for instance, are given, it is said by an authority that they are, in fact, only responsible for the music, the dance, and the general stage management. It was the time when nobody asked who wrote them, if the plays themselves were worthy. What a difference from this day of advertisement and personal ambition! When I say that these plays were born like a mystery from the national impulse and love of literature, I mean that they are not the creation of one time or one age; it is not far wrong to say that they wrote themselves, as if flowers or trees rising from the rich soil of tradition and Buddhistic faith. As literature, they are ​things apart from the aristocratic writing encouraged by the Kyoto court in the former age, being democratic in sentiment, though not in the style of the lines and phrases, which are in truth the noblest expression of poetry, and might be compared with the magnificent dresses of stiff brocade the actors wear as they move along to the deep cadence of music; there are no better examples of epic poetry in our Japanese literature than the No plays; it is not too much to say that there is not a phrase, an image, an incident too much or too little, not a false note of atmosphere or feeling; they are exquisite and deathless, these most proud, most living, most unwasted rhythms of human song and heart-cries.
II
This No, already strongly encouraged by the said Hideyoshi (many new pieces were added, in his time, to the already large repertory, and alterations were made to those already in practice) had become the most important factor of the nation’s life, when the time came down to the Tokugawa feudal age. To recite lines from the No, and to act on the stage if possible, was regarded to be one of a gentleman’s accomplishments; the No play, in contrast to the common theatre, held the most noble, dignified place of entertainment. And so it is to-day. It was ​thought even sacred; it began to assume the most necessary rôle at a wedding ceremony. With the singing of a passage from “Takasago,” it is believed your wedlock will be sealed . “Takasago,” the happy play celebrating constancy, endurance, health and longevity, is represented by an old man and an old woman busy in the work of raking up the pine-needles under the pine-trees. The passage says: “True it is that these pine-trees shed not all their leaves; their verdure remains fresh for ages long; even among evergreen trees–the emblems of unchangeableness–exalted is their fame to the end of time–the fame of the two pine-trees that have grown old together.” What are these two pine-trees? Who are the old man and woman? The ghosts of the trees are nothing, but the old man and woman singing the age of golden and happy life. Among some three hundred plays now in existence, there is no other like “The Robe of Feathers” that gracefully carries the delicate, statuesque beauty of composition and sentiment. It is the play of a fairy whose feather-robe was stolen by a fisherman at Mio’s pine-clad shore, while she was bathing, and was finally given back upon her promise to dance. Not to go to extremes, even in sadness, is taught in Japan to be the height of cultured manners; here we have every Oriental beauty and lamentation in the song of this fairy who could not fly back to the sky: ​
“Vainly my glance doth seek the heavenly plain, Where rising vapours all the air enshroud, And veil the well-known paths from cloud to cloud.”
She promised that she would dance the dance that makes the Palace of the Moon turn round, and would leave her dance behind as a token to mortal men, if her robe were restored to her. However, the fisherman doubted lest she might return home to heaven without dancing at all; then the fairy said:
“Fie on thee! The pledge of mortals may be doubted, but in heavenly beings there is no falsehood.”
As I said, the No is the creation of the age when, by virtue of sutra or the Buddha’s holy name, any straying ghosts or spirits in Hades were enabled to enter Nirvana; it is no wonder that most of the plays have to deal with those ghosts or Buddhism. That ghostliness appeals to the poetical thought and fancy even of the modern age, because it has no age. It is the essence of the Buddhistic belief, however fantastic, to stay poetical for ever. Although the No’s repertory does not change, our conception and understanding will be altered; it is thus that they can keep always fresh themselves. Here we have one play called “Yama Uba” or “Mountain Elf”; the author, undoubtedly a learned priest, attempts to express by the play that we are souls much troubled in a maze of ​transmigration, indeed, like the Mountain Elf, who, it is said, spends all the dark night circling round the mountain. That mountain is a symbol of life itself. The plot grows intense at the point where enters a famous dancer called Hyakuma Yama Uba, a woman who has earned such a name from her dancing of the Mountain Elf circling round the mountain. She has lost her way in Kagero no Yama, or the Hill of Shadow, in a pilgrimage toward Zenkoji, the Holy Buddhist Temple; and here she meets the real Elf or Yama Uba, with large star-like eyes and fearful snow-white hair, who demonstrates to her the way how she encircles the mountain, nay the mountain of Life. The play ends as may be expected of this No play; after making her prayer to the Elf, the dancer disappears over mountains and mountains, as her life’s cloud of perplexity is now cleared away, and the dusts of transmigration are well swept. This little play would certainly make a splendid subject for a modern interpretation. For some long while my mind dwelt on it, wishing to write something. And also a play called “Morning-Glory” is interesting; the flower, in the play, cannot enter Nirvana on account of her short life of only one morning, and her jealousies that burn on seeing the other flowers who enjoy a longer life. However, her ghost will disappear with satisfaction when she listens to a sermon from the ​priest. I have written a dramatic fragment on the subject after my own fashion as follows:
THE MORNING-GLORY
(A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT)
Priest.
See the black robe of the priest for the changeless love of the Lord (The robe is black, as black night, with mercy's depth): I count my rosary, I count the sins of the world and life; My prayer is the evening bell to turn them to rest. My face is ever turned to joy and the West– To the West, where lies Heaven, the only real place. 'Tis mine to make the suffering souls obedient to Law and Truth, And then regain the song of dissolution and rest. What is the flower that I see before my eyes? Is it not the Morning-Glory, the flower of Summer's dream and dews? It is strange to see it now when Autumn's silence Has calmed down the fire and heart of Nature and song; It is like a lyric forgotten and unsung– Villager, tell me what flower it is."
Villager.
Priest.
Villager.
Priest.
Oh, bareness of beauty that has soared out of life; Is it a real morning-glory? Is it not only imagination or pain itself? I hear in its tremor a certain human speech, but voiceless. What a mystery, what mournfulness, what tragic thrill! I am a priest for whom stones and grasses prepare a nightly bed, A companion of water, trees, stars, and night; Here will I sleep and solve the mystery with the power of prayer. Oh, flower, whatever name thou bearest, take me this night as thy guest."
Lady.
Oh, misery to be a prey to fire and unrest! I am a wandering spirit of discontent from Hades, After the Life that ascends, the Life of whiteness and the sun; Oh, my hatred of dissolution and death!"
Priest.
Cursor of Nirvana, straying soul of unrest."
Lady.
Priest.
Why wanderest thou as a spirit of malice and evil?"
Lady.
That have only to grow with the sun and the day: Oh, shortness of my life that ended before its day began! How I long to feel the joy of life and the sun that was not mine!"
Priest.
Death is nothing but the turn or change of note. The shortest life is the sweetest, as is the shortest song: How to die well means how to live well. Life is no quest of longevity and days: Where are the flowers a hundred years old? Oh, live in death and Nirvana, live in dissolution and rest, Make a life out of death and darkness; Lady or flower, be content, be finished as a song that is sung!"
Lady.
Pray, pray for my sad soul that it may return to Hades and rest!"
Priest.