Plenty of Nothing

The God of Inari Likes Nō

In О̄ei 9 [1412] (as memories are inexact, the precise year will have to be ascertained), in the eleventh month, the Master of Tachibana Storehouse, which is located at the road by the Hōshō Temple near the Inari Shrine in Kyoto fell gravely ill from a wound and was on the point of death. A woman at the shop suddenly became possessed by the spirit of the Inari Shrine. The spirit spoke through the woman, saying that if the Kanze troupe would give a nō performance, the master would recuperate. Zeami therefore performed before the Inari Shrine. The woman who was possessed spoke as follows. "It would be well to perform ten plays. The first three will be watched by the goddess Amateratsu, the second three by the god of Kasuga, the next three by the god of Yahata, and the last by me, the god of Inari." Accordingly, ten plays were performed. When Zeami went to pay his respects to the Tachibana family, they called from inside the house, "Zeami is coming!" asked him in, then presented him with a quantity of red silk. The material is still in the possession of our family.

Rimer and Yamazaki, On the Art of the Nō Drama, pages 241-42.

Noh Robe

An atsuita with cloud-shaped gongs and Chinese flowers. From Kimono: a Modern History, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on till January 4th, 2015.

Genji at the Noh

The Tale of Genji supplies the text or subtext for several Noh plays, which themselves have spun off numerous interpretations. This 1897 print by Tsukioka Kogyo captures a moment from the play Aoi no Ue. Source.

For the Enjoyment of the Play

    Several years ago in Kyoto in the fall, the Komparu School from Kaga Province announced the opening of a Noh play performance. It was to run for four days, and although the price of theater boxes was set at ten pieces of silver, they were soon sold out. Furthermore, cash in advance was paid for them.

    At first it was announced that the tragic drama Sekidera Komachi would be presented, and people were greatly excited in expectation of witnessing a performance of this grandest of dramas. But when the hand drummer, for some reason or other, found it impossible to perform his part, the program was changed. Despite the alteration, however, on the opening day even before dawn, people thronged the entrance to the theater. Among them was a man from Edo who had reserved two entire boxes, each of which had cost him ten pieces of silver. In one of them he spread out a crimson rug, and further equipped it with a portable shelf, a low folding screen, and a case for his personal effects. In the back of the box he set up a temporary kitchen, provided with fish, fowl, and a basket of seasonal fruit. In the other box he set up a teakettle, with two pails of water beside it for making tea, one labeled 'Uji Bridge' and the other 'Otowa River.' Seated with him in his boxes were to be seen a physician, a draper, a Confucian scholar, a dealer in imported goods, and a poet; while visible behind them were women from Shimabara, boys from Shijo, prominent entertainers of the city, a masseur, and a ronin. Under the boxes was space for his personal palanquin, a bath, and even a lavatory. Indeed, with such luxurious appointments nothing at all was lacking in convenience for the enjoyment of the play.

Saikaku Ihara, This Scheming World, pages 65-66.

The Briny Sadness of Matsukazé

    About this same time, Honda was attending a performance of Matsukazé at the Osaka Nō Theater in Tennoji-Dogashiba at the invitation of a colleague fond of performing Nō chants himself. It was a production featuring Kanesuké Noguchi from Tokyo as shité with Yazo Tamura assisting him as waki. The theatre stood upon the eastern slope of Uemachi Hill between Tennoji and Osaka Castle. This had been a section of fine villas at the beginning of the Taisho period and was still a secluded area containing high-walled mansions. One of these functioned as a Nō theater under the auspices of the Sumitomo family.

    Most of the guests were merchant princes, and Honda recognized many of them. As for the famous actor, the harsh-voiced Noguchi, Honda's colleague had warned him beforehand that, although his intonation might sound like a goose being strangled, Honda was not by any means to laugh. And he predicted that, ignorant of Nō though Honda was, once the play was underway he would suddenly find himself emotionally aroused.

...

    Although Kanesuké Noguchi wore the mask of a beautiful young woman, his voice had nothing that would recall a woman's charms. It was a voice that made one think of the rasping together of rusty, discolored metal. Furthermore, his recitation was broken by interruptions, and his style of chanting seemed to be tearing the beauty of the words to shreds. But despite all this, the mood inspired was like the outpouring of a dark and ineffably elegant mist, like the sight of a moonbeam shining into a corner of a ruined palace to fall upon a mother-of-pearl furnishing. Because the light passed through a worn and ravaged bamboo blind, the elegance of the shattered fragments shone all the more.

    Gradually, then, his harsh voice became far from irritating. Rather, one had the feeling that only through this harsh voice could one for the first time become aware of the briny sadness of Matsukazé and the melancholy love that afflicts those in the realm of the dead.

Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses, pages 209-11.

Nō and the Cat's Ears

    Late one morning toward the end of the month, Taeko appeared again. Sachiko was listening to the radio.

    "Yukiko?" Taeko pulled a chair up to the fire.

    "She has gone to Dr. Kushida's."

    "An injection?"

    "Yes." Sachiko had been taking down recipes said to be good for the season. Now someone was reciting a Nō play.

    "Would you turn it off, please, Koi-san?"

    "Wait. Look at Bell." Taeko pointed her jaw at the cat, asleep by Sachiko's feet.

    Bell was drowsing happily in the warmth from the stove. Taeko had noticed that its ears twitched at each drum beat. Only the ears were affected, it seemed, by a reflex of no concern to the rest of the cat.

    "What do you suppose does it?"

    "Very strange."

    They watched, fascinated, as the ears twitched an accompaniment to the Nō, and when the Nō was finished Taeko turned off the radio.

Junichirō Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters, page 385.

Noh Chanting Annoys Tsuda

    O-Nobu still did not come. And of course Mrs Yoshikawa, whom he was awaiting even more eagerly, did not appear either. He was annoyed. The Noh chanting, which he disliked intensely, which someone nearby had been engaged in for quite some time, further irritated him. He suddenly remembered that he had seen a long narrow sign, announcing instruction in Noh chanting, on the two-storey building diagonally opposite the laundry. The second floor seemed to be the place where the practice was going on, and even though it was rather far away the chanting sounded excessively loud. Since he realized full well that he had no right to stop people from doing what they wanted to, he could do nothing whatever about his discontent. He merely wanted to leave the hospital as soon as possible.

Natsume Sōseki, Light and Darkness (1916), page 216.

Sylvia Townsend Warner Listens to a Noh Play

    I sat for a while listening to a No[h] play; [ . . . ] extraordinarily slow, belching, hideous declamation and arioso, both solo and chorus, the very antithesis of the delicacy & poignancy of the text: like Papal Bulls and Papal Pigs roaring, squealing & grunting: and very beautiful snatches of a mad-scene flute; and those wooden hammers urging it on. It is almost unassimilable, would be quite, if it had not an authority of extreme technique & tradition.

The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner, page 274 (entry for July 5th, 1961).

A.B. Mitford Sums Up the Nô

    The subjects of the Nô are all taken from old legends of the country; a shrine at Miwo, by the sea-shore, marks the spot where the suit of feathers was found, and the miraculously forged sword is supposed to be in the armoury of the Emperor to this day. The beauty of the poetry -- and it is very beautiful -- is marred by the want of scenery and by the grotesque dresses and make-up. In the Suit of Feathers, for instance, the fairy wears a hideous mask and a wig of scarlet elf locks; the suit of feathers itself is left entirely to the imagination; and the heavenly dance is a series of whirls, stamps, and jumps, accompanied by unearthly yells and shrieks; while the vanishing into thin air is represented by pirouettes something like the motion of a dancing dervish. The intoning of the recitative is unnatural and unintelligible, so much so that not even a highly educated Japanese could understand what is going on unless he were previously acquainted with the piece. This, however, is supposing that which is not, for the Nô are as familiarly known as the master-pieces of our own dramatists.

A.B. Mitford, Tales of Old Japan (1871), volume one, pages 163-4.

Botchan on Noh Chanting

    "Listen, I don't need an old lady like you telling me what to do when it's none of your concern. It's my salary, no matter how much it goes up, or down, and mine alone."

    She left the room without another word. Her husband was chanting a passage from some Noh play in a relaxed, mellow voice. The whole point of Noh chanting seems to be to take some lines that you could understand perfectly well on paper and recite them in a ridiculously complicated way to make sure that nobody can understand them any more. How he managed to practice that stuff every night without getting thoroughly sick of it was a mystery to me. Anyhow I had much bigger things to worry about.

Botchan by Natsume Sōseki, page 119, Joel Cohn translation.