Noh Plays

I'm about 400 pages into the Ezra Pound anthology and in the middle of the section on Ernest Fenollosa and the Noh plays of Japan. One thing that is so enjoyable about this book is that almost none of our current cultural obsessions are ever mentioned. Pound and Fenollosa between them are actually responsible for the rediscovery--outside Japan at least--of this ancient drama uniting dance, music and poetry as it tells stories uniting religion, nature and the occult. Two books by them are still high on the list on Amazon if you search for "Noh plays of Japan."

I was fascinated by one translation of the play Tsunemasa as a lute (biwa, actually) has such a prominent role as to be almost a character in itself. The lute is named "Seizan."

I am Sodzu Giokei, keeper of the temple of Ninnaji. Tajima no Kami Tsunemasa, of the house of Taira, was loved by the Emperor when he was a boy, but he was killed in the old days at the battle of the West Seas. And this is the Seizan lute that the Emperor gave him before that fighting. I offer this lute to his spirit in place of libation.

Later:

SPIRIT: When I was young I went into the court. I had a look at life then. I had high favour. I was given the Emperor's biwa (lute). That is the very lute you have there. It is the lute called "Seizan." I had it when I walked through the world. CHORUS: It is the lute that he had in this world, but now he will play Buddha's music.

Later:

CHORUS: A moon hangs clear on the pine-bough. The wind rustles as if flurried with rain. It is an hour of magic. The bass strings are something like rain; the small strings talk like a whisper. The deep string is a wind voice of autumn; the third and the fourth strings are like the crying stork in her cage, when she thinks of her young birds toward nightfall. Let the cocks leave off their crowing. Let no one announce the dawn.

Noh drama, while it may sound rather like Western opera, uniting the art forms of music, dance and poetry, is utterly different. For one thing, the actors often wear masks and there is no stage setting. The orchestra is seated onstage behind the main actors and the dance is very unlike what we think of as dance. Noh has been revived and the traditions are still preserved in Japan. Here is a sample.

Benjamin Britten's Curlew River was inspired by the Japanese noh play Sumidagawa (Sumida River) by Kanze Jūrō (1395–1431), which Britten saw during a visit to Japan and the Far East in early 1956.