Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/258

 orderly," and attributes that designation to the irregular nature of the costume worn by the dancer. This perplexity illustrates a notable defect of the ideographic script: two different ideographs, one meaning "disorderly" and the other "three," are phonetically identical, and might easily be interchanged by a writer relying on sound only. It matters very little, however, how the dance originated or by what name it was called at first. The only point of interest is that, in the Heian epoch, it took the form of grotesque posturing and pacing to the accompaniment of a comic couplet, the playing of a flute and the beating of a hand-drum. The "bucolic mime" (Dengaku) belonged to a still lower rank of art than the Saru-gaku. It scarcely rose to the level of a definite combination of graceful movements, but was rather a display of mere muscular activity, in short, a species of acrobatic performance, including pole-balancing, stilt-walking, and a kind of sword-and-ball exercise by men mounted on high clogs. It nevertheless deserves the name of dance, because the movements of the performer were measured, and because there was a musical accompaniment of flute and drum. Thus described, the "monkey mime" and the "bucolic mime" seem very trivial and unworthy of attention, but it will be seen by and by that their developments are of some importance.

If lengthy reference is here made to dancing and singing in the Heian epoch, it is because