Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/39

Rh of the great Taira family, and taught it to one Shobutsu, a Biwa bonze (Biwa-bozu, priest from Biwa), as blind players of the four-stringed Chinese lute were called; not that they were really bonzes, but merely because they shaved their heads after the manner of Buddhist priests. Yukinaga naturally instructed the lutist to adopt the manner of intonation practised by the priests of the Tendai sect in reading the Sutras or repeating litanies, and there resulted a recitative to which the name Heike-bushi (tune of the House of Hei) was given. The soldier class took keen pleasure in listening to this entertainment, and gradually the repertoire of the blind lute-player was extended so as to include stirring episodes of military history in every age. The Biwa-bozu exhibited great skill alike in the modulation of his voice, the excellence of his elocution, and the reality of his simulated passion. He could hold an audience in rapt attention and move it to tears as well as to laughter.

Closely resembling the performance of the Biwa-bozu so far as method was concerned, but differing from it in the nature of the subject of the recitative as well as in the instrument employed, was the Jōruri. This is said to have been originated by Ono no O-tsū, a lady in the household of either Oda Nobunaga or the Taikō,  who recited the story of Yoshitsune's light of love, Jōruri, accompanying herself with the samisen. Thus while the lutist took his subject from