Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/42

Rh display of acrobatic feats. Popular patois, more retentive than history, applies the name Den-gaku to a rectangular slice of bean-curd having a skewer thrust through it from end to end, because a cake thus transfixed is supposed to resemble a Den-gaku gymnast mounted on a single stilt. By the Hōjō rulers in Kamakura, however, the Den-gaku, even before it had emerged from its acrobatic stage, was generously patronised. The Taiheiki, a celebrated work, part history, part romance, compiled in the fourteenth century, contains a unique but brief account of the Den-gaku as performed at Kamakura before the Buddhist priests had interfered to change it from a musical and spectacular display of gymnastic exercises to an artistic and dramatic representation:—

The pure tones of the music ringing in the ears of the audience, the drums beating blithely and the flute sounding the cadence, there emerge from the eastern orchestra-room eight beautifully apparelled youths, wearing tunics of gold brocade. Simultaneously eight tonsured youths, robed in pure white tunics decorated with designs of flowers and birds lightly traced in gold, and wearing voluminous ankle-gathered trousers with a variegated pattern in silver, flash into sight from the Western room, beating out the measure and swaying their broad hats in unison. Then, led respectively by Ako of the Honza and Hikoyasha of the Shinza, they play with daggers and balls, showing such divine skill that eyes and ears alike of the audience are astounded. This display ended, a boy of eight or nine, wearing a