Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/72

 humour into obscenity. But such is not the case in Japanese dramas or farces. The former deal solely with the higher sentiments, seeking their subjects among instances of signal bravery, heroic devotion, loyal piety, and pitiful misfortunes; the latter take their material from the every-day life of the people, but avoid all its erotic and indecorous aspects. This remark applies only to Nô and Nô-Kyôgen, not to the farces and comedies represented on the boards of the theatre in later times. Concerning these latter no such favourable verdict can be passed. But the vulgar theatre and the aristocratic Nô and Nô-Kyôgen remained always distinct. The theatre, indeed, in the ordinary sense of the term, had not come into existence in the age now under consideration: it was a creation of subsequent eras, as will presently be shown. Common folks in the Military epoch had no opportunity of witnessing a histrionic performance unless a drama of the Nô type was put upon one of the religious stages for purposes of charity, and even then a certain measure of selection was applied to the audience. The drama (Nô) and its associated farce (Kyôgen) were essentially a pastime of the upper classes, and to that reason, perhaps, is to be chiefly attributed their authors' obedience to the rules of pudicity. The plots were never complicated. A skinflint leaves his servants in charge of a jar of sugar, telling them that it is poison. They eat it in his absence, and then