Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/266

 bayashi Heidayu, a name which signifies that he possessed expert musical skill.  —The remuneration earned by the koshaku-shi is small. There are three classes distinguished by degrees of skill. A third-class expert receives one rin per head of audience. Hence two hundred hearers—a good "house"—means twenty sen (ten cents gold). A first-class performer is entitled to ten times that amount. Thus his attendance at a yose generally brings him a dollar (gold). He may give a koshaku at two or even three yose daily, and he is often invited to social réunions, when his guerdon varies from a dollar and a half to four or even five dollars. But there are not more than ten masters in all Japan whose reputation secures lucrative private patronage.  —The origin of the term is interesting. When the Imperial Court was at Nara (eighth century), pestilential vapours were found to proceed from a cave near one of the temples. The dance of Okina Sanbaso, to which allusion has been made in speaking of New Year observances, was danced on the sward before the cave to dispel the evil influence, and people spoke of the performance as shibai, in allusion to the place where it was held.  —It was called kabuki, of which the ideographic significance is a performance (ki) of song (ka) and dance (bu). As to the origin of the word, however, some allege that it was a corruption of katamuki, to sway or overturn, and that it was used with reference to the transports of delight into which the audience ought to be thrown by such displays of skill. However that may be, the point to be noted is that the popular form of mime was named kabuki, as distinguished from the aristocratic no. To this day one of the principal theatres in Tōkyō is called Kabuki-za, and the term might be properly applied to any place employed for histrionic representations.  —There is a well-known and fairly well attested story that, on the occasion of a conflagration at a theatre, one of these male actresses thought only of saving his hand-mirror. That they are constantly courted by amorous rustics unacquainted with theatrical usages is certain.  —Mono-mane kyogen, which literally signifies "imitative divertissement." Kyogen, in its original sense, means farci- 