Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/189

 the public theatre did not come into existence until the seventeenth century, and never, until quite recent times, was regarded as a proper resort for the upper classes. By way of compensation private theatricals had extensive vogue, not private theatricals in the Occidental sense of the term, but mimetic dances representing historical, mythological, poetical, and legendary scenes, or ideal renderings of natural phenomena. Such were the stately and picturesque no-gaku, supplemented by farcical interludes called no-kyōgen. From the sixteenth century the canons of refined hospitality prescribed that every one with aristocratic pretensions should be able to offer to his guests an entertainment of that nature, or to take part in it himself when bidden elsewhere. Nothing could exceed the magnificence of the costumes worn by the performers or the richness of all the accessories; and since complete disguise was absolutely essential to the realistic effect of such mimes, the mask possessed paramount importance. Reference may be made en passant to a misconception endorsed by more than one student of Japanese customs, namely, that the use of the mask in the theatre was a habit in Japan as it had been in Greece. The mask in Japan is not a theatrical adjunct, its employment is limited to the sphere of mimetic dances. The professional actor never wears a mask except for the purpose of figuring in the dances that often occupy the intervals of the drama. It is commonly believed in Japan that wooden masks were used at times as remote as the seventh century, and that the earliest of them represented the features of Uzume, the divine danseuse whose spirited performance drew the Sun Goddess from her cave. But the oldest surviving specimens date