Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/103

Rh historical, on which it is founded, is simple enough. During the great civil war between the Taira and Minamoto clans in the twelfth century, a Minamoto general, Kumagaya, is said to have been so touched by the likeness to his own son of a youthful adversary, named Atsumori, that he spared his life and connived at his escape from the battle of Ichi-no-tani, a famous valley near Kobe. This theme had to be embroidered with improbable episodes and extravagant actions to satisfy public taste. Accordingly, Kumagaya saves Atsumori's life in a supremely sensational manner. In obedience to secret orders from his feudal lord, Yoshitsune, he induces his son Kojiro to enter Atsumori's castle by cutting down a score of guards single-handed, to change clothes with Atsumori, to personate Atsumori so as to deceive both friend and foe, and finally to be killed by his own father in single combat, that the world may be absolutely convinced of Atsumori's death. While the plot requires that most of the characters in the piece should be mystified, it is important that the audience should not be mystified, and this twofold object is secured by the ingenious cooperation of stage and cage. While father and son, mounted on terrific black and white chargers, interchange threats and insults so as to blind their fellow-actors, the chorus expresses their real feelings of anguish and affection in such pathetic strains that the audience cannot fail to grasp the situation. But concealment of the truth from the other characters leads to more entanglements. Atsumori's mother, the Lady Wistaria, believing her son to be dead, pays a visit to the murderer's wife, and discovering in her a feudal dependent, insinuates that her obvious duty is to assist in her husband's assassination when he shall return.