Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/107

Rh deeply pathetic than that of a duteous heart fluttering behind the gilded bars of self-imposed shame and responding to the generous affection of a liberating lover. The entourage of spies and gaolers made escape no easy thing: thus plenty of dangerous adventure would diversify the plot. The nimble-witted theatre-goer loves intrigue, and follows hero and heroine through an imbroglio of ruses and disguises and machinations which it would be tedious to describe. Again let me pay tribute to the ingenuity of the didactic dramatist, who illustrates a lesson in filial unselfishness with pictures of attractive wickedness. Few scenes could surpass in beauty the luxurious lupanar, with its troop of richly robed Delilahs. Drury Lane has produced nothing more spectacular or more sensational than the meretricious, murderous dramas of this class.

Less numerous, but of great interest to the student, are Oikemono, or plays "connected with the private troubles of some illustrious family." These would obviously strengthen feudal ties, and some have considerable merit. The first piece I saw in a Japanese theatre was founded on the legend (told at length in Mr. Mitford's "Tales of Old Japan") of the Nabeshima cat. One of the lords of Nabeshima had the misfortune to marry a species of vampire-cat, or rather his wife was possessed by one. While the daimyō and his friends keep watch, the wife retires to bed, and soon the shadow of a cat's head is silhouetted on the paper lantern near her couch. Caterwauling is heard: the watchers, armed with swords, rush in and stab the cat-wife, whose death ends the play. Life in the court of a feudal lord during the Tokugawa shogunate is most vividly portrayed in "Kagamiyama-kokyo-no-nishiki," which may be regarded as the Japanese