Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/139

 [so runs the saw] has no right to use the word kekkō (splendid)," the conqueror of Corea, the arbiter of august tea-making, lacks the tribute of a monumental tomb. This stain on the scutcheon of Kyōto is to be speedily wiped out. Now that the Emperor has transferred his court to the eastern capital and made the Tokugawa citadel his own, the western merchants are eager to redress the balance by building on the heights of Maruyama for the glory of Hideyoshi and the bewilderment of tourists such a triumph of memorial architecture that lyeyasu shall at last be outshone and the connotation of kekkō be fraught with ampler meaning. The plans are drawn, the work begun, patriots and pilgrims have subscribed thousands of yen, the best modern artists in wood and bronze have been charged with the heavy privilege of surpassing their illustrious predecessors. Whether they succeed or not, the Hideyoshi monument was a subject so rich in suggestion, so popular in itself, so complex in its appeal, that the poet of the Miyako-odori could not wish for a better or more burning theme. And that is why the pink-and-blue geisha made their first exit through O Kuruma-yose, which Hidari Jingoro, the immortal left-handed carpenter, adorned with marvellous birds and flowers when commissioned to carve a royal gateway for his master's, the Taikō's, palace at Fushimi.

The next scene represented Hideyoshi's garden. It is no ordinary garden, whatever foreigners may think, who merely see in it an appropriate background for the swaying flower-like bodies of the dancing-girls. It is a masterpiece of the celebrated æsthete, Kobori Enshu, and the artful disposition of lake and lantern, pebble and pine, may symbolise, for all I know, a