Page:Tales from old Japanese dramas (1915).djvu/33

Rh described. These parts are chanted to the music of the samisen, a three-stringed guitar, by a chorus seated on a platform overlooking the stage, on the spectator's right. The chorus also declaims the speeches of the puppet actors. In the case of the theatre proper, the actors carry on all the dialogue, except a part of it just mentioned, and act and dance to the recitation of the narrative part, in a similar manner to the puppets. The narrative part not only supplies the thread of the story, in order to connect the scenes represented by the puppet actors, or the living actors on the stage, but aids the imagination of the audience by describing expressions of countenance, scenery, and many other details that the resources of a theatre cannot but fail to convey. Though the jōruri is poetry, yet it is written in simple and easy language, quite intelligible even to peasants, coolies, and children. It is emphatically a literature for the masses.

From this general account regarding the nature of the epical drama, we may now take a glance at a brief history of its origin and development.

Some time during the Muromachi Period (1392–1603) the profession of chanting or reciting