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464 just mentioned, partly in marionette dances accompanied by explanatory songs, called jōruri or gidayū. This explains the retention of the chorus, although in diminished numbers and exiled to a little cage separated from the stage, where they sit with the musicians. Hence, too, the peculiar poses of the actors, originally intended to imitate the stiffness of their prototypes, the marionettes. It was in the sixteenth century that this class of theatre took its rise. Oddly enough, though the founders of the Japanese stage were two women, named O-Kuni and O-Tsū, men alone have been allowed to act at the chief theatres, the female parts being taken by males, as in our own Shakspeare's age, while at a few inferior theatres the conditions are reversed, and only women appear. It would seem that immorality was feared from the joint appearance of the two sexes, and in sooth the reputation of O-Kuni and her companions was far from spotless. Of late years the restriction has been relaxed, and performances by mixed troupes of actors and actresses may occasionally be witnessed.

From the beginning, plays were divided into two classes, called respectively jidai-mono, that is historical plays, and sewa-mono, or dramas of life and manners. Chikamatsu Monzaemon and