This is the best-known Hokku by Basho and is considered to be a masterly example of his so-called legitimate style of Holden. Its literary translation cannot be other than as Mr. Aston has it: An ancient pond! With a sound from the water Of the frog as it plunges in.
What can a foreigner make out of it? Yet it strongly appeals to the sentiment and imagi nation of the Japanese. It carries with it a philosophical idea which is comprehensible only to them. Another example: Asagao ni Tsurube torarete Morai-misu.
This poem is often quoted by many Western writers. Mr. Aston translates thus: "Having had my well-bucket taken away by the con volvuli,— giftwater!" What foreigner could find any poetical meaning in this without a lengthy explanation? Thus we can see that it is almost impossible to translate Japanese poems into any foreign language and convey their real sentiment and force of imagination.
Hitherto this short review has been chiefly confined to those poems which are chiefly de signed for reading. There has, however, al ways been another kind, though less important in the strict literary sense, namely, verses used for singing or chanting. There are still extant some scores of examples of this class of work from the Nara era and the early part of the Heian era. Since those early days, however, this form of poetry has undergone many changes and grown into many varieties. Gen erally speaking, these productions are much longer than the ordinary poems. Even the and are nothing more than a modified form of poetry, but these are dra matic pieces in a sense and we must defer our discussion on this class to the section of the drama.
Tun DRAMA.
Theatrical performances in Japan began to assume their present style about 300 years ago. But the origin of the drama is very remote. In the Nara era there were the so-called Ka gura and Saibara — dances accompanied by singing and music performed chiefly in Shinto shrines. The difference between the two is slight, the Saibara having a more humorous tendency. Next arose the so-called Sarugaku and Dengaku, much in the same manner as the Kagura and Saibara. The difference between these two is also slight, with the exception that the Sarugaku is derived more from old dances, while the Dengaku has its origin in the pas time of the peasants. Many of the poems used in these various performances still remain. In the Kamalcura era the Heike Monogatari, which was written in a high poetic style, was adapted for chanting in accompaniment of the Biwa, a string instrument. In the same era the Denga
ku, probably influenced by the singing of the Heike Monogatari, underwent some alterations, and historical narratives having been intro duced into the play, it began to assume the style of theatrical performances. This change was quickly followed b the Sarugaku. Hence arose the No of Den and the No of Sara galcu, the term Nobeing taken to mean per formance. The Dengaku, however, soon de clined and the Sarugaku alone made continuous progress. In the Ashikaga era, it became the chief source of pleasure for the upper classes, being patronized by the Shogun himself. Then arose a class of professional actors, and the gentry themselves began to learn to sing and even to play and had no compunction in doing so in the presence of their friends. While the acting is called No, the words, the written nar ratives which are to be sung, are called Yok yoku. In the time when the Sarugaku became popular to the disadvantage of the Dengaku, the term No came generally to mean the No of Sarugaku.
The so-called Yokyoku has much merit as literature. There are nearly 300 specimens of these Yokyoku and nearly all of them are the production of the Ashikaga era. They are not so long as those of the Greek or Roman come dies, but their construction has some similarity, for the words uttered by the actors are not limited to dialogues but contain descriptive parts as well. Thus when an actor represent ing a certain character appears on the stage, he generally announces who he is, why he has come there, where he is going to and such like. The method of playing has a certain similarity to the modern European opera, for the words uttered by the characters are sung and not spoken all through. The general features of the play show that these works were greatly in fluenced by Buddhism. This is due in the first place to the fact that the religion exercised much influence over the mind of the people at large, and in the second place to the fact that the playwrights were mostly priests. From the scholastic point of view, the sentences in these plays are not free from defects, but they are strong in the poetical element and some parts of these works cannot be too highly praised. The Yokyoku and No may be called the classical drama of Japan. They enjoy the favor of the upper classes even to this day in the same manner as the opera flourishes in Europe side by side with the ordinary theatre.