Kakitsubata Utaura Yamauba Genii kuyo mm.Ti.ij ■■ m INf t-P i' m fifr'iHi i ■* T \ l 7 2 7 R o G i o Kamo monogurui Gao (75) (73) (76) Shima-meguri Kagetsu 78 Soei (77)
(а ) Bi.iin soroe' v . a— i t W i w > a 3 t wi lii. ** (б) Tsumado
see Group I above). u ft ). u it
).
).
).
).
).
).
“ kuri * sashi * 1-dan kuse.
„ tt it tt
9 9
sashi, 2-dan kuse. 11 , 1 -dan kuse.
A comparison of the plays in these groups shov/s that Hyakuman. Utaura and Yamauba are included in all three and that all these plays have their kuse sections in the form of shidai, kuri, sashi» and a two-dan kuse ending with some form of the first
- il-i4 -
shidai. Genii kuyo, Kakitsubata. Kamo monogurui, Ro Gio and T^gan koji were all included in Group I and, as their kuse were not
specifically described as Kusemai in the texts of the plays, some what less certainly in Group IIlf and these five plays, too, prove to have kuse sections with structures very close to the one common to the other three. The one furthest from it is the kuse in Kamo monogurui ? and even that has a shidai. sashi. and a two-dan kuse. As the way in which the three groups were composed meant that the problem of the original Kusemai structure was being approached
from three different directions, there seems little doubt that the form of the kuse in the plays found in all three groups rep resents the regular and complete form of independent Kusemai.
Especially does this seem so when the supporting evidence of the ! five plays found in two of the groups is taken into account. It follows from this that, when Zeami talked of Kusemai having two dan, he meant the same as is indicated by the present-day term ni-dan kuse. and that what is now known as a shin-no-kuse 1 true kuse* is, indeed, the original Kusemai form. This can be verified by an explanation Zeami gave in connection with the music of Kuse-
(79)
mai e He said, *As the music at the end of the second dan goes on to a higher pitch, there is a melody rising in pitch before this*, and went on to quote lines from the Kusemai Yura no minato. Hyakuman and Jigoku to illustrate what he meant. With all these ■■■■■fniii.iii ip > >jWwwP— aa<
lines preceding the second ageha in the kuse sections of the Ho plays in which th^ey were used, it is cleai? that then, as now,
- 145 -
that the ageha were regarded as coming at the end of, hut forming part of, each dan.
The fact that this full form is now to he found in so few No merely means that it must have proved too long to fit easily into the framework of a play and that a shortened form was therefore used* A good example of this development was the No
(
80)
Tsuchi-g u m m a . The ’ Sarugaku dangi' tells how Zeami made use fi n *ii ii in^ i ^ M a M a M y n < iT w i i npnn.u„iijji,«gO *>mi'
of the kuse from his own play Tsuchi-guruma to improve Kashiwa- zaki, which was hy another author. The present kuse in Kashi1wazaki is hased on Keami’s Kusemai Zenko-.ii hut is quite different from the kuse now found in Tsuchi-guruma* Bxamination of the text of this play reveals that the original two-dan kuse, which is still part of Kashiwazaki, has been replaced hy a shorter, different one which is., however, still preceded hy a reference to the temple of Zehko'-ji* In a similar way, the long quotation from the Kuse mai Taishi in the 1 Go-on* which corresponds to the entire kuse
section of the No Jogu Taishi represents, in all likelihood, the modified piece as used in the No rather then the original Kusemai
in its full form,;- unless this too was a Kusemai only in its music*
Some idea of the importance of the part which Kuse mai have played in No ever since their adoption may he had from
the position and function of kuse within the plays and from the effect of Kusemai on No music* Kuse generally narrate the main story of a No play on which the whole piece is hased, and are almost always found at the most important point in a play, in
— ii+6 —
(81) the third part of the development section (ha no sandan) * It was in .accordance with Zeami!s teaching that kuse were put in this
(
82)
.
* main place* , so that, from the "beginning, whenever a Kusemai or a specially written kuse has "been used in a No play, it has normally "been made the kernel of the whole piece. .
As far as the music of No is concerned, it is hard to exaggerate the importance,;,both direct and indirect, of Kusemai. Kan-ami*s performance of Kusemai in Sarugaku must have been a bold
innovation at the time, for the harsh, rather vulgar character of its strong and catchy rhythm was very different from the softer, melodic Ko-uta style which audiences were accustomed to hear at
o
No performances. Although the experiment was successful, it was very soon felt that a somewhat modified style would be more accept able to Sarugaku audiences or, at least, to that section among the audiences that Kan-ami and Zeami were most concerned to please. They also felt, perhaps, that while the use of Kusemai music gave a welcome vitality and variety to Sarugaku music, the elevation of the art of No at which both were aiming would best be served by excluding the more extreme characteristics of the music. The modification of the Kusemai style and its fusion with that of the Ko-uta continued throughout the lifetime of Zeami, and although,
for him, the two styles never completely merged, by as early as about \U>20 there were very few who were aware of what was happen- i
(83) !
ing and could distinguish between them . The process of fusion i was insidious and constant and has produced, at the present day,
~ 1U7 -
(814.)
are virtually indistinguishable . The new element of Kusemai proved a great attraction in Sarugaku and, together with continued patronage for certain players and a succession of fine performers, helped to give Yamato Sarugaku a tremendous advantage over other groups* No players other than those of the four main Yamato schools do no(t seem to have followed Kan-ami!s lead in using Kusemai music
(85)
to any appreciable extent » So characteristic of these four groups did the Kusemai style become that it was given the name
(86)
'Yamato music' . With music being so important in No that Zeami _ (87)
could describe it as 'the very basis of No' , the popularity
(
88)
of the new style which followed the use of Kusemai by Kan-ami
must have been a major factor in the victory of the Yamato schools over their Dengaku and Sarugaku rivals and their survival to the present day9
Thus, the importance of the role which kuse came to assume within No plays and the new life and colour brought to No music by Kusemai make Kan-ami1 s adoption of Kusemai the greatest event in the development of No drama* Vi/hat followed from his
action also means that the influence of Kusemai has been immeasur ably greater than that of any other form, including Dengaku, for, so far as can be seen, Dengaku made no great step forward hut only set a good standard in the type of performance it shared with Sarugaku until the time of Kan-ami*
— 12+8 —■
Notes To Chapter V.
1. 'Ongyoku kowadashi kuden*, TZN 73* 2. TZN 296*
3* See NK 59. 4. TZN 218.
5. For'example, Kobayashi, YSK 280
6* NG 7°9. It could also be that the friendship that apparently existed between Kan-ami and Nan-ami before 1374 arose from their common interest in Kusemai.
7* Little is known about this person, who died in 1381 (Jogakki Qtd. NS 10), but he seems to have been one of the artistic coterie which Yoshimitsu gathered about him. The Writings
show that he must have had considerable musical skill and was a good counsellor to Kan-ami and his son. (See also n.6 above and n 012 below.)
8. See 2 Go-on1, TZN 218. 9. Jogakki. qtd. NS 10.
10. Also known as Tama-rin. In his TTama-rin ko*, Muromachi
nogaklci. Kobayashi points out that Tama-rin was probably only a nickname descriptive of the first character ^ of his name Rin-ami, used to distinguish him from a contempor
ary who had the same name written with a different first character.
11. The shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.
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that Nan-ami engineered the whole episode of Rin-ami’s return to favour by setting the piece to music himself and having, the young Zeami, Yoshimitsu1 s favourite, sing it before the shogun.
13* There was never any fixed age for gembuku and, since the Go- gumai-ki. qtd. NS 9, refers to Zeami as a child, it appears . that he had still not assumed adult stafcus by the 6th.
moon of 1378, the date of the entry. But it was unusual for the ceremony to be later 1han the 15th. or 16th. years and as boys in the Komparu group took adult status on reaching their fifteenth calendar year ('EH1, KJ 113), it cannot have been long after the summer of 1378 before Zeami did the same.
14. ’ Go-on’, TZN 217 and 218. 15* See below, Ohap.VII 206-8 • 16. *SD!, TZN 292.
17. TZN 217. 18. TZN 218.
19. 1 Go-on’, TZN 217.
20. This is clear from the Writings, in that they contain dis cussions about such pieces and record such compositions by Zeami and his son Motomasa, who died in 1432 (see, for example, ’Go-on’, TZN 213 and 219).
21. ’Ongyoku kowadashi kuden1 , TZN 73* 22. TZN 292.
•* 150 “
2l+. 1 Kyoku-zuke no shidai’, TZN 17U. 25* TZN 218-9.
26. TZN 295.
27. Although Sanari (Yokyoku taikan vol.7? 62) states that there
for inclusion in a No play intact (the Kokon yokyoku kai- dal remarks that Osaka monogurui is * an extraordinarily long piece’), the fact that Saikoku-kudari. to which it is very similar, has not been so used, and Zeami’s quota tion of the first lines of these pieces (’Go-on1, TZN 21.8)? leave no doubt that the present Rankyoku texts are the original ones and not, as so many are, extracts from No plays.
28. The long quotation in the ’Go-on1, TZN 215? which is headed ’Taishi, Kusemai’ and described as one of the Fushi-Kusemai
telling the story of Prince Shotoku, corresponds to the whole kuse section - kuri» sashi. and kuse proper - of
tion, that Z.eami was perhaps quoting the whole of the Kusemai and not part of the No, is therefore rather doubt ful (see p. 1U5)♦ (The No is not now performed, but the text is given in the Yokyoku sosho vol.2, and Yokyoku is no No containing this Kusemai, the
dai 1+82 and Nonomura (’ Genkb. kakuryu rankyoku-ko *, ifoen nlssho 108) both give Osaka monogurul as such a play. The
text of this play was not available to me, but the self- contained nature of Toproku-kudari. its unsuitable length
151 -
sambyakugo luban-shu ♦ Nikon meicho zenshu ed. vol.29* The present Rankyoku Jogcu Taishi omits the line which forms 'fc*10 kuri in the play and is the beginning of the sashi according to Zeami.)
29* Hereafter, the term Kusemai is used to mean only the inde pendent pieces and kuse the forms found in No plays.
30. See below, Chap.IX 300-2 • 31. TZN 216.
32. Nogami, Kan-ami Kiyotsugu 13^4*- There and in the following pages he also gives figures on the use of kuse in each of the five traditional groups of No plays.
33. This was the view of the writer of the Sarugaku denki (wr.
early 18th. cent.; given in Nnseki iisshu vol.1) who stated that the 66 pieces performed by Hata no Kokatsu for Prince i Shotoku were Kusemai and that they were made into No by the addition of other sung parts at the beginning and end. ! Although this view of the constxmction of No has often been dismissed , it is undoubtedly what happened to many Kuseraaj. 3*4-. The Kanze, Hosho and Komparu schools use the name 1 Rankyoku'
for their pieces, and the Kongo and Kita schools !KusemaiT. Strictly speaking, Rahkyoku is a wider term, since it
means Advanced, developed musical pieces1; but as nearly all the pieces chosen for their musical quality and ability to stand alone are the kuse sections of plays, Rankyoku and Kusemai are almost synonymous as used in present-day No.
152 ~
See Takano, Nihon engekl no kenkyu vol.2, 156.
As mentioned above, the Rankyoku Jo’gu Taishi. for example,
omits part of the introduction to the kuse proper. It is, therefore, always preferable to refer to the full text of the play when one is known to exist.
For details of the numbers of No having various types of kuse. see To da, ’Kusemai no kenkyu’, Engekishi kenkyu vol.2, h1-2. (Togan ko.ii, however, which he gives as having the most complete type of kuse. has, in fact, an
ichi-dan kuse.) For the various types of kuse and the names given to them, see also Nonomura’ s introduction to
.9 Nihon meicho zenshu ed. vol.
29, ii-6-7 etc.
hurl and eashi are of no fixed length and are sung out of time with the musical accompaniment, unlike the kuse itself. The sashi is not so much sung as delivered as a chant or recitative.
Except where otherwise stated, the plays referred to in this chapter are those in the present repertoires.
Tm 113. TZH 115* TZN 295*
That is, the texts of the seven plays given by Kawase in his Zeami nihitsu densho-shu . Five of these have kuse but all are ichi-dan kuse with no shidai. (Strictly speak
- 153 -
hoshi, is not in Zeamifs own hand but is a copy made in 1711 of a text written by him.)
44* op.cit. 42-4 . 45* ibid. 44*
46. ’Go-on’, TZN 202 and 214.
47. See, for example, Kawase, Zeami .jihitsu densho-shu 159 & 223.!
48. Given by Kawase, op.cit. :
i
TZN 113* • j
50. TZN 115.
51. See App.1 for translations of the Rankyoku Togoku-kudari and part of the No Hyakuman, given to illustrate the differ ences between Rin-ami1 s pieces and what can be shown to be a more regular Kusemai structure*
52. TZN 218-9*
53* Nose (ZJH vol.2, 236) sought to read into tada the impli cation that the pieces were unconnected with Sarugaku.
i''
54* See Nogami, Kan-ami Kiyotsugu 126-9? on this point.
55® In most cases these kuse are described in the texts of the plays as ’Kusemai’ or ’Ivlai* and, in some, the character concerned represents some kind of performer of Kusemai. 56. The text of this discarded play is available in a number of
collections. Some of these (e.g., Yokyoku hyoshaku vol.5 and Yokyoku sambyakugo,iuban-shu) give the kuse as a long 2-dan kuse. but others (e.g., Yokyoku sosho vol.1 and Yokyoku senshu, Kokumin bunko kanko-kai ed. vol.2) divide
- 154 -
first sliidai is repeated at the end of the first part, hut the division into two parts probably only derives from the existence in the Kanze school of two Rankyoku corresponding to the two parts of the kuse. In content it is one connect ed piece and is so given as a Kusemai in the Kita school. Of. Yura no minato. 11,63 below.
57* This play Is no longer in the No repertoires, but the text is given in Yokyoku sambyakugo,iuhan-shu.
58. The names of the Kusemai are given in brackets after the
names of the No plays in which the derived kuse are found. Two other Kusemai are mentioned in the Writings, Seisui-rii
( 'SD', TZN 357) and Yoshino-yama ( ’Go-on1, TZN 201-2); but the first cannot be identified with any known kuse, and the lines the second has in common with the No Yoshino-goto are not used in a kuse section.
59. ’Go-on’, TZN 219 and ’SD’, TZN 296.
60. *Go-on’, TZN 218. The ’SD1, TZN 295? quotes another line, also to be found in the kuse in Utaura. to illustrate a point about the music of Kusemai.
61. ’SD’, TZN 296.
62. * Go-on’, TZN 219. P.145 concerning the sometime use of this Kusemai in the No Tsuchi-gurutna.
63. ’Go-on’, TZN 218. As Zeami quoted a line from this piece (now to be found in the Rankyoku Yura monogurui) in the ’SD* to illustrate a point about Kusemai, Yura no minato almost certainly had the standard form (beginning and ending with
- 155 -
a shldai and being in two dsn) which he described there. Unfortunately, the text of the No in which it was used is not extant to show for certain that it contained shidai. but the line quoted in the’Go-on1 is shown as a kuri and
the present Rankyoku text of Yura monogurui shows that there followed a sashi and a two-dan kuse. This Rankyoku should be regarded as one continuous piece, as it is in the Kita school^ the Kanze division into two parts is purely ai*bitrary. (Gf. Qki-no-in, n .56 above.)
64* ’Go-on’, TZN 199-200. 65. ibid. 200*
66. ibid. 215* The text of this play, which is not now performed, is given in Yokyoku sosho vol.2 and Yok.volcu sambvakugo.iu-— i . mi ii ii. 11 n l i u n w a m a i I m ■ iii. . iniWiij > i . iii i b i* Iiii . w iiib ii ■ n,* n i i | r i m in ■ V i A ii iM T firfrrm ban-shu.
67* * Go-on’, TZN 213* 68* ibid. 218.
69* ibid. 212. As the lines quoted in the ’Go-on’ are the same as fcuFi* sashi, and the beginning of the kuse in the present-day play Yoro-boshi (this alternative form of the name Yoro-boshi. used in the play itself, has been current
since the time of Zeami and is the more common now), it is clear that Motomasa, the writer of that play, used some form of Zeami’s Kusemai when writing the No. But Z*eami used this same Kusemai in his own play Yoro-boshi (see Kawase, Zeami ,1ihitsu densho-shu 259-60) which was in
- 156 -
1432, he may have taken over the kuse section from Zeami* s instead of direct from the Kusemai. Any modifications
Zeami made to the original Kusemai in using it in his No play would, in that case, have been repeated by M&tomasa.
It appears from the ’SD*, TZN 295? that such modifications were made for, immediately before the statement that Kuse mai should begin and end with a shidai and should have two
dan, it says, ’The Kusemai Yoro-boshi is essentially Kuse mai in character.’ Thus, originally it was probably a model of its kind and much closer to Zeami’s regular form than can be shown now.
70. ’Go-on*, TZN 216. This piece is not described in the ’Go-on’ as a Kusemai but, unless it was itself a No, it is more likely to have been a Kusemai than any other kind of inde