ZEAMI’S STYLE BY T. H. HARE

Zeami Motokiyo 世阿弥 元清, (1363-1443) was a Japanese noh actor and playwright. In 1374, when he was eleven, the sixteen-year-old Shogun of Japan, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, saw him in a performance and fell in love with him. From this attachment sprung five hundred years of shogunal patronage of what had been hitherto an undistinguished entertainment, as, with Yoshimitsu’s encouragement, Zeami went on to raise the literary level of noh drama and wrote a score of its major classics.

Presented here is all of Greek love interest in Thomas Blenham Hare’s thorough study, Zeami's Style: The Noh Plays of Zeami Motokiyo, published by the Stanford University Press, California, in 1986.

Note that Hare consistently expresses age the Japanese way of his sources, according to which a person is born aged one, and goes up one each subsequent New Year, so that between one and two years needs to be taken off to find the equivalent age in modern English. Hence for example, he says Zeami and Yoshimitsu were twelve and seventeen when they met.

1. A Documentary Biography

We make our beginning in 1374. This is not the year of Zeami’s birth, but in respect to the noh theater, it is every bit as significant. By this time, his father, Kannami, had attained broad popularity in the provinces around Kyoto and could count to his credit certain successes in the capital itself as well. Not until 1374 did his troupe play for the first time before the seventeen-year-old shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408). Zeami was twelve.^[1] [p. 12]

In the 1360’s or early 1370’s, the popularity of Kannami’s troupe began to increase. Father and son performed with great success at Daigoji and gained a substantial following in the capital. Then came the 1374 performance and the attentions of Yoshimitsu mentioned earlier.

The shogun was himself but an adolescent, and the most notable and controversial accomplishments of his reign-his solidification of Ashikaga power, his opening of trade with Ming China under the title King of Japan, his reunification of the northern and southern courts-were all years away in the future. He was already an important patron of the arts, but his interest in Zeami was not, it appears, exclusively aesthetic.

His affection for the boy actor was openly apparent and disturbing to certain conservative imperial aristocrats, not because of its homoerotic implications, but because Zeami seemed to come from among the lowest classes in society. One of them, Go-oshikōji Kintada ( 1324-83), wrote disdainfully in his diary:

The shogun had stands erected at Shijō Tōdōin and watched from there .... The child from the Yamato sarugaku troupe ... was called to join him, and he followed the proceedings from the shogun's box. The shogun has shown an extraordinary fondness for him ever since. He sat with the boy and shared drinks with him. Sarugaku like this is the occupation of beggars, and such favor for a sarugaku player indicates disorder in the nation. Those who give things to this boy find favor with the shogun, so the daimyo all compete with one another in making him presents, and they spend prodigious amounts.^[2]

Kintada probably spoke for countless other aristocrats who had seen their own authority and power decay while the likes of Zeami were enriched by shogunal largesse. The overt patronage of individual actors seems to have been a relatively recent development, and the occasion on which this incident took place, the Gion Festival of 1378, must have been a galling and threatening reminder of Muromachi social change. The festival was a reliable annual event with a five-hundred-year pedigree, but in recent years it had become bigger and brighter and noisier than ever before. Elaborate floats wound about celebrating the city in a lusty and obstreperous parade; the shogun himself watched from stands among the fish markets and pawnshops and sake wholesalers near the intersection of Shijo and Higashi no Toin avenues. The entire event was a testimony to the displacement of courtly culture and influence by the military class, the rich merchants and burgeoning guilds, and, perhaps worst of all, a band of provincial dramatic players.

This mixing of social classes was vital to the development of Zeami’s style in noh, and it was not, in this case at least, so repugnant to all the old aristocrats as to Kintada. In fact, the senior court statesman and renga poet Nijo Yoshimoto himself took an active interest in the boy actor. He seems to have had a profound influence on Zeami’s literary style and is credited with much of Zeami’s education in the Japanese classics. A letter survives testifying to the extent of his regard for the boy (Zeami is referred to by the name Yoshimoto gave him, Fujiwaka):

Should Fujiwaka have time, please bring him over with you once again. The entire day was wonderful, and I quite lost my heart. A boy like this is rare-why, look at his renga and court kickball [kemari], not to mention his own particular art! Such a charming manner and such poise! I don't know where such a marvelous boy can have come from.

In The Tale of Genji, Lady Murasaki is described as “adorable with her misty, yet-unplucked eyebrows,” and this boy is just as entrancing. I should compare him to a profusion of cherry or pear blossoms in the haze of a spring dawn; this is how he captivates, with this blossoming of his appearance.

In praising his waka and renga, I refer to his interesting manner of expression and his attention to the elegant beauty of yugen. When he dances, the movements of his limbs and the flutter of his sleeves are, in truth, more graceful than a willow swaying in the gentle breeze of the second month, more beautiful than all the flowers of the seven autumn grasses soaked with the evening dew .... It's no surprise that the shogun is so taken with this boy.

They say the most difficult thing to meet with is an opportunity, and to have happened upon this opportunity in spite of such difficulty is indeed a miracle.

“If an excellent horse doesn't meet up with trainer Bo Lo, he won’t even be able to line up his hooves. It took three generations for the Bian-he gem to be recognized for its true value.” If a person does not find someone capable of appreciating his talents, his true form stays hidden. I think it no trivial matter therefore that this opportunity has presented itself.

Please do arrange to bring the boy here again soon. In spite of myself, I feel as if the flower of the heart still remains somewhere in this fossilized old body of mine.

Throw this note into the fire immediately after you've finished reading it.^[3]

Such personal attention, from both Yoshimoto and Yoshimitsu, continues to raise eyebrows today,^[4] and to some, the great renga poet may look rather foolish writing a letter like this at nearly sixty years of age. His rhetorical excesses have led at least one scholar to question his motives in writing it, suggesting that the letter is less a sincere expression of admiration for Zeami than an attempt to flatter Yoshimitsu for his own appreciation of the young actor.^[5] It would, in any case, be a mistake to assume that Yoshimitsu’s and Yoshimoto’s appreciation of the Yūzaki troupe was based solely on the sexual allure of one of the actors. The young Zeami seems to have had much precocious dramatic charm in addition to his beauty, and Kannami’s genius was widely recognized. There are numerous references to his talent in Zeami’s treatises, among them, the following instructive anecdote:

Kannami was a big man, but when playing a woman’s role, he would comport himself with slender grace. When he played Jinen Koji [a play about a young Buddhist acolyte], he wore a boy’s wig, and as he took his seat on the priest’s dais, he looked as if he were no more than twelve or thirteen. From the part of the text reading “In the first generation of instruction ... “ he sang with such great variety that the shogun turned to Zeami and quipped, “My boy, you could do your best to fool the audience, but you’d never be able to carry something like this off.”^[6]

Zeami’s talent on stage is mentioned here and there, but no concrete examples of what it was he did so well are given. Again, though, we find hints of what his performance may have offered at this time in his comments on the training of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy:

About this time, the child will begin to be able to carry a tune, and he will start to understand a bit about the noh, so he should be taught various sorts of noh. First of all, since he is a child, anything he does will be pretty [yugen]. Furthermore, his childhood voice will be at its peak during this period. With these two advantages, his bad points will disappear and his good ones blossom.

For the most part, you should not have children do too much dramatic imitation. It neither looks good nor increases the child’s ability. However, as the child becomes really skillful, he may be permitted to perform almost anything. A pretty little boy with a good voice who is talented besides can hardly go wrong.^[7]

Aware though he is of a child’s natural advantages on stage, Zeami places little faith in them, and he goes on to say:

Such skill is not true skill. It is merely temporary .... Consequently, it does not provide any means by which to judge the boy's potential. At this stage, those things the child can do easily should be made the high points of his performance, and major emphasis should be given to his technique. His movements should be exact and his singing understandable syllable by syllable. His basic gestures in the dance should be strictly correct, and he should be resolute in his training.

These passages point to certain aesthetic goals in the performance of noh. Some have gone so far as to say that the boyish “prettiness” (i.e., yūgen) Zeami speaks of here is the basis for all yūgen in the noh, and whether this is true or not, the importance of dance and song in the young actor’s training is obvious from both passages. [pp. 16-19]

We know that Yoshimitsu was fond of the boy Zeami and respected Kannami, and we know that he saw Zeami in performance at Daigoji and Takegahana. But what else can be surmised from extant documents about their relationship?

Zeami's references to Yoshimitsu, as recorded by his son Motoyoshi, suggest that the shogun was a difficult patron who had to be carefully catered to. Consider, for instance, this observation:

The purpose of our profession is to soften the human heart, and unless one is well versed in its workings, one's progress will be hindered at some time. Yoshimitsu's lady, Takayasu-dono (a courtesan from Higashi no Toi), was particularly sensitive to the workings of the heart; Yoshimitsu had a special fondness for her and throughout his life, she never once incurred his displeasure. She could keep him happy.

She knew when to offer him wine and when not to, and because of her sensitivity, she was a success .... Zeami, too, was particularly good at this and was praised by everyone.^[8] [p. 25]

Conclusion

As a young performer restricted to the Yamato tradition, Zeami would have had little to offer on stage. The best Yamato roles, those of “impressive appearance or violent action” (i.e., the demon, the demon-like god, and the monogurui, or so-called mad role), were ill-suited to a child. At the same time, the practicalities of life required that the troupe take advantage of whatever assets the boy actor had. His physical beauty was a valuable professional asset - so basic to his early success that in later years he spoke of the child's beauty (in song and dance) as a paradigm for kana, “the flower” (i.e., dramatic interest).^[9] It may well be that Zeami’s first interest in yugen was a direct result of his own professional capacities as a boy actor. His task was to bring his beauty into play for professional advantage on stage, and so, a search for his “style” in these first years as an actor (and perhaps playwright) is to be found at the nexus between his natural physical advantage, the tools available to him from his Yamato heritage, and anything else he could bring to the stage.

Consider the following characters: Kagetsu, Jinen Koji, Togan Koji, Seigan Koji. They are apprentice priests, all proficient in a variety of arts, all attractive boys. Each has lent his name to a noh play, and at least three of these plays date from sometime before 1423.^[10] Now, consider what we know of the relationship between Zeami and Yoshimitsu, together with a group of plays encouraging the display of boyish beauty and subtle adolescent homoeroticism. If Zeami did not write these plays,^[11] he certainly used them as a drawing card, and they reflect a dramatic milieu with which he was completely familiar as a boy and young man. Furthermore, they provide valuable evidence of a successful dramatic style, and a part of Zeami’s heritage, whatever his eventual disposition of it. [pp. 228-9]

 

^[1] Zeami, Sarugaku dangi, p. 301 in Omote Akira and Kato Shiiichi, eds., Zeami, Zenchiku in Nihonshiso taikei, vol. 24, 1974. [Author’s footnote 1]

^[2] Gogumaiki, quoted in Kobayashi Shizuo, Yokyoku sakusha no kenkyu, 1974., p. 101. [Author’s footnote 16]

^[3] The letter is quoted with arguments for its authenticity in Fukuda Hideichi, “Zeami to Yoshimoto,” Geinoshi kenkyu, 10 (July 1965): 46-50. It is addressed to a sonshōin, the title of a high officer in one of the esoteric sects at either Enryakuji, Todaiji, or Ninnaji. A certain Kyōben, the sonshōin at Tōdaiji, seems the most likely candidate, since Yoshimoto’s second cousin was his superior there and the style of the letter indicates that it was sent to an inferior (see Nishi, “Nō,” p. 107). Yoshimoto’s vocabulary is of interest. He refers to Zeami as hokehoke to shite, hokete, and hokeyaka (my “charming,” “entrancing,” and “captivates,” respectively). All three words come from a word originally meaning “unclear” or “vague.” One meaning became “to have one's heart/mind stolen away and to be lost in a trance.” Yoshimoto uses hoke hoke in his treatises on renga. For instance, in his Jūmon saihishō (in Imoto and Kido, p. 115) he says, “Now probably the best of all is to achieve a quality of hokehoke and permeation.” He considers this ability to entrance an important quality in poetry. Here he has transferred it out of the rather abstract critical category to describe Zeami’s appearance. Furthermore, the word hana, “flower,” appears twice in the letter (my “blossoming of his appearance” and “the flower of the heart”). This word became one of the most important terms in Zeami’s early noh theory, and its appearance here cannot but make one speculate about Yoshimoto’s influence on Zeami. Similarly, one should note the use of the word yūgen, which may mean something like “mystery and depth” here. This is another of Zeami’s favorite aesthetic terms. Yoshimoto’s reference to Genji comes from the chapter entitled “Wakamurasaki” [Author’s footnote 18]

^[4] Toita, “Uguisu,” discusses the possibility that Kannami’s fourth prohibition for the Yuzaki troupe, that against raising bush warblers, was actually a discreet way of prohibiting homosexual relationships between troupe members. He links this to the encouragement of such relationships between them and wealthy and powerful men in the hope of gaining their patronage of the troupe. The article is in large part conjecture, but thoughtfully written and well argued. [Author’s footnote 19}

^[5] Omote, “Yoshimoto.” In this article Omote admits that he once doubted the letter’s authenticity because it was too long and flowery, too full of praise, and so on, and though he has come to agree with Fukuda that Yoshimoto is probably the author, he now questions Yoshimoto’s motives. [Author’s footnote 20]

^[6] Zeami, Sarugaku dangi, p. 264 in Omote Akira and Kato Shiiichi, eds., Zeami, Zenchiku in Nihonshiso taikei, vol. 24, 1974. [Author’s footnote 21]

^[7] Zeami, Filshikaden, pp. 15-16 in Omote Akira and Kato Shiiichi, eds., Zeami, Zenchiku in Nihonshiso taikei, vol. 24, 1974. The translation for yūgen here is intended to convey the meaning of that word in Zeami's earliest theory, and is quite different from the translation I choose for his later uses of the term. [Author’s footnote 22]

^[8] Zeami, Sarugaku dangi, pp. 306-7  in Omote Akira and Kato Shiiichi, eds., Zeami, Zenchiku in Nihonshiso taikei, vol. 24, 1974. [Author’s footnote 41]

^[9] For example, in Nikyoku santai ningyōzu, pp. 123-24. [Author’s footnote 4]

^[10] Seigan Koji may be an exception (see Omote, Nōgakushi, p. 499). [Author’s footnote 5]

^[11] Jinen Koji was written by Kannami. The other three plays are traditionally attributed to Zeami, but strictly speaking, he is referring to characters, not plays, when he uses these names in Sandō (pp. 136, 139). [Author’s footnote 6]