I have a rural note of one of my visits to the Nō. [[219]] One farce brought on an inferior priest of a sect which is now extinct but surely deserves to be remembered for its encouragement of mountain climbing. This "mountain climber," as he was called, was hungry and climbed a farmer's tree in order to steal persimmons. (The actor got on a stool, obligingly steadied by a supposedly invisible attendant, and pretended to clamber up a corner post of the stage.) While he was eating the persimmons he was discovered by their owner. The farmer was a man of humour and said that he thought that "that must be a crow in the tree." So the poor priest tried to caw. "No," said the farmer, "it is surely a monkey." So the priest began to scratch after the manner of monkeys. "But perhaps," the farmer went on, "it is really a kite." The priest flapped his arms—and fell. The farmer thought that he had the priest at his mercy. But the priest, rubbing his beads together, put a spell on him and escaped. The word Nō is written with an ideograph which means ability, but Nō also stands for agriculture.[[220]]
FOOTNOTES:
[ [211] The Kwanto plain (73 by 96 miles) includes most of Tokyo and Saitama prefecture, and also the larger part of Kanagawa and Chiba and parts of Ibaraki, Gumma and Tochigi.
[ [212] The characters on these slabs are beautifully written. They have usually been penned by distinguished men.
[ [213] The Japanese man wears below his kimono or trousers a pair of bathing shorts. Peasants frequently wear in the fields nothing but a little cotton bag and string.
[ [214] Poor households ordinarily use, instead of movable hibachi, a big square box in an opening in the floor and resting on the earth.
[ [215] When I was in Tokyo, tradesmen's messenger boys received only their food, lodging and clothing and an occasional present, with help no doubt in starting a linked business when they were out of their time. Now such youths, as a development of the labour movement, are on a wage basis and receive 20 yen a month.
[ [216] The place has since been burnt down. A bigger building has been erected.
[ [217] See [Appendix LXII].
[ [218] There is also the occasional whiff of the benjo; but, as an agricultural expert said, "It is not a bad thing that a people which is increasingly under the influence of industrialism should be compelled to give a thought to agriculture." There are European countries famous for their farming whose sanitary experts are evidently similarly minded.