Comments on the Play
In this play there is perhaps less description of the beauties of Nature than in many of the Nō, but the opening lines are particularly fraught with the meaning which permeates the whole play.
The dew remains until the wind doth blow.
The comparison of human life to a drop of dew is one frequently made in the literature of the Nō. Throughout this play there are many phrases showing how deeply the characters feel the transitoriness of human life. After Hitomaru’s longing for a place to rest a little while, Kagekiyo exclaims—
Nay, in the three worlds there is not a place.
Kagekiyo’s behaviour to his child, and his reception of her after her long search for him, appears to us to be most cruel; but it is, nevertheless, based on the conceptions of the chivalry of his time. Kagekiyo’s leading thought was the really unselfish desire to keep the shame of his condition from touching his daughter. His first wish is that she shall not even recognise or speak with him; but when this is frustrated, he commands both the servant and the villager to send her back immediately their short meeting is over. And yet he does not seek even a moment’s embrace, nor does he use an endearing phrase to his daughter. The play is a good illustration of the way that the old codes of Japanese chivalry imposed courses of action which seem now in this softer age well-nigh inhuman in their repression and conquest of the natural feelings.
KAGEKIYO[30]
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
| Kagekiyo | Shite |
| Hitomaru, Kagekiyo’s daughter | Tsure |
| Servant to Hitomaru | |
| Villager | Waki |
| Chorus | |