Abstract

Four Plays from Old Japan

The article presents information on four plays from old Japan. Of the four plays presented two, "Somebody-Nothing" and "The Fox Grave," were short comic sketches-comic in an inscrutable fashion that reminded one of the most humane Mikado that ever did in Japan exist. There was the master with his two henchmen, and one waited for the introduction of the boiling oil or the melted lead. The longer plays were less effective, if more ambitious. "Forsaken Love," a "poetical comedy," is a melancholy fantasy in which a dashing young Samurai falls in love with a beauteous maiden and, coldly ignored, decides to "renounce the world" and seek consolation in the arms of Buddha. He gets him to his nunnery and makes friends with the children and animals who play about the temple.