William Vollmann - Kissing the Mask - Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, ... Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines

304: “With the rojo , simply being beautiful is not enough…” — Hori, Masuda and Miyano, trans. for WTV by Yasuda Nobuko and slightly rev. by WTV; p. 76. My visual description of the mask derives from the accompanying plate.

304: “How sad! My heart breaks! A flowering branch on a withered tree.” — Keene, p. 76 (“Sekidera Komachi”).

304: Qualities of sabi — De Mente, pp. 31–32.

305: “I lack form…” — Bethe and Emmert, p. 22 (my “retranslation” of the extremely literal word-for-word gloss).

305: “The century-old woman to whom you’ve spoken…” — Keene, p. 76 (“Sekidera Komachi”), “retranslated” by WTV.

305: Komachi’s tanka imagining herself as her own cremated smoke — Sato and Watson, p. 116.

305: The poem in the Tales of Ise which admonishes the exalted and the base not to fall in love — McCullough, p. 66. Even more apposite to Komachi is the following: “Kenshi’s remains vanished without a trace into smoke — a dreadful sight” (ibid., p. 250 [ A Tale of Flowering Fortunes ]). Kenshi had been an Empress.

305: Description of yase-otoko mask — After Kanze, Hayashi and Matsuda, paperback commentary vol., p. 55; hardback vol., plates 138–39.

306: The nymphomaniac’s “Komachi Dance” — Saikaku, p. 164 (“The Life of an Amorous Woman”).

306: “Yet could she have been as miserable as I was?” — Lady Nijo, p. 187.

307: “What do you now tell me…” — Sato and Watson, p. 115 (“retranslated” by WTV).

307: “The intensity of her expression of passion…” — After Brower and Miner, p. 29.

307: “Movement will grow from the chant…” — Zeami (Rimer and Yamazaki), p. 46 (“Fushikaden”).

308: Komachi’s poem of cowering away from malicious eyes — Brower and Miner, p. 188 (“ Utsutsu ni wa …”).

309: Description of the higaki-no-onna mask — After Kanze, Hayashi and Matsuda, paperback commentary vol., p. 35; and hardback plates 64–65.

310: “Revealed as she pulls the peplos to one side…” — Getty Museum, p. 19 (“Statue of a Kore [The Elgin Kore]”).

310: The pine tree immortality of poetry — Keene, Twenty Plays , p. 71 (“Sekidera Komachi”).

311: “My rooms shone with tortoise shell…” — Ibid., p. 74 (“Sekidera Komachi”).

311: “White jade, even in the mud, will retain its real appearance.” — Zeami, p. 136 (“Shugyoku tokka”).

27: URASHIMA’S BOX

312: The tale of Urashima — Manyoshu , pp. 216–18 (poem 656: “Urashima of Mizunoe”).

313: Concerning my ageing face — One late afternoon in a former Heike village, now a hot spring among whose attractions one counts bear sashimi, steaming sulphur-smelling water spewed from hotel pipes into snowy gulleys. The sun was low, the river blackish-green. A man stopped his truck, threw aside the netting from his reservoir, and caught a pair of immense carp for dinner. That low sun on the dark and snowy river reminded me most sadly of my younger times (never mind that I was ten years younger then). I felt oppressed by my own history. But from the crescent moon bridge I could see pressed against steamy panes the wrinkled breasts of old women; these attracted me with all their wise experiences which stratified them into golden sandstone. I wanted to place my forehead against those sulphur-dripping bulwarks of gentleness and drink their sweat as pilgrims do the holy water of Lourdes. Palms pressed against the glass, wide, affectionate buttocks, these performed cleanliness and steadfastness. When I took the waters myself that evening, I tried the outdoor pool. The cold wet air made my sore throat ache. Stripping, I eased myself into the water, which almost scalded me at first, then uplifted me. I gazed at the purple night, with steam from the pipe obscuring the stars.

313: “The town of Fuchu is nothing but corpses…” — De Bary et al., p. 448.

314: “Natural for me.” — Corn, p. 66 (Richard Meryman, “Andrew Wyeth: An Interview”).

314: “It was such a beautiful voice…” — Kawabata, Snow Country , p. 5.

316: Description of Lasa — After Getty Museum, pp. 129 (closeup), 136 (“Patera Handle in the Form of a Nude Winged Girl”).

316: “She sent no answer…” — Waley, No Plays , p. 158 (“Sotoba Komachi,” slightly “retranslated” by WTV).

28: THE DECAY OF THE ANGEL

318: “A face like new-fallen snow, unaware of what lies ahead” — Mishima, Runaway Horses , p. 26.

319: “Up until now I thought it best as his friend…” — Mishima, Spring Snow , p. 193.

320: “The instant that the blade tore open his flesh…” — Mishima, Runaway Horses , p. 419.

320: “In the average person, I imagine…” — Mishima, Sun and Steel , p. 8.

321: “Definitely gifted, but somehow not really sure how to cope with the ‘gift’ ” — Reiko Tochigi to WTV, personal communication, 2001.

321: “He can only be objectified through the supreme action…” — Mishima, Sun and Steel , p. 55.

323: Footnote: Zeami on the vicissitudes of Noh actors at various ages — Op. cit., pp. 22, 24.

323: “One must not copy the vulgar manners of common people.” — Zeami, p. 25.

323: “ THE SET is in extremely vulgar and commonplace taste …” — Mishima, Five Modern No Plays , p. 3 (“Sotoba Komachi,” italics in original).

324: Footnote: “There’s always something slightly crude about a dress made by a Japanese?” — Ibid., p. 16.

324: “The park, the lovers…” — Ibid., p. 7.

324: “They’re petting on their graves…” — Ibid., p. 9.

325: “Shadows are moving over the windows…” — Ibid., p. 19.

325: Footnote: Zeami on translating musical atmosphere into visual expression — Op. cit., p. 128 (“Shugyoku tokka”).

326: “If I think something is beautiful…” — Ibid., p. 3.

326: The ukiyo-e painting of Komachi — Ota Memorial Museum of Art (2006), p. 11 (1: Iwasa Matabei, “The Poetess Komachi”).

327: The violet blossoms on the maple — Kawabata, The Old Capital , pp. 1–2.

327: “As time passed, the memory of their embrace…” — Kawabata, Beauty and Sadness , pp. 122–23.

328: Description of ushin — Brower and Miner, p. 271.

328: “To wash oneself clean of one sin that was permeated with sacrilege…” — Mishima, Spring Snow , p. 258.

328: “He was always thinking of death…” — Mishima, Runaway Horses , p. 131.

29: SUNSHINE ON SILLA

331: Description of the Flower of Peerless Charm — Zeami, p. 120 (“Kyui”).

331: “The metaphor is much more subtle than its inventor…” — Lichtenberg, p. 87 (notebook F, no. 41).

332: “Do I not feel as I did in that dream…” — Novalis, p. 104.

332: Description of Rodin’s “Psyche” — Seen in the Musée Rodin. Sculpture ca . 1905, marbre inachevé .

332: Footnote on “Hagoromo” — After Waley, The No Plays of Japan , p. 221 (“Hagoromo”).

332: Description of Kannon — Standing thousand-armed Kannon Bosatsu No. 504, wood with gold leaf by Ruen, Kamakura period, 1251–66, Tokyo National Museum.

333: “In this polluted world…” — De Bary et al., p. 335 (Ikkyu Sojun, 1394–1481, “The Errant Cloud Collection”).

334: Description of the Roman Muse — Melpomene the Muse of tragedy, seen at the Getty Villa in Santa Monica. Her mask was as large as from her head to her breast.

334: Description of the two geishas viewing plum blossoms in the snow — Ukiyo-e print by Torii Kiyonaga (1752–1815), on view at the Tokyo National Museum.