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

89: Surface brilliance and heart — Ibid., pp. 100–101 (“Kakyo”).

89: Appearance of doing nothing — Ibid., p. 94 (“Kakyo”).

90: Forget the details, etc. — Ibid., p. 102 (“Kakyo”).

90: “ The art of the flower of tranquility… ” — Ibid., p. 121 (“Kyui”).

5: THE DRAGONS OF KASUGA

91: Description of “Kiyotsune” — from a Takigi-Noh performance on the grounds of Kofuku-ji Temple, Nara, May 2005.

92: The Venerable Myoe’s visions and their revision — Based on Tyler, pp. 142–45 (introduction to “Kasuga ryujin”).

92: “The face is long…” — Dictionary of Japanese Art Terms , p. 177 (entry on Kurohige).

93: Kofuku-ji as “older and more prestigious than Kasuga” — See Aoyama, pp. 16, 24.

93: The Venerable Gedatsu of Kasagi and the Seven Great Temples: Ibid., pp. 148, 151.

93: Footnote: Gedatsu’s supernatural vision — The Taiheiki , pp. 368ff.

93: Affiliation of Zeami’s troupe with both Kasuga and Kofuku-ji — Rath, p. 37, who notes that they were also affiliated with Tonomine Temple in Nara.

93: Zeami: “One must not permit this art to stray…” — Op. cit., p. 15.

94: Footnote: Fenollosa on Kasuga as the origin-site of Japanese drama — Pound and Fenollosa, p. 59.

94: Kanami’s promise of Takigi performances at Nara in perpetuity — Zeami (Rimer and Yamazaki), p. 245 (“Sarugaku dangi”).

94: Remarks of Mr. Kanze Hideo — Interview in Kyoto, May 2005.

95: First definition of yugen — Indebted to a beautiful passage in De Bary et al., pp. 365–66.

95: Yugen as the highest principle of Noh — Ibid., p. 369 (Zeami, “Entering the Realm of Yugen”).

95: Immediately following three sentences (some prerequisites of yugen ): Ibid., pp. 369–71; paraphrased and abbreviated by me.

95: Noh’s nine stages of excellence — Ibid., 372–76 (Zeami, “The Nine Stages of the No in Order”).

95: Footnote: The silver bowl must be oxidized — De Bary et al., p. 367.

96: Tanizaki on Noh, Japanese flesh and darkness — Lopate, pp. 349–51.

96: Bowing of the vegetation before Myoe of Mikasa Grove — Tyler, p. 149 (chorus of “Kasuga ryujin”).

97: The man who went hawking in Kasuga — Tales of Ise , pp. 35–36 (Dan I).

97: “Matsukaze” ’s links to The Tale of Genji and The Tales of Ise — Tyler, op. cit., pp. 184, 186–87.

97: Muromachi illustrations to The Tale of Genji — Murase, chaps. 11, 45.

97: Footnote on Muromachi Period — Zeami, p. 8 (intro.).

98: The Hokusai woodblock drawing of Kofuku-ji — One Hundred Poets , p. 157 (ill. to # 57, Fujiwara no Mototoshi).

98: Lady Han’s poem about Kasuga moor — Keene, Twenty Plays , p. 135 (“Hanago”).

98: Yukigeshiki Uji no Ukifune — Miyako Odori program, 2005; trans. for WTV by Sumino Junko.

99: Some other miscellaneous textual allusions to Kasuga — Brower and Miner (p. 208) cite an ancient poem about “the green fields of ancient Kasuga,” with erotic overtones of girls waving their white hempen sleeves. Zeami’s father Kanami was said to have been taken to Kasuga as a boy and dedicated to the god Kasuga Myokin, who is sometimes equated with the Dragon God (Hare, p. 13). It was only at Kasuga and the Shogun’s court that the enigmatic “Yumi-Ya” canto of Noh could be sung (Pound and Fenollosa, p. 8). Kasuga is mentioned in a poem in the classic Tosa Journal (McCullough, p. 91), and Abe no Nakamaro made a poem to the Chinese when departing (ibid., p. 87): “I see the same moon / that appeared above the hills / of Mikasa at Kasuga.” In the Noh play “Motomezuka,” the chorus chants an invocation to the watchfire guardian of Kasuga (Keene, Twenty Plays , p. 42). In the play “Taniko,” pilgrims remark on Mount Mikasa in Kasuga as they pass it (ibid., p. 322).

99: Proposal that Lady Nijo become the Emperor’s concubine — Lady Nijo, p. 265, n. 3.

99: Kasuga’s tree carried to the capital — Ibid., p. 146.

99: The lover’s dream of Kasuga — Ibid., p. 105. For a brief description of the place in her day, see p. 202.

99: The concubine’s flawless recitations from the Kokin Shu poems — Shonagon, pp. 37–39.

99: Arthur Waley on the relative meagerness of Noh’s allusions — The No Plays of Japan , p. 41.

100: “A nerve, a wire, a roadway…” + “The chief work of literary men…” — Fenollosa, pp. 22–23.

100: Utagawa Kunimori I’s erotic parodies of Genji — Uhlenbeck and Winkel, p. 209 (“A Critical Study of the Charms of Women,” figs. 82a — b). The attribution is not completely certain; the artist may be Utagawa Yoshikazu.

100: “The shite ’s parts are more reliable than the waki ’s…” — Hare, p. 58.

100: “About the instrumentation and the dance choreography less can be said.” — Again, see Hare, pp. 58–61.

100: “… more visually explanatory and possibly centered on yugen …” — Bethe and Emmert, Noh Guide 7, p. 76.

100: Revised coloration of Rokujo’s robe — Ibid., p. 70.

100: “Then you should take lines from well-known poems…” — Zeami, Sando , quoted in Hare, p. 54. Many Noh plots are derived from folktales (see for instance Ikeda, pp. 175, 236–37). However, Donald Keene opines (Twenty Plays of the No Theatre , p. 2) that “the allusions that are so troublesome to the translator could not have been entirely clear even to the first audiences.”

101: Ivan Morris on “false exoticism” — Shonagon, p. 17.

101: “All that remains of Aeschylus is his genius.” — Malraux, p. 46.

101: Footnote on hon’i : “Express impatience in waiting…” — Brower and Miner, p. 254. Not mere books, but leviathan-encyclopedias ought to be devoted to cherry blossom symbolism in Japan. In his youth, Zeami himself was compared with ”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.” — Nijo Yoshitomi, quoted in Hare, p. 17. Sometimes I sympathize with Princess Shikishi (died 1201), who wrote in a tanka about cherry blossoms: “Coldly they fall; coldly I watch” (Sato and Watson, p. 182).

6: SUNSHINE AT MIDNIGHT

102: Interview with Mr. Mikata — In the temple chamber where he had performed “Michimori” the previous night, Kyoto, October 2006.

103: Proust on Madame Berma — Vol. 1, p. 485 (“Madame Swann at Home” section of Within a Budding Grove ).

103: Footnote: Thirteenth Case on snow in a silver bowl — Hsien and Ch’in, pp. 88–91. In the verse appended to this koan we read the following typically cryptic lines: “He knows how to say, ‘Piling up snow in a silver bowl.’ The frog can’t leap out of the basket. A double case. Quite a few people will lose their bodies and lives.” And here is the pointer to the Thirty-Seventh Case (p. 226): “Some people lower their heads and linger in thought, trying to figure it out with their intellect. They hardly realize that they are seeing ghosts without number in front of their skulls.”

7: PERFECT FACES

106: Epigraph: “Someone once said that black hair is a ‘shunga’…” — Miyata Masayuki, p. 5 (excerpt from the art book Rafu [naked woman]); trans. for WTV by Sumino Junko; English substantially revised by WTV.

107: Footnote: Chao Luan-Luan’s encomia, and remarks on the same — Weinberger, pp. 118–19, 233.

107: Frequent image in the bijin-ga of Kaigetsu — Moronobu to Shoki Ukiyoe , trans. for WTV by Sumino Junko. Figure 12: Kaigetsudo, Ando. “Tachi-bijin zu” (A standing beauty). Idemitsu Museum.