The Studio Volume 18 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...outskirts of a shrine, protected, if protected at all, from the weather by a plain, wooden shed. For they belong to the class of open-air, minor deities, familiarly known as "wet gods." Yet they play a large part in the emotional life of the people. The amusing Kiogen, named Rokujizo, seemed to please the younger members of our audience infinitely more than the romantic and spectral dramas which preceded it. A pious farmer, anxious to attest his gratitude for a good harvest, resolves to put up six Jizo effigies in his fields, and, seeking a sculptor to carry out his design, falls in with a knavish fellow, who boasts that he can carve statues more quickly than any one else in the world, and promises that the six shall be finished by the following day. The bargain is concluded. Then the pseudo-sculptor persuades three confederates to personate Jizo, entrusting them with the jewel, the staff, and the other symbols. As soon as they are well posed as living statuary he brings the farmer to admire them, and, pretending that the other three are at the opposite end of the field, sends the extemporised gods by a short cut to anticipate the buyer's arrival. He, however, though duly impressed, desires to see the first three again, and then again the second three, until the impersonators, tired with running backwards and forwards, forget what pose and what emblem to assume, entirely destroying all illusion by their ridiculous perplexity. The farmer discovers the trick and administers a sound drubbing to the fraudulent artist, while the Jizo make their escape. The humour of this naturally depends on the "business " of the performers, since no pretence is made to literary merit in the dialogue, which is couched in colloquial Japanese of the same perio...