ys.

*"On the death of the Emperor Inkyo (A.D. 453), the Korean Court sent
eighty musicians robed in black, who marched in procession to the
Yamato palace, playing and singing a dirge as they went."

PASTIMES

Foremost among the pastimes of the Japanese people in all epochs was
dancing. We hear of it in the prehistoric age when the "monkey
female" (Sarume) performed a pantominic dance before the rock cave of
the Sun goddess; we hear of it in protohistoric times when Inkyo's
consort was betrayed into an offer that wrecked her happiness, and we
hear of it in the historic epoch when the future Emperor Kenso danced
in the disguise of a horse-boy. But as the discussion of this subject
belongs more intelligently to the era following the Nara, we confine
ourselves here to noting that even the religious fanatic Shomu is
recorded as having repaired to the Shujaku gate of the palace to
witness a performance of song and dance (utagaki) in which 240
persons, men and women, took part; and that, in the same year (734),
230 members of six great uji performed similarly, all robed in blue
garments fastened in front with long red cords and tassels.

The tendency of the Japanese has always been to accompany their
feasting and merry-making with music, versifying, and dancing. At the
time now under consideration there was the "winding-water fete"
(kyoku-sui no en), when princes, high officials, courtiers, and noble
ladies seated themselves by the banks of a rivulet meandering gently
through some fair park, and launched tiny cups of mulled wine upon
the current, each composing a stanza as the little messenger reached
him, or drinking its contents by way of penalty for lack of poetic
inspiration. There were also the flower festivals--that for the plum
blossoms, that for the iris, and that for the lotus, all of which
were instituted in this same Nara epoch--when the composition of
couplets was quite as important as the viewing of the flowers. There
was, further, the grand New Year's banquet in the Hall of
Tranquillity at the Court, when all officials from the sixth grade
downwards sang a stanza of loyal gratitude, accompanying themselves
on the lute (koto). It was an era of refined effeminate amusements.
Wrestling had now become the pursuit of professionals. Aristocrats
engaged in no rougher pastime than equestrian archery, a species of
football, hawking, and hunting. Everybody gambled. It was in vain
that edicts were issued against dicin