''Miidera'' was a
Noh
is a major form of classical Japanese dance-drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Developed by Kan'ami and his son Zeami, it is the oldest major theatre art that is still regularly performed today. Although the terms Noh and ...
play centred around a mad woman, and her search for her son at the temple complex of
Mii-dera
, formally called , is a Buddhist temple in Japan located at the foot of Mount Hiei, in the city of Ōtsu in Shiga Prefecture. It is a short distance from both Kyoto, and Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake. The head temple of the Jimon sect ...
near
Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...
.
Plot
Driven mad by the loss of her young son, possibly abducted as a
boy prostitute, the heroine is urged in a dream to seek him at Miidera temple. There the woman is much impressed by the temple bell, and recounts a long list of episodes involving temple bells.
When she finally draws attention to herself by striking the bell, she is recognised by and reunited with her son - the
aesthete
Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be pro ...
Oswald Valentine Sickert considering that "The sounding of the bell is the hinge of everything, a thing of great sentiment".
Literary links
An early
haiku
is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, ...
quotes the play: "Hey there, wait a moment / before you strike the bell /at the cherry blossoms".
See also
*
Kagema
is a Japanese term for historical young male sex workers. were often passed off as apprentice kabuki actors (who often engaged in sex work themselves on the side) and catered to a mixed male and female clientele. For male clients, the preferre ...
*
Kannon
Guanyin () is a Bodhisattva associated with compassion. She is the East Asian representation of Avalokiteśvara ( sa, अवलोकितेश्वर) and has been adopted by other Eastern religions, including Chinese folk religion. Sh ...
*
Nāga
The Nagas (IAST: ''nāga''; Devanāgarī: नाग) are a divine, or semi-divine, race of half-human, half-serpent beings that reside in the netherworld (Patala), and can occasionally take human or part-human form, or are so depicted in art. ...
References
{{Reflist, 2}
Noh
Noh plays