The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (56 page)

22. Among us, the nobility take pride in playing the viola; in Japan, it is an occupation for the blind, like concertina
⁵⁵
players in Europe
.

If Japanese noblemen and samurai were expected to be proficient at composing poetry, the tea-ceremony and swordsmanship, Portuguese nobility were expected to master the troubadour's art of singing one's own poems or
romanceiros
(ballads) while plucking the viola [
braguesa
].
⁵⁶
The popularity of ballads in Portugal is suggested by their publication as inexpensive broadsides and in book-sized collections, beginning around 1548.
⁵⁷
In his
Book of the Courtier
(1528) Castiglione remarked, “… singing poetry accompanied by the viola seems especially pleasurable, for the instrument gives the words a really marvelous charm and effectiveness.”
⁵⁸

As regards blind concertina players, today in Portugal or Spain one is likely to encounter gypsies playing the concertina; the blind often sell lottery tickets.

In Japan, the lute was indeed identified with blind musicians, who were called
biwa-houji
or priests of the
biwa-h shi
, and they seem to have been particularly active in and around Kyoto. Although they were rarely actual Buddhist priests, they assumed a religious guise (i.e. costume and shaved head). Unlike the Portuguese nobility, the specialty of the
biwa
players was not love songs or hymns, but legend, and mostly the
Heike-monogatari
, which tells of the tragic downfall of a beloved, highly aesthetic noble clan.
⁵⁹
However, it is apparent that the
biwa
was played by more than the
biwa-houji
. When Saris visited Nagasaki twenty-eight years after Frois penned the
Tratado
, he was paid a courtesy call by the “King of Hirado” who brought some women with him who played the
biwa
in a manner of a
samisen
(a three-string banjo introduced to Japan from the Philippines a century later):

The kings women seemed to be somewhat bashful, but he willed them to bee frolicke. They sang diuers songs, and played vpon certain instruments (whereof one did much resemble our lute) being bellyed like it, but longer in the necke, and fretted like ours, but had only foure gut strings. Their fingring with the left hand like ours, very nimbly, but the right hand striketh with an iuory bone, as we vse to playe upon a citterne with a quill. They delighted themselues much with their musicke, keeping time with their hands.
⁶⁰

23. Our clavichords have four strings and are played with keys; the Japanese ones have twelve strings and are played with wooden picks made for this purpose
.

The clavichord was a small (less than four feet long), free-standing or tabletop keyboard that was very popular with middle class families in Europe as well as lesser nobles. It also was a favorite of music schools attached to monasteries and cathedrals.
⁶¹
Around the time Frois was growing up, his hometown of Lisbon had twelve clavichord makers.
⁶²
While four strings may not seem like a lot, fretted clavichords had multiple keys and associated tangents that struck each string in a different location. Also, unlike the piano, which produces a relatively finite sound when the keys are depressed, the clavichord is more like a guitar in that one can depress the keys with differential force and correspondingly engage the strings in such a way as to allow for variation in sound.

The Japanese
koto
is a long zither that is invariably played using a tubular pick that fits completely over the end of the finger. (The verb
hamaru
, used to indicate donning a pick, is also used for putting on a ring.) By the mid-nineteenth century the
koto
had thirteen rather than twelve strings. Arguably it was the one instrument that most attracted Westerners, for it makes a sweet tinkling or harp-like sound far sweeter than Japanese lutes and softer than Japanese flutes. Despite the considerable strength needed to depress the strings and carry the
koto
, traditionally it has been the instrument of “proper” young women. During the Edo era that followed Frois,
senryû
joked about the
koto
being an instrument played and appreciated by women who grew up as guarded young virgins. Yet this cloying quality is not intrinsic to the instrument, which some Japanese and Korean women play with the fervor of a blues guitarist.

24. Among us the blind are very pacific; in Japan they like to fight and they go about with canes and daggers
⁶³
and are very amorous
.

Europeans viewed blindness as punishment from God, particularly for lustful behavior.
⁶⁴
Thus it is not surprising that the blind were pacific, accepting alms or playing the concertina for passersby.

The Japanese had a somewhat similar attitude toward the blind, believing that blindness was karmic or an expression of a prior sinful existence. Blind singer-prostitutes, the
goze
, are usually beaten in
senryû
. Superstition said it was good luck to hit the
goze
that one slept with!

And yet the blind also were understood as privileged
vis-à-vis
the unseen world, particularly the world of the dead.
⁶⁵
The blind in Japan have a long history of working as musicians, masseurs, pimps and money-lenders. Many became extremely wealthy in the latter capacity. During the Edo era some even bought—that is to say, freed—high-level courtesans, something that cost the equivalent of millions of dollars today. But perhaps the most striking thing about the blind was how they organized themselves during the centuries prior to the arrival of the Jesuits. In 1548, there were two blind “sects,” and like most Buddhist sects, each sect did not hesitate to guard its turf. And if sect violence was not enough, the blind had a reputation for being sharply tempered and for nursing a grudge. With all their money and women to protect, their canes came in handy, especially in the dark when they were the only one who could “see” what was happening.

25. Noblemen in Europe sleep at night and have their entertainments during the day; Japanese noblemen sleep by day and have their parties and amusements at night
.

In the following
chapter (14)
Frois implies that only women and children in Europe were afraid of the night. Arguably, most sensible Europeans stayed home after sundown, owing to thieves and sociopaths.
⁶⁶
Elites entertained themselves during the day at cock matches, horse races, gambling houses, taverns, pleasure gardens, banquets,
⁶⁷
and occasionally by mixing it up with commoners at fairs, where people occasionally delighted in such things as cat burning.
⁶⁸

In ancient times, Japanese noblemen used to play the roving tom at night. This contrast suggests the upper class still had a generally nocturnal lifestyle.

26. In Europe, it is not customary to eat and drink during [
theatrical
] soirées
,
⁶⁹
plays and tragedies; in Japan they never have such events without wine and appetizers
.
⁷⁰

Nowadays in towns and cities across the United States (e.g. New York's Central Park) or in Europe (e.g. Verona) people bring a picnic to operas and classical music performances. You might say “we” have developed a Japanese sensibility for mixing food with performance, particularly during the summer.

27. Among us, it is customary for there to be jumping about and tambourines raised in the air during merrymaking
⁷¹
; they find this very strange and consider us mad or barbaric
.

As one of the Japanese ambassadors to Europe noted, Japanese dancers jumped and whirled about to depict someone possessed of a demon or spirit (see
#14
above). The Japanese infrequently “jumped for joy,” except perhaps when drinking (and singing) or in response to certain festival music. Reading this distich one wonders who put on such a show for the Japanese. Presumably Portuguese sailors rather than Jesuits did the merrymaking.
⁷²

28. Among us it would be considered mad and barbaric for a great nobleman to ride bareback and with his head uncovered; in Japan it is customary for them to go about in this manner
.

This distich would seem better suited to
Chapter 1
on men or
Chapter 8
, on horses, as it has no obvious tie to drama, dance, etc. Apparently having discussed how European merrymaking looked foolish to the Japanese, Frois felt compelled to concoct a contrast that said, “Hey, you Japanese do things that are foolish too.” In a Europe that was preoccupied with civility,
⁷³
the thought of a nobleman riding a horse without a hat or a saddle was shocking. As regards the Japanese, Morse remarked:

An illustration of the tolerance of the people and the good manners of the children is shown in the fact that no matter how grotesque or odd some of the people appear in dress, no one shouts at them, laughs at them, or disturbs them in any way. I saw a man wearing for a hat the carapace of the gigantic Japanese crab. This is an enormous crab found in the seas of Japan, whose body measures a foot or more in length and whose claws stretch on each side four or five feet. Many looked at this man as he passed and smiled. It was certainly an odd thing to wear upon the head when most of the people go bareheaded.
⁷⁴

29. In Europe, plowing is done by one man with a pair of oxen; in Japan, plowing is done by one ox with two men
.

No drama or dance here either. Evidently, after proceeding from “foolish in dance to foolish with horse,” Frois recalled how surprised he was to observe two men plowing with an ox in Japan. The Japanese did not generally goad their oxen (poking them forward with a stick) but rather led them using a nose ring. One could well imagine a Japanese farmer and his son plowing a field with one in front and the other in back. Actually, one could imagine a similar scene in Europe, particularly as an Anglo-Saxon manuscript from England shows two men plowing with two oxen (one goads the oxen forward and the other guides the plow)!
⁷⁵
The Japanese apparently used both shallow and deep tillage plows,
⁷⁶
depending on the land being farmed (cows and even people might pull a shallow tillage plow in “soft” soil; one or more oxen might be used to pull a deep tillage plow or to break hard-packed soil).

1
  A complete collection of Vicente's works first appeared in 1562. Gil Vicente,
Auto Da Barca Da Glória, Nao D'Amores
, ed. Maria Idalina Resina Rodrigues (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1995), 61–62.

2
  Melveena McKendrick,
Theatre in Spain 1490–1700
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 39; Jonathan Thacker,
A Companion to Golden Age Theatre
(Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2007), 162.

3
  Shelly Fenno Quinn,
Developing Zeami: The Noh Actor's Attunement in Practice
(Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005), 3–18; Donald Keene and Thomas Rimer, “The Vocabulary of Japanese Aesthetics II,” In
Sources of Japanese Tradition, Second Edition, Volume One: From Earliest Times to 1600
, eds. Wm. Theodore de Bary, D. Keene, G. Tanabe, and P. Varley, pp. 364–387 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 369; Andrew J. Perarik, “Noh Masks.” In
Japan's Golden Age: Momoyama
, ed. Money L. Hickman, pp. 291–30 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 291; Shio Sakanashi,
Kyôgen: Comic Interludes of Japan
(Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1938); Kunio Komparu,
The Noh Theater, Principles and Perspectives
(New York: Weatherhill, 1983).

4
  
Noh
reached the peak of its popularity during the reign of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598), who was himself fond of performing. George Elison, “Hideyoshi, The Bountiful Minister,” In
Warlords, Artists, and Commoners
, eds. George Elison and Bardwell L. Smth, pp. 223–245 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 242; Perarik,“Noh Masks,” 291.

5
  Kakuzo Okakura,
The Ideals of the East, with Special Reference to the Art of Japan
(New York: IGG Muse Inc., 2000[1904]), 183.

6
  Frank Hoff. “City and Country: Song and the Performing Arts in the Sixteenth Century.” In
Warlords, Artists, and Commoners, Japan in the Sixteenth Century
, eds. George Elison and Bardwell Smith, pp. 133–163 (Honolulu: The University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 134–137.

7
  Sakanashi,
Kyôgen
, 19.

8
  
Jinrikisha Days in Japan
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1897), 98.

9
  Vicente,
Auto Da Barca Da Glória
, 107. As this quote indicates, Vicente wrote in Spanish as well as Portuguese.

10
  Thacker,
A Companion to Golden Age Theatre
, 145.

11
  Quinn,
Developing Zeami
; Eta Harich-Schneider,
A History of Japanese Music
(London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 420–422.

12
  Akira Tamba,
The Musical Structutre of Noh
, trans. Patricia Matoré (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1981), 17.

13
  Vicente,
The Boat Plays
, 24–45.

14
  Tamba,
The Musical Structutre of Noh
, 22–27; Harich-Schneider,
History of Japanese Music
, 436.

15
  Brown,
History of Theatre
, 162–163.

16
  
Autos sacramentales
also were performed indoors in the palaces and homes of the nobility. Gil Vicente, for instance, staged plays in the palace of João II and his wife Queen Leonor, as did Juan del Encina for the Duke of Alba in his palace near Salamanca. It is not clear what the “separate structure” would be in this case, although Frois' larger point seems to be that the audience, in any case, cannot see actors waiting to take the stage.