V

'Ye shall not, while ye tarry with me, taste
From unrinsed barrel the diluted wine
Of a low vineyard or a plant illpruned,
But such as anciently the Aegean Isles
Poured in libation at their solemn feasts:
And the same goblets shall ye grasp embost
With no vile figures of loose languid boors,
But such as Gods have lived with and have led.'

The Noh theatre of Japan became popular at the close of the 14th century,
gathering into itself dances performed at Shinto shrines in honour of
spirits and gods or by young nobles at the court, and much old lyric
poetry, and receiving its philosophy and its final shape perhaps from
priests of a contemplative school of Buddhism. A small daimio or feudal
lord of the ancient capital Nara, a contemporary of Chaucer's, was the
author, or perhaps only the stage-manager, of many plays. He brought them
to the court of the Shogun at Kioto. From that on the Shogun and his
court were as busy with dramatic poetry as the Mikado and his with lyric.
When for the first time Hamlet was being played in London Noh was made a
necessary part of official ceremonies at Kioto, and young nobles and
princes, forbidden to attend the popular theatre in Japan as elsewhere
a place of mimicry and naturalism were encouraged to witness and to
perform in spectacles where speech, music, song and dance created an
image of nobility and strange beauty. When the modern revolution came,
Noh after a brief unpopularity was played for the first time in certain
ceremonious public theatres, and 1897 a battleship was named Takasago,
after one of its most famous plays. Some of the old noble families are
to-day very poor, their men it may be but servants and labourers, but