Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/45

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REFINEMENTS AND PASTIMES
Hewed into myriads of blood-streaming parts;Dying ten thousand deaths daily, yet living;Clutching sharp blades and treading on spears;Shattered and crushed by the rock-piling torture;Writhing in flames that fuse marrow and bone;Choked by the breath of fierce-burning fires;Clasped in the bergs of the frozen blood-sea;Famished, and feeding on fragments of iron;Slaking parched thirst with drafts of lead molten—Countless the tortures hell holds for the wicked.Shall they be spared that have wittingly sinned?Shall not the demon that dwells in their bosomGive them shrewd earnest of sufferings to come?And like frail clouds that float through the moonlight,In the after-world life they shall wander distraught.

In the absence of any rational connection between religious chaunts like the above and acrobatic performances of the nature of the Den-gaku, it seems reasonable to assume that the relation between the two did not extend beyond the borrowing of the Den-gaku stage and accessories for the purposes of the Buddhist dance. At the same time, the credit of originating a stage does not belong to the Den-gaku performers. Stages for the Kagura dance had long existed at many of the principal Shintōshrines—three in the province of Ise for the Daijin-gu services; three in Omi for the Hyoshi services; one in Tamba, one in Kawachi and one in Settsu for the Sumiyoshi services, and four in Nara for the Kasuga services. The Den-gaku stage was only a modified form of

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