Yūgen
Yugen（1921）The Nō Plays of Japan, Tuttle (Allen & Unwin 1976), Tokyo; Rutland, Vermont; Singapore [EN]
- xxii[YUGEN] (section header)
- xxiiThe difficult term yūgen which occurs constantly in the Works is derived from Zen literature.
- xxii“When notes fall sweetly and flutter delicately to the ear,” that is the yūgen of music.
- xxiiThe symbol of yugen is “a white bird with a flower in its beak.”
- xxiiTo watch the sun sink behind a flower-clad hill, to wander on and on in a huge forest with no thought of return, to stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that goes hid by far-off islands, to ponder on the journey of wild-geese seen and lost among the clouds” – such are the gates to yūgen.
- xxivOne’s style should be easy and full of graceful yūgen, and the piece selected should be suitable to the audience.
- xxviIn representing the mysterious (yūgen) he must not forget the principle of energy.
- 18Nо̄ must be full of Yūgen.
- 23There is Yūgen in the wording as well as Yūgen in the acting.
- 23In Seami’s time, Yūgen was used to represent refined taste in general.
- 33What is Yūgen?
- 33So it is necessary for him to identify himself with the underlying reality, and thus to uncover the Yūgen.
- 34But besides Yūgen in the Nо̄ there is Yūkyo.
- 34In addition to Yūgen and Yūkyo in the Nо̄, we find Kurai.
- 34It is a kind of Yūgen – to abandon power and arrive at the essence.
- 35Seami symbolised Yūgen with the maple-tree and Ran-i with an old cedar which stands straight.
- 8This guiding principle is known by the un-translatable word “yugen”.
- 33I referred before to Yūugen, of which we hear much in the discussion about Nō.
- 33What is Yūgen?
- 33And no one can see him in this or in any other part without realising that his Yūgen or flower is indeed in full bloom.
- 33Yūgen is the spirit which makes its complete expression in beauty.
- 34When his interpretation is saturated with Yūgen, then he has become a master of the Nō.
- 34In addition to Yūgen and Yūkyō in the Nō, we find Kurai.
- 34It is a kind of Yūgen—to abandon power and arrive at the essence.
- 35Besides Yūgen and Yūkyō, Seami considered Ran-i, the expression of maturity in the Nō.
- 35Seami symbolised Yūgen with the maple-tree and Ran-i with an old cedar which stands straight.
- 17It was from Zen too that he got the term and meaning of Yūgen, of which more will be said later.
- 46To understand the music and the wording, unless very superficially, is difficult except to a cultivated Japanese, but the picture presented—a combination of dance enhanced by many subtleties of gesture, the colour and richness of the costumes, the personality, rather the impersonality, of the acting of the chief actor which makes up his Yūgen—all these pictorial qualities are what can make Nō fascinating to the European.