Miidera was a Noh play centred around a mad woman, and her search for her son at the temple complex of Mii-dera near Kyoto.
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 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 quotes the play: "Hey there, wait a moment / before you strike the bell /at the cherry blossoms".
See also
References
- G Leupp, Male Colors (1997) p. 68
- Miidera
- K Brazell ed., Traditional Japanese Theater (1998) p. 159
- J-P Potel, Yeats and Noh (2015) p. 193
- Quoted in A Waley, The Noh Plays of Japan (1976) p. 250
- Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (1999) p. 464