Chikamatsu Mon'zaemon

"Some playwrights, thinking that sadness is essential to a jōruri, often put in words like 'How sad it is!' or the lines are chanted tearfully, as in the Bunyabushi style, but that is not how I write plays. The sadness in all my plays is based entirely on reason. Since the audience will be moved when the logic of the dramatization is convincing, the more restrained the words and the chanting are, the more moving the play will be. Thus, when one says of a moment of pathos 'How sad it is!' the connotations are lost, and in the end, the feeling conveyed is weak. It is essential that the moment be filled with pathos in and of itself, without having to say 'How sad it is!' For example, when you praise a landscape such as Matsushima by saying 'Oh what a beautiful scene!' you have said all you can about it in a few words but to no avail. If you wish to praise a scene, pointing out all its features objectively will reveal its intrinsic appeal naturally, without having to say 'it is a beautiful scene.' This applies to everything of this sort."

-Chikamatsu Mon'zaemon-