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themselves. Unlike the Nō, with its innumerable allusions and complexities of diction, the kyōgen is very simple in its language, and must indeed have been quite close to the speech of the common people of its day.

One of the characteristic literary products of the Muromachi Period is linked-verse, of which the outstanding example is probably “Three Poets at Minase.”^[1] The mood of this poem changes from link to link, as the different poets take up each other’s thoughts, but the prevailing impression is one of loneliness and grief, as was not surprising in a work composed shortly after the Ōnin Rebellion (1467–1477) which devastated Kyoto. From the period of the rebellion comes this curious allegorical poem found in a funeral register:

Mi hitotsu ni Hashi wo narabete Motsu tori ya Ware wo tsutsukite Koroshihatsuramu

Upon one body Double heads opposing chop- Stick beaks in order. Peck peck pecking off to death One bird: both heads and body.[2]

The image of the double-headed bird pecking itself to death is an apt one for the Japan of the period of wars. It was not until the end of the sixteenth century that Japan again knew peace.

The establishment of peace with the Tokugawa regime did not immediately bring about any flood of literature, for the country had still to recover from the wounds of a century of warfare. Humorous, or at least rather eccentric, verse began to be produced in large quantities, and a variety of frivolous tales also appeared. The first impor-

1. See page 314 for an explanation of linked-verse.
2. Translated by Sam Houston Brock. This is a very ambiguous poem and may be interpreted variously. The poet William Burford has rendered it:

   Carrion

   With your chop-

   stick beaks

   Pointed at me

   Have you come,

   at last,

   To peck me

   to death?