For Reading 18.5, Zeami Motokiyo’s Semimaru: One of the aims of Noh theater is to reveal the inner strength of a character even in the most tragic circumstances. How does this selection reflect Semimaru’s inner strength?
What will be an ideal response?
Semimaru is a blind prince who lives as a beggar in a bamboo hut on Mount Osaka. He attributes his blindness to laxity in the performance of his religious duties in a former life, for which his emperor father exiled him from court, as he explains to his attendant, Kiyotsura. He shows his inner strength by arguing that his suffering as an ascetic works to “purge in this world my burden from the past,/And spare me suffering in the world to come.” Semimaru accepts his place, as painful as it might be, because it was his father’s command and will ultimately help expiate his former impiety.
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