If there is a celebrated place or ancient monument in the neighborhood, [mention of it] is inserted with the best effect somewhere near the end of the third part of the Development.” (Seami Motokiyo, ap. Waley)
Seami is prescribing the construction of a Noh-play. The development or middle-section he has divided into three parts of which the last is to be heightened by animated dance-motions or “simple chant” and it will lead into the ending, the climactic dance and full lyric song in which the Noh-spirit reveals itself undisguised—that is, in gorgeous costume—to our awareness. The action of Noh as a whole is a progressive seeking, explaining, hinting at, adumbrating such a revelation. By the end of the development, the preliminary process has been animated to the emotionally warm aesthetic surface of dance and chant; and the climax is the present dancing-out of the thing that is made awares. Let us then ask, Why is the celebrated place in the neighborhood brought in just at the end of the development, as if it is this that precipitates the climax?
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