YOROBOSHI

This is a print of the mask Yoroboshi from the Noh Play, Yoroboshi.

Yoroboshi is the son of a man in the Osaka area who is thrown out of his home by is father, because of malicious gossip, which for one reason or another his father believes. The boy goes to a budhist temple known as Tennojo where he lives by begging. If this whole situation is not bad enough, he then goes blind, probably from malnutrition and grief. The father, now deeply regretting his cruelty to his son, as well he should, goes to this very temple to give alms to the beggers and lo and behold who should he find, his poor son. The father then tells the poor lad who he is and off they happily go, home toegether.

I took much of this synopsis from: A GUIDE TO NO, YOROBOSHI, by P.G. O’Neill and from Ms. Rebecca Teele of the International Noh Institute.