Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/323

Rh Gompachi, therefore, setting ambition before love, pursued his way to Yedo. There he fell into dissolute habits, and, some years after, hearing much talk of a new beauty in Yoshiwara, discovered her to be no other than Komurasaki. Her family had fallen into dire poverty, and, to alleviate their sufferings, she had become an inmate of the huge metropolitan pleasure-house. This time Andromeda was in her proper place, the helpless victim of a ruthless monster, but to strike off her manacles a golden sword was needed, and this Perseus found it difficult to obtain. He took to robbery, which again involved murder, for his own fortune was far too meagre to allow of frequent meetings, far less of redeeming his sweetheart. At last he was caught and beheaded as a common malefactor, before he could compass his mission, and Komurasaki, accomplishing her own salvation, stabbed herself to death upon his tomb. If you should visit Meguro, about four miles west of Tōkyō, when the peonies are in bloom, you will have no trouble in ascertaining the position of their grave. It is called Hiyoku-zuka after the Hiyoku, "a fabulous double bird, which is an emblem of constancy in love."

Tragedies of this romantic character were very frequent in the Yedo period, though they generally ended in shinju, the simultaneous suicide of girl and guest, who thus hoped to enter on new life together. In fact, so frequent were they in the Genroku and Shōtoku eras (1688-1715), that the authorities tried to rob this death of attraction by cruel indignities to the dead. The bodies were exposed to view for three days on Nihon-bashi, hands and feet being tied together. Then the Eta, social pariahs, wrapped them in straw matting and cast them into a pit. It was