Page:Tales from old Japanese dramas (1915).djvu/50

20 of gidayū chanters and puppet players of Ōsaka went up to Yedo, and gave their performances. But the epical dramas they used were all compositions by the Ōsaka writers. About that time, Toyotaké Hizen no Jō, a famous gidayū chanter, established a marionette theatre called Hizen Za in Yedo; while another great chanter, Satsuma Geki, established a rival theatre called Geki Za or Satsuma Za. For several years after their establishment, these theatres invited chanters from Osaka, and performed dramas by Ōsaka writers; but about 1770, they began to perform pieces by Yedo dramatists.

Hiraga Gennai (1729–1779), whose pseudonym was Puku-uchi Kigwai, was the greatest among the Yedo epical dramatists. He was the eldest son of a samurai of low rank of Shido-ura in Sanuki Province. But the ambitious youth gave his birthright to his brother, and went to Nagasaki, where he studied the Dutch language, botany, and physics. Later he went to Yedo, where he studied Chinese and Japanese classics. He was gifted with wonderful talents, and made several industrial inventions. Unluckily, however, he could find no one to patronize them. Therefore, by