Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/182



he story of the love and death of Chūbei and Umegawa was popular on the Kabuki stage, and was so well known, especially in the version by Chikamatsu called, which has been translated by Asataro Miyamori, that any part of it could be presented with assurance that the audience would be familiar with what had gone before or would come after, and would feel the emotions aroused by the whole tragic tale. An outline of the action was in their minds and it is an outline that we need here.

Magoyemon, when his wife died, married again; and chiefly because of the step-mother in the home, he arranged to have his son Chūbei go to another province and become the adopted son of a widow there whose long-established business he became able to manage for her. The young man fell in love with a girl of the Pleasure Quarter named Umegawa who returned his affection, and when another admirer offered to ransom her from the proprietor of the house in which she served, Chūbei stole money entrusted to him by his clients, so that he might buy the freedom of Umegawa himself and make her his bride. One of these clients, Tambaya Hachiyemon, went to a tea-house where Umegawa and other girls were gossiping and told the story of the theft, but Umegawa already had been freed and although her rejoicing was turned to sorrow, she decided to be loyal to Chūbei and fled with him on a night of storm, planning to reach if possible his boyhood home so that they might die there together.

Pursuit was evaded until they reached the village where Chūbei’s father Magoyemon still dwelt; but when they came to the outskirts of it they realized that arrest was imminent and took shelter in a house from which they hoped to send word to him. While they waited the old man was seen passing, quite unconscious of their presence, and as they watched he slipped and fell, breaking the strap of his straw sandal as he did so. Chūbei remained in hiding, but Umegawa, concealing her identity, rushed out