Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/192



he text of this play, or series of loosely connected episodes, is not known to have survived, but as we have a list of the characters portrayed by the various actors who took part in the production, and as a number of these are well known celebrities of the fourteenth century, we can say something about them. Furthermore an old play-bill gives a general outline of at least one thread of the action. The episodes presumably were fanciful and freshly composed as well as strung together for the occasion.

The part of the plot which can be learned from the banzuke, was that when the design of Ashikaga Takauji to put a rival emperor on the throne was discovered by Shinozuka Gorō Sadatsuna, who is represented in the print that follows, the loyalist general Nitta Yoshisada disguised himself as a court gardener and, after disguising two loyal women as his assistants, went secretly on guard in the palace grounds. This scene is shown in numbers 70 to 72.