Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/287



he six prints that follow as numbers 122 to 127 certainly have to do with scenes in which was played as the nibanme after the Soga piece, one scene of which is recorded in the preceding triptych; and numbers 128 and 129 which we class as unidentified, have been connected by some authorities with the same production.

Among all the plays with which Sharaku’s prints deal this is the only one of which a complete text is known to exist, and in its altered version of the well known story of Gengobei and Koman the action was briefly as follows: When a precious flute long treasured in a provincial household was found to be missing, the young heir of the family, accompanied by Gengobei, Sangobei and other retainers, was sent to Edo to search for it. The night life of the old Tokugawa capital had plenty of allurements for provincials, and Sangobei promptly fell in love with a geisha called Koman who, in order to get rid of him, pretended love for his companion, Gengobei. Sangobei, furious at this, slandered his fellow retainer to their young master and got him discharged from service. The disgrace of Gengobei on her account made Koman really fall in love with him, but the attentions of Sangobei became so urgent that she was driven to pretend dislike for the man for whom she did care, and Gengobei, who had returned her love, was driven by jealous rage to kill her. When Koman was dead Gengobei learned that her devotion to him had been real and unwavering, and as he found the missing flute in the possession of Sangobei it made a natural theatrical dénouement for the hero of the piece to kill the villain, restore the musical instrument to its owner and so reinstate himself in the good graces of his lord.

In the older version of the story with which the public had been familiar, Gengobei and Sangobei were friends, Koman was not a geisha but the wife of Sangobei, and Gengobei, instead of being in love with her, was