Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/54

 time,” as is believed by other authorities both Japanese and Occidental, the meaning is changed and a previous series of portraits is predicated.

It is not necessary to go into the details of the argument, for the upholders of both translations agree that the picture was published as an advertisement for some of Sharaku’s prints. In general, those who read nibanme as “second part” believe that it introduced the series of bust-portraits on dark mica ground designed for the play, which opened at the Miyako-za on the fifth day of the fifth month of 1794—a dating which would make it one of the first Sharaku prints to be issued. On the other hand those authorities who read nibanme as “for the second time” predicate a previous series of prints and as to these, three suggestions have been made: First, that the early dating may be accepted, and that the first series was by some other artist than Sharaku; second, that the bust-portraits were not all issued at the beginning of the fifth month and that this print introduced a second series of them; third, that the series introduced was that of the large full-length figures which began in the seventh month. Those who advocate this last view call attention to the light mica backgrounds which are used only in the print we are discussing and in those in which two figures are shown at full length.

The present compilers cannot pretend to settle this vexed question, but we are unwilling to accept the idea that the reference may be to a “first series” not by Sharaku; and since we have found that all the bust-portraits on dark mica seem to be connected with fifth-month plays the likelihood of their having been issued in two sets seems to us considerably increased.

It may also be well to point out that in 1794 the word nibanme, used technically for the “second part” of a production, could hardly have had quite its later implication of “most important part,” for during that year the “second parts” did not even have separate titles.

The probabilities as we now see them, therefore, are that nibanme does mean “for the second time,” and that there was a “first series” consisting of either a part or the whole of the bust-portraits. On this theory exact dating is impossible, for the print may have been issued as late as the seventh month of 1794, and almost certainly was not issued as early as the beginning of the fifth month.