Nakamura Ganjiro of Osaka in his favourite rôle, that of Izaemon, the lover of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s drama, and played for two enturies by the Kabuki actors.
Izaemon next learns that although Yugiri has been ill she has recovered, that a samurai, Hiraoka of Awa, is interested in her, and that the son born to Yugiri and himself has been adopted by Hiraoka.
Believing Yugiri faithless to him, and overcome by jealousy, he enters her room and awaits her coming, pretending to be asleep. When she succeeds in arousing him he feigns coldness and indifference, but finally he can no longer suppress his true feelings, and they give expression to the sufferings they have both undergone during the separation. It is one of the best love idylls of the Japanese stage.
The conversation between the youthful lovers is interrupted by the abrupt entrance of a stranger dressed as a samurai, wearing a sword. Taking off the cloth wrapped about the head, the newcomer reveals the coiffure of a woman, adorned with beautiful combs and hair-pins. It is O-Yuki, the wife of Hiraoka, who, disguised as a man, has sought an interview with her rival. She has come to ask Yugiri to relinquish all claim to the child, wishing to adopt him as heir of the Hiraoka family.
There is a pathetic scene when Yugiri journeys to the home of the samurai that she may see her son for the last time, and Izaemon, in order to obtain one glimpse of the boy, goes disguised as a kago, or palanquin bearer.
The path of true love never did run smooth. Yugiri becomes ill. The plight of Yugiri and Izaemon appears hopeless. O-Yuki, overcome with pity, sends money to ransom Yugiri from the Ogiya, and at the same time Izaemon’s mother, softened by her son’s sufferings, sends a still larger amount to buy Yugiri’s freedom. Her child is also restored to her, and with her loved ones she goes forth to freedom, all to be happily united with Izaemon’s mother in Kyoto.
In one of the best sewamono, Nozaki-mura, or The Village of Nozaki, by Chikamatsu Hanji, is seen the eternal triangle composed of Hisamatsu, O-Some, and O-Mitsu.
Hisamatsu, employed in the establishment of a well-to-do pawnbroker of Osaka, fell in love with the daughter of the house, O-Some. They were apparently made for each other, and the parents of O-Some would have gladly given their consent to the marriage, had not the villain of the play, an elderly, dissipated clerk of the pawnshop, cast covetous eyes on his master’s daughter, and, jealous of the growing friendliness between Hisamatsu and O-Some, spread scandal about them.
There is another obstacle, however, for Hisamatsu has already been betrothed to O-Mitsu. He has been selected by O-Mitsu’s father, according to the prerogative of parents in Japan to choose life companions for their children. O-Mitsu lives with the old man in the country, anxiously awaiting the day when she will become the bride of Hisamatsu, they having been brought up like sister and brother.