At home with his parents Tokubei is warned that the police are coming to arrest him for practising Christian witchcraft. In the last scene he appears on his scarlet sailing ship decorated with many brilliant colours. There is a fight on board, a pardon arrives from the lord, but at the same time he learns that his love, O-Tae, in despair, has taken her life.
His native land holds nothing for him—better far that he follow the fortunes of the sea. He gives the order to sail, and the big vessel begins to turn, creaking and straining until the prow projects well over the footlights, as though it would sail straight through the audience.
Tokubei stands at the prow reading O-Tae’s farewell letter, which is so long it reaches down over the side of the craft. The great white square sail is hoisted, and the vessel points out to the imaginary ocean, the gorgeous scarlet junk, with its sail full of the mystery of sea-going, recalling dim memories of pirate tales which charmed in childhood.
In an article contributed to a theatre magazine, Ihara Seiseiin tells how he discovered the plot of Romeo and Juliet in a comedy by Tsuruya Namboku, that indefatigable seeker after weird material for his plays. The coincidence is attributed to the fact that at the time the play was written, during Bunka (1804–1817), the Dutch were in Nagasaki and may have produced the play, a report of which eventually reached Namboku’s ears.
This work, says Ihara, was a comedy rather than a tragedy, and it was called by the fanciful title, Kokoro no Nazo Tokete Iro Ito (lit., The-Solution-of-the-Heart-Riddle-Coloured-Thread). The last two words of the title were suggestive of the thread shop kept by a widow named O-Ritsu, who had a beautiful young daughter, O-Chiyo, and also refers to the tangled strands of the plot. It was in five acts, the second and third showing Occidental influence. The head clerk, or banto, of the shop was a villain called Sagohei. But O-Chiyo had already bestowed her affections on a ronin, Honjo Tsunagoro. The mother, not in the secret of her daughter’s love affair, settled upon one Kambara Sagoro, and in spite of O-Chiyo’s unwillingness to accept this man as husband the mother went forward with the preparations for the marriage.
The scheming banto, who saw the pretty daughter as well as the prosperous thread business slipping out of his grasp, resorted to desperate measures, and consulted his confidential friend, a doctor called Torin. From him a quantity of poison was secured, but it possessed peculiar qualities, for like Juliet’s potion it produced sham death, and an antidote was to be administered that would bring O-Chiyo back to life.
The conversation concerning the poison was as follows:
Sagohei (turning to the doctor): I say, Torin-san, is this the poison I asked you to prepare?
Torin: Yes, it is. It is called Hammyo. I mixed it with suitetsu, hokyu, and sake, and it will kill a person in one minute. Should it succeed, the bridegroom will be turned out of doors, and you will take his place, also the thread shop will be yours. But I have an antidote that will revive the bride, and she will become your wife. The dead brought back to life! What a fine medicine I possess!
The banto received the deadly poison, and the doctor was just about to hand over the antidote when Sagohei was called away. At the same time the doctor received an urgent call to see a patient. There was nothing left for him to do but to trust the antidote to the little apprentice-boy of the shop.