Background
Keisei somewake tazuna (A courtesan's reins dyed in different colors), written by Naka Harusuke and the actor Nakamura Utaemon III (under his pen name Kanazawa Ryûgyoko), was adapted, as were quite a number of other plays, from Koi nyôbô somewake tazuna (The loving wife's multicolored reins: 恋女房染分手綱) written in 1751 by the puppet master Yoshida Bunzaburô under the pen name Yoshida Kanshi I. ( It has been reported that the accomplished dramatist Harusuke became so enraged at what he believed to be a poorly constructed play that he attacked his co-writer Utaemon with a knife!) Koi nyôbô was a revision of Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Tanba yosaku matsuyo no komuro bushi (Ballad of Yosaka of Tanba pining through the night 丹波与作待夜のこむろぶし) (1708), which it follows, more or less, while adding a subplot involving the Yurugi daimyô (military lord: 大名). As such, this secondary theme is an adauchi-mono (vendetta play: 仇打ち物) in the style of jidaimono (history play, lit., "period piece": 時代物) that was adapted from Chikamatsu's sewamono (domestic drama, lit. "everyday piece": 世話物).
The main theme involves Shigenoi, a lady-in-waiting at the Yurugi estate who is having an affair with Date Yosaku, a retainer to Saemon Yurugi, daimyô of Tanba. Yurugi givs him 300 ryô to ransom Iroha, a geisha in Gion, but the money is stolen by another retainer named Sagizuka Kandayû. (In the original Chikamatsu's version, Yosaku is a profigate who gambles away the money.) Shigenoi and Yosaku have had a child together, and their illicit relationship threatens to end in her exile or death until her father, a Nô actor, performs Dôjôji in which he commits seppuku (ritual suicide) to atone for his daughter's crime. Yurugi is moved by the performance and allows Shigenoi to remain as wet nurse to his infant daughter Shirabe-hime, although she is separated from her son and Yosaku is banished. He is then compelled to earn a living as a pack-horse driver. The play continues well into later years when Iroha, who changes her name to Seki no Koman (Koman from Seki) and falls in love with Yosaku. He is given 300 ryô by his brother-in-law (a blind masseur named Keimasa) and, by chance, is reunited with his son, called Jinejo no Sankichi, also a pack-horse driver. Much later, Yosaku and Sankichi (by then called Yonosuke) defeat the villains who had slain Keimasa and, finally, Yosaku is welcomed back into the Yurgi household, where he lives with Shigenoi as his wife and Koman as his mistress.
Design
Yurugi Saemon (由留木左衛門), the lord of the Tanba Province, is shown on the far-left sheet, while holding a devil mask (Hannya) from the Nô theater. Hannya (般若) is one of the most recognizable characters from Japanese theater, due in part to her spectacular mask, with its sharp horns, inhuman and aggressive expression, grimacing mouth, and gold covered fangs. The mask is used to express a woman's rage and jealousy. Specifically, elegant and beautiful women who are betrayed by their lovers and driven by obsession and jealousy are transformed into demons. The Hannya mask (般若面) is said to be demonic and dangerous, but also sorrowful and tormented, displaying the complexity of human emotions.
Behind him are a few of his retainers, including one who holds a janome-gasa ("snake's-eye umbrella" (蛇の目傘) over his master. The tri-color cartouche at the far right identifies the play and indicates that the present scene is from Act I.
For more about the artist, see Hirosada Biography.
References: WAS-IV, no. 340 (right and center only; 016-1311 and 016-1567)
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