Background
Kanadehon chûshingura (Copybook of the treasury of loyal retainers:假名手本忠臣蔵, often called simply "The Forty-seven Rônin") is the most celebrated of revenge plays (adauchi mono: 仇打ち物), first written as an eleven-act Bunraku (puppet play: 文楽) premiering in August 1748 at the Takemoto-za theater in the Dôtonbori entertainment district of Osaka. A nearly identical kabuki adaptation appeared later that same year. The title is also written with a different and simpler first character (仮). The Chûshingura theatrical tale was based on actual events from 1703 when former retainers of the lord of the Akô domain, Asano Naganori, exacted revenge by murdering Lord Kira Yoshinaka, who had (apparently) so enraged their lord that Asano attempted to murder Yoshinaka. Asano's action was a serious violation of the samurai code of behavior within a shogunal palace, whose punishment resulted in Asano's seppuku ("incision of the abdomen," ritual suicide: 切腹).
The oldest surviving Chûshingura play is Goban Taiheiki (Chronicle of great piece played on a chessboard) written in 1706 by Japan's foremost playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (近松門左衛門 1653-1725). The plot involves the historical Kô no Moronao (高師直 died 1351), who was the first to hold the position of Shitsuji (Shogun's deputy) and became general of the Shogun's (Ashikaga) armies, which defeated the forces of the southern court in the fourteenth century. However, the genesis of Chikamatsu's story can be found in a puppet play also by Chikamatsu written less than a month earlier called Kenkô hôshi monomigurugusa (The sightseeing carriage of the priest Kenkô), in which the priest persuades a general named Kô no Moronao to transfer his unwanted libidinous attentions from a court lady to the wife of Enya Hangan. When she rejects Moronao, he denounces her husband and forces him to commit seppuku. Thus the catalyst for future theatrical treatments and their various expositions of the vendetta had been set by two Chikamatsu plays in 1706. Also established was the transfer to the sekai (world or sphere: 世界) of the fourteenth century. Naturally, this sekai resonated with another rousing saga, the Taiheiki (Chronicle of great peace:太平記), a historical epic from that era covering the period 1319-67. It deals primarily with the Nanboku-chô (1336-92), a period of war between the Northern Court of Ashikaga Takauji in Kyoto and the Southern Court of Emperor Go-Daigo in Yoshino. The foremost puppet and kabuki version, the 1748 Kanadehon chûshingura, presents a re-imagined vendetta by the retainers of Enya Hangan (a provincial lord or daimyô) who committed seppuku after a confrontation incited by Kô no Moronao (a chief councilor to the Shogun).
The doubling structure of the Taiheiki epic with the Chûshingura drama revolve around refashionings of the real-life Kô no Moronao. In the historical Taiheiki, he is portrayed as a villain who is accused of unbridled violence, greed, and lewdness. It is this earlier, long-standing reputation that must have appealed to the Chûshingura playwrights when they sought a villain for their revenge tale to be set in a distant sekai, as they could not name the real-life figures in the Asano affair for fear of running afoul of the shogunate's censorship edicts.
Design
One thread in the Chûshingura tale focuses on the plot by the rônin (masterless samurai, 浪人) to learn the layout of the mansion belonging to the Kô no Moronao who goaded their lord En'ya Hangan into a serious breach of decorum, ending in his ritual suicide, called seppuku (lit., "Incision of the abdomen," 切腹). The person who succeeds in this intrigue is Otaka (also called Oran-no-kata), the secret lover of the curio-shop (dôguya, 道具屋) owner Koharuya Yashichi. Otaka is a koshimoto (lady's maid, 腰元) and the concubine of the villain Kô no Moronao, who sacrifices herself in order to infiltrate Moronao's palace. After much effort she manages to steal a map of the palace grounds, which she presents to Yashichi. To end her shame over becoming Moronao's concubine, she takes her own life in a kago (lit., "vehicle basket," a palanquin: 駕籠 or just 駕) during her return to the palace.
Our impression of Hokushû's diptych is a second edition, but is finely printed (with embossing) and very well preserved with excellent colors. (The first edition includes poems on each sheet and omits the publisher's seal.)
References: IKBYS-I, no. 153 (2nd. ed.); MFA Boston (acc. no. 11.26637-8 first ed.; 11.35461-2 second ed.); NKE, p. 271
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