Ninokuchimura Village, Scene from the Joruri "Meido no hikyaku" by Chikamatsu Monzaemon
新口村
- Birth Year
- 1882
- Death Year
- 1944
- Date
- ca. 1904
- Technique, Material, Format
- color on paper, hanging scroll
- Dimension
- 141.5 x 78.7 cm
- Donor name
- Mr. Nemoto Akio
- Category
- Nihonga (Japanese-style Painting)
- Inventory Number
- 2000-JP-004
The image depicts a scene at Ninokuchimura village from the joruri Meido no hikyaku (The Courier for Hell) by Chikamatsu Monzaemon.
Chubei, the adopted son of a courier in Osaka, has become acquainted with a courtesan, Umekawa, and has started using his customers’ money to try to buy her contract. Having escaped with her to his hometown of Yamato Ninokuchimura village, the pair hide in a farmer’s house. Umekawa wipes her tears with her sleeve as she observes Chubei look up through the rain-swept bamboo lattice and see his father passing by. Chubei and Umekawa are depicted in the style of Kabuki actors’ portraits. The shoji screen behind Umekawa looks like it is made with old recycled paper, but the text it contains is actually taken from the play:
The rain of tears is too much for their sleeves to hold; a driving shower beats against the windows. He opens the patched paper shoji a crack. Through the lattice window facing west, he looks out on a windswept road across the fields.*
(KASHIWAGI Tomoh)
* Translation from Major Plays of Chikamatsu (translated by Donald Keene), Columbia University Press (1961)