Hasegawa Sadanobu I (初代長谷川貞信) (artist 1809 – 1879)

Nakamura Utaemon III (中村歌右衛門) as Fuwa Banzaemon (不破伴左衛門) - from the play Monogusa Tarō [物ぐさ太郎]

Print

---

Date:1837
Inscription:Signed: Hasegawa Sadanobu ga
長谷 川貞信
Publisher: Honya Seishichi
(Marks 123 - seal 25-527)
Links Kansai University Library
Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi Description:W. Michael Kelsey in his review of a book by Susan Matisoff, The Legend of Semimaru, Blind Musician of Japan, compares the story about Semimaru and the Monogusa Tarō.

...the Muromachi story "Monogusa Taro" provides the same general pattern found in the Semimaru tales, with the exception of blindness: both are characters scorned by the world at large, both have considerable talents, both are ultimately recognized as children of Emperors, and both become deities. Many Japanese tales concern children with abnormal physical characteristics who are eventually revealed as deities and/or imperial descendant...

****

The term monogusa (物臭) in the title means 'lazy person'.

****

This print is illustrated in Shodai Hasegawa Sadanobu hanga sakuhin ichiran (初代長谷川貞信版画作品一覧) at #18.

****

About the Monogusa Tarō theme

R. Keller Kimbrough wrote: "20th-century scholars in particular have been fascinated by the work's humor, subversive tone, and apparent religious subtext, not to mention the extraordinary laziness and cunning of its indomitable protagonist.' Modem critical controversies have concerned a variety of issues, including Lazy Tarō's sudden and seemingly inexplicable transformation from an indolent loafer, too lazy to earn a living, to a quick-witted hustler who achieves the heights of worldly success. In addition, scholars have questioned the story's seemingly problematic relationship to the otogizoshi sub-genre of honji-mono 本地物 tales of the difficult human lives of deities, buddhas, and bodhisattvas, since it is abruptly and unnaturally revealed at the story's conclusion that Lazy Tarō and his wife were actually human manifestations of the deities of Otaga and Asai, the identities of which are unknown." Lazy Tarō himself, as Virginia Skord has explained, has been variously celebrated "as an exemplar of the fresh spirit of the late medieval period, as a heroic god in the syncretic Shinto-Buddhist pantheon, as a contemporary peasant hero, and even as an entirely new character type on the stage of Japanese narrative literature: the self-made man unashamed of his humble origins."'

Elsewhere, Kimbrough in describing another version of the tale notes: "...it is revealed near the end of the tale that he is in fact a son of exiled nobility - a grandchild of Emperor Ninmei, no less - who was bestowed upon his parents in response to their prayers to the statue of Amida Buddha at Zenkaji Temple. Raised by those parents in Shinano Province until the age of three, Lazy Tarō enjoys both the fruits of an early education and direct descent from the imperial line, by which poetic prowess, as a kind of courtly virtue par excellence, is a birthright of sort."

And, of course, there are other versions, not to mention the kabuki version referenced here. We don't know for sure, but perhaps this is the play composed by Nagawa Shimesuke I (初代奈川七五三助: 1754-1814) or a variant thereof.

****

Osakaprints.com wrote:

"The kabuki play Monogusa Tarô was written by Nagawa Shimesuke I (奈川七五三助 1754-1814), the Osaka-born son of a teahouse owner in the Dôtonbori theater district. His most enduring play is Sumidagawa gonichi no omokage (A duplicate countenance at the Sumida River: 隅田川続俤) from 1784. In the present drama, the role of Fuwa Banzaemon (不破伴左衛門), who was frequently featured in kabuki plays, was based on an actual sixteenth-century samurai. He was purportedly a rival-in-love with another samurai named Nagoya Sansaburô (名古屋山三郎 died 1603). Sansaburô's father was Nagoya Takahisa, governor of Inaba province, and his mother Yôun'in, a niece of Oda Nobunaga (1534-82; the warlord who initiated the unification of Japan under the Shogunate in the late sixteenth century). Supposedly, Sansaburô was a lover of Izumo no Okuni (出雲の阿国), the founder of Kabuki, but there is no evidence that they actually knew one another. Nevertheless, he was portrayed in plays as her departed lover, and Okuni used him, or rather his "ghost," as a regular character in skits performed by her theatrical troupe. Sansaburô was killed in a brawl in 1603, the year usually given for the official birth of Okuni's kabuki. Among the various Fuwa Nagoya mono (plays about Fuwa and Nagoya: 不和破名古屋) for the puppet and kabuki theaters, some revolved around a conspiracy by Fuwa to usurp control of the Sasaki clan domain by supporting an illegitimate son of the clan's recently deceased lord. In one retelling — Ukiyozuka hiyoku no inazuma (A floating world design: Comparison of matching lightning bolts: 浮世柄比翼稲妻), written in 1823 by Tsuruya Nanboku IV for Ichikawa Danjûrô VII in Edo — Nagoya Sanzaemon (i.e., Sansaburô) was a loyal Sakai retainer who is murdered by Fuwa.

Design

This scene and the presence of Fuwa Banzaemon among the cast of characters suggests that the play conflates two very different sekai ("worlds" or "spheres": 世界), that is, the historical period, setting, or milieu with its varied associations in which kabuki play dramatists situated the events of their dramas. One sekai would be the comical stories surrounding Monogusa Tarô, the other would feature the intrigues involving Sansaburô.

In this staging, Utaemon also performed as Sanza's wife Kazuraki (山三妻かづらき). The role of Monogusa Tarô was played by Nakamura Tamasuke I (中村玉助)."

Related entities Honya Seishichi (本屋清七) (publisher)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Nakamura Utaemon III (三代目中村歌右衛門) (actor)
Fuwa Banzaemon (不破伴左衛門) (role)

---