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47 2 Mount Imo and Mount Se Precepts for Women INTRODUCTION Mount Imo and Mount Se: Precepts for Women (Imoseyama Onna Teikin) is one of those daylong jidaimono history dramas for which the Bunraku and Kabuki theatres are noted. It was written originally for the puppets and first performed on the twenty-eighth day of the First (lunar) Month of 1771 at the Takemoto-za in Osaka.The Kabuki theatre known as the Ogawa-za, also in Osaka, picked up the play in that same year, but for some reason Edo Kabuki took longer: it didn’t appear in that capital city until 1778. Since its premiere the play has become a fixture in both theatres . It is occasionally mounted today in all or most of its five acts with their numerous scenes, but it’s best known for the often performed scene known simply as “The Mountains” (Yama No Dan) that concludes act 3 and is translated here.The “Imoseyama” of the title names two mountains that are separated by the Yoshino River and located in modern Nara Prefecture just south of the city of Kyoto. On one side of the river is Mount Imo (Imoyama),“Wife Mountain”; on the opposite side is Mount Se (Seyama),“Husband Mountain.”1 They have long been used in poetry as a metaphor for the loving relationship between man and woman and refer more specifically in the scene translated here to the lovers—the young woman, Hinadori, and the object of her affections, Koganosuke. The women of the play’s title are several and include two portrayed in “The Mountains”scene, Hinadori and her widowed mother, Sadaka. Mount Imo and Mount Se 48 As is true of most Bunraku works of this era, the play is the collaborative effort of several playwrights. Chikamatsu Hanji, one of the leading writers for the puppets during the 1760s and into the 1780s, was at the time the Takemoto Theatre’s senior playwright and is most likely the creator of “The Mountains”scene.Besides Hanji,three of the other playwrights were Matsuda Baku, Chikamatsu Tōnan, and Miyoshi Shōraku, the last of these listed as an assistant (kōken). Biographical information on all these artists has already been noted in the introduction to the play “Moritsuna’s Camp.” One additional collaborator was Sakae zenpei. We know little about him, only that he was writing for Kabuki in the late 1750s and early 1760s. He may also have operated a teahouse for a spell in Osaka’s Dōtonbori entertainment district, where the puppet and Kabuki theatres were located.In 1771 zenpei began writing for the puppets under Hanji’s supervision at the Takemoto-za,continuing to around 1779.After that year we no longer hear his name,and we have no notion of his writing style or what parts of plays he wrote.2 Only a few background elements of the more complex overall play need be noted in order to follow and appreciate the scene called “The Mountains.”3 The play is set far back in Japan’s history—the seventh century—when members of the Soga family attempted to usurp the prerogatives of the emperor. They are represented in the play by Soga Emishi but more important by his son Soga Iruka.4 In the play, Iruka also has hopes of making a court lady named Uneme his concubine, but her father has spirited her away and let it be believed that she has thrown herself into a pond and drowned.Neither Iruka nor Uneme appear in the scene translated here, but they are mentioned and have offstage influence on the course of the larger plot of the play. The setting of “The Mountains” scene is in the hills of Yoshino, famed for their profusion of springtime cherry blossoms and the location of the two mountains in the title. On either side of the Yoshino River are two domains: one, the old province of Kii where Mount Se is situated,is ruled over by Daihanji Kiyozumi; the other, Yamato Province, which includes Mount Imo, is governed by Sadaka, widow of Dazai Shōni. Sadaka and Daihanji are the reluctant subjects of Iruka’s tyranny, but they are unable to oppose him. They have maintained a long-standing mutual enmity over their territorial boundaries, a feud that serves them well in the time of Iruka’s dominance, since he regards friendship between neighboring domains as a potential threat to his power. Iruka has ordered that...

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