The Actors Anegawa Daikichi as Sankatsu and Bando Hikosaburo II as Hanshichi

This print depicts a scene from a Kabuki play based on the real-life love suicide of the courtesan Minoya Sankatsu and her married lover, sake merchant Akaneya Hanshichi. This event, which took place in Osaka’s Sennichi cemetery on a winter night in 1695, became famous as the subject of numerous puppet and Kabuki plays. Here, the two lovers stand with their hands clasped, just before they depart for the cemetery in the final scene. Hanshichi wears a merchant’s ledger hung from his obi, and he carries a brush, with which he seems to have written a verse on Sankatsu’s cloudpatterned inner sleeve. Above the two figures are the actors’ names and roles as well as the verse:

Aisode ya
fude ni kokoro wo
fukumu sumi

Sleeves meeting;
In the brush
Is heart-filled ink

The second part of the poem refers to Hanshichi’s suicide note, which is read in an emotional scene late in the play.