Yari no Gonza kasane katabira

Written: 1717, Chikamatsu Monzaemon

Yari no Gonza kasane katabira, or "Gonza the Lancer," is a love suicides puppet play written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon in 1717. The play centers around a samurai wife named Osai, and her lover Gonza, who end up deciding to die together since they cannot be together in life. The story was inspired by events which took place in Osaka earlier that year.

Osai is the wife of a tea master, Ichinoshin, who is away in Edo at the beginning of the play. Osai has been left to manage the household in Ichinoshin's absence, and also to instruct their son in matters of tea. She is in love, however, with one of Ichinoshin's students, Gonza, a love which ultimately leads to the double-suicide.

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References

Rebecca Corbett, Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan, University of Hawaii Press (2018), 73-77.