Nakamura Shikan as Higuchi Jiro Kanemitsu disguised as boatmaster Matsuemon (中村芝翫 船頭松右衛門実は樋口次郎兼光)

This work is from one of the most striking scenes in Hiragana Seisuiki(ひらかな盛衰記). It is the scene in which the boatman Matsuemon (船頭松右衛門) protects the life of his dead master's son, Komawakamaru(駒若丸), by revealing his hidden his identity as Higuchi Jiro Kanemitsu(樋口次郎兼光) to his father-in-law, who had looked after him. The main axis of this story is the masculine loyalty to protect the "royal blood" in the feudal system of the Kamakura period, and the performance of such a story in the Edo period, when warfare had disappeared, and the reproduction of such values in a popular entertainment format would have helped to stabilise the feudal-based Edo shogunate's reign.