Historical setting
The play takes place during the youth of the samurai leader Minamoto no Yoshitsune, then known as Ushiwaka or Young Bull, at a time when (following the Hōgen rebellion), the Taira clan were in power in Japan. Ushiwaka was in seclusion at Kurama temple, where he was learning martial arts, supposedly at the hands of a goblin-like Tengu.Plot
Ushiwaka absconds from the temple to join a merchant caravan; and to disguise himself orders an eboshi, or warrior hat, "folded to the left sin the time of the Minamoto clan". Though warned against this on the grounds that "after the years of Hōgen, The house of Hei airaprevailed, and the whole land was theirs", he persists in his request, and on obtaining the eboshi he offers his sword in payment. The hatmaker and his wife, Minamoto sympathisers, refuse to accept it; and Young Bull retrieves his sword, promising that "If ever I come into the World oweragain, I will not forget". A bandit attack on the merchants sees the sword immediately brought into use, as Young Bull calls upon the secret arts of the Kurama tengu to defeat the robbers, and to slay their leaderLater developments
The twenty-first century has seen Simon Starling build on the play as a study in personal reinvention so as to create an exhibition of masks.See also
* Benkei on the Bridge *References
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