Settai

摂待 The Welcome

1 Source and/or Related Material

Ballad of Yoshitsune, kōwaka “Yashima ikusa”

2 Author

Unknown. Assertedly by Miyamasu

3 Repertoire

Kanze, Hōshō, Kongō, Kita

4 Synopsis

A servant of the Satō clan (ai) sets up a notice board declaring that they welcome mountain ascetics. Meanwhile, the renegade warrior poet Yoshitsune (tsure) is on the run with Benkei (waki) and his other retainers, disguised as mountain ascetics. Yoshitsune sees the notice board on his way to Mutsu Province in the Northeast and decides to stop and ask for shelter, and who comes out to greet him but the elderly mother (shite) of his loyal retainers, the brothers Satō Tsugunobu and Tadanobu, who died under him in battle. Yoshitsune and his party are welcomed by the mother and Tsugunobu’s bereaved child, Tsuruwaka (kokata). The mother sees through Yoshitsune’s disguise, so he reveals his identity. Benkei then tells the old woman and the boy of the last moments of Tsugunobu at the battle of Yashima, how he thought of his mother and his son in his last moments. Eventually the night ends, and Yoshitsune and his retainers depart. Tsuruwaka tries to come along, but Benkei stops him. Tsuruwaka and the mother see them off.