The Hand that Breaks the Seal: The Love Between an Enchanter and an Amorous Woman, from Edo to 2025 (1711 - Present)

The Hand that Breaks the Seal: The Love Between an Enchanter and an Amorous Woman, from Edo to 2025 (1711 - Present)

The Flying Feet of the Underworld" is a masterpiece of seiremono written by Monzaemon Chikamatsu in 1711. At the center of the story is the tragic love between Chubei, a young boy who works at a courier wholesaler, and Umekawa, a prostitute in Shinmachi. Chubei is an honest and diligent man, but his love for Umekawa eventually leads him to make an irreversible mistake. What he gets his hands on is a sealed package of public money entrusted to him by a customer.

The money order wholesaler was an intermediary between a courier service and a financial institution in modern times. The money order courier was responsible for delivering money and letters of exchange to other countries, and trust was vital to his business. Especially in the business of handling public money, it was a mortal sin to touch the money, which could lead directly to death.

Umekawa, on the other hand, was a popular prostitute in the brothels. In the Edo period, prostitutes were not merely sexual servants, but were also social figures with a flair for entertainment and conversation. However, behind the glamour lay the reality of debt and bondage. The only way for prostitutes to be free was to be "begotten. Chubei wished to buy Umekawa and set her free. But the moment he broke the seal at the end of his wish was the beginning of all ruin.

The story begins with the scene of the breaking of the seal, and then moves on to his escape, arrest, and death. Chubei, caught between love and the law, breaks the rules of humanity and bears the price for it.

However, this work is not a story that is confined to the Edo period. It contains resonances that resonate even today.

The money entrusted by the express wholesaler is equivalent to the trust assets and customer funds handled by banks and securities firms today. The misappropriation of such funds by a single employee in the blink of an eye is still reported as an incident that shocks society. Chubei's crime was embezzlement in the modern sense of the word, and the actions he chose to take are in the pattern of tragedies that have been repeated in every age.

The existence of prostitutes is also similar to the modern entertainment and sex industry. Some cabaret girls and hostesses, like Umekawa, or others, bound by dreams and reality, wait for "salvation" like a dowager. There is an exchange of pseudo-love and economics, a constant struggle between emotion and money.

The "Underworld Enquirer" has been read for over 300 years and is still being read today. This is because the story quietly but deeply questions the ethics, society, and life and death that lie behind the universal act of "people loving people. The trembling of Chubei's hand, which broke the seal, has echoed in our own hands throughout the ages.