he diligently wrote one drama after another. In order to compete with Monzayemon, he often wrote on nearly the same topic as his antagonist. Thus while Monzayemon wrote the Sanezaki Shinjū, or "The Love Suicide at Sonezaki," in 1703, Kaion wrote the Yaoya O-Shichi, or "O-Shichi, the Greengrocer's Daughter," in the following year. The Aburaya Osamé Tamoto no Shirashibori, and the Banshū Soné no Matsu by Kaion, answer respectively to the Umegawa Chūbei, and the Yōmei Tennō Shokunin-Kagami by Monzayemon. And it can be greatly ascribed to the merits of Kaion's dramas, that the Toyotaké Za could hold its own with the Takemoto Za. Among his forty dramas, the Yaoya O-Shichi, the Kamakura Sandaiki, and the Shinjū Futatsu Hara-obi, are generally considered the best pieces. But in the present author's judgment, the Ono no Komachi Miyako no Toshidama, which is represented in this volume under the title of "The Love of Komachi the Poetess," is as great a work as any of them, and far more interesting to European readers.
Kaion was succeeded by Nishizawa Ippū (1665–1731) who wrote twelve pieces in collaboration with Yasuda Abun, and Namiki Sōsuké. About
