Kogane Mochi (The Golden Rice Cakes)

黄金餅・こがねもち

The story

Sainen, a miserly monk obsessed with money, wraps his hoard of coins inside rice cakes and swallows them whole rather than part with them, and then dies with the gold still inside him. His neighbor Kinbei, scheming to recover the money at the crematorium, joins the funeral procession and hustles the corpse on a very long trek across the city.

What to listen for

The bravura set-piece is the rapid-fire recitation of every place-name along the funeral route. Pitch-black comedy.

Background

Mochi are pounded sticky-rice cakes. This kind of rapid-fire place-name recitation (iitate) is a rakugo showpiece in which the performer names, at breakneck speed, every district passed along a journey — here the real streets of old Tokyo from the neighborhood to the crematory.

Notable performers

古今亭志ん生立川談志

#ブラック #金 #言い立て