Sutokuin (The Retired Emperor's Poem)
崇徳院・すとくいん
The story
The pampered son of a wealthy merchant house glimpses a young woman just once at a teahouse, falls hopelessly in love, and takes to his bed with lovesickness. The only clue to who she is: the opening lines of a classical poem she left behind, written by the retired Emperor Sutoku. The master of the house orders Kumagoro, the family's errand man, to find her within three days — armed with nothing but that single line of verse, which he must bellow at every barber's shop and bathhouse in town.
What to listen for
The engine of the story is Kumagoro tearing around the city shouting a courtly poem at strangers, faster and more frantic by the minute. A lively, headlong piece in the Kamigata style, with a tender first love at its centre.
Background
Emperor Sutoku (1119–1164) was a real retired emperor, and the poem is from the Hyakunin Isshu, a classical anthology of one hundred verses that every half-educated Edo townsperson could recognise. A wakadanna is the coddled son of a merchant house; the errand man sent to fix his problems is rakugo's long-suffering everyman.