Hashi Benkei, from the series "One Hundred No Dramas (Nogaku hyakuban)"

Hashi Benkei (Benkei at the Bridge) stages one of the most famous encounters in Japanese legend: the meeting on the Gojō Bridge between the warrior-monk Benkei and the young Ushiwaka — later to become Minamoto no Yoshitsune. According to the legend, Benkei had vowed to collect a thousand swords by waylaying passersby on the bridge; on the night he met the boy Ushiwaka, Benkei had already taken 999 swords. The two fought, Ushiwaka's preternatural agility overcame Benkei's brute force, and Benkei swore lifelong service to the young man on the spot. Tsukioka Kōgyo's print in Nōgaku Hyaku-ban (One Hundred Noh Dramas) shows the encounter as Noh stages it, with the figures rendered in the frozen formal stillness of the Noh stage rather than the dynamic action of an ukiyo-e battle scene. Published by Matsuki Heikichi and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, the print exemplifies the documentary precision that has made Kōgyo's Meiji-era Noh series essential references for scholars and performers.