'What a Splendid View, What a Splendid View': The Sanmon of Nanzen-ji and Goemon's Famous Line

In eastern Kyoto's Higashiyama, the Sanmon (mountain gate) of Nanzen-ji is counted as one of the Three Great Mountain Gates of Japan — a huge two-story gate.

Ascending the upper story, one can view the whole of the Kyoto basin. The thief Ishikawa Goemon standing on this upper story declaims: 'What a splendid view, what a splendid view.

The view of spring being worth a thousand pieces of gold is a small analogy; in my Goemon eyes it is worth ten thousand upon ten thousand' — the famous scene of the kabuki 'Sanmon Gosan no Kiri' (San-mon Gosan no Kiri), first performed in 1778.

Namiki Gohei (1747-1808) was a mid-Edo kabuki writer active in both Edo and the Kamigata (Kyoto-Ōsaka) region.

First performed in 1778 at the Naka no Shibai theater in Ōsaka, 'Sanmon Gosan no Kiri' became a representative work of jidaimono (historical-piece) kabuki with Goemon as protagonist.

The story is a plot in which Goemon plans the assassination of Hideyoshi (called 'Mashiba Hisayoshi' in the play), bases himself in the Sanmon of Nanzen-ji, but is captured by Hisayoshi's clever stratagem and subjected to cauldron-boiling.

The Nanzen-ji Sanmon scene of 'Sanmon Gosan no Kiri' contains a fundamental contradiction with historical fact.

The present Nanzen-ji Sanmon was built in Kan'ei 5 (1628), and at the point of 1594 when Goemon is said to have been executed, it had not yet been built.

That is, the possibility of Goemon standing on the upper story of the Nanzen-ji Sanmon is chronologically impossible.

The playwright Namiki Gohei sacrificed historical accuracy in favor of dramatic effect.

This contradiction itself is a classic example showing that the Goemon image is not historical fact but a cultural construction.

Despite — or perhaps because of — the historical contradiction, the association of the Nanzen-ji Sanmon and Goemon is firmly fixed.

In modern Nanzen-ji tourism, the introduction 'the place where the kabuki Goemon declaimed at a splendid view' has become the standard explanation of the Sanmon.

The sight of tourists who have ascended the upper story humming 'What a splendid view, what a splendid view' is not rare.

This scene symbolizes a Japanese style of tourism — of enjoying a cultural narrative on top of knowing the contradiction with period research.