The medieval myth of Dōjōji, in which a woman’s attachment to a beautiful priest transforms her into a large snake and destroys the priest, became popular source material for literature, theater, and art in the early modern period. The image of the snake woman, Kiyohime, accreted over time through numerous retellings. In picture scrolls and illustrations, Kiyohime is depicted as a threatening monster who burns the priest to death. This aggressive nature is used in the story as a cautionary message – to warn priests to stay away from women, and women not to become too attached.

The two jōruri puppet plays based on the Dōjōji legend, Dōjōji genzai uroko (Present Scales of Dōjōji, 1742) and Hidakagawa iriai zakura (Cherry Trees Along the Hidaka River, 1759), ostensibly share this overall image of Kiyohime by directly quoting from earlier texts, as well as evoking visual images of Kiyohime as a snake monster from the medieval picture scrolls. However, these plays also depart from the original medieval legend by introducing plot twists and visual twists.

How did jōruri make use of the conventional image of Kiyohime, how did it make changes without completely abandoning the previous image, and what do these changes mean? This paper examines textual and visual materials of the two jōruri adaptations of Dōjōji and considers how jōruri addressed the early modern concerns of human emotion versus social duty and class issues through adhering to, yet twisting, the well-known tale of Dōjōji.