From the ninth scroll of the Heike Monogatari, "Ujigawa" is a heroic episode that tells of a competition between Sasaki Shiro Takatsuna and Kajiwara Genda Kagesue, two warriors who have been long-time rivals. They race to be the first to cross the Uji River and reach the enemy forces of the Taira. In this performance the first half of the episode (a summary of which is shown above the performed text) and several lines of text at the end are omitted.

A group of warriors led by the Genji general, Yoshitsune, has come all the way from the eastern provinces to Uji, just south of the capital, where they face the enemy on opposite sides of the Uji River. The river is wide and its current swift, so Yoshitsune asks his men how they might get across it. Some young warriors exclaim that they will first try to find a way over, and two rush out from the back of the ranks, Kagesue and Takatsuna. Kagesue (called by his first or family name, Kajiwara, in the performance text) rushes ahead, but Takatsuna (called Sasaki) devises a plan to overtake him, and succeeds in reaching the far side first on his splendid horse.

The words of the two young samurai are delivered as the pitchless declamation style shiragoe, or in some cases as kô no koe, a pattern usually employed to express indignation. The tension and excitement of the central event of the episode, the race itself, is conveyed through the rapid tempo of the hiroi, a pattern always used for martia1 feats of bravery. The hiroi's pace slackens only for the single expression "sô no abumi" ('stirrups'), sung in a higher register and a melodic mode distinct from its surroundings. It is at this moment that Kagesue's mount slows, so that he must rise up to spur the horse on; the vocal melody is directly illustrative of the text. The brief musical change is all the more effective because it is at this point, too, that Takatsuna succeeds in overtaking his rival, Kagesue.

The horse Sasaki Shirô Takatsuna had received was a dark chestnut, very stout and brawny. He was called Ikezuki because he refused to let horses or men approach him. People said he stood eight inches higher than an ordinary mount. Surusumi, the horse Kajiwara Genda Kagesue had received, was also very stout and brawny. He was named Surusumi because he was pure black. Both were excellent animals, inferior to none.

At Owari, the easterners divided into frontal and rear assault forces for the attack on the capital.

The Commander-in-Chief of the frontal assault force, Gama no Onzoshi Noriyori, advanced to Noji and Shinohara in Omi Province with a total of more than thirty-five thousand riders . . .

The Commander-in-Chief of the rear assault force, Kuro Onzoshi Yoshitsune, descended on the Uji Bridge approach by way of Iga Province with a total of more than twenty-five thousand riders. . .

The Uji and Seta bridges had both been pulled up, and there were branch barricades floating on the current, tied to ropes stretched between stakes driven at random in the riverbed. As was to have been expected of the season, which was past the Twentieth of the First Month, the last of the snows had melted from the Hira peaks, the Shiga Mountains, and Nagarayama; the ice had dissolved in all the valleys; and the river was in full flow. Angry white waves raced downstream; rapids roared like waterfalls; eddies had turned into whirlpools. Dawn was just breaking, but a dense river fog dimmed the colors of the horses' coats and the men's armor lacings.

And so begins the chanting of Ujigawa by Imai Tsutomu.