Iwashi Uri Koi No Hikiami (鰯賣戀引網 The Sardine Seller's Net of Love) is a 1954 comedic Kabuki play by Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫).
Due to a fortunate meeting of chance with his father, Ebina Namidabutsu, and his horse-seller friend, Bakurourokurouzaemon, Sarugenji is able to devise a plan to pose as the samurai "Utsunomiya" in order to enter the pleasure quarter and woo Hotarubi.
Meanwhile, the courtesans of the pleasure house, including Hotarubi, are occupied playing a game involving matching poetry on shells, as they notice a strange-looking gardener.
Sarugenji tells them a story dominated by fish puns and then passes out upon Hotarubi's lap from too much sake as the rest of the courtesans leave the stage.
Hotarubi then confesses that she is truly a princess who ran away from home to chase the cry of a sardine seller that she had fallen in love with.