Five Women Who Loved Love

by Ihara Saikaku

  In Saikaku’s story, Osan’s only regrets are for herself. Her elopement with Moemon, with its elaborate hoax to make people think them dead, proves a miserable affair; she is a wretched fugitive, without the strength for flight through the wilderness, and is sustained only by Moemon’s promise of an early chance to go to bed together. Moemon returns to the scene of his crime, not in the hope of redemption, but because he must hear what people are saying about him and because he is homesick for Kyoto after weeks of pleasureless life in the country. In the end both must die—a poignant death, because they are not ordinary lovers and everyone pities their frailty—while the war between passion and prudence goes on. Reason wins no false victory; it succeeds only in showing men as they are, at their best and at their worst.

  But with Saikaku the consequence of sin is not always death. Sometimes there is an alternative in the Buddhist monastery, where a ruined lover can pray for the soul of his beloved and hope to be reunited with her in paradise. The monastery is, in fact, such a ready alternative that it seems to have become simply a place for escaping from the world. It is not a place one goes to escape oneself. This is because the lover remains a lover, and goes to the monastery in order to remain faithful to his love. There is little consciousness of personal sin, no estrangement from God or repentance. In death the lovers are defiant because the world is against them; in the monastery they are resigned, confident that they will have ultimate victory over the world.

  What Saikaku’s characters are more conscious of than personal sin, as we know it, is a sort of Original and Perpetual Sin, known as karma or inga, the chain of moral causation which conditions one’s life in accordance with one’s past actions. Strictly speaking, it was possible by one’s actions to lighten the burden or add to it, as one chose. In practice, however, the overcoming of sin and the acquisition of merit depended upon the individual’s capacity for enlightened conduct. It came to be recognized that few men were sufficiently enlightened to cope with the weight of karma accumulated through innumerable previous existences. Thereupon a savior appeared in the Buddha Amida, who had vowed that his great accumulation of merit should be applied to the salvation of all men, so that they might, without any merit of their own, share with him the pleasures of the Western Paradise. Redemption was then free for the asking, not a reward for good conduct in this life.

  For this reason, when Saikaku’s lovers speak of their misfortunes as due to karma, to them it is almost the equivalent of Fate because they feel helpless under its crushing weight. In some cases there is a further complication arising from a Buddhist superstition called shushin: a curse which falls upon someone who refuses to gratify the love of another. Thus, unequal to karma, threatened perhaps by the curse of a disappointed lover, and feeling desperately the urge to seize a brief moment of bliss in this dreary world, Saikaku’s five women plunge headlong and headstrong into love, into death, into the cloister—with the name of Amida on their lips, and in their souls a faith that salvation depends on the Buddha’s love, not upon what they do themselves.

  We may believe that they are real people as well as Saikaku’s creatures. We know enough about the life of his society and the celebrated cases of ill-fated lovers to recognize them as people of his own time. And yet what Saikaku has to tell us about them takes a form much different from the realistic novel to which we are accustomed. This is a work of poetry and imagination, not simply of skilled observation. Saikaku is no social scientist. He is indeed a sorcerer, whose powers are unexpectedly used to bring all of life out into the light of day, after his friends, in their search of fugitive pleasures, have turned day into “a kingdom of eternal night.”

  W. T. DE B.

  Book One

  The Story of

  Seijuro in

  Himeji

  1. Darkness is the time for Love; Love makes night of day

  In spring the treasure ships lay, with waves their pillows, on a quiet sea before the bustling harbor of Murotsu. In this town lived a saké-brewing merchant, Izumi Seizaemon, whose house prospered and lacked nothing. He was blessed, moreover, with a son named Seijuro, whose natural beauty and grace exceeded even that attributed in pictures to the hero of olden days, Narihira.

  Handsome as he was and graced with manners pleasing to women, Seijuro had been familiar with the ways of love since late in his thirteenth year. In Murotsu the women of pleasure numbered eighty-seven, and there was none he had not known. The vows of love written during his affairs might have been bound into a thousand packets, and the fingernails his mistresses had sent as pledges of their devotion were more than a ditty box could hold. There had been sent, too, as tokens of love, enough black locks to make a heavy rope of hair, entwining even the most jealous of women. Each day brought a small mountain of love letters, and gift garments of silk bearing their professional crests, which he tossed aside unworn into a heap—clothing enough to appease forever the greed of the old woman at the River of Three Crossings,1 were she to see them; and garments of such quality as to prove too precious for all the secondhand dealers at the Korean Bridge.2 Seijuro stuffed them away and put a sign before his door: “Treasure House of the Floating World.”

  But where in the world can such idle foolishness prosper? Those who saw what was going on grieved and said: “Before long you will find yourself disinherited.” Still, it is hard to break away from a life of pleasure, and about that time Seijuro fell in love with a courtesan named Minakawa, so desperately and with such uncommon passion that he was oblivious to the gossip of society and the disparaging remarks of individuals.

  One day he burned lanterns, more wastefully than on a moonlit night, in the house of assignation he frequented. Shutting the doors and blinds to cut out the light, he created a place for constant entertainment, a kingdom of eternal night. He gathered fools to amuse his party with imitations of bats crying or of watchmen clacking their wooden clappers. Procuresses chanted Buddhist prayers while making offerings of tea for passers-by and performed a mock mass, saying it was for the repose of Kyugoro, one of the company who was very much alive. Instead of funeral incense they burned toothpicks and by the flickering light exhausted their repertoire of things commonly done at night. Finally, under the pretext of playing “naked islanders,” such as one sees mentioned on maps of the world, the courtesans were made to disrobe in spite of their unwillingness. Among those who blushed at being seen naked was a young novice named Yoshizaki, on whose hip was discovered a white blemish which she had kept concealed. Disenchanted at the sight of this splotch, the assembled guests ridiculed her by saying “A veritable Venus!” and jokingly bowed in homage. Looking then at the other women, they realized there was none without some blemish to her beauty, and gradually the guests lost interest in even these amusements.

  Just then Seijuro’s father, bursting into the house in a great rage, caught the company unprepared, as when a sudden gust of wind strikes before the householder can put anything away.

  “Forgive me,” Seijuro pleaded. “I will carry this foolishness no further.”

  But his father listened to none of these apologies. “Get out of here and begone with you,” he commanded. Then, brusquely taking leave of the company, he quickly departed.

  Greatly distressed, Minakawa and the other women broke into tears. But Jisuke of the Black Night, one of the entertainers, was not at all abashed.

  “Even a naked man,” he said, referring to the disinherited Seijuro, “is worth something. With only a loincloth one can still make out in this world. Don’t let it discourage you, Seijuro.” Thus amidst the despair he found something gay to offer the company as an appetizer for more wine, and drinking, they soon forgot the unpleasantness.

  Not so the proprietors of the pleasure house, however, whose hospitality soon showed signs of cooling. When the guests clapped for service there was no answer. Nor was there any soup when the time for it came. Tea was brought in by hand, two cups at a time, instead of on the usual tray. And the servants, as they left, turned down t
he lampwicks to dim the room. Finally, one by one, the courtesans were called away.

  Alas, fickleness is the rule in pleasure houses, and human kindness is measured out in small change.

  Minakawa, grieved to the bottom of her heart, stayed behind when the others had gone and sank into tears.

  Seijuro could only say, “It’s heart-rending,” and thought to himself that he would take his own life, if only Minakawa would not insist on joining him.

  She guessed what he had in mind, and said: “You are thinking of taking your life. Alas, how foolish! For, however much I should like to say, ‘Take me with you,’ I still have attachments in this world and cannot. In my sort of work one’s heart belongs first to this man, then to that. Let us simply call our affair a thing of the past.” So saying, she rose and left him.

  Crushed by these unexpected words, Seijuro abandoned his plan of suicide. “How fickle these whores are! Ready any time to cast away old lovers.”

  But as he rose in tears to leave, Minakawa came back clothed in garments of white, ready now to die, and clung desperately to him. “How can you live? Where will you go? Oh, now is the time to end it all!” she cried, pulling out a pair of knives.

  Seijuro was almost speechless with delight to find his lover faithful after all. But the brothel people, seeing what was going on, drew them apart and led Minakawa back to her master. Seijuro they took to the Eiko-in, his family temple, where he might start anew and perhaps someday restore himself in his father’s good graces. Thus at eighteen his only prospect was to take up holy orders. How pitiful indeed!

  “. . . Oh, now is the time to end it all!” she cried, pulling out a pair of knives. Seijuro was almost speechless with delight to find his lover faithful after all. But the brothel people . . . drew them apart. . . .

  2. Letters in the seams of a sash

  “Something terrible just happened! Get a doctor, get some smelling salts!” someone cried.

  There was a great commotion. “What is it?”

  “Minakawa—suicide!” was the answer. In their distress no one could do anything to save her, and soon her heart beat its last. Such is the sad way of this world.

  For more than ten days the news was kept from Seijuro. When he heard it he was disconsolate to think of living on alone after Minakawa had died. But because of a note his mother wrote him, he decided for her saké to carry on his unhappy existence. Stealing out of the Eiko-in, he quietly departed for the town of Himeji to seek the help of some friends there.

  These friends knew he came from a good family, and they treated him well. After some time had passed it was learned that the proprieter of the Tajima-ya was looking for an assistant to take charge of his shop, and Seijuro was promised a bright future if he would enter the business. So it was arranged, through the good offices of the man with whom he was staying, for Seijuro to undertake his first apprenticeship.

  He did well. His gentlemanly breeding, his kindliness and intelligence, made him well liked. He plunged into his work wholeheartedly and, having no longer an appetite for love, concerned himself solely with the improvement of his character. His master left all business affairs to Seijuro, who conducted them so profitably that he became more and more indispensable to Master Kyuemon’s plans for the future.

  Kyuemon, however, had a sister named Onatsu, who, though romantically inclined, at sixteen had not yet become involved in any serious love affairs. Among country girls certainly, and perhaps among the modest daughters of Kyoto, her loveliness could not be equaled. People even said that Onatsu surpassed in beauty the former queen of courtesans in Shimabara, the one whose crest displayed the raised wings of a butterfly. We need not mention here the many ways in which she was thought to resemble her. Suffice it to say, Onatsu had the makings of a superb lover.

  It happened that Seijuro one day went to the chief maidservant, Kame, and handed her an everyday silk sash of dragon design. “This is a little too wide to suit me. Won’t you fix it?” he asked.

  Later, as she pulled apart the seams, Kame discovered some old letters hidden inside and, grabbing them up, read one after another. There were fourteen or fifteen in all, each addressed to Seijuro under the nickname “Mr. Kiyo.” The signatures differed, however: Hanacho, Ukifune, Kodayu, Akashi, Unoha, Chikuzen, Senju, Ichi-no-jo, Koyoshi, Choshu, Matsuyama, Kozaemon, Dewa, and Miyoshi—all names of prostitutes in Murotsu. Every one of them revealed a deep attachment to Seijuro, a selfless love expressed with remarkable sincerity. In none of the letters could be found the artificiality or lewd suggestiveness to which women of this profession are often addicted. They wrote freely and straightforwardly, and if one could judge from their letters alone, these prostitutes were not at all to be despised.

  Seeing the letters, a woman would be inclined to think that Seijuro had received some benefit from his wild days in the gay world of pleasure, a benefit, perhaps, concealed from all but those who knew him intimately enough to learn what secret skills he had acquired through long experience. At any rate, this thought occured one day to Onatsu.

  From then on, from morn till night, her heart was consumed with desire for Seijuro. It was as if her soul had departed from her body and lodged itself in the breast of her beloved. She spoke as one in a dream. To her obsessed senses the flowers of spring were obscured in darkness, and the moon of autumn seemed no different from daylight. She could not see the whiteness of the winter snow at dawn, nor hear the cuckoo of a summer evening. Indeed, she was unaware of the season, whether it was New Year’s or time for the midsummer festival of O-Bon.3 Finally she forgot herself completely. Her eyes blushed openly with love, and her passion was laid bare by the words she spoke.

  After all, the other maids thought, this happens to everyone some time. They pitied Onatsu deeply and wished they could help her, but each had come to feel her own love for Seijuro. The seamstress had sent him a love note written in blood drawn by her own needle. The chief maidservant, unable to write, had asked a man to prepare a letter for her, though his masculine hand betrayed itself. Then she slipped it into Seijuro’s sleeve. The chambermaid took tea into the shop for him when there was no need for it. Under the pretense of letting Baby see Seijuro, the nurse approached him and placed her ward in his arms, whereupon Baby immediately wet Seijuro’s lap.

  . . .as she pulled apart the seams, Kame discovered some old letters hidden inside and, grabbing them up, read one after another. There were fourteen or fifteen in all, each addressed to Seijuro. . . .

  Under the pretense of letting Baby see Seijuro, the nurse . . . placed her ward in his arms, whereupon Baby immediately wet Seijuro’s lap. “It’s time you too had a little one like this,” she said. . . .

  “It’s time you too had a little one like this,” she said. “I once had a pretty child myself, before I came here as a nurse. But my man was a good-for-nothing. He went off to Kumamoto in Higo Province and has some sort of apprenticeship there, according to what I hear. When we broke up housekeeping I got separation papers and am free again now. Of course,” she added, lisping on in a monologue of coy self-depreciation, “I was born a bit plump; my mouth is small and my hair is somewhat kinky. . . .”

  The waitresses too, when ladling out fish stew to the hired men at mealtime, were always scrupulously careful to save the choice parts for Seijuro.

  For his part Seijuro was pleased, but not entirely so, by the advances made toward him from all sides. They interfered with his work and kept him ceaselessly busy answering all the letters. Eventually he found it very tiresome, for even his dreams were disturbed and he slept with open eyes.

  Still Onatsu persisted and found the means to send him one passionate letter after another, until finally Seijuro yielded his heart to her. But the house was full of busy eyes. The lovers found no opportunity to enjoy each other’s company, and while their passion smouldered under such restraint their bodies grew gaunt, stretched upon the rack of love. Thus the days passed without relief, until at last it seemed delightful enough to them simply to h
ear each other’s voices once in a while.

  But in life lies the seed of all things. The lovers felt that, living on, they might someday be brought together, as the wind by chance bends two blades of grass. If only it were not for Onatsu’s sister-in-law, who never failed to lock the door which stood across the passageway between them!

  “Be careful about fire,” she would call, and then shut the door with a rattle-and-clap more dreadful than thunder to the ears of the wakeful lovers.

  3. A lion dances to the beat of a drum

  When cherry trees bloom at Onoe4 men’s wives bloom too with a new pride in their appearance, and pretty girls go strolling with their proud mothers, not so much to see the spring blossoms as to be seen themselves. That is the way people are these days; at least that is the way with women. They are witches who could enchant even the wizard fox of Himeji Castle.

  One spring day the women of the Tajima-ya household decided to go to the woods for a picnic, to which the ladies were borne in litters followed by Seijuro, the supervisor of the affair. The far-famed pines of Takasago and Sone were in early-spring verdure, and there was no sight to equal the loveliness of the sandy beach. To see the boys of the village clearing the dead leaves with rakes and hunting eagerly for mushroom buttons, reed-flowers, and violets was a rare treat for the ladies, who each expressed an urge to do the same. Soon they picked out a spot barely overgrown with young grass, and there spread out their flower-mats and carpets.