Five Women Who Loved Love

by Ihara Saikaku

  Footnotes

  1 Literally, the “love-knowing bird.” It taught the ways of love to the gods Izanagi and Izanami, the parents of the Sun Goddess.

  2 Actors famous for their female impersonations.

  3 Yoshida no Kaneyoshi, known as Kenko (1283–1350?). A court official who returned to live as a hermit and write the Tsurezure-Gusa, from which this passage is taken. The complete passage: “To sit alone in the lamplight with a good book spread out before you and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations—such is a pleasure beyond compare.” Sansom, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. 37, p. 17

  4 An actor famous for his female roles in Kyoto during the Empo era (1673–81) who set many styles in lady’s wear.

  5 The modern equivalent of Ono-no-Komachi, a poetess and famous beauty who was for a time the favorite of the Emperor Nimmyo (834–50) and thereafter spurned all other suitors, finally dying a beggar.

  6 Daikyoji—originally an expert in the mounting of scrolls and paintings, a fairly high-class profession since it was associated with religious institutions. At this time the daikyoji was also the official almanac publisher for the court.

  7 Moxa—in Japanese mogusa—a cottony herb placed on the skin and burned as a cauterizing agent. The treatment is still regarded in some parts of China and Japan as beneficial for a wide variety of ailments.

  8 Seta no Nagahashi—built by Gyogi during the Nara period. This opens a passage studded with similar references, called a michiyuki, by which the characters’ moods are described in terms of the places they visit on a journey.

  9 A very common, short prayer—“Homage to Amida Buddha”—by which believers in Amida expect to achieve salvation.

  10 Equivalent to “casting pearls before swine.”

  11 Marriage between relatives once removed was not considered tabu. On the contrary, a match between cousins was thought to provide special intimacy.

  12 This year marked the coincidence of Fire with Fire in the old lunar calendar, the horse itself representing Fire. It was a dangerous year to be born in, according to the old astrological interpretations, and women born thus were said to bully and frequently kill their husbands. For this reason they had a hard time getting married. Zetaro’s reply is in the nature of a crude joke, for there is no year of the Fiery Wolf and he speaks of it only as a symbol of frightfulness.

  13 According to a vulgar belief, Manjusri (Monju in Japanese) was the lover of Shakyamuni Buddha. He was therefore taken as the patron god of homosexuals.

  14 The Moon-Waiting Night (Tsukimachi). It was the custom to spend the evening in prayer while waiting for the moonrise. Frequently a proxy was hired to keep the vigil in one’s stead.

  Book Four

  The Greengrocer’s

  Daughter with a

  Bundle of Love

  1. A dark New Years’s for new lovers

  A fierce winter wind blew in from the northeast and clouds moved with swift feet through the December sky. Around a mochi-makers1 shop, bustling with preparations for New Year’s, a man was sweeping with a small bamboo broom in each hand. The store scales gleamed, polished only by frequent use as the arbiters of all trade. Children ran under the jutting shop-roofs and made a merry racket with their cries of “Kon, kon, a penny please for the little blind fox.”2 Old signs were being torn down. The streets were full of peddlers selling firewood, pine nuts, dried chestnuts, and giant lobsters. In a side lane, toy bows and arrows could be seen in an open stall, and farther along a new stock of snow-clogs and socks was hung on display, “feet in the air,” as Kenko said.3 This was indeed a season which gave tradesmen no rest.

  It was close to the end of the year, at midnight on the twenty-eighth, when some houses caught fire and great panic arose. Heavy chests, creaking on their rollers, were pulled out of burning buildings. Men slung wicker baskets and big inkstands4 on their backs and took them away, while lighter household articles were thrown under the lids of deep storage-holes. In a moment everything else went up in smoke. And as the pheasant in a field afire thinks first of its young, so the victims of this disaster anxiously called their loved ones who had been scattered in the confusion. Then, grief-stricken, they went to the homes of friends.

  In the Hongo section of Edo lived a greengrocer named Hachibei, whose ancestors had been of some quality and who had an only daughter named Oshichi, fifteen years old, as beautiful as the blossoms of Ueno, as delicately radiant as the moon shining on Sumida-gawa. Indeed, it was unfortunate that she had not appeared in the time of Narihira, for the miyako bird5 could not have found a lady so fair. In her own time Oshichi was the woman of almost every man’s desire.

  As the flames approached their dwelling that night, Oshichi’s mother took her to a local temple, the Kichijo-ji in Komagome, where they had been regular communicants for many years. In their plight the two took refuge there. And they were not the only ones to do so. The superior’s rooms were filled by the cries of a newborn babe, and a woman had spread her underclothing before the image of Buddha. Wives were stepping over their husbands,6 sleepers made pillows of their relatives, and everyone slept in careless disorder. In the morning a bowl-shaped container for the temple gong was converted into a washbasin, and big teacups were used as makeshift rice bowls. Yet Buddha himself could not but look indulgently upon all this, knowing how it had come to pass.

  Her mother kept a careful eye on Oshichi. “It’s a tricky world,” she said, “even among priests,” and she was not going to take any chances.

  Then it happened one night that a terrible storm came up, which the refugees were in no condition to withstand. Out of pity for them the monk who was responsible for their care lent out whatever extra clothing he had. There was one garment of soft, black silk, with low-hanging sleeves, a crest of a paired paulownia leaf and an almond flower, and a red lining which trailed around the skirt like a path around a mountain. Its design seemed to Oshichi to have some special significance, which was enhanced by a lingering odor of incense.

  “What fine lady fled from the world, leaving this souvenir of her unhappiness so sad to behold? Perhaps she was just my age—how unfortunate that would have been! I did not know her, but surely her fate is the fate of all. Life is a dream in which nothing has value, and only the awakening, the life hereafter, is real.”

  In this somber mood Oshichi opened her mother’s rosary bag and took the beads in her hands. Over and over she repeated the prayer of homage to the Lotus. But while doing so she noticed an attractive samurai youth with a pair of silver tweezers in one hand, trying to remove a splinter that seemed to have stuck in the index finger of his left hand. He had slid back the paper door-screen and was struggling in the twilight to remove the splinter.

  Oshichi’s mother, unable to bear the sight of him in such difficulty, told the young man to come and let her take the splinter out. She took the tweezers and did her best for a while, but, being an old woman, her eyesight was none too good. She could not find the splinter.

  Seeing how much trouble they were having, Oshichi thought perhaps a pair of young, strong eyes was needed to extract the splinter. Nevertheless, modesty kept her from going up to help.

  At last, to her delight, Mother suggested that Oshichi try. Taking the tweezers, she soon delivered him from pain, but by this time the young man’s thoughts were entirely of his deliverer and not at all of the splinter. Impulsively he squeezed her hand tight. He did not want Oshichi to go any more than she herself did, but Mother was watching and, like it or not, they had to part.

  Oshichi started away, intentionally keeping the tweezers in her hand. “Oh, I must take these back,” she said to her mother a moment later, and following after the young man, she squeezed his hand as he had hers. Then he knew that she shared his feelings.

  . . . an attractive samurai youth with a pair of silver tweezers in one hand, trying to remove a splinter. . . . Seeing how much trouble they were having, Oshichi thought perhaps a pair of young, strong eyes was needed
. . . .

  As time went by Oshichi took a deep fancy to him. “What sort of person is that young man?” she asked the monk in charge of the refectory one day.

  “He is Sir Onogawa Kichisaburo, a man of fine ancestry and a knight without a lord. He is a gentle, sensitive sort of person.”

  Now this made Oshichi think still more of Kichisaburo. Time and again she wrote notes to him and had them delivered in secret. Then at last someone came with an answer, and thereafter, as one earnest note followed upon another, desire fed upon desire until they fell in love with all their hearts. But love letters alone were not enough. Until the time came for them to meet, to love and be loved, it would be a dreary world for them indeed.

  On New Year’s Eve the sun sank lovesick into the night and rose again, a shining jewel, upon the sparkling New Year. Festive pines stood together like lovers, symbols perhaps for the second day of the new calendar when men could have their girls again. But there was no satisfaction in all this for the new lovers, who still slept apart. Then came the day to gather young herbs for broth and drink to the health of one’s husband. When it was over, the days passed—the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth—until the evening of the fourteenth arrived and the pine boughs were taken away, bringing the celebration to an end. Empty, useless days they had been, holidays in name only for lovers who had no way to celebrate.

  2. Spring thunder shakes out someone in summer underwear

  From Yanagiwara, where spring rain had strung the willows with pearls, a man came knocking on the temple gate the night of the fifteenth, and roused the monks from sleep. “The rice dealer Hachizaemon, who has been ill a long time, passed away this evening. His family was expecting him to die and they want to take his body to the graveyard tonight.”

  It was a job that required the services of priests, so a large number of them prepared to officiate at the funeral. They did not wait for the sky to clear, but took up umbrellas and set out directly, leaving at the temple only a kitchen cook, seventy or more years old, an eleven- or twelve-year-old novice, and a red-haired dog. These, and the others who had taken refuge at the temple, listened to the mourning of the wind in the pines and were terrified at the crashes of thunder, which shook worms from the ground. The aged cook brought out some fried beans which had been used at New Year’s to drive away evil spirits, and then hid herself in the attic.

  Oshichi’s mother was distraught with fears for her daughter. “Take care of yourself,” she urged Oshichi. “Get under your covers and, when the thunder breaks, cover up your ears.” They were women after all, and women will do most anything when frightened.

  Oshichi, however, thought what a good time this would be to see Kichisaburo. “Tonight or never,” she resolved, and to the others she said: “Why should we here be frightened by a little thunder? I was ready to die in the fire. I am not going to fear for my life now.”

  The serving-women who heard her took this as mere bluster, coming from a girl who could really be no braver than other women, and they criticized Oshichi for it.

  By and by, as it grew later, everyone went to bed, and the patter of rain on the roof could hardly be heard above their snoring. When all was still and moonlight broke fitfully through the cracks in the storm doors, Oshichi stole out of the guestchamber, not too steady on her feet nor too sure of her footing. Suddenly her foot struck the behind of someone sprawled out in sleep.

  Scared almost out of her wits, Oshichi felt as if she were going to faint. She could say nothing, merely joining her hands in the attitude of prayer, until it struck her as strange that the sleeper did not yell or make a fuss.

  Collecting her courage, Oshichi took a good look—it was the maidservant named Mume, who worked in the kitchen.

  As Oshichi stepped over her, the maid suddenly reached up and pulled at Oshichi’s skirt, frightening her all over again.

  “Is she stopping me?” Oshichi wondered. No, it was not that. The maid just held up some tissues of paper for her.

  Oshichi took the paper, both relieved and amused. “Well, she certainly knows what goes on at night, and she has a ready wit for awkward moments.”

  Oshichi then proceeded to the priests’ quarters but was unable to find her lover asleep there. Disappointed, she wandered down to the kitchen, where the cook was awake, muttering to herself: “The cursed rats are out tonight.” In one hand she carried some mushroom stew, in the other fried bean-cakes and a bag of powdered bean-curds. As she was putting these things away, the cook noticed Oshichi.

  “Kichisaburo’s bedroom is the small one in which the novice sleeps,” she said frankly and patted Oshichi affectionately on the back.

  Never having expected so much unsolicited sympathy, Oshichi loved the old woman for it. “She’s too nice for a temple,” she thought, as she undid her fawn-spotted sash and followed in the direction the cook had pointed out.

  It must have been about the eighth hour, for the bell which served as a reminder of the perpetual incense burner fell with a ring that sounded throughout the temple for some time. Apparently the novice was supposed to be on duty. He got up, put the bell back on a string, and threw fresh incense on the fire. Then he sat at the altar for what seemed an eternity to Oshichi, who was impatient to enter the bedchamber. Acting on a sudden inspiration, as women are wont to do, she pulled down her hair, made a dreadful face, and approached the novice menacingly. But, imbued with the calm courage of Buddha, the novice was not the least bit frightened by her.

  “You must be a wild women indeed, to parade around with your sash off. If you want to be the temple queen, wait until the priests come back. Now go away,” he ordered with a stern and fearless look in his eyes.

  Oshichi was somewhat taken aback but kept coming towards him. “I just wanted you to take me to bed with you.”

  The novice laughed. “You mean Kichisaburo, don’t you? We have been sleeping together, back to back,” he said and held up his sleeve as evidence of it. On his sleeve lingered the fragrant odor of incense, which Oshichi recognized as that made from the white chrysanthemum.

  “Don’t! I can’t stand it any longer,” she sighed and made her way toward the bedchamber.

  “Hey, Oshichi has come to have a good time,” the novice called out ahead of her.

  Alarmed, Oshichi begged him to be quiet. “Whatever you want most I promise to buy for you.”

  “Well, in that case, I guess there is nothing I’d like better than eighty sen in cash, a pack of Matsuba-ya playing cards, and five pieces of manju candy from Asakusa.”

  “Those will be easy to get. I’ll send for them the first thing in the morning,” she promised.

  The novice went to bed and fell asleep telling himself: “I will get those three things in the morning. I’ll get them for sure.”

  Thereafter Oshichi was free to indulge her desires. She went over to the sleeping Kichisaburo and lay down voluptuously beside him.

  He got up, put the bell back on a string, and threw fresh incense on the fire. Then he sat at the altar for what seemed an eternity to Oshichi, who was impatient to enter the bedchamber. . . .

  He awoke with a start, as Oshichi pulled back the bedclothing, which he had drawn up over his head.

  “You shouldn’t let your hair get mussed that way,” she teased.

  “I’m just fifteen,” he replied in distress.

  “I’m just fifteen myself,” she said.

  “But I’m so afraid of the superior,” Kichisaburo insisted.

  “I’m afraid of him too.”

  Love-making was indeed slow and awkward at the start. Together at last, they found themselves weeping in confusion and embarrassment. But suddenly the rain let up and a great clash of thunder sounded in the night.

  “Oh, how frightening!” Oshichi exclaimed and held tight to Kichisaburo, whereupon love began to take its natural course.

  “Your hands and feet are so cold,” Kichisaburo said, bringing her closer still.

  Oshichi pouted. “You seemed to like
me well enough when you sent me those passionate letters. Whose fault is it if my body has grown cold?” Then she bit him on the neck and in a moment they were in the throes of love.

  Afterward, covering each other with their sleeves to keep warm in their dampness, they resolved to be in love like this forever. But soon day broke. The bell of Yanaka rang busily and a strong breeze blew in through the nettle trees of Fukuage.

  “It is so annoying. We have hardly had time to warm up the bed and must part already. The world is wide enough—there should be one land where night lasts throughout the day.”

  It was a futile hope, and it gave them no consolation at all when Oshichi’s mother suddenly appeared, looking for the daughter, who was missing from her bed. As she pulled Oshichi away, Kichisaburo was lost in confusion and despair, as heartbroken as the lover of old, Narihira, had been when a demon’s menacing jaws frightened his sweetheart away from him one rainy night.

  The novice, however, had not forgotten Oshichi’s promise last evening. “If you don’t give me those three things now, I’ll tell everybody what happened last night.”

  The mother stopped a moment. “I don’t know what you are talking about, but if Oshichi promised you anything, I will see that you get it.” And then she went away.

  A mother with a wanton daughter does not have to be told the whole story to get the point. She was even more concerned than Oshichi about the danger of scandal and, first thing that morning, went out shopping to get the novice his baubles.

  3. A nice place to stay on a snowy night

  In this world we cannot afford to be careless. When traveling, keep the money in your waistband out of sight. Do not display your knife to a drunkard, and don’t show your daughter to a monk, even if he seems to have given up the world.

  Oshichi’s mother had this in mind when she took her daughter home from the temple, tearing the lovers apart and adding to their unhappiness. But through the kindness of a maid they were able to write to each other frequently, and so to share at least their mutual yearnings. Then one night a country boy, apparently from somewhere near Itabashi, came along with a basketful of truffles and “horsetails,” which he sold for a living. Oshichi called him in to buy some for her mother. It was snowing that night, although it was spring, and the boy did not look forward to his long trip home. So the master took pity on him. Without a thought for what it might mean, he told him to spend the night in a corner of the courtyard and return home in the morning.