Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  In the past there was a man who ran off with someone’s daughter and led her to the fields of Musashi.2 Since this made him a thief, he was arrested by the governor of the province. He left the woman in a grassy place and ran away. Some people who came along the road said, “We hear there is a thief in this field” and started to set fire to it. The woman was distraught and composed the following:

  Musashino wa Don’t burn

  kyō wa na yaki so the fields of Musashi!

  wakakusa no My spouse, as tender as

  tsuma mo komoreri young grass, is hidden here

  ware mo komoreri and so am I.3

  When they heard this, they took the woman and led the pair off together.

  Edict Against Christianity (section 12)

  It was amusing: since there was an edict against Christianity, a man fled with a woman into the fields of Musashi. Because his actions made him a criminal, he was apprehended by the magistrate. They put both the woman and the man in the field to be executed and were about to set fire to it when the woman pleaded:

  Musashino wa Don’t burn

  kyō wa na yaki so the fields of Musashi!

  Asakusa ya At Asakusa

  tsuma mo koroberi my spouse has renounced his faith

  ware mo koroberi and so have I.4

  [Kana-zōshi shū, NKBT 90: 172–173, translated by Jamie Newhard]

  HUMOROUS STORIES

  The long tradition of humorous stories (waraibanashi) took on special importance in the late medieval period when powerful generals and domain lords employed professional storytellers (otogi-shū) as jester-critics to entertain, inform, and provide them with interesting company. This tradition of storytelling, which emphasized humor, gradually spread from the elite samurai to the populace, and with the advent of printing in the seventeenth century, humorous stories became extremely popular, reaching an even wider audience than did other comic genres such as senryū, kyōka, and kibyōshi. Professional storytellers such as Anrakuan Sakuden (1554–1642) began to publish collections of stories that they had heard of or had used. Since these storytellers did not consider their stories to be literature, they were not bound by the conventions or language of the classical genres and so presented these stories in a style that closely reflected colloquial Japanese as well as contemporary, commoner interests.

  TODAY’S TALES OF YESTERDAY (KINŌ WA KYŌ NO MONOGATARI, CA. 1615)

  Today s Tales of Yesterday is a kana-zōshi collection of humorous stories that was widely popular between 1615 and 1630. While similar to earlier setsuwa (folk narrative) collections, which often contained humorous stories, Today’s Tales of Yesterday, like Wake Up Laughing (Seisuishō, 1623, published between 1624 and 1644)—another collection of humorous stories—represented a departure from the past in its specialized focus on humor and in its more “modern” repertoire of humorous types. The break with the past is symbolized by the title Kinō wa kyō (literally, yesterday is today), which reverses the temporal formula ima wa mukashi (now is the past) from the early-twelfth-century setsuwa collection Tales of Times Past (Konjaku monogatari shu). Although the identity of the editor is unknown, some scholars have suggested that it was Anrakuan Sakuden, the author of Wake Up Laughing. Indeed, the style and subject matter suggest a compiler like Sakuden, either an itinerant storytelling monk (dangi-sō) or perhaps a merchant-class professional storyteller. The work has been called Japan’s first bestseller, with numerous editions (including some printed from woodblocks) and variations in the number and order of the stories. Many of the stories rely on puns and wordplays for their humor, making them difficult to translate. In the first of the two following selections, the humor of the passage hinges on a punch line, a device employed frequently in Today’s Tales of Yesterday. The second selection is unlike most passages in the collection in that the humor relies on the Solomon-like wisdom of the legal resolution to the story it describes.

  Dangerous Things in the World (episode 20)

  “There are many dangerous things in the world: A crippled pottery seller. A heavily laden packhorse making its way down a narrow path on a riverbank. A blind man walking downhill. A young mother-in-law who gets along too well with her son-in-law. A widower on close terms with his daughter-in-law. A young widow who worships frequently at a temple. That’s about it.”

  A monk heard this and carelessly said, “Yes, each of the things you mentioned is certainly dangerous. Why, there is a young widow who worships at our temple, and she is definitely dangerous.” He covered his mouth as soon as he had spoken.

  The Woman Who Cut Off Her Nose (episode 35)

  A certain man suffered from a certain illness. As death approached, he called his wife to his side.

  “I feel that I will not survive more than a day or two. It is hard to say goodbye, but most unbearable is the thought that you might one day remarry and make love to another man.”

  “Put your mind at rest. If you should die, I will shave my head and become a nun, and devote myself to thoughts of the afterlife and prayer for your soul’s repose.”

  “Your words give me great joy, but hair grows back after it’s been shaved off. If you agree, please show your devotion to me while I breathe, by cutting off your nose. If you do so, I swear that my birthright, my storehouse, and my entire earthly fortune will be yours.”

  “I will gladly do so,” she said, and, to prove her devotion to him, she cut off her nose.

  He wrote a detailed last will and testament in which he bequeathed everything to his wife and handed it to her. “Now I can die in peace,” he said.

  He waited for death, but to everyone’s surprise, within one or two days his appetite had improved and his spirits had lifted. Before long, he had completely recovered.

  Everyone rejoiced over his recovery, but there was one thing the man could not escape: the sight, day and night, of his wife’s noseless face. One day he called her to his side: “I am ashamed to tell you this, but seeing your face makes me wish I were dead. There is no kind way to say it: I want you to leave.”

  His wife could not believe her ears. “I was born with that nose, and what about our happy years together? After all, you are the one who made me cut it off. If you find me so repulsive, you should be the one to leave.”

  “What you say is true,” he said, “but I still must ask you to leave. Do it for the sake of our past love.”

  The woman refused and decided to petition the local authorities. Shortly an inquiry was begun, and she was summoned for questioning.

  The man then stepped forward and said, “What the woman told you is true, but I am still young. It is not fair that I should be made to look at her, day and night, in her present condition. Please order her to leave me as I requested.”

  The magistrates heard him and discussed the case among themselves for some time. They then handed down their judgment: “Off with the man’s nose.”

  The man was terrified and tried to escape, but guards captured him, sliced off his nose, and turned him over to the woman. “There should be no cause for animosity between you now,” the head magistrate said, and he dismissed the couple.

  The man was in low spirits and thought to himself.” Now I have no hope of ever being married to a beautiful woman again. But as the saying goes, ‘No go-between is needed to reconcile with your wife.’”

  Hand in hand, the noseless man and the noseless woman returned home and lived happily ever after without incident.

  [Edo shōwa shū, NKBT 100: 61–63, introduction and translation by Paul Gordon Schalow]

  ASAI RYŌI

  Asai Ryōi, the most prominent of the kana-zōshi writers, was a samurai in Edo before becoming a rōnin, or masterless samurai. In the 1650s, he entered the Buddhist priesthood and made his home in Kyoto. It was during this later period that he wrote most of the pieces that have survived. Although many kana-zōshi at this time were written by amateurs who did not leave their names on their works, Asai Ryōi, who wrote a large number, including Tales of the Floating Worl
d (Ukiyo monogatari) and Hand Puppets (Otogi bōko), was an important exception.

  TALES OF THE FLOATING WORLD (UKIYO MONOGATARI, 1666)

  Tales of the Floating World, a loose collection of stories, centers on a wealthy young man of Kyoto named Hyōtarō, who engages in various dissolute activities from gambling to sex and squanders his fortune in the process. He manages to become a minor samurai but loses his position as a result of a dispute, and after wandering about, he becomes a lay-priest with the name Ukiyobō (Floating-World Priest). Finally, he is employed by a daimyō as a kind of jester-critic in residence. Although Tales of the Floating World are didactic narratives that have Confucian and Buddhist underpinnings and satirize contemporary society, particularly the rōnin and the pleasure-loving townsmen, they also reveal the new “commoner” focus on the present moment. A good example is the episode “Regarding Advice Against Wenching.” This story is typical of the kana-zōshi genre in its mixture of entertainment, humor, and moral purpose and in the way laughter generated by failure is used as an opportunity for didactic or educational persuasion.

  In contrast to the otherworldly, Buddhist attitude of medieval society, which stressed “seeking the Pure Land” (gongu jōdo) and “turning away from the dirty world” (enri edo), the military leader Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) pursued an active, anti-Buddhist policy, which was inherited and continued by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598) and Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shōgun. Then, in the seventeenth century, urban commoners began to formulate their own view of this world, one that came to be embodied in the word ukiyo (floating world), as opposed to its homonym the “sorrowful world” (also ukiyo). The famous preface to Tales of the Floating World articulates this difference in the form of a debate between a person who holds a darker, more medieval view and the author/narrator who takes a lighter, more optimistic, contemporary perspective embodied in the metaphor of the floating gourd (hyōtan), with final approval going to the latter. Significantly, the nickname of the protagonist is Hyōtaro (Gourd Boy), who “bobs along with the current.”

  Preface

  “In days now past,” someone said, “There was a folk song:

  Such a strange thing—

  My heart is my own,

  But it won’t do as I want it.

  “This popular love song was sung by all, high and low, men and women, old and young. There was also a poem:

  When nothing goes

  As you want it to go—

  It’s a sorrowful world.

  “It seems that they call this a sorrowful world [ukiyo] because in all things, nothing can be fulfilled; nothing goes as you want it to go. It’s like that saying, ‘Scratch the soles of your feet with your shoes still on.’ You feel an itch, but you can’t scratch it. It seems within reach, but you can’t reach it. It’s such an irritating thing. You are yourself, but you have no control over your body and soul. What a strange thing! Needless to say, in this world there is not one thing that goes as one desires it to. That’s precisely why it’s called a sorrowful world,” the person concluded.

  I responded: “No, that’s not the meaning of it at all. When we live in this world, we see and hear the good and the bad in all things; everything is interesting, and we can’t see more than one inch in front of us. It’s not worth the skin of a gourd to worry about it; fretting just causes indigestion. So cross each bridge as you come to it; gaze at the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms, and the bright autumn leaves; recite poems; drink saké; and make merry. Not even poverty will be a bother. Floating along with an unsinkable disposition, like a gourd bobbing along with the current—this is what we call the floating world [ukiyo].”

  An expert on the subject was impressed at this and exclaimed, “Truly, that’s it, that’s it!”

  Regarding Advice Against Wenching (book 1, episode 6)

  Once upon a time a hitherto unknown itch attacked Hyōtaro, the Gourd Boy, and he began frequenting the pleasure houses of the Shimabara quarter.5 He would leave home looking for all the world as though he were setting out on some respectable business. But en route he would hail a crossroads sedan-chair and, in this, ride south along Ōmiya Street and follow the Tanba Highway up to the entrance of the Shimabara. Then he would send back the palanquin and, putting on a large woven-reed hat, walk quickly over Slicking-up Grounds and Rumor Lane, soon arriving at Assignation-House Street. Climbing to the second floor of one of the houses, he would meet with a courtesan he had known well for a long time.

  Not infrequently they would engage in lovers’ quarrels, but he knew better than to take the girl’s reproaches seriously and laughed away all thoughts of ever being able to please her entirely. At other times, being promised her true love until the end of time, he became so intoxicated with joy as to think less of his own life than of dirt. And all the while he was being fawned on and flattered by the hired jesters, to the very end of his nose on his boastful face. In this way he visited the pleasure quarter every day and used up his gold and silver as one would use water, spending everything his father had so carefully saved. He carried the treasure blithely from his house and, when he was really under the spell, cared not at all who saw him.

  Three samurai approach the main gate of the Shimabara licensed quarter in Kyoto. Three bearded footmen (yakko)—their kimonos bunched up at the hips, exposing their thighs—follow, carrying their master’s sedge hat and extra clothes. The samurai are visiting incognito, wearing large sedge hats and covering their mouths with cloths. Each wears a long haori jacket over his kimono and two swords, one short and one long, a sign that he is a samurai.

  His coat was in the latest style, with the hem pulled high and his wide sash tied in back. In a fine scabbard he carried a short sword with a glittering gold sword guard. The stockings he wore were elegant, with foreign-style buttons attached, as he clacked along on his high wooden clogs. Taking a better look, we see the sakayaki style of coiffure, shaved all the way down to his ears, the sideburns thinned, and his moustache trimmed in his own special way. On his head he wore a great woven-reed hat, pulled low over his eyes. Can we call his appearance good or bad? Certainly it was little more than the epitome of the crude style of the menservants of lesser samurai.

  His brothers and relatives, pained by his behavior, cautioned him in private in the following manner:

  “Of late we hear that you’ve been frequenting some such totally unbelievable place as the Shimabara! This is really not the proper thing to do. By her nature a courtesan is a woman who attends herself well, dresses up and adorns herself, and so is quite alluring. For this reason it is readily understandable that a man’s heart should be conquered and that he should fall head over heels in love. Her charming willowy tresses, her face lovely as a cherry blossom, her eyebrows with mascara recalling the deep green treetops of the distant mountains. Her laughing crimson lips like the first opening of the hibiscus petals, her polished teeth shining white just like the driven snow. Her arms and legs slim, not at all differing in beauty from the Chinese dianthus just beginning to bloom in the hedge. Her lips languorous like a loose-wound spool, the fragrance of her perfume reaching to the skies. And how lovely when she moves, swaying back and forth; truly she could easily be mistaken for the living incarnation of the Amida Buddha! When compared with this creature, a man’s wife can hardly seem more than a salted fish long past its prime!

  “And so, tired of one’s spouse and unable to put the courtesan from one’s mind, one goes again to meet with her. Her voice of greeting is lovely, like the first sound of the nightingale as it darts forth from a narrow valley:

  “‘You’ve come at last! Come to me quickly!’

  “And the thankfulness you feel just to hear the sound of her voice! What great priest could bestow on you words of enlightenment equal to this? You two coming close together, your conversation is intimate though still somewhat restrained, and her manner is intoxicating. As she plays the shamisen close to you, strumming the strings ‘tsuru-ten,’ one thinks the sound of the plectrum must make
the lover almost paralyzed with joy. Truly awesome! When she finally begins her song, your heart’s as if afloat; fired by the song and her voice, it’s as if you’re in a dream, thinking, ‘Ah, were I to die tomorrow, what would I regret! When one’s bones are drying in the sun, there’s no more glory anyway. Ah, this is the life! Pass the saké cup over here.’ And so she stretches forth her arm, lovely and white as a bamboo shoot, holding the wine cup for you. ‘Please drink a bit,’ she murmurs, and you feel that life will never be so fine again, your heart so much afloat.

  “And thus do many men go to their ruin.

  “A certain Kameya something-or-other, a famous millionaire here in the capital, was in love with a courtesan, but his wife became exceedingly jealous, saying, ‘Well, I’m going to buy a courtesan too!’ Husband and wife each night summoned two of the finest courtesans of the city as companions, hiring also the lesser courtesans, such as half-night courtesans, kept courtesans, lordship courtesans, as well as masseurs, thus spending all their time in gay merriment. Before long, his estate was completely used up, and now, so the story goes, the fellow’s no longer able even to live in the capital and has gone down to Nagasaki, to live on whatever he can manage to make as a day laborer!

  “But from olden times, there’ve been many others thus ruined. One, perhaps knifing the courtesan to death and then killing himself; another (one Yoshinoya something-or-other) eloping with his courtesan, only later to be captured and lose his life—not to mention having his property confiscated by the government. Besides these are the many who, pursued by debts from the courtesan quarter, must hide in barrels, commit theft, and finally are beheaded. Or we might mention yet others who, having neither gold nor silver, sold all their household goods and ruined their families and then were reduced to begging, clad in a cheap hemp gown or torn paper robe, so that no one will even talk to them. And these are only the recent cases.