I found a place outside a window and stood there, so overcome with curiosity that my mind strained to leap out of myself and into the hermitage. As I watched, the two men, looking thoroughly at home, went right inside without even announcing themselves.
“So, you’ve come again today,” the woman said smiling. “There are so many pleasures in the world to captivate you men. Why have you come all the way here to see me, like wind visiting a rotting old tree? My ears are bad, and words no longer come easily. It’s just too difficult for me now to keep up relationships properly, the way I’d need to do if I wanted to stay in the world. I’ve been living in this place for seven years already, and the plum trees are my calendar. When they bloom, I know spring’s come. When the mountains are white with snow, I know it’s winter. I almost never see anyone any more. Why do you keep coming here?”
“He’s being tortured by love,” said one of the men. “And I get very depressed. Neither of us understands the way of sensuous love deeply enough yet. We’ve heard many things about you, and we’ve followed the same path you’ve traveled. Right here to your door. You’re so very experienced, won’t you please tell us the story of your life in the words people use now? Please do it in a way that will help us understand more about life and the world today.”
The old woman plays her koto while a censer burns on a small table. One of the two young men accompanies her on a short shakuhachi, a type of flute. Both men seem to be well-off commoners and wear short swords. The narrator, standing outside, peers furtively though a latticed window. The illustrations are attributed to Yoshida Hanbei (act. 1684–1688). From the 1686 edition.
One of the men poured some fine saké into a beautiful gold wine cup and strongly urged the old woman to drink. She relented and gradually lost her reserve and began to play on her koto. She was so skillful it was obvious she played it often. For a while she sang a short song about deep love. Then overcome with emotion, she began to relate, as if in a dream, all the loves in her own life and the various things that had happened to her.
I didn’t come from a low-class family, she began. My mother was a commoner, but my father was descended from middle-ranking aristocrats who mixed with high officials at the court of Emperor GoHanazono.68 Families, like everything else in the world, go up and down. Mine came down very hard, and we were so miserable we didn’t want to go on living. But I happened to be born with a beautiful face, so I went to Kyoto to serve a court lady of the highest rank, and I learned most of those elegant, refined ways of aristocrats. If I’d continued to serve there for a few more years, I’m sure I would have had a very happy future.
From the beginning of the summer when I was eleven, I became very loose and forgot I was supposed to concentrate on serving my employer. When people did my hair, I wouldn’t be satisfied and I’d redo it myself. I was the one, you know, who invented the version of the Shimada hairstyle that has the hair swept up behind and the chignon tied and folded flat in back. It became quite stylish. I also created that way of tying the topknot without showing the cord that became so popular. I’m sure you know the white silk robes with colorful Gosho-dyed patterns. Well, in the beginning only court ladies wore them. But I spent all my time and energy making new patterns and colors for them, and soon they became quite popular with ordinary women.
Aristocrats, you know, are always thinking about love, whether they’re composing poems or playing kickball. Those women’s pillows, why, they’re always in use. Whenever I saw women and men lying together, I’d feel excited, and when I’d hear them in the dark, my heart pounded. Naturally I began to want to make love myself. Just when I was beginning to feel love was the most important thing in my life, I also began to get love letters from a lot of men. They all were full of deep feelings and tender thoughts, but I got so many I had no way to get rid of them all. I had to ask a guard to burn them for me. Of course I made him promise to keep it secret. Later, you know, he told me something strange. The places in the letters where the men swore by their patron gods that their love for me was true and would never change, those places, he said, didn’t burn. They rose up with the smoke and came down in the Yoshida Shrine, where all the gods of Japan gather together.69 There’s nothing as strange as love. Every one of the men who longed for me was handsome and knew how to look attractive, but I didn’t have special feelings for any of them. I was interested in a young samurai who was working for one of the aristocrats. He was of low rank and wasn’t good-looking, but his writing, even in his very first letter, sent me into another world. He kept on writing more and more letters, and before I knew it I was beginning to suffer and yearn for him, too.
It was hard for us to meet, but I managed to arrange things sometimes, and we were able to make love. Rumors started, but I couldn’t stop myself. In the faint light early one morning, someone saw both of us together out in the shifting mist,70 as they say, and while the mist swirled ever more thickly, my employer secretly fired me and had me discreetly left beside the road at the end of Uji Bridge.71 I was merely punished, but the man—how cruel they were! He lost his life for what we’d done.
For four or five days I couldn’t tell whether I was sleeping or awake. I couldn’t sleep, but I couldn’t get up either. Several times I was terrified when I saw the man’s resentful-looking shape in front of me. It refused to even speak. I was in complete shock, and I thought about killing myself. But the days went by, and you know, I completely forgot about that man. It’s amazing how quickly a woman’s mind can change. But I was thirteen at the time, and people looked on me leniently. Ridiculous, they’d think, surely she hasn’t done that already. And what could have been more ridiculous than their own thoughts!
In the old days, when it came time for a bride to leave for the groom’s house, she would grieve at leaving her parents’ house and cry at the gate until her sleeves were all wet. But these days young women know a lot more about lovemaking. They grow impatient with the slow bargaining of the go-between woman, rush to get their trousseaus ready, and can’t wait for the fancy palanquin to come and take them away. When it arrives, they practically leap in, excitement glowing everywhere, to the tips of their noses. Until forty years ago, young women used to play horse outside their front doors until they were eighteen or nineteen. And young men didn’t have their coming-of-age ceremonies until they were twenty-five. My goodness, the world certainly does change quickly!
I was very young when I learned about love. I was still a flower in bud, you could say. And after that I had so many experiences that the pure water of my mind turned completely the color of sensuous love, like the water in the Uji River where it turns yellow from all the mountain roses on the banks. I just followed my desires wherever they went—and I ruined myself. The water will never be clear again. There’s no use regretting it now, though. I certainly have managed to live a long time, but my life, well, it wasn’t what you’d call exemplary.
Mistress of a Domain Lord (1:3)
The land was at peace, and calm breezes drifted through the pines of Edo. One year the daimyō lord of a certain rural domain was in Edo spending his obligatory year living near the castle of the shōgun. There he was able to be with his wife, who was required to live permanently in Edo, but during the year she died. Since she’d left no male heir, the lord’s worried retainers gathered more than forty beautiful young women from leading warrior families in Edo, hoping one of them would bear a boy baby for the lord and ensure the continued rule of the lord’s clan over the domain—and the retainers’ own employment. The head chambermaid was resourceful, and whenever she saw the lord feeling good, she brought a young woman near his sleeping chamber and did her best to put him in the mood. All the women were fresh as budding cherry blossoms, ready to burst into full bloom if wet by the slightest rain. Most men would have gazed at any of these women and never grown tired, yet not a single one suited the lord, and his retainers began to grow anxious.72
The retainers didn’t bother to look for other women among the commoners
in Edo. Ordinary women raised in the eastern provinces,73 you know, they’re rough and insensitive. They have flat feet and thick necks, and their skin is hard. They’re honest and straightforward, but they don’t feel deep passion and don’t know how to express their desire to men or attract them by acting afraid. Their minds are sincere, but they’re ignorant of the way of sensuous love and can’t share it with a man who knows it.
I’ve never heard of any women more attractive than those in Kyoto. For one thing, Kyoto women have a beautiful way of speaking. It’s not something they study. They pick it up naturally living in the capital, where women have talked that way for centuries. Just look at how different Kyoto is from Izumo Province. In Izumo they have an ancient tradition of love and courtship going back to the days of the gods, but the men and women there slur their words so badly it’s hard to understand them. But then just go offshore from Izumo to Oki Island. The islanders there look like country people, but they speak the way people do in the capital. And Oki women are gentle and know how to play the koto, play go, distinguish fine incense, and compose and appreciate waka poems. That’s because long ago Emperor GoDaigo was exiled to Oki with his entourage,74 and the islanders maintain the customs from that time even now.
So the daimyō’s councillors thought that in Kyoto, at least, there must be a woman their lord would like. To look for one, they sent the lord’s old and trusted retainer, the overseer of the inner chambers. The overseer was more than seventy. He couldn’t see a thing without glasses and had only few front teeth. He’d forgotten what octopus tasted like, and the only pickled vegetables he could still eat were finely grated radishes. Day after day he lived without any pleasure, and as for sensuous love, well, he did wear a loincloth, but he might as well have been a woman. The best he could do was excitedly tell a few sexy stories. As a samurai, he wore formal divided skirts and robes with starched, high shoulders, but since he served in his lord’s wife’s private chambers and in the women’s quarters, he wasn’t allowed to wear either a long or a short sword. Too old to be a warrior, he was put in charge of watching the silver lock on the doors to the inner chambers. That’s why the councillors chose him to go to Kyoto to find a mistress—and to chaperon her all the way back to Edo. It would be like putting a precious buddha statue in front of a puzzled cat. You just can’t let a young man alone with a woman, you know, even if he’s Shakyamuni Buddha.
The old retainer finally arrived in the capital, which looked to him like the Pure Land paradise on earth. He went directly to one of the exclusive Sasaya clothiers on Muromachi Avenue that caters to aristocrats and warrior lords. There he announced himself and was led to a private room.
“I cannot discuss my business with any of the young clerks,” he told the person who received him. “I need to talk very confidentially with the owner’s retired parents.”
The old retainer, who knew nothing of how things worked, felt uneasy as he waited. Finally the retired shop owner and his wife appeared. With a grave expression on his face, the old retainer said, “I’ve come to choose a mistress for my lord.” “But of course,” the retired owner said. “All the daimyō lords have them. Exactly what kind of woman are you looking for?”
The retainer opened a paulownia-wood scroll box and took out a painting of a woman. “We want to find someone,” he said, “who looks like this.”
The retired couple saw a woman between fifteen and eighteen with a full, oval face of the kind so popular then, skin the light color of cherry blossoms, and perfect facial features. The lord’s councillors wanted round eyes; thick eyebrows with plenty of space between them; a gradually rising nose; a small mouth with large, even white teeth; ears a bit long but not fleshy and with clearly formed earlobes; a natural forehead and unaltered hairline; as well as a long, slender nape with no loose hairs. Her fingers were to be long and delicate with thin nails, and her feet, about seven inches long, with the large toes naturally curved the way a truly sensuous woman’s are and with arched soles. Her torso was to be longer than most women’s, her waist firm and slim, and her hips full. She should move and wear her clothes gracefully, and her figure should show dignity and refinement. She was to have a gentle personality, be skilled at all the arts that women learn, and know something about everything. The old retainer added that she was not to have a single mole on her body.
“The capital is a big place,” the retired owner said, “and a lot of women live here. Even so, it won’t be easy to find a woman who meets all these requirements. But it’s for a domain lord, and expense is no concern. If the woman exists, we’ll find her for you.” The retired couple then went to see an experienced employment agent named Hanaya Kakuemon on Takeyamachi Street. They discreetly explained all the conditions and asked him to search for suitable candidates.
Employment agencies live off commissions. If an employer pays one hundred large gold coins as a down payment, the agency takes ten. This is broken down into silver coins, and even the errand woman gets 2 percent. An applicant for a mistress job has to have an interview, and if she has no proper clothes, she has to rent what she wants. For two and a half ounces of silver a day, she can rent a white silk robe or one of figured black satin, a dapple-dyed robe to wear over that, a wide brocade sash, a scarlet crepe underskirt, a colorful dye-pattern shawl to cover her head like an elegant lady, and even a mat to sit on in her hired palanquin. If the young woman makes a good impression and is hired, she has to pay the agency a large silver coin as its fee.
A woman from a poor family needs to have a new set of foster parents who own property and will vouch for her. The agency negotiates with the owners of a small house, and the young woman formally becomes their daughter. In return, the foster parents receive money and gifts from the lord or rich merchant who employs their new daughter. If the woman works for a lord and bears a baby boy, she becomes an official domain retainer, and the lord gives a regular rice stipend to her foster parents.
Competition is intense, and candidates try very hard to make a good impression at the interview. In addition to renting clothes, they have to spend half an ounce of silver for a palanquin and two carriers—no matter how short the ride is, the rate is the same to anywhere in Kyoto. And the woman needs a girl helper at two grams of silver a day and an older maid at three. She also has to pay for their two meals. After all this, if the woman is not hired, not only does she still have no job, but she’s lost well over three ounces of silver. It’s a very hard way to make a living.
And that’s not the only thing the woman has to worry about. Well-off merchants from Osaka and Sakai constantly come to Kyoto to visit the Shimabara licensed quarter or party with boy kabuki actors near the theaters along the river by the Fourth Avenue Bridge. Sometimes these men have some free time and prey on women applicants to amuse themselves. The merchant pays a jester with a shaved head to pretend to be a wealthy visitor from the western provinces and has him ask women from all over Kyoto to come interview to be his mistress. The merchant attends the interview, and if a woman catches his eye, he asks her to stay and secretly negotiates with the owner of the house for a secluded room. Then he asks the woman to sleep with him for just that one time. The surprised woman is terribly angry and disappointed, but when she tries to leave, he says all sorts of things to persuade her. Finally he mentions money, and since the woman has paid so much for the interview, she gives in. For selling herself, she gets two small gold pieces. There’s nothing else she can do. But women who aren’t from poor families don’t do that.
The employment agency carefully chose more than 170 attractive young women and sent them to the old retainer for interviews, but he wasn’t satisfied with a single one. Desperately, the agency kept on searching, and when they heard about me, they contacted someone in the village of Kohata on the Uji River. Together they came to see me at my parents’ house in an out-of-the-way part of Uji, where we were trying to live inconspicuously away from the world until people had forgotten what I’d done. But I agreed to an interview, and I went
right back to Kyoto with the anxious agents just as I was, without putting on good clothes or makeup. When I got there, the old retainer thought I was even better than the woman in the painting, so the search was called off. Everything was decided on the spot, and I got to set the conditions myself. I became an official domain mistress.75
A woman is interviewed by a daimyō’s retainer in a spacious Kyoto inn. The retainer sits in front of an alcove with flowers and a hanging scroll, and the clothier sits at bottom left. The woman stands in robes bearing the crest of the Itakura clan, suggesting the daimyō’s clan. A maid kneels (right), and two palanquin bearers sit at the gate.
And so I went with the retainer all the way to Edo, far off in Musashi Province in the east. There I lived very happily day and night in the lord’s third mansion76 in Asakusa, on the outskirts of the city. Everything was so luxurious, well, in the day I couldn’t believe my eyes. I felt I must be seeing the most beautiful cherry blossoms in the world on the Mount Yoshino in China77 that people talk about. And at night they had top kabuki actors from Sakai-chō come, and we’d watch their plays and variety shows and laugh hour after hour. Everything was so luxurious you couldn’t imagine anything else you’d want.
But women, you know, are very basic creatures. They just can’t forget about physical love, even though warriors have very strict rules keeping women and men apart. The serving women who live in the inner rooms of those mansions almost never even see a man and don’t have the slightest idea what the scent of a man’s loincloth is like. Whenever they look at one of Moronobu’s suggestive prints, they’ll feel a rush and go dizzy with desire. Without even imagining they’re really making love, they’ll twist and push their own heels or middle fingers way around and move their implements. And when they’re finished, they still feel unsatisfied. They want to make love with a flesh-and-blood man all the more.
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