Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  He therefore asked a fellow actor to approach the old man again with his request. “I’ll come by this evening, and we can discuss it then,” the old man replied.

  “Surely he wouldn’t say he’d come again if he was going to refuse,” said the actor to himself. “But just in case, tonight I’ll go all out on a meal that will shame him into agreeing. Once in my net, he won’t be able to say no.”

  As bait for this fish, he had various delicacies prepared—soup made from carp, a light rice dish with grilled eel, and bamboo shoots with skewered abalone that had been stewed. When the old man arrived, the actor gave him the royal treatment, and having from the outset replaced the small wine cups with large ones, he plied his guest with saké.

  “If I may be so bold,” the actor said when the drinking had reached a peak, “there is the matter of the five ryō that we discussed the other day. It is my most earnest desire that you bestow upon me your kind favor in the form of a loan of this amount.” And he bowed low, humbly touching the floor with his hands.

  “Although I have never before lent to itinerant actors,” the old man answered, “I am willing to grant you the loan you feel so compelled to seek. But as for the seven-months’ interest that will accrue between the present Fifth Month and the Eleventh Month repayment date you have proposed, I shall withdraw this sum from the principal at the outset and then turn over to you the remainder. Are we in agreement on this matter?”

  Although this would put him in a bind, the actor thought that were he to object, the old goat might withdraw from the transaction altogether. “Please, if you will allow me to be so presumptuous, might I ask that you accept the interest together with the principal in the Eleventh Month?” he requested.

  “Impossible, I fear,” replied the old man, to whom compassion was an unknown quality. “Here, bring me your abacus, and I’ll work it out for you. I’ll show you how the money can come in handy that much sooner.”

  “This is welcome news indeed,” said the actor. “We actors lack any talent for arithmetic. Therefore I ask only that a beneficial arrangement be made for me, whatever it may be.” And he handed over his abacus to the old man, who took charge of the instrument and started to calculate, explaining the details of his scheme to the actor, the would-be borrower.

  “First, bear in mind that for every ryō gold piece, the interest comes to six monme in silver. Figuring at the exchange rate of sixty monme to the ryō, we have a total in silver of three hundred monme, and the interest on this principal comes to thirty monme per month. Now, when we subtract a 10 percent handling charge of thirty monme from the principal, we are left with 270 monme.

  The moneylender (upper right) is busy counting his interest on an abacus while the actor entertains him with refreshments. Moneylender: “The abacus has spoken.” Actor: “Every piece of silver disappears when calculated on that abacus!” Woman: “The noodles have arrived.” Deliveryman: “I came as quickly as I could.” From the 1720 edition. (From NKBZ 37, Kana-zōshi shū, ukiyo-zōshi shū, by permission of Shōgakukan)

  And from that principal must be subtracted and turned over to me immediately, as agreed, interest at the rate of thirty monme per month, with a month’s interest being added at the end of each of the two-month intervals in which the principal is still outstanding. That means, therefore, a total often months’ interest, hence a total interest in silver of three hundred monme.

  “However, it’s impossible to subtract that from a principal of 270 monme. As the principal is short by thirty monme” he concluded, flicking the abacus’s beads into place and showing his calculation to the actor, “I ask that you turn over this amount to me immediately to cover the deficit.”

  The actor was astounded. “If there’s a thirty-mon lack that I am to make up before I’ve borrowed even a single mon” he said furiously, “what, may I ask, are you lending me now?”

  The old man eyed him doubtfully. “The abacus has spoken. This is what happens when you deal with people unschooled in numbers,” he muttered as he took his leave. “Such slow wits. . . .”

  In the end, alas, not only did the actor fail to obtain his loan; he lost as well the two carefully prepared feasts that the old man had gobbled down.

  [Kana-zōshi shū, Ukiyo-zōshi shū, NKBZ 37: 483–489, translated by Charles Fox]

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  1. The 1684 Edo printed edition includes a different set of illustrations, done in a heavier, more literal style with thicker lines, by Hishikawa Moronobu (d. 1694), the first great ukiyo-e print artist.

  2. Northwest of Kyoto, facing the Japan Sea.

  3. Famed for his good looks and for being the reputed lover of Okuni (the woman founder of kabuki) and the tayū Kazuraki. A masterless samurai most of his life, he died in a sword fight in 1603.

  4. The licensed quarters’ nickname for Kagae Yahachirō, famed for his fearlessness. According to legend, he died in a sword fight in 1584 while on a mission to assassinate Tokugawa Ieyasu, later the first Tokugawa shōgun.

  5. Northeast Kyoto, the area through which demons were believed to enter and leave the city.

  6. Both the men and the tayū are thus ghostly, demonic lovers.

  7. Actual Kyoto tayū in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

  8. According to the Kojiki and later works retelling the myth, the two gods learned how to procreate by watching a pair of wagtails (birds with a thin body and a very long tail that they habitually flick up and down) mate.

  9. Yonosuke does not yet understand the meaning of this metaphorical expression indicating an impossible love.

  10. Celebrated as the Tanabata Festival on the seventh day of the Seventh Month.

  11. A number similar to that commonly used for the number of gods in Japan as well as for the number of women loved by Narihira, who became the god of love during the medieval period.

  12. In East Asian medical thought, the seat of desire and passion.

  13. Probably the most famous mountain in Japan, located south of Nara.

  14. From The Tales of Ise, sec. 5, and Kokinshū, no. 632, by Narihira. Yoshino is implicitly compared with the empress whom Narihira wants to visit.

  15. The overlapping of Yoshino with Mount Yoshino continues throughout the chapter.

  16. A symbolic ritual indicating that the two had become husband and wife in the fictional space of the quarter during the time they were together.

  17. The ageya, where a tayū entertained customers, as opposed to the house where she lived, which was owned by her manager. Yoshino has broken several rules: (1) she has slept with and even exchanged vows of symbolic marriage with a low-class man, one, moreover, in a “dirty” profession; (2) she has done it in a room rented by another man (Yonosuke); and (3) she has not hidden her act, thereby forcing the performance house to take joint responsibility.

  18. Yonosuke’s nickname in the quarter. A house attendant announces him.

  19. The Nichiren sect, popular with Kyoto craftspeople, artists, and merchants, including Jōeki.

  20. Yonosuke’s male relatives oppose the marriage, presumably because they want him to marry into a wealthy family with access to the aristocracy.

  21. Sung at Mount Yoshino by the medieval dancer Shizuka Gozen in the nō play Two Shizukas. By singing the song, the humble, “common” Yoshino pays homage to the shirabyōshi (a type of song-and-dance performance) performing women of long ago and testifies to her love for Yonosuke, whom she loves as truly as Shizuka once loved Yoshitsune.

  22. Southeast of Kyoto. “Lit” in the poem refers to rays of the sun at dawn and sunset.

  23. For use after lovemaking.

  24. Presumably expressing the hope for rebirth after their deaths on the island.

  25. A legendary island believed to lie far to the east of Japan in the Pacific. The women there were said to be impregnated by the east wind and to bear only female babies.

  26. Today in the city of Wakayama in modern Wakayama Prefecture.

  27.
Not far from the temple.

  28. Dedicated to the goddess Sotoorihime, one of the three gods of waka poetry.

  29. Homophonous with “hole.”

  30. In the western part of Kyūshū.

  31. Amaterasu, the female sun god and head of all the Yamato gods. Humorous in view of the different gender attributed to the deity later in the story.

  32. The top column of printed calendars contained the date and zodiacal signs; the middle column displayed for each day one of twelve fortune-telling signs; and the bottom column suggested actions proper for the total configuration. Saikaku compares his book with a calendar, and “The Calendar Maker’s Wife,” the third and middle episode of five, with the “middle column” of the calendar-like book.

  33. Actual quotations from the 1682 calendar. The middle column on the first had naru, a sign suggesting that the day was good for beginning projects; the go-between Naru takes her name from this sign. On the second, the middle column had osan, a day on which all activities were predicted to go well; it is also the name of the heroine, Osan. Both names are thus ironic.

  34. Originally four guardian deva-kings who protect Buddhism, also the “outstanding four” in any field. The playboy guardians come to resemble road barrier guards, inspecting women in the street, and ironically, in the last chapter, one of them literally becomes a guard.

  35. Performances began soon after sunrise and finished shortly before sunset.

  36. The teahouse, run by the theater, arranged tickets and meals during the performance.

  37. That is, not working in the licensed quarter.

  38. The women walk westward along the Fourth Avenue back toward the downtown area of the city.

  39. In sec. 13 of Yoshida Kenko’s Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa, fourteenth century).

  40. In the Edo period, Ono no Komachi, the noted Heian woman poet who, as a young woman, was thought to have had many suitors. She became a symbol of female beauty.

  41. Alludes to a poem by Komachi: “The blossom’s colors all have faded in vain as I gaze, longing for endless summer rains” (Kokinshū, no. 113). In Saikaku’s day, “act in vain” was also a euphemism for an adulterous affair.

  42. The printer produced calendars for the court in Kyoto and the shōgun in Edo and had an extensive printing and distribution network for commoners as well.

  43. He recalls a poem by Komachi: “Comfortless, alone a floating plant cut at the root—if a river should ask, I think I would go” (Kokinshū, no. 938).

  44. The calendar maker is an attractive candidate, since he has both money and, with his connections at court, an enviously high social status for a commoner, a status higher than that of Osan’s parents.

  45. His job required him to negotiate with distributors in Edo and the surrounding region. In Edo he would meet his most prestigious customer, the shōgun.

  46. Adultery, as Osan knows, is a capital crime, so she chooses love suicide and possible rebirth with Moemon in Amida Buddha’s Pure Land paradise.

  47. The statue was shown every thirty-three years and was very popular with Kyoto people, since Kannon was believed to have inspired Murasaki Shikibu to begin writing while she was staying at Ishiyama Temple, near the shores of Lake Biwa, a short distance east of Kyoto.

  48. Crosses the southern part of the lake, part of the Tōkaidō route. The first in a series of place-names along the west side of the lake that are woven into the text for their poetic associations in michiyuki style.

  49. Literally, mirror.

  50. There were no sharks in Lake Biwa. Rather, the name comes from the Wani (Shark) clan, one branch of which moved to the area from Izumo, where Japan sea sharks were worshiped as gods.

  51. Literally, hard fields, suggesting the difficulty of escape.

  52. Literally, long shape.

  53. The court presided over by Emperor Tenchi (r. 668–671).

  54. Active until 1520. As a commoner, Moemon cannot wear a long sword.

  55. A double-fire year in the zodiacal cycle. Women born in this year were said to be so passionate that they sometimes killed their husbands with too much lovemaking.

  56. Zetarō shows his ignorance, since such years did not exist.

  57. Zetarō attempts to make Moemon feel indebted and thus gain leverage over him.

  58. Now called Amanohashidate (literally, Bridge to Heaven), one of the three most famous vistas in Japan.

  59. Osan refers to Monju’s full name, Monjushiri (from the Sanskrit Manjusri); in Japanese, shiri means “rear end,” and Monju had an unofficial reputation as a proponent of male homosexual love.

  60. In Saga in west Kyoto. Double or even triple reflections of the moon were sometimes seen on its surface.

  61. “Tears” and “froth” are homophones in Japanese, as is the word for “soul” (tama). Through an allusion to Shinkokinshū, no. 1141, and Goshūishū, no. 1163, Saikaku suggests that Moemon’s soul is leaving his body.

  62. The full moon on the fifteenth day of the Eighth Month was considered the most beautiful of the year, and ceremonies were also held on the seventeenth day.

  63. Famous for male lead roles in the 1760s through the early 1690s in Kyoto.

  64. Alludes to a poem by Ono no Komachi: “They fade invisibly and change, these blossoms of the mind in our human world” (Kokinshū, Love 5, no. 797).

  65. A wooded area of temples and the huts of recluses.

  66. On the Katsura River, a major collecting point for lumber from the northwest.

  67. Temple incense chosen to match the early spring season, when the warblers return.

  68. Presumably she is referring to Emperor GoHanazono both while he reigned (1428–1464) and while he was a cloistered emperor until his death in 1470.

  69. The Yoshida Shrine, in Kyoto, claimed to include all 3,132 gods in Japan.

  70. Ironically alludes to a poem by Sadayori: “In faint early light, mist on the Uji River begins to break, and through its gaps: weir poles in the shallows” (Senzaishū, no. 420).

  71. The woman was born in Uji, just south of Kyoto.

  72. If a daimyō lord died without a male heir, the domain administration was transferred to a new clan, forcing the retainers to become unemployed rōnin.

  73. Edo was located in the eastern provinces, an area considered by Kyoto people to be rustic and unrefined.

  74. GoDaigo was exiled to Oki in 1332.

  75. She becomes the daimyō lord’s semiofficial second wife. Normally the mistress would live with the daimyō while he was in his home domain on alternate years, but in this case the lord’s wife has died, so she goes to Edo.

  76. A daimyō lord usually had three mansions in Edo: the first was for his family and formal audiences; the second was for emergencies; and the third was for relaxation and a mistress.

  77. Mount Yoshino, south of Nara, was believed to have the most beautiful cherry blossoms in Japan—prompting the belief in an even more beautiful, ideal Mount Yoshino in China.

  78. Girls wore long, loose sleeves with an opening under the arms that was sewn up when they became adults, usually in their late teens. In this chapter, the woman is about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age.

  79. A Daoist wizard from the Sui dynasty who, according to legend, was able to breathe out earlier versions of himself from his own mouth.

  80. Boy assistants to high-ranking monks. They often were sexual partners of the older men, but in the seventeenth century, women were able to enter temples more easily, and a new type of page flourished.

  81. Two bu.

  82. Daikoku, one of the seven gods of fortune, was often worshiped as a kitchen or an oven god. It was also a euphemism for a woman living and cooking in a temple, a custom that was widespread but officially forbidden. The priest pays the woman a substantial sum.

  83. Koiya Inn, a popular seafood restaurant, had many private rooms where the monks could meet women.

  84. All prohibited foods.

  85. Sending in-season flowers was one sign o
f the good taste and manners required of upper-class women, who were imitated by commoners in the seventeenth century.

  86. All believed to be signs of a sensuous temperament.

  87. The lord’s wife and children were required to live in Edo as virtual hostages of the shōgunate, and the lord himself had to live here every other year.

  88. An oblique reference to Lord Mizuno Mototomo and his wife.

  89. The musically gifted, beloved consort of the eighth-century Tang emperor Xuanzong. Many legends became attached to her name.

  90. Shōtoku (574–622), the second son of Emperor Yōmei (r. 585–587), was active in spreading Buddhism as well as Chinese and Korean culture. According to legend, he watched or played kickball.

  91. Such meetings, at which women spoke of their bitterness and shared their resentment, were commonly held in the seventeenth century by women of the upper merchant and warrior classes, who were particularly restricted.

  92. “Rock Bridge” is probably a nickname alluding to a classical poem by Sakon: “The rock bridge promised at night also ended unfinished—like the god of Mount Kazuraki I am downcast at dawn” (Shūishū, no. 1201). According to legend, the god of Mount Kazuraki promised to build a long bridge, but to hide their ugly faces, the god and his demon helpers worked only at night, and the bridge, like the love affair in the poem, was never finished.

  93. An ironic reference to the title of the chapter. It is not Iwahashi who brings disaster to the lord’s wife.

  94. One of the largest Shinto shrines in Japan.

  95. On the Inland Sea, just west of present-day Kobe.

  96. Among commoners, a groom often took his wife’s name and legally became a family member.

  97. A “double fire” year in the sixty-year zodiacal cycle. It was believed that a woman born in such a year would be so passionate she would wear out her husband. Such years occurred in 1606 and 1666.

  98. On the Tōkaidō route between Kyoto and Edo.

  99. The woman narrator is able to guess what the lord’s wife was worrying about because she herself once served as a lord’s mistress. The woman’s subsequent actions suggest sympathy, perhaps unconscious, for the mistress.