100. It is thus the woman narrator who invites disaster by causing the doll to seem to come alive and by reporting about it to the lord.
101. Empress Kōken (718–770, r. 749–758). The first standards for women’s robes were set in 719 and revised in 730.
102. Literally, Edge of the Mountains, a hilly area west of Edo Castle with many warrior mansions, in one of which the woman works. She alludes to a poem by the Zen priest Musō Kokushi: “I think of neither the rising nor the setting moon—no mountain edges hide my mind” (Fūgashū, no. 2076). The moon, a traditional Buddhist trope for mind, here implies a calm, detached speaker.
103. Unmarried samurai retainers of daimyō lords staying in Edo lived in long barracks inside the mansion walls.
104. A waterfall in Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto that was regarded as the body of the patron god of the temple and was famous for its purity and spiritual power.
105. The Shimabara Rebellion was an uprising of Christians and farmers in 1637/1638 in Shimabara (in Kyūshū), after which was named the Shimabara licensed quarter in Kyoto. “Spear” is a sexual pun.
106. At the time, a poor residential area in Edo.
107. From here to the end of the chapter, the woman narrator talks about herself in the third person, presumably because she is a bit ashamed of what she does.
108. Daikoku, the god of fortune, was believed to use a white mouse as his messenger.
109. In Saikaku’s time, a flourishing commercial city just south of Osaka.
110. Just west of the city’s commercial center.
111. Located behind the larger main house, which contains the shop fronting on Sakai’s main avenue.
112. The Nichiren (Lotus) sect and the Pure Land (Amidist) sects were vigorous rivals.
113. Ran east to west and crossed the main avenue, which ran north to south.
114. The chief god’s palanquin was carried from the Sumiyoshi Shrine in south Osaka down the coast to nearby Sakai.
115. A widow and grand dame of the house.
116. Using a dildo.
117. The ironic chapter title thus refers to both the narrator, who wants to believe that she is working for a rich old man, and to the old woman, who, though rich, dreams of true luxury in the next life.
118. Coins were put in coffins so that dead souls could pay the woman and thus be allowed to cross the river to the other world instead of staying attached to their former habitations.
119. A twelfth-century warrior.
120. A Tendai temple in the northern hills of Kyoto, believed to be a place where the bodhisattva Kannon manifested herself, making it a Pure Land on earth. The temple was famed for cures of mental problems and was a refuge for those considered mentally ill.
121. A ceremony held annually between the nineteenth day and the end of the Twelfth Month.
122. The original disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha who propagated his doctrines after his death.
123. A wealthy area of uptown Kyoto, west of the imperial palace, famous for its many money brokers.
124. The narrator lived there herself as a seamstress. See “Ink Painting in a Sensual Robe” (4:2).
125. A large cemetery in eastern Kyoto.
126. See “A Monk’s Wife in a Worldly Temple” (2:3).
127. That is, money.
128. The woman fears that she will soon go to Buddhist hell, not the Pure Land. Fiery carts were believed to carry condemned souls to the assigned part of hell.
129. The woman cites the nō play Tomonaga, in which a monk prays for the soul of the dead warrior Tomonaga. Tomonaga’s soul returns and exclaims that the Pure land, Kannon’s mercy, and other Buddhist beliefs are “actually true!”
130. The woman alludes to “Nine Stages of the Corpse,” a meditative Buddhist poem on the reality of death attributed to Su Dongpo, and then literally arrives at some swamp grass.
131. A large pond in Saga in western Kyoto.
132. Buddhist teachings, commonly compared to a boat. The Other Shore is both the realm of enlightenment and the other world. To the woman, the pond looks like the sea of existence itself.
133. In the medieval period, many people believed that they could reach the Pure Land by sailing out to sea in a small boat or by jumping into rivers or ponds while meditating on Amida and Kannon. It was a form of religious suicide chosen most commonly by outcasts, sick people, or monks.
134. Gender unspecified; “he” is used because the person has enough money to buy the woman a hut.
135. A Buddhist metaphor. Just as the lotus rises from the mud, the pure mind experiences enlightenment amid the delusions of the world. Exemplified by Kannon, the lotus-holding female bodhisattva.
136. Mount Rokkō, in Kobe.
137. Taira no Tomomori, fourth son of Kiyomori, died in the Heike defeat at Dannoura in 1185. In the nō play Funa Benkei his spirit tries to sink the ship of Minamoto Yoshitsune, the enemy leader, during a powerful storm but is foiled by Benkei’s (Yoshitsune’s retainer) fervent prayers.
138. A shrine in Akashi dedicated to the early-seventh-century poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, called Hitomaru in the Edo period.
139. The story is based on one in Han Feizi in which Duke Ping of Jin (Jin Pingpong) was admonished for his pride by the blind musician Shi Kuang. The wrong Chinese names have been given.
140. Korin’s feigned gastrointestinal distress required frequent trips to the toilet, apparently located beyond wheeled doors that ran on a track.
141. Secret agents (kakushi yokome) were employed by daimyō lords to spy on members of the household in order to catch violators of house laws and protect against intrigue.
142. The implication is that these words were spoken by a possessing spirit, probably related to the murdered badger. Saikaku is drawing on a tradition in setsuwa literature of supernatural fantasy as a metaphor for psychological or social conflict.
143. A reference to Genji, hero of The Tale of Genji, who was banished to Suma and then to Akashi. The poem does not appear in The Tale of Genji.
144. Branches of the Japanese star anise (shikimi) were used as decorative greenery to mourn the dead.
145. Araki Murashige captured Itami Castle in 1574 and made it his own. Four years later, he unsuccessfully rebelled against Nobunaga and fled to Aki.
146. It is commonly believed that these islands were located near Hokkaidō.
147. Alludes to a poem by Izumi Shikibu (ca. 970–1030) in the Shūishū: “I enter the dark road from darkness. Far off shines the moon on the edge of the mountain.”
148. A smooth, strong silk woven in Kyoto, the center of the weaving industry at the time.
149. At an audience with the shōgun, it was the custom for every samurai, regardless of rank, to wear the same formal black kimono. The five crests were arranged one on each sleeve, one on each lapel, and one on the back.
150. Kinukake-yama, more commonly known as Kinugasa-yama (Clothes and Hat Mountain), a hill on the northwestern outskirts of Kyoto. According to legend, the retired emperor Uda wanted to see the sight of snow on this mountain in the summer and so had white robes hung up on the mountain.
151. The first day of the Fourth Month marked the beginning of summer, when it was customary to change from padded to unpadded garments.
152. Clothing edicts, setting out lists of clothing materials deemed suitable for respective classes and prescribing penalties for extravagant display, were issued regularly by the shōgun’s government.
153. A gold coin circulating primarily in Edo.
154. A thick, strong silk, rather like habutae, often used for summer kimono and sashes.
155. The articles in the list are nonsensical.
156. Fuji-ichi is an abbreviated form of the name Fujiya Ichibei, a celebrated merchant of Goike-machi, Muromachi Street, Kyoto, who died about twenty years before the publication of Nippon eitaigura.
157. Karasumaru—or in the Kyoto pronunciation “Karasuma”—is a long street running north to south through the center o
f Kyoto.
158. Toribeyama, an old cremation ground in the vicinity of Kiyomizu Temple, in eastern Kyoto. Rokuhara was a vaguely defined area of open land near Toribeyama.
159. A famous rice-cake shop in front of the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) of Hōkō-ji temple, in Higashiyama, on the east side of Kyoto.
160. Iroha-uta were instructional poems, each of which began with a different syllable in the order of the famed Iro ha nihohedo . . . poem.
161. The Doll Festival (Hinamatsuri) was on the third day of the Third Month. The Bon Festival, the festival for the spirits of the dead, was usually on the twentieth day of the Seventh Month.
162. On the festival day of the seventh day of the First Month, rice gruel is served flavored with the “seven herbs of spring” (nanakusa).
163. Kake-dai, a pair of salted bream on a wooden spit, decorated with ferns, was hung over the kitchen range from New Year’s Day until the first day of the Sixth Month as an offering to the god Kōjin, who was popularly worshiped as a deity who warded off starvation and fire.
164. A variation on the traditional verses of the Daikoku dance. Daikoku, a god of good fortune, is customarily depicted smiling while sitting on two bales of rice, a mallet in one hand and a sack over his shoulders. At New Year’s, companies of begging street performers wearing Daikoku masks and carrying mallets moved from house to house serenading and dancing for the residents.
165. Gojō Bridge, across the Kamo River in Kyoto, was rebuilt in 1645.
166. “In faith there is profit” (shinjin ni toku ari), a well-known proverb, reflecting the current utilitarian attitude toward religion.
167. Kuroyaki. Concoctions made from the ash of plants, birds, beasts, fishes, and the like were popular at this time as medicines or ointments, for internal or external use.
168. Saikaku weaves into his text a quotation from a celebrated poem on the Osaka Barrier by Semimaru in the Ogura hyakunin isshu (ca. 1200).
169. Kōnoike, Itami, and Ikeda are localities near Osaka, and each brewed a much-esteemed saké, which was exported by sea to all parts of Japan.
170. The names in the following passage are those of contemporary scholars, aesthetes, actors, and so forth, mostly from Kyoto and Osaka.
171. Kuruma Zenshichi of Asakusa was the hereditary chief of the hinin, or outcaste, community north of Nihonbashi Bridge in Edo.
172. Ebisu, the merchant’s favorite god of luck, invariably wore an eboshi, a tall black cap of lacquered paper or stiffened cloth. Worshiping Ebisu, the god of luck, early in the morning was a common practice among merchants.
173. The present existence, being insecure and subject to change, was likened in the Lotus Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, to a “house afire.”
174. To be sold to wig makers.
175. The third day of the Third Month, the fifth day of Fifth Month, the sixteenth day of Seventh Month, the ninth day of Ninth Month, and the last day of the Twelfth Month.
176. The title juxtaposes the Buddhist sense of transience (kari) of all things with the capitalist notion of borrowing (kari) to make a living.
177. An area in western Kyoto near the Horikawa River, down which timber from the mountains was floated.
178. An area west of Horikawa Street and south of Fifth Avenue with many tatami (floor mat) makers.
179. The largest annual festival in Osaka is on the twenty-fifth day of the Sixth Month, climaxing with a nocturnal procession of lantern-decked riverboats carrying the gods.
180. An area where many money-changing houses were located.
181. Servants had two three-day vacations a year, beginning on the sixteenth day of the First and Seventh Months.
182. Presumably to escape his creditors.
183. On the last night of winter in 1240, Heitarō prayed at the Kumano Shrine and saw a dream vision of Saint Shinran (1173–1262) and the Kumano god sitting together, indicating Shinran’s divinity.
184. In the lunar calendar, the two were independent of each other, and the date of each changed slightly every year.
185. King of the nether world and judge of where recently dead souls go after death.
186. In the seventeenth century, this was still a widespread form of marriage among commoners, reflecting earlier, more matrilocal customs and bilateral descent.
187. To be worn beneath an outer black robe.
188. There is a pun here on matsu (pine), the first character of Matsudaira and the original name of the ruling Tokugawa family. Hence the line praises the shōgunate and no doubt pleased the censors.
189. A reference to cranes, popularly believed to have a life span of a thousand years and therefore to be auspicious symbols of longevity.
190. This number, which appears in the Nihon ryakki (1596), refers to the number of dwellings in Kyoto in the second half of the fifteenth century.
191. This earthwork, built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1591, once marked the outer boundary of the capital. These first two paragraphs have been lifted almost verbatim from Saikaku’s Twenty Unfilial Children of Japan (Honchō nijō fukō).
192. Matsunaga Teitoku (1571–1653) was a noted scholar and haikai poet, the founder of the Teimon haikai school. Hanasaki Ward (also known as Inari-chō) is located in present-day Shimogyō-ku, in Kyoto. The “matsu” of Matsunaga is a pivot word, serving as the “pine,” a symbol of longevity, of the previous clause as well as the first character of the poet’s name. Kiseki took this section about Teitoku from Saikaku nagori no tomo.
193. Koishiya, or House of the Pebbles, suggests a comic contrast with the craggy boulder of the previous phrase.
194. Hina dolls, made of paper or porcelain and dressed in aristocratic dress, were set out on display during the Doll Festival. The bumpkin mistakenly believes that an incense burner is a cotton-scrap spool being used by the nearest doll.
195. The copper sen coin had a hole in the middle so that a hundred of them (actually ninety-six were normally accepted for the value of one hundred) could be strung together on a cord. By inserting the flattened pipe bowl, the old man cheated by making up cords of only ninety-five sen.
196. The Third Month was when bream were caught in great quantities in the Inland Sea and so were cheap.
197. Many small theaters and teahouses were located on the east bank of the Kamo River around the Shijō area in downtown Kyoto.
198. Alludes to a line in The Tales of Ise, sec. 9, that gives the height of snow-covered Fuji as equal to twenty mountains the size of Mount Hiei stacked one on top of another.
Chapter 4
EARLY HAIKAI POETRY AND POETICS
Haikai is both a specific poetic genre and a particular mode of discourse, an attitude toward language, literature, and tradition. It is an approach that is most prominently displayed in linked verse, the seventeen-syllable hokku (later called haiku), haibun (haikai prose), and haiga (haikai painting) but that also pervaded much of early modern Japanese culture and literature. Haikai, which originated in the medieval period and peaked in the early modern period, grew out of the interaction between the vernacular and the classical language, between the new popular, largely urban, commoner- and samurai-based culture and the residual classical tradition, with its refined aristocratic associations, which haikai parodied, transformed, and translated into contemporary language and form. Haikai imagination, which took pleasure in the juxtaposition and collision of these two seemingly incongruous worlds and languages, humorously inverted and recast established cultural associations and conventions, particularly the “poetic essence” (hon’i) of classical poetic topics.
The seventeen-syllable (5–7–5) hokku, or opening verse, could be composed as an independent poem or as the beginning of a haikai linked-verse sequence. In addition to the 5–7–5 structure, the hokku required a kigo (seasonal word), an encoded sign that indicated a specific season and had specific poetic associations (the autumn wind, for example, suggesting loneliness or desolation), and a kireji (cutting word), which divided the hokku into two parts, usually a
fter the first or second line. The cutting word, which causes a syntactic break and is marked by a dash in the English translations, creates a space between the two parts of the hokku, often causing the two parts to resonate and forcing the reader to find some internal connection. The hokku could be either a “single-object” poem, focusing on a single image, or a “combination” poem, juxtaposing two different elements. But even “single-object” poems usually have two parts, and the different parts of the “combination” poem are, at least on one level, elements of a larger single scene. Frequently, one part of the hokku, most often the part with the seasonal word, has a classical seasonal topic, and the other part features an image from contemporary, popular culture, thus creating a tension between the two, with the popular image or vernacular phrase giving new life or perspective to the classical topic or the classical topic giving poetic shape or overtones to the contemporary image.
Waka, the thirty-one-syllable classical poem, generally excluded all forms of language not found in the refined, aristocratic diction of the Heian classics, particularly the Kokinshū, The Tales of Ise, and The Tale of Genji. The subject matter was likewise confined to a cluster of highly elegant topics, usually pertaining to love and the four seasons. The same restrictions applied to renga, or classical linked verse, which continued the classical tradition into the late medieval period. By contrast, haikai freely used “haikai words” (haigon)—vernacular, Chinese, Buddhist terms, slang, common sayings—which challenged, inverted, or otherwise subverted classical poetry and often were scatological, bawdy, or corporeal. The Mongrel Tsukuba Collection (Inu tsukuba shū, 1532), one of the earliest anthologies of haikai, begins with
kasumi no koromo A robe of mist
suso wa nurekeri soaked at the hem
The added verse (tsukeku) composed by Yamazaki Sōkan (d. 1538), one of the pioneers of haikai and thought to be the editor of the Mongrel Tsukuba Collection, is
Sahohime no Princess Saho
Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900 Page 26