Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900
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39. A Han-period yuefu ballad-poem reportedly sung to a harp by a Korean woman who had tried to stop her drunk husband from trying to cross a river. After she finished the song, she threw herself into the river.
40. A Chinese poet from Chu who lived in the second century B.C.E. In “The Fisher” a sage urges Qu Yuan, slandered and exiled, to be more flexible, while Qu Yuan righteously insists on his innocence. The poet committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo River.
41. Unlicensed prostitutes worked in various parts of Edo, many in newly developed areas known as “hells.”
42. Produce given by farmers to Edo landlords in return for shipments of human manure.
43. A noted eighth-century Buddhist monk. The ancient statue would be priceless.
44. Ducks (kamo) are homophonous with the famous Kamo god. “Shintō priest” (negi) is homophonous with “onion” (negi). These words became euphemisms for forbidden food.
45. Slang for “young male homosexuals.”
46. According to a legend dramatized in the nō play Chrysanthemum Boy, the Chrysanthemum Boy Sage was loved by a king until he was banished at sixteen; in exile he drank dew from chrysanthemums and gained immortality. “Chrysanthemum Seat” implies anus.
47. Young man loved by the duke of Wei in the Zhou period. Dong Xian, loved by the Han emperor Ai, became a powerful official. Meng Dongye (Meng Jiang) is a Tang-period poet reputed to have loved the poet Han Yu.
48. Kūkai (774–835), who founded the Shingon Buddhist sect in Japan.
49. “Master of Beauty” and guardian of Buddhist wisdom. In Japanese, srii (Master) becomes shiri (rear end).
50. Fighting for the Minamoto at the battle of Ichinotani in 1184, Kumagai unhorsed the Taira hero Atsumori on the beach and beheaded him. Enma is referring to a homoerotic version of the confrontation.
51. Younger brother of the shōgun, Minamoto Yoritomo.
52. A Taoist mystical phrase used in Laozi (sec. 55).
53. On a pole that Enma held were two demons with heads but no bodies. One saw through newly dead souls brought before Enma; the other sniffed out their true characters.
54. Ninth-century Buddhist priest. Enma is referring to the poem: “I plucked you, woman-flower, charmed only by your name—Do not tell others I fell and broke my vows” (Kokinshū, Autumn 1, no. 226). “Fall” also means “to break a vow of chastity.”
55. Kamo no Chōmei (1155–1216), the poet and author of An Account of My Hut (Hōjōki), whose opening is quoted here. In the following lines, allusions to ancient poems overlap with contemporary scenes.
56. Kokinshū, Travel, no. 411, also sec. 9 of The Tales of Ise, by Ariwara no Narihira.
57. Furitsutsu, homophonous with “snows continuously,” a line from a poem about Mount Fuji by the ancient poet Akahito (Shinkokinshū, no. 675).
58. Man‘yōshū, no. 320.
59. The man recalls a poem by the Chinese poet Su Dongpo (Su Shi, 1037–1101), “Prose Poem at the Red Cliff,” in which a lone poet hits the sides of a boat. Gennai is describing a kind of group ecstasy.
60. A reference to Ki no Tsurayuki’s Tosa Diary and that text’s allusion to two legendary Chinese singers.
61. Dragons traditionally rise into the sky, entering clouds and causing rain. This is an allusion to a legend that the Chinese poet Han Yu loved another poet, Meng Dongye, with Han Yu becoming the clouds and Meng, the older poet, becoming the dragon. The samurai, a lowly water spirit, symbolically represents his lord, the dragon.
62. Gennai himself, in the preface to The Modern Life of Shidōken.
63. Terms for older and younger male lovers in a relationship, a parody of the Analects (12:5): “If the virtuous man is circumspect, blameless, and courteous, then every man in the world will be his brother.”
64. Kikunojō’s family name, Segawa, means “River of Shallow Pools.”
65. Man ‘yoshu, no. 3342.
66. Ichikawa Danjuro II (1688–1758), admired for his mixture of rough, exaggerated acting and refined feeling.
67. The name of the temple is apparently Gennai’s creation.
68. Gyokuyō wakashū, vol. 1, no. 144.
69. That is, reading literature from earlier ages. Evokes section 13 of Yoshida Kenko’s Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa).
70. Reference to Tao Qian’s (365–427) “Peach Blossom Spring,” in which the poet discovers a utopian community in a peach grove but is unable to return to it.
71. Suggests the Tokugawa shōgunate and the Edo period.
72. Refers to Itō Jinsai (1627–1705), a Confucian philosopher who established the Ancient Studies (kogigaku) school.
73. Refers to Aoki Kon’yō (1698–1769), a scholar of Confucianism and Dutch studies (rangaku) who gave advice to the bakufu on agricultural policy.
74. Refers to Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), an influential scholar of Confucian studies, and his followers. Zhu Xi (1130–1200) was a Song Confucian scholar who had a large impact on Japanese Confucian philosophy.
75. Dazai Shundai (1680–1747), a follower of Ogyū Sorai.
76. Literally, Sage Who Comes and Goes with the Wind, similar to Gennai’s pen name, Vagabond Mountain Man.
77. Also a term for self-conceited egotists.
78. Customarily, high-ranking courtesans never slept with men before the third meeting.
79. Refers to Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), a Japanese Confucian scholar.
80. The statue of Kannon is in the shape of a dildo.
81. Ichikawa Danjūrō (1688–1758). The other actors mentioned are contemporaries.
82. An especially popular unveiling was held from the Second to the Fourth Month of 1774, when a large number of Edo residents traveled up the Ara River on boats to worship. The temple raised a tremendous amount of money, and gamblers lined the road outside the gate.
83. Chanted Gennai’s puppet play Epiphany at Yaguchi Crossing (1770).
84. Refers to the folktale “The Old Man Who Made Blossoms Bloom,” in which an honest man is helped by the gods and all his acts have good results; even ashes sprinkled on a tree turn to blossoms in front of a lord, and he is rewarded. However, when his neighbor imitates him, hoping for the same rewards, the neighbor fails. Similarly, in the Muromachi-period otogi-zōshi popular tale The Tale of Fukutomi, the protagonist, Fukutomi, has an almost divine ability to fart artistically, and he is rewarded by a lord. However, when his covetous neighbor asks for instruction, receives pills, and performs before the lord, his farting turns to diarrhea and soils the lord’s garden.
85. The Sanbasō, the felicitous dance from the “god” nō play Old Man (Okina), was performed early in the morning on kabuki stages before the day’s performance began.
86. Rido was one of the famous “Eighteen Great Connoisseur Playboys” (Dai-tsu) of the 1770s.
87. Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) and his Edo disciple Kikaku (1661–1707) were virtually worshiped by later-eighteenth-century Edo poets.
88. Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591), one of the great masters of the art of tea and the pioneer of wabicha, and his grandson Sen Sōtan (1578–1658), who systematized and popularized it. By Gennai’s time, the art of tea had become highly codified.
Chapter 12
COMIC AND SATIRIC POETRY
SENRYŪ
In the 1750s, the seventeen-syllable senryū, or comic haiku, became popular. The senryū has the same 5–7–5 syllabic structure as haiku, but unlike haiku, which focuses primarily on the natural world, the senryū uses humor, satire, and wit to comment on contemporary society and the human condition. Historically, senryū derived from a particular type of linked verse, maekuzuke (verse capping), which can be traced back to linked verse in the medieval period. In verse capping, the judge (tenja) presents an initial or “earlier verse” (maeku) to which the participants respond with an “added verse” (tsukeku), which is then judged and scored. The initial verse usually is fourteen syllables long, and the added verse is seventeen syllables.
Unlike haiku, which stresses o
vertones and tries to create a subtle, elegant mood, senryū focuses on popular and lowbrow subjects and are intended to surprise and amuse the reader. In contrast to haiku’s relatively circumscribed topical range, that of the senryū is broad, encompassing a range of topics of interest to eighteenth-century audiences, particularly in Edo. Examples are everyday domestic life, various occupations (from that of doctor to laundryman to thief), relations between the sexes, the Yoshiwara licensed quarter, recent incidents, and noted historical events and literary figures. As a popular new genre, senryū took up subjects that haiku avoided, such as love and sexuality. Indeed, senryu’s heavy reliance on vulgar topics, including highly erotic and pornographic material, has often prevented it from being considered literature or serious poetry.
The fundamental differences between haiku and senryū can be traced to their historical origins. Haiku, the modern word for hokku (literally, opening verse), was originally the opening verse in a linked-verse sequence, and senryū was an offshoot of the added verse. Consequently, senryū, unlike haiku, does not require a seasonal word (kigo), which connects the haiku to nature and the larger poetic tradition. In addition, unlike the hokku, senryū does not require a cutting word (kireji), which splits the verse into two syntactic parts. Instead, the senryū usually consists of a single grammatical unit. The haiku also usually ends in a noun or a sentence-ending declension, which gives the verse a sense of closure, whereas the senryū often closes with the continuative verb form (renyōkei), suggesting further action. Generally, the senryū abbreviates the key word or topic, forcing readers to fill in the blank space and creating a sense of surprise and excitement when they realize what has been left out.
The humor of senryū frequently stems from deflating or inverting objects or persons of high status, authority, or elegance. Senryū parodies figures and incidents in classical literature as well as famous poetic phrases and well-known aphorisms (kotowaza). Senryū frequently uses wordplay, such as puns and word associations (often impossible to translate), and makes surprising metaphors or comparisons (mitate). But beyond parody and wordplay, senryū examines the world with a sharp and satirical eye. Indeed, senryu’s greatest strength is revealing human weaknesses and failings and pointing out the contradictions and paradoxes of contemporary society.
Senryū, kyōka (comic waka), kyōshi (comic Chinese poetry), and kyōbun (comic prose) appeared at the same time as such comic or satirical fictional forms as dangibon (satiric sermons), kokkeibon (books of humor), sharebon (books of wit and fashion), and kibyōshi (comic illustrated books). The simultaneous emergence and growth of “wild” (kyō) or comic literature at this time, in the An’ei-Tenmei era (1772–1789), has been at least partly attributed to the lax rule of Senior Councillor Tanuma Okitsugu (r. 1772–1786), who neglected to enforce the restraints placed on society during the Kyōhō Reforms.
KARAI SENRYŪ
Karai Senryū (1718–1790) was a town official in the Asakusa district of Edo. But he also was a noted judge of verse capping and was known for his judgments on manku awase (ten-thousand-verse contests) in which a judge presented an earlier verse and the participants submitted added verses. Prizes were awarded to those people whose added verses were selected by the judge as superior. In 1765 Senryū’s disciple published Willow Barrel (Haifū yanagidaru, commonly called Yanagidaru), a collection of 756 prize-winning verses from earlier manku awase (dating from 1757 to 1765). Significantly, this was one of the first such collections to leave out the earlier verse and to treat the added verses as independent poems. In this way, a new genre was created, named after Senryū himself. Indeed, Willow Barrel proved to be so popular that it was expanded, and by the time it ceased publication, in 1838, it numbered 167 volumes.
Most of the following selections are from the first twenty-three volumes of Willow Barrel, which were published while Karai Senryū was alive. Some of the verses are from Additional Gatherings for the Willow Barrel (Yanagidaru shūi, 1796), which was published thirty years later and organizes the poems by topic. Other sources are Willow Along the River (Kawazoi yanagi, 1780–1783) and Safflower (Suetsumuhana, 1776–1801), a collection devoted to erotica. Today about 200,000 senryū from the middle to the end of the Tokugawa period survive, but almost all of them are anonymous (unlike the kyōka, which were signed and whose authors made a name for themselves). Even Karai Senryū, the founder of Edo senryū, is known primarily as a judge rather than a poet. The practice of writing senryū, which extended into the Meiji period, continues to be popular today.
Various Occupations
ohanage wo
All he does at work:
kazoete iru ga count the number of hairs
tsutome nari in his lord’s nostrils1
[Yanagidaru, vol. 24, translated by Makoto Ueda]
yakunin no The official’s little son—
ko wa niginigi wo how fast he’s learned to open
yoku oboe and close his fist!2
[Yanagidaru, vol. 1, translated by Makoto Ueda]
yoi goke ga “There’ll soon be
dekiru to hanasu a charming widow”—that’s the talk
isha nakama among the doctors3
[Yanagidaru, vol. 5, translated by Makoto Ueda]
hen to iu The doctor has prepared
nigemichi isha wa a way out—
akete oku “A sudden change for the worse.”
[Yanagidaru, vol. 24, translated by Haruo Shirane]
yoku shimete Off to work,
nero to ihi ihi the burglar to his wife:
nusumi ni de “Lock up tight when you go to bed!”4
[Yanagidaru shūi, vol. 10, translated by Burton Watson]
sentakuya The laundryman:
kinjo no hito no a fellow who feeds on the filth
aka de kuhi of his neighbors
[Yanagidaru, vol. 1, translated by Makoto Ueda]
sekitori no The sumo wrestler—
chichi no atari no a crowd of fans swarming
hitodakari below his chest
[Yanagidaru, vol. 1, translated by Makoto Ueda]
kiku hito mo Whatever he says
kokoro de gowari is discounted 50 percent
hiite oki by anyone who listens
[Yanagidaru shūi, vol. 9, translated by Makoto Ueda]
The Human Condition
kamiyo ni mo
Even in the time of gods
damasu kumen wa they needed wine
sake ga iri to deceive others5
[Yanagidaru, vol. 1, translated by Haruo Shirane]
gakumon to Learning and a ladder—
hashigo wa tonde you can climb neither
noborarezu if you skip a step6
[Yanagidaru shūi, vol. 10, translated by Makoto Ueda]
e de mite wa Judging by the pictures
jigoku no hō ga hell looks like a more
omoshiroshi exciting place7
[Yanagidaru, vol. 71, translated by Makoto Ueda]
he wo hitte Laying a fart—
okashiku mo nai no humor in it
hitorimono when you live alone8
[Yanagidaru, vol. 3, translated by Burton Watson]
nete tokeba How long it seems
obi hodo nagaki when you undo a woman’s sash
mono wa nashi while lying in bed!9
[Yanagidaru, vol. 3, translated by Makoto Ueda]
gokezakari “You’re in the prime
da to homeyō mo of widowhood”—what a way
aro nō ni to compliment a woman!
[Yanagidaru shūi, vol. 2, translated by Makoto Ueda]
Domestic Life
nyōbo ga
His wife away from home
rusu de ichinichi he spends the entire day
sagashigoto looking for things
[Kawazoi yanagi, vol. 5, translated by Makoto Ueda]
meshitaki ni For a housemaid
baba wō oite she’s hired an old woman—
hana akase a nice surprise for him!
[Yanagidaru, vol.
1, translated by Makoto Ueda]
chonai de The whole town
shiranu wa teishu knows of it, except
bakari nari the husband
[Suetsumuhana, vol. 4, translated by Makoto Ueda]
wakadanna The young master
yoru wa ogande who scolds the maid in the daytime
hiru shikari worships her at night
[Senryū hyō manku awase, translated by Makoto Ueda]
nyōbō o The guy
kowagaru yatsu wa who fears his wife
kane ga dekiru makes money10
[Yanagidaru, vol. 3, translated by Haruo Shirane]
haha no na wa A tattoo of
oyaji no ude ni the mother’s name shriveled
shinabite i in the father’s arm11
[Yanagidaru, vol. 2, translated by Haruo Shirane]
ko wo motte Now that he has a child
kinjo no inu no he knows all the local dogs
na wo oboe by name
[Yanagidaru shūi, vol. 9, translated by Makoto Ueda]
soeji shite Baby at her breast
tana ni iwashi ga she tells him, “There’re sardines
gozariyasu on the shelf”12
[Yanagidaru, vol. 14, translated by Makoto Ueda]
ashioto ga Each time footsteps
suru to Rongo no approach, he puts it under
shita e ire the Analects13
[Kawazoi yanagi, vol. 2, translated by Makoto Ueda]
Yoshiwara, the Licensed Quarter
Yoshiwara e
Yoshiwara—
otoko no chie wo that’s where a man goes to dump
sute ni yuki all his better judgment
[Yanagidaru shūi, vol. 7, translated by Makoto Ueda]
yo no naka wa When the night falls
kurete kuruwa wa the day starts to break
hiru ni nari on the brothels
[Yanagidaru shūi, vol. 6, translated by Makoto Ueda]
waraigao Even her smile
made keisei wa is carefully made up—
koshiraeru the courtesan
[Yanagidaru, vol. 13, translated by Makoto Ueda]