1. Lying on his stomach with a large lamp on the right, Enjirō smokes a pipe while reading a shinnai libretto. The curtain leading out to the shop area bears the crest of the Dutch United East Indian Company, suggesting that his father has made his fortune selling exotic imported goods. Enjiro’s tobacco tray, on the left, holds a jar for the charcoal fire and a tall bamboo tube for pipe ashes. To the right lies a tobacco pouch. Water is heating in the kettle on the brazier. Enjirō has a pug nose that became known as the Enjirō Nose or Kyōden Nose because Kyōden depicted himself with the same nose. From the 1785 edition. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
1. Enjirō is the only son of the noted millionaire Adakiya, who owns the Wanton Shop.18 Now nineteen and feeling frisky, he’s never suffered from the disease of poverty, and as the ballad says, he doesn’t plan to catch any other. He was born amorous, and he likes to read romantic shinnai ballads. He especially envies heroes like Tamakiya Itahachi and Ukiyo Inosuke, who become the lovers of famous courtesans in the licensed quarters and decide to commit love suicide with them. He feels he must become a lover hero himself and have an affair with a courtesan so scandalous he’ll remember it for his whole life, even if he has to die with the woman. His mind fills with idiotic thoughts, and he contemplates giving up his life for love and fame.
2. In the parlor, Enjirō sits facing Kitari Kinosuke and Warui Shian (who, like many herbal doctors, has shaved his head). Behind Enjirō, in the alcove, is a book box containing The Tale of Genji and The Tales of Ise, two Heian classics about famous lovers. By contrast, Kinosuke and Shian sit in front of a standing screen of Enma, the king of hell, who judged newly dead souls. The screen bears the signature of Hanabusa Itchō (1652–1724), a noted painter of contemporary manners. Although Kinosuke speaks of Yoshiwara as if he were a connoisseur, the image of Enma suggests otherwise. Kinosuke and Shian are attired with the black scarves worn by pleasure seekers, but Enjirō is bare necked, implying that he is still a neophyte. The composition of the three figures sitting together alludes to a passage in book 16 of the Analects in which Confucius warns of bad friendships: “To make friends with the ingratiating in action, the pleasant in appearance and the plausible in speech is to lose” (The Analects, trans. D.C. Lau [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979]). (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
[ENJIRŌ]: Utterly fantastic! Those guys must have been born on really lucky days.
2. Enjirō is good friends with Kitari Kinosuke, a suave young playboy who lives nearby, and Warui Shian, an herbal doctor and amateur jester who often entertains his rich patients.19 One day they begin to discuss ways that Enjirō could become a great playboy.
[ENJIRŌ]: There must be some way I can make an incredible name for myself as a great lover.
3. Kinosuke tattoos Enjiro’s arm by pricking the skin with a needle and filling the wound with ink from the inkstone at his knee. Enjirō’s tobacco set lies in front of him. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
[KINOSUKE]: First of all, to be a killer playboy, you have to be able to sing some of those emotional solo kabuki songs that everybody knows and hums. Start with “Pheasants Crying,” “Bell Tolling in Hell,” “Drinking While the Bell Tolls,” “Moon of Our Love,” “Three Kinds of Birds,” “Woman Who Sleeps on Three Mattresses,” “Linked Lovers’ Crests,” “Two Lovers, Four Sleeves,” “Raised in the Quarters,” “Hidden Underwater Rock of Love,” “Clouds of Cherry Blossoms,” “Morning Glory,” “Six Great Poets,” “Komachi,” “Henjō,” “Kuronushi,” “Narihira,” “Yasuhide,” “White Thread Undyed by Love,” “Love Suicide—Alone,” “Cutting off My Finger to Prove My Love,” “Tattooing Her Name,” “Pledge of Unchanging Love,” “Tangerine Memories,” “Eternal Flower,” “The Requiem Bell Tolls Thirteen,” “Water Mirror,” “River Boat,” “Waiting for Night,” “Parting,” “Last Autumn Leaves,” “A Short Sleep,” “Summer Robe,” “Spring Night,” “Autumn Night,” “Clear Mirror,” “Bell at Midnight,” “Hazy Moon,” “Spring Mist,” “Birds Flying up at Dawn,” “River of Desire,” “The Third Princess,” “Rite of Manhood,” “Chrysanthemums,” “Mosquito Net in Fall,” “Yoshino Cherries,” “Summer Moon,” “Crows at Daybreak,” “Flock of Crows,” “Fan,” “Flower Fragrance,” “Cherry Blossom–Viewing Party,” “Lingering Summer Heat,” “Comb Holding Her Hair,” “Mountain Between Us,” “Tied Forever,” “Love-Dyed Thread,” “Nightingale from the Other World,” “Love Cherries,” “Seven Autumn Plants,” “Syllabary Letter Written with Two Strokes,” “Letter in Reverse,” “My Heart,” “Edo Robe,” “Floor Mat Divination,” “A Single Ditch,” and “Love Talk.” Whew! My jaw won’t move. These are just a few, but they’re a good beginning.
And there are lots of secrets to writing and reading letters. If a courtesan doesn’t seal the envelope, it means she’s ending the relationship. But if she signs with her personal name, you’re in trouble. It means she really wants you.
[SHIAN]: If you see lipstick on the letter, well, ordinary women never tear off letter paper from the roll with their mouths. And here’s another way you can tell if a woman was once a professional, no matter how plain she looks. She’ll have a callus behind her ear from her wooden pillow.
3. The first step to getting a romantic reputation is to get tattooed, so Kisuke tattoos the names of almost thirty women on both of Enjirō’s arms and even between his fingers. All the names are imaginary, but Enjirō wants to look as though he’s exchanged vows of eternal love with each of them, so he endures the terrible pain with manly pride.
[KINOSUKE]: You want to look like you’ve been around. Some of the names ought to be partly rubbed out and illegible. I’ll burn some moxa grass on them.
[ENJIRŌ]: Becoming an attractive man’s very painful.
4. Enjirō envies the spectacular way kabuki actors are chased by pretty young women who run right into the actors’ houses. So he asks Warui Shian to visit the popular geisha musician Oen, who lives in the neighborhood, and offer her fifty gold coins to run right into his house in front of everyone.
[SHIAN]: That’s his offer. It’s a great opportunity. If you only will accept, I’ll make a bit off it myself.
[OEN]: If you’re sure that’s all there is to it, I’d be very glad to.
4. Shian visits Oen, a noted geisha performer. A shamisen case, containing the instrument of her trade, sits above, on a shelf. Holding a cloth in his mouth and emulating a kabuki actor who specializes in female roles, Shian demonstrates to Oen how she should perform her act. Freelance geisha, who lived outside Yoshiwara, were professional musicians and dancers. Oen, who holds a long pipe, is dressed like a town girl with a black half-collar and a sash tied in the back. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
5. At Enjiro’s house Oen weeps, claiming that she spotted Enjirō at the Yakushi Temple in Kayabachō, in Edo, which many people visited on the eighth and twelfth of the month. Enjiro’s parents, standing flustered, try to console her. The tilted lantern provides a silhouette of the maidservants peeping through the rice-paper shades. The incredulous head clerk, on the right, reaches out to Oen. Enjirō, acting abashed, is in fact telling Oen to raise her voice. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
5. The women servants in the house peep in at their employer’s son and whisper.
[SERVING WOMAN]: She really has weird taste. Maybe she’s one of those eccentric tea masters.
[OEN]: I’m just a poor wandering geisha who’s failed as a musician. Recently I’ve been living on a small alley near here, seducing men for their money. Then one night, beyond some potted trees at the night market at the Yakushi Temple in Kayabachō, I caught sight of your son. If you won’t let me be his wife, then please, I beg you, allow me to cook in your kitchen. If you refuse me even that, I’ll kill myself.
She’s memorized her lines perfectly.
[SOROBEI, THE HEAD CLERK]: I never thought that a lady would fall for someone with a face like our master’s. Young woman, are you sure you’re in the right house?
Enjirō’s father, Yajiemon, is unaware the woman has been hired. He pities her and tries hard to dissuade her from committing suicide. Finally she agrees to leave.
6. Tabloid vendors (yomiuri) walked around as a team, reading out and selling broadsheets (kawaraban) that announce the latest news. This vendor, whom Enjirō has hired to go all over Edo and spread the news for free, has traveled to the residential area of the daimyō mansions, indicated by the white plaster walls and the protruding window. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
6. Instead of rumors spreading like wildfire, even the neighbors haven’t heard what’s happened. Disappointed, Enjirō pays to have the affair written up on a broadsheet. He gives a gold piece each to hawkers to advertise it all over Edo.
[HAWKER]: Extra! Extra! Read all about it! A beautiful geisha’s fallen in love with Enjirō, the handsome son of millionaire Adakiya. She forced her way right into his house. It’s unbelievable. But the details are all here. It’s so hot we’re giving the issue away. Get yours free!
[MAID]20 (inside a daimyō’s mansion): Give me a break, will you? Nothing in there’s true. It’s all just made up. Even for free, who’d want to waste time reading that?
7. Believing the superstition that sneezing means someone’s talking about you, Enjirō is sure that each sneeze he hears is due to his widening fame. But no one even on the same block has heard about the incident. So Enjirō changes course and decides to make a name for himself by visiting the Yoshiwara licensed quarter and going to expensive private performances led by a famous high-ranking courtesan at one of the houses there. Now he’s at the Wanton Pines Teahouse, on the main street of the Yoshiwara. Warui Shian and Kitari Kinosuke are with him, acting as his jesters for the night. They both use exactly the right words and sound very sophisticated.
[FEMALE OWNER]: I’ve sent someone to ask whether Segawa or Utahime’s free tonight. Just now I saw Konomo, one of Utahime’s girl assistants, over at the Low Pines Teahouse, so Utahime’s probably tied up over there.
7. Enjirō, Kinosuke, and Shian visit the Wanton Pines Teahouse (Uwaki Matsuya), on the Naka-no-chō, the main street in Yoshiwara. Wealthy customers first gathered at a teahouse, drank and ate, conversed with the host or hostess, and made arrangements to meet a courtesan. The hostess here is serving sake with a light meal. The Uwaki Matsuya did not exist, but the single-panel screen on the right, bearing the signature of the Rinpa school painter Tawaraya Sōri (act. ca. 1764–1781), the altar with Buddhist reverse-swastika designs, and the letter rack above Enjirō no doubt suggest an existing teahouse. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
8. Enjirō meets Ukina, a high-ranking courtesan, for an evening at the Ukinaya. Ukina sits with her child attendant (kamuro) by her side. Enjirō quietly straightens out his collar in the manner of a playboy. Kinosuke and Shian are busy flattering Ukina, who covers her mouth in a pose of embarrassment. An elaborate gold-leaf screen, by the lamp, adds brilliance to the room. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
[FEMALE OWNER]: Did you hear? Kōshirō’s going to play Bokuga at the Moritaza theater downtown in Kobikichō.21
9. Enjirō interviews a prospective mistress at home. Some mistresses escaped from their contracts by wetting their beds. The pillar tablet behind Enjirō, on which “Bed-Wetting Forbidden” is written in a formal seal script, reflects Enjirō’s thoughts and alludes to a famous hokku by the haikai poet Kikaku (1661–1707): “No pissing in this place—flower-covered mountain.” The signature in the corner of the tablet “Brushed by Kazan (Mountain of Flowers)” adds the last phrase of the haiku, confirming the allusion. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
8. Enjirō decides on a top-ranking courtesan named Ukina22 of the Ukinaya, the House of Floating Fame, who is very experienced and knows all the techniques there are for controlling and manipulating customers. He’s confident that he’ll get quite a reputation after a woman like that falls for him. He tries very hard to look suave and constantly straightens the neckpiece of his underrobe as nonchalantly as he can. He wonders, though, why attractive men have to worry about such small details.
[SHIAN]: People say you’re incredibly good at stringing men along.
[KINOSUKE]: You’re the boss of all the courtesans, and you must know every trick in the book.
[UKINA]: Please, can’t we dispense with the tasteless jokes?
9. Enjirō can’t put all of himself into visiting the Yoshiwara because he doesn’t feel the excitement of having a wife at home to be jealous about his visits. So he asks an agent to find him a mistress who knows how to show her jealousy. Looks are no concern. When the agent appears with a woman almost forty, Enjirō hires her as his mistress and gives her a down payment of two hundred gold pieces.
[ENJIRŌ]: Aren’t you the old hooker I bought on Nakazu Island last spring? I must warn you, I won’t hire you if you’re planning to start wetting your bed and doing other things to make me send you away after you’ve gotten your down payment.
10. Enjirō decides “to play with an apprentice courtesan,” considered a most sophisticated (tsū) activity at the time. This was a ploy in which a male lover of a high-ranking courtesan pretended to spend time with her apprentice to fool the owner of the house and later met secretly with the high-ranking courtesan so that he could save money. In this scene, Enjirō has set up Shian as Ukina’s affluent customer while he plays the role of the secret lover. Shian, resting on five layers of futon, covered by a brocade robe, and with an elaborate tobacco tray by his pillow, looks into Enjiro’s room through the open sliding doors. The single-layered futon in a cramped room adjacent to the washing room indicates Enjirō’s “low” status. The double-flower crest on the tobacco tray in front of Enjirō is an allusion to Hanaōgi, a famous courtesan in Yoshiwara. Next to the pair of clogs, a poem for repelling insects is pasted upside down for magical effect. Near the hand-washing bowl is a notice of the washing room rules: “Be vigilant against fire. No overnight guests. Don’t throw garbage on the street from the second floor.” To an informed reader, these details would have suggested the Ōgiya House where Hanaōgi lived. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, senryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
[WOMAN]: I certainly hope you won’t hire me if you’re planning to ignore me and spend most of your time going to Yoshiwara or having affairs.
She’s already demonstrating her ability.
10. Enjirō is a born playboy, and he’s bought women in unlicensed areas like Fukagawa, Shinagawa, Shinjuku, and all the other nooks and crannies of Edo. But none of them knew how to control men the way Ukina does. Still, Enjirō is soon bored with paying to meet her directly. It’s too easy. He wants to be Ukina’s secret lover. But she’ll never agree to that. So Enjirō pays to have Warui Shian reserve meetings with Ukina for several days straight while he hires Ukina’s teenage apprentice to perform music for him in a room nearby. It all costs him a fortune, but it’s very exciting to have to go to the trouble of meeting Ukina secretly while another customer is paying for her time.
11. Near the entrance to Yoshiwara, two child assistants (kamuro) seize Enjirō from the side while a teenage apprentice (shinzō) stops him from behind. Enjirō has his head wrapped in the manner of Sukeroku, the kabuki hero. The sign at the bottom right corner reads “Naka-no-chō,” the main street of Yoshiwara. A man with a parcel wrapped around his shoulder has a lantern marked “Naka,” indicating that he is a clerk at the Nakaya, a kimono store that sold robes to high-ranking courtesans in Yoshiwara. (From SNKBZ 79, Kibyōshi, s
enryū, kyōka, by permission of Shōgakukan)
[ENJIRŌ]: Right about now that rich customer of yours is getting jealous and complaining to your matron and the house employees. Just imagining his jealousy feels so good it’s worth five or six hundred gold pieces at least.
[UKINA]: You have really eccentric tastes.
[SHIAN] (under the covers): My role’s really tough. In the performance room out front I’m a big spender playboy, but in the bedroom back here there’s only me and a beautiful gilt smoking tray. It’s just a job, though, so I can’t complain. But here I am, sleeping with a brocade quilt and five soft mattresses. I’d say the deal’s not quite equal.
11. Enjirō remembers a passage from a jōruri chant about the playboy Sukeroku in Yoshiwara:
Cherry trees and dogs bark,
announcing the departure of male customers.
The buds of a love quarrel begin to bloom
and the girl attendants tug at the man’s sleeves.
He’s pulled back as if pulled by the hair,
his heart unable to cut off his love.
The words make Enjirō envy the way the young attendants of high-ranking courtesans catch any man who tries to visit another high-ranking courtesan while he’s still seeing their mistress.23 Wanting to be in the same dilemma, he hires Ukina’s two child attendants and her teenage apprentice to ambush him at the quarters gate and pull him through the main street as though they were forcing him to go back to Ukina again. He asks them to rip his cloak as they pull him along.
Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900 Page 99