Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  “One is wondering when the first cuckoo will call, when one hears the pitter-patter of raindrops coming down. Or one may be spending all one’s hours leafing through books as the rains of the Fifth Month go on and on, making one feel more and more distant from the ways of the world as time goes on. Or just when the heat seems most unbearable, the clouds above may roil with rain, the winds descend in a rush, and the leaves and the willows and lotus leaves appear to turn white—a most cooling sight. When the big raindrops that had seemed far away finally come, falling so hard now that one can hear nothing else, one catches the scent of wet earth and feels renewed. A curtain of raindrops hangs from the eaves and the constant downpour makes the garden into a lake, here a waterfall, there a running stream, with people—most amusingly—just watching it all in silence. Then the clouds thin out as a few raindrops still splash here and there on the pond, and the birds prance out into the garden searching for food. Off where the clouds first arose, the sky shows blue, and a rainbow appears; and how cool one feels looking at the reflections of trees in the puddles in the garden! Startled by the thunder, an old woman crawls out and says, ‘How nicely the sky has cleared, just like when I was young; these days it rarely clears up so well,’ and babbles on while the people around laugh at her for making such a fuss. ‘There won’t be many mosquitoes today, with the thunder sounding so faintly; you can almost forget how hot it’s been,’ one says, going out onto the veranda to enjoy the captivating sight of light from the evening moon shining everywhere, making water drops on the bushes shine like jewels while fat frogs, gazing up into the sky as if waiting for something, call out in clumsy voices.

  “The rain of autumn seems changed from what it was just days before and somehow forlorn. The wind blowing over the reeds, the voice of a deer crying in the foothills—these seem to strike more deeply into the heart than even the moon. The sound of the bamboo water-pipe that one is so used to hearing even seems sadder.

  “Also captivating are rain showers passing before the moon. And more moving still is the sound of crickets in the chill of night, their voices hoarse from wear, calling out feebly near one’s pillow during a short break in the rain. ‘Surely this rain will be dyeing the leaves,’ one thinks, only to hear a different reaction from one’s children, who, crowded round the lamp, chatter forlornly: ‘The bamboo shoots will be coming up, and the chestnuts will be falling.’

  “Always damp is the sound of a bell ringing out late at night, but in autumn the sound takes on a chill, calling to mind nights spent waiting or times of parting, so much so that one’s feelings grow even deeper, reaching out in sympathy even to the one who strikes the bell. The deep color of the autumn leaves, the final flourishing of faded chrysanthemums in the moment before they fall, the resentful look of gentian in bloom while the eulalia declines under heavy dew—all seem somehow appropriate to the season. And how moving it is that the morning glories, blooming in bright purple amid the general withering, should stave off their decline until after noon.

  “Monsoon winds are a fearsome thing, and the rain they bring is no less fierce than the rain of a summer thunderstorm, so the lonely feeling they inspire can be attributed only to autumn’s melancholy. Suddenly one hears the sound of showers falling whitely in the evening sunlight—a different sound and very alluring.

  “‘So—don’t you agree?’ the man says. ‘Isn’t a rainy night more moving than a moonlit night, or a night of darkness?’

  “‘When one runs through all those examples, one is quite ready to agree,’ I think to myself, quite amused as I listened, ‘but listening to you go through them makes me feel like I’ve been through a whole year of rain. This rain we’re having now started just the day before yesterday, and already I’m sick of it—and that hasn’t changed!’”

  Comments Made by Bystanders

  Comments made by bystanders often turn out to be true. Someone says, “My, how that fellow has aged,” even though the man himself doesn’t see it when he looks in the mirror. Or someone says, “Now he acts this way, but later he will regret it,” whereas the one referred to is totally oblivious. If not for our self-centeredness, we might see just what those next to us see.

  On the Ainu

  I gave some rice to an Ainu, and he took it happily but then spilled a lot of it in the process of eating. “Hey you,” I said, “don’t you know rice is what sustains the string of life? How can you waste it so?” “But we don’t depend on rice for life,” he said. “Instead, we rely on a fish called salmon.” So I said, “If that’s so—if you sustain life by eating salmon—then you should respect salmon, right? But aren’t those things on your feet made of salmon skin?” At this the man cocked his head a moment and then said, “But those sandals you are wearing—aren’t they made of grass from the rice plant?”

  We shouldn’t ridicule the Ainu, someone said. Since people of our country know little about outsiders, many of us think that just because they don’t look like us, all the Ainu are stupid and ignorant. This is why some people laugh out loud when they see someone who looks unusual or laugh when they hear words that they cannot understand, be it someone from China or an Ainu. This is because such people are narrow-minded and have not seen the outside world.

  Fox Stupidity

  Once there was a man who would always give food to a fox that came every night. Since the fox was one of the most intelligent of beasts, he thought, he will someday repay me for my generosity. So every day without fail, he left food, until the fox became accustomed to it. Then one day the man’s horse foaled, and he was so busy that for two days he forgot to put food out, at which the fox—out of resentment, perhaps—ate the foal.

  Bugs in a Hawk

  There was a kind of bug that lived in the feathers of a hawk. When the hawk flew high into the sky, looking down on the houses of men far below, he thought to himself, “I am truly without peer, for without moving my wings I can sail more than a thousand li, rising even beyond the clouds; and I send other birds fleeing in fright, for there is none that can best me.” Yet in this same hawk’s feathers lived bugs that pierced his flesh and sucked his blood until—because they became so numerous—the hawk collapsed. At this, the bugs first tried to fly away themselves but could not succeed in getting off the ground, and then they tried to run but could not get up any speed. With the hawk’s blood all gone and his flesh dried up, the bugs had no way to sustain life, and so they left. Just as they succeeded in making their way out from among the hawk’s feathers, a baby sparrow showed up. “Certainly he will fear us,” the bugs thought, but the baby sparrow paid no attention, and when they crawled over toward the bird thinking that he could not fail to notice them, the bird suddenly became happy, stuck out his beak, and began to peck at them. So amazed were the bugs that they became frightened and hid themselves—so said the friend who told me this story.

  [Kagetsu sōshi, Iwanami shoten, 1964, pp. 21–22, 24–25, 27, 36–37, 43–46, 88, 139–140, translated by Steven Carter]

  ________________________

  1. Probably a reference to the Confucian virtues: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, knowledge, and trustworthiness

  Chapter 25

  EARLY-NINETEENTH-CENTURY HAIKU

  With the spread of education in the eighteenth century, the haikai “population” gradually expanded to the point that even maids and grooms were said to be composing haiku for entertainment. Not surprisingly, the quality of the poetry suffered, and so in the mid-eighteenth century, Buson and his circle attempted in various ways to reelevate it, such as staging a Bashō revival. By the early nineteenth century, Buson and his successors had died, but haiku continued to be popular. The most talented haiku poet of this time was Kobayashi Issa, whose main interest was in everyday, contemporary life. This disregard for established poetic topics and the satirical quality of Issa’s haiku—which often shaded into senryū—were typical of haikai of this time.

  KOBAYASHI ISSA

  Issa, born Kobayashi Yatarō (1763–1827), was the
first son of a middle-class farmer in Kashiwabara, at the northern tip of Shinano Province (Nagano Prefecture), facing the Japan Sea side, a region referred to as snow country (yukiguni). Issa’s mother died when he was three, and his father remarried three years later. Because of his stepmother’s coldness, Issa left home in 1777 when he was fourteen and went to Edo, where he struggled as an apprentice-servant. Around 1787, he began studying haikai with Chikua (1710–1790) and other poets of the haikai Katsushika group, which was part of the larger Bashō revival taking place at this time, and he adopted the haikai pen name Issa (Cup of Tea). In 1792, he began a six-year journey through the Kyoto-Osaka region, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, after which he went back to Edo and took over Chikua’s school. Issa had difficulty making a living as a teacher, however, and depended on friends to survive.

  In 1801, when he was thirty-eight, Issa returned to Kashiwabara because his father was dying, an experience described in Journal of My Father’s Last Days (Chichi no shūen nikki). In his will, Issa’s father split the inheritance between Issa and his stepbrother, which his stepmother contested, leading to a long dispute. In 1813, Issa finally won his share of the property and returned to his home village. Shortly thereafter, he married a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Kiku, who bore him four children, none of whom survived for long. The birth and death of his second child and first daughter, Sato, prompted Issa to write My Spring (Ora ga haru) in 1819. In 1823, his wife of ten years also died, and then in 1827, he lost his house to a massive fire. Issa died soon afterward, at the age of sixty-four. The poems he wrote after returning to Kashiwabara were gathered in various collections such as Seventh Diary (Shichiban nikki, 1810–1818).

  Issa is considered a highly unorthodox poet, although he was exposed to the different currents of haikai prevailing at that time: first, the Bashō-revival style of the Katsushika school, which is apparent in Issa’s travel literature; then the comic style of the Danrin school in Osaka, with which Issa came into contact during his journey to Kyūshū; and finally the “provincial (inaka) style,” which is characterized by colloquial language and dialect and is deliberately focused on provincial topics and which came into prominence in Edo in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. In contrast to the Edo haikai poets, for whom the provincial style was a kind of fashion and form of play, Issa wrote from experience and with striking individuality, reflecting both his roots in a provincial farming village and his uncertain existence in the city. The “Issa style” is noted for its dynamic and liberal use of colloquial language and dialect and for its fresh perspective, of someone looking at city life as an outsider. His poetry tends to straddle the border between the seventeen-syllable senryū (comic haiku), with its satiric and social concerns, and orthodox haikai, with its emphasis on nature and the seasons. In this sense, Issa reacted strongly against the tendency of earlier haikai poets to write on fixed seasonal topics. He is known for his sympathy for animals, insects, and small creatures; his use of personification; his humor; and the autobiographical character of his writing and poetry, particularly with regard to his position as an oppressed stepson and as a person consumed by poverty and misfortune. He created what one might call the “poetry of one’s life.” Recently, the autobiographical authenticity of his writings has been questioned, as some critics believe that they may contain significant fictional elements, but there is no doubt that he created a gripping poetic persona.

  JOURNAL OF MY FATHER’S LAST DAYS (CHICHI NO SHŪEN NIKKI, 1807)

  In Journal of My Father’s Last Days, Issa describes the last month of his father’s life in the summer of 1801 and the bitter struggle with his stepmother and stepbrother, Senroku. In contrast to earlier death diaries (shūenki), which honor and idealize the dead, Issa’s journal, which he probably wrote between 1801 and 1806 or 1807, is noteworthy for its realistic and frank description. It drew attention in the modern period as a pioneering work in the Naturalist mode. Recent scholars also see this diary as an attempt by Issa to justify his position vis-à-vis his stepmother and stepbrother.

  Fourth Month, Twenty-third Day

  A clear, calm, cloudless day, filled with the first songs of the mountain cuckoos. . . . As Father stood there, sprinkling water on the eggplant shoots, something came over him. He suddenly hunched down, turning his back to the early summer sun.

  “Why are you lying in such a place?” I asked as I helped him up.

  Later I realized that this was a portent of the flower about to fade. It must have been an inauspicious day for my father. He had just said, “I’m feeling a little poorly,” when he was suddenly struck by a high fever. His body was as if on fire. I offered him some cooked rice, but he could not swallow a single grain. I was alarmed and wondered what could be the matter. I was at my wit’s end, and for lack of anything else to do, I just massaged him. . . .

  Fourth Month, Twenty-ninth Day

  As my father’s illness worsened, he must have begun to worry about my future as an orphan, for he began dividing his meager holdings between his two off-spring. With painful breaths, he gave his instructions. He said he would give the rice field at Nakajima and the one at Kawara to my younger brother, but Senroku did not seem to take kindly to this and grew hostile toward Father and his wishes. Father and Senroku quarreled all day, and that’s where the matter ended. It all started because greed, perversity, and guile had blinded Senroku and driven him out of his senses. How sad it was to see him turning his back on his father and revealing this world of men as it is in these evil days of the Five Defilements.1

  This evening Father’s pulse was exceptionally weak, and I felt anxious about his being left alone. Although Senroku might not be a son who measured up to his father’s expectations, I felt that since he was a blood relation, he would regret it if he was not at his father’s deathbed. Concerned for my brother’s feelings, I had him sleep next to Father. Turning toward Father’s sleeping face in the lamplight, I lay there watching over his resting body. Throughout the night Father gasped painful breaths, and it was hard to watch. I felt relieved when at last it became evident that the tide had turned and he seemed better.

  Father had said that he wanted to try the bear-gall medicine that the doctor at Nojiri was said to have at his place.2 Although it was barely two and a half miles down the road, I felt that were I to go and get the medicine, Father would not be properly taken care of in my absence, since he and my stepmother had had a quarrel the day before. So, without telling my father, I gave Senroku instructions and sent him off. The early summer rains had lifted overnight, but water was washing over the grass, arousing people’s concern about flooding in the rice paddies. And then Father asked where Senroku had gone. I could hardly hide the truth any longer, so I told him what had happened. Father’s rage was uncontrollable, and he would not listen to me.

  He fumed, “Why do you send him out to pick up the bear gall without consulting me? Even you slight me!”

  From the bedroom, my stepmother, raising her voice, seized the opportunity to revile me as though there was no one else around, saying things like “It was that lazybones Issa who sent out Senroku without breakfast. Doesn’t he care at all if his brother’s stomach is empty?”

  There was no way to remedy the situation, so I suffered in silence. Pressing my head to the floor and rubbing my palms in supplication, I repented tearfully, promising, “I’ll be more careful in the future.” Father’s rage abated somewhat.

  Because all of Father’s admonitions, whether given gently or in anger, were for my own benefit, how could I resent them? But how pitiful was his weakened voice raised in anger. After I had spent the previous night brooding about our pending eternal separation, my joy at suffering Father’s scolding this morning could hardly be surpassed even by the joy of a blind tortoise finding a piece of driftwood.3 Thus did the sun slowly rise higher in the sky, and Senroku came home dragging his feet. . . .

  Fifth Month, Second Day

  Father took a turn for the worse. Although he was in great pain, m
y stepmother took no notice and was as contentious as usual. Ever since the business of the land distribution, relations between my brother and Father had not been good. And although Senroku and I had different mothers, I couldn’t help but think that the real reason for his unpleasant hostility was that we had been enemies in some previous life.

  Father felt bad about my not getting any sleep at night and kindly suggested, “Why don’t you take a nap and catch up on some sleep, or go outside and clear your head a bit?”

  Hearing this, my stepmother became as nasty as ever toward Father, criticizing his every fault and forgetting all about the Three Obligations.4 I realized with regret that my stepmother made Father suffer like this because I, whom she despised, was in close attendance at his bedside. But where else could I go if I were to get up and leave? . . .

  Fifth Month, Sixth Day

  Since the sky was clear and I thought that Father might be bored just lying around, I folded up his bedclothes and helped him prop himself up on them. Then he began to talk about old times.

  “Well now, you’ve been without your real mother from the time you were three years old. And ever since you began to grow up, you haven’t been on good terms with your stepmother. Day after day there was fighting, night after night the fires of hatred burned. There wasn’t a moment when my heart knew any peace. It struck me that as long as we were together in one place, it would always be like that. So I sent you to far-off Edo in the spring of your fourteenth year, thinking that once you were away from home, we all might be closer. Ah, if only I had been your father in different circumstances. I would have passed on this house to you after three or four years, making you settle down and leaving me free to enjoy my retirement. You must have thought me a cruel parent indeed to have hired you out as an apprentice while you were still just a young skinny-bones. I hope you’ll accept all this as fate resulting from our previous lives. This year I had intended to make a pilgrimage to the sites of the Twenty-four Disciples5 and hoped that once in Edo I might meet up with you, so that even if I were to die from the rigors of the trip, you would be there keeping vigil. But now, for you to have come all the way here and to have nursed me like this—surely the connections between us in our past lives could not have been weak ones. So even though I might die right now, what regrets would I have?”