“Well, go outside and meet them before they get here.”
“Are you crazy? How could I possibly do that?”
“Then ask someone to keep it for you tonight.”
“Ask someone? Everyone knows I don’t have anything worth anything. If they asked me what it was, they’d know I stole it and turn me in. I can’t pawn it, either. And if I keep the statue here, well, if I pull off the paper charm the ghosts will get in through Hagiwara’s window, and then they’ll bite him to death or possess him and kill him somehow or other. When people examine the body, they’ll find his protective buddha’s missing and guess it was stolen. Naturally they’ll suspect the diviner and me. But the diviner’s an old man, and everybody knows he’s honest, so they’ll suspect me right off. They’ll search the whole house for this thing. If they ever found it, I’d be in big, big trouble. So I know what I’ll do. I’ll put it inside an old jelly cake box and bury it in the garden. I can stand a bamboo pole above it so I won’t forget where it is. Even if they search the house, they’ll never find it there. If we go somewhere else for a while, in six months or a year nobody will even remember it, and we can go dig it up again. We won’t need to worry about anything.”
“Sounds promising. Go on out, then. Dig a deep hole and bury it. That’ll be that.”
Tomozō quickly found an old jelly cake box and put the statue in it. Then he carried it out to the garden, buried it deep in the ground between some vegetables, stuck in a bamboo pole above it, and came back again. Now all he had to do was wait for the ghosts to bring the coins. Celebrating early, Tomozō and Omine toasted each other and exchanged many cups of saké.
At last, Omine said she thought it must be almost two, and she went and hid in the closet. Tomozō sat alone, drinking and waiting for the ghosts. Soon he heard the two o’clock bell booming nearby in Ueno. Then there was only silence. The sounds of trickling water stopped, and even the grasses and trees seemed to be sleeping. All Tomozō could hear were the faint, melancholy cries of crickets by the wall of the house. There was something eerie about the dark, and he shuddered. Then from the direction of Shimizudani, he heard the familiar sound of women’s wooden clogs coming steadily closer. Clack-clock, clack-clock, clack-clock. Tomozō knew the ghosts had come. He was so frightened that the hairs curled up on his skin. He hunched over and made himself as small as he could and watched. He thought he saw them at the hedge, but before he knew it they were on the low veranda.
“Tomozō! Tomozō!”
Tomozō was unable to speak. Finally he replied, “Yes, I’m here.”
“We’re very sorry to bother you every night with our request,” came back the voice of the servant ghost. “But the paper charm is still pasted beside Mr. Hagiwara’s back window. Won’t you please pull it off? The young woman is anxious to meet Mr. Hagiwara, and she’s beginning to criticize me and act very cross. I just don’t know what to do any more. Please, pity us both and pull off the paper.”
“I’ll pull it off for you. Yes, I will. I certainly will. I’m definitely going to pull it off. Did you bring the hundred gold coins?”
Tomozō lies on his back beneath the ladder while the women ghosts enter the house through the window. From the 1884 edition.
“We’ve brought the full amount with us. Did you dispose of the Kaion Buddha statue around his neck?”
“Yes. I took it outside and hid it.”
“Well, then, here are the hundred gold coins.”
The ghost thrust the money toward Tomozō, and he took it, imagining it was a trick of some sort. But as he lifted the coins, he realized they had the full weight of gold, and when he looked at them closely, he saw they were real. He’d never seen this much money in one place before. He quickly forgot his fear, and trembling all over, he went outside.
“Won’t you both come with me?” he asked the ghosts. He got out a twelve-foot ladder and walked across the garden, leaning it up against the window grating on the back side of Hagiwara’s house. Controlling the shaking in his legs, he climbed carefully up the rungs and finally reached the top. Then he reached out his hand and tried to pull off the paper charm. But by then he was shaking so hard that he couldn’t get it to come off. Finally he decided just to rip it off all at once, and he pulled so hard that the ladder began to shake and sway. Surprised, Tomozō lost his footing and fell backward onto the ground. He was unable to get up again and lay there with the paper in one fist. All he could manage to do was chant Amida Buddha’s name again and again in a quavering voice.
The ghosts looked at each other happily. “Tonight you’ll be able to meet Mr. Hagiwara again,” the servant ghost said. “You’ll have all the time you need to explain to him how you feel about his not letting you in like this.”
The servant ghost took the hand of the young woman ghost. When they looked at Tomozō, he was still lying on his back clutching the paper charm. Hiding their faces with their sleeves, the two ghosts went right through the back window and into the house.
[Sanyūtei Enchō shū, Meiji bungaku zenshū, 1965, 10: 38–40, translated by Chris Drake]
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY
GENERAL READINGS FOR THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD
Gerstle, Andrew C., ed. Eighteenth-Century Japan: Culture and Society. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989.
Guth, Christine. Art of Edo Japan: The Artist and the City, 1615–1868. New York: Abrams, 1996.
Hall, John Whitney, ed. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 4, Early Modern Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Keene, Donald. World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600–1868. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976.
Nakane, Chie, and Shinzaburō Ōishi, eds. Tokugawa Japan: The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1991.
Nishiyama, Matsunosuke. Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600–1868. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997.
Totman, Conrad. Early Modern Japan. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993.
EARLY MODERN POETRY AND POETIC PROSE
Early Haikai
Hibbett, Howard S. “The Japanese Comic Linked-Verse Tradition.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 23(1961):76–92.
Imoto, Noichi. “Independence of Hokku in Haikai and Its Significance.” Acta Asiatica 9(1964):20–35.
Matsuo Bashō and Hokku
Fujikawa, Fumiko. “The Influence of Tu Fu on Bashō.” Monumenta Nipponica 20(1965):374–388.
Kawamoto, Kōji. The Poetics of Japanese Verse: Imagery, Structure, Meter. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2000.
Ogata, Tsutomu. “Five Methods for Appreciating Bashō’s Haiku.” Acta Asiatica 28(1975):42–61.
Shirane, Haruo. Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Bashō. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997.
Ueda, Makoto, trans. Bashō and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku with Commentary. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992.
Ueda, Makoto. Matsuo Bashō: The Master Haiku Poet. Tokyo: Kōdansha International, 1982.
Bashō’s Linked Verse
Mayhew, Lenore, trans. Monkey’s Raincoat (Sarumino): Linked Poetry of the Bashō School with Haiku Selections. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1985.
Miner, Earl, trans. Japanese Linked Poetry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Miner, Earl, and Hiroko Odagiri, trans. The Monkey’s Straw Raincoat and Other Poetry of the Bashō School. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Shirane, Haruo. “Matsuo Bashō and the Poetics of Scent.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 52(1991):77–110.
Terasaki, Etsuko. “Hatsushigure: A Linked Verse Sequence by Bashō and His Disciples.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 36(1976):204–239.
Oku no hosomichi and Other Poetic Diaries by Bashō
Britton, Dorothy, trans. A Haiku Journey: Bashō‘s “Narrow Road to a Far Province.” Tokyo: Kōdansh
a International, 1980.
Corman, Cid, and Susumu Kamaike, trans. Back Roads to Far Towns. New York: Mushinsha/Grossman, 1968.
Keene, Donald. “Bashō’s Diaries.” Japan Quarterly 32(1985):374–383.
Keene, Donald. “Bashō’s Journey of 1684.” Asia Major, n.s., 7(1959):131–144.
Keene, Donald, trans. The Narrow Road to Oku. New York: Kodansha International, 1996
McCullough, Helen, trans. “The Narrow Road of the Interior.”. In Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology, edited by Helen McCullough, pp. 522–551. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990.
Sato, Hiroaki, trans. Bashō‘s Narrow Road: Spring and Autumn Passages: Two Works. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 1996.
Shirane, Haruo. “Aisatsu: The Poet as Guest.” In New Leaves: Studies and Translations in Honor of Edward Seidensticker, edited by Aileen Gatten and Anthony H. Chambers, pp. 89–113. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 1993.
Shirane, Haruo. “Matsuo Bashō’s Oku no hosomichi and the Anxiety of Influence.” In Currents in Japanese Culture: Translations and Transformations, edited by Amy Vladeck Heinrich, pp. 171–183. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Shirane, Haruo. Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Bashō. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997.
Yuasa, Nobuyuki, trans. Bashō: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. London: Penguin Books, 1968.
Yosa Buson
Morris, Mark. “Buson and Shiki.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44(1984):381–425.
Morris, Mark. “Buson and Shiki.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45(1985):256–319.
Nippon gakujutsu shinkōkai, ed. Haikai and Haiku, pp. 41–51. Tokyo: Nippon gakujutsu shinkōkai, 1958.
Sawa, Yuki, and Edith M. Shiffert. Haiku Master Buson. San Francisco: Heian International, 1978.
Ueda, Makoto. The Path of Flowering Thorn: The Life and Poetry of Yosa Buson. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Zolbrod, Leon M. “Buson’s Poetic Ideals: The Theory and Practice of Haikai in the Age of Revival, 1771–1784.” Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 9(1974):1–20.
Zolbrod, Leon M. “The Busy Year: Buson’s Life and Work, 1777.” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 3(1988):53–81.
Zolbrod, Leon M. “Death of a Poet-Painter: Yosa Buson’s Last Year, 1783–84.” In Studies on Japanese Culture, vol. 1, edited by Saburo Ota and Rikutaro Fukuda, pp. 146–154. Tokyo: Japan P.E.N. Club, 1973.
Zolbrod, Leon M. “Talking Poetry: Buson’s View of the Art of Haiku.” Literature East and West 15–16 (1971–1972): 719–734.
Kobayashi Issa
Hamill, Sam, trans. The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku. Boston: Shambhala, 1997.
Huey, Robert N. “Journal of My Father’s Last Days: Issa’s Chichi no shūen no ki.” Monumenta Nipponica 39(1984):25–54.
Mackenzie, Lewis, trans. The Autumn Wind. London: Murray, 1957.
Nippon gakujutsu shinkōkai, ed. Haikai and Haiku, pp. 69–78. Tokyo: Nippon gakujutsu shinkōkai, 1958.
Yuasa, Nobuyuki, trans. The Year of My Life: A Translation of Issa’s “Oraga haru.” Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960.
Other Haiku Poets and Haibun
Blyth, Reginald H. Haiku. 4 vols. Tokyo: Hokuseidō Press, 1949–1952.
Blyth, Reginald H. A History of Haiku. Vol. 1, From the Beginnings up to Issa. Tokyo: Hokuseidō Press, 1963.
Blyth, Reginald H. A History of Haiku. Vol. 2, From Issa up to the Present. Tokyo: Hokuseidō Press, 1964.
Carter, Steven, trans. Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Donegan, Patricia, and Yoshie Ishibashi, eds. and trans. Chiyo-ni: Woman Haiku Master. Tokyo: Tuttle, 1996.
Hass, Robert. The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa. Hopewell, N.J.: Ecco Press, 1994.
Henderson, Harold G., ed. and trans. An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Bashō to Shiki. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958.
Nippon gakujutsu shinkōkai, ed. Haikai and Haiku. Tokyo: Nippon gakujutsu shinkōkai, 1958.
Rogers, Laurence. “Rags and Tatters: The Uzuragoromo of Yokoi Yayu.” Monumenta Nipponica 34(1979):279–310.
Yasuda, Kenneth. The Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature, History, and Possibilities in English, with Selected Examples. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1957.
Senryū: Comic Haiku
Blyth, Reginald H. Japanese Life and Characters in Senryū. Tokyo: Hokuseidō Press, 1961
Blyth, Reginald H., ed. Edo Satirical Verse Anthologies. Tokyo: Hokuseidō Press, 1961.
Ueda, Makoto, ed. and trans. Light Verse from the Floating World: An Anthology of Premodern Japanese Senryu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Poetry in Chinese: Kanshi and Kyōshi
Bradstock, Timothy, and Judith Rabinovitch, eds. An Anthology of Kanshi (Chinese Verse) by Japanese Poets of the Edo Period (1603–1868). Lewiston, Maine: Mellen, 1997
Markus, Andrew “Dōmyaku Sensei and ‘The Housemaid’s Ballad’ Journal of Asiatic Studies 58(1998):5–58.
Pollack, David. “Kyōshi: Japanese ‘Wild Poetry.’ “Journal of Asian Studies 38(1979):499–517
Watson, Burton, trans. Grass Hill: Poems and Prose by the Japanese Monk Gensei. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
Watson, Burton, trans. Kanshi: The Poetry of Ishikawa Jōzan and Other Edo Period Poets. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990.
Ryōkan
Abe, Ryūichi, and Peter Haskel, trans. Great Fool: Zen Master Ryōkan—Poems, Letters, and Other Writings. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1996.
Watson, Burton, trans. Ryōkan: Zen Monk-Poet of Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.
Yuasa, Nobuyuki, trans. The Zen Poems of Ryōkan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.
PROSE FICTION
Kana-zōshi
Lane, Richard. “The Beginnings of the Modern Japanese Novel: Kana-zōshi, 1600–1682.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20(1957):644–701.
Mori, Maryellen Toman, trans. The Peony Lantern, by Asai Ryōi. Hollywood, Calif.: Highmoonoon, 2000.
Putzar, Edward. “‘Inu makura’: The Dog Pillow.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 28(1968):98–113.
Putzar, Edward, trans. “Chikusai monogatari: A Partial Translation.” Monumenta Nipponica 16 (1960–1961): 161–195.
Rucinski, Jack. “A Japanese Burlesque: Nise monogatari.” Monumenta Nipponica 30(1975):39–62.
Ihara Saikaku
Befu, Ben, trans. Worldly Mental Calculations: An Annotated Translation of Ihara Saikaku’s “Seken munezan’yo.” Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976.
Callahan, Caryl Ann. Tales of Samurai Honor. Tokyo: Monumenta Nipponica, 1981.
de Bary, William Theodore, trans. Five Women Who Loved Love. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1956.
Hamada, Kengi, trans. The Life of an Amorous Man. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1964.
Hibbett, Howard S. The Floating World in Japanese Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Hibbett, Howard S. “Saikaku and Burlesque Fiction.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20(1957):53–73.
Lane, Richard. “Saikaku and the Japanese Novel of Realism.” Japan Quarterly 4(1957):178–188.
Lane, Richard, trans. “Three Stories from Saikaku.” Japan Quarterly 5(1958):71–82.
Lane, Richard, trans. “Two Samurai Tales: Romance and Realism in Old Japan.” Atlantic Monthly 195(1955):126–127.
Leutner, Robert. “Saikaku’s Parting Gift—Translations from Saikaku’s Okimiyage.” Monumenta Nipponica 30(1975):357–391.
Marcus, Virginia. “A Miscellany of Old Letters: Saikaku’s Yorozu no fumihogu.” Monumenta Nipponica 40(1985):257–282.
Morris, Ivan, trans. The Life of an Amorous Woman. New York
: New Directions, 1963.
Nōma, Kōshin. “Saikaku’s Adoption of Shukō from Kabuki and Joruri.” Acta Asiatica 28(1975):62–83.
Nosco, Peter, trans. Some Final Words of Advice. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1980.
Sargent, G. W., trans. The Japanese Family Storehouse or the Millionaire’s Gospel Modernized. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959.
Schalow, Paul Gordon, trans. The Great Mirror of Male Love. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990.
Ejima Kiseki and Later Ukiyo-zōshi
Fox, Charles E. “Old Stories, New Modes: Ejima Kiseki’s Ukiyo oyaji katagi.” Monumenta Nipponica 43(1988):63–93.
Hibbett, Howard S. The Floating World in Japanese Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Lane, Richard. “Saikaku’s Contemporaries and Followers: The Ukiyo-zōshi, 1680–1780.” Monumenta Nipponica 14 (1958–1959): 125–137.
Hiraga Gennai
Jones, Stanleigh H., Jr. “Scholar, Scientist, Popular Author, Hiraga Gennai, 1728–1780.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1971.
Ueda Akinari
Araki, James T. “A Critical Approach to the ‘Ugetsu monogatari.’” Monumenta Nipponica 22(1967):49–64.
Chambers, Anthony H., trans. “Hankai: A Translation from Harusame mongatari by Ueda Akinari.” Monumenta Nipponica 25(1970):371–406.
Hamada, Kengi, trans. Tales of Moonlight and Rain: Japanese Gothic Tales. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1971.
Jackman, Barry, trans. Tales of the Spring Rain: “Harusame monogatari” by Ueda Akinari. Tokyo: Japan Foundation, 1975.
Saunders, Dale, trans. “Ugetsu monogatari or Tales of Moonlight and Rain.” Monumenta Nipponica 21(1966):171–202.
Washburn, Dennis. “Ghostwriters and Literary Haunts: Subordinating Ethics to Art in Ugetsu monogatari.” Monumenta Nipponica 45(1990):39–74.
Young, Blake Morgan. Ueda Akinari. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1982.
Zolbrod, Leon M., trans. Ugetsu monogatari: Tales of Moonlight and Rain. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1974.
Takebe Ayatari
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