Anthology of Japanese Literature

by Donald Keene

  But of them all the man who has a wanton, mischievous wife will feel his misfortune most, convinced that there is no more heartless creature in the world than she. To the outer world Osan's husband treated her as a closed issue: she was dead, and nothing more could be said or done about her. There were times when he was reminded of their years together and would feel the greatest bitterness toward Osan, yet he would still call in a priest to hold services in her memory. Ironically enough, he offered one of her choice silk garments as an altar cloth for the local temple, where, fluttering in the fickle wind of Life and Death, it became a further source of lamentation.

  Even so, there is no one bolder than a man deeply attached to the things of this world, and Mōemon, who before was so prudent that he never went outdoors at night, soon lost himself in a nostalgic desire to see the capital again. Dressing in the most humble attire and pulling his hat down over his eyes, he left Osan in the care of some villagers and made a senseless trip to Kyoto, all the while fearing more for his own safety than a man who is about to deliver himself into the hands of an enemy.

  It began to get dark when he reached the neighborhood of Hirozawa, and the sight of the moon, reflected in the double pond, made him think again of Osan, so that his sleeve became soaked with idle tears. Presently he put behind him the rapid Narutaki, with its myriad bubbles, dancing over the rocks, and hurried on toward Omuro and Kitano, for he knew that way well. When he entered the city his fears were multiplied. "What's that!" he would ask himself, when he saw his own silhouette under the waning moon, and his heart would freeze with terror.

  In the quarter with which he was so familiar, because his former master lived there, he took up eavesdropping to learn the state of things. He heard about the inquiry which was to be made into the overdue payment from Edo, and about the latest style in hairdress, as discussed by a gathering of young men, who were also commenting on the style and fit of each other's clothes—the sort of silly chatter that love and lust inspire in men. When these topics of conversation were exhausted, sure enough they fell to talking about Mōemon. "That rascal Mōemon, stealing a woman more beautiful than all others! Even though he paid with his worthless life for it, he certainly got the best of the bargain; a memory worth dying with!" But a man of more discernment upheld morality against Mōemon. "He's nobody to raise up in public. He'd stink in the breeze. I can't imagine anyone worse than a man who'd cheat both his master and a husband at once."

  Overhearing this, Mōemon swore to himself, "That's the voice of the scoundrel Kisuke, of the Daimonjiya. What a heartless, faithless fellow to be so outspoken against me. Why, I lent him eighty ounces of silver on an I.O.U.! But I'll get even for what he just said: I'll get that money back if I have to wring his neck." Mōemon gnashed his teeth and stood up in a rage. Still there was nothing a man hiding from the world could do about the insults offered him, and while he suppressed his outraged feelings another man started to speak. "Mōemon's not dead. He's living with Mistress Osan somewhere around Ise, they say, having a wonderful time."

  This shook Mōemon and sent chills through his body. He left in all haste, took a room in a lodging house along Third Street, and went to bed without even taking a bath. Since it was the night of the seventeenth,14 he wrapped up twelve copper coins in a piece of paper and handed it to a beggar who would buy some candles and keep the vigil for him that night. Then he prayed that people would not discover who he was. But could he expect that even Atago-sama, the patron of lovers, would help him in his wickedness?

  In the morning, as a last memory of the capital before leaving it, he stole down Higashiyama to the theatre section at Shijō-gawara. Someone told him that it was the opening day of a three-act play by Fujita. "I must see what it is like and tell Osan when I return." He rented a cushion and sat far back to watch from a distance, uneasy at heart lest someone recognize him. The play was about a man whose daughter was stolen away. It made Mōemon's conscience hurt. Then he looked down to the front rows. There was Osan's husband himself; at the sight Mōemon's spirit almost left him. He felt like a man with one foot dangling over Hell, and the sweat stood like pearls on his forehead. Out he rushed through an exit to return to the village in Tango, which he did not think of leaving again for Kyoto.

  At that time, when the Chrysanthemum Festival was almost at hand, a chestnut peddler made his annual trip to the capital. While speaking of one thing and another at the house of the almanacmaker, he asked where the mistress was, but as this was an awkward subject in the household none of the servants ventured to answer. Frowning, Osan's husband told him, "She's dead."

  "That's strange," the peddler went on, "I've seen someone who looks very much like her, in fact, someone who doesn't differ from her one particle. And with her is the living image of your young man. They are near Kirito in Tango."

  When the peddler had departed, Osan's husband sent someone to check up on what he had heard. Learning that Osan and Mōemon were indeed alive, he gathered together a good number of his own people, who went and arrested them. There was no room for mercy in view of their crime. When the judicial inquiry was duly concluded, the lovers, together with a maidservant named Tama who had earlier been their go-between, were paraded as an example before the crowds along the way to Awataguchi, where they died like dewdrops falling from a blade of grass. Thus they met their end on the morning of September 22, with, it should be remarked, a touching acquiescence in their fate. Their story spread everywhere, and today the name of Osan still brings to mind her beautiful figure, clothed in the pale orange slip which she wore to her execution.15

  TRANSLATED BY W. THEODORE DE BARY

  Footnotes

  1 The tradition of practicing penmanship on New Year's Day is roughly equivalent to the Western custom of making New Year's resolutions. On that day continence was to be observed.

  2 Literally, the "love-knowing" bird, which taught the ways of love to Izanagi and Izanami, the first man and woman.

  3 Theatre section where the kabuki drama originated; built on land reclaimed from the bed of the Kamo River in Kyoto. The names Takenaka, etc., are the assumed names of actors.

  4 See page 234.

  5 Kyoto actor famous for his impersonation of women, who set many styles in ladies' apparel, particularly from 1673 to 1681.

  6 See page 264.

  7 The Long Bridge (Seta no Nagahashi) opens a passage studded with references to places around Lake Biwa, east of Kyoto, in which the characters' moods are described in terms of the names of the places they pass. (This passage is called a michiyuki, as in a play.)

  8 Capital of the Emperor Tenchi (666-682) on the southwestern shore of Lake Biwa.

  9 An invocation meaning "Homage to Amida Buddha," by which believers in Amida expect to achieve salvation.

  10 Roughly equivalent to "casting pearls before swine."

  11 Marriage between relations once removed was not at this time taboo. On the contrary, a match between cousins was thought highly desirable.

  12 This year marked the coincidence of Fire with Fire on the old lunar calendar, the horse itself representing Fire. It was considered a dangerous year to be born in, and women born then were said to bully and frequently kill their husbands. Zetarō's reply is in the nature of a crude joke, for there is no year of the Fiery Wolf.

  13 According to a vulgar belief, Manjusri (Monju in Japanese) was the lover of Sakyamuni. He was therefore taken as the patron god of homosexuality.

  14 The moon of the seventeenth night was known as the "stand-and-wait moon," and people would keep all-night vigils.

  15 Those condemned to death were allowed to wear only an undergarment to the execution.

  THE UMBRELLA ORACLE

  [Saikaku Shokoku-banashi, I, iv] by Ihara Saikaku

  Saikaku wrote his famous "Tales from the Provinces," the collection from which this story is taken, in 1685. From his early youth he had been fond of travel and now, at the age of forty-three, he attempted to record the most interesting of the stories, tal
es, legends, and incidents that he had heard or witnessed in his travels throughout Japan.

  Commendable indeed is the spiric of philanthropy in this world of ours!

  To the famous "Hanging Temple of Kwannon" in the Province of Kii, someone had once presented twenty oil-paper umbrellas which, repaired every year, were hung beside the temple for the use of any and all who might be caught in the rain or snow. They were always conscientiously returned when the weather improved—not a single one had ever been lost.

  One day in the spring of 1649, however, a certain villager borrowed one of the umbrellas and, while he was returning home, had it blown out of his hands by a violent "divine wind" that blew up suddenly from the direction of the shrine on Tamazu Isle. The umbrella was blown completely out of sight, and though the villager bemoaned its loss there was not a thing he could do.

  Borne aloft by the wind, the umbrella landed finally in the little hamlet of Anazato, far in the mountains of the island of Kyushu. The people of this village had from ancient times been completely cut off from the world and—uncultured folk that they were—had never even seen an umbrella! All of the learned men and elders of the village gathered around to discuss the curious object before them —reaching agreement, however, only upon the fact that none of them had ever before seen anything like it.

  Finally one local wise man stepped forth and proclaimed, "Upon counting the radiating bamboo ribs, there are exactly forty. The paper too is round and luminous, and not of the ordinary kind. Though I hesitate to utter that August Name, this is without a doubt the God of the Sun,1 whose name we have so often heard, and is assuredly his divine attribute from the Inner Sanctuary of the Great Shrine of Ise, which has deigned to fly to us here!"

  All present were filled with awe. Hurriedly the salt water of purification was scattered about the ground and the divinity installed upon a clean reed mat; and the whole population of the village went up into the mountains and, gathering wood and rushes, built a shrine that the deity's spirit might be transferred hence from Ise. When they had paid reverence to it, the divine spirit did indeed enter the umbrella.

  At the time of the summer rains the site upon which the shrine was situated became greatly agitated, and the commotion did not cease. When the umbrella was consulted, the following oracle was delivered: "All this summer the sacred hearth has been simply filthy, with cockroaches boiled in the holy vessels and the contamination reaching even to my Inner Shrine! Henceforth, in this entire province, let there not be a single cockroach left alive! I also have one other request. I desire you to select a beautiful young maiden as a consolation offering for me. If this is not done within seven days, without fail, I will cause the rain to fall in great torrents; I will rain you all to death, so that the seed of man remains no more upon the earth!"

  Thus spake the oracle.

  The villagers were frightened out of their wits. They held a meeting. and summoned all the maidens of the village to decide which one should serve the deity. But the young maidens, weeping and wailing, strongly protested the umbrella-god's cruel demand. When asked the reason for their excess of grief, they cried, "How could we survive even one night with such a god?"—for they had come to attach a peculiar significance to the odd shape which the deity had assumed.

  At this juncture a young and beautiful widow from the village stepped forward, saying, "Since it is for the god, I will offer myself in place of the young maidens."

  All night long the beautiful widow waited in the shrine, but she did not get a bit of affection. Enraged, she charged into the inner sanctum, grasped the divine umbrella firmly in her hands and screaming, "Worthless deceiver!" she tore it apart, and threw the pieces as far as she could!

  TRANSLATED BY RICHARD LANE

  Footnote

  1 The deity of the sun was normally a goddess, but about this time popular belief had him a god.

  THE ETERNAL STOREHOUSEOF JAPAN

  [Nippon Eitaigura] by Ihara Saikaku

  This collection of brief tales dealing with how to make or lose a fortune was first published in 1688. It is not only of high literary value, but gives us invaluable descriptions of the life of the townsmen in the late seventeenth century. It bears the subtitle, "The Millionaire's Gospel, Revised Version."

  THE TYCOON OF ALL TENANTS

  "This is to certify that the person named Fuji-ichi, tenant in a house belonging to Hishiya Chozaemon, is to my certain knowledge the possessor of one thousand kamme silver. . . ."

  Such would be the form of testimonial when Fuji-ichi sought new lodgings. It was his proud claim that in the whole wide world there was no millionaire quite like himself. For although he was worth a thousand kamme, he lived in a rented house no more than four yards wide. In this way he became the talk of Kyoto. However, one day he accepted a house as surety for a loan of thirty-eight kamme; in the course of time, as the interest mounted, the surety itself became forfeit; and for the first time Fuji-ichi became a property owner. He was much vexed at this. Up to now he had achieved distinction as "the millionaire in lodgings," but now that he had a house of his own he was commonplace—his money in itself was mere dust by comparison with what lay in the strong rooms of the foremost merchants of Kyoto.

  Fuji-ichi was a clever man, and his substantial fortune was amassed in his own lifetime. But first and foremost he was a man who knew his own mind, and this was the basis of his success. In addition to carrying on his regular business, he kept a separate ledger, bound from odd scraps of paper, in which, as he sat all day in his shop, pen in hand, he entered a variety of chance information. As the clerks from the money exchanges passed by he noted down the market ratio of copper and gold; he inquired about the current quotations of the rice brokers; he sought information from druggists' and haberdashers' assistants on the state of the market at Nagasaki; for the latest news on the prices of ginned cotton, salt, and sake, he noted the various days on which the Kyoto dealers received dispatches from the Edo branch shops. Every day a thousand things were entered in his book, and people came to Fuji-ichi if they were ever in doubt. He became a valuable asset to the citizens of Kyoto.

  Invariably his dress consisted of an unlined vest next to his skin, and on top of that a cotton kimono, stuffed on occasion with three times the usual amount of padding. He never put on more than one layer of kimono. It was he who first started the wearing of detachable cuffs on the sleeves—a device which was both fashionable and economical. His socks were of deerskin and his clogs were fitted with high leather soles, but even so he was careful not to walk too quickly along the hard main roads. Throughout life his only silk garments were of pongee, dyed plain dark blue. There was one, it is true, which he had dyed a persistently undisguisable seaweed brown, but this was a youthful error of judgment, and he was to regret it for the next twenty years. For his ceremonial dress he had no settled crests, being content with a three-barred circle or a small conventional whirl, but even during the summer airing time he was careful to keep them from direct contact with the floor. His pantaloons were of hemp, and his starched jacket of an even tougher variety of the same cloth, so that they remained correctly creased no matter how many times he wore them.

  When there was a funeral procession which his whole ward was obliged to join, he followed it perforce to the cemetery, but coming back he hung behind the others and, on the path across the moor at Rokuhara, he and his apprentices pulled up sour herbs by the roots.

  "Dried in the shade," he explained, "they make excellent stomach medicine."

  He never passed by anything which might be of use. Even if he stumbled he used the opportunity to pick up stones for fire-lighters, and tucked them in his sleeve. The head of a household, if he is to keep the smoke rising steadily from his kitchen, must pay attention to a thousand things like this.

  Fuji-ichi was not a miser by nature. It was merely his ambition to serve as a model for others in the management of everyday affairs. Even in the days before he made his money he never had the New Year rice cakes prepared in
his own lodgings. He considered that to bother over the various utensils, and to hire a man to pound the rice, was too much trouble at such a busy time of the year; so he placed an order with the rice-cake dealer in front of the Great Buddha. However, with his intuitive grasp of good business, he insisted on paying by weight—so much per pound. Early one morning, two days before the New Year, a porter from the cake-maker, hurrying about his rounds, arrived before Fuji-ichi's shop and, setting down his load, shouted for someone to receive the order. The newly pounded cakes, invitingly arrayed, were as fresh and warm as spring itself. The master, pretending not to hear, continued his calculations on the abacus, and the cake-man, who begrudged every moment at this busy time of the year, shouted again and again. At length a young clerk, anxious to demonstrate his businesslike approach, checked the weight of the cakes on the large scales with a show of great precision, and sent the man away.

  About two hours later Fuji-ichi said: "Has anyone taken in the cakes which arrived just now?"

  "The man gave them to me and left long ago," said the clerk.

  "Useless fellow!" cried Fuji-ichi. "I expect people in my service to have more sense! Don't you realize that you took them in before they had cooled off?"

  He weighed them again, and to everyone's astonishment their weight had decreased. Not one of the cakes had been eaten, and the clerk stood gazing at them in open-mouthed amazement.

  It was the early summer of the following year. The local people from the neighborhood of the Eastern Temple had gathered the first crop of eggplants in wicker baskets and brought them to town for sale. "Eat young eggplants and live seventy-five days longer" goes the saying, and they are very popular. The price was fixed at two coppers for one eggplant, or three coppers for two, whicl. meant that everybody bought two.