Anthology of Japanese Literature/What the Seasons Brought to the Almanac-Maker

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Tokugawa

Period

 

1600–1868

What the Seasons Brought

to the Almanac-Maker

[Kōshoku Gonin Onna, Book III] by Ihara Saikaku

 

Saikaku’s “Five Women Who Loved Love” (1686) is one of the masterpieces of Tokugawa literature. It consists of five independent stories, of which the third is here given. These stories are in turn divided into five chapters, each with a title of its own. The incidents described were based on actual events which took place shortly before Saikaku’s novel, and were already familiar to many people in the form of ballads and recitations by professional storytellers.

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The Beauty Contest

According to the almanac for 1682, New Year’s Day was to be devoted to the practice of calligraphy. Then, having started the year auspiciously, men could start making love on January 2.^[1] In the Age of the Gods this art was taught by the wagtail bird^[2] and ever since those days it has brought endless mischief between the sexes.

In Kyoto there lived a lady known as the Almanac-maker’s Beautiful Spouse, who stirred up a mountain of passion in the capital and figured again and again in notorious romances. Her moon-shaped eyebrows rivaled in beauty the crescent borne aloft in the Gion Festival parade; her figure suggested the cherry buds, not yet blossoms, of Kiyomizu; her lovely lips looked like the topmost leaves of Takao in full autumnal glory. She lived in Muromachi-dori, the style center for women of discriminating taste in clothes, the most fashionable district in all Kyoto.

It was late spring; men felt gay and the wistaria hung like a cloud of purple over Yasui, robbing the pines of their color. People thronged up Higashiyama and turned it into a living mountain of figures.

There was in the capital a band of four inseparable young men who were known for their handsome appearance and riotous living. Thanks to large inheritances they could spend every day in the year seeking their own pleasure. One night, till dawn, they might amuse themselves in Shimabara with China-girl, Fragrance, Flora-point, and Highbridge. Next day they would make love to Takenaka Kichisaburō, Karamatsu Kasen, Fujita Kichisaburō, and Mitsuse Sakon in the Shijō-gawara section.^[3] Night or day, girls or boys, it made no difference to their pleasure.

After the theatre one evening they were lounging around a tea shop called Matsuya and one of them remarked, “I have never seen so many good-looking local girls as I did today. Do you suppose we could find others who would seem just as beautiful now?” They thought they might, and decided to watch for pretty girls among the people who had gone to see the wistaria blossoms and were now returning to their homes. After a worldly actor in the group had been chosen as chief judge, a “beauty contest” was conducted until the twilight hours, providing a new source of amusement for the jaded gentlemen.

At first they were disappointed to see some maids riding in a carriage which hid them from sight. Then a group of girls strolled by in a rollicking mood—“not bad, not bad at all”—but none of the girls quite satisfied their exacting standards. Paper and ink had been brought to record the entries, and it was agreed that only the best should be put on their list.

Next they spied a lady of thirty-four or thirty-five with a graceful long neck and intelligent-looking eyes, above which could be seen a natural hairline of rare beauty. Her nose, it was true, stood a little high, but that could easily be tolerated. Underneath she wore white satin, over that light blue satin, and outside—reddish-yellow satin. Each of these garments was luxuriously lined with the same material. On her left sleeve was a hand-painted likeness of the Yoshida monk, along with his passage, “To sit alone under a lamp, and read old books….”^[4] Assuredly, this was a woman of exquisite taste.

Her sash was of folded taffeta bearing a tile design. Around her head she had draped a veil like that worn by court ladies; she wore stockings of pale silk and sandals with triple-braided straps. She walked noiselessly and gracefully, moving her hips with a natural rhythm. “What a prize for some lucky fellow!” a young buck exclaimed. But these words were hardly uttered when the lady, speaking to an attendant, opened her mouth and disclosed that one of her lower teeth was missing, to the complete disillusionment of her admirers.

A little behind her followed a maiden not more than sixteen or seventeen years old. On the girl’s left was a woman who appeared to be her mother, on her right a black-robed nun. There were also several women and a footman as escorts, all taking the greatest care of their charge. It seemed at first as if the girl were engaged to be married, but at second glance she proved to be married already, for her teeth were blackened and her eyebrows removed. She was quite pretty with her round face, intelligent eyes, ears delicately draped at the side of her head, and plump fingers, thin-skinned and white. She wore her clothes with matchless elegance; underneath were purple-spotted fawns on a field of pure yellow, outside, the design of a hundred sparrows upon gray satin. Over her rainbow-colored sash she wore a breast-belt which enhanced the charm of her carriage. The tiestrings of her richly lined rainhat were made from a thousand braids of twisted paper. They could easily see under the hat—a delight for the eyes, or so they thought until someone noticed a wide scar, three inches or more, on the side of her face. She could hardly have been born with such a deformity, and they all laughed when one of the playboys remarked, “She must really hate the nurse who is responsible for that!”

Then another girl, perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two, came along wearing a garment of cotton homespun, even the lining of which was so tattered and patched that the wind, blowing it about, exposed her poverty to all. The material of her sash came from an old coat and was pitifully thin. She wore socks of purple leather, apparently the only kind she could afford, and tough, rough Nara sandals. An old cloth headpiece was stuck on the top of her head. It was anybody’s guess how long ago the teeth of a comb had run through her hair, which fell in sloppy disarray, relieved hardly at all by her haphazard attempts to tuck it up.

But while she made no pretensions to style or fashion, the girl, walking alone, seemed to be enjoying herself. As far as her facial features were concerned, she certainly left nothing to be desired; indeed, the men were captivated by the sight of her.

“Have you ever seen anyone with so much natural beauty?”

“If she had some fine clothes to wear, that girl would steal men’s hearts away. Too bad that she had to be born poor.”

They pitied her deeply, and one fellow, seeing that she was on her way home, followed hopefully to learn who she was. “She is the wife of a tobacco-cutter down at the end of Seiganji-dori,” someone told him. It was disappointing—another straw of hope gone up in smoke!

Later a woman of twenty-seven or twenty-eight passed that way. Her arms were covered by three layers of sleeves, all of black silk and lined in red. Her crest was done in gold, but discreetly on the inner lining, so as to be faintly visible through the sleeve. She had a broad sash which tied in front and was made from dark striped cloth woven in China. Her hair was rolled up in a bun, set further back on the head than the type worn by unmarried ladies, and done up with a thick hair ribbon and two combs. Covering it was a hand-painted scarf and a rainhat in the style of Kichiya,^[5] also set jauntily back on her head so as not to hide the good looks in which she obviously took pride. Her figure twisted sinuously as she stepped lightly along.

“That’s the one, that’s the one!”

“Quiet down! Let’s get a better look at her.”

Sure enough, on closer inspection they found that the lady was accompanied by three servants, each carrying a baby.

“Must have had three kids in three years.”

Behind her the babies kept calling out “Mama, mama” while the lady walked on, pretending not to hear them. “They may be her children, but she would just as soon not be seen with them. ‘Charm fades with childbirth!’ people say.” Thus the men shouted and laughed and ridiculed her until she almost died of chagrin.

Next, with a litter borne luxuriously beside her, came a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl whose hair was combed out smooth, curled a bit at the ends, and tied down with a red ribbon. In front her hair was parted like a young boy’s and held in place by five immaculate combs and a gold hair-clasp. Her face was perfectly beautiful, and I shall not tire you with needless details. A black inkslab pattern adorned her white satin chemise; a peacock design could be perceived in the iridescent satin of her outer garment. Over this hung lace made from Chinese thread and sleeves which were beautifully designed. A folded sash of twelve colors completed her ensemble. Her bare feet nestled in paper-strap clogs, and one of the litter-bearers carried a stylish rainhat for her.

The girl was holding a bunch of wistaria blossoms over her head, as if to attract the attention of someone who could not find her. Observed in this pose, she was clearly the most beautiful girl of all they had seen that day. “What is the name of this fine lady?” they asked politely of an attendant. “A girl from Muromachi,” was the reply. “She is called the Modern Komachi.”^[6]

Yes, she had all the beauty of a flower. Only later did they learn how much deviltry was hid beneath it.

The Sleeper Who Slipped Up

The life of a bachelor has its attractions, but nights get rather lonely for a man without a wife. So it seemed to a certain maker of almanacs who had lived alone for many years. There were many elegant ladies in the capital, but his heart was set on finding a woman of exceptional beauty and distinction, and such a desire was not easily satisfied. Finally in despair because of his solitary existence, he asked some relatives to find him a suitable mate, and it was arranged for him to meet the girl known as the Modern Komachi, that delicate beauty whom our playboys had seen in the theatre section last spring holding wistaria blossoms over her head.

The almanac-maker was completely charmed with her. “She’s the one,” he told himself, and without more ado rushed out, ludicrously enough, to arrange an immediate marriage. He found an old woman, a professional go-between, who was widely known as a very fast talker, and thanks to her the negotiations were conducted successfully. A keg of saké was sent to confirm the contract, and on the appointed day Osan was welcomed into her new home.

Deeply attached to his wife and absorbed in the intimacies of their life together, the almanac-maker was blind to everything else—to the flower-fragrant nights of spring and to the rising of the autumn moon. Night and day for three years his wife diligently performed the many tasks which married life required of her, carefully spinning pongee thread by hand, supervising the weaving of cloth by her servant women, looking after her husband’s personal appearance, burning as little fuel as possible for economy’s sake, and keeping her expense accounts accurate and up to date. In fact she was just the sort of woman any townsman would want in his home.

Their house was prospering and their companionship seemed to hold a store of endless bliss, when it became necessary for the almanac-maker to travel to Edo for business reasons. The parting was sad, but there was nothing to be gained by grieving over it. When he was ready to leave, he paid a visit to Osan’s father in Muromachi to tell him about the trip, and the old man was quite concerned about his daughter’s welfare during the period of her husband’s absence, when she would be left to manage all of his affairs. He wondered if there were not some capable person who could take over the master’s business and also assist Osan in running the household. Deciding on a young man named Mōemon, who had served him faithfully for many years, he sent the fellow to his son-in-law’s place.

This Mōemon was honest and extremely frugal, so much so that he completely neglected his personal appearance, even economizing on his coat-sleeves, which measured only two and one half inches at the wrist. His forehead was narrow, and when his hair grew out after he reached manhood, Mōemon never bothered to buy a hat to cover it. Moreover, he went about without the protection of a short sword, and slept with his abacus under his head, the better perhaps to reckon how great a fortune he could amass in a night spent dreaming of money-making.

It was fall, and a bitter storm one night set Mōemon to thinking how he might fortify himself against the rigors of winter. He decided on a treatment of moxa cauterizing. A maidservant named Rin, who was adept at administering the burning pills, was asked to do the job for him. She twisted several wads of cottony herb, and spread a striped bedcover over her dressing table for Mōemon to lie on. The first couple of applications were almost more than he could bear. The pain-wracked expression on his face gave great amusement to the governess, the housemistress, and all the lowly maids around him. When further doses had been applied, he could hardly wait for the final salting down which would finish the treatment. Then, accidentally, some of the burning fibers broke off and dropped down along his spine, causing his flesh to tighten and shrink a little. But out of consideration for the girl who attended him, Mōemon closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and mustered up all his patience to endure the pain. Rin, full of sympathy for him, extinguished the vagrant embers and began to massage his skin. How could she have known that this intimate contact with his body would arouse in her a passionate desire for Mōemon, which at first she managed to conceal from others but eventually was to be whispered about and even reach her mistress’s ears?

Unable to suppress her desire for Mōemon, Rin hoped that somehow she might communicate with him, but as her education had only been of the most humble sort, she could not write anything, not even the crude-looking characters which Kyūshichi, a fellow servant, used to scribble out as personal reminders. She asked Kyūshichi if he would write a letter for her, but the knave only took advantage of her confidence by trying to make this love his own.

So, slowly, the days passed without relief, and fall came with its long twilight of drizzling rains, the spawning season for intrigue and deception. One day, having just finished a letter to her husband in Edo, Osan playfully offered to write a love letter for Rin. With her brush she dashed off a few sweet lines of love and then, addressing the wrapper “To Mr. Mō—, from someone who loves him,” Osan gaily turned the note over to Rin. Overjoyed, the girl kept looking for a suitable opportunity to deliver it, when all at once Mōemon was heard calling from the shop for some fire with which to light his tobacco. Fortunately there was no one else in the courtyard at that time, so Rin seized the occasion to deliver the letter in person.

Considering the nature of the thing, Mōemon failed to notice his mistress’s handwriting and simply took Rin for a very forward girl, certainly an easy conquest. Roguishly he wrote out a reply and handed it to Rin, who was unable to read it of course, and had to catch Osan in a good mood before she could learn its contents.

“In response to the unexpected note which your feelings toward me prompted you to write, I confess that, young as I am, your advances are not wholly distasteful to me. I must remind you that such trysts as you propose may produce complications involving a midwife, but if you are ready to meet all of the expenses incidental to the affair—clothes, coats, bath money, and personal toiletries—I shall be glad to oblige to the best of my ability.”

“Such impudence!” Osan exclaimed when she finished reading the blunt message to Rin. “There is no dearth of men in this world, and Rin is hardly the worst-looking of all women. She can have a man like Mōemon any time she wants.”

Thus aroused, Osan decided to write further importunate messages for Rin and make Mōemon her loving slave. So she sent several heartbreaking appeals to him, moving Mōemon to pity and then to passion. At last, to make up for his earlier impertinence he finally wrote Rin an earnest note in reply. It contained a promise that on the night of May 14, when it was customary to stay up and watch the full moon, he would definitely come to see her. Mistress Osan laughed aloud when she saw this, and told the assembled maids, “We shall turn his big night into a night of fun for all!”

Her plan was to take the place of Rin that night, disguise herself in cotton summer clothes, and sleep in Rin’s bed. It was also arranged for the various women servants to come running with sticks and staves and lanterns when Osan called out. Thus all were ready and in their places when the time came, but before she knew it Osan herself fell blissfully asleep, and the women servants too, exhausted by all the excitement that evening, dozed off and started to snore.

Later, during the early morning hours, Mōemon stole through the darkness with his underclothes hanging half-loose around him. Impatiently he slipped naked between the bedcovers; his heart throbbed, but his lips were silent. And when his pleasure was had, Mōemon sensed the faint, appealing fragrance which arose from the lady’s garments. He lifted up the covers and started to tiptoe away. “Indeed, she must know more of life than I suspected. I thought she was innocent, that she had loved no man before, that now—but someone has been here ahead of me,” he concluded apprehensively. “I must pursue this no further.”

When he had gone Osan awoke of her own accord. To her surprise the pillows were out of place and everything was in disorder. Her sash, missing from her waist, was nowhere at hand; her bed tissues were a mess. Overcome with shame at the realization of her undoing, Osan considered. “There is no way to keep this from others. From now on I may as well abandon myself to this affair, risk my life, ruin my reputation, and take Mōemon as my companion on a journey to death.”

She confided this resolution to Mōemon, and though it was contrary to his previous decision, nevertheless, being halfway in and feeling the call to love, Mōemon gave himself over to visiting her each night without a care for the reproofs of others, and spent himself in this new service as thoroughly as he had in his work. Thus, together the lovers played with life and death, the most dangerous game of all.

The Lake Which Took People In

It is written in “The Tale of Genji,” “There is no logic in love.” When the image of Kwannon was put on display at Ishiyama Temple, the people of Kyoto left the cherry blossoms of Higashiyama and flocked to see it. Travelers, on their way to and from the capital, stopped for a visit when they crossed Ausaka Pass. Many among them were fashionably dressed ladies; not one of whom seemed to be making the pilgrimage with any thought of the Hereafter. Each showed off her clothes and took such pride in her appearance that even Kwannon must have been amused at the sight.

It happened that Osan and Mōemon also made the pilgrimage together. They and the flowers they saw seemed to share a common fate; no one could tell when they might fall. Nor could anyone tell whether the lovers again might see this bay and the hills around Lake Biwa, so Mōemon and Osan wanted to make it a day to remember. They rented a small boat in Seta, and wished their love would last as long as the Long Bridge of that town,^[7] though their pleasure might still be short-lived. Floating along, the lovers made waves serve them as pillow and bed, and the disorder of Osan’s hairdress testified to the nature of their delight. But there were moments, too, when the beclouded Mirror Mountain seemed to reflect a more somber mood in Osan. Love for these two was as dangerous a passage as Crocodile Strait, and their hearts sank when at Katada someone called the boat from shore; for a minute they feared that a courier had come after them from Kyoto.

Even though they survived this, it seemed as if their end might be told by the snows of Mt. Hiei, for they were twenty years old and it is said that the snow on this Fuji of the capital always melts before twenty days have passed. So they wept and wetted their sleeves, and at the ancient capital of Shiga,^[8] which is now just a memory of past glory, they felt sadder still, thinking of their own inevitable end. When the dragon lanterns were lit, they went to Shirahige Shrine and prayed to the gods, now even more aware of the precariousness of their fate.

“After all, we may find that longer life only brings greater grief,” Osan told him. “Let us throw ourselves into the lake and consecrate our lives to Buddha in the Eternal Land.” But Mōemon, though he valued his life hardly at all, was not so certain as to what would follow after death. “I think I have hit upon a way out,” he said. “Let us each send letters to the capital, saying that we shall drown ourselves in the lake. We can then steal away from here to anywhere you please and pass the rest of our years together.”

Osan was delighted. “When I left home, it was with that idea in mind. So I brought along five hundred pieces of gold in my suitcase.”

That, indeed, was something with which to start life anew. “We must be careful how we do this,” Mōemon cautioned, as they set about writing notes to various people: “Driven by evil desires, we have joined in a sinful love which cannot escape Heaven’s decree. Life has no place for us now; therefore today we depart forever from the Fleeting World.” Osan then removed a small image of the Buddha Sakyamuni which she had worn as a charm for bodily protection, and trimmed the edges of her black hair. Mōemon took off the dirk which he wore at his side, made by Seki Izumi no Kami with an iron guard embellished by twisting copper dragons. These things would be left behind so that people could identify them as belonging to Mōemon and Osan. Then, as a final precaution, they even left their coats and sandals at the foot of a willow by the shore. And since there lived at the lakeside men with a long tradition as experts in fishing, who could leap from the rocks into the water, Mōemon secretly hired two of them and explained his plan. They readily agreed to keep a rendezvous with the couple that evening.

When Mōemon and Osan had prepared themselves properly, they opened the bamboo door of the inn and roused everyone by shouting, “For reasons best known to ourselves we are about to end our lives!” They then rushed away, and presently from the height of the craggy rock faint voices were heard saying the nembutsu,^[9] followed by the sound of two bodies striking the water. Everyone wept and raised a great commotion over it. Meanwhile Mōemon, carrying Osan on his shoulder, made his way to the foot of the mountains and plunged into the dense growth of fir trees, and the two fishermen, who had dived under the waves, surfaced on the beach at a place where no one would expect them.

All the people were beating their hands and lamenting the tragedy. With help from men living along the shore they made a search but found nothing. Then, as dawn broke, more tears fell upon the discovery of the lovers’ personal effects. These were quickly wrapped up and sent back to Kyoto.

Out of concern for what people would think, the families involved privately agreed to keep the matter to themselves. But in a world full of busy ears the news was bound to leak out, and all spring long it gave people something to gossip about. There was indeed no end to the mischief these two souls created.

The Teahouse Which Had Not Heard of Gold Pieces

Hand in hand, Mōemon and Osan trekked across the wilderness of Tamba. They had to make their own road through the stubborn underbrush. At last they climbed a high peak, and looking back whence they had come, reflected on the terrors of their journey. It was, to be sure, the lot they had chosen; still, there was little pleasure in living on in the role of the dead. They were lost souls, miserably lost, on a route that was not even marked by a woodsman’s footprints. Osan stumbled feebly along, so wretched that she seemed to be gasping for what might be her last breath, and her face lost all its color. Mōemon tried every means to revive and sustain his beloved, even catching spring water in a leaf as it dripped from the rocks. But Osan had little strength left to draw on. Her pulse beat more and more faintly; any minute might be her last.

Mōemon could offer nothing at all in the way of medicine. He stood by helplessly to wait for Osan’s end, then suddenly bent near and whispered in her ear, “Just a little farther on we shall come to the village of some people I know. There we can forget all our misery, indulge our hearts’ desire with pillows side by side, and talk again of love!”

When she heard this, Osan felt better right away. “How good that sounds! Oh, you are worth paying with one’s life for!”

A pitiful woman indeed, whom lust alone could arouse, Osan was carried by Mōemon pickaback into the fenced enclosure of a tiny village. Here was the highway to the capital, and a road running along the mountainside wide enough for two horses to pass each other. Here, too, was a teahouse thatched with straw built up of cryptomeria branches woven together. A sign said “Finest Home Brew Here,” but the rice cakes were many days old and dust had deprived them of their whiteness. On a side counter were tea-brushes, clay dolls, and dancing-drummer dolls-all reminiscent of Kyoto and therefore a tonic to the weary travelers, who rested there a while. Mōemon and Osan enjoyed it so much that upon leaving they offered the old innkeeper a gold piece. But he scowled unappreciatively, like a cat that is shown an umbrella.^[10] “Please pay me for the tea,” he demanded, and they were amused to think that less than fifteen miles from the capital there should be a village which had not yet heard of gold pieces.

Thence the lovers went to a place called Kayabara, where lived an aunt of Mōemon’s whom he had not heard from for many years—who might be dead for all he knew. Calling on her, Mōemon spoke of their family past, and she welcomed him as one of her own. The rest of the evening, with chin in hand and tears in her eyes, the old woman talked of nothing but his father Mosuke; but when day broke she became suddenly aware of Osan, whose beauty and refinement aroused her suspicions. “Who is that?” the aunt asked. Mōemon had not prepared himself for all the questions she might ask, and found himself in an awkward spot. “My younger sister,” he replied. “For many years she has served in the home of a court official, but it was a strict family and she disliked the fretful life of the capital. She thought there might be an opportunity to join a quiet, leisurely household—something like this—in the mountains. So she terminated her service and came along with me in hopes of finding housework and gardening to do in the village. Her expenses need be no concern; she has about two hundred pieces of gold in savings.”

Thus he blithely concocted a story to satisfy the old woman. But it is a greedy world wherever one goes, and Mōemon’s aunt thought there might be something in this for her. “Now,” she exclaimed, “that is really most fortunate. My son has no wife yet and your sister is a relative, so why not have her marry him?”^[11]

It was a distressing proposal. Osan sobbed quietly, cursing the fate which had led her to such a dismal prospect. Then as evening fell the son came home. He was frightful to behold, taller than anyone she had ever seen, and with his head set like a Chinese lion gargoyle on his squat neck. A fierce light gleamed in his big, bloodshot eyes. His beard was like a bear’s, his arms and legs were as thick as pine trees, and a wistaria vine held together the rag-woven clothes he wore. In one hand he carried an old matchlock, in the other a tinder-rope. His hunting basket was full of rabbits and badgers, as much as to say: “This is how I make a living.” He was called Zetarō the Rock-jumper.

In the village it was no secret that he was a mean man. But when his mother explained to him her proposal for a marriage with the lady from Kyoto, Zetarō was pleased. “Good, let’s waste no time. Tonight will do.” And he reached for a hand mirror to look at his face. “Nice looking fellow,” he said.

His mother prepared the wedding cup, offered them salted fish and passed around a wine bottle which had its neck broken off. She used floormats as screens to enclose the room which would serve as a nuptial chamber. Two wooden pillows were also provided, two thin sleeping mattresses, and one striped bedcover. Split pine logs burned in a brazier. It would be a gay evening.

But Osan was as sad as could be, and Mōemon terribly depressed. “This is the price I must pay for having spoken so impulsively. We are living on when we should have died in the waters of Lake Biwa. Heaven will not spare us now!” He drew his sword and would have killed himself had not Osan stopped and quieted him. “Why, you are much too short-tempered. There are still ways to get out of this. At dawn we shall depart from here—leave everything to me.”

That night while she was drinking the wedding cup with good grace and affability, Osan remarked to Zetarō, “Most people shun me. I was born in the year of the Fiery Horse.”^[12]

“I wouldn’t care if you were a Fiery Cat or a Fiery Wolf. I even like blue lizards—eat ’em in fact. And you see I’m not dead yet. Twenty-eight years old, and I haven’t had one case of worms. Mister Mōemon should take after me! As for you: a soft creature brought up in the capital isn’t what I’d like for a wife, but I’ll tolerate you, since you’re my relative.” In this generous mood he lay down and snuggled his head comfortably in her lap.

Amidst all their unhappiness Osan and Mōemon found the brute somewhat amusing. Nevertheless, they could hardly wait until he went to bed, at last giving them a chance to slip away. Again they hid themselves in the depths of Tamba; then after many days had passed came out upon the road to Tango. One night they slept in a chapel of the god Monju, who appeared to Osan in a dream midway through the night. “You have committed the worst of sins. Wherever you go, you cannot escape its consequences. But that is all part of the unredeemable past; henceforth you must forsake your vain ways, shave off the hair you take such delight in, and become a nun. Once separated, the two of you can abandon your evil passion and enter upon the Way of Enlightenment. Then perhaps your lives may be saved!”

It was a worthy vision, but Osan said to herself, “What becomes of me now does not matter. I left my husband at the risk of my life because this love appealed to me. Monju may understand the love of men for men,^[13] but he knows nothing about the love of women.”

That instant she awoke from her dream, just as the morning breeze blew in through Hashidate’s seaside pines, bearing with it the dust of the world. “Everything is dust and defilement,” Osan told herself, and all hope was lost of ever saving her.

The Eavesdropper Whose Ears Were Burned

Men take their misfortunes to heart, and keep them there. A gambler does not talk about his losses; the frequenter of brothels, who finds his favorite engaged by another, pretends to be just as well off without her; the professional street-brawler is quiet about the fights he has lost; and a merchant who speculates in goods will conceal the losses he may suffer. All act as one who steps on dog dung in the dark.

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 almanac-maker, 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

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.