Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  Everyone agreed that King Byōdō’s counsel made excellent sense and was worth heeding. Unable to resist any longer, Enma reluctantly approved the plan. And so the deliberations turned to choosing who would abduct Kikunojō. . . .

  In the remainder of the chapter, other kings offer various badly thought-out plans. Finally it is decided that Kikunojō should be kidnapped while he is boating. The head dragon god, who rules over the element of water, is made responsible for capturing Kikunojō and is called before Enma, who sheepishly asks the dragon to bring him the young man. Then Enma declares an amnesty and decrees the legality of all the male entertainment and prostitution districts in Edo, although it is made a crime for anyone but Enma to go near Kikunojō.

  The second chapter reconstructs the history of kabuki, presenting its origins in the performances of the gods. The society of the gods is thrown into chaos and darkness when the sun goddess goes into a cave and stays there. At last she is lured out by her desire to see a superb kabuki performance in which women’s roles are played by female gods. “After kabuki became all male, the first male actors who played women’s roles grew up thinking and speaking like women, even believing they suffered women’s ailments. Acting women’s roles is the most difficult kabuki art, and actors do not measure up to the earlier high level. Only Segawa Kikunojō II has both the artistry and the physical beauty to play young women on the stage as they should be played.”

  The third chapter takes place at the bottom of the sea, in the palace of the head dragon god, one of eight described in the Lotus Sutra. The dragon is presented as a daimyō ruling over the water domain who has received a supreme order from the shōgun-like king, Enma. “When the dragon lord asks for volunteers to fetch Kikunojō, numerous sea creatures, resembling domain elders, advisers, and administrators, offer various ingenious and learned excuses for avoiding the responsibility and not going. The dragon lord grows very angry until finally a lowly kappa water spirit, who works in the palace guardhouse, volunteers.” The spirits, who have the ability to capture humans, have hollows in the tops of their heads in which they carry water, allowing them to live out of the water for short periods, and they are known in legends for stealing humans’ intestines. But the king also knows this reputation comes from their fondness for loving human males, making the water spirit a dangerous choice. The spirit, however, swears his absolute loyalty to his dragon lord and is given the honor of capturing Kikunojō, who has been persuaded by another actor, Ogino Yaegiri, to take an all-day pleasure boat ride on the Sumida River in Edo.

  Ryōgoku Bridge (chapter 4)

  The river flows ceaselessly, yet its water is never the same. So wrote Kamo no Chōmei55 centuries ago. His brush and inkstone left behind deep thoughts that continue to be read. The pure water of the Sumida River, too, has from antiquity flowed between Musashi Province, which now includes Edo, and Shimōsa Province farther east. Ryōgoku, the Bridge Between Two Realms, is so named because it spans this border. A thousand years ago, when the area was rough frontier, the poet Narihira addressed a gull on the Sumida as “capital bird”56 and wept remembering Kyoto. But today boats pass each other constantly, numerous as floating autumn leaves, and Ryōgoku Bridge lies long across the water like a sleeping dragon.

  On one bank of the Sumida the large drum of an acrobat show echoes up to the clouds so loudly that even the thunder god runs away in shame. In a riverside restaurant, cool thin white noodles are shaken dry57 and heaped high as a snowy Mount Fuji on the Island of Tiny People. A mother with children holds up her wide, hanging sleeve so her children won’t see as they pass a sign advertising Long Life Ointment for lengthening men’s lovemaking. A cautious country samurai notices a man wearing a wide sedge hat suspiciously far down over his face and moves out of the man’s way, gripping the front of his robe and the purse inside. A smooth-talking juggler sends beans and saké bottles spinning up into the air, and a watermelon seller on the street curses a red shop-lantern nearby for stealing the fresh color from his slices.

  The cries of insects! A salesman brings autumn early to the city in cages hanging from both ends of his shoulder pole. “Cup of water? Cold water!” A water seller calls from the shade of a willow, which, unlike the country willows that poets praise, has no clear stream running beneath it. A low voice chanting a puppet play in an impromptu reed-screen shed is drowned out by “Repent! Repent!” as passing pilgrims pour purifying water over their heads. A fragrance comes from Igarashi’s Hair-Oil store, followed by the smell of spitted eels broiled in soy sauce. People peep into boxes at moving stereoscopic prints, imagining they’re in other worlds, and the crowd around a glassblower wonders whether icicles have formed in summer. Potted trees revive and suddenly look fresh when a florist sprinkles water on them, while papier-mâché turtles hanging out for sale move in the wind and take on souls.

  The soft tofu is salty; the jam-covered rice cakes are very sweet. The waitresses at the Kanbayashi restaurant have pinch marks on them, and the big second-floor room at the Wakamori hums with sounds of eating and entertainment. It won’t be long until the Feast of Souls, and the sellers of lanterns for greeting returning souls are doing a brisk business, amid shouts for more saké to go with shad sushi. Colorful crests cover the sliding door of a hairdresser’s shop, and the kettle in a riverside teahouse has been scrubbed until it shines. From a makeshift hut comes the high voice of a man reading and commenting on classical tales; from the street, a sharp “Eggs! Eggs!” and a candy seller’s voice even sweeter than his wares and then the country accents of a man peddling nutmeg throat lozenges. Coral formations decorate a toy shop selling dyed shell noisemakers. Nearby, large kernels of baking corn bulge like sharkskin.

  The booming of the evening bell at the temple for the nameless abandoned dead reminds people of their mortality, and profligates finally feel the sting in the writings of the raconteur Buddhist preacher Jōkanbō. Horses neigh in the water, taking stunt riders across the river, while in teahouses nearer the temple unlicensed hookers called “wildcats” go discreetly upstairs with monks and pilgrims. For a copper you can buy a turtle and set it free: grateful, it will grant you long life, and your chances in the next world will improve, too. Hired monks, legs moving for coins, trek to the temple to the bodhisattva Kannon to say others’ prayers. A father buys a fishing pole, his face as contented as the ancient sage Taigong Wang, while his daughter compares herself with a famous beauty depicted in a woodblock print and frowns as deeply as the unlucky Han court woman Wang Zhaojun when she studied a portrait of her that the painter hadn’t touched up. Bats forage the sky for mosquitoes, and on Earth, streetwalkers try to stop men. “Need a boat?” “Need a boat?” Calls from boatmen cross the water. On the bank, palanquin carriers wait for riders.

  Monks mix with ordinary people and men with women, while gawking country samurai serving at the Edo mansions of domain lords mingle with stylish commoners wearing the latest long combs and short capes. The attendant of a lord’s son carries a glass goldfish bowl, and a woman-in-waiting follows a lord’s wife, dangling a brocade pipe sheath. A chambermaid’s thighs rub as she pulls her behind after her, and a low-ranking samurai who hires himself out to big mansions looks like he’s stabbing himself as he walks awkwardly with pretentiously long swords. The man over there seems to be a popular doctor, and that man trying to look very elegant must be a haikai linked-verse master. The amorous-looking woman pulling her sleeves stiffly away from the men who tug on them looks like a professional dancer who already has a lover, and that other stiff woman with an amorous look on her face must be a maid looking for love on a rare day off from the women’s quarters in Edo Castle. And over there are the smooth body motions of a master swordsman; the steady movements of the bearers of a large palanquin; the relaxed humming of a blind masseuse who knows exactly where he’s going; the two-colored formal robes of a merchant who sells to great lords; the old, ripped divided skirts of an unemployed samurai; the loose, light cape of a retired man; the leisurely strides of kabuki
actors; the clipped motions of artisans; the long topknots of construction workers; the loose sidelocks of farmers, hunters coming, and woodcutters going.

  On the left in this two-part view of the Sumida River, Ryōgoku Bridge is crossed by commoners and a lord with a spear carrier, while on the right, a full moon rises above the Sumida River at a quieter location downstream, described later.

  So many different styles and customs, and such diverse faces, in crowds too dense to push through—has Edo emptied the houses of the provinces? Dirt and dust rise, filling the air as if the world’s clouds formed here. They say you can always see at least three minor lords with spear bearers crossing the bridge, but that must refer to ordinary times. From the middle of summer until early fall, when people come to the Sumida River to cool off, there are always at least five to ten minor lords with spear bearers crossing the bridge. The banks of the Kamo River in Kyoto by Fourth Avenue are also famous as a place to cool off and are very lively, but compared with Ryōgoku, they’re like one of those young men with thin sidelocks you hire as an attendant.

  Amid all the Ryōgoku sounds, a samurai footman listens, enraptured, to an outcast woman playing her shamisen and chanting a puppet play for coppers in the street. He’s fallen in love with her and forgets gate-closing time at his lord’s mansion. A man follows a woman’s backside, works his way ahead through the crowd, turns, and glimpses her face—to his regret. Another man praises a pretty woman, but her friend behind her smiles sweetly back at him. Fireworks shoot up from tubes on the Tamaya boats into marvelous patterns, while the Kagiya crew, on other boats, tries to steal the night with an ingenious new program. People look up and exclaim, and when a shooting star cluster bursts and hangs above the river, the crowd on the far bank surges noisily onto the bridge, trying to get closer. From vending boats below come “Baked bean curd sake!” “High-class sake!” The drooling man in that boat looks like the Tang drunk Ru Yang, and over there’s the poet Li Bo throwing up. Liu Ling, a hard-drinking sage of the bamboo grove, empties his purse completely, and the red-cheeked elf Xing-xing throws up even the hot wine-absorbing stone in his stomach.

  There are tea-vending boats, flat-bottomed ferries, fast one-passenger boats, boats with awnings, and, here and there, large, roofed pleasure boats. The elegant Yoshino is decorated with a cherry blossom design; the Takao flutters with the scarlet sleeves of dancers; and the Ebisu rocks with the laughter of merchants. On the Daikoku, monks rendezvous with mistresses, and the Hyōgo carries a whole island of fish in a sea of sake. Kotos mingle with shamisens, stately kabuki music with lively pieces, finger counting with shōgi chess, imitations of actors’ gestures with vocal impersonations. From one boat comes quiet, soulful kabuki background chanting. On another, people are singing so loudly to shamisens and drums that even the boatman quickens his oar to the rhythm. Elsewhere people hit hanging gongs and large drums to the music of the Gion Festival or bang without reverence on Buddhist hand gongs and cymbals. Every kind of boat and raft is here, even foul-smelling freighters taking human manure from the city to farmers in the north and east. Such prosperity can surely be found only in Edo.

  One of these large pleasure boats had been rented for the day by Kikunojō. With him rode Ogino Yaegiri, Kamakura Heikurō, and Nakamura Yosahachi, and other kabuki actors, who were drinking and performing and generally making a great commotion on board. Actors play the shamisen and chant passages from puppet plays as naturally as scholars give lectures, retired people chant sutras, rice pounders shoulder pestles, or carpenters carry adzes in their belts, and other boats gathered around to watch and listen. It resembled cherry blossom viewing, when even those who drink quietly have a nice time just wandering around, watching other people sing and dance. Reserve was as pointless as a lantern under a full moon. The actors weren’t performing for the boats around them, and the onlookers felt relaxed and free.

  The group of boats anchored first in one place, then another. Finally the actors decided to go somewhere quiet, and they had their boat row downstream to Mitsumata. To the south, they could see the Sumida entering the bay and then the sea, although it was hard to tell exactly where the clouds met the sea at the horizon. In the middle distance, sails were gliding like butterflies, and farther away, ships dotted the mouth of the bay between Awa and Sagami as if brushed in ink in a single flowing stroke. To the west, the actors could barely make out Hakone, Ōyama, and other low mountains, but above them the peak of Mount Fuji was clearly visible. It was the hottest time of year, and Fuji had been bare at noon, but summer snow lay on it now, just as in an ancient poem.58 Closer by, the actors saw nothing but houses and early evening smoke trailing up from the people’s cooking stoves. Once the wide Musashino plain had been covered with high grass, but now it was covered with human dwellings, and the moon rose and set beyond house eaves. People making their way along streets and roads looked like ants on their errands, and the actors felt as if they’d entered the realm of Daoist sages. Suddenly they found themselves beating for joy on the sides of the boat.59 Then they began to sing very softly. Someone said dust was scattering in delight from the boat’s roof beams and clouds were wavering in the sky,60 and everyone felt extremely good. Incense was lit, and they enjoyed it in silence. Then they decided to get into dinghies and go look for small freshwater clams on the shore of Nakazu.

  “I’m writing a hokku now,” Kikunojō told the others. “I want to finish it here. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  It was the fifteenth of the Sixth Month, and the full moon appeared in the east while the sun was still going down over the mountains to the west. Small waves rose on the surface of the river, and the air grew cool. It was hard to believe now that the day had been so hot. Kikunojō felt he had entered another world. He pulled close a brush and inkstone and wrote:

  Changing the color

  of late sunlight on the waves—

  summer moon

  He smiled to himself, feeling he’d done justice to the subtle changes brought by the cool moonlight to the sunset color of the waves, and he read the verse out loud. Then he heard a faint voice:

  From darkening cloud peaks,

  the booming of a temple bell.

  Amazed, Kikunojō wondered who could have written this sensitive second verse and linked it to his hokku to form the opening of a sequence.

  Searching the water nearby, he found a young samurai alone in a small boat without a boatman. Absorbed in fishing, he wore his wide hat far down over his face. Kikunojō realized that this must be the man who had linked the second verse to his hokku, and he wanted to know who he was. He went to the edge of the pleasure boat and gazed at the man. When the man raised his head and looked up, Kikunojō could see he was twenty-four or twenty-five, fair skinned, and beautiful. His smiling face revealed a love too strong to be kept inside, but the feelings obviously rising inside him kept him from looking directly at Kikunojō. He gazed instead at Kikunojō’s clear reflection on the water. I’m not an unfeeling rock or tree, Kikunojō thought. If he loves me, I can’t ignore him. Kikunojō gazed back, full of longing. For some time, neither man was able to speak. Then a soft breeze began to blow, and the young samurai looked up and made a third verse:

  My body—

  would it were wind in

  your summer robe.

  Kikunojō replied immediately, linking a fourth:

  My fan has stopped moving—

  I watch you through its slats.

  Both men grew less reserved, and the young samurai poled closer. He tied his small boat to the pleasure craft and climbed on board. He spoke about how cool it had become after sundown and concealed his feelings with other small talk, so Kikunojō brought over a saké holder and a cup.

  “My hokku was very clumsy,” Kikunojō told the man. “After you replied with that wonderful second verse, I realized you were no ordinary person. Perhaps a relationship in one of our previous lives has brought us together like this. Where are you from? And please tell me your name.”

 
; “I live in Hamamachi along the river,” the man said. “To escape the heat I like to go out poling alone. The view from here is really quite nice. But today I caught sight of you. The sky suddenly clouded over with my desire, and my fishing boat rocked back and forth. My heart is a deep ocean with wild shores. If we could only spend a night of love together on the waves and share our deepest secrets . . . it would be the greatest wish of my whole life.” The man took Kikunojō’s hand and moved closer to him. He was sophisticated, but his feelings for Kikunojō were obviously quite real. Kikunojō was also attracted to him and felt awkward.

  Unable to speak, Kikunojō held the saké dipper and offered the man the cup. The man took it and politely placed it under the dipper mouth to be filled. He emptied the cup and offered it to Kikunojō. Again and again, each drank and then offered the cup to the other. Alone, they could dispense with formalities. The cup moving directly back and forth between them seemed—like their own meeting—the work of the god who brings lovers together.

  It was already past eight o’clock, and they were quite intimate. Then they decided that one would become clouds and one a dragon rising toward heaven.61 When crows cried out, mistaking the bright moonlight for dawn, the two men swore by the Kumano crow god that they loved each other from the bottoms of their hearts. Their pledges were not shallow ones, and they did not simply go to the floor of the boat or immediately sleep together. They untied each other’s sashes very gently. What they whispered on their touching pillows and what dreams they saw are beyond anyone’s knowing.