dhārāni: A long chant, recited in Chinese-transcribed Sanskrit, as pronounced in Japanese, intended, among other things, to ward off evil.
fènghuáng (Chinese): Whatever the cross-cultural roots of the qílín (Sino-Japanese kirin) and the fènghuáng (Sino-Japanese hōō), the narrator’s bold and improbable suggestion in “Cogwheels” that they are of Occidental origin is clearly intended to provoke. Similarly, though Yáo and Shùn are thought to exemplify the wisdom of nonhereditary rule, a distinctly un-Japanese idea, Confucianism was part of Japan’s eclectic ideology, so that the narrator is again baiting the scholar by denying the historical existence of the philosopher-kings.
ginkgo-leaf style (Japanese ichō-gaeshi): Originally the hairstyle of unmarried women of the samurai class, it came to be common among women of various ages and classes after the beginning of the Meiji era, including apprentice geishas.
haikai: Refers both to what would now be called haiku and to haikai no renga ‘linked verse’.
haori: A jacket worn over a kimono.
hokku: An initial stanza, consisting of 5-7-5 syllables, sometimes functioning as a verse on its own.
kana: Referring to the two sets Japanese syllabic letters, hiragana and katakana, deriving originally from simplified Chinese characters.
koto: A thirteen-stringed plucked zither.
-kun: A somewhat less polite honorific name suffix than “-san,” typically used in reference to young men.
marumage: A married woman’s hairstyle, with a bun at the top. It was going out of fashion even in Akutagawa’s time.
Meisen: A famous silk fabric produced in Tochigi Prefecture and characterized by its glossy sheen.
nagauta: Kabuki dance music, lit. ‘long song’.
o-: An honorific prefix; until recent times, it was still used before women’s names, as in “The Villa of the Black Crane.”
ojisan: Lit. ‘uncle’, though often used fictively, particularly as a vocative.
okusan: A polite term for wife, it is sometimes used vocatively.
otōsan: ‘Father’, as a polite term of reference or address, sometimes used by wives when speaking to or about their husbands.
qílín: The birth of sages, notably Confucius, is said to be heralded by the qílín. (Also see fènghuáng.)
sen: One-hundredth of a yen, valued at the time at fifty cents.
sensei: Derived from Chinese (lit. ‘prior-born’), the term is used most commonly to address and refer to teachers and physicians, but also, more generally, attorneys, politicians, and writers. It can be used sarcastically and, as such, is regarded with ambivalence, particularly by frequent addressees. Akutagawa nonetheless refers in his writings to his mentor Natsume Sōseki as “Sensei.”
shaku: A measure of length, ca. 14.4 inches.
shamisen: A three-stringed plucked lute.
shōchū: Sometimes described as “Japanese gin,” it is a distilled liquor made variously from rice, barley, and sweet potatoes.
suikan: An upper garment, washed without starch and left to dry, came to be part of the uniform dress of low-ranking attendants, though the thief in “Fortune” is also noted as wearing one at the time of his capture.
tatami: A straw mat covered with a soft reed surface. A six-mat room measures approximately 18 square feet.
ukiyoé (lit. ‘pictures of the floating world’): This genre of woodblock print, a symbol of the Edo period, was already dying in the Meiji era.
yukata: An unlined summer kimono, typically made of cotton.
NAMES
Abbot Toba (or Toba Sōjō, 1053–1140): Best known for his association with the Heian-period satirical depiction of frolicking animals, he is no longer believed to have been the author of this or any other work credited to him.
Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901): Born into a low-ranking samurai family, Fukuzawa became a highly influential educator and writer, founding what is now Keiō University. His image appears on the Japanese ten-thousand-yen note.
Gozeta Hōbai: A play on the names Goseda Hōryū(1827–92) and Goseda Yoshimatsu (1855–1915). Hōryūwas a student of the Italian painter Antonio Fontanesi; Yoshimatsu, his son, studied in France and was known in particular as a portrait artist.
Hé Rú Zhāng (1838–91): China’s first modern ambassador to Japan (1876–79).
Hiroshige (1797–1858): The nom d’artiste of Andō Tokutarō, most famous for his Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road.
Ichikawa Sadanji I (1842–1904): One of the three great Kabuki actors of the Meiji era.
Inoue Seigetsu (1822–87): The wandering poet was much extolled by Akutagawa. He is buried in the City of Ina in Nagano Prefecture.
Iwai Hanshirō VIII (1829–82): A famous onnagata, a Kabuki female impersonator.
Kikugorō V (1844–1903): Regarded as one of the two greatest Kabuki actors of the period, he first appeared in Western garb in the 1880s.
Mushanokōji Saneatsu (1885–1976): A painter as well as an important literary figure; a co-founder of Shirakaba (‘White Birch’), a literary school intended to offer an alternative to naturalism.
Shu Shunsui (1600–82): Japanese form of ZhūShùnshuĭ, who fled Manchu rule in China to settle in Japan, where he made an important contribution to the understanding of Neo-Confucianism. The monument was erected in 1912 at the elite Tōkyō First Higher School, where Akutagawa was a pupil.
Sonojo (1649–1723): A female disciple of Bashō.
Taiso Yoshitoshi (1838–92): Known for his realistic, indeed shocking, wood-block prints; became a newspaper illustrator in the Meiji era.
Tōkabō: Also Watanabe no Kurō, Kagami Shikō. Still in his late twenties when Bashō died, he had only recently become a disciple. He later wrote Oi–Nikki (Knapsack Diary), one of the accounts of Bashō’s death.
PLACES
Asakusa: Located on the west bank of the Sumidagawa not far from where Akutagawa grew up, it is a symbol of shitamachi, the low-lying eastern area of Tōkyō known both for the temple Sensōji (Asakusa Kannon) and for its entertainment area, including the Rokku area.
Hagidera (lit. ‘bush-clover temple’): An alternate name for Ryūganji, located in eastern Tōkyō, across the Sumida River from Miura’s mansion.
Keijō: The Korean capital (Seoul) as it was known during Japanese rule (1910–1945).
Oumayabashi: The bridge crosses the Sumidagawa just below Kumakata, once the site of the entrance to Asakusa Temple.
Shubi-no-matsu: In Edo times, men would take boats through a canal of the Sumida River to Machiyama and there proceed to Shin-Yoshiwara, the licensed quarter. The tree in question (‘pine tree of beginnings and endings’) was a point of rendezvous going to and fro.
Suijin: In the forested area (‘the grove of the water god’) of Mukōjima Shrine, on the eastern side of the Sumida River.
HISTORICAL AND LITERARY REFERENCES
An’ya Kōro: A Dark Nights Passing is as heavily autobiographical novel by Shiga Naoya (1883–1971).
Divan: West-Östlicher Divan, written between 1814 and 1819, reflects both Goethe’s Orientalism and his ambivalence toward Christianity.
Divine Age: Kamiyo, a term dating back to the early eighth-century Chronicles of Japan (Nihon-shoki), which begins with a mythological account of the nation’s origins.
Jigokuhen: “Hell Screen,” Akutagawa’s heavily adapted story from a Heian-period collection of tales (Uji-shūi Monogatari) about a brilliant but monstrous painter.
Jinpūren Rebellion: The “League of the Divine Wind” (also Shinpūren) was formed in 1872 by former samurai in Kumamoto, Kyūshū. Deprivation of their right to wear swords triggered a short-lived rebellion in 1876, leading to other insurrections in southern Japan.
Nansō-Satomi-Hakkenden: Chronicle of the Eight Dogs of Nansō Satomi. The epic by Takizaki Bakin (1767–1848) is set in the fifteenth century. After being defeated in a rebellion, the warrior family Satomi puts down roots in Kazusa (Nansō). The eight “dogs” (with each bearing ‘-inu’, ‘canine’, as a name suffix) are the warriors who lead the successful restoration of the clan.
Shakkō: Red Lights by Saitō Mokichi, Akutagawa’s friend, physician, and the provider of the Veronal with which Akutagawa killed himself.
Shinsei: New Life by the writer Shimazaki Tōson (1872–1943), who confessed to having seduced and impregnated his own niece Komako before running off to France to escape the consequences.
Shuju no Kotoba: Words of a Dwarf, serialized between 1923 and 1927 in Bungeishunjū.
Tenkibo: Death Register, published in 1926. The autobiographical sketch mentions, among other things, the mental illness of Akutagawa’s mother, hence the comment that ends the conversation.