Delicious Poison is the most popular play in the kyōgen repertory and the canonical play of the genre. No character better represents kyōgen than Tarō Kaja, the leading character in this play. He is the archetypal clever servant, willing to exhaust every stratagem in order to outwit his master. Even though Tarō and his fellow servant Jirō destroy two of their master’s treasured art objects in this play, the audience’s sympathy clearly lies with the servants because of the master’s deceitful treatment of the pair. Tarō shows that his trickery is far more clever and effective than anything his master can imagine.
Kyōgen’s humor walks the fine path between the psychologically real and the physically and vocally ridiculous, and no action better demonstrates this than the two servants desperately exhorting each other and waving their fans as they fearfully approach the poison, hoping to blow its deadly fumes in the other direction. This activity is executed with the elegance and precision that characterize all kyōgen per for mances and that make it impossible to mistake for clowning or buffoonery. Unlike most kyōgen plays, Busu has an identifiable literary source, the Collection of Sand and Pebbles (Shasekishū, 1279–1283), a collection of setsuwa compiled by the priest Mujū Ichien (1225–1312). The play adds a second servant, enabling a complex interaction and contrast between the characters that does not exist in the original.138
Characters in Order of Appearance
| MASTER, a wealthy man | ado/side role |
| TARŌ, his servant | shite/lead role |
| JIRŌ, his servant | ado/side role |
The Master, Tarō, and Jirō enter down the bridgeway, or hashigakari. The Master goes to the shite spot, and his two servants kneel down side by side about eight feet behind him.
MASTER: I am a man who lives in this area. Today I must go over the mountains on business. Now I will call my two servants and order them to look after the house while I am away. (Walking to the waki spot) Hey, hey, the both of you, come here!
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Yeeeees. (They rise and go to the shite spot, standing on either side of it, facing the Master, who is at the waki spot.)
MASTER: Are you there?
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: We both are at your service.
MASTER: I didn’t call you about anything special. I have to go over the mountains on a little business, and I want you to look after the house while I’m away.
TARŌ: Wait. I’ll go with you, so have Jirō look after the house.
JIRŌ: No, no, I’ll go with you, so have Tarō look after the house.
MASTER: No, today my business is such that I need neither of you to accompany me. Now both of you wait here.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Yes, sir.
MASTER (speaks his next line while going to the stage assistant, picking up a large, lidded, cylindrical lacquer barrel, and carrying it to downstage center, where he places it): This is poison, so take special care when you guard the house. (He returns to the waki spot.)
TARŌ: In that case both of us … right?
JIRŌ: Right …
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Will go with you.
MASTER: And why is that?
TARŌ: After all, if that person will watch the house while you’re gone, no one else … right?
JIRŌ: Right …
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Is needed to guard the house.
MASTER: You both have terrible ears. I didn’t say “person,” I said “poison.” This is Busu, a poison so deadly that if a breeze blows over it and even a whiff of it reaches your noses, you will die instantly. Be aware of this and guard it carefully.
TARŌ: In that case, we’ll do as you command.
JIRŌ: I have one small question.
MASTER: And what is that?
JIRŌ: Well, if this Busu is so deadly that even a whiff is fatal, how is it that you are able to handle it?
TARŌ: You asked a very good question.
JIRŌ: I sure did.
MASTER: Your uncertainty is most reasonable. This poison is the Master’s treasured possession, and as long as I touch it, it will do no harm. But if you two come anywhere near, it will kill you for sure. So be aware of this while you guard the house.
TARŌ: In that case …
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: We will do as you command.
MASTER: Well, I’m going now.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Are you going already?
MASTER: I’m counting on you to look after the house.
TARŌ: Don’t worry about the house, we’ll take good care of everything. Please take your time …
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: And enjoy yourself while you are away.
MASTER: I’m depending on you. I’m depending on you. (The Master exits down the bridgeway, and the two servants turn to watch him leave.)
TARŌ: My, he sure left in a hurry.
JIRŌ: You’re right. He sure left in a hurry.
TARŌ: First of all, let’s sit down.
JIRŌ: Right.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Ei ei yattona. (Uttering this expression of physical effort, they sit alongside each other upstage, facing straight out at the barrel and the audience.)
TARŌ: Actually, what I said to Master about wanting to go with him was a lie. Really, staying at home and guarding the house is a lot easier than working, isn’t it?
JIRŌ: You’re right. Nothing is easier than what we’re doing right now.
TARŌ (slapping the stage and then running down the bridgeway): Quick, run away, run away!
JIRŌ (following Tarō): What happened, what happened?
TARŌ: Just now there was a cold breeze blowing from the direction of the Busu.
JIRŌ: That’s pretty scary.
TARŌ: Let’s move a little farther away from it.
JIRŌ: Good idea.
TARŌ: Around here would be good.
JIRŌ: Right.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Ei ei yattona. (They sit side by side on a diagonal line in front of the flute position, facing the corner pillar.)
JIRŌ: You know, I asked Master about it, but don’t you think it’s strange that poison so deadly a breeze passing over it can kill you, is harmless when the Master handles it? I wonder why that’s so?
TARŌ: You’re right. There’s something strange about all this.
JIRŌ (slapping the stage and then running down the bridgeway): Quick, run away, run away!
TARŌ: What happened, what happened? (Following Jirō onto the bridgeway.)
JIRŌ: Just now a warm, damp breeze blew from the direction of the Busu.
TARŌ: This is getting worse and worse. You know what I think? Why don’t we take a quick look and see what’s inside that Busu?
JIRŌ: What do you mean? How do you expect to get a look at it when even a whiff of it means sudden death?
TARŌ: We’ll fan the wind blowing toward us back the other way and that’s when we take a peek.
JIRŌ: That’s a fine idea!
TARŌ: OK, help me by fanning with all your might.
JIRŌ: Right.
TARŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
JIRŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
Tarō takes the lead position, advancing toward the Busu while hiding his head behind his raised left arm and fanning under his left sleeve. Jirō follows, holding his fan in both hands and fanning with an up-and-down motion.
TARŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
JIRŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
TARŌ: All right. I’m ready to loosen the cord, so fan with all your might.
JIRŌ: Right, right!
TARŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
JIRŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
TARŌ: Run away, run away! (He runs back onto the bridgeway, Jirō following him.)
JIRŌ: What happened, what happened?
TARŌ: I managed to untie the cord. Please, you go and take off the lid.
JIRŌ: No, taking off the cord was just the first step in taking off the lid. You go do it.
TARŌ: No, no. The two of us have to take turns doing the dangerous work. Please, this time you have to go and take off the lid.
JIRŌ: In that case, I’ll go take it off, but please fan for me with all your might.
TARŌ: Right.
JIRŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
TARŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning! (This time Jirō takes the lead fanning position, with Tarō in the following position.)
JIRŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
TARŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
JIRŌ: All right, I’m ready to take the lid off, so fan with all your might!
TARŌ: Right.
JIRŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
TARŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
JIRŌ: Quick, run away, run away!
TARŌ: What happened, what happened?
JIRŌ: I got the lid off.
TARŌ: That’s a relief.
JIRŌ: Why do you say that?
TARŌ: If something alive were inside it would have jumped out. At least we know it’s not something alive.
JIRŌ: It might be playing possum, you know.
TARŌ: It’s scary, but I’m going to go look at what’s inside.
JIRŌ: That’s a good idea.
TARŌ: You help me fan the breeze the other way with all your might, OK?
TARŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
JIRŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning! (Tarō takes the lead position with Jirō following.)
TARŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
JIRŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
TARŌ: I’m ready to look in now. Keep fanning with all your might.
JIRŌ: Right.
TARŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
JIRŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
TARŌ: Quick, run away, run away!
JIRŌ: What happened, what happened?
TARŌ: You know what? It’s brown and sticky, and looks delicious!
JIRŌ: What’s that? It looks delicious?
TARŌ: That’s right.
JIRŌ: In that case, I’ll go take a look too. You help me fan with all your might.
TARŌ: Right.
JIRŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
TARŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning! (Jirō takes the lead position, with Tarō following.)
JIRŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
TARŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
JIRŌ: Fan hard, fan hard!
TARŌ: I’m fanning, I’m fanning!
JIRŌ: Quick, run away, run away!
TARŌ: What happened, what happened?
JIRŌ: Just like you said, it looks delicious.
TARŌ: You know what? Suddenly, I want to eat that Busu. I’ll go eat it up.
JIRŌ: What’s the matter with you? That’s a poison so deadly a breeze passing over it will kill you. How do you think you can eat it?
TARŌ: Maybe I’ve been possessed by the Busu because I have a terrible craving for it. I’ll go eat it up!
JIRŌ: Wait! As long as I’m by your side, I won’t let you go. (He seizes Tarō’s sleeve.)
TARŌ: Let go of me!
JIRŌ: I won’t let go!
TARŌ: I’m telling you to let go!
JIRŌ: And I say I won’t! (Tarō shakes loose from Jirō’s grip and sings as he approaches the barrel.)
TARŌ:
Casting off my darling’s sleeves I bid farewell …
And approach the deadly Busu poison.
JIRŌ: Oh, no, you’ve gone near the Busu! Now you’re doomed!
Tarō kneels on one knee behind the bucket. He sticks the bamboo handle of his closed fan into the barrel, stirs, and then says the following as he mimes eating a sticky substance off the handle of his fan.
TARŌ: Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
JIRŌ: Oh no! You’re eating the Busu. Now you are truly doomed!
TARŌ: Ooooh, I’m dying. (Tarō strikes his forehead with his left hand and slumps forward.)
JIRŌ (runs to Tarō’s side and supports him): Tarō, what happened? Pull yourself together.
TARŌ (in apparent pain): Who is it, who is it?
JIRŌ: It’s me, Jirō.
TARŌ (gleefully): Hey, Jirō.
JIRŌ: What happened?
TARŌ: It’s so delicious, I’m dying.
JIRŌ: What’s that? It’s delicious?
TARŌ: Yes.
JIRŌ: So what is the poisonous Busu?
TARŌ: Here, take a look, it’s sugar!
JIRŌ: Let me see it. It really is sugar!
TARŌ: So, let’s dig in!
JIRŌ: Right you are.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ (stirring with closed fans, then miming eating the sugar off the handles): Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
TARŌ: Well, well, isn’t it delicious?
JIRŌ: You’re right. It is delicious.
TARŌ: And because it’s so delicious, master tried to stop us from eating it, saying it was “Busu” …
JIRŌ: “Poison” …
TARŌ AND JIRŌ (laugh): Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
TARŌ: It sure was nasty of him. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
JIRŌ: Let’s keep eating and stuff ourselves. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
TARŌ: It’s so delicious I’m afraid my chin will drop off! Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
Tarō takes the barrel off to stage left, where he continues to eat alone. Jirō notices this and when Tarō isn’t looking, he takes it to stage right and proceeds to eat alone.
JIRŌ: I can’t stop eating it. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
TARŌ (notices the barrel is gone and confronts Jirō): Hey! Aren’t you going to let me have any?
JIRŌ: You were hogging it. I’ve got to eat some too!
TARŌ: No, I’ve got to eat it. Give it here! (They tussle over the Busu.)
JIRŌ: Give it here!
TARŌ: Give it here!
TARŌ: All right, let’s place it here, right between us and share it.
JIRŌ: That’s fine with me.
TARŌ: Well, well, let’s dig in!
JIRŌ: Yes, let’s.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
TARŌ: All my life I’ve never tasted anything this good. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
JIRŌ: It’s so delicious I’m afraid my chin will drop off! Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
TARŌ: Eat up, eat up. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
JIRŌ: Right you are, right you are. Ahm ahm ahm ahm.
Tarō notices the Busu is almost gone and leaves. He goes to the shite spot, where he stands facing forward.
JIRŌ (stirring with a clattering sound as he scrapes the inside of the barrel): There’s still some left, there’s still some left. Ahm ahm ahm ahm. Hey, what’s this? The Busu is all gone. (He goes to the waki spot and turns to face Tarō.)
TARŌ: What?! You’ve just done something fine.
JIRŌ: What do you mean “something fine?”
TARŌ: Well, Master didn’t want you and me to eat the Busu. That’s why he told us it was deadly poison. Now you’ve gone and eaten it all up, and I don’t think he will be very pleased about it. When the Master comes home, I’m going to tell him right away.
JIRŌ: Hey, wait, wait! It was you who first looked at the Busu and first ate the Busu, and when the Master comes home, I’ll tell him about it right away.
TARŌ: Now wait, wait! What I just said was a joke.
JIRŌ: You shouldn’t be telling bad jokes like that. So, what should we do for an excuse?
TARŌ (pointing to the right of the waki pillar): Tear up that hanging scroll.
JIRŌ: What? If I rip it up, will it give us an excuse?
TARŌ: Oh, it will, it will!
JIRŌ: In that case, I’ll tear it up. (He goes to the right of the waki pillar, where, to the following vocalization, he mimes pulling down a scroll, ripping it up, and throwing the pieces away.) Zarrari, zarrari, bassari! There, I’ve ripped it to shreds.
TARŌ: What?! You just did something fine again.
JIRŌ: What do you mean?
TARŌ: Now it’s true that I was the first to see and the first to eat the Busu. But because the Master treasures that scroll more than any other, I don’t think he’ll be pleased when he sees it ripped up like that. When he returns, I’ll tell him right away just who it was that ripped it up.
JIRŌ: Hey, what do you mean?! It was you who told me to rip it up, and when the Master returns, I’ll tell him about it right away.
TARŌ: Now wait, wait! That was another joke.
JIRŌ: How many times do I have to tell you this is no time for bad jokes. Now what’s our excuse?
TARŌ: Smash that huge Chinese vase. (He points in the direction of the corner pillar.)
JIRŌ: I’m not going to do anything you tell me anymore.
TARŌ: And why is that?
JIRŌ: You’ll tell on me, right? (Both laugh.)
TARŌ: So, let’s get together, and both smash it.
JIRŌ: That’s a good idea.
TARŌ: Come over here.
JIRŌ: Right. (They walk downstage, to the left of the corner pillar.)
TARŌ AND JIRŌ (they crouch down together and mime lifting a heavy object): Ei ei yattona.
TARŌ: For this we need three lifts, and on the third we’ll let it go.
JIRŌ: Right.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Iiiiyaaaa. Eiii.
TARŌ: That was one.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Iiiiyaaaa. Eiii.
JIRŌ: That was two.
TARŌ: This is the important one. Don’t forget to drop it.
JIRŌ: I won’t forget to drop it.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Iiiiiyaaaaaa. Eiii!
TARŌ: Garari! (Crash!)
JIRŌ: Chin! (Tinkle, tinkle!)
TARŌ: There’s a lot more of it now!
JIRŌ: It’s in smithereens!
Tarō and Jirō laugh together as they return to their respective places at the shite and waki spots.
JIRŌ: Well, now what do we do for an excuse?
TARŌ: My, you are a weakling. When the Master comes home, burst into tears!
JIRŌ: What? Will crying be an excuse?
TARŌ: Oh, it will, it will. (He looks toward the bridgeway.) Oh, look, he’ll be back soon. Come over here and sit down. (The two sit side by side in front of the left side of the orchestra position, up-stage center, facing the audience.)
MASTER (at the first pine): My business is finally over. (Walking toward the main stage) Even though I told Tarō AND Jirō to guard the house, I’m worried about them so I’ll hurry home. (Arriving at the main stage) What do you know, I’m home already.
TARŌ: He’s back. Start crying.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ: Eheh, eheh, heh, heh, heh, heh. (This is the vocalization used for weeping.)
MASTER: Hey, Tarō, Jirō, I’m home! (The two servants continue to weep as the Master takes his place at the waki spot.) Something’s wrong. You should be happy to see your Master return. Why are you crying like that?
TARŌ: Jirō, please, you explain it to him.
JIRŌ: No Tarō, please, you do it. (They continue to weep.)
MASTER: Enough! You two are making me very angry. Either one of you tell me what is going on right away.
TARŌ: In that case, I guess I’ll tell you. We had important work to do guarding the house, and we knew we shouldn’t fall asleep, so I sumo-wrestled Jirō to keep awake. He was stronger and lifted me up higher than his head. I didn’t want to be thrown, so I grabbed onto that scroll, and—look—that’s what’s become of it. (The two servants weep.)
MASTER (looking at the remains of the scroll on the ground): What’s this? My precious scroll is torn to shreds!
JIRŌ: Then we had a rematch, and I fell with a crash onto the big Chinese vase, and there—it’s in smithereens. (The two servants weep.)
MASTER (moving to stage right and looking at the shards of the vase on the ground): Oh my god! You smashed my precious vase to bits! (Returning to the waki spot) The two of you don’t deserve to live!
TARŌ: We knew we had no right to live, and so we hoped to kill ourselves by eating the Busu. Right, Jirō?
JIRŌ: Riiiiiight!
MASTER: What’s this? You even ate all the Busu. What useless wretches!
TARŌ AND JIRŌ (singing):
We took one mouthful
But we did not die.
Two mouthfuls, and still we did not die.
Three mouthfuls, four mouthfuls, five mouthfuls,
Ten mouthfuls and more. (They begin dancing.)
We ate up all the Busu
And still we could not die.
Destined to live, what lucky fellows!
Aren’t we sturdy guys?
Tarō and Jirō end the dance by striking the head of the standing Master with their open fans. They then run off stage, down the bridgeway.
MASTER: What do you mean, “sturdy guys”? You rascals! I’ll get you, I’ll get you.
TARŌ AND JIRŌ (exiting down the bridgeway): Please forgive us, forgive us!
MASTER (chasing the servants and exiting down the bridgeway): Where are you going? Someone stop them please! I’ll get you, I’ll get you!
[Introduction and translation by Laurence Kominz]
Sōgi (1421–1502), a poet in the late Muromachi period, was born into a family of the warrior class, probably in Ōmi Province just east of Kyoto. At a young age Sōgi was placed in one of the premier Zen temples of the day, where he evidently contemplated life as a cleric. Only fairly late, in his thirties, did he decide instead to make a living as a rengashi, a master of linked verse. Sōgi’s first teacher was the renga master Sōzei (d. 1455), also of warrior background, although of much higher rank, who was important for not only guidance in poetry but also social contacts, enabling Sōgi to ask courtiers such as Ichijō Kanera (Kaneyoshi, 1421–1520) for instruction. With his teacher’s encouragement, Sōgi studied linked verse as well as waka and court classics like The Tale of Genji and The Tales of Ise. Like Ton’a and other commoner poets, he never attained a dominant position in court circles, but by the end of his life he had achieved a position of respect seldom afforded one of such modest social origins.
During the Ōnin war (1467–1477), Sōgi spent much of his time traveling in the east country (Azuma) and the Kantō area and befriending powerful warlords, many of whom became his chief patrons. Staying sometimes for extended periods with one clan, he lectured, led linking sessions, and served as a mentor to samurai eager to acquire elite culture. As a partial record of this first great tour of the eastern regions, he composed a short travel journal, Journey to Shirakawa (Shirakawa kikō, 1468). The Shirakawa Pass, the entry into the northern frontier since ancient times, was a place that many famous poets of the past had visited, and he was anxious to add his name to the list of those who had recorded their impressions of the place in verse.
It was during his time in the east country that Sōgi met Shinkei (1406–1475), another refugee from the capital and a noted poet whose linked verse, characterized by the qualities of yūgen (mystery and depth) and hiesabi (chilled loneliness), he regarded as the finest of that of his contemporaries. In his own work, Sōgi tried in many ways to combine the strengths of his two teachers: Sōzei’s verbal ingenuity and Shinkei’s profundity. Although Shinkei was rather critical of Sōzei’s work, he recognized Sōgi’s talent and did all he could to encourage him.
After peace returned to Kyoto in the late 1470s, Sōgi set up his own practice there, in the tradition of poets like Ton’a and Shōtetsu. Sōzei, Shinkei, and their peers of the previous generation had died, and Sōgi marked their passing with an anthology of their work entitled Notes from the Bamboo Grove (Chikurinshō, 1476). By this time, he was indisputably the premier renga master in the capital and had students even among the traditional aristocracy. His unprecedented success was symbolized by two events: his appointment as steward of the Kitano Shrine’s renga office in 1488, and a commission to compile a second imperially sanctioned anthology of linked verse, the New Tsukuba Collection (Shinsen Tsukubashū, 1495).
Even during the years when he was most in demand as a master in Kyoto, Sōgi spent a great deal of time on the road, visiting patrons for whom he acted as a teacher of linked verse and the classics of court literature and waka. One of his journeys, through Kyushu in 1480 and 1481, is recorded in detail in Record of a Journey to Tsukushi (Tsukushi no michi no ki). In his early years, traveling to attend patrons had been a necessity; later it became part of the rhythm of Sōgi’s life and a crucial element of his literary practice.
Sōgi was a prolific writer. He left four major collections of his own linked verse, numerous full sequences that he had directed as senior participant (including Three Poets at Minase [Minase sangin hyakuin, 1488]) and that soon became required reading for aspiring poets, a personal collection of waka, more than a dozen essays on linked verse, and various lectures on court classics. He also was instrumental in reforming the Kokin denju (secret teachings of the Kokinshū) under the instruction he received from another warrior literatus named Tō no Tsuneyori (1401–1484?) during his first extended trip to the east country. In later years, these esoteric teachings assumed a central role in elite poetic culture, among both courtiers and warrior poets.
Many of Sōgi’s writings on linked verse are handbooks or compendia of notes intended for poets preparing to compose in a za (linked-verse session). As aesthetic theory, none of his work rises to the level of Shinkei’s Whisperings (Sasamegoto, 1463). But in East Country Dialogues (Azuma mondō, 1467–1470), Sōgi addresses both practical questions concerning technique and the history of the genre and its aesthetic ideals; and in An Old Man’s Diversions (Oi no susami, late 1470s), he offers sensitive readings of links by his teachers that reveal him as both a scholar and an astute critic. The number of disciples he attracted is an indication that he was a dedicated and respected teacher.
Sōgi left Kyoto in the summer of 1500 to visit friends in the east country, and he died at Hakone (in present-day Kanagawa Prefecture) in 1502. His last days are recorded in a short essay, “A Record of Sōgi’s Passing” (Sōgi shūen ki, 1502), written by a disciple, Sōchō (1448–1532), a distinguished renga poet.
EAST COUNTRY DIALOGUES (AZUMA MONDŌ, 1467–1470)
As a master of linked verse, Sōgi was first of all a teacher of many disciples, some of them training to become professionals, others content to be amateurs. Most of his essays were written for such students, usually for specific individuals. The most famous of Sōgi’s treatises is best known by the title East Country Dialogues and was written in response to questions by members of the Nagao clan of Musashi Province (in present-day Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture). The mondō (question–answer) format was a well-established didactic genre, and we cannot be sure whether the questions in the text were recorded verbatim, but the answers serve the purpose of introducing the basics of renga. The title East Country Dialogues—probably not chosen by Sōgi but by a later scribe—suggests that the text was regarded as a successor to Nijō Yoshimoto’s Tsukuba Dialogue (Tsukuba mondō, 1372), which was widely accepted as the first and foremost critical text in the renga tradition.
Most of Sōgi’s critical writings are handbooks on technique, but Azuma mondō touches also on questions of history, philosophy, and aesthetics. The following are three sections from the text, two dealing with matters of training and the third with the proper pace of composition in the za, in the linked-verse session.
QUESTION: What writings should be read as part of the renga poet’s training [keiko]?
ANSWER: This is a difficult question. My own opinion is that all the imperial anthologies of the various reigns, beginning with the Man’yōshū, as well as the personal collections of the several families of poetry, are suitable for training. Still, it depends on the individual. Since the world counts on me for expertise,139 I have collected texts of the Man’yōshū, The Eight Anthologies,140 The Tale of Genji, The Tales of Ise, The Tales of Yamato, The Tale of Sagoromo, Utsuho [The Tale of the Hollow Tree], The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter,141 and the like, which I refer to in case questions arise—although, having said that, the unfortunate fact is that I can’t claim that my efforts have been of much benefit to others or myself.
Perhaps those preoccupied with government duties, or busy with administrative service, cannot hope to engage in such broad training. I do believe, however, that all students should at the very least peruse The Three Collections,142 Senzaishū, Shinkokinshū, and catalogs of poems about famous places.143 Of course, even that may be too much for the elderly and for children. In such cases, they should just use the Kokinshū, Shinkokinshū, and books on famous places.
QUESTION: One hears of beginning, intermediate, and advanced stages of training. What do these stages entail?
ANSWER: I haven’t ever seen anything written down about beginning, intermediate, and advanced stages of training.144 But a young person will begin by perusing the Kokinshū innocently,145 committing to memory poems that will be useful later on, and play chain games146 with friends, always chanting poems. I would call this the beginning stage.
In the intermediate stage, students ask people about the meanings of classical waka, and when the words thus learned come up in linking sessions, they will take care to use them in making links. By doing so, one will acquire the respect of others and be pleased with oneself, until one gradually develops the heart of a connoisseur.147 This is what should be called the intermediate stage.
Once beyond that level, you need no longer think about borrowing words from particular waka but, instead, putting all your efforts into the work of attaining moments of intense feeling [ushin], seek beauty of form and grandeur of style.148 In this way, you will stay effortlessly within the realm of waka, without drawing on the diction of specific poems. Once you have entered this deeply into the art, all the texts will be in your heart. You will no longer need to tire your eyes with reading. I would call this the advanced stage of training.
QUESTION: Which would you say is better—favoring a rapid pace in the za or a slow pace?
ANSWER: The Way of linked verse is to ponder deeply and, indeed, to brood over your links. Nevertheless there are times when, judging the needs of a whole sequence, you may produce a simple verse that surpasses a distinctive verse in total effect. In the distant past it appears that most people felt they must ponder carefully in the za. Lord Sōzei,149 however, said that you should polish your talents through practice [keiko]150 and then compose quickly when in the za.
Surely, without practice, you will not produce an outstanding link in the za, no matter how you agonize over it. It is particularly unfortunate when someone, at a promising point in a sequence, as if to keep anyone else from coming up with a link, produces a verse with an earnest look on his face even before the scribe has had time to read the previous verse aloud. You should understand that when pursuing this Way, you must weigh your own attainments against the circumstances of the za and compose appropriately, without being either overly modest or too forward.
Anyone wishing to pursue this Way should first seek the aid of the gods and buddhas. Dedicate oneself to Sumiyoshi and Tamatsushima,151 embrace the straight and forsake the crooked, abandon distinctions between self and other, and, whether as a teacher of others or as a disciple, pray only to become skillful in the end.
In the Way of Japanese poetry, embrace above all the mind of compassion, so that seeing the red blossoms of spring gives way to the yellow leaves of autumn; meditating on the principle that all that lives must die, the demons of the heart will be calmed; and the mind will return to the truth of Original Enlightenment and Thusness.152 All phenomenal appearances are manifestations of absolute reality, and whichever Way you pursue, your heart must never depart from this thought.153
THREE POETS AT MINASE (MINASE SANGIN HYAKUIN, 1488)
In the spring of 1488, three renga masters—Sōgi (1421–1502) and his disciples Sōchō (1448–1532) and Shōhaku (1443–1527)—met at Minase, in Settsu Province (present-day Osaka) to compose a hundred-verse renga sequence. When completed, the sequence was presented to the nearby Minase Shrine as a votive offering in memory of Emperor GoToba (1180–1239), who had built a noted detached imperial villa in that area centuries earlier. As the emperor whose court had produced the Shinkokinshū and countless other poetic masterpieces, GoToba was one of the most honored literary sovereigns.
Although Sōgi was clearly the leader in the group, Sōchō and Shōhaku also were mature and experienced poets. Even though they were from radically different backgrounds—Sōgi from a military family, Shōhaku from an aristocratic lineage (the Nakanoin), and Sōchō from a provincial family of swordsmiths—the men shared an education in the classical canon and a dedication to linked verse as a courtly art form. The work they produced together soon became a model text for younger poets trying to improve their skills in linking. The sequence obeys all the complex and detailed rules of renga, thereby enforcing the idea of variety and constant change. All the major thematic categories of the courtly tradition—the four seasons, love, travel, Buddhism, Shinto, and lamentation—are represented, but none is allowed to dominate the sequence. The most prominent images of the imperial anthologies—cherry blossoms and the moon—are used as well but are spaced to keep them from overpowering the whole. In this way, the three poets worked together to create a sequence that formed a seamless aesthetic whole. Many forms of linking technique (from the simple expansion of a scene to a complete recasting) and many different personae (travelers, old men, lovers, and the like) create a dialectical movement that is the essence of the genre.
Translated here are three sections of the hundred-verse sequence: the first six verses, five verses from the middle, and the four verses with which it concludes. The comments on the links begin with an old commentary that appeared very early in the text’s history, written by an unidentified renga master.
1 | |||
yukinagara yamamoto kasumu yūbe kana |
Some snow still remains as mist covers the foothills toward evening.154 | ||
Sōgi | |||
2 | |||
yuku mizu tōku ume niou sato |
Flowing water, far away— and a plum-scented village.155 | ||
Shōhaku | |||
3 | |||
|
kawakaze ni hitomura yanagi haru miete |
Wind off the river blows through a clump of willows— and spring appears.156 | ||
Sōchō | |||
fune sasu oto mo shiruku akegata |
A boat being poled along, sounding clear at the break of dawn.157 | ||
Sōgi | |||
5 | |||
tsuki ya nao kiri wataru yo ni nokoruran |
Still there, somewhere: the moon off behind the fog traversing the night.158 |
||
Shōhaku | |||
6 |
|||
shimo oku nohara aki wa kurekeri |
Out on frost-laden fields autumn has come to its end.159 | ||
Sōchō | |||
37 |
|||
kimi o okite akazu mo tare o omouran |
While I have you, why tire of you and think of anyone else?160 |
||
Sōchō | |||
sono omokage ni |
No resemblance do I see |
||
nitaru dani nashi |
to that other countenance.161 | ||
Shōhaku | |||
39 |
|||
kusaki sae |
Shrubs and grasses— |
||
furuki miyako no urami nite |
even these make me long bitterly for the old capital.162 |
||
Sōgi | |||
40 |
|||
mi no uki yado mo |
Even here in my house of pain |
||
nagori koso are |
I still have some attachments.163 | ||
Sōchō | |||
41 |
|||
tarachine no |
Before time passes, |
||
tōkaranu ato ni nagusameyo |
remember your parent fondly— and take comfort now.164 | ||
Shōhaku | |||
yama wa kesa | Mountains at morning— | ||
iku shimoyo ni ka |
how many nights of frost | ||
kasumuran |
preceded the mist?165 | ||
|
Sōchō | |||
98 | |||
keburi nodoka ni | Smoke rises quietly | ||
miyuru kariio |
around a makeshift hut.166 | ||
Shōhaku | |||
99 | |||
iyashiki mo | Among the lowborn, too, | ||
mi o osamuru wa | must be some who live | ||
aritsubeshi | in prosperity.167 | ||
|
Sōgi | |||
100 | |||
hito ni oshinabe |
For people everywhere | ||
michi zo tadashiki |
the Way lies straight ahead.168 | ||
Sōchō |
[Introductions and translations by Steven Carter]
Muromachi tales (otogi-zōshi, sometimes translated as “companion books”) constitute an extremely diverse genre of short to middle-length narratives dating from the early fourteenth to the early seventeenth century (Northern and Southern Courts, Muromachi, and early Tokugawa periods).169 Alternatively referred to as Muromachi monogatari (Muromachi tales) and chūsei shōsetsu (medieval novels), otogi-zōshi differ from their Heian and neoclassical antecedents in their thematic variety, their abundant and often vibrant illustrations, their plot-centered narratives, and their broad popular appeal. Since the early twentieth century, bibliographers have identified more than four hundred separate otogi-zōshi, most of which survive in numerous manuscripts in multiple textual lines. The Tale of Bunshō (Bunshō sōshi), for example, is preserved in at least eighty-two manuscripts in ten textual lines, and Little One-Inch (Issun bōshi) survives in a mere three manuscripts in a single textual line.170 Of largely unknown authorship, otogi-zōshi incorporate a seemingly endless range of characters, from buddhas, nobles, warriors, and commoners to monsters, fish, and sentient plants, all set in a variety of domestic, foreign, and imagined locales.
The Northern and Southern Courts period (1336–1392), when court traditions dramatically declined and those of commoners came to the fore, marks the great divide between the early medieval and the late medieval age. Even though Heian literary genres—imperial anthologies, diaries of court women, and neoclassical monogatari—survived and even flourished during the Kamakura period, they began to disappear around the fourteenth century.
The editing and collecting of setsuwa, one of the principal cultural phenomena of the late Heian and Kamakura periods, declined precipitously at this time as well. But the earlier literary forms were reborn as otogi-zōshi, many of which—particularly the commoner tales—embraced elements of both setsuwa, with their focus on commoner life, and Heian monogatari, with their emphases on waka (classical poetry) and the refinements of court culture. Indeed, the otogi-zōshi absorbed a wide range of earlier narrative forms, including stories about the origins of shrines and temples (engi-mono) and warrior tales (gunki-mono). Viewed historically, otogi-zōshi thus bridge the gap between the Heian aristocratic and Tokugawa popular literary forms, the latter represented by the kana-zōshi and ukiyo-zōshi (tales of the floating world) that emerged in the seventeenth century.
As noted earlier, one of the main differences between early medieval culture and late medieval culture was the new audience, epitomized in the term gekokujō (overthrowing of the upper by the lower). This term applies most appropriately to the period from the Kenmu restoration (1333–1334), when Emperor GoDaigo tried to restore direct imperial rule, through the Warring States period (1467–1573). Gekokujō could be found on a number of levels: social, political, economic, and military. In the provinces, for example, the shugo daimyō (military governors) became daimyō (semiautonomous warlords ruling over one or more provinces), and it was people like them who may have sponsored the production of the many lavishly illustrated otogi-zōshi martial tales that survive today, including the numerous Demon Shuten Dōji and Little Atsumori picture scrolls. Like the protagonists often found in kyōgen, some of the characters in otogi-zōshi reflect this spirit of gekokujō, in which individuals of lower status rise above or otherwise get the better of their superiors.
In the Heian and Kamakura periods, the aristocrats and the clergy, many of whom were of aristocratic origin, produced the texts. But as a result of various wars, particularly during the Northern and Southern Courts period, the nobility lost its power, the capital was damaged, and many cultural treasures were lost. With the decline of the capital and its surrounding culture, new authors and audiences appeared, and otogi-zōshi were subsequently produced by what seems to have been a wide range of social groups: fallen nobility, Buddhist priests, renga masters, literate samurai, recluses, and well-to-do urban commoners. The new, largely commoner audiences for whom they wrote had diverse interests and ambitions. Some, having suddenly risen in social status or attained material wealth, were especially interested in culture—classical aristocratic culture—but lacked the means to acquire a classical education. Otogi-zōshi, particularly the tales of the nobility, likely functioned for them as popular digests of the classics, providing a means of enjoying formerly aristocratic mores without the necessity of requiring a formal education.
The otogi-zōshi encompass an astonishing range of subject matter. One type derives from Heian monogatari, particularly The Tale of Genji, and includes such evil stepmother tales as Head Bowl (Hachikazuki).171 This category also covers tales about poetry and famous waka poets. Another prominent category is priest tales, which include tales of awakening (hosshin) and confession, such as The Three Priests (Sannin hōshi), and stories about relationships between an older Buddhist priest and a young boy acolyte (chigo), in which love is often presented as a means to help the priest achieve enlightenment. The most famous of these is A Long Tale for an Autumn Night (Aki no yo no naga monogatari), in which a priest from Mount Hiei and a chigo from Mii-dera temple are caught in a tragic struggle between the two temples.172 Another subgenre is the “breaking of vows” stories (hakaidan), in which a priest violates monastic rules, as in Errand Nun (Oyō no ama).173
Otogi-zōshi also encompass a number of tales about samurai, which can be considered offshoots of the earlier warrior tales (gunki-mono). Here the most popular figure by far is Yoshitsune. The otogi-zōshi warrior tales recount legends about struggles with monsters and villains such as The Demon Shuten Dōji (Shuten Dōji) as well as many tales of commoners, which often involve courtship and social climbing. The most notable of these are The Tale of Bunshō (Bunshō sōshi); Lazy Tarō (Monogusa Tarō), which is included here; and Little One-Inch (Issun bōshi). Otogi-zōshi also may be about nonhumans or animals (irui mono), like Urashima tarō, The Clam’s Tale (Hamaguri no sōshi), and The Tale of Mice (Nezumi no sōshi).
A recurrent characteristic of otogi-zōshi is their didacticism, often in the form of heavy-handed lessons revealing how readers’ spiritual and material ambitions might best be attained. Except for all-too-typical cases in which characters find themselves torn between duty to their families and aspirations to the Buddhist Way, as in Chūjōhime (Chūjōhime no honji), internal moral conflicts are rare. Characters are usually depicted as either inherently good or bad, in some cases alternating between the two. The apparently overriding purpose of many otogi-zōshi is to encourage the cultivation of specific virtues or devotional practices by depicting exemplary lives and promising grandiose rewards; but the purpose of others is to simply entertain. Some audiences may have believed that by merely reading or listening to these texts, they could achieve the things described in them. Thus Lazy Tarō concludes with the line “The god has vowed that those who daily read this story or tell it to others will be filled with riches and achieve their hearts’ desires. How wonderfully blessed!” The Story of Bunshō was similarly read by young women at New Year’s in the hope that they, too, would receive auspicious returns.
Like a number of the commoner tales in otogi-zoshi, such as The Tale of Bunshō (Bunshō sōshi) and Little One-Inch (Issun bōshi), Lazy Tarō is a story of upward social mobility and ends on a celebratory note. And like these other two otogi-zōshi, it also is a tale of courtship. In a manner typical of the gekokujō (overcoming the higher by the lower) spirit of the late medieval period, there are a number of inversions: from outsider to insider, from low to high, and from profane to sacred. The protagonist, who looks repulsive and is from the lowest order, turns out to be very good at poetry, a sign of high culture and a key to his successful courtship. Much of the humor and interest of the narrative derives from these various paradoxes.
Lazy Tarō represents a popular form of the “exile of the young noble” found in earlier narratives such as the Kojiki and The Tale of Genji. The important difference here is that in contrast to the earlier exiles, in which the hero is already of high status, the protagonist begins in a low social position and ends with wealth and high social status. Significantly, Lazy Tarō attains success as a result of his own efforts, but his spectacular success is reinforced by the revelation that he is a god. Often the protagonist has a patron god, as Little One-Inch (Sumiyoshi) and Bunshō the Salt-maker (Kashima) do, but here they are united in the body of Tarō, who turns out to be a god of longevity. In this sense, Lazy Tarō may be seen as a variation on the honji-mono (tale of a god’s origins), in which a male protagonist typically encounters great difficulties, is exiled from his parents and familiar surroundings, reveals his strength, and is recognized as a deity who provides benefit to the people. Lazy Tarō brings considerable humor to this plot paradigm, suggesting that it may even be a parody of that convention.
At the furthest reaches of the Tōsen route, in a place called Atarashi village, in Tsukama, one of the ten districts of Shinano Province, lived a peculiar man called Lazy Tarō Hijikasu,174 so dubbed because no one in the province could equal him in sheer laziness. He may have been called lazy, but he had a wonderful idea for building a house. He would construct a clay enclosure with a gate in three of the four sides. Inside, to the north, south, east, and west, he would create ponds and islands planted with pines and cedars. Arched bridges, their pillars crowned in shining ornamentation, would link the islands to the garden. It was truly a marvelous plan! There would be a retainers’ quarters twelve ken wide, connecting corridors nine ken175 long, a water-viewing pavilion, galleries, and plum, paulownia, and bamboo courtyards abloom with myriad varieties of flowers. There would be a main chamber of twelve ken, roofed in cypress bark, with damask-covered ceilings, gold- and silver-studded beam ends and rafters, and splendid woven hanging blinds. Everything would be magnificent, right down to the stables and servants’ quarters. If only he could build such a fine mansion! But he utterly lacked the means, and so he was obliged to make do with a straw mat upheld by four bamboo poles—a most uncomfortable residence in either rain or shine. As if the lean-to wasn’t wretched enough, Tarō had more than his due share of chilblains, fleas, lice, and even elbow grime. He had no assets, so he couldn’t set up shop; he tilled no land, so he had no food. For days on end he would lie there without rising once.
On one occasion, a kind soul said to him, “Here, take this, you must be hungry,” and gave him five rice cakes left over from a wedding feast. Tarō received food so rarely that he immediately devoured four of them. As for the last, however, if he kept it and didn’t eat it, he could rely on it later; if he ate it now and left nothing, his stomach might be full, but then he could not expect more later. Just looking at that rice cake provided a certain solace, so he decided to keep it until he received something else. Lazy Tarō would lie there playing with it, rolling it around on his chest, polishing it with oil blotted from his nose, wetting it with spit, and balancing it on his head. While he was thus amusing himself, the rice cake slipped from his grasp and rolled over to the side of the road. Tarō looked at it and pondered. He was too lazy to get up and retrieve it. Figuring that sooner or later someone was bound to come by, he waited for three days, waving around a bamboo stick to ward off the dogs and crows who came to nibble at it, but not one person came along.
Finally, on the third day, there came the awaited passerby, none other than the local Land Steward, Saemon no jō Nobuyori,176 off on an autumn hunting expedition accompanied by a host of some fifty to sixty mounted retainers carrying white-eyed falcons. When Tarō spotted him, he craned his neck and called, “Hey you! Excuse me, but there’s a rice cake over there. Would you mind fetching it for me?”
But Nobuyori paid no heed and continued on his way.
“How in the world can such a lazy man possibly manage an entire domain?” thought Tarō. “It isn’t that much trouble to get down and pick up a rice cake. I thought I was the only lazy fellow around, but there must be many of us.”
“What a heartless lord!” he grumbled aloud, quite provoked.
Had Nobuyori been a short-tempered man, he would have taken offense, and there is no telling what he might have done. But instead he reined in his horse and asked his retainer, “Is that fellow the notorious Lazy Tarō?”
“There couldn’t possibly be two of them, sir. That must be him.”
“You there, how do you make a living?” asked Nobuyori directly.
“When people give me something, I’ll eat anything at all. When they don’t, I go without for four, five, as many as ten days.”
“What a sorry plight! You must do something to help yourself! There is a saying that those who rest under the shade of the same tree and who drink of the same water share a karmic connection from a former life. That of all places in the world you were born into my domain must mean there is a bond between us. Cultivate some land and live off that.”
“Then I’ll give you some.”
“I’m too lazy—I don’t want to work.”
“Then set up a shop.”
“I have nothing to sell.”
“Then I’ll give you something.”
“It’s hard to do something you’re not used to, and I’ve never done it before.”
“What an odd fellow!” thought Nobuyori. “I must do something to help him out.” Pulling out an inkstone, he wrote the following edict and had it distributed throughout his lands:
“Lazy Tarō is to be fed daily: three measures of rice twice a day and wine once a day. Those who fail to comply will be expelled from this domain.” Everyone thought this a prime example of the saying, “The unreasonableness of a lord’s decree,” but for three years they fed Tarō as ordered.
At the end of spring of the third year, Arisue, Governor of Shinano and Major Counselor of Nijō, ordered the village of Atarashi to supply a laborer to work in the capital. All the villagers gathered together to decide which household should provide the laborer. It had been such a long time since this sort of demand had been imposed that they were at a loss about what to do.
Then someone suggested, “How about sending Lazy Tarō?”
Another objected, “That’s ridiculous! He’s so lazy he wouldn’t even pick up a rice cake lying in the road—he waited for the Steward to pass by and asked him to get it!”
“Convincing someone like Tarō to do it just might be the answer. Come on, let’s give it a try,” said another. So four or five elders got together and went to Tarō’s hovel.
“Hey there, Lord Lazy Bones! Please help us out! It’s our turn to send a man for public labor.”
“What’s that?” asked Tarō.
“We have to find a laborer—sort of like a longshoreman.”
“How long is that? It must be awfully big!”177
“No, no! It’s nothing like that! A laborer is someone we send from among the villagers to go serve in the capital. You should go out of gratitude to us for having fed you for three years.”
“That’s not something you cooked up yourselves, is it? I’ll bet the Steward put you up to this.” Tarō was not at all inclined to go.
“Look at it this way: it’s for your own good,” said one of them. “I mean, a fellow becomes a man when he takes a wife, and a girl becomes a woman when she has a husband. So, rather than live all alone in this broken-down shack, why don’t you start making plans to be a responsible adult? You know, they say that there are three times in a man’s life when he comes into his own: when he first wears adult trousers,178 when he holds a job, and when he takes a wife. And you grow up even more when you travel. Country folks have no sense of human warmth, but city folks do. In the capital, no one is despised, and fine-looking people will live with anyone as husband and wife. So why don’t you take off to the capital, get together with a woman who suits your fancy, and make a man of yourself?” he urged, presenting a fine array of arguments.
“Fine with me! If that’s the case, then please send me there as soon as possible!” said Lazy Tarō. He was ready to depart immediately. The delighted villagers got together some traveling money and sent him off.
Lazy Tarō went along the Tōsen road, and, as he passed through each successive way station, he showed not a trace of laziness. On the seventh day, he arrived in the capital. “I’m the laborer come from Shinano,” he announced proudly.
Everyone stared at him and laughed. “Can such a grimy, filthy creature possibly exist in this world?” they snickered among themselves. But the Major Counselor took him on. “It matters not how he looks,” he said. “As long as he’s a hard worker, he’ll be fine.”
Kyoto far surpassed anything Tarō had ever seen in Shinano. The mountains to the east and west, the palaces, temples, and shrines—everything was endlessly fascinating. Tarō was not lazy in the least; indeed, never had there been a more diligent worker than he. They kept him seven months, although he was obliged to serve only three. Finally, in the eleventh month, he was released from duty and decided to return home.
Tarō went to his lodgings to contemplate his situation. He had been told to bring back a good wife; the prospect of returning home all alone was too bleak. Wondering how he might find a wife, he approached his landlord for advice.
“I’m going back to Shinano. If you can, would you please find a woman willing to be the wife of a man like me?”
The landlord laughed and thought to himself, “I’d like to see any woman who would marry the likes of you!” But aloud he replied, “It’s easy enough to ask around and find a woman, but marriage is quite another matter. What you really want is a streetwalker.”
“What’s a streetwalker? What do you mean by that?”
“Someone without a husband, who meets you for money—that’s a streetwalker.”
“Well, then, please find one for me. I have some money for my trip, some twelve or thirteen mon. Please use it for her.”
The landlord thought that he had never met a bigger fool. “If you want one, you’ll have to go out and cruise around.”
“Cruise around? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That’s when you look at all the women who don’t have men with them and who aren’t riding in carriages, and then you pick out a nice-looking one who catches your fancy. It’s all right—you’re allowed to do it.”
“If that’s the case, then I’ll give it a try.”
Tarō set out to try his luck at Kiyomizu Temple on the eighteenth of the Eleventh Month,179 just as his landlord had suggested. He was dressed in the same rags he had long worn even in Shinano: a rough hempen singlet, so ancient that the color and pattern were indistinguishable, a straw rope wrapped around his waist, a pair of old frayed scuffs on his feet, and a bamboo staff in his hand. It was late in the year, and the bitter winds were so fierce that Tarō’s nose ran. He looked like a sooty stupa as he waited by the main gate, standing rigidly with his arms outstretched. The returning worshipers thought him a frightful sight. Whatever could he be waiting for? All took care to avoid him, and not a single person ventured near. Groups of women ranging in age from seventeen to twenty surged by, but not one spared him a glance. Thousands of people must have passed as he stood there vacillating from dawn to dusk, rejecting one woman after another.
Then a young lady emerged. She might have been seventeen or eighteen years old, a veritable blossom of spring. With her raven locks and lovely midnight blue eyebrows, she looked just like a mountain cherry in bloom. Her sidelocks curved as gracefully as the wings of an autumn cicada; she was blessed with the beauty of the myriad marks of the angels and was as radiant as a golden buddha.180 Her charm extended from her arching eyebrows right down to the hem of her robes, which danced with every step she took. She wore a crimson skirt over her gaily-colored robe and light, unlined sandals on her feet. The scent of plum blossoms rose from her hair, which was longer than she was tall. She had come to worship at the temple, accompanied by a maidservant almost as pretty as she was. To Lazy Tarō, here indeed had come his bride. He waited eagerly, arms outstretched, ready to embrace and kiss her. The lady caught sight of him and leaned over to her maid.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s a person,” came the reply.
“How dreadful! How can I avoid him?” she thought in a panic, hastily taking another path.
“Oh, no!” thought Tarō. “She’s heading that way! I have to catch up with her!” He went up to her with open arms and poked his dirty head under her lovely sedge hat. Bringing his face up to hers, he cried, “Hey, lady!” and threw his arms around her. Taken by surprise, she was speechless with confusion. People in the bustling crowd cried out, “How terrible! Isn’t it frightful?” but everyone was careful to give them a wide berth.
Tarō held on tightly. “Hey, lady! It’s been a long time! I’ve seen you all over the place—at Ōhara, Seryū and Shizuhara, Kōdō, Kawasaki, and Nakayama, Chōrakuji, Kiyomizu, Rokuhara, and Rokkakudō, Hōrinji, Saga, Daigo, Uzumasa, Kobata, Kurusu, Yahata, Yodo, Kuramadera, Sumiyoshi, Gojō Tenjin, Kibune Myōjin, Hiyoshi Sannō, Kitano, Gion, Kasuga, Kamo181—what do you think? Huh? Huh?”
At this, the lady decided that he was just another country bumpkin whose landlord had told him to go out cruising around. She could outwit someone like that.
“Is that so?” she said coolly. “There are so many people looking on now; why don’t you come visit me at my home?”
“Where do you live?” he asked.
The lady assumed that she could confuse him with some fancy phrases and make her escape while he was puzzling them out. “I live in a place called Underpine,” she replied.
“Oh, I see. Under a pine torch is bright, so you must live at Brightstone Bay.”182
She was taken aback. Well, he might understand that, but he certainly wouldn’t be able to guess another. “It’s in a village where the sun sets.”
“Ah, a village where the sun sets. I can guess that one, too. It must be deep in Dark Mountain.183 Whereabouts?”
“That indeed is my home. You must look for Lampwick Lane.”
“Tallow Lane?184 Whereabouts?”
“That indeed is my home. It is a shy village.”
“Hidden Village?185 Whereabouts?”
“That indeed is my home. It is a village of cloaks.”
“Brocade Lane?186 Whereabouts?”
“That indeed is my home. It is in a land of solace.”
“Love-Tryst Province?187 Whereabouts?”
“At an unclouded village of cosmetics.” …
As long as he was responding like this, there was no way for the lady to escape. Perhaps she could recite some poetry and flee while he was working it out. Taking her cue from his bamboo stick, she recited:
Rather hard to join with the man I see
carrying a staff of many-jointed bamboo.188
“Oh, dear!” thought Tarō. “The lady’s saying that she doesn’t want to sleep with me.” And he replied:
Each and every stalk is nightly linked together.
Why, then, can there be no joining with this bamboo bough?189
“Oh, no!” thought the lady. “This man is saying that he wants to sleep with me! But his poetic sensitivity does make him much more refined than he looks.” And she said:
Loosen your net! The eyes are fixed too tightly.
Release your hand, then we shall speak.190
Tarō understood that she was asking him to let her go and wondered what to do. So he responded:
So what if the network of eyes is fixed on you?
Let me kiss you, then my hand will loosen.
At this, the lady realized that poetic repartee was getting her nowhere. And so she recited:
If you love me, then call on me.
Mine is the house with the orange-blossom gate.191
As Tarō took note of her words, he gradually allowed his grip to relax. She shook herself free and dashed off, leaving her sedge hat, cloak, sandals, and servant behind. Tarō was devastated at the disappearance of his lady love. He grabbed his staff, called out, “Lady, where are you going?” and took off in pursuit.
The lady was familiar with the streets, and, sure that this was her last chance, made her getaway by crisscrossing back and forth, through this alley and around that corner, like a cherry petal scattering in the spring wind.
“Hey, where are you going, sweetie?” Tarō called out again. He headed down an alley so as to meet up with her at the next corner, but somehow lost track of her. Retracing his steps, he found nothing, and passersby all denied having seen her. Finally, he returned to his post at Kiyomizu. “Now,” he told himself, “she was standing facing this way, then she turned that way, said such and such … oh, wherever did she go?”
His burning love seemed to be hopeless until he suddenly remembered that she had spoken of an orange-blossom gate. He would have to find out where that was. So he wrapped a piece of paper around his stick192 and went into a soldiers’ guard post.
“I’m up from the country and have forgotten an address. It’s a place called Orange-Blossom Gate, or something like that. Where might that be?”
“Seems that there’s a place by that name back of Seventh Avenue, at the residence of the Lord Governor of Buzen. Go down this lane and ask there,” he was told.
And indeed it was the place. Tarō felt as if he had already found his lady, and he was filled with joy. Here people were absorbed in all sorts of amusements: polo, chess, sugoroku, music, and song. Tarō searched everywhere in vain for his beloved. Hoping that she might yet emerge, he concealed himself beneath a veranda and waited.
Here, the lady was known as Jijū no Tsubone.193 Late that night, she returned to her quarters after serving at the Governor’s court. She stood in the outer corridor and called to her maid, Nadeshiko.
“Hasn’t the moon risen yet? I wonder what happened to that man from Kiyomizu? If it had been this dark when I ran into him, it would have been the end of me.”
“How detestable he was!” replied Nadeshiko. “He couldn’t possibly come here! But do be careful—speak of the devil, and he’s sure to appear, you know!”
Lazy Tarō was listening from under the veranda. Here was his bride! In his joy that their bond had not been severed, he pranced out and leaped up beside her. “Hey, lady! I’ve been pretty worried about you, sweetie! Darned near broke my neck trying to find you!”
The lady was utterly aghast. She scrambled behind her screen to escape and remained there in a state of shock, her face as vacant as the sky above. Presently, she moaned to her maid, “How dreadfully tenacious he is! He’s actually here! Of all the men in the world, that such a dirty, disgusting creature should fall in love with me! How awful!”
Just then a company of watchmen came by. “Have you seen a stranger around?” they asked. “The dogs are in an uproar!”
“Oh, no!” she thought, “What if they kill him? As a woman, my sins are already deep enough, what with the Five Hindrances and Three Duties.”194 She wept bitter tears. What harm could there be in putting him up for the night, then slipping him out at dawn? She told the maid to put out an old mat for him to sit on. So the maid went to Tarō and informed him that he could remain until dawn, when he must leave quietly, taking care that no one saw him. She spread out a mat trimmed with elaborately patterned edging, the likes of which Tarō had never seen, and bade him sit on it.
Lazy Tarō was quite exhausted from all the running around he had done that day. He hoped that they would bring him something—anything—soon. What might it be? If it were chestnuts, he would first roast, then eat them; if persimmons, pears, or rice cakes, he would gobble them down right away. If they gave him wine, he would drink almost twenty cups of it. As he was sitting there musing expectantly, the maid brought out a knife, salt, and a rough-edged basket filled with chestnuts, persimmons, and pears.
“Darn it,” said Tarō to himself. “In spite of her fine looks, she’s treating me like a horse or an ox, giving me this fruit all jumbled together in a basket without setting it out nicely on a lid or paper. It’s too much! There must be something more to it. Let’s see: she gave me the fruit all together, so that must mean that she wants to get together with me. And the chestnuts mean that she won’t repeat the nutty things she said before,195 the pears that she wishes to be paired only with me.196 But what about the persimmons and salt? Well, I can use them together in a poem:
Since this is the fruit of Naniwa Bay in Tsu,
it has crossed no seas but is well pickled in salt.197
The lady overheard this and marveled at his exceptional sensitivity. Here indeed was an example of the proverbial “lotus blooming from the mire” and “gold wrapped in straw.” “Here, take this,” she said, passing him some ten sheets of paper. Tarō wondered at this, but concluded that, although she had written no message, she must want him to write a response. And so he composed:
You give me mighty divine paper for my use.
Could this mean that you think me a sacred shrine?198
“I can’t hold out any longer!” she cried. “Bring him in!” She gathered together a pair of wide trousers, a robe, a court hat, and a sword for him to wear.
Delighted at this happy turn of events, Tarō Hijikasu wrapped his old hand-me-downs around his staff. She probably meant to lend him the new attire just for the night, and he would need his old rags again in the morning.
“Dogs, don’t you dare eat these! Thieves, don’t you dare steal these!” he thought, tossing the bundle under the veranda. Then, confronted with the problem of putting on the trousers and robe, he looped the ties around his neck and draped the pants over his shoulders, such that the maid was obliged to help him out of his predicament. As she was about to put the court hat on his head, she saw that his hair was such a tangle of dirt, fleas, and lice that it looked as if it had never known a comb. But somehow she managed to straighten it out, perched the hat on his head, and led him inside.
Tarō had been able to navigate the mountains and cliffs of Shinano, but never before had he encountered such a slippery smooth surface as these oiled floor boards, and he skidded and slipped to and fro as he walked. Nadeshiko led him behind the lady’s screen and disappeared. Just as he was about to approach her, he lost his footing, tumbled head over heels, and landed squarely on top of her cherished koto, Tehikimaru, smashing it to smithereens. The lady was heartsick. Tears streaming down a face turned as red as the leaves of autumn, she said:
Whatever can I do now
to while away my idle hours?
Gazing up at her from his prone position, Tarō returned:
The koto’s smashed; my hopes are dashed—
I’m so abashed!199
With this, the lady realized that Tarō had the soul of a gentleman. So moved was she that they must have shared a karmic bond, for this could not be the shallow connection of a single lifetime. She pledged herself to him.
Dawn broke all too soon, and as Tarō was making ready for a hasty departure, she said, “I was moved in spite of myself to invite you in. Surely this means that we share a bond from a former life. If you hold me dear to your heart, please remain here. I may be a court lady, but what difference does that make?” And so Tarō agreed to stay.
Together the lady and her maid worked day and night setting him to rights. They had him bathe every day for a week, and by the seventh day he sparkled like a jewel. Each successive day thereafter he shone more brilliantly and came to acquire a reputation as a handsome man and an accomplished poet of linked verse. As his lady was of high rank, she was able to instruct him in all matters of gentlemanly deportment. His dress was impeccable: from the hang of his trousers to the angle of his court hat and the coif of his hair, he easily outdid the highest of nobility. The Governor of Buzen heard about him and summoned him to an audience. Seeing Tarō so beautifully dressed, he remarked, “You are indeed a handsome man. What is your name?”
“Lazy Tarō.”
This was so inappropriate that the Governor renamed him Uta no Saemon.200
Eventually, word reached the inner sanctum of the palace, and Tarō was summoned to report there at once. He tried to decline the honor, but to no avail. He rode in a carriage to the palace, and on his arrival he was ushered into the formal audience hall.
“I hear that you are a prodigy at linked verse. Compose a couple of links,” ordered the Emperor. Just then, a warbler flew down, perched on a plum branch, and sang. Hearing this, Tarō recited:
Is it because spring rain has spilled over the umbrella
of plum blossoms that the warbler is bathed in tears?
“Do they call it a plum where you come from?” asked the Emperor. Without hesitation, Tarō replied:
In Shinano the flower is called baika;
in the capital what might they call the plum?
The Emperor was very impressed. “Who are your ancestors?” he asked.
“I have no ancestors.”
The Emperor ordered him to inquire of the Deputy Governor of Shinano about his ancestry. The Deputy Governor in turn gave the commission to the local steward, and eventually the results were brought to the Emperor in a missive wrapped in rush matting. On examination, the Emperor learned that the Middle Captain of the Second Rank, the second son of the fifty-third emperor, Ninmyō,201 also known as Fukakusa, had been exiled to Shinano, where he lived for many years. He had no children, and his desperation led him to make a pilgrimage to Zenkō Temple, where he petitioned the Amida Buddha. As a result, he was blessed with a son. When the child was but three years old, his parents died, and thus he dropped to a lowly status and was tainted with the dirt of humble commoners.
On reading this, the Emperor saw that Tarō was not far removed from the imperial line itself. He dubbed him the Middle Captain of Shinano and granted him the domains of Kai and Shinano. Accompanied by his wife, the Middle Captain went to the village of Asahi in Shinano. Since Nobuyori, the Steward of Atarashi, had been so kind to him, he made him General Administrator of his domains and awarded land to each of the farmers who had fed him for three years. For the site of his own mansion, he selected Tsukama, and there set up his household. Everyone, regardless of social standing, obeyed him, and he governed his domains in peace and tranquillity under the protection of the gods and buddhas. He lived for 120 years, producing many descendants, and his household overflowed with the Seven Treasures and abundant wealth. He became a god of longevity and the Great Deity of Odaka, while his wife was a manifestation of the Asai Gongen.
This occurred during the reign of Emperor Montoku.202 Tarō was a manifestation of a god who brought together those who had gathered karmic merit from a previous life. He vowed that when anyone, man or woman, came to worship him, he would fulfill the request. Usually, ordinary men are provoked to anger at talk of their origins, but, when the origins of a god are revealed, the torments of the Three Heats203 are quelled, and he is immediately delighted. As revealed in this tale, even a lazy man may be pure and sincere at heart.
The god has vowed that those who daily read this story or tell it to others will be filled with riches and achieve their hearts’ desires. How wonderfully blessed!
[Translated by Virginia Skord]
Haikai (literally, “popular or unorthodox poetry”) usually take the form of interlinking verses, alternating between seventeen-syllable and fourteen-syllable verses. Haikai also appear earlier in the form of the thirty-one-syllable waka in the Kokinshū (ca. 905), in which the term applies to thirty-one-syllable waka that either are humorous or diverge from courtly standards in diction, content, or aesthetics. Here haikai were largely characterized by what they were not: elegant, refined, and aristocratic.
As linked verse, haikai developed alongside classical or orthodox linked verse (renga) but without its restrictions in diction and rules. The typical form was a fourteen-syllable (7/7) previous verse (maeku) followed by a seventeen-syllable (5/7/5) added verse (tsukeku), which combined with and twisted the first verse. The seventeen-syllable (5/7/5) opening verse (hokku), which required a seasonal word (kigo) and a cutting word (kireji), also became an independent form (and eventually the modern haiku). For most of history, haikai were scorned as beneath the notice of serious anthologizers, and so most haikai verses have been lost. But with the advent of the Warring States period (1467–1573), when “inferior overcame superior” in a massive political, economic, and cultural upheaval, haikai became popular. Like the kyōgen plays performed between the more rarified no dramas, haikai reveled in the daily, comedic, and vulgar, taking particular pleasure in skewering pretensions, religious ideals, and courtly romance. The increasingly rule-bound and sophisticated form of classical linked verse likewise contributed to the growth of haikai linked verse, which was simpler and addressed the interests and concerns of a wider cross section of society.
The oldest extant collection of haikai linked verse appears in book 19 of the first court-sponsored anthology of linked verse, the Tsukuba Collection (Tsuku-bashū, 1356–1357). Its compilers, the court literatus Nijō Yoshimoto (1320–1388) and his poetic adviser Gusai (also read as Kyūsei, 1282?–1376?), were intent on raising the reputation of verse to rival that of waka, and so they modeled the anthology, including its haikai linked-verse section, on the Kokinshū. Interest in haikai grew, and gradually the genre began to be perceived as a separate enterprise. It was at this point that the first extant anthology completely devoted to haikai, the Hobbyhorse Collection of Mad Songs (Chikuba kyōginshū, 1499), was compiled. The Hobbyhorse Collection is divided into sections of hokku and linked-verse couplets of maeku and tsukeku. In order to elevate classical linked verse, Sōgi (1421–1502), an influential fifteenth-century renga master, did not include haikai in his New Tsukuba Collection (Shinsen tsukubashū, 1495). The fact that Chikuba kyōginshū was compiled only four years after Shinsen tsukubashū suggests that it was a counterpoint to classical renga.
The most famous anthology of early haikai is the Newly Selected Mongrel Tsukuba Collection (Shinsen inu tsukubashū, ca. 1530), which came to be known as the Mongrel Tsukuba Collection (Inu tsukubashū). The editor of the Mongrel Tsukuba Collection is thought to have been Yamazaki Sōkan (1465–1533). The first extended haikai sequence is the “Moritake Thousand Verses” (Moritake senku), composed by Arakida Moritake (1473–1549), a colleague of Sōkan. Although the Hobbyhorse Collection was not circulated widely in the Tokugawa period, the Mongrel Tsukuba Collection and the “Moritake Thousand Verses” became well known, with the result that Sōkan and Moritake were regarded by later generations as the founders of haikai. As a genre, haikai reached its apex in the Tokugawa period, when it became the most popular poetic and literary form of that time.
HOBBYHORSE COLLECTION OF MAD SONGS (CHIKUBA KYŌGINSHŪ, 1499)
The Hobbyhorse Collection of Mad Songs, whose compiler is not known, is the first extant anthology devoted to haikai. Roughly patterned on the imperial waka collections, it begins with sections on the seasons, followed by sections on love (koi) and miscellaneous topics. Selections of two-verse links are translated here. The witty and often ribald approach to the classical topics makes an interesting contrast with more formal waka and renga anthologies. Many of the selections in the Hobbyhorse Collection also appear in the Mongrel Tsukuba Collection. The preface to the anthology—which is rich in puns, presaging the later haikai prose (haibun)—is an important early manifesto regarding the value of haikai.
This is an age in which all have a taste for linked verse, in which poetry is pounded out like rice cakes near and far upon Mount Tsukuba; it is even in the mouths of the gods, and the buddhas do not turn their faces from it.204 My verse is bent to breaking, a bad reed at Naniwa, and I just sit breaking wind beside the rush of the waves at Waka Bay.205 But poetry in China does not deviate from the right path, and in Japan it is as seeds in the heart; so like one of those Chinese poet-sages living in lofty madness or feigned lunacy, I have assembled verses just as wild and intoxicated, and entitled the whole Hobbyhorse Collection of Mad Songs.206
I had no way to search throughout the eight Kantō provinces to the east, nor could I inquire in the nine of Kyushu to the west; I simply copied down what people told me or I happened to hear. They are shallow, like the water at the bottom of a well in which lives a frog of a lay priest; scentless and bland like a dried plum of a monk in a forest.207 But even so, they may help guide those who look for pears but pick up chestnuts, or amuse those who cannot tell gems from stones.208 So I view them as noble, just as the barking of a village dog can lead to enlightenment, or as the belling of a stag can reveal the Truth. Perhaps he who takes up this collection will find it a morsel to whet a drinker’s thirst.
keikai sureba |
When debts pile up, |
aki zo nao uki |
autumn is even sadder. |
tsuyu shimo no |
As frosty dew falls, |
furu ni sode sae |
he gives up even his robe |
shichi ni shite |
as a pledge for a loan.209 |
87–88 |
|
tsubururu mo ari |
Some are ruined; |
tsuburenu mo ari |
some are not. |
akikaze ni |
From the branches |
kozue no jukushi |
in the autumn wind, |
mata ochite |
another ripe persimmon falls.210 |
91–92 |
|
osorenagara mo |
Trying to insert it |
irete koso mire |
while filled with awe. |
wa ga ashi ya |
My foot |
tarai no mizu no |
in a water basin |
tsuki no kage |
reflecting the moon.211 |
muma no ue ni te |
Making love to a temple boy |
chigo to chigireri |
on top of a horse. |
yamadera no |
At a mountain temple |
shōgi no ban o |
they use a chess board |
karimakura |
for a pillow.212 |
145–146 |
|
kaki no anata o |
Through a hole in the fence |
nozokite zo miru |
he steals a look. |
ware hitori |
Getting a grip on himself, |
nigirite netaru |
he lies alone |
yomosugara |
all night long.213 |
227–228 |
|
shukke no soba ni |
Beside the monk |
netaru nyōbō |
lies a lady. |
Henjō ni |
Hidden from Henjō |
kakusu Komachi ga |
is Komachi’s |
utamakura |
poem-pillow.214 |
nigiri hosomete |
Gripping it, squeezing it, |
gutto irekeri |
plunging it in! |
hachatsubo no |
Into a small-mouthed |
kuchi no hosoki ni |
jar, a big bag |
ōbukuro |
of tea leaves.215 |
MONGREL TSUKUBA COLLECTION (INU TSUKUBASHŪ, CA. 1530)
The Newly Selected Mongrel Tsukuba Collection (Shinsen inu Tsukubashū), better known as the Mongrel Tsukuba Collection, is the best-known haikai collection from the medieval period. The inu (mongrel) in the title implies something both similar to and radically different from the Tsukuba Collection (mid-fourteenth century), the classical renga anthology edited by Nijō Yoshimoto in the Northern and Southern Courts period. Attributed to Yamazaki Sōkan (1465–1533), the Mongrel Tsukuba Collection is thought to have been started around 1530, after which it was added to incrementally, by both Sōkan (in whose hand several different manuscripts survive) and later editors, with the result that no single text is authoritative. Although early manuscripts are entitled Haikai renga (Haikai Linked Verse) or Haikai rengashō, by the time versions of the work began to be printed in the Tokugawa period, it had come to be known by its current title. Little is known about Sōkan except that he served the Ashikaga shogun and later took holy vows and lived west of the capital, in Yamazaki.
The variant used here has 322 linked-verse couplets divided into six sections: the four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter), love, and miscellaneous. These are followed by a section of ninety-three hokku (opening verses), also ordered by the seasons. Even though the writers of the poems are listed as anonymous, many have been identified as the renga poets Sōgi, Kensai, and Sōchō, and the noted haikai poets Sōkan and Moritake.
kasumi no koromo |
The robe of haze |
suso wa nurekeri |
is soaked at the hem |
Saohime no |
Spring has come, |
haru tachinagara |
and the goddess Saohime |
shito o shite |
pisses where she stands.216 |
193–194 |
|
oyobanu koi o |
A love beyond one’s reach |
suru zo okashiki |
is certainly ridiculous! |
ware yori mo |
In bed behind |
ōwakazoku no |
a young man |
ato ni nete |
too tall for him!217 |
kiritaku mo ari |
To cut down |
kiritaku mo nashi |
or not to cut down218 |
nusubito o |
Catching a thief |
toraete mireba |
and finding him |
waga ko nari |
to be your own child. |
The bright moon | |
tsuki o kakuseru |
hidden by branches |
hana no eda |
of a cherry tree. |
kokoro yoki |
An arrow that turns |
matoya no sukoshi |
out well but is a bit |
nagaki o |
too long. |
… | |
ke no aru naki wa |
Finding out if there is hair |
sagurite zo shiru |
or not by groping. |
deshi motanu |
A priest without |
bōzu wa kami o |
disciples shaves |
jizori |
his own head.219 |
Summer | |
373 |
|
tsuki ni e o |
If you stick |
sashitaraba yoki |
a handle in the moon, |
uchiwa kana |
it makes a good fan! |
[Introductions and translations by H. Mack Horton]
1. Zeami lists the play’s title in his treatise Five Sounds (Go-on), but without mentioning its author. Because Zeami refers in this treatise to the author whenever he mentions a play that is not his own, the extant version of Lady Aoi is most likely his revision.
2. In The Tale of Genji, Suzaku is Genji’s elder brother.
3. The six organs of perception are eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
4. A reference to a famous parable in the Lotus Sutra: a fire once broke out in the home of a wealthy man. His children, absorbed in their play, did not understand the danger and would not listen when he warned them to get out of the house. He then told them that waiting for them outside the gate were a cart drawn by sheep, another drawn by deer, and a third drawn by oxen. Beguiled by this trick, the children rushed out of the burning house. This parable allegorizes Buddha’s various “expedient” doctrines for saving mankind.
5. Genji’s affections had earlier shifted to Yūgao (Evening Faces), whom Rokujō’s wandering spirit had killed, before carrying out a similar attack on Aoi. Yūgao was staying in a shabby house, with yūgao flowers clinging to the eaves, in a squalid alley.
6. Jijū Chūnagon, Shirakawadono shichihyakushu, no. 688: “I know not how to escape my lovelorn thoughts. It is like a broken-down cart, this sad heart of mine!”
7. The six worlds (or realms)—those of heavenly creatures, human beings, fighting demons, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings—through which a soul, unless enlightened, must transmigrate eternally according to the merits or demerits of its deeds done in successive lives.
8. Viviparous birth (for example, humans), oviparous birth (for example, birds), birth from moisture (for example, worms, mosquitoes), and apparitional birth—that is, sudden birth—by spontaneous generation, without any apparent cause. These are the ancient Indian classifications for all sentient beings.
9. An allusion to a passage in the Vimalakirti Sutra (J. Yuima-kyō): “How should a bodhisattva regard sentient beings? Like … a cloud in the sky, like a bubble on the water …; like the [frail] core of a plantain tree …—thus does a bodhisattva regard sentient beings.”
10. An echo from Bo Juyi’s line: “The glory of yesterday declines today.”
11. Refers to the day of the incident involving Rokujō’s cart.
12. Kii, Horikawa hyakushū, no. 767: “I must get up at dawn to see the morning glory in flower, whose beauty will be gone before the sun begins to shine.”
13. Refers to a poem by Owari, Shinkokinshū, Love 5, no. 1401: “Remembering my harshness to others, I will not grieve my lot; this is a retribution that has come while I am still alive.”
14. This refers to “beating the new wife,” a Muromachi-period custom in which, when a man remarried, his divorced wife or her relatives would vent their anger by forcing their way into her former husband’s home and beating his new wife.
15. From a verse in the Dai-Shōgon-ron: “Man’s self is like dried-up wood, his anger a flaming fire; before the fire destroys another, it first consumes its own self.”
16. The nine categories of consciousness in Buddhist psychology: the five sense perceptions (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch), the conscious mind, the two different aspects of the subconscious mind, and the undefiled consciousness.
17. The ten “vehicles” of spiritual disciplines that, according to Buddhist doctrine, carry one to nirvana.
18. Yoga, a Sanskrit word meaning “union,” refers to perfect union of oneself with the Buddha, and thus with ultimate truth, attained by properly regulating one’s mind and body.
19. The Three Mysteries are body, speech, and mind. To attain the state of yoga, one forms the mystic hand gestures known as mudras (yogas of the body), recites mantras (yogas of speech), and mentally visualizes the Buddha (the yoga of mind).
20. The Nara-period originator of mountain asceticism (shugendō).
21. Referring to a range of mountains called Ōmine, extending more than thirty miles in Yamato and Kii Provinces. It contains several high peaks above five thousand feet, and the head temple of mountain asceticism is located there. Those who have undergone mortification and asceticism in these mountains and have been initiated into the mysteries of the sect are regarded as master ascetics, and their prayers and invocations are said to possess superhuman powers. The holy man in the present play is such an accomplished master.
22. Taizō-kai (Womb World, All-Embracing Realm) is a view of the sentient world, including all states of existence, from buddhas to devils, as embraced in the infinite love of the Great Sun Buddha (Mahavairocana), of whom all sentient beings are manifestations. The pictorial representation of this view is one of the most important mandala of Esoteric Buddhism. The other is the Kongō-kai (Diamond World), representing the powers and works of the Great Sun Buddha’s supreme wisdom, which is likened to a diamond, since it is immutable and can destroy the attachments of mortals.
23. The Buddhist paradise is said to be adorned with seven jewels (treasures).
24. Endurance of all insults and injuries from others. The Lotus Sutra says, “The garment of the Buddha is the spirit of meekness and forbearance.”
25. Myōō (vidyaraja [wisdom kings]) are manifestations of the Great Sun Buddha. They assume features of terrible anger in order to quell the rebellious spirits of men and demons. The five mentioned here are especially venerated in Esoteric Buddhism. Gōzanze (Trailokya) Myōō sits in the east, has three faces and eight arms expressing great anger, and destroys the three vices of covetousness, anger, and folly. Gundari-yasha (Kundali-yaksa) Myōō sits in the south, has one face and eight arms, and destroys all angry spirits and devils. Daiitoku (Yamantaka) Myōō sits in the west; has six faces, six arms, and six feet; rides a great white ox; and carries various weapons in his hands to destroy all poisonous serpents and evil dragons. Kongō-yasha (Vajra-yaksa) Myōō sits in the north, enveloped in flames, has three faces and six arms, carries various weapons in his hands, and destroys all fierce yaksa (demons). Finally, the Great Holy One—that is, Fudō Myōō (Acalanatha, the Immovable One)—sits in the center, expressing great anger; he is in reality a form that Dainichi Nyorai (Mahavairocana Tathagata) takes in order to conquer all evil spirits. His right hand clasps a sword, which symbolizes the infinite wisdom of the Great Sun Buddha, and his left hand holds a lasso, which symbolizes the Buddha’s supreme compassion. He stands on a rock, amid flames.
26. A romanized transcription of a dharani, a passage of Sanskrit that, in Chinese and Japanese Buddhist sutras, is left untranslated because it would lose the mystical power of its sounds. This dharani is a formula for subduing evil spirits and is used in exorcism by a devotee of Fudō Myōō. A very rough translation might read: “Homage to all indestructible ones. Wrathful destroyer of evil, may you crush the evil demons within our hearts!”
27. The latter half of Fudō Myōō’s vow, which was often cited by mountain ascetics in their prayers.
28. Buddhas are said to be born into the world periodically, but very infrequently, in order to benefit human beings by teaching them the path to enlightenment. Thus “the buddha that once was” refers to the buddha of the current period—that is, the historical buddha Shakyamuni, who, being dead, “has now passed on”—while “the buddha that shall be” refers to the coming Buddha Maitreya (J. Miroku), who, according to Shakyamuni Buddha’s prophecy, will not be born in the world for many aeons to come.
29. Human birth is regarded as a very rare and precious opportunity to hear and practice Buddhism, attain enlightenment, and thus save oneself from the otherwise endless round of rebirth and suffering known as samsara. Thus the human body is the “seed” of enlightenment, to be nurtured, not squandered. The monks are saying that they have responded to this poignant realization by renouncing the world and taking monastic vows, as signaled by their clerical garb.
30. The tsuki-zerifu (arrival speech) is taken from the version of Sotoha Komachi found in Yōkyokushū, SNKBZ 59:116–127.
31. This is a partial paraphrase of a famous poem in the Kokinshū (no. 938), attributed to Ono no Komachi and, if its prose prelude is to be believed, written in response to the eminent early Heian poet Funya no Yasuhide (fl. ca. 860), who had playfully invited her to go away with him to the provinces. It reads: “Steeped in misery, a forlorn, floating plant, I would break off from my root; if there were but a coaxing current I believe I’d drift away.”
32. The Toba Tomb of Love (Toba no Koi-zuka) memorializes Lady Kesa (J. Kesa Gozen), a twelfth-century Heian noblewoman who sacrificed her own life to save those of her mother and husband.
33. The stupa on which Komachi is sitting would not be a full-size tower but, rather, a replica: either a small, sculpted wooden stupa or else a tall, slim wooden board meant to stand upright as a grave marker and typically carved into a stupa-like shape at the top. Either would typically have sacred Sanskrit characters carved or painted onto its surface. The stupa appears to have slid down into a leaning or fallen position.
34. An allusion to a famous waka by Ono no Komachi, Kokinshū, no. 797: “What fades away, its color unseen, is the flower of the heart of those of this world.” Komachi’s “flower(s) of the heart” can mean “the heart of a person of refined aesthetic sensibilities,” “a fickle heart,” or the hidden blossom of an enlightened mind, all of which resonate here. “Flower,” as suggested in the following line, can also denote the offering flowers presented to the Buddha at altars and thus prefigures the final image of “offering up a flower to the Buddha.”
35. According to Esoteric Shingon, the enlightened bodhisattva Vajrasattva (J. Kongōsatta) compiled the teachings of Mahavairocana (J. Dainichi), the cosmic buddha who vowed to save all sentient beings from samsaric suffering. Vajrasattva then temporarily hid Mahavairocana’s teachings for safekeeping in an iron stupa in southern India. The stupa is thus regarded as a samaya-gyō (unification body), a concrete manifestation of Mahavairocana’s compassionate vow.
36. Each tier of a five-tier stupa represents one of the “five great elements”—earth, water, fire, wind, and space—that, in Buddhist cosmology, constitute the material world, including the human body.
37. “Mind” (J. kokoro) here can also mean “meaning” or “content.” “Merit” refers to actions, both physical and mental, that are conducive to the attainment of enlightenment. Venerating a representation of the Buddha or an enlightened human being is considered meritorious, and disrespecting such representations or persons is unmeritorious.
38. The three lower realms are the hungry-ghost realm, the animal realm, and the hell realm, in which sentient beings’ suffering is most intense.
39. “Arousing the essence of enlightened mind for a single instant is superior [in merit] to erecting a hundred thousand stupas” (cited in the Manbō jinshin saichō busshin hōyō [Essentials of Buddha-Mind of Myriad Phenomena, Profound and Exalted]).
40. That is, renounced the world and became a nun.
41. In gyakuen (backward karmic connection), perverse actions such as rejecting the Buddhist teachings and reviling Buddhist teachers become the occasion for glimpsing the enlightened mind, coming to understand and practice the Buddhist teachings, and (eventually) attaining enlightenment.
42. Daiba (Skt. Devadatta), a cousin and disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha, attempted to assassinate the Buddha and was reborn in hell as a result. Nevertheless, in the Devadatta chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha prophesies even Devadatta’s eventual attainment of buddhahood and describes how in lives past Devadatta helped Shakyamuni Buddha’s spiritual development toward buddhahood. Thus it is possible to view Devadatta as a manifestation of the bodhisattva Kannon (Skt. Avalokiteshvara), the embodiment of compassion.
43. Handoku (Shurihandoku; Skt. Cudapanthaka) was the Buddha’s most dim-witted disciple, who was nevertheless able to attain enlightenment by following the Buddha’s instructions. Monju (Monjushiri; Skt. Manjushri) is a bodhisattva regarded as the embodiment of transcendent knowing.
44. Enlightenment (J. bodai; Skt. bodhi) in Mahayana Buddhism refers to a supremely lucid and naturally compassionate state of mind eternally free of the suffering of “the passions” (desire, aggression, ignorance, and so on). From a relative viewpoint, the emotional “defilements” of the passions may appear to obstruct enlightenment, but the more sophisticated perspective of absolute truth reveals that actually they are, in essence, expressions of enlightened mind itself, as Chinese Zen master Huineng (J. Enō, 638–713) proclaims in fascicle 26 of the Rokuso hōbōdan-gyō (Luyi-zu-da-shi fa bao tan jing [The Dharma-Treasure Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, ca. 820]): “If you practice [transcendent knowing] for a single instant, your dharma-body will be the same as [that of] the Buddha. Good friends, the very passions are themselves bodhi.”
45. The foregoing discussion of the nature of bodhi reenacts an episode found in both the Keitoku dentōroku (Jingde chuan deng lu [The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp, 1004]) and the Dharma-Treasure Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. A monk at the Zen temple where Huineng lived, who was thought to be the most advanced of the Fifth Patriarch’s disciples, wrote the poem: “The body is the bodhi tree; the mind like a clear mirror-on-a-stand. Time and time again, diligently wipe it; do not let there be upon it any dust.” In response, Huineng, a lowly disciple who was young and illiterate, dictated the following poem: “Bodhi, at its root, is not a tree; nor yet is mind a mirror-on-a-stand. Since from the start no single thing exists, from what surface could one wipe off any dust?” This led to the Fifth Patriarch’s selecting Huineng as his dharma heir.
46. “This” refers to the stupa.
47. “Supreme Bliss” (J. Gokuraku), also known as the Western Pure Land, is the buddha-field of the Amida Buddha. The waka turns on a pun involving soto wa (outside) and sotowa (sotoba [stupa]).
48. The preceding exchange between Komachi and the chorus appears only in the texts of the so-called Shimo-gakari schools (Konparu, Kongō, and Kita schools) of nō.
49. Komachi’s age is given as one hundred. However, this passage makes a pun on the fact that if the character momo (one hundred) were “one short”—that is, lacking its top brushstroke, which resembles the one-stroke character hito (one)—it would then not only be one short of a hundred but also now form the character shiro (white [hair]). This conceit underscores the retribution in which Komachi suffered through one year of increasingly onerous life for each of the ninety-nine nights to which she once subjected her suitor Fukakusa no Shōshō.
50. Kuwai roots, an edible rootstalk grown in rice paddies, were regarded as coarse fare, the kind of food an indigent might eat.
51. A carriage-shaft bench was a stool used for getting into and out of an ox-drawn carriage and also a stand on which to rest the shafts of the carriage. According to the tale on which this play is based, a man (Shōshō) is smitten by the charms of a woman (Komachi), but she rebuffs him, declaring that only after he has come and slept on her shaft bench for a hundred consecutive nights will she agree to see him. The man keeps a tally of the nights, each dawn recording his visit by leaving a new mark on the shaft bench.
52. Barrier guards (sekimori) were soldiers placed at strategic checkpoints along major thoroughfares to stop and inspect travelers.
53. The image of hitching up his clean white trousers (hakama) to keep them free of mud is of a young, elegant, manly figure.
54. The Shōshō throws his sleeve (which is extremely long and broad) over his head in order to hide his face. He folds his tall court hat over to one side to indicate the informal, private nature of his excursion.
55. The image of piling up sand, grain by grain, is one of untiringly and sincerely continuing to practice meritorious actions.
56. In Conversations on Sarugaku (Sarugakudangi), the play is referred to as Zeami’s own. However, in one of Zeami’s treatises, Books on Playwriting (Sakunō-sho), he explains that the rongi section of the play was borrowed from an older version of Tōei. Nonetheless, the sashi-sageuta-ageuta sequence is thought to derive from an independent song composed by his father Kan’ami: in The Five Sounds (Go-on), Zeami cites a phrase from this sequence as an example of his father’s compositions.
57. Ama, translated here as “fisherperson,” includes, besides saltmakers, divers who gather seaweed and shellfish.
58. This was the way the play was appreciated by Zeami’s son-in-law Zenchiku (1405?–1470?) and Ikkyū Sōjun (1394–1481), a monk famous for his poems written in Chinese.
59. Nakamura Itaru, “Matsukaze no henbō: Muromachi makki shodenpon wo chūshin ni,” Kokubungaku: Gengo to bungei, no. 78 (1974).
60. Yamanaka Reiko, “Nyotainō ni okeru ‘Zeami-fū’ no kakuritsu: Matsukaze no hatashita yakuwari,” Nō: Kenkyū to hyōron, no. 14 (1986).
61. The opening shidai, nanori, and tsukizerifu are from a manuscript in the hand of Konparu Zenpō (1454–1532). The mondō that follows is the Ai shimai tsuke version published by Itō Masayoshi (Yōkyokushū 3, SNKS, 239–240). The rest of the play is based on NKBT.
62. Saigoku, a vague term for the region west of Kyoto and along the Inland Sea.
63. Saltmakers cut seaweed offshore or raked it up from the beach and then repeatedly poured brine over it. Next, they burned this salt-saturated seaweed, mixed the ashes with water, let the ashes settle, and skimmed off the salt solution. Only then did they boil down this elaborately prepared brine.
64. If the monk were a relative of the two sisters, he would have a natural duty to comfort their spirits. Since he is not, he could choose to pass on without doing so.
65. The pine that stands “in sign” of the sisters’ memory “leaves a green autumn” because it alone remains green amid the red autumn foliage.
66. Shin-no-issei music, which is normally reserved for the entrance of the shite in a god play and which probably dates from about 1700, underscores the exceptional beauty and purity of the two sisters, who are dressed mainly in white.
67. Kuruma means both “wheel” and “wagon.” These two lines evoke not only the drearily repetitious cycle of their daily labor but also their sufferings on the wheel of birth and death.
68. The sisters’ sleeves are wet with the brine they gather, but even the moon moistens their sleeves because, seeing it, they recall the past and weep.
69. This is the beginning of the sashi-sageuta-ageuta passage probably set to music by Kan’ami. The following passage draws on the “Suma” chapter of The Tale of Genji. At Suma, Genji lived in a house some way back from the sea. Finding the noise of the waves still very loud, he recalled a poem by Yukihira, who had preceded him at Suma and who (as The Tale of Genji suggests) had lived at the same spot. Since Yukihira had spoken in verse of the breeze from Suma shore blowing through the pass (over the hills along the beach), Genji realized that this breeze must stir up the waves. This sashi intimates that the two sisters (there was probably only one saltmaker in Kan’ami’s piece) live roughly where Genji, and Yukihira before him, lived.
70. A slight modification of a poem by Fujiwara no Takamitsu, Shūishū, Miscellaneous 1, no. 435.
71. All these sights and sounds of Suma recall what Genji sees in the “Suma” chapter.
72. The long, dangling sleeves had to be tied back in order to allow freedom of movement for work.
73. The two lines beginning with “a woman’s wagon” also contain the fleeting image of a great “male wave” approaching the shore, only to recede, and this wave might conceivably point to Yukihira.
74. Storm winds from the four directions.
75. “Take care lest the smoke of the salt fires drift across the moon and hide it.”
76. “Pine Islands” is Matsushima, a celebrated scenic spot on the northeast coast of Honshu, near the Shiogama mentioned later. The name Ojima is associated with Matsushima in poetry.
77. Tōei, the play from which Zeami transplanted this rongi passage, is set at Ashiya. In their aesthetic exaltation, Pining Wind and Autumn Rain play with fragments of poems that eulogize places associated with saltmaking.
78. Michinoku is northern Honshu, where Matsushima and Shiogama are to be found. Shiogama means “salt kiln,” and the name Chika, near Shiogama, resembles chika[shi], which means “near.” Zeami developed the poetic value of Shiogama in his play Tōru and, to a lesser extent, in Akoya no matsu (no longer performed).
79. Akogi Beach is near the Grand Shrine of Ise, on Ise Bay. Just off Futami-ga-ura (Futami, or “Twice-See” Shore), also near the Ise Shrine, two tall rocks rise from the water. They are called the Husband-and-Wife Rocks, and a sacred straw rope encircles them. The “poor folk” carrying “salt wood” (wood to fuel the saltmakers’ fires) on Akogi Beach recall several classical poems.
80. Narumi-gata is a spot on the coast near present-day Nagoya. Its name (if the characters used to write it are taken literally) means something like “Bay of the Sounding Sea.”
81. Naruo, the name of which sounds like Narumi, is along the coast east of Suma.
82. Ashinoya (or Ashiya), literally “rush houses,” is a well-known locality on the coast east of Suma, now between Kobe and Osaka.
83. The line “at Ashinoya” begins a five-line passage that is a variant of a poem in The Tales of Ise, episode 87. Nada is the name of the shore near Ashinoya. The passage puns elaborately on tsuge (boxwood) and tsugeji (will not tell [of my plight]) and on sashi (“insert” a comb in one’s hair) and sashi-kuru ([waves] come surging in). In the original poem, the girl explains to her lover that she has been so busy gathering brine, she has not been able even to dress her hair with a comb before coming to meet him.
84. To “one [moon]” and “two [reflections],” the original adds the puns mitsu (“three” or “brimming”) and yo (“four” or “night”). “For” is meant to be homophonous with “four.”
85. Genji’s house at Suma is described in this way in the “Suma” chapter.
86. According to the Kokinshū (ca. 905), Yukihira, in exile at Suma, sent this poem back to someone in the capital. The “salt, sea-tangle drops” are both the brine that drips from the seaweed gathered by saltmakers along the beach and the poet’s own tears.
87. A well-known saying, ultimately derived from the Chinese classic Mencius.
88. The brine that drenches her in her daily work also represents the memories from which she can never be free. This kudoki-guri passage uses language from the “Suma” chapter of The Tale of Genji.
89. Zeami invented this death. Yukihira actually died at the age of seventy-five.
90. This “sin” is neither social (love across class lines) nor moral. It is the sin of “wrongful clinging” (mōshu): the error of desiring intensely what one cannot possibly have. Such clinging leads only to misery.
91. A purification rite was regularly performed on the Day of the Serpent early in the third lunar month. Evil influences were transferred onto dolls that were then floated down rivers or out to sea. The same rite appears in the “Suma” chapter.
92. Anonymous, Kokinshū, Love 4, no. 746.
93. The first half of a poem by Ki no Tomonori, Kokinshū, Love 2, no. 593. The speaker of the poem says that each night before retiring, as he removes his hunting cloak and hangs it on its stand, he cannot help thinking of his love. The key words in the poem are kakete (hang [the cloak on its stand]) and “constantly,” here rendered as “on and on.”
94. Anonymous, Kokinshū, Haikai Poems, no. 1023.
95. The river that the soul must cross to reach the afterworld. It has three fords (deep, medium, and shallow), depending on the sins that burden the soul.
96. Pining Wind quotes Yukihira’s poem inaccurately, and so does Autumn Rain a few lines later. It is a climactic moment when a little later still, their mounting excitement recalls it to them perfectly.
97. This poem, from the Kokinshū, is generally taken as a farewell addressed by Yukihira to a friend or friends in the capital, when he set out for Inaba Province in 855 as the new governor.
98. This “pines” is meant to include the meaning “is a pine.”
99. In Teaching on Style and the Flower (Fūshikaden), Zeami notes that warrior plays “tend to be demonic” and “are not interesting.”
100. The moon suggests the monk Renshō himself. The “Ninefold Clouds” refer to the capital. “Ninefold,” an epithet for the imperial palace, and hence for the capital, refers to the nine gates of ancient Chinese palaces.
101. These lines allude to the poem by Ariwara no Yukihira in the Kokinshū (Miscellaneous 2, no. 962) that figures so prominently in Pining Wind. Yukihira was exiled to Suma.
102. Yukihira’s poem alludes to a friend in the capital, and the youth is probably longing for a similar friend, in the capital now lost to him, who would know his true quality. In fact, his only possible friend, Renshō, is already present.
103. From a line of Chinese verse by the Japanese poet Ki no Tadana, Wakan rōeishū, no. 559.
104. It was felt that bamboo washed up by the sea yielded particularly fine flutes. Atsumori’s own was, in fact, the one named Little Branch (Saeda). The divine music of Greenleaf was legendary.
105. Because Sumiyoshi was where ships from Koma (Korea) once used to set anchor. The Koma-bue (Koma flute) is used in the ancient court music known as gakaku.
106. The Name is that of Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light, whose invocation is Namu Amida Butsu (Hail Amida Buddha). The Ten Invocations (ten callings of the Name for the benefit of another) were often requested of holy persons even by the living. Renshō’s teacher, Hōnen, was an outstanding Amida devotee. In Pining Wind, too, the monk invokes Amida for the spirits of the dead.
107. The canonical vow made by Amida before he became a Buddha, to save all beings by his grace. These lines, in Chinese, are from the sutra known in Japan as Kammuryōju-kyō.
108. The barrier on the pass through the hills behind Suma was well known in poetry, as was its nameless guard. In the language of poetry, an older man seen at night at Suma can only be this guard, so that Atsumori’s playful challenge, “O keeper of the pass, tell me your name,” seems intended to remind the more rustic Renshō of his place. His words, based on a twelfth-century poem, are as elegant as the music of his flute.
109. It is only rarely, and by great good fortune, that a sentient being is able to hear the Buddha’s teaching; and it is only as a human being that one can reach enlightenment.
110. The popular songs (much appreciated at court) of the late twelfth century.
111. Sagano, or Saga, is a rural area west of the capital, well known as a place of retreat and reclusion. Because of its desolate reputation, Sagano is commonly associated with autumn in Japanese poetry.
112. A strict grammatical rendering would be “because I am drawn to Sagano.”
113. Nonomiya literally means “shrine in the fields.”
114. “Rough-hewn log” means a log not completely stripped of its bark and is a phrase borrowed from the Nonomiya episode in “The Sacred Tree” (Sakaki) chapter of The Tale of Genji. A torii is a shrine gate consisting of two upright pillars crossed at the top by one or more horizontal beams (in this case, logs).
115. In other words, the deities worshiped at the Ise shrines do not distinguish between Shinto and Buddhist worship.
116. The “Law’s teaching” refers to Buddhist teachings. The phrase “straight is the way” forms a pivot word modifying both the Law and the actual road the monk has taken to Nonomiya. This also implies that the straight way of the Buddhist law leads also to the Shinto shrines of Ise. Both this passage and the “sacred fence” passage highlight the syncretic nature of Buddhist and Shinto worship in the medieval period.
117. The shite is referred to as “Lady” for the first half of the play and “Consort” for the second half.
118. Nonomiya can be interpreted here as both the shrine in the fields and Lady Rokujō, and the flowers can be seen as Shining Genji. A double meaning is afforded by the pun on aki, which means “autumn” or “to grow weary.” Rokujō questions what will become of her when Genji’s affections have waned.
119. Dew implies tears.
120. It is Lady Rokujō’s regrets and attachments that cause her to wander as a spirit back into the world of the living rather than proceeding to rebirth or salvation.
121. Namamekeru, which also implies “alluring.”
122. Nagazuki, the ninth month of the lunar calendar, roughly equivalent to October.
123. She is implying that a Buddhist presence at the shrine is offensive to the Shinto gods.
124. The sakaki, an evergreen tree of the camellia family, is used in Shinto ritual, often as an offering placed before a shrine. Here Genji is using it as a token of the “unchanging color” of his feelings for her.
125. Miyasudokoro, Rokujō’s title, given to the principal wife of a crown prince.
126. Esha jōri, a popular Buddhist phrase indicating the impermanence of all things, also found in The Tales of the Heike.
127. A ceremonial purification in the Katsura River southwest of Kyoto before the Ise priestess’s departure for Ise. The white strands mentioned later are usually attached to sakaki branches and are Shinto ritual objects. They carry away impurities as they are set adrift in the river.
128. The previous three lines allude to a poem by Ono no Komachi, Kokinshū, no. 938: “Steeped in misery as I am, a forlorn, floating plant, I would break off from my root; if there were but a coaxing current, I believe I’d drift away.”
129. Suzuka River, in present-day Mie Prefecture, is a major stopping point along the journey to Ise and a popular poetic topos. “Waves” is preceded here by a pillow word (makurakotoba) that makes the literal meaning “waves of the eighty rapids” (yasose no nami).
130. A slight modification of the poem Lady Rokujō sends to Genji as she departs for Ise in The Tale of Genji.
131. It was not customary for the mother of the Ise priestess to accompany her daughter to Ise.
132. A name for the priestess’s residence at Ise, which was located in the Take District of Ise, in present-day Taki County.
133. Monks were said to wear moss-color robes. The grass mat implies the monk is sleeping outdoors.
134. The aforementioned struggle between Rokujō and Genji’s principal wife Aoi for a prime spot along the route of the Kamo Festival parade. Both women wished to see Genji in the parade, but Rokujō was forced to watch from behind the other carriages.
135. Genji’s principal wife, who later became the victim of Rokujō’s malevolent wandering spirit.
136. The turning refers to the wheels of the carriage as well as the “wheel” of endless rebirth. Rokujō keeps returning to this world because of her strong attachments and bitterness.
137. A reference to the parable of the burning mansion in the Lotus Sutra. The burning mansion is a symbol for this world of delusion and desire.
138. This translation is from the Ōkura school text of Busu. Jirō is cowardly throughout in the Izumi school text, whereas in the Ōkura school he occasionally attempts to be as brave as his friend Tarō.
139. Utsuwa (vessel) is a term originally used in Confucian discourse to refer to an expert in one field, rather than a proper “gentleman,” who by definition is above specializing. Here Sōgi uses the term self-effacingly to refer to his role as a master of linked verse expected to have specialized knowledge.
140. The first eight imperial waka anthologies, from the Kokinshū to the Shinkokinshū.
141. All these texts are from the “golden age” of courtly culture, ending around the middle of the thirteenth century, and most are represented in this anthology. This list shows a general bias among poets of the late medieval age against the work of more recent times. In fact, the rules of linked verse explicitly advised against alluding to texts later than the Shokugosenshū (1251).
142. The first three imperial waka anthologies: Kokinshū, Gosenshū, and Shūishū.
143. “Famous places” (nadokoro) mentioned in literary texts. Many medieval treatises and handbooks contained lists of such literary topoi.
144. In fact, references to such “stages” in training are fairly common in the writings of earlier renga masters, but Sōgi’s treatment here is more comprehensive than earlier statements.
145. “With no special intentions or preconceptions.” Young poets, in particular, were encouraged to do practice without preconceived notions. As the next phrases suggest, repetition, under a master’s direction, was deemed the most important form of preparation.
146. A game in which one person would quote an ancient poem, with the next person being required to quote another poem beginning with the last syllable of the first poem.
147. Suki, a true devotee and not just a casual participant.
148. Sugata utsukushiku taketakaki tei. The vocabulary here is that of the courtly waka tradition, showing that for Sōgi, as for his teachers Sōzei and Shinkei, linked verse was a genre whose aesthetic goals were identical with those of waka.
149. A warrior-poet (d. 1455) who served as commissioner of the shogunal renga office. He was Sōgi s first teacher.
150. In the medieval period, constant practice was considered essential to success not only in linked verse but also in waka and other such practices. Only with the accumulation of experience in actual practice could a poet hope to become proficient in the Way.
151. The shrines whose deities were worshiped as patron gods by poets.
152. Hongaku shinnyo, the doctrine that human beings are already enlightened and that all worldly experience is a manifestation of absolute reality (“thusness”).
153. In other words, appearances may differ, but in essence all things are identical.
154. Old Commentary: “An allusion to the base poem [honka], ‘Gazing out over mist-shrouded foothills beyond the river Minase, who could have thought evenings are autumn?’ ‘Mist covers the foothills toward evening’ is interesting [omoshiroshi] enough on its own; and the image ‘snow remains’ is even more outstanding.” The opening verse (hokku) alludes to the poem, quoted earlier as the honka, by the retired emperor GoToba, chief architect of the Shinkokinshū, to whom the sequence is dedicated. As required by the rules, the first verse refers to the season in which the sequence was composed—spring—and sets the tone with its lofty imagery. “Mist” (kasumu) is a spring word.
155. Old Commentary: “On the peaks above, snow remains, while down below, water from melting snow flows gently. The village would be at the foot of the mountain.” To the scene established by the hokku, Shōhaku adds a river flowing from the foothills and, on its banks, a village with fragrant plum trees.
156. Old Commentary: “Plum blossoms are associated with riverbanks and inlets. By itself, the verse means that the green of the willows doesn’t appear when the wind isn’t blowing; thus spring ‘appears’ with the wind.” In the context of the link, the wind carries the scent of plum.
157. Old Commentary: “In the faint light of dawn, with the sound of a boat being poled, a stand of willows appears. ‘Appears’ is thus crucial to the verse by itself and for the link. The connection between ‘break of dawn’ and ‘spring appears’ is interesting [omoshiroshi].” To the sight of the wind blowing in the willows, Sōgi adds the sound of a boat passing and also establishes a temporal context: daybreak. The first three verses presented spring scenes; this one contains no seasonal imagery and is thus categorized as miscellaneous.
158. Old Commentary: “Though night has ended, the fog is so dark the moon seems to linger in the night sky.” What by itself is a night scene becomes a description of daybreak. Unless otherwise qualified, “moon” is always an autumn image.
159. Old Commentary: “The moon always ‘remains’ of course, but here the author has linked a lingering moon to late autumn. The moon remains in the night engulfed by mist as autumn comes to its end on frosty fields. ‘Mist’ and ‘frost’ complement each other.”
160. Old Commentary: “I already have you to love, why should I long for anyone else?” The verse could be taken as a literal question, but in the context is more likely meant rhetorically.
161. Old Commentary: “How unlikely that there could be anyone better than you.” Inevitably, the mind seeks a comparison. The conclusion here is that the one he or she loves is beyond compare.
162. Old Commentary: “The courtyard garden has grown old, no image of what I once saw there.” The word “even” in the maeku is taken here to mean “too,” not “let alone….” The previous verse by itself is a love verse, but in the link “that visage” becomes the appearance of a ruined capital, overgrown with shrubs and grasses.
163. Old Commentary: “Still recalling the garden of my old dwelling, which I can’t bring myself to abandon, I resent even those shrubs and grasses.” A lament by someone who has not been able to sever attachments to the world.
164. Old Commentary: “Since you are within three years of your father’s death, take comfort in what you still recall.” This world is a place of pain, but there are some memories for which to be thankful.
165. Old Commentary: “Until just recently the groves were withered by frost, but this morning, mist begins to appear.” Winter has been long and hard, but now spring mist rises through the groves.
166. Old Commentary: “The smoke is seen as mist.” In the winter, smoke rising from a hut only reminds one of the surrounding cold, but as spring begins, the smoke—really spring mist—makes a serene impression.
167. Old Commentary: “The poet recasts [torinashi-zuke] the meaning of ‘quietly’ as ‘in prosperity.’” Even among the peasants, the speaker says, some are prosperous enough to live in peace. Smoke rising from hearth fires is a conventional symbol of peace and prosperity in the nation.
168. Old Commentary: “If all is in order, then everyone, from the lowest to the highest, is able to live in peace.” The Way lies clear before all, even the peasants, who live in peace as long as the state maintains order. The first verse alludes to a poem by the retired emperor GoToba, and the last verse evokes the imperial way as a force for stability. The verse is meant to be taken as a prayer for peace in a time of political uncertainty.
169. The term otogi-zōshi derives from the name of a boxed-set anthology of short medieval fiction (Otogi bunko [The Companion Library, ca. 1716–1729]) published by the Osaka bookseller Shibukawa Seiemon. In its strictest sense, it refers only to the twenty-three works in Shibukawa’s collection. Since at least the early nineteenth century, however, the term has also been used to refer to the larger corpus of medieval tales from which the Otogi bunko texts were drawn.
170. Matsumoto’s 1982 catalog of extant otogi-zōshi, 122–124.
171. Translated by Chigusa Steven in “Hachikazuki: A Muromachi Short Story,” Monumenta Nipponica 32 (1977): 303–331.
172. Margaret H. Childs, Rethinking Sorrow: Revelatory Tales of Late Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1991), 26–27.
173. Virginia Skord, trans., Tales of Tears and Laughter: Short Fiction of Medieval Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1991), 205–220.
174. The name Hijikasu may be a combination of hiji (dirt) and kasu (dregs). Now a common personal name, Tarō was once associated with the first and best among many, hence in the present context, the filthiest or dirtiest.
175. The ken was a linear measure about six feet in length.
176. “Saemon no jō” refers to his formal court post, sixth rank or below, which was granted to men of his position.
177. Tarō presumes that the naga of nagabu (laborer) refers to a long object, which is suggested here in the English translation by the word “longshoreman” but, of course, does not appear in the original.
178. Genpuku, a coming-of-age ceremony performed when a youth was between twelve and fifteen years of age, at which time he puts on adult trousers, ties up his hair, and takes an adult name.
179. A monthly festival day at Kiyomizu-dera, a popular trysting place that houses the Tsuma Kannon, a deity believed to provide wives for single men and, by extension, companions for any supplicants.
180. Literally, the thirty-two physical marks and eight minor marks of a buddha or heavenly being.
181. A list of famous sites in and around the capital.
182. Underpine (Matsu no moto); Brightstone Bay (Akashi no ura). In this and the following riddles, the places that Tarō correctly identifies are genuine place-names, translated into English to preserve the point of the riddles.
183. A village where the sun sets would be dark, so it must lie in the depths of Dark Mountain (Kurama no oku).
184. Because lamps are lit with tallow, Lampwick Lane (Tomoshibi no Kōji) indicates Tallow Lane (Abura no Kōji).
185. A shy village (hazukashi no sato) would be hidden from sight, hence Hidden Village (Shinobu no sato).
186. Robes are made of fabric, so a village of cloaks (uwagi no sato) indicates Brocade Lane (Nishiki no Kōji).
187. Meeting a love brings solace, so a land of solace (nagusamu kuni) would be in Love-Tryst Province (Afumi no kuni, a pun on Ōmi Province).
188. The verse puns on fushi (lie down) and fushi (bamboo joint).
189. The verse incorporates the puns of the preceding poem, extending it with puns on yo: “world,” “stalk,” and “night.”
190. The verse puns on itome (eyes [of a net]) and hitome (eyes of others).
191. The meaning of the last two lines is unclear. Karatachibana refers to Chinese orange blossoms, reddish or white in color, and murasaki is lavender. Here murasaki may refer to murasaki-sō, a flower with white blossoms similar to Chinese orange blossoms. Alternatively, the gate may simply be planted with both types of flowers.
192. Tying paper to a stick may have been a medieval practice demonstrating humility to an unknown person when making inquiries.
193. It was common for a high-ranking woman to be referred to by the office of a male relative. Jijū (chamberlain) was of middle rank; tsubone was a term of respect for aristocratic women.
194. Women were thought to be burdened by the Five Hindrances (goshō), which prevented them from becoming a Brahma god-king, the god Sakra, King Mara, a sage-king turning the wheel, or a buddha-body. The Three Duties (sanjū) refer to the teaching that women are subordinate first to their fathers, then to their husbands, and finally to their sons. The Five Hindrances and the Three Duties often appear together in medieval literature to express the inferiority of women.
195. This involves a pun on kuri (chestnut) and kurigoto (repetition). I have altered the original wording to create a pun in English.
196. This is a pun on nashi (pear) and nashi (none) (she has no other men).
197. The verse puns on umiwataru (to ripen) and umi wataru (to cross the sea). Tsu is an old name for Settsu, in the vicinity of Osaka, and thus the persimmons would not have been transported by sea.
198. Tarō puns on kami (paper) and kami (god).
199. Tarō’s response puns on kotowari (“reason, excuse” and “to break a koto”).
200. The meaning of the office title is unclear.
201. Ninmyō (833–850) is usually listed as the fifty-fourth emperor. He had many sons, some of whom succeeded to the throne, but nothing is known about the exile in question.
202. Reigned from 850 to 858.
203. The Three Heats (sannetsu) are torments that gods of the earth, owing to their association with dragons, must undergo. They are a hot wind and a sandstorm that burns them, an evil wind that strips them, and an attack by a phoenix.
204. An allusion to a song of the east country, Kokinshū, no. 1095, which also mentions Mount Tsukuba: “There is shade near and far on the peak of Mount Tsukuba, but none better than the protecting shade of my lord’s grace.”
205. Both Naniwa (Osaka) and Waka Bay (Wakanoura) appear in poems quoted in the preface to the Kokinshū.
206. The preface refers here to lines from the “Weizheng” book of the Confucian Analects and to the preface to the Kokinshū.
207. “A frog in the well knows nothing of the sea,” a proverb about parochial ignorance, appears in Zhuangzi. “A dried plum of a monk in a forest” combines a pun on umeboshi (dried plum) and hōshi (monk) with overtones of a legend in Shishuo xinyu in which Cao Cao (Emperor Wu) tells his thirsty men that he knows of a plum tree up ahead, at the mere mention of which his men’s mouths start to water.
208. “Those who look for pears but pick up chestnuts” refers to the kurinomotoshū (literally, “those beneath the chestnut tree”), meaning those who pursue haikai, in contrast to the kakinomotoshū, those who follow Kakinomoto (literally, “beneath the persimmon tree”) Hitomaro—that is, classical renga poets. “Look for pears” (nashi o motome) is homophonic with “look for nothingness.” “Pears” and “chestnuts” are associated words.
209. In classical poetry, autumn was closely associated with sadness. The link here parodies that aesthetic association by making the cause of sadness a very secular matter of accumulating debt.
210. “Ruined” (tsuburu) can suggest any number of disasters, such as going bankrupt or losing face. The added verse unexpectedly invokes ripe persimmons, an autumn delicacy, some of which have fallen and some of which have not.
211. “While filled with awe” (osorenagara mo) in the previous verse suggests a forbidden coupling between a low-ranking man, perhaps a servant, and a highborn woman. This scene is subverted by the added verse in which the man’s diffidence comes from his reluctance to defile with his dirty foot the water, an image of purity in Buddhism, and the reflection in the basin of the moon, a Buddhist symbol of enlightenment. A variant is in Inu Tsukubashū, nos. 140–141.
212. In the medieval male monastery, pederasty was common, and haikai depict the relationships between priests and temple boys (chigo) in varying degrees of explicitness. The acrobatic improbability of the first verse is explained in the second by the use of the shōgi (Japanese chess) board as a pillow, with a horse piece finding its way beneath them. The mountain temple suggests Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei, center of the Tendai Buddhist sect.
213. The first verse recalls the way that many romances begin in The Tale of Genji and other classical tales, when a young noble peeps at a lady through a fence. But in the added verse here, the man is only frustrated by the titillating view of the lady’s private parts, and so takes matters into his own hands. Anata (across the way) phonically implies ana (hole).
214. Two of the so-called Six Poetic Immortals of the Kokinshū era were Priest Henjō and Ono no Komachi. The added verse implies that despite their intimacy, Komachi remains concerned about her poetic rival’s reading her “poem-pillow” (utamakura), a list or handbook of poetic material, a term doubly appropriate in the context of sleeping together. The scene recalls an episode related in both Gosenshū and Yamato monogatari (NKBT 9:335–341) in which Komachi, on a pilgrimage, has a chance encounter with Henjō, whom she had known before he took the tonsure. She composes a waka asking to borrow a robe against the cold, and he responds with another saying that since he has only one, they will have to share it as they sleep. In that story, their relationship goes no further.
215. An implicitly lewd verse is wittingly transformed into something surprisingly innocent. A hidden joke lies in the fact that a woman’s private parts were vulgarly known as the “tea jar” (chatsubo) and the man’s parts as a “big bag” (ōbukuro). A variant appears in Inu Tsukubashū (Tōkyō daigaku toshokan ms.), no. 257.
216. The maeku, identified as a spring verse by the seasonal word “haze” (kasumi), is a puzzle, asking the next verse to explain how the “robe of haze” (kasumi no koromo, an elegant waka expression) can be soaked at the hem. The poet, perhaps Sōkan himself, rises to the challenge by clothing Saohime, the eminently refined goddess of spring, in the robe of haze and then abruptly undercutting the elegant image with the earthy last line, introduced by a kakekotoba (pivot word) between “Spring has come” (haru tachi) and “stands” (tachinagara).
217. The first verse indicates impossible love due to differences in social station. The second verse twists that into impossible male–male sex because the difference in height is insurmountable. This also appears in Chikuba kyōginshū, nos. 139–140.
218. This fourteen-syllable maeku is followed by three alternative seventeen-syllable tsukeku, each of which gives a different interpretation to the same maeku. This set and the next are from a different variant than that of the SNKS.
219. The previous verse about groping for hair has lewd implications, which are humorously transformed into a priest trying to find out whether he has shaved his head completely.