Bereavement and Consolation: Testimonies from Tokugawa Japan 0300097980, 9780300097986

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Bereavement and Consolation

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B  C  Testimonies from Tokugawa Japan H B

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Yale University Press

New Haven and London

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Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Philip Hamilton McMillan of the Class of , Yale College. Copyright ©  by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections  and  of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Set in Caslon type by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bolitho, Harold. Bereavement and consolation : testimonies from Tokugawa Japan / Harold Bolitho. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.  --- (alk. paper) . Japan—Civilization—–. . Bereavement—Japan. . Consolation. . Zenjo¯, b. . . Kobayashi, Issa, –. . Hirose, Kyokuso¯, –. I. Title. ..   '.'—dc  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

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         

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To the memory of Pat Warren, J. S. Bolitho, Mary Poyzer, and Kay Tuisk—and to Bill Bolitho

The mind concedes Not comprehends That all beginnings Have their ends

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—From Pause, by Michael Thwaites

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C

Preface / ix Introduction: Bereavement in Tokugawa Japan /  . Zenjo¯ the Priest /  . Issa the Poet /  . Kyokuso¯ the Scholar /  Conclusion: Consolation in Tokugawa Japan /  Abbreviations /  Notes /  Bibliography / 

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Index / 

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P

Over the past twenty years or so—in fact, since the publication in  of Philippe Ariès’s Essais sur l’histoire de la mort— death has gradually wormed its way back into the consciousness of historians. One after another, scholars have found themselves drawn to the medical, spiritual, and material aspects of the end of life. They have examined the forms of requiem masses, the wording of wills, the cost and content of funerary obsequies, the size of tombs, the length of epitaphs, the emblems of iconography, the location of graveyards, the arguments for and against an afterlife, for and against limbo and purgatory, for and against salvation and damnation (whether instantaneous or deferred until the Day of Judgement). And much more. There is no shortage of material for those who rummage through the vaults of death. The result is that mortality has been resurrected and is now a lively historical topic. Not as lively, perhaps, as gender and sexuality, but, in its way, unarguably more forward-looking. Amongst all this bustle, however, some of death’s shadowy companions seem to have eluded analysis. Bereavement is one, and its timid attendant, consolation, is another. Each has remained tantalizingly vague, glimpsed out of the corner of one’s eye, hovering wraith-like on the periphery of every deathbed and every funeral, only to vanish at the first sign of the historian’s direct scrutiny. What bereavement meant to past generations, and what consolation was available to them, are questions which, understandably, are generally passed over in favor of more tractable problems—who attended the funeral, what was in the

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sermon, how much the headstone cost. Neither bereavement nor consolation submits to the demands of the historian without a struggle. Neither is quantifiable, neither is verifiable, both are imprecise. The chief witnesses, the bereaved themselves, are usually too overwhelmed, too busy, too stricken, to analyse their feelings, let alone sit down to describe them. So in the written record bereavement and consolation necessarily remain elusive, their traces fugitive, and evidence of them oblique, amorphous, fragmentary, ambiguous—and sometimes mendacious. Brought under the historian’s microscope, such materials can all too easily turn to dust. With so little tangible and reliable evidence it is far easier to shroud these matters in assumptions. We assume that, with death such a regular visitor to the pre-modern household, bereavement was not so devastating for our ancestors as it is for us. We assume that anyone believing that the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God will find comfort from it. We assume these things, but we do not really know. Where the shock of bereavement can be observed with even a limited degree of certainty is not in the past, but in the present, through the personal observations of psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists. For the historian, however, the questions remain. How did people in earlier times deal with the deaths of those around them? After all, children were as likely to die before their fifth birthday as live beyond it, women of child-bearing age were constantly vulnerable, and for everybody else each day held as much threat as promise. Knowing how precarious existence was, did they really care less so that they might then grieve less? What solace could elaborate ritual and religious certainty provide? These are questions for which, ultimately, no firm answer is possible, but they are, to any historian trying to understand the past in its own terms, very much worth asking. They are worth

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asking of Western civilization, and they are no less worth asking of Japan, which is the subject of this work. I would like to be able to claim that what is presented here grew out of just such questions. After all, as everybody knows, this is how the best scholarship begins. First you notice an anomaly, something that flies in the face of common sense or received opinion, or perhaps you sense an enigmatic gap in the record. Next you ask why, and then—and only then—you look for material to resolve the matter. Ideally, at least, that is how the process should work. Unfortunately it is not the case here. What happened to me was an inversion of the ideal. Rather than having the question point the way to the material, the material came first, shouldering in to take immediate possession of the center stage, which it still maintains. The questions that ambled in after it remain apologetically on the fringes, unanswered and, in any definitive sense, probably unanswerable. In fact I blundered into this subject—bereavement and consolation as they displayed themselves in the lives of three Japanese of the Tokugawa period (–)—totally by accident: it is not a particularly agreeable topic, whether to research, to write on, or, for that matter, to read about. It was not something I had ever considered, or would have wished to examine—quite the contrary. In the end, however, I felt I had no choice. I had been aimlessly flipping through a collection of Japanese essays when I stumbled upon a description, written some two hundred years earlier by a young Buddhist priest, of the brief life and sudden death of his firstborn child. None of this was clear to me at first, as I glanced at the title, but then I started to skim through it, and soon the skimming became a reading. Thirty years of acquaintance with materials from this period of Japanese history had left me unprepared for what I found. The account was so extraordinary, so personal, and so touching that I could not turn my back on it, and so the reading grew into a translation.

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Had that been all, I might perhaps have let the topic rest with that single testimony. But almost immediately afterwards I came across two other thanatologues, substantial records of personal bereavement. One, quite well-known (although I was unaware of that at the time), was by a poet whose father had died. The other was by a scholar mourning the death of his wife. These, too, I found unusual, absorbing, and, to their different degrees, affecting, so I translated them as well. And it did not end there. All three men, the priest, the poet, and the scholar, suffered other losses, and the particulars of some of those had also been recorded. Translated, these documents—the three central thanatologues together with the supplementary material—form the core of this book. It was when the translations had been done that, finally, if belatedly, some questions emerged to hover shyly on the periphery. The first, and most obvious, was this: why did these personal accounts of bereavement impress me so much? On thinking it over, I concluded that it was because they felt both familiar and unfamiliar, normal and abnormal—an answer that seems more complicated than it really is. The familiarity was in the genre itself: the thanatologue, or deathbed account. Victorian literature, with Little Nell in the vanguard, is full of these lachrymose tableaux. So, too, are Victorian historical records, products of piety or sentimentality, or some combination of the two. In the context of Tokugawa Japan, however, they were anything but familiar. Then, too, from a Western perspective, the expressiveness of the Japanese accounts seemed normal; placed beside the taciturn records of their fellow-countrymen, however, they stood out as highly aberrant. More general questions followed. Mortality in Tokugawa Japan, as everywhere else in the pre-modern world, was distressingly high. How did people cope with it? Was bereavement such a commonplace that it could be accepted in silence? Were

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feelings blunted by the habit, conscious or otherwise, of rationing affections, doling them out sparingly, if at all, as a way for people to fortify themselves against the pain of ultimate loss? Disciplining themselves to feel less, did they therefore grieve less? Might there also have been some peculiarly Japanese cultural salve working to soothe grief, and perhaps even erase it altogether? Alternatively, if they did grieve, were they somehow constrained from displaying their emotions? Or did they express their sorrow so subtly that outsiders might have failed to recognize it for what it was? There have been attempts to answer some of these questions, invoking elements supposedly peculiar to Japanese character, culture, or theology which might conceivably have made people, if not actually indifferent to loss, then unusually accepting of it. But, as with Western investigations of death, all of these explanations are long on theory and notably short on evidence. True, this is nobody’s fault. If anything, Tokugawa period materials are even more reticent than their European counterparts, declining to tell us, with any degree of specificity, how individuals actually bore their bereavements, and what, if anything, gave them solace. That is why the truly extraordinary testimonies of these three men—the priest, the poet, and the scholar—offered here are so important. Which is certainly not to say that they provide evidence for a definitive conclusion on any one of these issues. In , a year in which all three men were alive, so were some thirty million other Japanese, no less familiar with bereavement, even if they chose not to write about it. Among so many, the experience of three individuals, no matter how affectingly presented, cannot carry much weight. Yet, in the absence of anything else, these rare glimpses into the world of private sorrow are at least suggestive, on both an academic and a visceral level. ‘‘To be human,’’ Graham Greene wrote of bereavement, ‘‘is to drink the cup.’’

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The priest, the poet, and the scholar, drinking the cup, again and again, of this most wrenching of life’s experiences, invite us past the stereotypes, past the obstacles of time, place, and culture, to meet them on a human level. Even at this distance their grief has the power not only to instruct, but also, by its very familiarity, to move. In the course of translating the works included here I have been forced to take some liberties with the texts. I have substituted Western equivalents for Japanese years, months, times of day, ages, and measurements, and instead of retaining oblique references to individuals by title, I have replaced them with something more familiar. Thus the priest’s father, ‘‘The Retired Person’’ or ‘‘The Strict Teacher’’ in the text, becomes ‘‘my father,’’ as does the scholar’s father, who would otherwise remain ‘‘Lord Jo¯ki.’’ Where the poet denoted his stepmother and half-brother by the terms ‘‘mother’’ and ‘‘brother,’’ I have made the appropriate alterations to keep the relationships clear. He also chose to refer to himself by name, but I have changed this to the personal pronoun. The scholar, who was adopted by his elder brother, refers to this figure by the awkward term ‘‘father-brother’’; to keep matters simple I have used instead the man’s studio name, by which he is, in any case, best known. For the sake of variety I have replaced the scholar’s constant references to ‘‘my wife’’ with ‘‘she,’’ ‘‘her,’’ and—something he himself would never have done—her given name. I have used the term Dr. to indicate physicians, usually referred to in the texts by the character ro¯, meaning ‘‘elder.’’ My colleagues at Harvard have been unfailingly generous with advice and assistance, so much so that it seems unfair to single out any one of them. But it would be particularly ungrateful of me to fail to recognize the help of Albert Craig, Howard

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Hibbett (who first introduced me to Kyokuso¯’s Tsuishiroku), the late Masatoshi Nagatomi, Michael Puett, John Rosenfield, Jay Rubin, and Atsuko Sakaki. At different times, and in different ways, I have imposed upon the good nature of many others for suggestions, corrections, and sometimes both: my thanks go to Galen Amstutz, Gordon Berger, Mark Brewer, Tim Connor, Fukuda Chizuru, Peter Gregory, Atsuko Hirai, Imai Masaharu, Ishigami Eiichi, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, John Rogers, Takahashi Hidenao, Tamamuro Fumio, Carol Tsang, Ujiie Mikito, and Duncan Williams. Dr. Samuel Osher of the Harvard University Health Service interrupted his busy schedule to offer his assessment of the health of people long dead. In Japan I learnt a lot, although probably not nearly as much as I should have, from conversations with several scholars—with Asaeda Zensho¯ in both Kyoto and Ichigi; with Tanaka Akira and Ando¯ Masanori at Hita; with Nakamura Atsuko and Terashima Wataru at Kashiwabara; and with Ibi Takashi, Tatsukawa Sho¯ji, and Yaba Katsuyuki in Tokyo. I also received valuable assistance in Leiden from Wim Boot and Matthi Forrer. Whenever my computer made me throw up my hands, Susan Kashiwa and Gustavo Espada came to my aid. At Yale University Press, too, Larisa Heimert offered encouragement precisely when it was needed, while Nancy Moore Brochin and Kay Scheuer generously accommodated me with editing as unobtrusive as it was perceptive. I thank them all. My gratitude also goes to the Harvard University Clark Fund and the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, both of which contributed generously towards the cost of a research visit to Japan in , and to the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies.

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Introduction                     

I have never seen any seriousness in the face of death among the Japanese . . . —Francis Hall,  They [the Japanese] have resolutely shut sorrow out of their lives, they have a laugh ready for every occasion, they wave off care with a branch of blossom. —Samuel Barnett,  One way and another, we know quite a lot about the Japanese of the Tokugawa period (–). Collections of laws, essays, memorials, diaries, and letters from all corners of the Japanese islands, together with the impressions of a small number of foreign observers, all supplemented by a wealth of paintings and prints, have made us familiar with much of their world. We know what they paid for their rice, their sake, their beans, their books, and their entertainment. We know, too, something of their intellectual life, for they have left extensive written records dealing with problems in government and society, with human nature, with local folkways, with travel, with observations of the natural world, and with lessons to be learned from the experience of their neighbour, China. We also know that life then was precarious. Tokugawa Japan, like other pre-modern countries, was not a particularly safe place to live. In some respects, given its susceptibility to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and typhoons, it was rather more

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

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dangerous than most of Europe would have been. It also saw its share of famines, made all the more devastating by political and topographical fragmentation. In other respects, though, it was considerably safer, primarily because while Europeans were at war with each other for large parts of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, their Japanese contemporaries were enjoying the longest period of continuous peace they had ever known. Civil war, once virtually a constant in Japanese life, had been brought to an end under the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate, and the elements of an orderly society set in place. All the same, one thing Tokugawa Japan shared with the rest of the world was its vulnerability to disease, and it was this, far more than natural disasters, which ushered mortality into every household, powerful or powerless, rich or poor, ecclesiastical or lay, learned or illiterate. Certainly it was possible for people to live long lives, and no doubt many did, but the general expectation was that, at the very best, a normal lifespan was fifty years. ‘‘Even that,’’ added the poet and novelist Saikaku, widowed in his early thirties, ‘‘is more than enough for me.’’ 1 Everyone was aware, from bitter experience, how far life fell short of that for a great many. It has been argued that the people of Tokugawa Japan lived longer than most of their European contemporaries, enjoyed a healthier diet, dressed more sensibly, bathed more often, disposed of their wastes more efficiently, and profited from access to purer water.2 All of that may be true, but the Japanese were by no means safe from the usual agents of pre-modern mortality— smallpox, measles, influenza, tuberculosis, syphilis, meningitis, and an intimidating number of gastro-intestinal ailments 3—and their medical knowledge, while differing in key respects from that of Europe, was no more effective in coping with them. In epidemics, all they could do—if they were lucky—was iso-

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 / Introduction

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late the afflicted before any contagion could spread, just as their European contemporaries did; faced with the standard array of human ailments from abscesses to xanthomatosis, they managed as best they could with what knowledge and materials they had, turning to herbs, acupuncture, and moxibustion, but with no more certainty of success than people on the other side of the world with their tinctures, cupping, and leeches. As elsewhere around the world, smallpox was one of Tokugawa Japan’s great killers. Temple records bear witness to the devastation it brought, as the major cause of all deaths. It was disproportionately hard on young children; roughly threequarters of those it killed were less than five years of age. Avoiding it was virtually impossible; ‘‘Only a very few of those under the age of thirty escaped this disease,’’ wrote the physician Sugita Genpaku of the  epidemic. He could well have added that most people over the age of thirty-five, survivors of the previous epidemic of , would have acquired their immunity the hard way. Pompe van Meerdervoort, a naval surgeon arriving in Japan in  from the Netherlands, where smallpox was by this time only a memory, was horrified to see its tracks on the faces of so many. As he would have realized, these were the lucky ones. Until vaccination became accepted in the latter half of the nineteenth century, there was little the Japanese could do but let the illness take its fearful course. They could pray, and buy protective amulets, but otherwise there was nothing for it but to rely on medicines as ineffective as they were fanciful.4 We know, too, that rank and wealth were no assurance against premature death. Of the six children of the Emperor Ko¯mei, whose reign spanned the years –, all but one died in infancy. Tokugawa Ienari, who, as eleventh shogun and putative ruler of Japan for fifty years, was Ko¯mei’s representative, fathered fifty-three children, but of those fifty-three, only twentyone were to live beyond their tenth year. To have so many chil-

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dren was certainly extraordinary, but for more than half of them to die in childhood was, unfortunately, not extraordinary at all. The chances were that in any given family, no matter what its social standing, only half the children would survive. The twelfth shogun, Tokugawa Ieyoshi, Ienari’s son and successor—one of the twenty-one who did reach maturity—was even less fortunate. Of his twenty-seven children, all but three died in infancy, and of those three only one was to outlive him.5 These men stood at the very apex of Tokugawa Japan’s feudal pyramid. If mortality could wreak such havoc in their households, then we can hardly expect that those further down the hierarchy would be spared. Ministers of state seem to have fared no better than their masters. Mizuno Tadakuni, prime minister to both Ienari and Ieyoshi in turn during the late s and early s, lost ten of his fourteen children. Abe Masahiro, Mizuno’s replacement, was to go to his grave in  at the age of thirtyeight, a premature death by any standard, but by then all but one of his ten offspring had gone there before him. It is dispiritingly easy to track depredations like this throughout the families of Tokugawa Japan’s military aristocracy. Of the seventeen children produced by Shimazu Narinobu, who ruled the Satsuma domain as its ninth daimyo early in the nineteenth century, only six lived past the age of five. Maeda Toshikore, daimyo of Daisho¯ji, was left with just four of his ten children. Uesugi Yo¯zan, lord of Yonezawa, who lost only two, might be considered fortunate by comparison, I suppose, but on the other hand those two were all he had.6 Further down the chain of command the picture was no better: Iwase Tadanari, the diplomat who negotiated with Western powers in the late Tokugawa period, had three sons and six daughters, but seems to have outlived them all. And the list goes on. If wealth and power could offer no protection, piety was equally helpless. Jonyo, fifteenth abbot of Higashi Hon-

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 / Introduction

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ganji, saw all of his seven children die before their sixth year. The learned did not escape either. Figures suggest that Confucian scholars did not do particularly well. Only three of the seven children born to the seventeenth-century scholar and armchair military tactician Yamaga Soko¯ lived past childhood; Ogyu¯ Sorai, who had five, was left childless by his early fifties, while Arai Hakuseki, his contemporary, fathered nine and buried all but three; Rai Shunsui, consultant to the lord of Hiroshima, was a little more fortunate; he lost only half of his family of four. Kokugaku scholars, too, in this respect, seem to have been no better off, despite their faith in the powers of Japan’s ancient gods: of the three children of Hirata Atsutane only one survived, while Ban Nobutomo, his sometime friend, sometime rival, had four of his eight offspring die before their second birthdays. Kanzawa Toko¯, the eighteenth-century essayist and compiler of Okinagusa, having buried four of his five offspring, went on to lose two of his three grandchildren as well. Scholars of Western learning, for that matter, did not go unscathed: Sakuma Sho¯zan, having fathered four, was left with just the one, while Egawa Taro¯zaemon buried six out of twelve.7 Children were the most obvious victims, but they were far from the only ones. Life in Tokugawa Japan was demonstrably hard on young women also. Hoshina Masayuki, daimyo of the Aizu domain, was only twenty-six when his wife died; over the course of just six years Matsuura Hiromu, lord of Hirado, was to lose three wives; Ito¯ Jinsai the Confucian philosopher was thirty-two when the death of his wife left him a widower. The wife of his contemporary, the poet and novelist Ihara Saikaku, died at twenty-four. Ogyu¯ Sorai’s first wife was only thirty-three when she died, while his second wife lived for only two or three years after their marriage. Hirata Atsutane lost not only two of his three children, but also a wife, dead at the age of thirty. The first wife of Santo¯ Kyo¯den, the tirelessly facetious writer who

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was Atsutane’s contemporary, was not quite that old when she died of uterine cancer, her screams—so we are told—driving her husband out of the house and into the peace and quiet of the brothel quarter.8 These are undeniably depressing details, and not least because they are by no means exceptional. This list of bereavements, as they afflicted only the influential, the prosperous, and the literate—those, in other words, whose lives are known to us in some detail—could be extended indefinitely. And that is without considering the millions of others of whom little or nothing is known. Most people living in Tokugawa Japan were not influential, not prosperous, and not conspicuously literate, so they— let alone their bereavements—have left no trace on the historical record: the names and family particulars of a few may appear in the archives of village or temple, but even among that tiny minority not every death was necessarily recorded, and so the extent of their losses remains uncertain. Omnipresent death was unlikely to be ignored in the culture of the time. In fact its portrayal, in certain forms, was virtually obligatory in the theater, which wallowed in it. The most successful plays, whether for the live stage or the puppet theater, demanded it in quantity, but, oddly enough, the deaths enacted on stage had to be sensational. Ordinary, everyday death, of the kind familiar to everybody, which was anything but sensational, was ignored in favor of more violent and unnatural forms—suicides, murders, executions, and battles. The people of Tokugawa Japan lived at a time when the country was as peaceful and orderly as it had ever been, and where the likelihood of violent death from suicide’s knife or enemy’s sword was remote. Instead, for all but a few of them, death came from disease, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, and, as theater patrons would have known all too well from their own experience, never romantically. But obviously the glamour and excitement of violent death

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 / Introduction

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were what people wanted, and what they were prepared to spend money on. Death from natural causes they could get at home, free, and rather more often than they liked, which was probably why they would not have paid to be reminded of it. Pathos alone would not bring the customers in. If playwrights chose to avoid the facts of everyday life, to show the violent deaths of Ohatsu, stabbed by her lover in Chikamatsu’s Sonezaki shinju¯, or Oiwa, poisoned by her husband in Tsuruya Nanboku’s To¯kaido¯ Yotsuya kaidan, rather than a Japanese Violetta or Mimi coughing her life away, there were other writers who did not, choosing instead a quite different course. These were the authors of O¯jo¯den, the collections of didactic devotional tracts printed and reprinted many times throughout the Tokugawa period. Their purpose was to bring people to the message of the Buddha, and, incidentally, to encourage obedience and submissiveness in expectation of deferred rewards in Paradise. Typically, they portrayed individuals whose lives of exemplary piety and good works were rewarded with serene and painless deaths—itself no small consideration at a time when little could be done to ease final agonies. Despite the inclusion of plausible names, dates, and places, the O¯jo¯den were no less a product of the imagination than were the plays, though in one respect, at least, they were realistic: the deaths they described were brought on by natural, albeit unspecified, causes, and took place at home. That much was credible, but that was as far as it went. Death in the O¯jo¯den, for the pious and the repentant, was not only painless and sanitized, but was invariably accompanied by one or other (or sometimes a combination of ) unmistakable signs of celestial regard—heavenly music, purple clouds, strange perfumes, and divine apparitions, all of which were calculated to confirm the deceased’s reception into Paradise.9 Death, then, was recognized and accepted—as how could it not have been?—and it had its place in the social and cultural

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fabric of Tokugawa Japan. It is easy enough to trace. But what of bereavement? Coming to terms with one’s own mortality, though difficult enough, pales beside the more devastating possibility, indeed the probability, of bereavement—sudden, inevitable, remorseless—and its by-product, grief. Loss, and sorrow, in the Tokugawa context (as elsewhere) are far harder to construe. On the stage, the tragedy and pathos of violent death were underlined by the histrionic sobs of actors or chanters, and we must assume that the audience responded, no matter how unlikely or contrived the circumstances, or how remote from everyday experience. Vicarious emotions would have kept the box office busy. But that tells us little of the feelings of those who, away from the shelter of theatrical fantasy, watched helpless as a child, a spouse, or a parent struggled vainly to live. Nor are the O¯jo¯den stories any guide: if, at the theater, death was met with tears by the bucketful, the religious tracts, by contrast, suggested that the passing of each imaginary figure was, if anything, an occasion for joy. Why grieve when the loved one’s passage to a better world was guaranteed? In fact, for all the wealth of documentation, for all we know of Tokugawa Japan, at least one major dimension is missing. The externals of life at that time may be well enough established, but it is at the intimate level that these people, so accessible in other respects, begin to withdraw from us. We do not know with nearly so much certainty what their internal lives were like, what they felt about more personal concerns, among them some of the great issues common to all humanity. The written record— government documents in vast numbers, essays, religious tracts, stories, plays, and poetry collections—copious though it is, is for the most part impersonal and detached. The detachment can be lofty and patrician, in the case of serious works, or, with those written for the popular market, ironic, facetious, and flippant, but it can never be mistaken for anything other than what it is.

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So as one reads the documents of the period there is inevitably a sense that a vital element is lacking. Emotions—fear, anger, joy, love, sorrow—intrude only rarely, and then in a manner so elliptical, enigmatic, and elusive that we can only guess at their force. Nowhere is this lack of affect so striking as in the case of bereavement. It is chilling enough for us now to read of death upon death upon death, but it is still more chilling to see how casually these tragedies were recorded. Usually the grim facts were revealed—if at all—as if by afterthought, and with so little comment as to suggest, by the very absence of emphasis, that such horrors—which is what they were—both were commonplace and, more than that, hardly mattered. Bereavement may have been given full public recognition, but all the same the customs and ceremonies which accompanied it say more about convention and social expectations than they do about grief itself. This was left largely unexpressed, as if the topic of natural death, while unavoidable, was to be passed over in a dignified silence. If it was voiced at all, it was obliquely, and most commonly in poetry, where the pain of bereavement could be sublimated and softened. But its depth and extent could only be hinted at. The people of Tokugawa Japan may have been shattered by frequent bereavements, but they were not about to admit to it in their writings. There, all too often, loss was met with stoicism, reticence, or total silence. Not even in private contexts, it seems, was the mask permitted to slip—diaries, even though never meant for a wider audience, are models of tight-lipped reserve, chronicles of events which all too often say more about the weather than the feelings of their authors. The diary of Yamaga Soko¯ (to which he gave the title Nenpu, or Chronology), for example, although informative in other respects, is emblematic in its silence on his personal life. His marriage (to an unnamed wife) is recorded dismissively in four crisp characters—‘‘I was

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married’’ (konrei ari ). The deaths of his children were to receive little more—‘‘The girl Take died of smallpox on the fourth of the month. Being in mourning I could not present myself for duty’’; ‘‘My foolish son [a conventional form] Sataro¯ died of a sudden illness; I buried him at Ho¯rinji’’; ‘‘The girl Yasu died, infected by smallpox. Her mother is my concubine.’’ Then, later, recording the birth of a son and the consequent death of the same woman, now named—‘‘Mansuke was born. Fuchi, my concubine, died.’’ 10 Autobiographical works from Tokugawa Japan are rare, and these too seem concerned to offer a public rather than a private face. The evidence presented by Arai Hakuseki, one of the few individuals of the period to have written about himself at any length, exemplifies the problem. His autobiography, Oritaku shiba no ki, is the fullest of its kind the Tokugawa period was ever to produce, but it is almost exclusively an account of his public life. He wrote of his allies (he seems not to have had any friends) and his enemies (of whom he had more than his share), his successes and his failures, his colleagues and his rivals (not that he often distinguished between the two). He wrote of taxation and diplomacy, and of disturbances in both the political and natural realms. But, presumably for the same reason as the rest of his countrymen, he chose to keep large areas of his life hidden. He scarcely mentioned the wife to whom he was married for more than forty years. Of the nine children she bore him, with the single exception of his son Akinori, he said even less; it is known that five of them died in childhood, but what impact those deaths had upon him is unclear, as he referred to only one of them, that of his second daughter, Kiyo, who died of smallpox in . His only outward sign of grief at the time was to postpone his lectures on the Shih ching (The Book of Odes) for a few days.11 Only when he came to recount the death of his father—a

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defining event for any Confucian—did Arai Hakuseki refer explicitly to his own feelings, but even then with little perceptible affect. ‘‘Opening his eyes, he looked at me,’’ Hakuseki’s description reads, ‘‘and put out his hand to take mine. Then, as if falling asleep, he died . . . It was a sad parting.’’ To us this might seem abnormally subdued, but not apparently in a Japanese context, even a contemporary one. Miyazaki Michio, who compiled the definitive edition of Hakuseki’s autobiography, considered this passage extremely poignant.12 The conventions precluding written displays of grief seem also to have applied to public behavior. Francis Hall, the American businessman and journalist who spent six and a half years in Japan, describes several funerals in his diary, each time a little more critically. At the first, in , shortly after his arrival, what impressed him—and impressed him unfavorably—was the attitude of the mourners. ‘‘There was little solemnity about the scene,’’ he wrote, ‘‘the persons present laughing and talking unreservedly.’’ Subsequent funerals appear to have done nothing to change his mind. The chief mourner at one of them ‘‘told me that the deceased was his wife, that she was a very good wife and he felt bad and then laughed as if it was a very good joke. Then he put his hands to his eyes, said she was a true woman, and he had cried a great deal, and all went into a roar of laughter in which the bereaved husband took the lead.’’ Five years later, as he watched a cremation, Hall’s attitude seems to have hardened, completing his transformation from curious observer of Japanese funerals to savage critic. ‘‘I walked round the fire to where the family of the deceased, a little girl of seven years, were standing, and who were enjoying the hilarity of the occasion and the jests nearly as much as any of the indifferent lookers on . . . Accosting a well dressed middle aged man in the mourning group, if that were his child, he smilingly said yes.’’ 13 Reactions such as these, which were so far from Hall’s own

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experience, invite the conclusion that death and bereavement did not have the same significance for the Japanese of the Tokugawa period. That was precisely the conclusion he drew. Nor, for that matter, had this businessman from Elmira, New York, been able to read what little his Japanese contemporaries wrote about their bereavements, would he have changed his mind. All the evidence pointed to a vast gulf between the way his world and theirs responded to death and its consequences. On the physical level this was certainly so. In Japan, corpses, viewed as mediums of ritual, spiritual, and metaphorical pollution, were washed and despatched to cemetery or cremation site as quickly as possible. Throughout early modern Europe and America, by contrast, death was celebrated, often beginning with the wake at which the corpse served as guest of honor. Cemeteries in Japan were subdued, the gravestones for the most part modest, simple, and unobtrusive, even when those whose remains they sheltered were not, and beyond their figures of Jizo¯, guardian of the souls of dead children, they displayed none of the emblems of death. Western graveyards, crypts, and ossuaries, by contrast, flourished an extravagant iconography of skulls, bones, worms, shrouds, urns, angels, veiled figures, broken columns, and weeping willows, for which Japan had no counterpart. Nor did Japanese culture have any place for the West’s Dance of Death, memento mori, or skeletal figures striding across the landscape with scythe and hourglass. More striking still, however, is the way the two civilizations dealt with the emotional consequences of death, that area where mortality, bereavement, grief, and consolation converge. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, educated Europeans and Americans seem not so much to have accepted the feelings evoked by loss as embraced them eagerly. Natural death, preferably protracted, was not a subject to be avoided, as it seems to have been in Tokugawa Japan, but rather milked for all it

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could offer. Like the Japanese, they were no strangers to bereavement, but unlike them they left an abundance of thanatological material—letters, journals, published accounts, fiction, and poetry—in which they lingered over the deaths of those dear to them and, by implication, hinted at the shock of bereavement. As the artifacts of loss—onyx rings, locks of hair reposing in jasper lockets, widows’ weeds, death-masks, and the sketches, daguerreotypes, and photographs of the dead—also indicate, they did not readily relinquish their mourning. If anything they revelled in it, reminding themselves of losses past, or anticipating losses future, whenever they went to a theater, to the opera, or opened a book.14 In Tokugawa Japan, however, death was not recognized, or celebrated, to anything like the same extent, and this presents us with an anomaly. Here we have an important part of human experience, but one on which the most accessible Japanese evidence remains obstinately mute. Real death— not dramatic, romanticized death, and not didactic, idealized death—and its consequences, although familiar to everyone in Tokugawa Japan, was plainly not something they chose to dwell upon. So we do not know, in any real sense, what bereavement meant to them. Did it weigh less heavily on them than on contemporaries elsewhere around the world, or not? Did anything comfort them in their bereavement, and, if so, how much? Was it a lot? Was it a little? We have no idea, and without evidence the way is open for any of these assumptions. Of course lack of evidence has not inhibited scholars from advancing explanations of one kind or another. If the Japanese were, as it would seem, genuinely indifferent to repeated bereavements, might this have been due to some particular cultural disposition? This is a question which, at least in theory, can be answered—indeed has been answered—by reference to Japanese social customs and religious beliefs, some timeless, others not. There is, for example, the alleged social and ethnic cohesion of

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the Japanese (it is always the Japanese in such circumstances) in which the group is more important than any single member of it, and consequently, fortified by this belief, and consoled by the knowledge that whatever happens the group itself will survive, the Japanese accept individual loss with equanimity.15 ‘‘Students of Japanese culture,’’ declares one author, ‘‘cannot fail to discover that for the Japanese the group often takes precedence over the individual,’’ and this, by making death ‘‘a group-related event,’’ presumably robs it of much of its sting.16 Then there is the comforting belief that ‘‘the dead remain, as it were, within the boundaries of this world and continue to share in the daily lives of their relatives.’’ 17 By this theory the dead are not irretrievably lost, but stay connected to the family in some intangible fashion, always needing to be kept abreast of household happenings, and always there to offer wordless advice at critical moments. Family altars and graves serve as listening posts in this exchange. It all belongs to a tradition of ancestor worship of a free-floating kind, not anchored in any specific religious or philosophical tradition, but rather drawing freely from several sources. In the West, we are told, death is regarded as a ‘‘permanent separation,’’ but not so in Japan, because of ‘‘cultural beliefs about death, particularly concerning the rules of veneration for ancestors, and the cultural rituals that allow friends and family members who pass on to remain a vital spiritual part of the family.’’ 18 There is also, famously, the annual midsummer festival, Urabon, or Obon, held in the middle of the seventh month of the old Japanese calendar, when the spirits of dead family members are held to return for a brief visit. In Japan, therefore, loss means less. Another entrenched cultural attitude which could have spared the Japanese the kind of grief felt elsewhere is what might be called the mono no aware theme, a perceived affinity for melancholy, tinged with Buddhist ideas of impermanence. The Japa-

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nese, so it is claimed, accepting the inevitability of loss, took —and take—a certain pleasure in sadness,19 and it must be admitted that much of Japan’s traditional culture is suffused with a restrained and gentle melancholy. Early in the fourteenth century Yoshida no Kenko¯, in his collection of pensées, the Tsurezuregusa, wrote, apparently with some satisfaction, that nothing lasts forever. To him, only the foolish and ignorant would grieve about it. ‘‘If man were never to fade away . . . but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us!’’ he declared. ‘‘The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.’’ 20 If the Japanese were indeed never happier than when they were sad, then this, too, presumably, would have blunted the edge of separation. Moreover, in the pre-modern world the loss of a child could conceivably have been a matter of less moment than it is to us. Mortality in the Tokugawa period was at its most savage among the very young. If, therefore, it could be shown that, for whatever reason, people were less attached to their offspring, then this could explain much of the apparent nonchalance with which they faced bereavement. Japanese of the time, knowing that any given child had as much chance of dying as of reaching maturity, and desensitized by repeated bereavements, real or anticipated, could have withheld affection. In eighteenth-century France, John McManners suggests, such was indeed the case. People there ‘‘were callous about the deaths of young children’’ because how ‘‘could they have endured such losses without hardening their hearts?’’ 21 Beyond that, too, although related to it, is a further possibility. In medieval Japan, it is claimed, no child under the age of fifteen was really considered a human being, but rather something very much more provisional than that.22 Reflecting this attitude, it was a practice during the Tokugawa period not to include the very young in family registers until they had reached a

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certain age, which could vary considerably from region to region; in the Wakayama area it seems to have been eight.23 To a Japanese family the loss of a non- or quasi-human would therefore be of little consequence. If anything, this assumption is supported by government documents of the period, and corroborated by family statistics, both of which suggest widespread abortion, sex-selective infanticide, and abandonment.24 Such ruthless family planning implies at the very least a utilitarian attitude to children, by which the fate of any given child, born or unborn, could be dictated by family convenience. If children were habitually seen not as individuals, not even as human beings, but as counters in a grim game of family survival, then of course parental attachment to them would be diluted. Children in Tokugawa Japan, so it is said, were so little valued that their bodies were usually denied normal funerals, graves, and memorial services.25 Bereavement, then, for any one of these reasons, may have sat more lightly on pre-modern Japanese shoulders, making loss more bearable. Equally, too, the Japanese may have had access to forms of consolation more effective than those available elsewhere. This could have been the case with funerary ritual, for example. It is generally assumed that the ceremonies associated with death, while they differ significantly from culture to culture, all have one objective in common—to offer some solace to the bereaved, whether through prayers, pomp, sequestration, or demonstrations of public support. Ritual could well have served this purpose for the people of Tokugawa Japan. This applied less to Shinto, Japan’s native religion, where sporadic attempts to introduce funerary ritual met little success, undercut by, amongst other factors, its own traditional aversion to pollution of any kind.26 Confucian practice, on the other hand, laid down elaborate formulas through which the bereaved could remove themselves from the world for certain periods of time. This was evidently less observed in Japan than in China, and even there one

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doubts how many would have followed the rule of the Three Dynasties: ‘‘Three years as the mourning period, mourning dress made of rough hemp with a hem, the eating of nothing but rice gruel.’’ 27 Certainly for Japan’s official class, and for many of the Confucian scholars cringing hopefully on its periphery, there were mourning rituals to be observed—leaving one’s hair unkempt, abstaining from meat and wine—for varying periods (from thirteen months for a parent, through ninety days for closer relatives—like uncles, siblings, and firstborn sons—down to thirty days for lesser relatives, including all other children).28 The scholar Ito¯ Jinsai shut himself away for three years when his parents died, even though his relations with his father had been strained at best. So too, under similar circumstances, did the thirty-five-year-old Rai Sanyo¯, who abstained not only from sake and meat, but, for good measure, from his newly acquired teenaged bride as well.29 Buddhism, which governed the behaviour of many more Japanese than Confucianism ever did, also had its rituals. If masses offered some consolation to Europeans, they may well have done the same for Japanese. Traditionally the funeral service was conducted by a Buddhist priest, and followed by a series of memorial services—once a week for seven weeks, with the forty-ninth day after death marking the end of the formal mourning period, and thereafter at more prolonged intervals—allowing the bereaved to distance themselves, little by little, from the person they had lost. All of this, in theory, at least, might have brought such comfort to the mourners as to explain, on the one hand, the apparent unconcern in the written record, and on the other the cheerful funerals that Francis Hall seems to have found so provoking. But beyond the mechanics of religious ritual lies the message of the religion itself—the prospect of an afterlife and a reuniting there with those who have gone before. And here we must

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make a distinction between the religion of the theologians and that same religion as received in the popular mind. Those professionally involved in religion—and, it should also be said, those involved at the very highest intellectual levels—were no doubt committed to a more rigorous observance of scripture and precept than others. On strictly theological grounds it would be difficult to deny that some varieties of Japanese religion had less to offer the bereaved than others. Shinto theologians, who came late to the topic, were no more successful at depicting the afterlife than were their ritualist counterparts at devising funerary services. When nativist scholars finally began to ask what happened to the spirit after death, and whether there was a possibility of reunion beyond the grave, they emerged with three approaches, none of which was particularly attractive. One, associated with Motoori Norinaga, presented a notably cheerless prospect—yes, eternal life, but obviously not something to be welcomed, as it was to be spent in the ‘‘extremely dirty and evil’’ subterranean land of Yomi, the Yellow Springs, a place, like the Hades of the Greeks, which was the destination of everyone, regardless of belief, virtue, or achievements. Understandably the prospect of family reunions in such surroundings was far from inviting, so it is not surprising that Norinaga’s Yomi failed to grip the popular imagination. A more elastic, but more confusing, position was advanced by the mercurial Hirata Atsutane, who saw no contradiction between claiming that the dead lived on the moon, or, conversely, that they lived unseen among us, or that, through the intervention of Japan’s gods, they could also be reborn to start their lives over again. Oka Kumaomi, coming a little later, complicated the issue further by positing the existence of two separate souls, one of which would go to the moon while the other stayed close to the graveyard.30 Confucian purists had even less consolation to offer, concerned as they were almost exclusively with the affairs of this

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world, and hazarding few guesses about the next. On the issue of the afterlife, Japanese Confucians could choose one of two seemingly incompatible beliefs, both sanctioned by the sages. They could accept the guidance of Confucius and Mencius, neither of whom deigned to speculate about a possible afterlife. On the other hand, since both sages also encouraged the performance of rituals for the sake of dead ancestors, they could assume that spirits did exist outside the material world, and, presumably, that one could look forward to joining them in the fullness of time. Activity beyond the grave took two possible forms: one passive, with the disembodied dead shuttling between listening posts at family graves and ancestral tablets to keep abreast of family news; the other more mediatory, as guardians of the family fortunes and dispensers of cryptic advice. Later Confucians, Chinese and Japanese, if prepared to admit the paranormal, did not necessarily connect such mysterious phenomena with the spirits of the dead.31 It is with Buddhism that we are on firmer ground, for this was the one form of religion in pre-modern Japan which met the subject of death and the afterlife head-on. To theologians, of course, Japanese Buddhism was far from monolithic. Different Buddhist sects, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, would all have acknowledged transmigration, a process in which the soul shuttled backwards and forwards among the five or six realms of existence until reaching perfection. Just what shape that perfection would take, however, was uncertain. For Zen scholars it was enlightenment, however defined. Nichiren zealots, on the other hand, might have accepted their leader’s imprecise formulation of the end as Buddhahood. Paradise was a possibility, but then so too was Hell, and if not Hell, then at least a kind of Purgatory, in which the soul was condemned to wander for some years. In particular the first forty-nine days after death were popularly held to be of crucial importance, with the soul being interro-

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gated once each week by one or other of the ten judges of the underworld.32 How much comfort this would have offered the bereaved, hoping for ultimate reuniting, is a matter for speculation. After all, Buddhism was in essence a creed basing itself upon the transience of worldly things, and counselling against attachment to any of them. So if you were misguided enough in this life to become attached to somebody in a world where nothing is forever, you had only yourself to blame. Certainly you should not hope for any further meeting. If anything, such hopes were obstacles on the journey to perfection. To avoid them, we are told, Zen Buddhists would contemplate skulls as they meditated, to remind themselves of the insubstantiality of their own lives and of all those with whom they came in contact.33 Even with the Amidist sects of Buddhism—Jo¯do, Jo¯do Shinshu¯, and Ji—which between them probably encompassed the majority of Japanese in the Tokugawa period,34 and which shared more or less the same optimistic vision of an afterlife, there was no guarantee of reunion. True, at death the faithful would be welcomed into the arms of an all-compassionate Buddha and ushered into everlasting life in a paradise far to the west. As described in the Muryo¯ju Sutra (the Sutra of Eternal Life) this was a land of soft sunshine, fragrant breezes, and sublime music. Everything there—the earth itself, the vegetation, even the eating utensils (although perhaps not the food)—was of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, coral, amber, pearl shell, crystal, and agate. This admittedly agreeable prospect, set out in some detail in the Muryo¯ju Sutra and the two other basic texts of Amidism—the Kammuryo¯ju Sutra (A Commentary on the Sutra of Eternal Life) and the Amida Sutra—is clearly the most likely destination after death. Those same scriptures say little or nothing about any of the less palatable options in the afterlife. The Muryo¯ju Sutra, busy dwelling on the joys of Paradise, refers

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to the ‘‘Five Evil Realms’’ only in passing, and offers no description. All it says of the Three Nether Regions is that ‘‘The suffering is unspeakable.’’ 35 But, while salvation is more or less guaranteed, those scriptures also hold out no specific promise of reunification. If anything, they tend to dismiss the prospect. It is human affection that causes people to yearn for reunion beyond the grave, and it is precisely that same affection which shows a disqualifying attachment to the joys of the human world. Shinran, who founded Jo¯do Shinshu¯ in the early years of the thirteenth century, wrote of the danger of onnai, love between people, as an impediment to salvation.36 All the same, theology and its practitioners aside, the people of Tokugawa Japan seem to have been far less discriminating. Conflating Shinto and Buddhism, two antithetical belief systems, as they seemed happy to do, they habitually spoke of ‘‘gods and buddhas,’’ and recognized, by their attendance at shrines on some occasions and temples on others, the different functions the two religions performed. The most accessible evidence suggests, too, that for all but the most dogmatic, Buddhist sects were largely interchangeable. A comfortable eclecticism seems to have prevailed, with pervasive habits of folk belief intertwining with ancestor worship, and a generic, one-size-fits-all Buddhism. If, in Europe, religion was something of a two-edged sword—juxtaposing the certainty of an afterlife with the alarming possibility of eternal torment—in Japan popular religion, colored by Pure Land optimism, chose to concentrate on the promise of eternal life and of a reunion in the Western Paradise with those they had lost. To judge from the plays which were such an important element in Tokugawa cultural life, rebirth in the Buddha’s Pure Land was, if not axiomatic, then certainly something to which people could legitimately aspire. Once there they could confidently expect to meet those who had gone before. ‘‘We shall be reborn,’’ declared Kumenosuke in

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Chikamatsu’s Shinju¯ mannenso¯, just before stabbing his beloved, ‘‘on one lotus with our parents.’’ 37 At least one Buddhist sect, too, in practice, if not strictly in theology, lent its support to the belief in reunification in Paradise. This was Jo¯do Shinshu¯, whose founder, even as he warned against the impediment of human affection, effectively institutionalized it amongst his followers. In other Buddhist sects, monasticism (if not necessarily celibacy) was the norm. Shinran, however, broke decisively with this practice, taking in succession one wife and then another, and fathering several children, thereby leaving himself and all who followed him vulnerable to the dangerous and distracting attachments of domesticity and procreation.38 Generations of Shinshu¯ priests, marrying and begetting, were exposed to human affections and their attendant complications—bereavement, grief, and a yearning for permanence. So for priests of that sect, as well as for the monto, or Shinshu¯ laymen, family reunion in the Pure Land seems to have become a given. Popular Buddhism could also have made the loss of children more acceptable. If infants and the young were thought to be somehow on loan, and therefore subject to foreclosure at any time, then their deaths, whether natural or through abortion or infanticide, could have been less traumatic, particularly when supported by a general belief that a child, born or unborn, could be ‘‘returned’’ by his parents for a time, and then recalled to life under more favorable circumstances.39 Equally, the Buddhist doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration, offered the possibility that one’s dead child might not be forever lost, but could be reborn elsewhere. In , a seven-year-old boy, Katsugoro¯, claimed that just that had happened to him, astonishing the Edo public with his story of death and subsequent rebirth to different parents in a different, though adjacent, village.40 With such

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beliefs the possibility of a ‘‘return’’ in one form or another could perhaps take the sting from an otherwise devastating experience. All of these possibilities—that Japanese could accept bereavement more readily because of their ethnic solidarity, or their taste for gentle melancholy, or their faith in a Western Paradise— are plausible enough. From a distance any of these hypotheses, singly or in combination, could explain the apparent absence of grief among the Japanese of the Tokugawa period. If no loss is irretrievable, and no separation permanent, then of course grief can be held in check. But these are possible explanations, and no more than that, products of theory, generalization, and supposition, untainted by the slightest whiff of empiricism. Resting on assumptions rather than experience, their smooth surfaces unmarred by the laceration of personal testimony, they fail to carry much conviction. They cannot be blamed for that, of course. Not only is empirical material limited, secretive, and fugitive, but what there is does indeed suggest a puzzling insouciance in the face of bereavement. Which is why the evidence offered in this work, the personal accounts of three bereaved men, in the absence of anything else, is so valuable. The principal deaths they describe, and describe at some length, were far from unusual. On the twentieth day of the ninth month of the tenth year of the Kansei era—October , , in some other parts of the world—a child died. His name was Mutsumaru, and he was just three-and-a-half years old. His father, a young Buddhist priest, just twenty-six, expressed his grief by scribbling into his daybook a description of his young son’s death, together with a brief record of the little boy’s equally brief life. Less than three years later, in a mountain village five hundred miles away, Kobayashi Yagobei, an old farmer, died, stricken with typhoid fever just short of his sixtyninth birthday. The elder of his two sons chose to commemorate

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his father’s passing in a journal, detailing the progress of the illness, day by day, along with his own reaction to it, and inserting into his account some of the brief poems he composed with so much facility. Finally, in what was at that time the world’s most populous city, known to us now as Tokyo, but then called Edo, a young housewife died. In the West it was already , but by the Japanese calendar there were still three weeks left of , the first year of the Ko¯ka era. Matsuko—which was the woman’s name—was not yet thirty. Her husband, a professional scholar and teacher, wrote of her death and the emotions it aroused, punishing himself with vignettes from what had clearly been a troubled marriage. Deaths like these were far from extraordinary. Kobayashi Yagobei, who exceeded the conventional lifespan of fifty years by almost two decades, was if anything extremely fortunate to have lived so long. So many people didn’t. Little Mutsumaru, on the other hand, dying before his fourth birthday, was unlucky, certainly, but the attack of gastroenteritis which killed him was no different from those which would have claimed countless others. The death of the young woman Matsuko, too, like those of children and the elderly, was not so uncommon in early modern Japan. With her, however, it was not a complicated delivery, of the kind which killed Yamaga Soko¯’s concubine, that took her life, but almost certainly diabetes, as untreatable then as it was undiagnosable. Like their maladies, the victims themselves were ordinary people, not wealthy, not powerful, not famous. What we know of them comes almost entirely from these records of their passing. They were no more remarkable than millions of their contemporaries, save for the fact that their deaths were considered significant enough for someone to record. Those who described their deaths—a young father still in his twenties in one case, and in the other two a son and a husband, both on the threshold of middle age—were, at least in

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their bereavement, all too ordinary. In other respects, however, these three men were a little less so. All were highly literate, all were educated. One of them, indeed, was famous, although more familiar to later generations than to his contemporaries. The other two are also known, if not so much in their own right, then certainly for their connections to more eminent relatives. The priest Zenjo¯, who described the brief life, and the death, of his son Mutsumaru, was the incumbent of a country temple, more prosperous and busier than most of his fellows, perhaps, but not especially noteworthy. This was not so of his father and grandfather, however, both of whom were active and influential theologians.41 The scholar, Hirose Kyokuso¯, who wrote of the death of his wife, is rather better known, and his name is to be found in standard reference works. Even so, he lived very much in the shadow of two more famous brothers, Tanso¯ the provincial schoolmaster, and Nangai the rural entrepreneur. Only over the last ten years, with the availability of Kyokuso¯’s collected works, has this gifted and erratic figure begun to attract scholarly attention. It is the poet, Kobayashi Issa, who wrote of his father’s final illness, who is now very famous indeed. As one of the three great haikai poets of the Tokugawa period he has been the subject of well over two hundred biographies and critical studies, and at least two encyclopedias devoted solely to his life and work.42 At last count his poems could be found carved into boulders or stone slabs at more than a hundred sites throughout Japan.43 For all that, despite his posthumous eminence, most of his life was spent in poverty. None of the three, not even Zenjo¯ the priest, who would have enjoyed the most material comfort, was either extraordinarily rich or extraordinarily influential. None was a samurai. Like most of their fellow-countrymen, all three were commoners: Issa had risen from the obscurity of domestic service to become

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a professional poet; Zenjo¯, a son of the manse, was destined from childhood for the priesthood; Kyokuso¯ was a professional scholar, always hoping for official patronage but forced to rely on fee-paying students, and also, from time to time, on the generosity of his richer (and more industrious) brothers. As were most Japanese of the time, all three were provincials, coming not from the major urban centers of Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto, but rather from rural or semi-rural backgrounds. Kyokuso¯ came from the foothills of Mt. Aso in northern Kyushu, Issa from the Japan Alps, and Zenjo¯ from the Chu¯goku mountains. Two of the three were inveterate travellers. Issa’s journeys had taken him as far as Kisakata in northeastern Honshu, and, during a five-year period spent wandering in the other direction, as far west as Nagasaki. Kyokuso¯, too, was well travelled, both in his native Kyushu and as far east as Nikko¯. Even the third, Zenjo¯ the priest, had taken his family through the Inland Sea to spend some months at his sect’s headquarters in Kyoto. None of them, of course, had gone abroad; that would have been unthinkable in a country where foreign travel had been prohibited since . The accounts they have left are not intellectualized explorations of either the meaning and significance of death or the possibility of consolation. Nor do they dwell on the immediate effects of bereavement. They are much too concrete and instinctive for that—even Issa’s diary, for all its self-conscious and self-serving artifice. There are some obvious similarities: each records the death of a loved one, and all were written within a fifty-year period. Otherwise, though, they have little in common, and the differences between them are an invitation to discover, by a kind of triangulation, what these bereavements meant. To begin with, the deaths they describe could not be more dissimilar: a child in one case, an old man in another, and in the third a young woman. One was due to gastroenteritis, the second to typhoid fever, and the third to diabetes. The duration

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of the illnesses was six days in one case, four weeks in another, and six months in the third. Two of them occurred in rural settings, in extended family households, although the difference between the two is palpable, since one of the families was stable, prosperous, and happy, while the other was riddled with tension and animosity. The third took place in what was arguably, in , the biggest city in the world, in a nuclear family far away from sympathetic relatives, and beset by financial worries. The authors, too, present divergent perspectives. We have a father writing of the death of a son, a son writing of the death of a father, and a husband writing of the death of a wife. One is a priest, another a poet, and the third a scholar; the priest’s views are those of a devout professional cleric, the poet’s those of a pious layman, and the scholar’s those of a Confucian rationalist. That these three accounts are extraordinary there can be no doubt. Even discounting their most uncommon feature, their emotional freight, they earn that status simply because they record the ordinary deaths of ordinary people. Each has been hailed, in differing ways, as unique. ‘‘One can find many examples of young children dying in the pre-modern period,’’ writes Asaeda Zensho¯, ‘‘but the circumstances Zenjo¯ describes . . . are particularly interesting.’’ 44 Yaba Katsuyuki, a leading authority on Issa’s work, sees the poet’s record of his father’s death as ‘‘an extraordinary piece of literature’’;45 Kyokuso¯’s description of the death of his young wife has been hailed, by virtue of its ‘‘modern complexity,’’ as an early example of confessional writing.46 The three thanatologues—Zenjo¯’s of Mutsumaru, Issa’s of Yagobei, and Kyokuso¯’s of Matsuko—in translation, form the kernel of this book. Perhaps it would have been more effective to edit them, to enhance their impact by selecting only the most affecting passages, rearranging jumbled chronologies, erasing all irrelevancies, repetitions and non sequiturs, and delicately draw-

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ing a veil over the more disturbing deathbed details. After all, only one of them has any pretension to literary merit, and that is Issa’s, written in the plain language which was his hallmark, but at the same time carefully tricked out with quotations and classical allusions. Both Zenjo¯ and Kyokuso¯, writing in the immediate aftermath of the events they described, were far too distraught to bother about form and style. None of the three flinched, as their Victorian counterparts would have, from explicit references to physical details, diarrhea and phlegm among them. But I was uncomfortable with the idea of interfering with these documents beyond the inevitable violence involved in translation. To do that would have meant appropriating their stories to suit purposes of my own, making the emphasis my emphasis, rather than theirs. So, in the belief that the message— the expression of grief, with all its force and immediacy—more than compensated for any of the medium’s shortcomings, I decided to translate the three accounts in full. To my knowledge, only one has been previously translated.47 They warrant translation first of all because they are personal statements from a civilization which, as we have seen, tended to avoid such things. That makes them rarities. Then, too, if we are even to begin to decipher what bereavement meant to these men, what forms their grief took, and how, when, and whether they found consolation, their stories should be recounted exactly as they told them to themselves. Whatever they wrote, they wrote for a reason, whether they were aware of it or not. So their chronological leaps and stream-of-consciousness lurches may suggest more than methodical narrative progressions ever could. Beyond that, however, these are rich documents, and they speak to much more than just bereavement. Yes, each is concerned with death, but at the same time they all offer a slice of life. Each gives a sense, from its own admittedly limited mascu-

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line perspective, of the texture of everyday life as it was in the last quarter of the Tokugawa period. Each situates death and grief within a domestic context. The priest’s son dies in the midst of a busy and happy ecclesiastical household; the poet’s father, on the other hand, dies in the middle of a bitter family dispute which has festered for twenty years and, coincidentally, does so at one of the busiest seasons of the agricultural year; the scholar’s wife dies in a household full of students. So they are not mere thanatologues, but also domestic documents from a civilization which produced, or at least preserved, very few of the kind. Only rarely do we meet the commonplace in the history of Tokugawa Japan—after all, who takes the trouble to record the familiar? These extraordinary, ordinary accounts are therefore all the more valuable, because they offer an entry into a world still largely unknown. So the three thanatologues, translated in full, give this book its basic structure. They complement each other neatly enough, since each of the fatal illnesses was different, as too were the ages of those who died, the situations in which they died, and their relationships to those who recorded their passing. The priest, the poet, and the scholar chose these particular bereavements to record in detail, but these were far from their only losses. Mortality in Tokugawa Japan was far too relentless for that. Each of the three men already bore the scars of previous loss. As if to demonstrate how precarious life was for women, all had been left motherless at a young age. Zenjo¯’s mother, Tamaki, had died within three weeks of giving him birth, leaving him to be raised by her own wet-nurse; Issa was only two when his mother, Kuni, died; Kyokuso¯ lost his mother when he was four, while four of his eleven siblings had died in childhood.48 By the time he came to set down the particulars of his wife’s death he had already buried a son and a daughter. All three men were also, sadly, to know a great deal more loss. Among them, they fathered eigh-

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teen children, only to bury twelve of them. Like Kyokuso¯, Issa was to witness the death of a wife very much younger than himself. Both Issa and Kyokuso¯ wrote of later bereavements, although not in nearly so much detail, while we have accounts of the deaths of two more of Zenjo¯’s sons, written in this case not by the father himself, but by a third person—a family friend, another priest, whose unabashedly proselytizing agenda makes the record of Mutsumaru’s death all the more vivid by contrast. I have translated portions of all of these and attached them, ribs to the thanatological backbone, to the main accounts to see what they, too, can tell us. Through the experience of the priest, the poet, and the scholar we can glimpse bereavement in action, and discern, as they dealt with it as best they could, how far they were constrained, and how far consoled, by the habits and beliefs of their world.

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 Zenjo¯ the Priest

P Those who wish for Paradise are truly delighted when they fall ill. —Rennyo, quoting Ho¯nen The followers of the Ikko¯ sect believe in just the one Buddha, Amida: they do not believe in other Buddhas or gods. Under no circumstances do they pray, and even when ill they do not take advantage of amulets or holy water. This is what stupid men and women of the commoner classes and their servants all believe. Such is the influence of Shinran. —Dazai Shundai Jo¯do Shinshu¯, the True Sect of the Pure Land—or, more familiarly, the Ikko¯ (single-minded) Sect—was one of several new forms of Japanese Buddhism to emerge over the course of the thirteenth century. Its founder, Shinran (–), like others before him, had been persuaded by Amida’s vow to refuse enlightenment until all mankind was assured of Paradise, and his promise that they could achieve it by invoking his name. Shinran had taught that anyone reciting the nenbutsu phrase—Namu Amida Butsu 1 or ‘‘Hail to the Buddha Amida’’—was assured of eternal life in the Pure Land, Buddha’s Western Paradise. Given sincere faith, the mere repetition of the phrase was sufficient. A good and pious life, however praiseworthy, was not of itself enough to guarantee salvation. On the contrary, good works, with their temptation towards self-satisfaction and a sense of entitlement, could be a hindrance. Complete reliance on

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Amida’s vow was the key, and anything detracting from that merely impeded progress towards the Pure Land. It was a simple message, and understandably, when compared to the mysteries and complexities of earlier varieties of Buddhism, it won a following, particularly amongst ordinary people, the ‘‘stupid men and women of the commoner classes,’’ in Dazai Shundai’s supercilious designation.2 The message was as spare as it was simple. Faith in Amida and his vow made all other forms of religious observance, and all other deities, Buddhist as well as Shinto, totally unnecessary and even potentially impious. As one priest expressed it, ‘‘our sect relies on Mida Nyorai alone, and does not pray to any other Buddhas or bodhisattvas; that is why other sects call it the Ikko¯ (single-minded) Sect.’’ 3 Jo¯do Shinshu¯’s attractive message, reinforced by energetic proselytizing and vigilant supervision, made it a particularly successful variety of Buddhism. This, however, is not to say that it was universally popular. Its military and political posture during the unsettled sixteenth century had earned it the dislike of a number of warlords, to whom it was alternatively a threat and an irritant. Not surprisingly, therefore, it entered the Tokugawa period with a dubious reputation, although it was by this time far from a united movement itself, and was about to be further fragmented. Tokugawa Ieyasu took the strongest of its factions, the Honganji group, and split it in two, into an eastern (Higashi Honganji) and a western (Nishi Honganji) wing. Although a much chastened Jo¯do Shinshu¯ quickly accommodated itself to the Tokugawa polity, there were nevertheless parts of the country where it was actually outlawed. Equally, there were some parts of Tokugawa Japan where it was conspicuously successful.4 Kaga Province, which had spent most of the sixteenth century under Shinshu¯ control, was one of these. So, too, was much of the rest of the Japan Sea coast. In Iwami Province—now part of Shimane Prefecture—where, with more than three hundred af-

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filiated temples, it was of all varieties of Buddhism the predominant, and most obdurate, it met with constant criticism from less successful competitors. In  a number of these joined in petitions to both the local lord and the government in Edo, complaining that Shinshu¯, with its aggressive proselytizing and its overzealous adherents, or monto, was as dangerous as Christianity. None of this made the slightest impact. Iwami was, and continued to be, a stronghold of the Shinshu¯ faith, maintaining a number of notable ecclesiastical foundations.5 One of these was Jo¯senji. These days Ichigi, which is where Jo¯senji was (and still is) located, is a small country hamlet, part of the larger township of Mizuho, locked in the mountains on the Shimane side of the western border of Hiroshima Prefecture. Like many of Japan’s rural communities, it is made up of small farms, still smaller shops, and a few inns and hostels catering to skiers in the winter months. Hardly anybody else goes there anymore, whether to visit or to pass through it on the way to somewhere else. The Chu¯goku Highway, now skirting the town, now soaring above it on monumental concrete pillars, has seen to that, as it shuttles trucks and automobiles to and fro between downtown Hiroshima and Hamada. It was not always like this. Two hundred years ago Ichigi was an important post town, a well-known stop on a major route used by travellers winding their way through the mountains from the Japan Sea to the Inland Sea. The lord of the Hamada domain, on his annual journey to and from the shogun’s capital in Edo, would always stop there, at an inn set aside for his convenience. Towards the end of the Tokugawa period Ichigi could have claimed a population of over three thousand—farmers, of course, but also laborers employed in one or other of the more than twenty iron smelters, or tatara, dotting the area. It was, too, at this time an administrative center in its own right, the seat

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of a resident magistrate sent out from the Hamada domain, of which Ichigi was then a part. And it was a religious center, home to several notable temples of which Jo¯senji was the largest and most significant. Indeed Jo¯senji was one of the most substantial temples in the entire province, and this in itself was a reflection of its economic and intellectual standing. It was a chu¯zan, comparable perhaps to a diocese, entrusted by its honzan, or cathedral—Nishi Honganji, in Kyoto—with directing the affairs of, and, not incidentally, collecting fees from, some forty-three subordinate temples, twenty-four of them in Iwami, and the rest in adjacent provinces.6 It was also, from the eighteenth century, the seat of a theological seminary, later named the Mujo¯kan. The priest who commanded the wealth and authority of such an impressive foundation was automatically a figure of consequence, not just in the immediate community, but in the entire province and beyond, extending even to the sect headquarters, Nishi Honganji itself. Shinran, the thirteenth-century founder of Jo¯do Shinshu¯, had preached a message of comfort and salvation for all, confirmed by rebirth in the Pure Land, Amida’s Western Paradise. This in itself was not so very unusual; several other of Japan’s Buddhist sects, equally ancient, had proclaimed a similar message. But Shinran, in one respect, was far more radical than his Buddhist contemporaries. In other branches of Buddhism clergy were bound by a general rule of celibacy which, if not always observed as strictly as it might have been, at least precluded their leading openly married lives. Only in the latter part of the nineteenth century was this particular restriction relaxed. Not so Shinran, who, six centuries ahead of his time, enjoyed the company of women enough to father children by at least two of them.7 His disciples, and their disciples after them, simply followed the founder’s example, taking wives, siring children, and

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 / Zenjo¯ the Priest

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ignoring those who asserted that married life and priestly function were incompatible. More than anything else it was the value Shinshu¯ placed upon the family life of its priests that set Shin Buddhism apart from its competitors. And there was an important corollary involved. Shinshu¯ clerics were generally succeeded by their children—sons, if they had them, sons-in-law, if they didn’t—resulting in a priesthood which was almost exclusively hereditary. This was certainly the rule amongst the sect patriarchs, all of whom claimed direct descent from the founder, and who could find themselves in positions of eminence at extremely young ages if circumstances warranted it. It was no less the rule among country parishes. Jo¯senji, controlling its forty-three subordinate temples from its Ichigi site, was no exception. Go¯sei (–), the eleventh incumbent, it is true, did not inherit the post. His reputation as a doughty fighter for the truth had prompted his superiors to despatch him to Iwami in  to counter a local schismatic, a task he handled so decisively that, later, when the living of Jo¯senji fell vacant on the death of the childless tenth incumbent, the parishioners begged him to accept it. Even then, however, the prior claims of heredity were acknowledged. Tamaki, the dead priest’s sister, was to legitimate the new lineage by marrying Rizen (–), the new priest’s son.8 Go¯sei, who served as Jo¯senji’s priest until his retirement in , was nothing if not committed to his faith. With little enough tolerance for difference with fellow sect members, people with whom he would otherwise have had almost everything in common, he had still less for followers of other faiths, Buddhist or otherwise. He refused to allow monto to keep Shinto amulets in their houses, and attacked Japan’s native religion in a tract entitled Hekinan taiben (‘‘A Refutation of Willful Stupidity’’). Little wonder that he was known locally as ‘‘’The Destroyer of Household Shrines.’’ 9 Little wonder, too, that it was

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shortly after his transfer to Jo¯senji that the province’s Shinto and Buddhist priests began their vociferous complaints against the kind of Shinshu¯ intransigence he represented. Nevertheless, even if not popular outside his faith, Go¯sei had a distinguished career, as the author of several theological works and as an inspirational speaker, invited frequently to preach at Nishi Honganji and to lecture at its seminary. He is perhaps best known as the compiler of a collection of brief lives of pious Shinshu¯ adherents, which, circulating at first in manuscript, was ultimately published under the title Myo¯ko¯ninden in , almost fifty years after his death.10 Rizen, Go¯sei’s son and successor, was just as talented, energetic, determined, and, no doubt, opinionated as the father he succeeded. He, too, was a scholar, and, no more tolerant of perceived heresy than his father, was prepared to pursue it—at great risk to himself—into the very heart of his sect’s hierarchy. In  Rizen was to emerge as a commanding figure in one of Shin Buddhism’s most serious, sensational, and violent doctrinal disputes, the Sango¯ wakuran. In the third month of that year he had travelled to sect headquarters in Kyoto to attend ceremonies on the three hundredth anniversary of the death of Rennyo (– ) who, next to Shinran, the founder, was the single most powerful figure in Shinshu¯ history. There Rizen heard a sermon which both amazed and infuriated him. The preacher, rector of Nishi Honganji’s theological seminary, declared that those who truly believed in the power of Amida’s vow would naturally bear witness to their faith in the three forms (sango¯) of thought, word, and deed. To Rizen, as to many others, this injection of personal responsibility into the matter of salvation was a heresy, undercutting the sect’s fundamental emphasis on the nenbutsu, the phrase which, if uttered at the end of life, would redeem even the most wicked. He reacted immediately, with a list of hostile questions, and then, to free himself for the struggle, announced his

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retirement at the age of forty-three. Over the next seven years, as the issue festered, and riots broke out both in the theological seminary and Nishi Honganji itself, Rizen threw himself into a polemical campaign, emerging, in , on the winning side. In that year the bakufu, the shogun’s government, intervened to settle the issue, sentencing the chief instigators to exile, and the Nishi Honganji patriarch, who had done nothing to control the situation, to one hundred days of house arrest.11 Rizen’s early retirement in the late summer of  left Jo¯senji and its many dependent temples in the care of his son Zenjo¯, then twenty-six years old. Any other career for the young man, destined as he was for the priesthood by both birth and training, would have been unthinkable. First, he was directly descended from Rennyo. Then, too, his claim to the Jo¯senji living was twofold. After all, his maternal grandfather had been the ninth priest, and his paternal grandfather the eleventh. His training, which began in , when he was eight, simply confirmed that birthright. By the age of twelve he was already preaching, an activity that seems to have kept him busy for the rest of his life. In  he was elevated to the status of koku ho¯ ju¯shoku, and finally, two years later, replaced his father as Jo¯senji’s chief priest. Zenjo¯ was never to be the theologian his father and grandfather were. The pastoral responsibilities of his parish, together with its forty-three subordinate livings, kept him too busy for that. His main claim to attention seems to have been his artistic skill, one example of which, his portrait of his grandfather Go¯sei, still exists.12 By the early summer of , when he was abruptly thrust into the position his father had left vacant, the young priest was already married, and a father himself. As was common with Jo¯do Shinshu¯ clergy, the wife chosen for him was—like her husband—a child of the manse, although in this case, an adopted one. At the time they had two sons, Mutsumaru, a little over

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three years old, and an infant, the just-born Toshimaru. It was, therefore, a happy Zenjo¯ who assumed his new responsibilities, a prosperous young man, with a young wife and a young family. Jo¯do Shinshu¯, which had given him his livelihood, had also favored him with an opportunity unique among the sects of Japanese Buddhism—the chance of domestic happiness. Before the year was out, however, Zenjo¯ was to learn the message of the Four Noble Truths in the cruellest way. What follows is his account. T An Account of Mutsumaru’s Death [This entry, from Zenjo¯’s journal, dated // begins with the young priest some twenty miles away from home. He has been preaching to the congregation of one of his subordinate temples at Kuki, then a small copper-mining town near what is now the border of Hiroshima Prefecture, and is spending the night in the house of a parishioner.] 13

After my evening sermon, I met with the ten parishioners who were to help collect for the temple roofing fund. With one thing and another, midnight came around, and I went to sleep. However, at what must have been about two in the morning, somebody began knocking at the door. I heard it immediately, and called out ‘‘Where are you from?’’ ‘‘I’m from Ichigi,’’ was the reply. Hearing this voice, which sounded like that of Chu¯bei from Go-o,14 I got up at once, wondering anxiously what could possibly have brought him out so late at night. When I opened the door, there stood Chu¯bei. ‘‘Is anything the matter . . . ?’’ I asked, but all he said was, ‘‘Not really. Your father sends his regards.’’ He came in through the lower part of the door, and the rest of the household woke up.

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My father had been invited to go to Shinseiji 15 to preach at the memorial service for Kakunyo sho¯nin 16 on the twenty-second. So I expected Chu¯bei to say perhaps that father had caught a cold and, being unable to go, would want me to take his place. What else could it be, I thought, if not some business matter? Meanwhile Chu¯bei finished taking off his sandals and came into the room. ‘‘What can have brought you here so late at night?’’ I asked again. ‘‘Well,’’ he said, ‘‘it’s about your son. Mutsumaru is quite sick, and I came to let you know in case he should take a sudden turn for the worse.’’ He had brought a letter from my father, and tearing it open I read that on the evening of the fourteenth Mutsumaru had had a slight stomach upset. Then, from the morning of the sixteenth, he had been unable to eat anything. On the seventeenth a rattle had developed in his throat. Dr. Mito Gentaku (who had come over from Honji) and Dr. Okamoto Genshuku (Dr. Kendatsu’s elder brother) were treating him, but with no success. On the evening of the seventeenth they had sent Komazo¯ to Yakami to fetch Dr. Yamaguchi Kyo¯an, but he had not yet arrived. When they asked Dr. Gentaku what the noise in his throat might mean, they were told it was just ordinary phlegm, and nothing to worry about. However, as Mutsumaru was just a child, my father thought I should be informed, in case something were to happen. The letter asked that I return at once. I was dreadfully distressed to learn of Mutsumaru’s illness, as I always am at extremely bad news. Worried, because I knew that doctors are scarce, and concerned that Dr. Yamaguchi had still not arrived, I thought I should call in an eminent physician I happened to know, a Dr. Higashi Kenritsu from Izuwa.17 After conferring with my trusted parishioners at Kuki—who agreed with me—I wrote him a note, and sent it off with two couriers, asking Yoshichi, a clerk at the Yonezawaya, to go also. I had already finished most of the preparations for the annual

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Memorial Day service 18 at Kuki, so I left Ebaku, my curate,19 to act for me, and at around five in the morning set off for home, together with Chu¯bei and a man who had been sent from Shinseiji to accompany me. From Kamedani,20 where the Kuki parishioners had reserved me a horse, I rode on to Shinseiji. After breakfast, I continued on to Makigahara where Rinsuke from Kanda-taira had come to meet me, bringing a horse from Ichigi. I asked him how my child was, and was somewhat reassured at his reply. ‘‘When I set off for Jo¯senji around midnight last night to get the harness for the horse,’’ he said, ‘‘the wife of the priest at Raisho¯ji 21 told me that Mutsumaru was a little better. He kept saying that he wanted to be picked up, and had been trotting around the kitchen. So go home and don’t worry. Senshichi also told me that the doctor from Yakami is coming.’’ At this point I sent my companion from Kuki back home, and with Rinsuke carrying my portmanteau reached my temple at what must have been around one in the afternoon. When I went in to see the sick child, he seemed very tired, his eyes rather sunken. ‘‘Well, now, Daddy’s home,’’ I said, and he opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘‘I’ve brought you back a present, a chopstick box,’’ I told him, and he waited eagerly for it. I fetched it to show him, and he took it delightedly and played with it, opening and shutting the lid. Then, when I asked if I could give him a hug, he said yes, and I held him tenderly. But all the time there was this constant rattle in his throat, . . . and he had diarrhea. I wanted him to stay in bed and do his business there, for nobody would mind, but he did not listen. Every time he was carried back after finishing his stool, he would sprawl exhausted on the tatami, his head drooping mournfully. ‘‘That’s enough,’’ he said, after I had cleaned him with tissue, which was what he would usually say, but now he was uncomfortable sleeping on the futon and could not keep still. Listening to him as he talked from time to time about his

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favorite games, I was very touched that he spoke so precisely and so fluently . . . Yet from the way he moved his head and limbs I suspected he was feverish. He would reply softly to whatever he was asked, and would take his medicine whenever we gave it to him, refusing nothing, no matter how bitter or sour it was, and swallowed it all promptly and willingly. A few times he would have his ‘‘granny’’ 22 or somebody carry him as they lit the lamps, and he would walk over to the next room. Dr. Kyo¯an 23 and Dr. Gentaku took turns watching him, and gave him several different medicines. After I had shown him a brightly colored picture of a warrior, he kept saying happily, ‘‘Show me the picture, show me the picture,’’ and he also had me bring out his chopstick box for him. By the early evening, however, as the sun dipped below the western horizon, the medicine still did not seem to be having any effect. When I asked the doctor how the boy was, I was told, ‘‘These sudden stomach cramps are dangerous. It’s up to Fate and to Heaven now.’’ Obviously this was going to be the critical night. All of a sudden the child’s eyes began to glitter, and my stepmother, Sagami,24 and I gathered around him, afraid this was a sign of impending death. ‘‘Show me the statue of the Buddha,’’ he said, and, prone though he was, moved his hands as if to join them together, although seeming to lack the strength to keep them clasped even momentarily. We all wept when we heard him say this. My father had been lying beside him, exhausted from his nightly vigil, but on hearing this he got up at once. ‘‘What a marvellous thing to say,’’ he exclaimed. ‘‘You may be just a child, but you were born under Buddha’s protection, you listened morning and night to His ineffable Law, you said prayers (even though you only mimicked them), you heard the scriptures read, you chanted the nenbutsu, and you rang the bell before His altar. It is plain that you are closely bound to Him. Even if

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you are delirious, this was a wonderful thing to have said. Let us pray.’’ So saying, he called for his formal robes, and placing his image of the Buddha on the lid of his book box, he lit some incense, carried it to the sick bed, and prayed. . . . ‘‘Hearken,’’ he said, ‘‘to these words,’’ and he read from the epistle 25 containing the phrase ‘‘Let me not descend into Hell, but grant rather that I might attain Paradise.’’ He wept when he came to the passage which says ‘‘Deliver us, we pray, by the miraculous power of Amida Nyorai, from the paths which lead to the evil places of the Five Realms and Six Realms,’’ 26 . . . and those in attendance, myself included, could not but weep also. The sick child prayed, staring intently at the image. Then, when we gave him an infusion, he drank it willingly. However, stricken by cramps, he would occasionally cry out, and with his left hand would scratch and scratch at the shaven part of his head, which had been dressed in the Chinese style.27 Little by little he appeared to weaken, and as there seemed no hope of his recovering, we again had him pray to the Buddha image. I had recently had Asaya Shinsuke in Kyoto buy me a remarkable medicine called Chinsho¯gan. It was said to be powerful enough to cure anybody, even someone on the verge of death. The recommended dose for children aged three to four was two or three tablets at a time, but in desperation, hoping against hope, I dissolved ten of them and gave them to him to drink. Until this time Mutsumaru had had no appetite, his hands and feet were chilled, and his brow drenched with a cold perspiration, but shortly after taking the medicine he became bathed in a warm sweat, which dripped from his brow like water, and he vomited a little. Soon he cried out ‘‘Mummy, Mummy,’’ so she picked him up and asked if he would like to nurse. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said, and drank for a long time. Whether or not he was going to be able to live through the night we could not tell, but as he seemed a little better . . . we

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hoped he might somehow recover. So we gave him some more Chinsho¯gan, and also a large quantity of an especially effective medicine called Kanryo¯en,28 which I had asked someone to get for him in Hiroshima earlier this month. Dr. Kyo¯an then said, ‘‘While we are about it, I would like to try giving him some bear gall.’’ 29 We gave this to him mixed with some syrup of ginger, and he sipped it without complaining at all of its tartness and bitterness. After a short time, a rattling noise suddenly issued from his chest, as if he were about to bring up something from his stomach. We were most alarmed, fearing a convulsion. Then, just when we thought he was about to die, he rallied once again. So it was that as dawn grew near, cradled in his mother’s arms, he called for Fuchimaru, so we summoned the boy, who went over to him, and the two children held hands contentedly. Then, when Mutsumaru called out ‘‘Toshimaru-san, Toshimaru-san,’’ we brought him over also. Mutsumaru reached out both arms to hug him, and, illness notwithstanding, held him in his lap, and said ‘‘Boo’’ merrily. Later I realized that he had been saying goodbye to his uncle Fuchimaru and to Toshimaru, his younger brother.30 His mother held him like this for some time, but when she put him down to sleep his arms and legs were cold, so his ‘‘grandmother’’ and I each took one of his limbs to warm them. I had something to eat as I watched over him, but thinking that nothing untoward was likely to happen for the time being, I went briefly into the inner chamber of the main hall and then came back. As I resumed my vigil I could see no sign that the medicine had made any difference. After a little time Dr. Kyo¯an took him, and gave him something, which he drank. While I was by his side Mutsumaru said something which, when I listened closely, sounded like ‘‘Lift me up,’’ so I drew him onto my lap, and while I patted him, Dr. Kyo¯an removed his muffler and his hood, because Mutsumaru was saying, ‘‘Take it off, take it off.’’

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Then, because he kept on saying, ‘‘Take it off, take it off,’’ while he was touching the physician’s face, Dr. Kyo¯an and I both put our hands in front of our faces, and, spreading our fingers, announced, ‘‘There, it’s gone now,’’ after which he fell silent. Up until this morning he had spoken clearly, but when he said, ‘‘Lift me up,’’ his speech was slurred, and he was difficult to understand, making me wonder what this might mean. However, when the physician said, ‘‘I think his hands and feet seem a little warmer,’’ I felt him, and this proved to be so. Thinking that warming him up gradually this way was a good idea, I again took both his feet and placed them in my lap. After a little, Dr. Gentaku tried to have him drink a broth made from a mixture of bear gall and ginger syrup, but once it was in his mouth he found it hard to swallow, and choked, seeming to be in some difficulty. His eyes dimmed, and he clenched his teeth. ‘‘Is this the end?’’ I asked Dr. Gentaku. ‘‘No, no,’’ he replied, ‘‘he will settle down again.’’ Nevertheless, I could see that his eyes grew no brighter. Rather, little by little, they clouded, and his fists clenched spasmodically. Gradually his eyes glazed and finally, at what I think was around eleven o’clock, he breathed his last. We were all grieved, and wept bitterly. The night before my return from Izuwa, while everybody was watching him, the sick boy had kept saying in a loud voice, ‘‘I’m dying, I’m dying.’’ Hearing this, my father, who had been lying beside him for a while, leapt up in alarm. Everyone confirmed this. Because he was my eldest son, it was appropriate that representatives from the subordinate temples and congregations should attend the funeral. It was a very busy time, what with the memorial observances 31 nearly upon us, so I decided that they should be deferred until the twenty-seventh, and we would have the funeral first, on the twenty-second. Accordingly I sent out both the death notice and an order to postpone the memorial services. As Enritsuji had been in mourning since the eighth

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month, I told them they could have the Renko¯ji at Miyazako represent them.32 I also sent death notices to others who would not be able to attend the funeral—to people in Kyoto, Iga, Hiroshima, Nishida, and Marumo.33 We laid Mutsumaru’s body at the entrance to the innermost chamber and brought out my father’s altar. Some townspeople kept vigil, together with members of the women’s auxiliary. On the evening of the following day, the twenty-first, I made a sketch of the child’s face, and, as he had always liked to wear his hair in the Chinese fashion, I cut his locks as a final keepsake. Before dawn on the twenty-second we bathed him, dressed him in a white undergarment and a new cotton robe, and draped over him a stole of red brocade. He had always coveted a tiny rosary of his mother’s, so we put this in his hands. Placing a white cloth over his head, we laid him face upward in his coffin. I asked the priest to give him the posthumous name Zen’en, taken from Lao-tse.34 In death, his complexion was as beautiful as if he were merely sunk in a deep and peaceful sleep. His coffin, richly decorated, was modelled on that of Jitsujo¯in,35 who had died previously. So before noon on the twenty-second Mutsumaru was cremated 36 amongst the pines on the way to Go-o. On the morning of the twenty-third we gathered his ashes, with the priest from Ko¯saiji 37 officiating. The teeth and bones were carried by Cho¯rin, a priest from [Konzo¯ji at Hamada] 38 who, being very fond of children, had been a frequent visitor, and had accompanied us to Kyoto last year. Mutsumaru was born on the night of the seventeenth day of the first month of , when I was in my twenty-third year; he was healthy, and grew day by day. By the end of the eleventh month he had already started walking. On his first birthday, the seventeenth day of the first month,  (I had never cared for birthday celebrations, but, bowing to the general expectation, I decided to observe it on this occasion), the men and women

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of the town gathered to dance, saying how lucky it was that our temple now had a lineal successor. Older people like my stepmother, Ryu¯ (the wife of the priest of Raisho¯ji), my own mother’s seventy-year-old nurse, and the lady from the Taya 39 were all dancing. By this time Mutsumaru could walk well and speak a few words. That was the time he played a joke on us by wrapping four hundred copper cash in a cloth and running off with it into the kitchen. From around his second year he grew very handsome and laughed a lot, so everybody loved him. In the fourth month of last year, , his mother and I, along with his ‘‘grandmother,’’ Miho from Raisho¯ji, Shincho¯,40 and Cho¯rin all went up to Kyoto, where his grandparents at Myo¯kakuji were besotted with him. Early in the fifth month his mother and I went ¯ mi Province, where his real grandparents, from to Hikone in O the Matsumoto family, were also captivated by him. Everyone who saw him loved him. While we were in Kyoto, staying at the Matsuya in Higashi Nakatsuji, we would visit Ko¯sho¯ji every day, for it was just across the road. The priest there was especially charmed by Mutsumaru, and would take him to play by the river at Shijo¯. Whenever he went out to places like Yakushi he would ask if he could borrow the boy, and then take him along, carrying him in his arms. ¯ tani,41 which had been renoThere was a Jo¯senji gravesite at O vated the previous year with a donation from Mr. Takase. When we first visited the graveyard after arriving in Kyoto I weeded the plot, and the boy must have noticed this, for when we went again on a subsequent occasion he ran on ahead to the gravestone. No sooner had he reached it than he went around it pulling up weeds and clearing away rubbish. Some months had elapsed, but he still remembered. On our way to Kyoto, after disembarking at Akashi, we had stayed at the . . . Inn at Okuradani, where the maidservant was

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very taken with Mutsumaru, carrying him into town and buying him a toy in the shape of a fat little sparrow. I had anticipated that people here would be surly, as the area was full of inns. Given the extreme poverty, I imagined that if they were to give the boy anything at all it would be just to make a good impression, in the hope that they would earn a tip, but this was simply not so. In fact they seemed particularly fond of children, as the maidservant showed by her expression and the way she talked. Then, three miles out of Nishinomiya, we hired a palanquin for Mutsumaru and me. ‘‘Is that a little girl?’’ asked the woman who did the lending, when she saw Mutsumaru. ‘‘He’s a boy,’’ I replied. ‘‘Well, what a lovely child he is,’’ she said, holding him in her arms, and giving him some cake from her shop. It seemed like the sort of place where she would have been prepared to haggle over a copper or two, but to Mutsumaru she was generous. Then, too, when we went to see the festivities at Gion,42 I took him to look at the store belonging to Nakagawa Jinbei, who made musical instruments. Nearby was a party of five or six girls of some quality, tastefully dressed,43 and on spying Mutsumaru they exclaimed, ‘‘Ooh, what a gorgeous child. Is she a girl?’’ to which I replied, ‘‘Definitely not.’’ At this, saying, ‘‘Ooh, mayn’t I hold him?’’ the nearest girl took him in her arms, and the rest, crying out, ‘‘I want to hold him too, I want to hold him too,’’ took him also. Again, when we went to the theater, someone sitting nearby was charmed by him and went to a cake shop to buy him cakes and buns. Whenever he toddled to temples like Renko¯ji and Butsuzenji, both of which were close to our lodging in Gakurincho¯,44 they made a fuss over him. We left Kyoto on the twenty-ninth day of the seventh month and boarded a ship at Osaka on the second day of the eighth month. When we went ashore the following evening to go to a bathhouse, we took Mutsumaru with us. After our bath we

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stopped at a small cake shop nearby, and while he was looking at the cakes the woman of the shop came out from behind the curtain, afraid that he might touch them. Then she exclaimed, ‘‘Oh, what a delightful child. Is she a girl?’’ ‘‘No,’’ I replied, ‘‘he is a boy, and his name is Mutsumaru,’’ at which she said, ‘‘Well then, here’s a cake for him,’’ and gave him one. Such things happened so often, with even poor people freely giving things to him, that I like to think they loved him so because of what he had done in some previous life. Mutsumaru had diarrhea when we set sail from Osaka . . . so when the ship dropped anchor near Akashi I wanted to call a physician. But the captain announced that, although I might have been able to do so between the tides, we really needed to put to sea that evening, so nothing could be done about it. I just happened to have with me some Cho¯ri Ichiryu¯gan,45 an effective specific for diarrhea, so, as the boy was uncomfortable, we gave him a mixture containing half a tablet, at which his diarrhea ceased immediately. But in the evening he began to vomit, doing so fifteen or sixteen times before the night was half over. We gave him several different medicines, but to no avail, for he vomited all of them up, and was unable even to take the breast. He gradually weakened, grew pale, and his pulse became faint. Putting ashore was out of the question, for it was the middle of the night, and the vessel was at sea off Takasago. Nobody on board had any medical knowledge, and it seemed that no medicine would help. At around five in the morning, while we were all on tenterhooks, the child began to fail and his eyes turned back in his head. It seemed as if the end had come, so his mother, Miho, and his ‘‘grandmother’’ all wept, saying, ‘‘How can we let him die in a place like this?’’ I too was grief-stricken and despairing. Wondering anxiously what I could do, I gave him three Chinsho¯gan pills dissolved in water which somehow soothed him, although previously he had been unable to nurse,

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let alone keep down any medicine. Finally his bowels moved just a little, after which his color returned. He nursed a little, and by dawn seemed recovered once more. Watching this was just like seeing flowers blossom on a dead tree, and we were overjoyed. Still, he had vomited so violently that, notwithstanding this temporary rally from his exhaustion, I was determined that he should not die aboard ship. We were on the point of disembarking at Ako¯, where Dr. Tabuchi Sensho¯, an old acquaintance, lived, when to our astonishment, just as I was planning to have ¯ e-dono had given him in him buried in the white robe that O Kyoto, he slowly began to recover. Finally, around noon the next day, when we produced some toys he lay looking at them contentedly. Docking at Murotsu in the early afternoon, we asked a physician to come on board, and when we had him see the child he said, ‘‘He is much recovered, and does not need any more medicine.’’ Then he added, ‘‘The boy may seem robust, but if he gets overtired in future he should see a doctor, otherwise there will be trouble. This time, however, he should recover without any ill effects.’’ So saying, he gave him an infusion. He also repeated several times that we should have him examined and treated by a competent physician when we reached home, and should not hesitate to give him moxa cautery.46 Then with these solicitous words he took his leave. After that we gave Mutsumaru some rice-water, and he gradually began to take a little nourishment, so that by the time we arrived at Hiroshima four days later he was able to play quite freely. But even when we reached home he was still suffering severe stomach cramps. All day he refused to let anyone come near him, feeding himself with his hands. We put him by himself in one of the innermost rooms, and while we all watched him from outside, he ate heartily. As he ate he declared that he wanted to go on a ship again. From spring last year, and into autumn, we had taught him

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to eat with chopsticks, so on the very day we arrived in Kyoto and took our first meal at Myo¯kakuji, his grandmother was delighted to see him feed himself so deftly. ‘‘This is the first time I’ve ever seen a two-year-old eat with chopsticks,’’ she declared. Another time, too, she said, ‘‘When the child turns nine, have him enter the priesthood. In the meantime he’ll be a big help to his granny,’’ but this too came to nothing.47 Thereafter, his sickness was largely cured by regular doses of the medicines provided by Dr. Kawakami Ryomin and Dr. Tanaka Gensho¯. Nevertheless, he would grind his teeth at night, and he ate his meals lying down. Then too, there was always phlegm rattling in his throat. Since last fall his mother was in the habit of teaching him versicles 48 as she carried him around, and he would mumble what he could remember of these to himself, ringing a bell at the same time. He had also memorized some of Rennyo’s most holy epistles and was constantly repeating them. Fuchimaru learnt them with him and they would recite them together. When Okin and Omasa 49 practiced their calligraphy he would say, ‘‘I want to do it too,’’ and over the past year he had learned to write the characters for the word ‘‘ten’’ and the syllable ‘‘i.’’ On the eleventh day of the ninth month, before he fell ill, just the day before I left for Izuwa, he said, ‘‘I want to practice,’’ so I drew the character for ‘‘ten’’ and gave him the inkstone and brush. As he practiced writing this character he made the horizontal stroke short and the vertical stroke too long, so he then added more to the right and left sides of the horizontal stroke, improving it a little. He also liked pictures and was always begging me to draw for him. He himself would draw circles. Whenever he was fretful, if I pulled out picture books like the Gaei, the Meiga-en, and the Tsu¯ho¯shi 50 to show him, he would stop fretting to look at them. He could distinguish mountains from water even where it was

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difficult to tell the difference between them, and where objects like boats were depicted no larger than the tip of a fingernail, and difficult enough for an adult to recognize, he would take pleasure in seeking them out, saying, ‘‘This is a boat, this is a bridge—a horse—a cow—a house.’’ There was a picture in the Meiga-en of a Chinese woman looking out from a tall tower, with a mirror stand at her side. . . . I had often looked at this picture, but I did not notice the mirror stand until one day Mutsumaru, to his delight, discovered it, and cried, ‘‘Here’s a mirror stand.’’ With woodblock prints 51 he was especially fond of seaside scenes showing large numbers of boats, and even if they were difficult to identify, as when they were shown only from the front, tear-drop shaped, he would find them. ‘‘That’s a boat there,’’ he would say. He also knew such songs as ‘‘The Prince’s Horse,’’ and the tunes of songs like the one beginning ‘‘Shinte teshima no osama,’’ and would sing them with Fujimaru. He also liked to wrestle with Fujimaru and to pretend to be an actor. He was a very comical child. On the fourth day of the fourth month this year, the morning after the seventh-day celebration of the birth of his younger brother Toshimaru, Mutsumaru was stricken with a sudden agonizing stomachache, so we gave him some byakuden and tried various treatments, but to no avail. Then Cho¯rin happened to visit, and he carried Mutsumaru on his back around the reception room and the guest room. As he did so the child’s head grew cold, his lips whitened, his pulse grew weak, and his complexion pale, so that he seemed near death. ‘‘He might have worms,’’ Dr. Kendatsu said, and instructed us to boil up some mimikusa 52 and honey and give it to him. At first he spat it out without swallowing it, but then when we forced him to drink it he vomited up some water. Then he brought up a great deal of matter which, on close inspection, proved to be a large quantity of raw fish he had eaten at the seventh-day celebratory feast. After that

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he took the breast for a while, and fell asleep. By the evening he was quite recovered. Can it be that on both occasions we had put him in harm’s way by not giving him medicine quickly enough? It is unutterably tragic that so sudden a calamity has been visited upon us. Nevertheless, we know that when a child returns to the Buddha it is meant to teach us something. Ours is a pious household, but even so we do take everything for granted. So Buddha has used this great sorrow to remind us to give thanks for His mercy, turning our anguish at the loss of a loved one into a song of praise. Indeed it is a blessing. Now, in the tenth month of , I conclude this haphazard account of my son’s death. May those who read it not scoff at my clumsy phrases. E At this point, on the subject of his bereavement, Zenjo¯ fell silent, and we hear no more from him. But we do hear more of him, and of further bereavements. He was to have other children, in addition to his son Toshimaru, who was five months old when Mutsumaru died. Later, in , came a daughter, Tei, who, at the age of fifteen, was married to the priest of Enritsuji, the most important of Jo¯senji’s subordinate temples. Third and fourth sons, Tadamaru and Sasuke, were born later,53 and both became novices, with the priestly names Zenjun and Zenbo¯. Tragically both boys were to predecease their father, dying, together with their grandfather Rizen, within a twoweek period in , possibly victims of that summer’s dysentery epidemic.54 Their deaths were recorded not by Zenjo¯, but rather by another priest, Kokujo¯ (–), himself a product of the Jo¯senji seminary, and so closely connected to Zenjo¯’s family. In , in the collection of twenty-four pious biographies entitled Shinzoku myo¯ko¯nin den, Kokujo¯ recounted the circum-

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stances surrounding the deaths of both Zenjun, then fourteen years of age, and his younger brother Zenbo¯, who was ten. The contrast these deathbed accounts make with Zenjo¯’s own telling of Mutsumaru’s death is striking enough to warrant translating them here.55 Zenjun The late Reverend Zenjun was the third son of Reverend Zenjo¯, eleventh incumbent 56 of Jo¯senji, and my teacher’s 57 grandson. He was born on the eighteenth day of the third month, .58 From childhood he was a gifted student, and when relaxing from his studies he was especially fond of painting. Towards the end of the sixth month he was afflicted with a malady, and died on the twentyseventh. Despite the severity of his illness he never ceased praising the Buddha for His great mercies. He admonished and consoled his parents in their grief, and urged those nursing him to honor the Buddha’s compassion all the more fervently. On the twenty-second day of the sixth month, while my teacher was preaching on the Matto¯sho¯,59 Zenjun, who was in attendance, rose from his place and, announcing that he did not feel well, collapsed. Thereafter he was gravely ill, and at nightfall on the twenty-third, when his case seemed hopeless, he said to his mother, ‘‘My illness is so severe that I could die at any moment, so why don’t you tell me some stories of the Dharma?’’ At this his father hastened to his bedside, and apologizing for the oversight, immediately proceeded to tell him stories. ‘‘How glorious that His precious compassion should

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succour the afflicted,’’ Zenjun declared, and immediately began to chant the Buddha’s name. On the twenty-fourth day, as his grief-stricken mother was loudly lamenting by his side, he said, ‘‘Do not grieve for me. If I am to go to Hell when I die, no amount of grieving will help. But I am going to the Pure Land of Peace and Sustenance, trusting in Buddha’s mercy. You should remember that if we are to become radiant Buddhas we must trust in His infinite grace alone. I once mistakenly believed that my own merit would bring me to the Pure Land, but now I realize that the Buddha’s power will save me. May He be forever praised.’’ When his father commented how steadfast was his faith, Zenjun responded, shaking his head, ‘‘How could I have any doubts? If you and mother were to be reborn in Paradise before me, you would wait for me there. If I go first I shall certainly wait for you.’’ On the twenty-fifth, needing to go to the privy, he asked, ‘‘May I chant the Buddha’s name there also?’’ and was told, ‘‘Neither occasion nor circumstances can limit its effectiveness.’’ ‘‘His mercy is indeed infinite,’’ Zenjun responded, chanting the nenbutsu. Despite his worsening illness, he took such delight in the Dharma stories that he seemed to have forgotten all his pain. Then he asked what day it was. ‘‘It is the twenty-fifth,’’ someone said, at which he was heard to mutter, ‘‘It will end on the twentyseventh.’’ Reflecting on this later, everyone thought it most curious. Furthermore, from time to time Zenjun would sing the hymns ‘‘Existence is an endless sea of pain’’ and ‘‘He is our lantern through the long, dark night.’’ 60

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On the twenty-sixth day Zenjun said to his mother, ‘‘Dear mother, how very fortunate you are. Just by being born a member of the Pure Land sect, and having married into this temple, all you need to do to be reborn in the Pure Land is ask the Buddha. Therefore,’’ he told her gently, ‘‘you must not grieve, even though I shall reach the Pure Land before you.’’ When he asked if his grandfather could also tell him some Dharma stories, the learned priest, although himself now seriously ill,61 had his students carry his bed to where the sick Zenjun lay. Rizen, his face suffused with happiness, said, ‘‘I am delighted that even in your illness you have asked this of me. Despite your suffering you never complain. It is miraculous that humble people like ourselves, through the power of the Buddha’s Original Vow, will attain the Pure Land—we should give thanks for this.’’ So saying, he chanted the nenbutsu. ‘‘When you were eleven or twelve,’’ he continued, ‘‘you would say the nenbutsu diligently day and night. I once asked you why, and you replied, ‘Because of His sublime mercy.’ I was much impressed by this, considering it a marvellous response from one so young, and I was gratified that you continued to grow in understanding.’’ ‘‘I am a little ashamed that lately I have not been able to chant the nenbutsu as much as I would have wished,’’ Zenjun said. ‘‘However, since falling ill I have come to appreciate the Buddha’s infinite mercy all the more.’’ ‘‘You were born a disciple of the Buddha, and can understand this intricate doctrine, so you are far more blessed than any rector or any theologian,’’ the learned priest declared.

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Epilogue / 

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His father Zenjo¯ tells this story: When Zenjun was gravely ill, and unable to chant the nenbutsu, he asked that a paper bearing those same characters be affixed to his mosquito net, and he wanted Rizen to write them. ‘‘Most commendable,’’ Rizen said, and wrote them for him, his own sickness notwithstanding. But day by day Rizen’s illness worsened, until finally, on the eighth day of the seventh month, he passed away. These two characters for nenbutsu, the last he was ever to write, are a mournful keepsake. On the morning of the twenty-seventh, Zenjun’s elder sister Tei, who was married to the priest of En¯ asa. ‘‘Here I am,’’ she sobbed, ritsuji, arrived from O drawing near his bedside. ‘‘Dear sister,’’ Zenjun said, ‘‘do not grieve. With Amida’s help I shall soon be going to the Pure Land. Rather than weeping, rejoice instead in the Buddha’s teachings. In this world there can be no certainty. Nothing,’’ he gently instructed her, ‘‘is more trustworthy than Buddha’s law.’’ Then Zenjun asked what day it was. Informed that it was the twenty-seventh, he exclaimed, ‘‘Today is the day I quit this corrupt world,’’ and chanted three times the phrase ‘‘I die after a brief and unhappy life.’’ His suffering seemed gradually to increase, and although he rejoiced all the more in Buddha’s mercy, at what was around three in the afternoon, his swollen hands dripping with sweat, little by little he grew colder. His parents and relatives, thinking the end was near, sat by his bedside, keeping watch. Zenjun tried to recite the Amida Sutra, but as he could not move his tongue properly his father, who was by his side, recited it with

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 / Zenjo¯ the Priest

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him. Before he could finish it, however, he ceased, crying that the pain was unbearable. Then, reaching out to those around him, he announced, ‘‘This is what it is like to die.’’ All at once his complexion changed color, he gasped, and then, as if falling asleep, was reborn in the Pure Land. He was then fourteen years old. This misfortune having come to pass, his body was cremated on the twenty-ninth, in a field at a place called Go-o, and his remains were gathered on the last day of the month. Zenbo¯ The Reverend Zenbo¯ was the fourth son of the Reverend Zenjo¯, and younger brother to the Reverend Zenjun. Zenjun had died on the twenty-seventh day of the sixth month, , and had been cremated by the riverside at Go-o. The Reverend Zenbo¯ went to the site on both occasions,62 showing no sign of ill health, but from nightfall on the last day of the month his stomach began to hurt dreadfully, and he collapsed, crying that he could bear it no longer. On the first day of the seventh month he asked his mother, who was tending to him, if he might hear some tales of the Dharma. His father, learning of this, carefully explained to him the significance of Amida’s vow to save all sentient beings, at which Zenbo¯’s joy showed on his countenance. ‘‘What a blessing that the Buddha, by the miraculous power of His original vow, should safely deliver a miserable wretch such as I,’’ he announced. ‘‘Though my brief life be even now ebbing, how great is the Buddha’s mercy in bringing me to the Pure Land.’’ So saying,

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Epilogue / 

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Zenbo¯ spontaneously began to chant the nenbutsu. Thereafter he delighted in hearing Dharma stories. On the fifth day he announced, ‘‘I would like to do some calligraphy. Dear father, could you write something for me to copy?’’ Quickly his father wrote the phrase ‘‘A Grateful Offering’’ [ho¯on myo¯ga] and gave it to him, at which he asked for two sheets of paper, and began to write. On the sixth and seventh days he recited the Amida Sutra three times over, and intoned the ‘‘Matsudai muchi’’ and ‘‘Hachiman ho¯zo¯’’ epistles.63 From time to time he also sang the hymns ‘‘He is our lantern through the long, dark night’’ and ‘‘Renounce the pangs of perpetual transmigration.’’ 64 Seeing him hesitate before returning to his room after a trip to the privy, his family members wondered where he was going. ‘‘I want to see my father,’’ he answered, ‘‘I want to go to him.’’ Thereafter, to his father’s great pleasure, Zenbo¯ would stop to see him on his way to and from the privy. That evening, with his father and his sister-in-law 65 beside him, he said, ‘‘Just three more days, just three days.’’ When they asked what he meant, he made no reply. Both thought this strange, and wondered if it perhaps signified that in three days’ time, on the ninth, he would be reborn in the Pure Land. On the seventh, Zenbo¯ declared that he wanted to see the inner chamber, and Daishin, one of the priests, carried him over to let him see. ‘‘I wish to pray to the sacred image,’’ Zenbo¯ said, worshipping it devoutly. He worshipped the image many times, even as he lay in his sickbed. ‘‘I want to go to Paradise soon,’’ he would say, ‘‘I want to see Sasuke,’’ 66

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 / Zenjo¯ the Priest

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referring to his brother Zenjun by his childhood name. At around three in the morning on the eighth he expressed a wish to do some calligraphy, asking his father to write something for him to copy. Presented with the characters for One Mind [isshin], he wrote them quickly. On the ninth, as all lay asleep, he roused them by crying, ‘‘I’m dying at last. Wake up, everybody.’’ Immediately his father began to massage his hands and feet, and then, as Zenbo¯ grew colder, stroked his head. ‘‘Finally I am going to the Pure Land,’’ the boy exclaimed. Then, as his breathing became weaker, he raised his voice in a joyous cry, and shouted, ‘‘How happy I am that the Buddha is taking me. I should stop breathing soon,’’ he continued, ‘‘perhaps in one more hour.’’ Indeed it was just one hour later that his breathing grew labored and then, as if falling asleep, he was reborn in the Pure Land. He was ten years old. My teacher 67 had passed away on the morning of the eighth, and as his body had been placed in what was known as the ‘‘Bird Chamber,’’ Zenbo¯’s body was set there beside him. Truly nothing is certain in this life. At daybreak on the tenth the funeral service was held in the garden by the Main Hall. The cremation took place on a hill behind the temple, and his bones were gathered on the eleventh. In //, during a fire which destroyed much of the town of Ichigi, Jo¯senji burned down.68 Before the year was out, Zenjo¯ too was dead.

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Epilogue / 

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 Issa the Poet

P Anyway, I never have had any luck. —Kobayashi Issa,  Along with Matsuo Basho¯ and Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa is one of the three towering figures of the seventeen-syllable haikai form, and, of the three, arguably the best known. His verses, more homely and accessible than those of his peers, are to be found incised into rocks and stone slabs all over Japan, and, in translation, on shelves all around the world. Of the three he was also by far the most prolific. Against Basho¯’s two thousand or so poems, and Buson’s three thousand, Issa easily outstripped them, leaving more than twenty thousand.1 Issa is famous now, but in  he was not. Then, at the age of thirty-eight, he was still fighting for recognition, supporting himself as a teacher of poetry, travelling from town to town to judge and correct the efforts of the landowners, pawnbrokers, priests, doctors, sake brewers, and oil-pressers who made up the bulk of his clientele. In return for payment and lodgings he would tinker with their poems, and sooner or later—at their expense—edit and publish them. It was a living, but at best, even without the claims of dependents and the encumbrance of a permanent residence, it was a precarious one. Not that life for Issa had ever been easy. He was born, in , in Kashiwabara, a farming community in the northern part of Nagano Prefecture (then Shinano Province), one of the least

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

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prosperous parts of the entire country. The severe winters, lingering through the best part of six months, generated heavier snowfalls than anywhere else in Japan, making life there correspondingly more difficult than elsewhere. For Issa, growing up in a farming family, and not an especially prosperous one, was far from comfortable. ‘‘When spring came I would help in the fields,’’ he was to write later, ‘‘picking vegetables, cutting grass, and leading a packhorse. At night, with no time to learn my letters, I would plait boots and make straw sandals by the moonlight pouring through the window.’’ 2 But Issa had other difficulties to contend with. He was only two years old when his mother died, and seven when his father, Yagobei, took a second wife. This was Issa’s stepmother, Satsu,3 then twenty-six. Within two years she had presented Yagobei with a second son and, incidentally, the nine-year-old Issa with a half-brother, Senroku. More than thirty years later Issa was to see this, justly or unjustly, as a turning point in his life, and not an auspicious one. By  he had come to view his childhood in the worst possible light, laying its deterioration unhesitatingly at the common door of his stepmother and half-brother. ‘‘On the tenth day of the fifth month of  my stepmother gave birth to a son, Senroku,’’ he remembered. ‘‘I was nine at the time. Unfortunately from that day on I was forced to take care of him, wringing out his soiled diapers in early spring, and in the fall making sure that his urine did not chafe him. If Senroku cried my stepmother, suspecting I had done something to him, would thrash me with a switch a hundred times a day, eight thousand times a month. On every one of the three hundred and fifty-nine days of the year my eyes would be swollen. . . . For five years I minded my half-brother, carrying him along the paddy fields. On winter mornings, my face would be frozen by frost and snow, and on hot summer evenings my legs would be bitten by the flies and mosquitoes swarming under the trees.’’ 4

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 / Issa the Poet

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The theme of the cruel stepmother and the helpless, neglected stepchild is one to which, in his later years, the poet insistently returned.5 So, too, is the recurring note of self-pity, a quality which Issa, who often called himself ‘‘Issa the stepson,’’ or ‘‘Issa the beggar,’’ made his own.6 The one positive element in this unhappy situation, so Issa said, was his grandmother, Kana. ‘‘Only my old grandmother could protect me from harm, and I relied on her as if I were a lost soul and she Jizo¯ . . . Then, on the fourteenth day of the eighth month of , the grandmother who had defended me left to dwell in Yomi.7 It is a universal rule that all things change, and all who meet must part, but nevertheless to me it was like losing a lamp on a dark night, as if I had become fuddled with drink, as though I were adrift in an empty boat.’’ 8 Deprived of even this degree of protection, just six months later Issa, now fourteen, was turned out by his father and sent off to Edo to make a life for himself as a domestic servant. ‘‘Since leaving my native village in ,’’ he wrote, at the age of forty-nine, ‘‘I have drifted aimlessly for thirty-six years. Through , days I have endured a thousand troubles, ten thousand tribulations, and enjoyed not a single happy day.’’ 9 It should be noted, however, that we only have Issa’s testimony to support his account of childhood deprivation, an account written many years later, and written, moreover, in the middle of a vindictive family dispute, in which the poet was fighting for his share—and perhaps more than his share—of the family estate. Earlier, in , when, at the age of twenty-eight, he made his first visit back to the town he had left fourteen years before, he seems to have been more positive. ‘‘I reached my native village just as the lamps were being fetched,’’ he wrote, ‘‘. . . my joy, delight, and relief at seeing the ruddy faces of my father and stepmother was like that of a turtle chancing upon a floating log, or like having stars brighten a dark night. For a time, overcome with happiness, I was speechless.’’ 10

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Prologue / 

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In , ten years after this initial visit, Issa returned to Kashiwabara just in time to witness, and to describe, his sixty-eightyear-old father’s death from typhoid fever. The description, to which Issa himself gave no name, has come to be known by the title assigned to it by an early commentator, Chichi no shu¯en nikki. The chronicle covers the period from // through Yagobei’s death on /, concluding with the seventh-day observance on /. The details of that visit are given in the journal translated here. T A Record of My Father’s Death The twenty-third day of the fourth month was clear and calm, with a cloudless sky, a day ringing with the first calls of the mountain cuckoo.11 Suddenly, for no apparent reason, my father, who had been watering some eggplant seedlings, fell flat on his face.12 ‘‘What are you doing sprawled out in the dirt like that?’’ I asked, helping him to his feet. Later I realized it was a portent that soon he would become ‘‘dust beneath the mugwort.’’ 13 Regrettably, this trivial incident immediately precipitated a high fever. Father’s skin became like fire to the touch, and, though I encouraged him to eat, he could not swallow even the smallest amount of food. Absolutely distraught at what had happened, all I could do was massage him. Twenty-fourth day, fine. I gave him some of the medicine I had been given by my friend Chikuyo¯.14 Twenty-fifth day, hazy then clear. His illness grew worse each day. That morning he was unable to eat any gruel. All he could do was take the drops of medicine I pressed on him. By the end of the day he was writhing in pain. ‘‘It hurts,’’ he complained,

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 / Issa the Poet

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‘‘I’m so tired.’’ 15 Sitting by his side I felt far worse than if the suffering had been my own. Twenty-sixth day, fine. I asked Dr. Jinseki 16 from Nojiri village to examine him. Pessimistically, the physician said, ‘‘His pulse is irregular; this is an internal fever, so he has a one in ten thousand chance of recovering.’’ Overwhelmed, and not knowing what to do, I nevertheless forced medicine on him, though without much hope of his survival. My aunt from Nojiri 17 stayed the night. Twenty-seventh day, rain. I was more and more dejected, and finding the heavy rain difficult to bear, when a poem came from my friend Chikuyo¯: Satsuki ame Ame tote Sora o kazasu kana April showers. It’s only rain, But it blots out the sky. Twenty-eighth day, fine. This day was the anniversary of Shinran’s death,18 so in the morning father gargled and rinsed. This should have helped lower the fever and put an end to it, but it did nothing of the kind. I felt sad when he read the sutras before the Buddha image, as he always used to do, because his voice sounded weak, and his bearing, seen from behind, was most unsteady. Twenty-ninth day. In view of his worsening illness, father turned his attention to the future, when I would be left on my own. He proposed dividing his modest property into two parts.

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Thanatologue / 

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Breathing with difficulty, he gave these instructions: ‘‘First, the paddies at Nakajima and Kawara go to Younger Brother,’’ but this did not satisfy Senroku, who opposed his decision.19 That day father and Senroku quarreled, putting an end to any discussion. The others, blinded by greed, cunning, and sycophancy, argued with him. It is scandalous that in this wicked world 20 a parent’s wishes should be disregarded. That evening his pulse was particularly weak, but I was the only one upset about it. Although Senroku did not see eye to eye with father, they were, after all, the same flesh and blood, and now that this had happened to father I felt sorry for my half-brother, and had them sleep beside each other. Anguished, I spent the evening keeping watch over father. Looking at his sleeping features in the lamplight, I was pained to observe how labored his breathing was. I was relieved, however, once the flood tide had brought about an improvement.21 Father said he would like to try some bear gall from a physician at Nojiri,22 and I would have gone to fetch it, because the town was only a few miles away. But my stepmother, having quarreled with father the day before, was not disposed to take care of him, so I sent my half-brother. It had rained the previous night, covering the seedlings, and consequently there was a chance that the paddy fields would be flooded. ‘‘Where has Senroku gone?’’ father asked. There was no point in deceiving him so I told him what I had done. Immediately he flew into a rage. ‘‘So you sent him off to get bear gall without asking me?’’ he demanded angrily. ‘‘Apparently I don’t matter any more.’’ 23 My stepmother, taking advantage of the situation, egged him on. ‘‘That lazy Issa sent Senroku off without any breakfast,’’ she called from the bedroom. ‘‘I can’t imagine how hungry Younger Brother must be.’’ She continued to belittle me with these gibes, even to my face. I could bear it no longer, and, beating my

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 / Issa the Poet

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head and drumming my hands on the tatami matting, I tearfully apologized for my crime. ‘‘I’ll never do it again,’’ I promised, at which father’s anger gradually abated. Even though I felt hurt, the rebuke was for my own good, so I took no offense. It was hard to bear the anger in his voice, but I had spent the previous night thinking over our long estrangement, so compared to that, I was as relieved to have him scold me that morning as a blind turtle who had chanced upon a floating log. What could have been better? So the sun rose, and my half-brother dawdled home. Fifth month

First day. The sky was completely clear, the ears of wheat were rustling busily, and suddenly the lilies had taken on a crimson tinge. Everywhere there was rice planting, and while others jostled among themselves to gather seedlings, my father, normally so robust, was fretful when he awoke. All through the afternoon, feeling the time passing too slowly, he was asking if the evening had come. I knew why, and I felt sorry for him. Second day. He took a turn for the worse, but even though he was in pain my stepmother, thanks to the recent quarrel, would have nothing to do with him. My half-brother was unhappy about the division of the family property, and opposed to it, but nevertheless he was so spiteful that I began to think that he must have had a grudge against father from some previous life. Father, for his part, worrying that I had not slept all night, was most solicitous, saying that I would feel better if I had a rest, and telling me to go outside and relax. My implacable stepmother, however, forgetting her place,24 bridled at this small concession. She hated me, and because I was taking care of father, was resentful enough to be unkind to him also. No matter how unpleas-

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Thanatologue / 

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ant things became, I could never have run away and deserted him. Third day. Clear. Jinseki told me that it was useless to give him any more medicine. I had relied on this physician as much as if he had been a God or a Buddha. Now, since he held out no hope, I would have liked to call upon the Buddha’s ineffable power, and invoke the compassion of all heavenly beings, but the tenets of my faith would not permit it.25 There was nothing I could do but wait helplessly for the end to come. Nevertheless, since that time was not yet, I decided to consult Do¯yu¯, the physician at Zenko¯ji,26 and quickly despatched a messenger to fetch him. Waiting for the doctor to arrive, I hoped that, if father could only hold on, he might still become his old self again. Just as the sun was setting and lamps were being placed at the gate I finally spied the doctor’s palanquin and quickly led him to the invalid, but Do¯yu¯ confirmed Jinseki’s diagnosis, declaring that father’s chance of surviving was less than one in ten thousand. With this last hope gone, I waited for the dawn, sustaining father with some hot water. Fourth day. Suddenly, unlike the day before, father’s color was good, and I was delighted when he announced he wanted something to eat. Apparently the previous night’s medicine had revived him, so I brought him some katakuri 27 which I had moistened, and he took it in tiny sips from a bowl. Sitting by his bedside I was somewhat relieved to hear Do¯yu¯ predict that so long as father’s condition got no worse he should soon start feeling better. When Dr. Do¯yu¯ left I accompanied him as far as the village of Furuma.28 The rain clouds had dispersed to the west and to the east, and in the unusually clear sky the cuckoos were calling boisterously. Probably they had been doing so for quite a while, but ever since father fell ill I had been waiting on him day

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 / Issa the Poet

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and night, so dazed and distracted that only now, for the very first time, I became aware of them. Hototogisu Ware mo kiai no yoki hi nari A cuckoo. I too feel good today. Suzume yo to no yurushi no detari kado no tsuki Allowed to go and cool off, I gaze at the moon by the front gate. This was a rice-planting day, when all planted together, so everyone was out working—members of the community, hired laborers, and even those who usually stayed at home—and I was left alone to look after him. So the shadows lengthened, and around supper time I put father to bed, because anybody who stopped by would feel uncomfortable at seeing him so sick. My half-brother kept on saying, ‘‘It would really be a blessing if father went now,’’ as much as to say that if he survived he would have lived too long. We have our parents only once in this life, so taking care of them should never be a chore, even if it were to take a hundred years; a ravening tiger will not eat its father and mother, while the crow, though we might despise it, will repay its parents by caring for them for fifty days. I just do not know how any human being, no matter how brazen, could say such a thing. So I was all the more attentive to father, preparing a lamp for him and massaging his head and his feet. Fifth day. The medicine seemed to be working, so I gave it to him at frequent intervals. I poked the charcoal fire and watched him as he slept quietly; his color appeared good and his pulse,

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Thanatologue / 

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when I took it, was steady. So I was happy, believing that he had a nine in ten chance of a complete recovery. At last I could see some hope of his being restored to health. Ashi moto e Itsu kitarishi yo Katatsuburi Well, snail, So when did you reach my feet? Sixth day. The sky was clear, and, having nothing to do but lie down, father was bored. Smoothing his bedclothes and calling me closer he started to tell me stories from the old days. ‘‘Let me see, when you were only two your mother died, and as you grew older you and your stepmother came to be on bad terms. Every day was a torment, and every night a misery; she gave me no peace. I soon realized that this would go on just as long as the two of you were together. So, when you were thirteen,29 in the hope that she might come around if you were just to go away for a while, I sent you off to Edo. You poor boy! Just three or four years more and I could have made you head of the family and given you some security while I enjoyed what time I had left. Instead I sent you off as a tender lad into the drudgery of domestic service. You must have thought me very cruel. But I had to do what I thought best at the time. Then this year I was planning to make a pilgrimage to the Twenty-Four Sites 30 and meet you in Edo, so that I might die clasping your hand, but instead you came here. It is destiny that has brought you back to nurse me. I can die now without any regrets,’’ he said tearfully, while I, prostrate, could not utter a word. Despite my obligation to him— deeper than snow on Mt. Fuji, unmelting even in summer, and deeper than double-dyed crimson—we had not been able to be together. I had spent twenty-five years drifting like a cloud, now

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 / Issa the Poet

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to the east, now to the west, and time had sped like a wheel rolling down a hill. Living apart from my father until my hair was covered with frost 31 was a far graver offense than any of the Five Great Sins.32 Silently I begged his pardon, and would have cried openly had I not been afraid of upsetting him. Drying my tears I pretended to smile and gave him his medicine, saying, ‘‘Don’t worry about that, just get better soon. Once you are well again I will be the Yataro¯ 33 I used to be, and happily cut grass and dig sod. Please forgive me for what I have done.’’ He was overjoyed. Seventh day. Clear. Senroku set off for Zenko¯ji to fetch some medicine. Father, finding the long summer days tedious, said he would like something to eat. As he did not fancy grain of any kind I wanted to find a pear for him, but we live in barren Shinano,34 where the pale snow lingers beneath green leaves, and where—even in summer—chill winds blow across moor and mountain. No sooner did father hear the call of the plum vendor at the gate than he demanded some green plums. Of course I would have liked to have him eat whatever he wanted, free of any restrictions, but this I could not allow, because the plums would have been bad for him. As it happened, however, even as he insisted his head seemed to droop drowsily, as if they were no longer worth the effort. Eighth day. Clear. It was a rest day after planting, so we had several visitors, both friends and strangers who had been brought here by word of mouth. Some came with sake, knowing he liked it, and others buckwheat flour. Father, sitting up happily, greeted them with hands clasped together. ‘‘Rather than leaving a pile of money when we die, let us enjoy a cup of wine while we still live,’’ says the poem,35 proving that Chinese and Japanese share the same feelings. Instead of having lavish memorial services for the dead, it is much better to make them com-

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Thanatologue / 

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fortable while they are alive. In this degenerate world we criticize others for minor defects, but overlook far greater shortcomings in ourselves. I felt quite inadequate, and was afraid that people would consider me a bad son. Ukegataki hito to umarete nayo take no Sugu naru michi ni hairu yoshimo kana Vouchsafed the precious gift of life, Let me tread the path of virtue As upright as the bamboo. Around eleven that evening, father, unable to sleep and finding the night long, asked me three, four, seven, nine times and more, ‘‘Isn’t it morning yet? Hasn’t the cock crowed?’’ but there was nothing except starlight, and, here and there, by the eaves, the dark shadows of firs and maples and the midnight cry of an owl. Somebody once imitated a cockcrow to have a barrier-gate opened, but only Heaven can brighten the darkness. Not knowing the spell required to put fire into a bag, and having no control over the sun,36 all I could do was light a lamp and keep watch over him as he slept. Tenth day. Clear. Father complained incessantly of wanting some pears to eat, so I went looking to see if there were any to be found, enquiring of friends, of those who were prosperous— wherever there might possibly be some. But even in summer this mountain village is so abjectly poor that nobody had so much as a single pear for me. Father had finished all his medicine, so I decided to go to Zenko¯ji and was ready to leave at daybreak. The early summer sky was clear, and what with the snow on the mountains, the spring flowers lingering under the trees, my happy memories of picnic parties in the hills,37 and the selfassured calls of the cuckoos, this day’s sunrise lifted my spirits

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 / Issa the Poet

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somehow. Reaching the Mure post town 38 a little after six, I remembered that it was here that my old father had come to say goodbye on that long-ago day, twenty-four years before, when I left for Edo. I could vaguely remember the sound of the river and the outlines of the hills. For some reason I felt happy, and there was nobody around to take any notice of me. Hurrying on, in the hope of finding the doctor at home, I reached Zenko¯ji at around eight o’clock. It seemed that Dr. Do¯yu¯ was still at breakfast, but I could hear his voice, and when I hastily described father’s condition to him, he immediately took his apothecary’s scoop and prepared some medicine for me. This town is believed to be the Buddha’s Pure Land,39 so it was crammed with stores. Shop curtains fluttered in the breeze, and people who had made their way here from all over the country, each one hoping to become a Buddha in the next life, were passing to and fro. Then there was I, who had come to fetch medicine for my father. I was also searching for some pears, and because I had to look everywhere for them, I was forced to make my devotions to the Buddha from a distance. Hastening to such dry goods stores and greengrocers as there were, I grew discouraged, for nobody knew where pears could be found. Once upon a time there were people who could dig bamboo shoots out of the snow or catch fish through the ice,40 but Heaven must have forsaken me, and Gods and Buddhas abandoned me, for I could not find a single pear. I shall always regret that devotion to my father alone was just not enough. I knew that he was looking forward to some pears, so, as I wondered what I could do to console him when I returned, my chest began to hurt, and I moistened the road with silent tears. To regain my composure I clasped my hands and bowed my head for a time, afraid that passersby, taking me for a madman, would make fun of me. Where else in these parts could I have found pears if not here? Empty-handed, and making for home with all speed so that he might have his

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Thanatologue / 

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medicine, I reached the town of Yoshida,41 where some ravens in the trees, seeing me, set up a clamor. Fearing this to be a bad omen, I hurried on heedless of any discomfort, and reached home so quickly that the shadows of the mountains showed it to be only two in the afternoon. Father appeared better than usual and was smiling, seemingly not put out even when he heard that I had failed to find him any pears. I was ashamed, but I told him the truth. To soothe him I then lied, and said, ‘‘I’ll go to Takada 42 tomorrow and ask there.’’ So I spent a deceitful night. Eleventh day. This was the day for clearing dry fields, and everyone went out with scythes and mattocks, leaving me alone with father. He was sleeping peacefully, so I prepared an infusion of medicine and brushed the flies away from his face. But then, as I watched over his ravaged features, he began to fret . . . about the future. ‘‘Here I am on my deathbed, wondering what will happen to you, while the rest of the family blames us and treats us like enemies. You can stay here as long as I’m alive to protect you, but how will you ever be able to stand up to them once I am gone? Those monsters 43 will pester you day and night. I can see it now, as clearly as in a mirror, that when the time comes, no matter what I say in my will, you are going to have to leave. But trouble and pain come to us all, so if, when you are old and infirm, you ever need to return here, the rest of the family will harass and ill-treat you as soon as they see you, as if you were no more than a cat or a dog. When that happens, even in my grave, I will be heartbroken and angry.’’ He wept freely as he spoke, and I too shed grateful tears. Being my father, he was concerned for me, poor waif that I am. At last, weeping still, I lifted my head and said, ‘‘Please don’t fret over things like that. I would give my life if only you could recover. Get better quickly, I beg you. If such is your wish, I shall take a wife and do anything you

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 / Issa the Poet

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want.’’ He smiled contentedly. At noon, people started coming in from the fields. Twelfth day. Despite strict orders from the doctor the invalid kept drinking cold water, and when I offered him boiled water he was so feverish that he complained that it was tepid. But I felt uneasy about giving him anything that was likely to be bad for him. Father, on the other hand, took not the slightest notice of the doctor’s instructions, declaring them much too harsh. So my stepmother, who just the day before had been at odds with him, now encouraged him to drink three or four bowls of well water, ignoring the harm it might do him. ‘‘This is really pure water, not like the miserable stuff I was given before. Issa has been deceiving me,’’ he grumbled. What is the point in trying to be kind and thoughtful when the wicked have the upper hand?—look at what happened to Pi Kan, who had his breast ripped open for rebuking King Chou.44 After that father drank more than a gallon of cold water each day, and there was nothing I could do as I sat by his bedside, unable to condemn the wrongs staring me in the face. A good medicine, even if it is unpalatable, can cure illness, and a rebuke, although not pleasant to hear, can save a household from disaster. Yet father smiled at those who offered him poison and criticized those who suggested remedies. If everyone in the family really wished father to recover, how could they ever have wanted him to take poison? It is all very difficult to understand. Thirteenth day. This day, father, who was in an especially good humor, announced that he would like some sake, but because the doctor had strictly forbidden so much as a drop I did not want him to have any until he was fully recovered. ‘‘If you’ve refused him one of his favorite things and he dies,’’ commented

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Thanatologue / 

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a visitor, ‘‘you’ll regret it, but by then you won’t be able to do anything about it. He is so fond of sake, so do change your mind and let him have a mouthful or two—it needn’t be much.’’ At this the troublemakers, who were listening eagerly, exchanged glances, and pestered me to let the invalid do as he pleased. ‘‘Give him some, give him some, give him some,’’ they urged. Father, accepting it gleefully, swallowed it as a whale might gulp down the ocean, his whole face expressing his relief and satisfaction. Over the course of the morning he finished almost two pints. Even a three-year-old would have been shocked by such reckless behavior, for father was so sick that he had not eaten anything for twenty days. My palms were sweating, but I could not resist the two of them 45 on my own and found it impossible to reprimand them. On the surface they seemed solicitous of father, but this was simply to hide the fact that secretly they would be happier if he died. Fourteenth day. Looking at his face that morning I noticed a puffiness that had not been there the day before. This was a drunkard’s face, I thought, and when I carefully examined his head, hands, and feet I found that the swelling had doubled. I wondered if there might be some cure for alcoholic poisoning, but in this benighted town that was unlikely. I was completely at a loss. Like everyone who wants to see what is hidden and eat what is forbidden, father was calling for sake again. This time, even though it meant opposing him, I declared that it must not be. He began to complain angrily. ‘‘You’re no doctor,’’ he fulminated, raising his voice, ‘‘you know nothing. What harm was there in drinking yesterday?—it didn’t hurt me. Don’t just stand there, bring me some at once.’’ Unable to dissuade him, I brought a bowlful and he drank it, smacking his lips. He would have liked another, but I urged him to leave it at that. A visitor

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 / Issa the Poet

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observed that my father seemed thirsty, but just as fuel feeds a fire so there is nothing like sake for raising fever. Fifteenth day. Concerned at father’s appearance, I waited until I could examine him at dawn, when I found that a rather worrying dark tinge had begun to show near the tip of his nose. I wanted to have the doctor see father promptly, but he was fifteen miles away,46 and if I was the only one worried about it, then calling him in without the family’s consent would have been about as much use as a praying mantis swinging an axe,47 so nothing was achieved that day. Since becoming bedridden father had applied himself diligently to reading the sutras day and night, but it made me sad to hear how his voice had changed as, lying there in the dim lamplight, he said his prayers. Eager to get better, he would wait impatiently each night for the dawn to come, and then every day he would wait for the evening. Then, yearning for dawn once more, the invalid would be pleased when, much to my relief, the cock crowed his tidings. Sixteenth day. Clear. His face was puffy, and that troubled me. However, some visitors told me that with this kind of fever there was no need for concern once twenty days had passed. ‘‘After this long he is out of danger,’’ they declared. ‘‘Just bear up, and keep looking after him.’’ But at the same time other visitors came to his bedside and urged him to recite the nenbutsu. ‘‘Don’t forget how important these last hours are,’’ they would say. Still others would ostentatiously chant it themselves. People who really wanted my father to recover liked to encourage him, but those who were jealous of him talked of death, even though this was probably more realistic. What else can you expect from a community totally untouched by Buddha’s teachings? ‘‘It would be a fitting end if father passed away now,’’

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Thanatologue / 

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family members whispered to each other, my half-brother chief among them. Not one of them wanted him to recover. Such vicious contempt reminds me of nothing so much as this region’s tradition of sending old women off to die.48 Seventeenth day. I was worried that each day his face seemed more swollen, and that phlegm had begun to rattle in his throat. From the very beginning he had had a little phlegm, and because this, like the puffiness, was what concerned me most about his illness, I used sugar to suppress it. Until this time it had not been too severe, but now it was out of control so I sent word to Jinseki at Nojiri. All day I waited for him impatiently, but something must have prevented him from coming. I used to long for the dawn, even through those brief summer nights, but because the doctor still had not come, that night I especially looked forward to daybreak. By breakfast, however, father seemed a little better. Eighteenth day. At dawn father’s spirits seemed a little improved, and he announced that he wished to sit up. Delighted, I wrapped him in his bedclothes and he stayed sitting up for a time. Then, when his breathing became labored, he wanted to lie down again. Just then Jinseki arrived and examined him at once. ‘‘His pulse is good,’’ said the physician, ‘‘but the puffiness and the phlegm are still there; let me give you something to reduce the swelling.’’ Immediately he took his scoop, mixed some medicine, quickly made an infusion, and gave it to the patient. This made my father urinate freely, and then, feeling better, he slept soundly. While I was giving his feet their regular massage, he suddenly opened his eyes. ‘‘You are good to have taken care of me, day and night, for so long. Fate has brought us together through the bond that exists between a father and a son. Don’t ever regret it,’’ he said, weeping bitterly. ‘‘Each one of us is obligated to the

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 / Issa the Poet

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parents who gave us life,’’ I replied, ‘‘so you would never be a burden to me, not even if you were to be sick for another ten or twenty years. Please don’t worry—just get well.’’ ‘‘I believe I shall recover,’’ he said, ‘‘but this could be a fatal illness. If I die, I want you to take a wife, and stay here in this province. Don’t disobey me when I am dead.’’ ‘‘With the gods of heaven and earth as my witnesses, I shall not disobey your kind words once you are gone—nor could I, even if I had a heart of stone,’’ I replied soothingly. ‘‘Please believe me.’’ With that he went back to sleep. The day passed quickly. At around four in the morning, as I had to go to Zenko¯ji on business, I announced that father needed some sugar.49 My stepmother, already in a bad mood, grew angry. ‘‘So much sugar,’’ she complained, calculating the cost. ‘‘Does he want more still? What an extravagance—he’s dying.’’ So we argued to and fro. Father needed sugar to loosen his phlegm, but he had occasionally urged me to eat some too, so she may have berated me because she suspected that I wanted it for myself. Some people can be very petty. In the end I did not get the sugar. This evening at around eleven father developed a high fever and said, ‘‘I want some cold water.’’ As I went to fetch it, he called out to warn me to take care not to fall down the well, as if he thought me still a child. My stepmother, who had been asleep, heard this and immediately flew into a rage, eyes blazing and hair standing on end. ‘‘Are you that fond of your precious son?’’ she cried, glaring venomously at me. Nineteenth day. Until this time he would wake each morning with a happy smile, but now he did not want any hot water, and the color of his complexion was not what I would have wished. In the afternoon his illness grew worse. No longer fretful, and not demanding that I plump up this or smooth out that, he lay prone, like a wooden Buddha, just sleeping quietly. ‘‘When the

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Thanatologue / 

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plague god leaves, it is not unusual for an invalid to sleep for three or four days without eating anything,’’ observed a visitor. Father was delighted to hear this, so eager was he to recover, and I too was relieved, thinking that I had been a good nurse. At four in the morning, when everyone was asleep, and the only noise the occasional cry of an owl, I lay down in the dim lamplight and dozed for a while, overcome by the fatigue of the last few days. Just then, when everything was quiet, my father opened his eyes wide and said, ‘‘W . . . w . . . we must go. Walk with me.’’ ‘‘Where do you want to go?’’ I asked. ‘‘Isn’t it obvious?— ‘I fervently beseech the Buddha that I might be reborn in Paradise,’ ’’ 50 he chanted with all his old vigor. This seemed ominous, and I was alarmed, but nevertheless I listened quietly, thinking that he must be delirious. When he kept on saying he wanted to leave immediately, I pretended to get up. ‘‘It’s time to go,’’ he said. ‘‘Time to go,’’ I repeated also, over and over again, ‘‘Time to go,’’ at which he went quietly back to sleep. Thinking about it later, that was the last thing he said, and those his final words. Twentieth day. His fever gradually mounted, and in the morning all he ate was a little gruel. From noon onwards his complexion grew more and more pallid and his eyelids began to droop. All he did was move his lips as if he wanted to say something. Even his breathing, hampered by the phlegm rattling in his throat, grew fainter, and around two o’clock, as the afternoon sun shone through the window, his life neared its end. He could not recognize anyone, and there seemed little hope left for him. I would have given my life to see him restored to health once more, and able to eat all those harmful things I had forbidden, but he was beyond the help even of Jivaka and Pien Ch’ueh.51 No heavenly power could save him now, so the only thing I could do was to recite the nenbutsu.

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 / Issa the Poet

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Nesugata no hae ou mo Kyo¯ kagiri kana Can this be the last time I brush flies away As you sleep? So the day ended, and all I could do was moisten his unresponsive lips with water from a bowl by his bed. As the moon of this twentieth day shone through the window, and all were asleep, just as the cock could be heard crowing in the distance, father’s labored breathing grew faint, and the phlegm, which from the very beginning had worried me so much, began to choke him. If his life was about to end, at least let me clear his throat, I thought, but I did not have the skills of the incomparable Hua T’o.52 While I was regretting that there was nothing I could do but wait for the end—for the gods had not taken pity on my grief—a bright day began to dawn. Around five o’clock father stopped breathing, as if asleep. If it were only a dream that he had become a lifeless shell, then I wanted to wake up; but dreaming or not I felt that a light had gone out in the darkness. When dawn came there was no longer anyone to whom I could turn. ‘‘The ephemeral blossoms of spring scatter in the breeze, and in this world of impermanence the autumn moon, like the snow, will vanish.’’ Still more apt, ‘‘It is the way of the world that all who live must die, and all who meet must part.’’ 53 As these phrases tell us, it is a path we all have to tread, but in my ignorance I had not realized that he was so near death. Although I had stayed awake each night watching over him, like foam he vanished in an instant. Now even those who had been at odds with father, quarreling with him until the very day he died, gathered around his body, weeping bitterly and choking out prayers, as

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Thanatologue / 

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they realized that vows of lifelong devotion would remain forever unfulfilled. Twenty-first day. The priest was at Shiozaki, eighteen miles away, so it was decided to hold the funeral on the twenty-second, but even so family friends came over, and for a time we managed to keep grief at bay by making paper flowers. As the sunlight inched up the wall, the raven, announcing the coming of night, flew back towards the western hills, and the sound of the evening bell reverberated briefly above us. Evenings are sad enough at the best of times, but once most of those who had gathered had gone home, even the lamplight seemed dimmer than usual, adding to the general dejection. Thinking to look my last on my father this evening, I slept near his body, and, as he lay there, regarded him through the wisps of incense. On the morning he passed away he had laughed as he spoke of old times and of what was to come, but that night he changed into an empty husk. Looking back upon it, the last time I saw his smiling face was on the day he died. Every morning, even when he was in pain, he had always been in fairly good spirits. Through the brief summer nights, while he waited impatiently for daybreak, I had looked forward to seeing his happy face at dawn, resenting it when the bells declared it still to be night, and chiding the cock for being late. This time, however, knowing that the following dawn was to part us forever, and how sad the next day would be, I was sick at heart and bruised in spirit. In this lonely room I kept watch over his lifeless countenance, oblivious to the bitter tears which blinded me. Until this time I had thought the nights overlong, but this particular one passed all too quickly. Twenty-second day. Some friends gathered, and placed his poor body in the coffin. Now even his remains gave people some-

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 / Issa the Poet

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thing to gossip about. That’s the way things are in this heartless world. I was the firstborn in our family, but something in a previous existence must have made it impossible for me to stay with my father and be as a son to him. Perhaps in some former life I had spoken ill of others, causing Heaven to punish me with this misfortune, because otherwise I had certainly never wasted father’s money, whether by gambling or enjoying myself. Every attempt I had made to be a good son had been thwarted by these spiteful wretches, to such an extent that there was never a moment’s peace in the household. When I made my departure, alone, at the age of thirteen, in the very springtime of my life, my father—no doubt believing it would be for the best if I left home for a time—accompanied me as far as Mure. ‘‘Don’t eat any bad food,’’ he said. ‘‘Don’t let people think ill of you. Come back when you have made your fortune, and let me see your shining face again.’’ At these solicitous words I too burst into tears. Then, reluctantly, I tried to be brave, so that those nearby should not laugh at me, and that father should not see my steps falter. After that my calling took me to many different provinces —in the east I sang to the moon at Matsushima and Kisakata, and in the west I declaimed to the flowers at Yoshino and Ohase 54—always on the move, unpredictable as the lightning, until now my head is covered with snow. It was my lot to spend my days passing from mountain to mountain, and from shore to shore, never dreaming that in coming to this desolate and remote mountain village it would be for my father’s death. Some strange chance brought me here to care for him from the very beginning of his illness to the end, proving that the bond between us had not been severed. Father was proud that the august Suwa god 55 had brought us together again. Just at four in the afternoon the rain showers ceased, and as the evening sun dried the raindrops from the grass the priest

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Thanatologue / 

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from Shiozaki finally arrived. It was time for the funeral. My father’s female relatives, oblivious of everything else, picked their way wailing along the sodden path, their heads covered with white cotton cloth. I tried to conceal a grief too deep for words but could not hide my tears. We did not have far to go before the coffin was set down on a grassy rise. It all seemed unreal to me as I held my incense in nerveless fingers. The priest recited the funeral sentences, and the coffin turned to smoke. All things change. Twenty-third day. At daybreak we all broke branches from deutzia bushes to use in retrieving his ashes and set off for the graveyard.56 That morning the last faint wisps of smoke had disappeared; all that remained was the breeze soughing mournfully through the pines. When father and I met on that evening in spring we had celebrated with cups of sake. This time, gathering his white bones, I bade him a sad farewell. Just as pleasure and anger, sorrow and joy intertwine with each other, so in this world we meet only to part. There is nothing remarkable about this, but I came back home depending on my father; to whose protection could I turn now? With neither wife nor child to comfort me, I was alone, vulnerable as a bubble, insignificant as dust before the wind. But I had to keep on living. Ikinokoru ware ni kakaru ya Kusa no tsuyu Left alone I too, like the grass, Am drenched with dew. That afternoon those assembled all joined in reminiscing, so that for a time sadness seemed forgotten. Most of them went home in the evening, but I had become so accustomed to the

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 / Issa the Poet

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sickroom, even though it was now bathed in bright lamplight, that I felt briefly as if I were waiting for my father to awaken. My eyes still retained the image of his suffering face, and my ears the sound of his voice calling to me. Dozing, I would see him in my dreams; awake, his image stood before me. Yoruyoru ni kamakeraretaru Nomi ka kana My only distraction, night after night, Was the fleas and mosquitoes. Running water never returns to its source, nor a spark to its flint. So regrets are pointless, but the bonds I relied on had all been sundered, and now, a friendless orphan, I felt like a lonely exile in a strange land. Just thinking of it made me wretched. Twenty-eighth day. This was the seventh day after his death.57 While father was alive he had spoken to others of his wish that I should take a wife and remain here, as he had instructed me also, but there were some who, feigning deafness, pretended not to have heard. In particular those who were driven by greed denied his last request. Consequently I could have refused to argue with them and resumed my rootless existence. Penniless and alone, I would not have been ashamed to escape the wind or shelter from the rain by hiding among rocks and trees. But submitting without a word would have meant that I too had disobeyed father’s wishes. Even a bad flint will give a spark when you strike it, and a broken bell a sound when tolled. So I did discuss the division of family property, thinking that were I to leave the village entirely without compensation I would have ignored my dead father’s wish. As he intended, I finally left the decision in the hands of the family head,58 and there the matter rested.

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Thanatologue / 

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Chichi arite Akebono mitashi Aotahara Were father here We could see these green fields at dawn Together. E A man who habitually referred to himself as ‘‘Issa the stepson,’’ ‘‘Issa, chief of the Shinano beggars,’’ 59 and who, at least in his later years, came to brood on, and magnify, the injustices he had suffered, was unlikely to entertain anything but the most pessimistic of outlooks. Unfortunately, later events gave him little or no cause to change his mind. The rest of his life was to be marked by one tragedy after another. Certainly his financial circumstances improved, although not for some time, and not without a protracted struggle. Issa’s claim, as the eldest son, to the bulk of his father’s estate was by no means watertight. In Shinano, unlike many other parts of Japan, it was not unusual for family property to be divided equally among the sons. In this case, too, the value of that property had increased considerably during Issa’s absence. Between , the year Issa left home, and , when Yagobei died, the family’s holdings had more than doubled in size and productivity, much of it in the form of rice paddy, which had increased fourfold. This, to no small extent, could be attributed first to the efforts of Issa’s stepmother who, a good farmer’s wife, would have done her share of work in the fields, and subsequently to those of Senroku, Issa’s half-brother, on whose shoulders would have fallen, piece by piece, the responsibilities of the aging Yagobei.60 Not unnaturally, neither would have welcomed the pros-

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 / Issa the Poet

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pect of sharing what they had amassed with a soft-handed poet from Edo. It was to take Issa more than a decade to win a settlement, although admittedly it seems that for a time he did not try. Six years elapsed after Yagobei’s death before he was to visit Kashiwabara again, perhaps because his hopes for the future still lay in the metropolis. If so, those hopes remained unfulfilled when, in , at the urging of a maternal uncle, he began negotiations with his half-brother. These quickly broke down, but were resumed three months later, early in , when Senroku came to visit him in Edo. That summer, Issa returned to Kashiwabara for the thirty-third anniversary of his grandmother’s death, and it was then that the parties moved towards an understanding. Under its terms—which, from the point of view of Satsu and Senroku, were generous—Issa would receive paddy with an assessed annual productivity of . koku, upland assessed at over . koku, three stands of trees, and the southern half of the family home, together with household goods and bedding. But Issa wanted more. It had been seven years since Yagobei’s death, seven years over which Issa had received nothing from the estate, and seven years during which Senroku had enjoyed full use of Issa’s portion as well as his own. As recompense for those lost years, Issa demanded thirty gold pieces. When Senroku refused, Issa went back to Edo, and although he returned to the village briefly in , , and , it was not until  when, thanks to the mediation of a local priest, the matter was settled, with Issa accepting eleven gold pieces rather than the original thirty. Early in  the poet finally took possession of his patrimony and returned to live anew in his native village.61 His newfound security came at a price, however. These days, while Issa may be Kashiwabara’s favorite son, and chief touristic money-spinner, at the time he was thoroughly disliked. At the height of his confrontation with Senroku, long before set-

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Epilogue / 

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tling down in Kashiwabara, the poet had been made aware that the villagers, who knew and respected his half-brother, regarded him as an interloper. Yuki no hi ya Furusatobito mo Buashirai A snowy day And my fellow-villagers Receive me coolly.62 ‘‘I have come  miles’’ he complained in his diary during a brief visit in the summer of , when relations with his family were as tense as ever, ‘‘and there is nowhere for me to stay in my native village.’’ 63 Settling down in Kashiwabara four years later proved, therefore, an uncomfortable transition. Issa was a virtual stranger, and a grasping one, at that. Unlike Senroku, who was known to the hardworking community as a diligent and capable farmer, Issa was nothing of the kind. Despite having insisted on his share—more than his share, in the eyes of many— of the family property, the poet proceeded to do little or nothing with it. Any likelihood of his reverting to the Yataro¯ he had once been, content to ‘‘cut grass and dig sod,’’ had receded over more than thirty years of writing poetry. Now well into his fifties and—as he noted somewhat obsessively—aging badly,64 Issa was in no condition to return to agricultural labor. So he kept doing what he did best, writing his poems and instructing his students, leaving his land to be worked by tenants.65 As late as , after five years of residence back in his native village, he still felt the sting of the community’s disapproval: Kokyo¯ wa Hae made Hito o sashinikeri

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 / Issa the Poet

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Even the flies Will bite you In my hometown.66 Having fought so bitterly with his stepmother and halfbrother, he might have anticipated them to be even more implacably hostile than the rest of the village. If anything, the circumstances of his return were virtually calculated to heighten tensions between them. After all, Issa was moving back into a family home which had literally been divided into two halves, with a newly installed wall separating his half from that of Satsu, Senroku, and the latter’s wife. It was an unpromising start, but, oddly enough, despite the animosity which seethes through Chichi no shu¯en nikki, relations between the two warring halves of the family seem for the most part to have been, if distant, at least superficially polite. Issa’s diary entries from  onwards, which record numerous shared meals, testify to at least a modest degree of interaction. Frequently those meals coincided with Issa’s visits to the family graves, suggesting that on this issue, if on no other, the two halves of Yagobei’s family could find common ground. Clearly, however, Issa’s animosity towards his stepmother (dubbed ‘‘the Old Termagant’’ 67 as late as ) was never completely assuaged. Issa, fifty-one when he returned to take up residence in Kashiwabara, immediately took advantage of his newfound security. Within two months of settling in, baldness and toothlessness notwithstanding, he had taken a bride. Kiku, his wife, then twenty-seven, was a little over half his age. ‘‘For fifty years I have known not a single carefree day,’’ he wrote, ‘‘but finally this year I took a wife, heedless of my burden of years. Here I am stupidly enjoying myself, as blithe as a butterfly among tender blossoms—how embarrassing.’’ 68 It would be reassuring at this point to declare that Issa and his wife lived happily ever after, but

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Epilogue / 

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from the evidence that would be difficult. His diary references to his wife are laconic in the extreme: on his wedding day, ‘‘My wife came’’; on the birth of his first child, ‘‘The woman Kiku gave birth to a son’’; on the birth of his second, ‘‘Kiku gave birth to a girl.’’ More than anything else they suggest a marriage of convenience—an elderly man in need of a sturdy housekeeper cum baby-maker cum farm laborer. One entry, in particular, suggests even less than that: ‘‘Overcast, occasional rain, the woman Kiku died.’’ 69 Not even his many references to their vigorous sex life offer a softer image of their relationship. For the first eighteen months or so of marriage Issa’s diary made no mention of any couplings, but early in  this changed, and such notations, despite some lacunae, were to persist up to the beginning of . There were several peaks of activity—as, for example, in the autumn of , when, within the space of thirteen days the poet recorded thirty acts of intercourse. Equally there were fallow periods; over the nine years of this marriage, Issa was away from home much more often than not. When he was at home, however, there is no mistaking that marital sex, after a year and a half of marriage, had suddenly assumed enormous significance for him.70 The question is why. Was it due to his overpowering affection for his wife? Not if the otherwise casual references to her are any indication. Was it the natural response of a newly married man to deliverance from a life of celibacy? Hardly; there is evidence to suggest that the fifty-one-year-old poet was no virgin, and even if he had been, he might well have started to keep score earlier, rather than waiting twenty months. For that matter, such strenuous activity did not come easily to the elderly poet. In , after a little more than twelve months of marriage, he noted that he had been into the hills to gather some inyo¯kaku, a wild plant famous for its aphrodisiac properties. By the summer of  he

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 / Issa the Poet

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was off looking for some more, and also collecting another similar plant, osei, which he would either drink, after infusing it in sake, or eat whole. In , presumably disappointed in these homespun remedies, he turned to something more sophisticated and bought a jar of kuroyaki.71 There was more to this relentless activity than natural affection. By birth, Issa, as the elder son, should automatically have been recognized as the head of his particular branch of the Kobayashi lineage. But that was only by birth. That position had been ceded by default to his half-brother, something of which Issa was aware, and which he resented. It is more than likely that he intended to reclaim his position, together with the authority and regard that went with it. No sooner had Issa taken up residence in Kashiwabara, for example, than he took possession of the family’s butsudan, the ancestral shrine; the settlement had called for the two siblings to share it between them, but Issa, with money he could ill afford, bought Senroku out and set up the shrine in his half of the family home. It was the same impulse which later caused him to borrow the family register from the local temple and to begin making a copy of his family tree, along with the ancestral death dates. In the context of this intrafamily power struggle, the poet’s sexual marathons therefore take on a different dimension. Rather than the uxorious Issa, they point to Issa the would-be patriarch. Related to this is the fact that, towards the end of , just eight and a half months after his marriage, he began to record the onset of his wife’s menses. It is also worth noting the contexts in which references to intercourse appear. Early in  Issa’s diary carried the first of several similar entries: ‘‘Visited graves, snow in the evening, intercourse.’’ Both themes—the visits to family graves, and the onset of Kiku’s periods—can be linked with bouts of sexual activity.72 It is not hard to see why. Like visiting parental graves, hav-

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Epilogue / 

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ing children was an important part of filial obligation. One of Eisen’s pornographic works, touching on the subject of erectile disfunction (for which the recommended cure is the same inyo¯kaku, steeped in sake), makes a direct connection. ‘‘It is sad . . . if through impotence a man is unable to have connection with a woman; to be without descendants is unfilial to one’s ancestors. . . .’’ 73 For Issa, intent on reclaiming his rightful position, this duty would have been particularly pressing, for this was one area where he could assert his superiority. Senroku, his rival, although married, was still childless.74 It was all very well to claim custody of the family’s ancestry, their spirits enshrined in the butsudan and their histories copied from temple records, but without a son the rights and responsibilities these symbolized would ultimately pass to the younger Senroku. So, too, would Issa’s share of the property, erasing the advantage won through ten bruising years of bargaining. To Issa, accompanied to the connubial mat by ambition, obligation, and spite, every one of Kiku’s periods was an admission of failure, simultaneously a reproof and a goad, a reminder of another opportunity lost, and an admonition to try harder. His palpable eagerness for a successor makes his story all the more tragic. Over a six-year period, between  and , he fathered four children. Over a seven-year period, between  and , he saw them all die, one after the other, along with the wife who had borne them. Sentaro¯, his first child, whose birth in the late spring of  perhaps owed something to the aphrodisiac Issa had gathered eleven months before, died in less than a month. Two weeks after the funeral the single-minded poet set off in search of more of the same plant. Possibly with its help, three months later, as soon as Kiku’s periods had resumed, Issa, at the age of fifty-four, conducted his first recorded sexual marathon, although without immediate success.75

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 / Issa the Poet

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In contrast to the death of Issa’s father, that of Sentaro¯, his firstborn son, was recorded offhandedly: ‘‘Rain this afternoon. I returned to Kashiwabara. The boy born on the fourteenth day of the fourth month died at the hour of the Tiger,’’ and indeed Issa, who was away from home, saw him only the once. A year later, near the anniversary of the child’s death, Issa produced a poem which, while recognizing the futility of attachment to anything in a transitory world, nevertheless lamented the loss: Tsuyu no yo wa tokushin nagara sarinagara I understand That this is a world of dew But even so . . .76 His daughter, Sato, was born two years later, but the following year, in the middle of the sixth month, she contracted smallpox and ten days later, despite the bear gall her father bought for her, she was dead. Issa’s journal entry for the day of her death reads: ‘‘Fine weather. Visited graves in the evening. The girl Sato spent four hundred days in this world, Issa saw her for one hundred and seventy-five of them. No doubt it was meant to be. She died today at the hour of the Snake, and was buried at the hour of the Sheep. The funeral feast took place this evening.’’ 77 But this was not her only memorial. Issa’s collection of prose and poetry, Oraga haru, which begins with New Year’s Day in , the year of her death, also mentions her at rather more length.78 From Oraga haru I set an adult portion of zo¯ni 79 before my daughter, who was born in the fifth month of last year:

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Epilogue / 

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Hae, warae futatsu ni naru zo kesa kara wa Go ahead, crawl and laugh. You’re two today.80 Last summer, around the time for planting bamboos, my daughter was born into this melancholy and impermanent world. I named her Sato 81 in the hope that, even if she were not now particularly wise, she might become so. From the beginning of this year she started to wave her arms, stroke her head, and wag it from side to side. Wanting a paper windmill of the sort popular among children, she kept on fretting until I got her one, but then she chewed on it and soon threw it away. Impulsively she immediately shifted her attention to something else, breaking a nearby bowl, but then she quickly lost interest in that, too. When I said, ‘‘What a good girl,’’ to her for shredding some paper, she laughed merrily and tore it all the more. There is not a trace of malice in her; when I look at her, as pure as a moonbeam, it is like watching an expert at work, and it wipes all my cares away. When visitors come, and ask, ‘‘Where’s the puppy-dog?’’ she points to it. When they ask, ‘‘Where’s the birdie?’’ she points to a crow. She is delightful, utterly winsome from top to toe, and more charming than butterflies sporting among spring flowers. She must be under Buddha’s protection, for when I lit candles before the butsudan and rang the bell in memory of the dead, she came

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 / Issa the Poet

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crawling busily from wherever she might have been and, with her tiny hands knitted fernlike together, she gently, discreetly and reverently intoned ‘‘Namu namu. . . .’’ But it is the way of the world that too much happiness is an invitation to grief. To my horror our merry two-year-old, our sturdy pine sapling, was suddenly captured by the Smallpox God before she had been able to taste even half of life’s joys. Covered with pustules, she was like a fragile blossom battered by mud and rain. It was agony just to stand by and watch. This went on for two or three days, but then the pustules dried up, and, just as snow melt rinses away dirt, so the scabs fell away. For good luck, we fashioned a toy boat, containing a mixture of sake and water, and sailed it away, so that it might take the Smallpox God with it, but she grew all the weaker, and we despaired. Finally, on the twentyfirst day of the sixth month, along with the morning glories, she faded away. Her mother clung to her dead body, weeping bitterly. I concede that water can never return to its source, nor scattered blossoms to their branch, but even so the bonds of affection are hard to break. Tsuyu no yo wa Tsuyu no yo nagara Sarinagara It is true that this world of dew is a world of dew. But even so . . .

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Epilogue / 

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Issa’s third child, Ishitaro¯, or Stone Boy—presumably named in the hope that a child so called might be impervious to the maladies that had taken his brother and sister—fared no better. Issa greeted his birth with a hopeful poem, playing on the child’s name: Iwa ni wa toku nare Sazare Ishitaro¯ Hurry, little pebble, Grow into a rock.82 But within three months he too was dead, suffocating on his mother’s back. Issa described the circumstances in a brief note.83 Mourning Ishitaro¯ As the Sage once said, probably with a weary sigh, ‘‘Women and servants are hard to deal with. They resent it if you keep your distance from them, but let them come too close and they become presumptuous.’’ 84 This is more true than ever in these degenerate times. My old wife Kiku 85 is as stubborn as a one-leaved rush. Tell her something for her own good, and it might just as well be the sound of the wind for all the attention she pays. That is precisely why our first two children met untimely deaths. This time, trying to prevent a third tragedy, I named the child Ishitaro¯ in the pathetic hope that, like a mighty boulder, he would withstand the rain and the wind, escape being crushed by his mother, and enjoy a long life. I told her a thousand times a day: ‘‘Don’t carry this little pebble on your back until he is a hundred days old, and grown into a

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 / Issa the Poet

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hundred-pound corner-stone.’’ But for some unknown reason, early this morning, ninety-six days after his birth, she put him on her back and he was smothered. How tragic that, in the blink of an eye, the dreadful face of death has replaced what were once happy smiles. When I think about it, the stone of which I had such hopes will now be a gravestone. What sin can I have committed in some previous existence that I should now be cursed with misfortune after misfortune?’’ 86 Issa grieved, too, that this child, born and dying in the harsh winter of the Japan Alps, had known nothing but cold—and unusual cold, at that. ‘‘For ninety-six days,’’ wrote the poet some weeks later, in warmer weather, ‘‘he endured the chill glare of snow, and it grieves me that he knew no warmth in this life—if only he could have lived this long.’’ 87 Konzaburo¯, Issa’s third son, and the fourth of his children, was born just a year after Ishitaro¯’s death. In , however, shortly before his first birthday, his mother, Kiku, fell ill. From the cryptic journal entries it is impossible to say just what form her illness took, but what is certain is that by the second month of that year her condition was giving Issa cause for concern. His diary charts her rapid decline, marked by dizzy spells and vomiting, despite visits from doctors, acupuncture, and herbal remedies for nerves and dropsy. Initially, despite her illness, Kiku seems to have been able to nurse her child, but within a few weeks, so Issa’s diary notes, he was reduced to buying milk from a nearby village. Two weeks later he engaged the services of a wetnurse, the daughter of Tomiemon, the poet’s part-time handyman, from Akashibu village.88 None of this activity saved Kiku’s life—she died a month later, at the age of thirty-six—nor, for

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Epilogue / 

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that matter, as the following extract foreshadows, was it to prolong the life of her last surviving child by very much.89 A Lament for Konzaburo¯ There is a fine, upstanding woodsman whose name is Tomiemon. He lives in Akashibu village, at the foot of Mt. Kurohime. I considered him a decent fellow, and would hire him every year to do such heavy work as I could not manage myself. This year, when my wife was seriously ill, and I was looking everywhere for a wet-nurse, Tomiemon said: ‘‘My daughter has so much milk that it absolutely gushes out, exactly as if spilling out of a barrel. She has more than enough to be a wet-nurse.’’ Inveigled by these honeyed promises, and knowing nothing of the daughter’s condition, I took the father at his word and, on the sixteenth day of the fourth month, I sent the child over to Akashibu. Almost immediately I received word that by the following day the boy was suffering from a stomach upset, so I despatched some medicine for him and then thought no more about it. At the time, during the height of summer, I was totally preoccupied with caring for my sick wife. It is possible that her interaction with the irritable and prickly Old Termagant 90 had caused her to fall so disastrously ill, but in any case her spirit—a sad, withered leaf on a delicate plant —was not long for this world. There was no dew for this leaf from the God of Leaves, and no relief to be gained from April showers, so each day her color ebbed a little more. Finally, at daybreak on the twelfth day of the fifth month she faded sadly away.

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 / Issa the Poet

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Well, unfortunately there is simply no way a fallen blossom can be attached again to its branch. I had the motherless child brought over to attend the funeral with me, so that he might bid his mother farewell in this world. When I had sent him over to Akashibu he had been smiling, and just starting to crawl, but now, for whatever reason, he was dreadfully changed. He seemed to have wasted away. His stomach was sunken, and his ribs protruded palely through skin as transparent as gauze. His voice was as faint as the buzzing of a mosquito, and his limbs as thin as iron nails. He stared listlessly at the sky through half-closed eyes, his pupils rolled back. No heavier than a cicada husk in the wind, he gasped for breath like a fish out of water. All who saw him commented that he would surely not be with us for very long, and that in their opinion, sadly, the smoke from his funeral pyre would soon mingle with that of his mother’s. Then, that night, when the cremation was over, this girl from Akashibu slept in the same room with all of us. No doubt not wishing anyone to see her breasts, she pushed the child’s head close to her bosom and pretended to feed him. At length she gave him some water to drink. Thinking this suspicious, and wanting to see how she was doing it, I turned up the lamp. The unobstructed view showed me that her chest was as flat as a man’s, with absolutely no sign of anything resembling breasts. So that was it. Right from the start she had been giving him water to drink instead of milk, and to deceive me had kept on blaming his stomach upset. Tragi-

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Epilogue / 

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cally, all the child could now bring up was some pink matter. It is enough to make one weep that Tomiemon, this beast that looks like a man, was capable of cheating me before my very eyes, and that, rather than simply steal my food and clothing, he was prepared to treat another human being so ruthlessly, so pitilessly, and so harshly. Whether the wretch just wanted money, or whether he bore me a grudge, I do not know, but whatever the case what he did was worse than infamous. Mono ienu warabe no kuchi o Akashibu no mizu hameru to wa oni mo esejina Feeding Akashibu water to a defenseless child— Not even a devil would stoop to such a trick. Wondering how the child felt, and how, deprived of milk for more than twenty days, he must have suffered . . . Chichi koishi koishi to yami no mushi no naki akashiken naki kurashiken Morning and evening, ‘‘I want some milk, I want some milk’’ sings the basket worm.91 As this account continues, Issa immediately reclaimed his son and made arrangements for him to go to a woman from Nakajima village. This produced a slight recovery, and Issa concludes his story on a hopeful note, with Konzaburo¯, although still emaciated, beginning to smile once more. Ultimately, however, the change of wet-nurse failed to save him, and seven months later Konzaburo¯, too, was dead. ‘‘Thinking about it,’’ wrote Issa five

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 / Issa the Poet

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days after this bereavement, ‘‘perhaps I have been cursed, and I am afraid.’’ 92 Issa was to marry again, this time at the age of sixty-one, but the union lasted for only two months. The terse note in his diary for the eighth month of  reads ‘‘Third day. Clear. The dog stole a katsuobushi. I divorced the woman Yuki.’’ 93 In , at the age of sixty-three, he took a third bride, a woman exactly half his age. Issa was by this time already infirm, having suffered two strokes, but, apparently, robust enough to leave this wife pregnant when, towards the end of  the poet suffered his third, final, and fatal stroke. The child, a girl, was born the following year. According to the account left by one of his students, Issa, pious layman to the end, died a hopeful death, with the nenbutsu on his lips.94

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Epilogue / 

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 Kyokuso¯ the Scholar

P In Edo, at the beginning of , an obscure provincial scholar welcomed the New Year with a verse in Chinese, the language he preferred for poetry. Now, for the very first time, at the age of thirty-eight,1 I greet the New Year in this vast city. The castle gate, guarded by willows, hides its secrets, So too, brandishing their pines, do the mansions of the lords. Free of distractions, my thoughts turn fondly to my family. Fervently, facing west, I pray they may be safe.2 It is a dejected poem, and no wonder. Hirose Kyokuso¯, its author, was indeed stranded in a strange city, virtually friendless,3 and struggling to attract students. He was, moreover, not in the best of health. Only recently, laid low by an illness from which he had not expected to recover, he had gone so far as to compose his own death poem.4 These were not the most propitious circumstances in which to greet a new year, particularly in Tokugawa Japan’s biggest and—to the newcomer—most forbidding city. A little more than six months earlier, taking his courage in both hands, Kyokuso¯, then a few days short of his thirty-seventh birthday, and with a wife and young son to support, had decided to close his private academy in Osaka, and move east to begin a new life in Edo, the shogun’s capital. This was no small undertaking. Having invested five years of his life building a pro-

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

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fessional reputation as a scholar and teacher in Japan’s second city, he had been more secure than at any previous time in his adult life. Moving the two hundred miles to Edo, where he was virtually unknown, meant throwing that security away. It also meant, at least for a time, that he would be wifeless and childless, having prudently sent his wife, Matsuko, and Ko¯nosuke, his seven-year-old son, back to Kyushu. There they could enjoy the protection of family and friends until Kyokuso¯ felt settled enough to send for them. It was not the first time he had made such an abrupt change of course—in fact, more than anything else his career thus far had been marked by restlessness—but this time, at least, his move was prompted as much by rational calculation as by impulse. An old family friend, Hakura Nagayoshi, who had become a senior official in the shogun’s financial bureau, had encouraged him to hope for official employment and had promised to arrange an interview with Mizuno Tadakuni, then the most influential figure in the shogun’s government. Mizuno, so Hakura said—and he was certainly in a position to know 5—was unhappy with his current Confucian adviser and was looking for a replacement. ‘‘If you ever want to accomplish anything,’’ so Hakura told him, ‘‘you must not lose this chance.’’ 6 For Kyokuso¯, this was an uncharacteristically ambitious undertaking. If anything, he had previously seemed committed to little except imitating the lifestyle, idealized and romanticized, of the Chinese gentleman-scholar; a little teaching—not too arduous—a little leisurely travel from time to time, and a lot of composing poetry in Chinese, at which he was highly proficient.7 All the same, uncharacteristic or not, ambition had led Hirose Kyokuso¯ to burn his Osaka bridges and move to the shogun’s capital. Of course he could never have admitted any such thing, not even to himself. Like every Confucian scholar in Tokugawa Japan, Kyokuso¯ dreamed of an official appointment in which his moral insights,

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 / Kyokuso¯ the Scholar

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derived from years of studying the history, thought, and literature of China, would be recognized, rewarded, and, possibly —although the possibility was remote—even acted upon. But Confucian prudery frowned on expressions of self-interest. ‘‘I do not aspire to government office,’’ he declared mendaciously, ‘‘but if, in an unofficial capacity, I can call upon [Mizuno], be granted an audience, and proffer my advice, then I am at his service.’’ 8 It was an attractive opportunity Hakura had handed him, so, in the summer of , determined to take advantage of it, Kyokuso¯ said goodbye to his Osaka friends and students, and sent his wife and child back home to Hita, the busy town in the mountains of North Kyushu where the Hirose family, affluent businessmen, had been comfortably settled for almost two hundred years. Unfortunately, like all but a few of Tokugawa Japan’s Confucianists, Kyokuso¯ was to find his hopes for official preferment disappointed. No sooner had he arrived in Edo than Mizuno Tadakuni, the shogun’s controversial chief minister, was forced from office, together with a number of subordinates, amongst them Kyokuso¯’s patron, Hakura Nagayoshi, who was placed under house arrest.9 ‘‘Kenkichi [Kyokuso¯’s given name] had moved to Edo at this man’s encouragement,’’ Kyokuso¯’s eldest brother was to write in his memoirs, ‘‘but now, with Lord Hakura in this predicament, and Lord Mizuno also in difficulties, Kenkichi’s relocation had been for nothing.’’ 10 The sudden eclipse of Mizuno Tadakuni and his allies left Hirose Kyokuso¯ without influential friends in a city where contacts meant everything. If anything, with both friends and potential patrons under house arrest, Kyokuso¯’s position was even more vulnerable than it would have been had he had no contacts at all. He would probably have returned to Osaka had he not fallen so ill within days of Mizuno’s dismissal. These were the circumstances in which a dispirited Kyokuso¯ greeted the new year, disappointed yet again.

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Prologue / 

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It must have seemed the culmination of a series of lost or wasted opportunities, and all the more poignant because of the advantages with which he had been born. His family, the Hirose, was an eminent, respected, and wealthy one. It could trace its prosperity back to the arrival in Hita, in , of Hirose Gozaemon, an entrepreneur from Hakata who founded the business, the Hakataya, which formed the basis of the family’s fortunes. He and his successors had sedulously, and successfully, cultivated the daimyo of the several North Kyushu domains, lending them both money and expertise in return for business opportunities. The Hirose were also, in the manner of wealthy provincial families of the period, extremely cultivated. From the mid-eighteenth century, successive family heads had taken an interest in haikai, Kyokuso¯’s uncle so enthusiastically that he retired in his thirties to devote the next forty years of his life to his favorite poetic form. Kyokuso¯’s father, Saburo¯emon (–), who then became head of the family, was no less talented or cultivated. Despite his own notably successful business career, he found time for a wide variety of cultural pursuits—Sinology, poetry, and fiction among them—and wrote several novels. Saburo¯emon also fathered two daughters and five sons, of whom Kyokuso¯ was the youngest. Not only that, in Saburo¯emon’s estimation—and he was a man notoriously hard to please —Kyokuso¯ was also the brightest. This did not mean, however, that he was unaware of his youngest son’s faults. Kyokuso¯ records that his father, on his deathbed, called his children to him one by one to give them final words of advice. ‘‘To me he said, ‘You are the most gifted of my children, but you always want to use your intelligence to outsmart Heaven. Do you really think Heaven can be fooled? Never forget the word ‘‘sincerity.’’ ’ ’’ 11 Even so, criticism apart, to be judged the most gifted of Saburo¯emon’s children was no small tribute. Two of

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Kyokuso¯’s older brothers, it is true, left little mark on the history of their time, one being absorbed into the family business and the other adopted out into another, lesser, merchant house. The two eldest brothers, however, were both formidable figures in their chosen careers. Hirose Tanso¯ (–), Saburo¯emon’s eldest son, would normally have succeeded his father as family head. Instead, with Saburo¯emon’s blessing, Tanso¯ had spent his sixteenth and seventeenth years studying at an academy in Fukuoka. The fondness he developed there for Sinology, coupled with a frail constitution which, in one form or another, was to plague him all his life, encouraged him to become a teacher. Eventually in  he opened the Kangien, the school on which his considerable reputation, as one of late Tokugawa Japan’s more eminent spokesmen for Confucian eclecticism, rests.12 Saburo¯emon’s second son, Hirose Kyu¯bei II, or Nangai (–), to whom Tanso¯ yielded the family headship, was in his own way no less brilliant. As astute as he was energetic and acquisitive, Nangai possessed entrepreneurial skills at least comparable, if not superior, to the academic strengths of his elder brother. Ever since the early eighteenth century the Hirose family enterprise had profited from the patronage of the Hita gundai, the magistrate who governed the area as the representative of the shogun’s house. Nangai took this relationship to new levels, joining forces with a succession of these local magistrates to reclaim wasteland for agriculture, widen rivers to offer access to barge traffic, and build canals and dykes for irrigation and flood control. He also expanded other family activities, acting as agent for as many as half a dozen Kyushu lords, to whom he gave advice, lent money, took charge of their domain monopolies and printed the paper currency needed to fund them. He also, although clearly no farmer, was headman to three villages and mayor of Hita’s Mameta ward.13 So while Hirose Kyokuso¯ may have been, in his father’s opin-

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ion the smartest of his five sons, compared to his two redoubtable elder brothers he was to prove himself nothing of the kind. Gifted, yes, but those gifts came dragging some less desirable traits behind them. He was irascible, restless, capricious, and, as often as he could afford it, self-indulgent. These qualities in combination led him to squander the advantages of birth and talent and brought him a conspicuously chequered career. Had he wanted, he could certainly have joined Nangai in the business world: the Hirose family was nothing if not conscious of its commercial roots, and Kyokuso¯ as a teenager had received practical training, whether purchasing land or serving behind the counter at the family’s pawnshop.14 But, with his brother Tanso¯’s example before him, scholarship and teaching was also an option, and that was what he chose. In his memoirs Kyokuso¯ recalled the advice his father gave him: ‘‘If you want to spend your whole life reading books, then you should become your eldest brother’s heir.’’ ‘‘That’s what I’ve always wanted,’’ Kyokuso¯ replied.15 Accordingly, in , Kyokuso¯, then sixteen years old, was adopted by Tanso¯, who was still childless after seven years of marriage and destined never to have a child of his own. The general expectation was that at some time in the not too distant future Kyokuso¯ would take over the running of the Kangien—where he had already distinguished himself 16—allowing the sickly and neurasthenic Tanso¯ to take an early retirement. To this end he began a period of training with other eminent scholars—with Kamei Sho¯yo¯ (–) in nearby Fukuoka, and then briefly with Kabashima Sekiryo¯ (–) at Kurume.17 Later, aged twenty, he spent two months with the octogenarian Kan Sazan (–) at Fukuyama, where—so the story goes—he so impressed the old man as to elicit an extraordinary encomium. ‘‘This is the most brilliant man in the realm,’’ the ailing scholar is reputed to have said. ‘‘How fortunate I am to have lived to see him.’’ 18

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For a time it seemed as though Tanso¯, eyes fixed on retirement, was to get his wish. In , when Kyokuso¯ was twentythree, Tanso¯, then forty-eight, surrendered his position at the head of the academy he had founded, and turned the responsibility for its everyday management over to his younger brother, now his adopted son. Everything pointed to a satisfying career for the new headmaster. The Kangien, thanks to Tanso¯’s considerable reputation, was flourishing, with an enrollment of seventy-six students,19 all but a few of them commoners, while the entire enterprise was underpinned by the resources of the rich, tightly knit, and politically well-connected Hirose family. Undoubtedly Kyokuso¯ brought considerable talent to his new responsibility, but he was temperamentally incapable of making the most of his gifts. He was bad-tempered, a fact which he acknowledged repeatedly without really trying to correct, or even attempting to identify the cause. Perhaps his poor eyesight and frequent headaches 20 share some of the blame, but surely the answer lies in his extraordinary sleeping habits. ‘‘Until the age of fourteen or fifteen I was more than usually fond of sleeping, and my father often scolded me for it,’’ he remembered. ‘‘Then, after I turned seventeen I slept very little, and between the ages of twenty-five and forty I would sleep only one or two hours every three to five days. . . . From the age of forty I gradually began to sleep more, and now sleep around two hours a night.’’ 21 More than anything else, more than the other failings to which he freely confessed—his stubbornness, his restlessness, his idleness, and his garrulity 22—it was his irascibility which set him on the road to misfortune, both personal and professional. Personally, it cost him his first wife, led him to mistreat his second, and in all probability drove away two subsequent consorts. Professionally it determined the entire course of his life, impelling him to throw away all his advantages and turn a promising scholarly career into a disappointment—a disappointment

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to him, but also to the several members of his family. ‘‘It makes me dreadfully ashamed to think about it,’’ he later wrote.23 This quick temper, coupled with intransigence and tactlessness, brought on the defining crisis of Kyokuso¯’s career. No sooner had he taken over the management of the Kangien from Tanso¯ than he had the misfortune to come up against an official who matched him defect for defect. This was Shionoya Daishiro¯ Masayoshi (–), the local magistrate who governed the Hita area as the representative of the Tokugawa shogun. During the eighteen years of his posting there his relations with the Hakataya, the business side of the Hirose family, had been extremely cordial, marked by mutual respect and cooperation. With the academic wing of the Hirose family enterprise, however, they were far from comfortable. Here Shionoya proved to be imperious, ill-tempered, and all too ready to interfere in academic affairs. The mild and submissive Tanso¯ had found him difficult enough to deal with,24 but Kyokuso¯, the new headmaster, with a combative temperament of his own, found him impossible, and it was not long before the young schoolmaster and the old government official were at loggerheads.25 ‘‘His Lordship detested me,’’ Kyokuso¯ was later to write, summing up their troubled relationship.26 At issue was the integrity and independence of the school. Kyokuso¯, like Tanso¯ before him, insisted that within the classroom positions of honor should go to the ablest and most conscientious students. The world outside the classroom, however, worked by different rules, and to Shionoya, born and bred to expect that a samurai, however obtuse, however idle, was entitled to deference as a natural right, this insistence seemed perverse. When young samurai attending the Kangien were passed over for praise and recognition, Shionoya immediately interpreted it as an act of willful defiance. Within six months of his taking over from Tanso¯, Kyokuso¯ and the bureaucrat were in open dis-

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agreement, and further differences were to follow in  and .27 On these occasions Shionoya either withdrew his samurai students, attempted to have the obdurate Kyokuso¯ removed, or issued school rules of his own devising. By the beginning of  relations between the magistrate and the schoolmaster had become so strained that Tanso¯ and Nangai, needing at all costs to preserve the profitable alliance between the Hakataya and the shogun’s representative, visited Shionoya to apologise for their young brother’s behaviour.28 There was never any doubt about the outcome; by whatever means and at whatever cost, the magistrate would win. The only question was the price Kyokuso¯ would be forced to pay for his presumption. There were of course formal rebukes, but beyond that lay a number of alarming possibilities—beginning with arrest and imprisonment, and passing through a series of increasingly unpleasant alternatives; loss of status, exile, or perhaps even seppuku, disembowelment.29 The apology from his two brothers won Kyokuso¯ a pardon and a reprieve, but it was considered best that he remove himself for a time, and this he did, travelling for six weeks through Kyushu to Nagasaki. Fortuitously the situation was resolved later that year when Shionoya was suddenly recalled to Edo to face unrelated charges of corruption, but the damage had already been done. Kyokuso¯, by his own account, had always been unsettled. ‘‘When I was young and lived in the country,’’ he recalled, ‘‘I did not care for it. All I did was yearn for the excitement of the city.’’ 30 The unpleasantness with Shionoya—‘‘a temporary misfortune, and a lifelong blessing’’ was how he later described it 31—provided him with the impetus he needed to get away from Hita, and in the early summer of  he left the shelter of his family, and the town in which he had been born, and set out to make his own way in the city of Sakai, tantalizingly close to Osaka and Kyoto, two of Tokugawa Japan’s three largest

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cities. Tanso¯, realizing that the younger brother he had adopted wanted something beyond the life of a country schoolmaster— for which he was, anyway, demonstrably unsuited—seems to have made no objection.32 Ironically, just ten days before his departure it was learnt that Shionoya, his nemesis, would never return to Hita,33 but by this time Kyokuso¯’s mind was made up. He left without waiting to see who Shionoya’s replacement might be. From Sakai, where he stayed for two restless years, he subsequently moved to Osaka, spending five years there (and changing his address six times),34 until in  he made his calamitous move to Edo. If anything, the word ‘‘calamitous’’ is an understatement. His eldest brother—and adoptive father—looking back on Kyokuso¯’s years in the shogun’s capital, calculated that transferring to Edo had done Kyokuso¯ no good whatsoever. This was far too positive an assessment. The years he spent in Edo exacted a very heavy toll from him. Coping with the misfortunes that overtook him there cost more than a thousand gold pieces and condemned him to years of debt and privation.35 This, however, lay in the future. But by the beginning of , as his despondent and pessimistic poem suggests, he had already come to question the wisdom of his decision to start afresh among an aloof and secretive samurai aristocracy—one from which he could now expect little patronage and even less consideration. Still, the poem also alluded to one source of comfort—Matsuko his wife, and Ko¯nosuke, their seven-year-old son. They had been with him in Sakai, where Ko¯nosuke was born, and again in Osaka. Now, at this delicate juncture of his career, though he clearly missed them, thinking of them gave him some solace. Nevertheless even this source of comfort was shadowed by anxiety. He knew how precarious life was. Two of his three children were already dead. Yomi, his daughter, born in , had contracted smallpox, along with her mother, and died

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of it, having lived just sixteen months.36 Kyokuso¯ greeted this first bereavement with a terse note in his diary: ‘‘Yomi died.’’ 37 The  death of Teijiro¯, his third child, from what was judged ‘‘heart failure,’’ 38 evoked a stronger reaction. That day, according to his journal, Kyokuso¯ went into the living room to find Teijiro¯ on the maidservant’s back, deathly pale 39 and crying. ‘‘Alarmed, I shouted for my wife, to find out where she was. . . . ‘I’m out here,’ she called from the kitchen. Enraged, I slapped her and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me the child was so sick? How can you be so irresponsible as to leave him in the care of a stupid, ignorant young servant girl instead of carrying him yourself ?’’ 40 But that was four years in the past. Now, in , any foreboding Kyokuso¯ might have had at the beginning of the year was to be confirmed in the worst possible way. Still unsettled, still lonely, still shaken by his recent illness, he shortly wrote to his wife in Hita, asking her to come and join him, which she did. The day after receiving the letter, Matsuko set off for Edo, leaving her sleeping son behind her.41 Unfortunately, however, when she arrived early in the summer of that year, she was already displaying symptoms of the diabetes which, within a few short months, was to take her life. What follows is Kyokuso¯’s record of her death, as he wrote it in his Tsuishiroku, ‘‘A Memoir.’’ 42 But it is considerably more than that. First, it is a tribute to a long-suffering and faithful wife; next, a portrait of a marriage, for all its brevity perhaps the most complete this long period of Japanese history can offer; then, a character study of an individual, the author himself, in an extended piece of self-criticism unusual among Japanese men of the period, and doubly so given the profession of the man making it.43 Ultimately, however, it is a love story, even if one unlikely to meet the criteria of our own time. For that matter its author is an even less likely lover. The one portrait we have of Hirose Kyokuso¯ is a little misleading. It shows him in formal

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dress, rather dumpy (which he no doubt was), and with the two swords of a samurai (which, as the sedentary youngest son of a merchant family, he certainly wasn’t). The swords are not nearly as convincing as his spectacles, with their ostentatiously heavy rims, the unmistakable stigmata of the astigmatic scholar. Certainly it does not convey the image of the feckless, willful, and headstrong man whose improvidence kept him in poverty for most of his adult life, and whose bad temper drove away all but one of the women he lived with. Matsuko, who stayed with him loyally and without complaint for the twelve years of their marriage, and whose death he mourned so sincerely, was the sole exception. T A Memoir My wife Matsuko was the eldest daughter of Go¯baru Aki no kami, a Shinto priest of Yoshiki, Yamamoto County in Chikugo.44 Her mother came from the Iwanaga family. When Matsuko was fifteen, my family requested a betrothal, but her father, considering her to be still too young, said we should wait until she turned seventeen. However, because my late father was then very old,45 and I already in my twenty-fourth year, my family urged me to delay no longer. So in the twelfth month of , I was instead joined in marriage with the Adachi family of Asada in Chikugo. The following year, after my bad temper had made the marriage unworkable, my first wife went home for a visit and never returned.46 My father was very hurt by this. ‘‘For generations our family has been famous in this town for its harmony,’’ he declared; ‘‘until now no male has wed twice, and no female remarried; you are the first to break this family tradition. You have ruined five generations’ worth of respectability.’’ These words cut me to the quick, and I withdrew, in tears and ashamed.

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Hirose Kyokuso¯ (Courtesy of Hirose Shiryo¯kan, Hita)

The following year, , when approaches were once again made to Matsuko’s family, her father agreed that as she was now seventeen, the original understanding could proceed without impediment. We were quickly betrothed, and in the eleventh month I went to fetch her. As my father had instructed me, the first time I spoke with her I wrote out a document promising

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never unjustly to find fault with her, and gave it to her saying, ‘‘I am quick-tempered and may sometimes be unfair and unreasonable, despite the warnings my elders have given me. Once the moment has passed, however, I am usually sorry for it. You may often see me bad-tempered in future, but if it ever becomes unbearable you have to bring out this document. If even that fails to calm me down, show it to Tanso¯ at once.’’ Later, after my father died, I was incapable of curbing my bad temper, and would often scold her for no reason. One day, able to bear it no longer, she ran weeping out under the plum trees behind our house. Ashamed, I ran barefooted after her, and led her back by the hand. A day or two later my brother Teien brought a message from my brother Nangai 47 which read, ‘‘Relations between a husband and a wife must above all else be decorous; you disgraced yourself in front of your students by running out into the garden. You must either divorce or never do such a thing again.’’ Crestfallen, I humbly apologized. That night I said to my wife, ‘‘Why didn’t you bring out my pledge the other day, because what happened was entirely my fault?’’ To this, Matsuko replied, ‘‘If ever you decide to divorce me, then I shall, but otherwise, when you are only scolding me for some mistake, I would have no reason to.’’ I was deeply moved, for I realized for the very first time what a good person she was. Thereafter, I still failed to mend my ways, and even until this year when she became ill, I scolded her often. But for thirteen years Matsuko never offered a single indignant or reproachful word, and to the end of her days never brought out my pledge. When we were in Osaka early last year, , I became terribly annoyed, and threw something at her, whereupon she ran away. I was immediately contrite, but there was nothing I could do, because I could not find her. My elder sister, who had married into the Aso family,48 was staying with us at the time, and when I shamefacedly told her what had happened, she was dismayed.

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Searching for Matsuko, she discovered her hiding in an upstairs closet. ‘‘This is all because you are too hard on her,’’ my sister scolded. Tearfully, I promised that it would not happen again. That night, when I asked Matsuko if she still had the pledge I had given her years before, she replied, ‘‘I take good care of it, but I refuse to bring it out when it is I who am in the wrong.’’ From that time on my behaviour began to improve. I am by temperament irritable and nervous, while Matsuko was tolerant, patient, and very placid. Such is my nature that I always take my feelings—whether for joy or anger, misery or pleasure—to extremes, but she was so calm and quiet that she might have been in a trance. So we were as different from each other as ice and charcoal. I often complained about Matsuko’s shortcomings to my brother Tanso¯, but thinking about it now that she is dead, if she had shared my disposition she would not have tolerated my moodiness for an instant. You could really say that we complemented each other like yin and yang. I was always so capricious and intolerant that if Matsuko too had been that willful and fastidious we would never have been able to keep any servants—fish cannot live in pure water, the proverb says. On countless occasions when I scolded her, she would say, as soon as the incident was over, ‘‘Please don’t speak to me like that.’’ I had many reasons to be grateful to her, but even so I called the attention of Tanso¯ and my friends to her failings and said nothing of her strengths, of which I was privately well aware. Mori Ryo¯shu¯, who had been a friend of my father’s, and I became very close in his old age, since he too was a man of broad interests, and he would frequently praise Matsuko to others for her gentleness, declaring that there was no one in the district like her. After we moved to Osaka, Shinozaki Sho¯chiku, the best Confucian scholar of his generation, frequently told me that my wife was both wise and virtuous. When I asked him why he thought so, he replied, ‘‘She knows exactly how to deal with

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your impulsiveness, so that although people criticize you, everybody sings her praises. You ought to be kind to her.’’ When we moved to Edo, Shioda’s wife, who was Yoshino’s younger sister and our neighbour, came to nurse her on many occasions.49 After Matsuko died, Yoshino Teigoro¯ said, ‘‘Your wife must have been a very good person. I met her only a few times, but my sister was extremely impressed with her. We will not see her like again. What an unbearable loss.’’ I may seem generous and indifferent to material possessions, but in fact when I am about to give something away it is usually less than I initially intended. Matsuko, however, though she perhaps appeared parsimonious, would often add more to parcels as she wrapped them to be sent out, thinking them stingy. After she died, I grieved day and night, and everyone was afraid that I would fall ill, warning me that whenever an eminent Confucian scholar behaved like this he risked being ridiculed as Hsun Ts’an was.50 ‘‘Hsun Ts’an sacrificed himself for a wife he adored,’’ I retorted, ‘‘but I shall be criticized because I was on poor terms with mine.’’ Unless I grieve during this mourning period I shall never be able to atone for my misbehavior. I have no intention of defying Heaven by grieving so much—truly I am in awe of Heaven 51—but I bitterly regret that I ignored the advice my elders gave me. This is a heavy burden indeed, and well-nigh insupportable. For nearly two hundred years, from the time of our Founder 52 onwards, husbands and wives in my family have been able to grow old together, thanks to our respect for Heaven. My mother was the single exception, and even then by the time she died one of her children was already more than thirty years old.53 My four elder brothers and my elder sister are all happily married. The youngest of my elder brothers,54 adopted into another family, lost a wife and a daughter; the first and third of my elder brothers are childless, and the second has two daughters. Only I

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and the youngest of my elder brothers have sons, and the latter’s child will inherit a different family name. My son 55 is my late father’s only grandson. So this is no small responsibility Heaven has given me. Having first defied family tradition by discarding one wife, much to everyone’s chagrin, I then ignored their advice and was often harsh with my second wife. Am I now being punished for ignoring the warning my father gave me on his deathbed? When I was in my twenty-eighth year my father passed away, and the following year my daughter died. I lost my second son when I was thirty-three, and when I was thirty-five Matsuko’s younger brother, Shinsuke, whom I had fostered as my brotherin-law, also died.56 Now, in the thirty-eighth year of my life, Matsuko is dead. In the space of eleven years, during which my four brothers have lost only our father, I have coped with five deaths. Indeed, for two hundred years, no wife in our family has died as prematurely as mine. It occurs to me that Tanso¯ has been able to support himself and has been no burden to anyone; in fact he has taken care of several orphans and widows, thereby accumulating much merit.57 Nor is that all; being born earlier than I, he could show filial piety to our parents, while I, born later, was only five when my mother died, before I could so much as recognize her face. I stayed with my father until I was twenty-seven, but nevertheless relied on my brothers for the cost of my upbringing, spending not so much as a penny of my own. In my seventeenth year my father had my eldest brother adopt me as his heir, and although I gave Tanso¯ the respect due a parent, all I did was squander his assets. From the age of twenty-four, when I became family head,58 until my twenty-ninth year, I defied Magistrate Shionoya Meifu 59 many, many times, causing Tanso¯ much anxiety. Also, my divorce from the Adachi family, and then my second marriage, put him to considerable inconvenience.60 Then, when

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I was in Osaka he worried that I was so poor. Now I have made Tanso¯ responsible for my only child.61 When I moved to Edo last year, poor again, once more I had to be helped out. Not once in the thirty-eight years since leaving my parents’ care have I shown the slightest filial piety, or affection, or obedience, in return for the great favors I have received. Thus far I have helped not one needy person, nor assisted anyone in distress. I have passed my life in idleness. Until now I have been respected because of what my ancestors and Tanso¯ have achieved, but my good fortune is no different from that of Ch’ing Feng during his time in Wu.62 Complacently I imagined that misfortune could not touch me, but even worse, I have done many shameful things in my personal life, which has cost me considerable merit. Also on countless occasions I failed to appreciate the kindness shown me by others. First, when I was twenty-one or two and went alone to Shingai in Buzen, people in the region gradually warmed to me, and some of them were extremely hospitable, but I abandoned them and went back to Hita. Later, when I lived in Sakai the people were particularly kind, but no sooner had I settled there than I moved on to Osaka.63 Many helped me during the six years I spent in Osaka, among them students who came from far away, from as many as twenty-four or -five different provinces, but I deserted them all and went off to Edo. None of this could have been avoided, but I realize that by so often ignoring the wishes of others and spurning their good will, I have brought this misfortune on myself. From now on I need to be more considerate. I discussed the matter of Matsuko’s posthumous name with Renpei and others, and decided upon Cloister of Graceful Docility Serene Glorious Loving Constant Great Sister. The Funai Confucianist Takenouchi Ju¯hei, a presumptuous fellow, praised the choice, saying, ‘‘I met Hirose’s wife several times, and know-

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ing what sort of person she was this is a posthumous name of which he need not feel ashamed.’’ 64 On looking through her belongings after her death, I was overwhelmed with sadness to find that she had kept my letters. She had carefully preserved everything I had written, down to the briefest notes, although in other respects she would leave everyday items scattered about in such total disarray that I used to chide her for it. Eleven years earlier, when my father died, I was overcome with grief, but as my brothers and I were all together, after ten days my sadness began to abate. Later, at the deaths of two of my children my sorrow was unbearable for two or three days, but Matsuko was composed and did not grieve. I was going to reproach her for her lack of feeling, but instead she consoled me. ‘‘You fret too much over what cannot be changed,’’ she said. Losing her, I am now alone and far from home, with only strangers to comfort me. Without her beside me it is no wonder that I grow more dejected each day. When I reflect on it now, if she did not seem to grieve on those occasions it was not because she was not sad. On the contrary, she feared that I might collapse from an extremity of grief, and so controlled herself simply to comfort me. I should have realized. Until the time of her death, Matsuko’s spirits and conversation were as usual. Just the day before she died she showed our maidservant which chest held my clothes and which box the petty cash, and gave detailed instructions on what dishes she should prepare for lunch. Last year, after coming to Edo, I asked Tokito¯ Ryu¯taro¯, Furuya Hidehira,65 and others to store our clothing for a while. Then this year, as soon as I had found a house, I engaged an elderly maidservant to organize the clothes and pack them in a trunk before Matsuko was due to arrive. But our kitchenware from Osaka had not been sent on, and we had absolutely no utensils, so I arranged for them to be shipped from Osaka before the fifth month, when she was due to arrive

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in Edo. Once here, she took charge of three matters—clothing, household finances, and meals—and I did not need to bother with them again. Then suddenly one day she died, and it was like having a lamp go out on a dark night. I was completely at a loss, not knowing where to find clothes or where to look for a kitchen utensil. Often, waking confused from a dream in the middle of the night, I would call out Matsuko’s name. Then, coming to my senses, I would weep into my sleeve. Matsuko was quiet, and did not like to go out. She did not care for the frivolous places—the theater or the music halls— that women find so attractive. Even when a female friend invited her out I had to encourage her two or three times before she would go. As a general rule she rarely criticized anybody. After her death, Haru the maidservant recalled her telling the servants, ‘‘Not many people are as lucky as I am. My parents-in-law 66 are kind and very fond of me. The master may seem quicktempered, but once he has said something that is the end of it, and he soon recovers. He is a thoroughly good man.’’ Matsuko and I may usually . . . have seemed at odds with each other, and ultimately, as I was irascible and she gentle, whenever something went wrong I would blame her, quite unable to control myself. But normally, when things were quiet, we lived compatibly. During the day, if I spent a long time shut up in my study, Matsuko would always come, and, sliding the door open, look in on me. When I asked her if there was anything the matter, she would say, ‘‘No,’’ and go away. Every day she would do this, usually three or four times a morning. Alas, never again. ¯ mura,67 leaving MaIn the fourth month of  I went to O tsuko and Shinsuke behind. From around the fifth or sixth month Shinsuke was suffering from chronic diarrhea, and by the time I returned in the tenth month he was already gravely ill. On the twenty-sixth day of the eleventh month he died. I be-

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rated her over and over again, saying, ‘‘For all that time, from the fifth to the tenth month, you neglected to nourish him and to nurse him. He died because you didn’t look after him well enough. All you ever did was nag at him. Why didn’t you take proper care of him?’’ I demanded. ‘‘Shinsuke never did anything he was told,’’ she replied. I grew angrier still. ‘‘If I had been here Shinsuke would not have died. You killed him,’’ I shouted. This year, when Matsuko arrived in Edo, on the twenty-sixth day of the fifth month, I found her very hot to the touch, and she seemed bloated. ‘‘Are you ill?’’ I asked, alarmed. ‘‘I’m all right,’’ she said, ‘‘but I have a slight discharge down there.’’ 68 Subsequently, for the next five or six days, she ate more than usual. As soon as she had set her chopsticks aside she would lie down. Thinking of what had happened to Shinsuke, I would encourage her to get up and pull herself together, but then, not seeing her for some time, if I went to look for her I would find her asleep in the storehouse. When I woke her up she would simply find some cushions and go back to sleep. I urged her to eat less, but she paid no attention. I had Tsuboi Shindo¯ examine her and give her a warning, but she knew this was at my instigation, and was not pleased. Thereafter, each day she slept, and each day she overate. I was most concerned, and asked Shioda and Ito¯ Genboku to speak to her.69 When still she paid no heed, I asked Tanso¯, Nangai, and my father-in-law to write to her and make her see reason. On the eighteenth day of the sixth month, she was summoned to see Tsuboi, and after she returned home drank several cups of tea, complaining of unbearable thirst. I argued with her: ‘‘If you drink so much hot tea before you’ve grown accustomed to the climate here you must expect to have diarrhea,’’ I warned. She agreed, realizing that if she could just control herself the diarrhea would run its course, but within three or four days of her promise she was going to the privy all the time. I was extremely

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angry. The maidservant, when I questioned her, said that on the night of the eighteenth the mistress had drunk three teapotsfull, perhaps thirty-eight or thirty-nine cups of tea. So turning to Matsuko I said, ‘‘I am sorry to say you are just like Shinsuke; perhaps you have been possessed by his ghost,’’ at which she burst into tears. ‘‘Don’t say such dreadful things,’’ she cried. ‘‘When there are so many living people you could talk about, why do you always have to bring up Shinsuke?’’ For the next five or six days her diarrhea continued, then one day, after it had stopped, she felt some abdominal discomfort. When I had Shioda examine her, he made her take a laxative, after which for another day she had diarrhea three times. In the early part of the seventh month her menses came, and at the end of the month she began to feel nauseous, vomiting for four or five days, with diarrhea two or three times a day. ‘‘Perhaps I am pregnant,’’ she confided, ‘‘since the usual symptoms are diarrhea at first, followed by nausea.’’ During the eighth month her menses stopped, while her diarrhea persisted. I asked Shindo¯ to treat her, and he commented that, although he could not say definitely whether or not she was pregnant, the first thing we needed to do was stop the diarrhea and watch her carefully. She was partial to grapes, pears, persimmons, and other fresh fruit, but when she ate them her diarrhea worsened. This was no normal pregnancy, so I ordered her not to eat anything cold as long as she was unused to the Edo climate. But she paid no attention, telling me that I knew nothing about it. Once again I had three doctors—Tsuboi, Ito¯, and Shioda— remonstrate with her, but it was no use. From the end of the month she gradually grew thinner, although her face took on a particularly flattering shade of pink. Her appearance was far from normal. I was deeply afraid that her condition was hopeless, and suggested that I might return to Kyushu with her immediately, but Shindo¯ dissuaded me, observing that there was no

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telling what conditions would be like along the way. In the ninth month, the doctors having recommended that she take walks, we went sightseeing to most of those Edo beauty spots lying within a two-mile radius, and from the time she began walking the diarrhea ceased, and her stomach began to fill out a little. She herself commented that the diarrhea might have been a blessing in disguise. Until the thirteenth day of the tenth month we walked almost every day, but around the thirteenth or fourteenth it grew extremely hot, and Matsuko stayed at home, intending to make some clothes. ‘‘If you don’t go out,’’ I warned, ‘‘you will not be able to digest your meals and will get diarrhea again. Let somebody else do the sewing. If you don’t go for walks when the weather is fine, and just stay sewing behind closed shutters, your hands and feet will get cold, and that will be bad for you.’’ Still she took no notice, so, extremely angry, I took her, threw her to the floor, and hurled her sewing basket away, weeping and shouting that she was risking her life on account of some paltry needlework. When I could not stop crying, my wife grew ashamed and said, ‘‘From now on I shall do just as you say.’’ But suddenly the very next morning her diarrhea returned. Thunderstruck, I summoned Shindo¯, and thereafter took care not to leave her side. On the twenty-first or second day of the tenth month the weather grew gradually more inclement, so I had her stroll around indoors. From the third or fourth day of the eleventh month we began to take walks in the vicinity of Ryo¯goku Bridge, and on the seventh day a woman (whom I had hired on the way to Ryo¯goku) arrived to do the sewing. Matsuko never left the house again. On the tenth day I went to visit Yoshio Shuri, but no sooner had I sat down than I suddenly felt apprehensive, and quickly ran home to find Matsuko lying prone beside the brazier. ‘‘I don’t feel well,’’ she said. Immediately I summoned Tsuboi. After examining her he said, ‘‘This is serious; we must stabilize her for

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the moment.’’ Thereafter we put her to bed, although until the twelfth or thirteenth of the month we would move her to the tatami room so that she could sit up. After she took to her bed, worrying that I might be depressed, she would say, ‘‘It doesn’t hurt in the least,’’ and until the day she died she continued to take care of all our household affairs. For a hundred and forty or fifty days from the onset of her illness she slowly wasted away, and finally died without recovering. I had blamed her for what had happened to Shinsuke, but when she died I refused to believe that it was my fault. Despite the experience of Shinsuke’s death, now, under similar circumstances, it was my own shortcomings that prevented me from helping her. Because I was usually disagreeable in my interaction with her, she did not take what I said seriously, and whether I praised her or scolded her it made no difference. This time, since matters had come to such a pass—my wife ill, far from home, and totally dependent upon me—I held my tongue, although this ultimately did her no good. It would have been best had I taken her back home at the beginning of the eighth month, for then I could have asked neighbours and members of her family, people she knew well and respected, to take charge of her. Fate has now taken this good woman from me, and it torments me to think that she might have been saved had I given her special care from the ninth month onwards. Instead she gradually wasted away. While in Edo Matsuko visited only the Tsubois at Fukagawa Fuyuki-cho¯, a priest of the Kinganji at Asakusa Honganji, the Ito¯s at Shimogaya Okachimachi, and the Shinryu¯ji at Tsukiji Honganji. Tsuboi and I being on the best of terms, she went there two or three times, while his wife called on us on several occasions. The Kinganji priest had come to Hita to study ten years ago, and we had known each other at that time. Ito¯ was a particular friend of mine in Edo. Matsuko had invited the

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father of a priest at Shinryu¯ji to visit us. Okabe Genmin and his wife, whom we had met in Osaka, came up to Edo this year shortly after Matsuko, so she paid a call on Mrs. Okabe. We had also associated with Sudo¯ Kameuemon and his wife in Osaka, and when they came up to Edo in the tenth month Mrs. Sudo¯ called on us, while previously her mother had come over to nurse Matsuko in the eighth or ninth month. This year my brother Nangai had arranged for Matsuko to travel from Hita to Funai and from there in the company of a Funai domain official named Murakami Shu¯suke, and then, from Osaka, also with Otaka, a maidservant to the retired daimyo. When Shu¯suke returned to Funai in the tenth month Matsuko, sad at his leaving, said she would also have liked to return home. Otaka, learning of Matsuko’s grave illness, came to visit her, bringing some fish. Matsuko helped me so often with her advice that I could not even begin to cite examples. Just before dawn one day, when I lay in bed indisposed, I sent for Udagawa Kyo¯sai 70 and, still in bed, gave him some instructions. After Kyo¯sai had left, Matsuko said, ‘‘I have something to tell you, but you must not lose your temper.’’ ‘‘What is it?’’ I asked. ‘‘I respect everything you say as much as if it were holy writ, but it was rude of you to have spoken to him from your bed,’’ she chided. I got up and took her hand, declaring, ‘‘It is as if my departed mother had sent you to care for me.’’ This was some fifty days before she died. She also told me that I should not think exclusively of my own convenience. ‘‘You must realize that you can’t do exactly as you please,’’ she warned. When I asked why she responded, ‘‘My own father made his younger brother marry early, and then retired in his favor, expecting to be less busy, but instead he was even busier. You too thought that having Shinsuke as your heir would leave you free to travel around, but it was not to be. Things usually don’t turn out quite as we would like. You just have to work hard

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and be unassuming. When you were in Osaka you seemed very conceited; perhaps our poverty over the past year has been a punishment for that,’’ she said, adding that I needed to change my attitude. We had many similar exchanges over the past year. While Matsuko was in Osaka she associated with the wives of Mr. Manase, Bizenya Uhei, Tetsuya Heisuke, and Yamatoya Shinbei. A girl called Oyuki, daughter of Mr. Hayami from Kizuki, stayed in our house for half a year at the request of her mother. Matsuko was on very good terms with her. One might have thought them sisters, so often were they together. When I left to come up to Edo last year, Oyuki invited Matsuko to stay with her for several weeks before going down to Hita. When she came to Edo this year, Matsuko would have liked to bring Oyuki with her, but the girl was busy looking after her mother and could not come. At the time Matsuko first fell ill she wondered if perhaps we could take Oyuki permanently into our household. When I asked why she replied, ‘‘Oyuki does not want to get married, so you should think about it because she and I are on such good terms. If I died young, Oyuki would faithfully perform the rituals on my behalf, and I would also like someone to take care of Ko¯nosuke when I was gone.’’ But since this would have been difficult to convey in writing, I let the matter rest. Towards the end of the tenth month, when Furuya Hidehira was about to leave Edo to return to our hometown, we asked him to persuade Oyuki to come to Edo, Matsuko being by this time dangerously ill. In Osaka Hidehira met my elder brother Nangai (who had come to Osaka from Funai in the eleventh month), and planned with him to persuade Oyuki to move to Edo to nurse Matsuko. But Oyuki declined, finding it difficult to leave her mother alone, and sent a letter assuring me that every day she would pray fervently to the gods for my wife. It was in the sixth month that Matsuko referred to the possibility of dying,

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and at that time I did not think things were so serious. Perhaps she had a premonition. Matsuko was naturally kind, and to the end of her days never commented on the shortcomings of others. No doubt this was why not one of my students would speak ill of her, although they seemed perfectly willing to criticize me. After studying in Hita ten years ago, Furuya Hidehira followed me to Osaka for six years, and then came with me to Edo; my wife was impressed by his devotion. Imakita Shinzaburo¯, too, was very kind to us in Osaka when Shinsuke and Ko¯nosuke were ill, and he was also extremely loyal to me. Matsuko was constantly singing his praises. This year, for some reason, Shinzaburo¯ left his family to become a priest, which saddened her very much. Fourteen or fifteen days before this, Hidehira left Edo and, hearing in Osaka of her serious illness, sent a letter expressing his regret at having left too soon. Among my Edo students there was none whom she particularly befriended, but she constantly praised Aoki Kenzo¯ for his earnestness. Just four or five days before she died Kenzo¯ came to our lodging to nurse her, and the day before she died he asked if he could stay with us for the next four or five days. Fujita Renpei, who had come up to Edo with me last year, also came often to our lodgings to nurse Matsuko during her illness, and she spoke highly of his kindness. Sagara Bunkei, from my hometown, who had been a student of mine since he was nine years old, had begun to study with Tsuboi last year. Then, falling out of favor with him at the beginning of the eleventh month, he had come to stay with us, and prepared Matsuko’s medicines, attending conscientiously to her every need. When she died he said that she had been like a mother to him because of the kindness she had shown him during his childhood, and he himself prepared her for burial. He also visited her grave on many occasions. Ten days after her death I drew this fact to Tsuboi’s at-

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tention, and Sagara, once he had apologized, was restored to favor. Miyagawa Yu¯kichi, who had trained in Osaka, and was now with Tsuboi, frequently came to see Matsuko before she died. When she had passed away he came to stay with me and collaborated with Bunkei on a record of her death, staying on until the twenty-seventh to comfort me. During her last days Shindo¯ arranged with Ito¯ Genboku and ¯ Otsuki Shunsai 71 for both men to call every day, as did Shindo¯ himself, to examine her. Dr. Shioda Jun’an, who lived nearby, ¯ tsuki were all visited her every day. Because Tsuboi, Ito¯, and O physicians after the Western fashion, and hence in broad agreement with each other, many others were urging me around the middle of the tenth month to change to a physician of the Chinese style. Shioda arranged for the Right Reverend Taki Rakushin’in to call.72 Prior to that Yoshino Teigoro¯, my landlord, had recommended Kodama So¯shin, a Chinese-style physician. If either Tsuboi or Ito¯ failed to call for two or three days they would send sake and food, as well as something for the invalid to eat. Each evening Shioda would come and talk late into the night, and my students, too, would take turns in groups of five or six to come and talk. Haru the servant girl, and old Ume were responsible for nursing her. Otherwise Bunkei, Kenzo¯, and Renpei attended her. That such solicitude was lavished on the family of a poor scholar and lonely exile like myself could be attributed to the virtue of my ancestors, but it may also simply be due to my good fortune in having a wife who was so highly esteemed. Our maid Haru was hired on the twentieth day of the eighth month, and Matsuko found her very compatible. Haru accompanied her on a great many of her excursions. One evening after Matsuko became bedridden Haru announced that she was going to bed early, and my students and I made fun of her for this, much to my wife’s displeasure. ‘‘She is the most loyal serving girl you could wish for,’’ declared Matsuko. ‘‘Please don’t tease her.’’

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Ashamed, I put a stop to my students’ merriment. Haru and Ume were extremely conscientious nurses. Ume, who had been hired just ten days before Matsuko’s death, was hard of hearing. The day before she died Matsuko said, ‘‘She doesn’t understand a thing I say unless someone interprets for her.’’ Nevertheless, she was fond of her, and would call out to her, ‘‘Granny, Granny.’’ I let Ume go a week after my wife’s death, leaving Haru on her own in the house. Morning and night she would burn incense and reverently offer food before Matsuko’s memorial tablet, and during the day she would add to my sorrow by praising her fine qualities. Eleven days after Matsuko’s death Kobayashi Magotaro¯, an official from the Funai domain, came to pay his condolences and said, ‘‘I understand from what Renpei has told me that your wife was a most estimable person, and one whose like we will not readily see again. It is no more than fitting that you should mourn her.’’ The twenty-sixth day of the eleventh month was the third anniversary of Shinsuke’s death. I was too preoccupied with taking care of Matsuko, but she remembered. ‘‘Bring from my cash box the money I had from the sale of Shinsuke’s things, and buy some cakes for the students,’’ she begged. ‘‘Had I not been ill I would have liked to serve a meal in his memory.’’ When my son and daughter died I grieved more than she did, but with the passage of time I have forgotten details like the anniversaries of their deaths. Each month, until this year, Matsuko would observe the days they had died, and their anniversaries every year. Sometime around the eighth month I had considered taking Matsuko back to Kyushu, but I did nothing about it. As her condition gradually worsened, seemingly with no prospect of recovery, I made a vow to the gods that if she were at least somewhat improved by next year then I would definitely take her home. When I mentioned this to her, she said that she would

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like to see Nikko¯ before she left. Each day thereafter I would describe the magnificent scenery of Nikko¯ and the Nakasendo¯ to her, and I was looking forward eagerly to beginning our journey the following summer. But in the end it all came to nothing. Fifty days prior to her death I had prayed to the gods that she might be granted another thousand days of life, and see her native village, her mother, father, friends, and child once more before she died. Willingly I pledged to surrender three years of my own life if this were to happen, but because of my past insincerity and lack of virtue it was to no avail. During her illness, when I said I wished to consult Taki Rakushin’in, Matsuko tried to dissuade me, saying, ‘‘There is no point adding to our present financial troubles by calling in an eminent physician.’’ ‘‘If you get any worse we are ruined anyway,’’ I replied. ‘‘Despite our poverty I am prepared to spend  gold pieces to get you well again and then next summer take you back home. Don’t worry about it.’’ She was delighted at this. To the end of her days Matsuko never contradicted me, and she was normally extremely circumspect, but her illness made her very thirsty, and she would drink water many times each day. The doctor had recommended boiled water rather than cold, but two or three days before her death it seemed that nothing but cold water would slake her thirst. I tried to restrain her at first, given what the doctor had said, but by this stage I realized that there was no way of saving her. The night before she died she asked the maidservant to bring her some water, and when she had drunk it whispered to her two or three times, ‘‘On no account must the master learn of this.’’ Overhearing it, now beyond all anger, I uttered an involuntary cry. If she could be so solicitous of me even on her deathbed, then I could imagine what she must have been like in better days. Matsuko seemed much troubled by fever for the last two nights before she died, but otherwise until her death her speech

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and her mind remained exactly as they had always been. However, her body was so thin that she could not bear to lie for long in the same position. At cockcrow on the eve of her death she suddenly said, ‘‘Call the master.’’ When I approached her bedside she spoke to me. ‘‘I can no longer cook for you,’’ she declared. ‘‘From now on you must do it yourself.’’ She had always been so composed that now, thinking her delirious, and afraid that this meant the end for her, I left the room and promptly fainted. Shindo¯, Shunsai, and others who were lodging there plied me with medicine to bring me to my senses. These were the last words she ever spoke to me. On thinking about it later, I realized that it was not delirium; what she had meant to say was that although hitherto she had prepared my meals, we were now to be parted. At around . .. on the tenth day her breathing grew so quiet as to be imperceptible. ‘‘She may already have passed away,’’ said Shindo¯, turning towards me. ‘‘Everybody should be quiet for a little. With an illness like your wife’s it is not easy to determine the line between life and death.’’ We stayed quietly until . .., without making a sound. Ever since the first of this month, when I learnt of my uncle’s death, I had left my hair undone, but as ten days had now passed, this particular morning I tied it again.73 However, being distracted and unable to keep still, I did it in haste. When I had finished, Matsuko called out that she would like a Suitengu¯ amulet. She had begun to ask for them regularly following a visit from Mr. Sudo¯’s mother, who had recommended them to her. To pacify her I had sent Kawamoto Bunji to look for some amulets from Takamatsu Kompira, which he finally found on the seventh. Earlier, too, from the fifth of this month I had been sending him off each day to procure Suitengu¯ amulets from the Kurume mansion.74 Now, when he gave her one to eat, she said over and over again, ‘‘If I am to be cured of my illness, please let

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it be soon,’’ and then fell silent. At the time I was in my study, weeping and praying to the spirits. Alarmed, I ran to her. As I approached her bed she suddenly opened her eyes and stirred, and clasping her hands chanted, ‘‘Namu Amida Butsu.’’ Then, hands still clasped, she died. Taking her hands in mine I cried aloud in grief. Shioda, Kenzo¯, and the rest said, ‘‘She has been able to speak until now, so she may perhaps still be alive,’’ but on inspection her pulse was gone. Over these three or four days she had more than twenty people caring for her, alternating with each other day and night. Out of her consideration for me, and because I was frequently anguished, everyone made it their business to keep me out of the room. Old Haru and Ume, the serving maids, who massaged her legs, and Kenzo¯ and Bunkei who saw to her clothes and bedding, were all four constantly by her side, but at the moment of her death they had all withdrawn behind the screen, and I alone, holding her clasped hands, saw to my surprise that she was dead. From the seventh or eighth month Matsuko had been sleeping during the day and constantly eating fruit, taking no notice of my warnings. I asked our friends to remonstrate with her also, but she would not listen. So I was compelled to write to my family at home and to my father-in-law asking them to dissuade her, but their replies took more than sixty or seventy days. Tanso¯ was extremely angry, feeling that my constant mistreatment had made her unhappy and so precipitated her illness. ‘‘Our father was always scolding our mother,’’ he wrote, ‘‘and when she died people said that he had killed her with his nagging.75 You are exactly the same.’’ Reading his letter I cried so hard that I could not speak, and Matsuko called from her bed to ask what had made me so unhappy. I showed her Tanso¯’s letter, and knowing how accurate it was, I declared that if by any chance she should die then I wanted my own life also to be cut short. Matsuko was extremely displeased at this, saying, ‘‘I know outsiders might

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criticize my husband, but I do not agree with them. It is my own fault that I took no notice of the warnings you have been giving me since the seventh and eighth months. This past month you have been particularly upset, and worried by my constant sleeping and eating. Neither my sisters-in-law nor my sisters have husbands who take such good care of them. And it is my fault that Tanso¯ blames you so much. I must tell this to my parentsin-law and Ko¯nosuke while I can still move my hands.’’ She took a brush and paper, but I stopped her, fearing that she might become chilled, with adverse consequences for her health, and told her that she was being ridiculous. I held her hand and wept, and Matsuko, prone though she was, dried my face with a towel, crying also. This was on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. After her death, as I reproached myself for failing to treat her properly, I would from time to time bring out Tanso¯’s letter. Later, one day as I was weeping contritely before our family altar, Fujita Renpei came and, twisting the letter from my hand, threw it into the fire. During her illness, Matsuko was extremely partial to some chestnut dumplings Shioda had given her, and ate them often. She was also fond of shirozake,76 but when I warned her that cold sake would only aggravate her diarrhea she drank unrefined sake. At dawn each day she would drink two or three cups of it, declaring it the best medicine in the world. She continued to drink like this up until dawn on the eighth day. She had always been fond of a broth containing red snapper eyeballs, but this fish was not so readily available in Edo as it had been in Osaka, so Renpei, Shindo¯, and Iwanaga Minetsugu,77 Matsuko’s maternal cousin, would give it to us. Also, since she liked rice-cakes Ito¯ Genboku gave her some of last year’s mizumochi, and she ate these boiled on fourteen or fifteen occasions. Further, when she wanted noodles we gave her katakuriko which Genboku sent. She liked kanzarashi no dango, so Udagawa Kyo¯sai ordered

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some of the very finest quality, and these, served with a sugar syrup, delighted her.78 Then, as she was fond of chestnut dumplings, Shioda gave her some of these, too. Our friends brought Matsuko whatever she fancied, so that she lacked nothing. For a period of some fifty days I personally prepared all her meals, and although I botched many of them, at the conclusion of each she would always lay down her chopsticks and say, ‘‘That was lovely,’’ never failing to praise me warmly. If I told her that I was going to eat later, she would always order the maidservant to bring a tray for me. Then, when I urged her to start eating, with the comment that the food would not taste good if it got cold, she would reply, ‘‘Very well then, if you insist,’’ and take up her chopsticks. She never deviated from this until just two days before her death. In the evening two days before she died, she ate a chestnut dumpling, and then said, ‘‘I can eat no more.’’ I went into the next room and wept. The following morning I roasted some rice grains, boiled them, mashed them, infused them through cloth, warmed the mixture, and gave it to her to drink. ‘‘That was very good,’’ she said, and swallowed three or four cupfuls. She was able to drink this liquid several times, up until an hour before she died. Otherwise until her death her appetite was undiminished. After she died I ordered the maidservants to keep her favorite foods—chestnut dumplings, shirozake, dried persimmons, and citrus fruits—before the family altar. During her illness she liked me to read Hizakurige (which was a work of fiction) to her. She said she would like to listen to O¯kubo Musashi abumi (another work of fiction)79 but since I did not have it I was unable to oblige her. I had had the posthumous names of my ancestors inscribed on a large sheet of paper which I would display on the anniversaries of their deaths. This year I brought it out at Urabon,80 and later, when I took it down I told Matsuko to put it in the

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storehouse. By mistake, however, she stored it in a closet in the guestroom. I had repeatedly warned her that this was infested with mice, and several days later, when I opened the closet and removed the lid from the box, I found that the mice had gnawed through the edges of the paper. I was greatly vexed, and said, ‘‘This sickness of yours is my ancestors’ way of taking revenge on you.’’ Matsuko, most contrite, said she would have a paperer repair it immediately, but time passed without anything being done, and her condition grew worse. We spoke of it sometimes, but in the end did nothing. Before she died I asked Shioda to engage a paperer, but it proved impossible to have repairs done quickly. The paperer delivered it eleven days after her death, and Kyo¯sai added my wife’s name to it. It was wrong of me to have ordered her to attend to it rather than putting it away myself; then to go and upset her by scolding her only compounded the offense. Matsuko may not have seemed especially demonstrative, but in fact, though outwardly reserved, inwardly she was extremely emotional. When Hokudo¯ 81 left Osaka, Matsuko was so overcome at the parting that our maidservant had to help her home. At the time I went away to Osaka, she saw me off at the gate and was so distressed that she was forced to lean on Shinsuke’s shoulder to make her way back to the house. When I came up to Edo last year, I anticipated this, so I took the precaution of hiring Osachi and had her go to my wife so that I could leave without saying farewell. In my mind’s eye, even now she is dead, I can still picture her supported by the maid, and by Shinsuke, and that makes me grieve all the more. After coming to Edo, Matsuko no longer mentioned our hometown, but during her illness she spoke many times of her fear that my brother’s wife, perhaps losing his affection, might have gone back to her family and conceivably even been divorced. She wrote to Nangai’s wife, but there was no reply. ‘‘We

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will know for certain when an answer comes,’’ she said. I could not bear to see her kept waiting for a response, so I wrote to Nangai asking him to reply at once, but Matsuko died before any letter came. ‘‘You’ve known aunty for twenty years. Why don’t you try to stop uncle?’’ 82 she asked. ‘‘If you were ever to hate me so much that you wanted a divorce, it would be better to kill me.’’ When I asked her if Ko¯nosuke had said anything when she left for Edo, she said, ‘‘I was afraid that saying goodbye would make him sad, so I sent him outside and left in secret.’’ 83 It strikes me now that this would have been the last farewell between mother and child. For two years after our marriage, in  and , we lived together, but at the beginning of  I went to Nagasaki, and in the fourth month of  I travelled east and settled in Sakai and also visited Edo. In the ninth month of  I returned home, and we lived together until the second month of , when I travelled east once more. In the fifth month of , I went to meet Matsuko and Ko¯nosuke at Shimonoseki, and we proceeded to Osaka. That winter I travelled in the southern part of Kii Province, and came back a month later. For all of  we were together, but towards the end of the summer of  I visited my native province and in the autumn returned to Osaka. ¯ mura, and came back home In , in the summer, I went to O in the winter, at the end of the tenth month. At the beginning of  Matsuko went sightseeing in Yamato and Ise with my elder sister, Mrs. Aso. That same year, in the fifth month, I moved to Edo, and in the fifth month of this year [] Matsuko joined me. Over the twelve years and one month from the eleventh month of  to the twelfth month of , we spent more than five years apart. During her illness Matsuko would often comment that we had spent far too much time away from each other, and that this had placed a strain on our relationship. ‘‘I am now almost in my thirtieth year,’’ she said, ‘‘and you are not far from

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your fortieth. I want us to stay together for a long time now, without any more separations.’’ Who could have predicted that within a hundred days fate was to part us forever? This was Matsuko’s twenty-ninth year, and what with Shinsuke’s death in his nineteenth year, and the general superstition about ‘‘surviving the nines,’’ 84 she expressed some concern about it. From the tenth month onwards she was looking forward to the winter solstice, and on that morning, now in her thirtieth year, and one year older, we ate mochi. Her appetite had returned to normal, and I thought that now she would feel relieved, but within twenty-eight days she was dead. I lost my father in my twenty-eighth year, and now in my thirty-eighth I have lost my wife. So eight may also be a dangerous number. Since this summer Shioda’s wife and Ito¯ Genboku’s wife have both been bedridden for more than two hundred days after giving birth, and so close to dying that they made their wills, but in due course they recovered completely. Both men assured me that, as had been the case with their wives, mine also was certain to get better. But Matsuko was the only one who failed to recover, perhaps because I was not as deserving as they. Both men came to condole with me on the seventh night after her death.85 ‘‘Nothing is so sad as losing a wife,’’ they declared. ‘‘When we thought our own might die, we were completely at a loss. We did not even know what to do about the memorial services they had asked for. In the end, however, we resigned ourselves to the prospect, and consequently felt more composed. Nobody whose wife has not been critically ill can possibly understand how distressing it is.’’ ‘‘But you still don’t really understand what bereavement feels like,’’ I replied. ‘‘For the past seventeen or eighteen days I also have been worrying what to do if my wife should die. Then I gradually resigned myself to the inevitable, and, like you, felt somewhat calmer. But that was only a delusion. Now she is dead, all that resignation counts for nothing. It is like losing

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a lantern on a dark night. I am dazed. I feel stunned. This is what bereavement is like, and you cannot understand it without having experienced it.’’ Both men agreed immediately that this was an excellent description of the way it would feel. I regretted that Matsuko’s family was not by her side when she died, and I still think it a great pity. However, one of her mother’s younger cousins, Iwanaga Minetsugu, who had been assigned to the Kurume barracks, would stay overnight to nurse her each time he came to visit. My friend Shigetomi Kanae, from a village near my wife’s, who had acted as go-between when I married her, and who was living at Zo¯jo¯ji, visited her several times. From around the eighth month Matsuko had begun to lose weight, and by the tenth month found walking difficult, but she made the effort. She refused to admit she couldn’t, worried that I might scold her, and so, to my great remorse, she endured frightful agony. But never, until the moment she died, did she refer in the slightest way to her discomfort. On the night before her death I asked her how she felt, whether she was in pain. ‘‘I feel fine,’’ she said, ‘‘and do not hurt in the least. I am only sorry that I am too thin to move, and must be a burden on others.’’ Such courage would have been beyond me, even at my most robust. Around the beginning of the eleventh month the doctors had recommended that she be given a hip bath every day. Watching her being undressed I saw to my sorrow that there was not an ounce of spare flesh over her entire body. Pretending to be cheerful was out of the question. Sick at heart, I beat my breast and wept, at which Bunkei came running in to help me and made me lie down. On every one of the next forty-odd days until her death, I cried, and each time Matsuko would laugh, asking, ‘‘What sort of a man weeps just because his wife is sick?’’ For several years after we were married Matsuko dressed my hair. When I called on Shionoya Meifu one day, he said, ‘‘You

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come here every day, but you have never once been dishevelled or unshaven. Such deference is admirable. Who does this for you?’’ When I informed him that it was my wife’s work, the magistrate was impressed and sent her a gift of bonito. I had rebuked her for Teijiro¯’s death, declaring it to be her fault, and had put it in writing.86 Then when Shinsuke died I attributed this also to her gross negligence. However, in her own case the illness took much longer to develop; in the seventh month she had not yet become critically ill. Instead she grew steadily worse over a period of one hundred and fifty days. But even then, through no fault of my own, I could not save her. To say therefore that she had failed to control Shinsuke is to say that I also failed to control her. Now, finding myself in the same position, I see how unreasonable I was. We married in the eleventh month of , and in the summer of  our daughter Yomi was born. She died on the eleventh day of the intercalary seventh month of the following year. In the tenth month of  Ko¯nosuke was born, and in the fifth month of  Teijiro¯ was born, dying in the eighth month. Matsuko seemed to be pregnant in the eighth month of this year, but she died before we could be sure. Two days prior to her death I was sending gifts home to Hita and asked her if she wished me to include a message for her family at Hita Yoshiki. In reality I was asking if she had any last requests. All she said was, ‘‘Please just tell them that I am unwell and unable to hold a brush. When I feel better I will send them a message.’’ Generally I would rebuke her for sending home word of any illnesses, for fear of alarming Tanso¯ needlessly, so perhaps conscious of this, even though she lay dying, she did not wish to give her parents cause for concern. Some ten days after Matsuko’s death a package arrived from my father-in-law enclosing letters to her from her grandmother, her mother, her brother, and her sister. Her father’s letter re-

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ferred to something Matsuko had written to him on the sixth day of the tenth month in which she said that she was gradually recovering from her illness. This, as I have already noted, was written, at my urging, with the object of reassuring her parents. Her father, responding to word of her pregnancy, sent some medicine for that condition. Sadly I placed this before the family altar and wrote to him the next day. During her illness my brother Nangai had sent me a thousand copper cash 87 from Osaka, enquiring after Matsuko’s health. She was highly delighted, and said, ‘‘Elder brother is a kind man and always considerate.’’ ‘‘Tell me what you would like me to buy,’’ I said, ‘‘and I shall go and get it immediately.’’ ‘‘There are so many things I would like,’’ she said, overjoyed. No doubt she was thinking of clothes and was too distracted to consider anything else. Needlework had always given her the greatest pleasure, and she was constantly engaged in it; even during her illness she employed a seamstress and gave her directions as she lay in bed. Just three days before she died, I purchased a kataginu,88 and she checked its quality herself and chose the style. I scolded her when she began to sew it, for this would have made her hands and feet cold, just as letter-writing would have, and it would not have been good for her. But it was no use, for indeed sewing was her only pleasure. She enjoyed visitors as much as, in olden times, did the mother of T’ao K’an,89 and on this score, at least, I, usually alert to any shortcomings, was gratified that she met my expectations. On the twentieth day of the tenth month a messenger called Haruta Genzo¯ came from the Prime Minister, Lord Mizuno, with an offer of employment.90 Genzo¯, whom we had known in Osaka, then asked how my wife was. ‘‘I have had her join me here,’’ I answered. ‘‘I would like to see her,’’ he said. ‘‘She is unwell,’’ I replied, ‘‘so I don’t think she would wish to be seen; all the same I shall ask her.’’ When I announced this to Matsuko, who was

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already by that time very frail, she said, ‘‘I should greet him because this visit is important for you.’’ She came out to meet him, just as she was. Genzo¯ was extremely sympathetic. ‘‘The weather here is very unsettled, and that makes many newcomers ill,’’ he observed. ‘‘It’s easy to be affected by the cold at first, but when you get used to it you should find that by the twelfth month it is actually good for your condition, and you should quite recover.’’ On that occasion she herself served us sake. While she was ill Fujita Renpei came and sat up all night, together with several students. In the course of the conversation he said, ‘‘Mencius states that a great man never loses his youthful innocence.91 There’s nobody like that these days, except for the master of this household. He has precisely that sort of temperament.’’ Needless to say he was poking fun at my naivete. Matsuko giggled and whispered to me from her pillow, ‘‘When we were first married you used to enjoy watching children catching bugs and then putting moxa 92 on their backs. That’s not something a great man would do.’’ Fourteen or fifteen days before she died, when I was up late one night talking with some students, she would interject an occasional drowsy comment. All night long we reminisced about Hakozaki, Takaneyama, and other Kyushu beauty spots. ‘‘I didn’t sleep at all last night,’’ said Matsuko the next morning. ‘‘Why not?’’ I asked. ‘‘I was so unsettled thinking about the places I used to go, and wondering when I shall see them again now I am so sick, that I just couldn’t sleep.’’ I turned away and wept. After Matsuko died, Haru, the maidservant, would often recall that in the ninth month, when they both took a boat trip from Azuma Bridge to Ryo¯goku with Kyo¯sai and Antei, my wife had spoken of her comfortable life in the West Country, and how much freer it was there than in a big city. ‘‘I told her that Edo women would use their parents or children as an excuse to

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stay at home, just to avoid having to leave such a lovely place and travel so far. None of them would follow a husband for six hundred miles. But then the mistress said, ‘Would that sort of woman really be doing her duty? In my opinion we have to go with our husbands, even at the risk of our lives.’ ’’ Looking back on it now, I see that those words foreshadowed her death. Each night during her illness Matsuko would tell Haru that no matter how careful she was, the food she prepared was too sweet, for the maid would cook in the Edo way, using too much sugar. The flavor, so Matsuko declared, was much inferior to a Hita breakfast—tea poured over cold rice with thick slices of happonzuke.93 When we were first married, Matsuko had known nothing about cooking, but she later learned to do it and made the sort of dishes I liked. In the eighth month I had asked a samurai from Yonezawa to order some striped cloth so that Matsuko could make herself a spring costume, but she died before it could be finished. I sent it to Tsuboi’s wife as a memento, and she paid a visit to Matsuko’s grave at Denzu¯in 94 to display it. In the event that I should leave Edo, I have asked the Tsuboi and Udagawa families to take care of her grave.95

A Postscript, Written Later after Moving to Osaka In Edo there are mediums who know how to call up the spirits of the dead, untroubled by the blasphemy implicit in the black arts. About a week after Matsuko’s death our maidservant Haru went to the Azuma Bridge area and did not return until late. When I asked why, she replied, ‘‘I had heard amazing reports about a medium at Muko¯jima, so I asked her to summon the mistress, because I miss her so. The medium immediately spoke in the mistress’s voice and said, ‘It was kind of you to invoke me, but you should not have done so. Do not call me again. If you do

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I shall not be able to come. I am already committed to watching over Ko¯nosuke and surreptitiously protecting him. That is all I want to do. My only regret is that I could not bid my husband goodbye, because up until the very morning of my death he insisted that I was going to recover. That is why I am speaking to you now.’ ’’ This detail was privy only to Matsuko and myself, and nobody else would have known, so I was astonished to hear it, and my scepticism melted away. Matsuko’s grave is in the precincts of the Kenjuin,96 within the Denzu¯in at Koishikawa, where I purchased a nine-foot square plot. I set up a tombstone in the centre, surrounded it with a carpet of pebbles on all sides, and an enclosing hedge. On the front of the stone I had inscribed the words Cloister of Graceful Docility Serene Glorious Loving Constant Great Sister, and on the reverse the date of her death and the statement ‘‘Such was her behavior that her posthumous name is entirely appropriate.’’ When I left Edo in  I asked both Tsuboi Shinro¯ 97 and Yo¯gai Kenzaburo¯ to tidy her grave occasionally. Both men were kind enough to promise to bring incense and flowers regularly. Shinro¯ is Shindo¯’s adopted son, and Kenzaburo¯ is a samurai in the service of the Lord of Funai. Although both are my own acquaintances and had no dealings with my wife, they are reliable men. At her grave, prior to my leaving Edo, I composed a poem: The house of King Brahma stands north of the great castle. Through withered grass and chill mists the road climbs to the tomb. It is the season for Ch’ing-ming and cold food But who will bring her fragrant flowers now? 98 Then at Kawasaki posthorse station I composed a verse:

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We came here once together, but will do so no more. Mounted on my horse, I turn my head away, and drench my garments with tears. Ask not if Muryo¯zan 99 be near or far. The trees by the city wall are already tinged with green. By Muryo¯zan I refer to Denzu¯in. Because I have made a collection of several other memorial verses written around this time I shall not record them here. In Osaka in , six years after Matsuko’s death, I married my present wife, from the Yamana family.100 I would always abstain 101 on the tenth of the month, the day on which Matsuko died, and this made my Yamana wife most indignant. She would behave very rudely whenever I lit a lamp and burned incense before the memorial tablet. However, for three consecutive months, on the tenth day each month, the flowers in front of the family altar fell to the floor, and the incense was overturned, which made her quite alarmed and caused her to declare that one should beware the spirits of the departed. Thereafter she was particularly respectful. Prior to this my concubine from the Hirano family 102 often said, ‘‘When the master scolded me unjustly I would always show disrespect to his previous wife’s memorial tablet, but then many weird things happened.’’ E News of Matsuko’s death came as no surprise to Kyokuso¯’s brothers, who had been warned that she was gravely ill. Tanso¯ observed the occasion with a brief encomium: ‘‘She was of a gentle disposition,’’ he wrote, ‘‘but Kenkichi [Kyokuso¯], being by nature irascible and excitable, was like Hsiao Ying-shih. His first wife, unable to bear it, had left him, but she [Matsuko]

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lived with him for fourteen years, weathering good times and bad without ever once wishing to leave him. They moved to Osaka, then they moved to Edo, far from her parents. Ungrudgingly she parted with her child. We shall not see her like again. Sadly, her life was short—oh, how tragic.’’ 103 He also held the requisite Buddhist ceremony to mark the forty-ninth day after her death, but concealed the reason from the eight-year-old Ko¯nosuke, who remained ignorant of his mother’s fate for a further three years.104 The full particulars, at least as Kyokuso¯ presented them in his memoir, did not reach Hita until , when he sent Ko¯nosuke the original, with the request that it be returned to him in Osaka after it had been shown to Matsuko’s family, and a copy made. ‘‘Never forget, not for so much as a day, the debt you owe your mother,’’ he added.105 Kyokuso¯ himself did not forget, either, what Matsuko had meant to him. The poem he wrote on the first anniversary of her death says as much: As her bier was taken to Chiu Yuan I fell senseless in the snow by the city gate. All that remains of her now is a homespun robe. Pressing it to my tear-stained cheek, I remember her.106 Nevertheless, whether he was grief-stricken or not, there was a private academy to be run, and a number of resident students to feed. Without a consort he found the domestic arrangements quite beyond him.107 So it is not surprising that eight months after Matsuko’s death, well before he composed his anniversary poem, he took a concubine, Hirano Kei. Nor is it surprising that this arrangement, like the one which followed it, did not last very long. As he expressed it, after losing Matsuko, Kyokuso¯ ‘‘frequently changed wives and concubines.’’ Despite the chastening experience he had just been through, he did not seem to have learnt anything from Matsuko’s death. He was just as difficult as he had ever been. Two and a half years after sealing the

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concubinage agreement with Kei he took steps to have it dissolved, blaming her unspecified ‘‘faults.’’ Within the year he had taken another wife, his third, Yamana (alternatively, Kimura) Eiko, the wife referred to in the postscript to Tsuishiroku. If anything, this marriage, lasting just a little over two years, was less successful than his relationship with Kei, his concubine, had been. What brought it to an end, he claimed, was her ‘‘extreme jealousy.’’ His fourth and last wife, married in , was Shimizu Taki, to whom he was still married in , when, by his own account, he still desperately missed the wife who had died twelve years before.108 Each of these subsequent liaisons produced more children, and, as was all too common in Tokugawa Japan, more children meant further bereavements. Just nine months after sealing the concubinage contract, Hirano Kei gave him a son, Chu¯zaburo¯. In  his third wife produced a daughter, Oshin, and late the following year, although already separated from him and divorced, a son, Jinshiro¯, whom she sent to him three months later. Shimizu Taki, his fourth wife, bore him a daughter, Ogi, in , and a son, Sho¯kichi, in . Of these five further children, Kyokuso¯, having already seen two children die, was to lose three more. Oshin, whose death is described below, lived for two months before dying of meningitis, and shortly after that Kyokuso¯ received word that his son Chu¯zaburo¯, who had been adopted by Kyokuso¯’s childless elder brother Teien in , had died in Kyushu. These two bereavements, following so closely one upon the other, so Kyokuso¯ said, caused him ‘‘unbearable grief. . . . From that time forward my memory suddenly began to fail, and I could not remember anything I read.’’ 109 Ogi, his last daughter, lived for less than six months before falling victim to smallpox, despite his having tried ‘‘all manner of rare and secret remedies.’’ 110 What follows is a translation of portions of his handwritten

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account of the death of Oshin, here called—at least initially— by her posthumous name, Ho¯ei.111 A Brief Biography of the Baby Girl, Ho¯ei An Account of the Death of the Girl Ho¯ei, Together with the Circumstances of Her Life, , Eighth Month This child, the second of my daughters, was called Oshin. Her mother is from the Kimura family. She was born in our lodgings on Awaji Avenue in Osaka on the fourteenth day of the sixth month, , at eleven in the evening. On the eleventh day of the eighth month of the same year, at two in the afternoon, she died suddenly. The next day, the twelfth, she was buried between the graves of Junkaku-koji (the girl’s adoptive uncle) and Kyo¯ai-do¯ji (the girl’s elder brother)112 in the cemetery at Ebie village, north-east of Noda Shinke on the western outskirts of Osaka. . . . [Then follows a list of gifts received at her birth, together with the names of the donors.]    

She had her first haircut on the nineteenth day of the sixth month, and was given the name Oshin. We ordered sake and invited my wife’s elder brother, Harimaya Kanjiro¯ and his wife, Okabe Genmin, and Fujioka Yu¯sai (none of whom could come). We also invited my elder brother Teien, Nakamura Zen’eimon, who came, and my students Okada Cho¯go and Takado Chu¯zo¯ joined us for a drink. Later Murakami Sho¯emon and Maruya Bunkichi happened to arrive. On the sixteenth day of the sev-

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enth month she made her first visit to a shrine. My students Arima Kyo¯suke, Nishikubo Takeshi, and Amaya Shu¯kei came also, as did the maidservants Oichi and Oume. Hari[maya] Kan[jiro¯] finally appeared. On the twenty-first day of the seventh month I presented cakes to those who had congratulated us on her birth.    

From birth she grew in both height and weight, and by the seventh month she was quite plump, although occasionally she appeared to have difficulty with her bowel and bladder movements. Having learnt from my previous experience with the boy Kyo¯ai,113 I instructed my wife to give the child goko¯yu,114 but as it transpired she resisted doing so, claiming that the child violently vomited up whatever medicine she was given. Consequently the child would go for days without a bowel movement. When I saw her on the morning of the eighth day of the seventh month she was pale, with no color at all. On asking my wife if she had given the child any medicine over the previous two days, she replied that we had none to give her, but this was merely an excuse to conceal her laziness. I sent for three packets of medicine, and immediately had the child take them. At around midday she had diarrhea two or three times, after which the color returned to her face, and she laughed and gurgled. On the evening of the tenth my wife took the baby to the Harimaya, her brother’s house, where Nagai Yo¯gen, her mater-

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nal uncle, was visiting. She did not return until very late. I needed to send a long letter off to Kondo¯ Gorozaemon from Yonezawa early on the morning of the eleventh, so I was too busy writing to look in on the baby. Once that was completed I gave a lecture, and then resumed my writing, interrupting it to go to the west wing to have my lunch. But no sooner had I finished eating, returned to my work, picked up my brush, and written two pages, than I heard my wife screaming.115 When I went to see what was the matter, I found her holding the baby, with Ume the maidservant crying beside her. The baby had turned deathly pale 116 and seemed to have stopped breathing. I recalled that some years earlier, when the child Kyo¯ai died, Hidaka Ryo¯to had told me that the boy would have recovered if he had been made to swallow something, even if only some shien.117 So this time I hastily dissolved some in water and gave it to her, at which she gave a loud cry. ‘‘It must have burned her mouth,’’ said my wife, reproaching me for my carelessness. Koishi Kannosuke, our neighbour on the north side, hearing our voices, rushed in and asked if we had any bear gall. Fortunately we did, so I dissolved a little in water and gave it to her. At this her stomach began to rumble, she gave a great cry, and apparently succumbed. After a time, however, just as I thought it was all over for her, she seemed to recover, and presently began to breathe again. But then she stopped breathing altogether. I had discovered two packets of medicine while

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looking for the bear gall. ‘‘What are these?’’ I demanded. My wife had given the baby no medicine on either the ninth or the tenth; previously, on the eighth, she had administered some once or twice, but that was only because I was there watching. After that she gave her nothing. ‘‘I told you the baby would die if she went for two days without moving her bowels,’’ I said, ‘‘but you were convinced she would recover without any medicine, even if it meant she would go for a day or so without evacuating. Now, although I warned you about it on the eighth, this has happened simply because you did nothing to prevent it. I dare say you’re sorry now.’’ At this my wife burst into tears. What a tragedy this has been. Just as I had stopped writing to go over to the west wing, I had ordered Ju¯suke, my manservant, to run and fetch Dr. Kameyama, the pediatrician, but he was not at home and did not come. When I sent word to Hari[maya] Kan[jiro¯], his wife and [Nagai] Yo¯gen came at once. So too did Fujioka Yu¯sai, but it was already over by then, and there was nothing they could do. Some years ago, when the boy Kyo¯ai died, I was at The Abode of the Blest, which was inconveniently located more than half a block away from where my son was, at my Shiba residence. I later wrote about his tragic death in my journal. This time, however, the west wing was quite near The Chamber of Southern Fragrance,118 so I was able to stop in seven or eight times a day to hold her and see how she was. On that particular day, however, I had gone

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 / Kyokuso¯ the Scholar

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to my study at daybreak, so it was fate that I did not see my daughter until I heard my wife shrieking. Just sixteen years earlier my daughter Jo¯ren 119 had died, on the eleventh day of the intercalary seventh month. This time, though the month was different, it was the same day. Kyo¯ai had died on the fourth day of the eighth month, , which was just one month and ten years earlier, with only the day being different. There is a tall pine tree in the garden outside my study. Each year a crow would raise its young in the branches. There were always two offspring, a male and a female. I used to watch the chicks fly away, leaving their mother behind. For three years now I had observed this, but this year, for some reason, both fledglings had fallen from their nest, and even though I set up a ladder and put them back, they fell down again immediately. Finally both died. A little later two sparrow chicks also fell from their nest, and died within a day or so. On the eighth of this month a puppy was born under the house next door. It fell into a culvert and howled terribly. Just as I was about to tell my manservant Ju¯suke to go and rescue it, it died. All these things happened around the time my daughter was born. They upset me very much, and as it transpired they proved to be evil omens. At the precise time of my daughter’s death my students Imagawa Yoshitaro¯, the priest Senyo¯, Arima Kyo¯suke, Hayakawa Yu¯taro¯, Kato¯ Sanju, and Amaya Shu¯kei appeared at the door to ask about her, while my nonresident students Tamagi Sho¯go, ¯ tsuki Tamenosuke, and Okada Cho¯go, whom I O

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had sent for, also arrived. I sent a note around to my resident and nonresident students telling them what had happened. I also sent word to Kashimaya Matabei, whose kinsman Kichibei had previously taken care of the funeral arrangements for Kyo¯ai and Junkaku, to tell him I would like to ask the same man again. I had discussed the details of my son’s funeral with Kien, the priest from Tokusho¯ji, so consequently, following that precedent, this time I asked Tetsu’un, Kien’s younger brother,120 to take charge. Kashima[ya] Kichi[bei] and the priest Tetsu’un both arrived, and we arranged that the funeral should be at four the following afternoon. Everything was to be done as it had been for Kyo¯ai, and I decided that Oshin should be interred at the same site. Tetsu’un sent a note to the priest Ryu¯shin at Nantokuji, requesting him to send someone to direct the proceedings, and to have the grave site prepared. I had [Kato¯] Sanju and [Hayakawa] Yu¯taro¯ tell everybody, and they returned with acknowledgements. Rihei came, and as nobody had been assigned to carry the mortuary tablet 121 tomorrow I thought I would have him ask whether Sawada Kichizo¯, who was young, might do it. He returned with Kichizo¯’s acceptance. My brother Teien arrived at the time of her death. That night Wataya Bo¯emon came to condole. Bairetsu also came to condole. Tetsu’un and the students stayed by the altar all night, as did Okabe Katsunoshin. Nishiyama Jinnosuke, Gyo¯toku Gen-

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 / Kyokuso¯ the Scholar

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shin, and Tsuchiya Ikuta came to pay their condolences that night, and the chief priest of Jo¯senbo¯ sent a message. Twelfth day: Kashimaya Kichibei arrived, and I asked him to go to Nantokuji to dig a hole at the gravesite and to make sure all the funerary apparatus was in order. Ko¯getsu came and discussed the ceremony with Tetsu’un. [Imagawa] Yoshitaro¯ and [Arima] Kyo¯suke were given the task of recording the proceedings and supervising the funeral service, while [Takagi] Sho¯go was to take charge of the food. . . . In the afternoon Kichibei returned from Nantokuji, reporting that the long spell of rain had left the ground muddy, so he had been able to dig only a little; also that he had notified the sho¯ya 122 of the district, all of which had delayed him. He also brought two urns, one large and one small, lids, white paper lanterns, and a basket to bear the body. Five men arrived to carry the lanterns and the basket. I sent off her mortuary tablet, having decided that Ho¯ei do¯jo 123 was to be her posthumous name. At two in the afternoon Kichibei prepared her body, with Nagai Yo¯gen and Ko¯getsu helping him bathe her. All were grief-stricken, commenting that her body was just as soft as it had been when she was alive. For the occasion of her first shrine visit we had ordered a robe on which [Wataya] Bo¯emon had painted a design of orchids, and we now used this to enshroud her, along with the best of the amulet bags we had been given. Sending the larger urn on ahead to the graveyard, we placed her body, together with

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some lime, in the smaller, and covered it with a pine lid sealed with pitch, just as we had done with my son. We then took it to my study, and placed incense and flowers before it. Later that afternoon the priest came from Nantokuji. Before he read the sutras, we offered food to those who were to attend the funeral, in the ceremony commonly known as shiage. . . .124 The bier was carried off at four in the afternoon. This was the order of the procession: At the head, Kashimaya Kichibei, followed by the officiating priest from Nantokuji. Then came two men carrying box lanterns, and after them Sawada Kichizo¯ bearing the mortuary tablet, followed by two men with the bier. After them were two more men with ¯ tsuki Tabox lanterns, and then six attendants—O menosuke and Okabe Katsunoshin (both wearing kamishimo), Arima Kyo¯suke and Kato¯ Sanju (both wearing jittoku), and Hayakawa Yu¯taro¯ and Amaya Shu¯kei (both wearing haori and hakama).125 Then, in the place of honor, came Imagawa Yoshitaro¯, wearing kamishimo, and after him five attendant priests —Bairetsu from Ko¯enji, Tetsu’un from Tokusho¯ji, Ko¯getsu from Tokuryu¯ji, Rakuen from Saisho¯ji, and Senyo¯ from Jo¯nenji. Following them were twentyfour mourners—Harimaya Kanjiro¯, Nagai Yo¯gen, Asaoka Kihei, Masuya Shinzo¯, Nadaya Jo¯shichi, Kawachiya Kihei, Koishi Kannosuke, Araki Yoshitsugu, Ta[nomura] Kotora, Wataya Bo¯emon, Inogata Ko¯an, Taniguchi So¯suke, Ishikawaya Tokubei, Niiya Kumataro¯, Yoshidaya Kitaro¯, Shimaya Matashiro¯, Itamiya Jihei, Gyo¯toku Genshin, Nishiyama Jinnosuke, Kayano Do¯ju, Kashimaya Matabei, Unrin’in To¯go, Okada Cho¯go, and Tsuchiya Ikuta.

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 / Kyokuso¯ the Scholar

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When the bier set out I wept as I saw it to the door. Ever since the middle of the previous month it had been overcast and wet, and it had rained up until mid-morning, but it stopped during the funeral, which was a relief to everyone. When they returned at around six o’clock they said they had gone by way of Etchu¯ Bridge through Nakanoshima and past Funatsu Bridge because the Minato Bridge was under repair. They also said that, the Nantokuji priest being away, his son Gijo¯ met them at the grave site. On the lid of the urn were written the four characters ‘‘Ho¯ei do¯jo,’’ and on the reverse side ‘‘Oshin, the second daughter of Hirose Kenkichi. She died on the eleventh day of the eighth month, , and, being born on the fourteenth day of the sixth month, lived for only fifty-seven days.’’ We borrowed trays and bowls from [Wataya] Bo¯emon and Tetsu’un. Shinkuro¯, who was my elder brother’s servant, came to help. Hari[maya] Kan[jiro¯]’s wife left in the evening, but the girl Taki stayed the night. Thirteenth day: I set off for Nantokuji in the company of [Hayakawa] Ryu¯taro¯ and [Kato¯] Sanju. The priest Ryu¯shin escorted us to the grave site, where I made an offering of flowers, and then we returned home. I discussed plans for the gravestone with Ryu¯shin, and had Sanju do a sketch of the one on Kyo¯ai’s grave. Kashima[ya] Kichi[bei] and [Tamagi] Sho¯go came to pay their respects. I had Shinkuro¯ and Ju¯suke return the borrowed utensils to their respective

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owners. Sasazaki Cho¯bei and Tsutsumi Sho¯zo¯ came to make their condolences. Fourteenth day: I invited Tetsu’un over to discuss whom to invite to the seventh-day observance on the sixteenth. My wife went to see the grave with our maidservants Ichi and Ume. . . . Fifteenth day: I had Ju¯suke carry invitations to everyone. The text read: ‘‘Tomorrow, on the sixteenth, which is the first seventh-day observance of my daughter’s death, I would like to offer you a simple afternoon meal. If you would be so kind, I request the honor of your company at noon. . . .’’ I sent the maidservant Ichi to tidy the grave. . . . Gyo¯toku Genkyo¯ came to condole. A cook, Yao[ya] Gen, who had been recommended by Tetsu’un, came to show me tomorrow’s menu. I borrowed trays from Wata[ya] Bo¯[emon]. Being in mourning, I could not celebrate the full moon; however, I had some sweet potatoes steamed and invited my students in to talk. Sixteenth day: Yao[ya] Gen came to supervise preparations for the meal. . . . Our guests began to assemble at noon, and by nightfall it was over. . . . I sent Kakutaro¯ and [Amaya] Shu¯kei to tidy the grave. Kakutaro¯ had been absent from school because of illness, and had returned just the other day. Seventeenth day: Nakanishi Ko¯seki came to condole. I went to Nantokuji with Yoshitaro¯ and [Kato¯]

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 / Kyokuso¯ the Scholar

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Sanju to tidy the grave, and met up with [Gyo¯toku] Genshin on the way. He accompanied us to the grave site. When it was time to leave, Ryu¯shin and I bade him farewell, and I returned home. Ogi Hachinosuke came to condole. Eighteenth day: Shimada Kotaro¯ in Nishinomiya sent a letter of sympathy and a condolence gift. My elder brother Nangai Genbei sent a letter dated the second of this month, together with two thousand copper cash to congratulate me on the birth of my daughter. Today for the first time I went out in public to visit my brother Teien. Twentieth day: Ryo¯un came to condole. [Tamagi] Sho¯go came to give me an accounting of the various expenses connected with the funeral and to collect the money. Twenty-first day: I sent Kashima[ya] Kichi[bei] a thousand copper cash, and thanked him for his trouble. Kyo¯an came to condole. . . . Twenty-second day: I sent gift certificates for manju¯ and yo¯kan 126 to everyone to notify them that our mourning period was at an end. . . . Twenty-fourth day: My wife went to Nantokuji to tidy the grave. . . . [The account concludes with a list of condolence gifts, and the names of the forty-three people who gave them.]

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In material terms, too, Hirose Kyokuso¯’s misfortunes did not end with Matsuko’s death. The next decade, in particular, was to see him embroiled in a succession of difficulties, personal, professional, and financial. In his memoirs Kyokuso¯ described the seven lean years which followed the loss of his wife. Until , he had never borrowed money from anyone (although he was certainly not above accepting the charity of his brothers),127 but the expenses he incurred through Matsuko’s illness and death cost him something like – gold pieces,  of which he was forced to borrow.128 Then, within weeks of her death, early in , at the ceremony marking the beginning of the school year at his academy, one of the guests had his sword stolen. Over the next two months, so Kyokuso¯ reported, he paid sixty or seventy apologetic calls on the aggrieved owner.129 Making good the loss cost him over one hundred gold pieces and took the best part of a year, during which he was also questioned by a magistrate. In , after observing in his diary that ‘‘since coming east I have not a single happy event to record,’’ and construing this as proof that his ancestors were opposed to his remaining in Edo, he decided to move back to Osaka. This in itself was no small expense, but just before he could do so, fate struck again. An acquaintance cheated him out of another hundred gold pieces. So by the end of , back in Osaka, and more than five hundred gold pieces in debt, the hapless Kyokuso¯ was reduced to selling all he had—household goods, library, and such clothes as had not been stolen from storage.130 By the winter of , living on less than a pint of rice a day, he had hit bottom. ‘‘I had exhausted all my resources,’’ he recalled, ‘‘and was so beset by problems that I wanted to die.’’ Ultimately he managed to retrieve the situation, helped by thrift and a gift from the daimyo ¯ mura, where the Hirose family had maintained a long asof O sociation.131 By  he had repaid all his debts, and although far from wealthy, was never again quite that desperate.

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His career, as he would readily have admitted, was not nearly as noteworthy as those of his elder brothers Tanso¯ and Nangai. True, he was at various times consulted by several daimyo domains,132 but, as with most Confucian scholars, there is little to suggest that his advice was ever acted upon. In  he was again invited to take a position in the Tokugawa government. This time his prospective employer was the beleaguered Shogun Iemochi, still a teenager, cowering in Osaka Castle, no more reassuring a prospect than Mizuno Tadakuni had been nearly twenty years before. Prudently, Kyokuso¯ declined the offer, excusing himself on the grounds of ill health. This proved to be no polite fiction. Less than three months later, at the age of fiftysix, Hirose Kyokuso¯ was dead.

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Epilogue / 

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Conclusion                     

When [the Japanese] meet or go to visit somebody, they always appear cheerful and in good spirits, and they either do not refer to their troubles at all, or, if they do, at most they just mention them with a laugh as if they did not worry about such unimportant matters. —Alessandro Valignano,  The Japanese have great respect for their burial places, and willingly sacrifice everything in their power to keep the resting places of their dead in good condition. . . .Whenever we see the Japanese in those places, he rises high in our esteem, for the care he gives to the resting places of his family cannot but arouse our deepest sympathy. —Pompe van Meerdervoort,  To Francis Hall, scrutinizing, with mounting incomprehension, the behaviour of Japanese mourners, it must have seemed that consolation was the very last thing they needed. Their attitudes, at least as he interpreted them, ranged from indifference at one extreme to positive hilarity at the other. Overt signs of grief, of a kind he would have recognized, were simply not there. Elsewhere in the world, where mourners rent their garments, tore their hair, raked their flesh, wailed and sobbed, or, in more inhibited societies, at the very least shed discreet tears, bereavement was signified quite unambiguously. But not in the urban Japan of the late Tokugawa period, and Hall, eyewitness to funerals and cremations in and around Yokohama, no doubt accurately described what he saw. The men who admitted to their

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

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bereavements with smiles and laughter were surely more casual than their Elmira counterparts could ever have been. But that is far from the whole story. From the relaxed demeanour of these men Hall drew what seemed to him an obvious conclusion—that the Japanese refused to take death seriously. Yet other foreign observers, witnessing similar phenomena, arrived at different interpretations, inferring from the absence of affect not passive indifference but something very much more active and purposeful. Francisco Cabral, at the end of the sixteenth century, saw it as sinister: the Japanese, he claimed, give nothing away because they have been deliberately conditioned to be ‘‘inscrutable and false.’’ 1 His more liberal Italian colleague Alessandro Valignano, however, thought it admirable that the Japanese should refuse to burden others with their concerns.2 Where Francis Hall saw callousness, his contemporary William Heine, in Japan a few years earlier with Perry’s expedition, saw only ‘‘extraordinary self-control.’’ 3 If Samuel Barnett was ready to condemn the Japanese for laughing at everything, to the more cosmopolitan Lafcadio Hearn they seemed rather to be fulfilling some self-imposed obligation ‘‘to smile bravely’’ even in the face of tragedy.4 So we cannot conclude quite so readily as Francis Hall that Japanese grief did not go hand in hand with Japanese bereavement. It is much more likely that the behaviour he saw at funerals was governed by a particular code of etiquette, what has since been termed ‘‘display rules’’—that is, conventions dictating when, where, and how emotions could properly be expressed.5 Whether the conventions themselves, never articulated but widely accepted, sprang from a polite wish to spare the feelings of others, as Valignano charitably thought, or, as Cabral implied, from a defensive reluctance to advertise any vulnerability, there is no doubt that they existed, and that one of their requirements was an impassive public face. Fukuzawa Yukichi,

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 / Conclusion

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claiming never to let anybody else see whether he was happy or angry,6 would have spoken not just for his own class—Tokugawa Japan’s samurai—but for others as well. Certainly he, and they, would have been just as careful, if not more so, to hide all traces of sadness. This stoicism, originating with the samurai class, but diffused among the upper levels of urban society, would have accounted for much of the apparent unconcern that irritated Francis Hall. For anyone repressing grief, as dictated by convention, funerals would have been especially trying. Perhaps in close-knit village societies like Issa’s Kashiwabara, where mourners and onlookers had few secrets from each other, sorrow could be expressed without too much embarrassment. Issa’s description of his father’s cremation says as much. In the impersonal atmosphere of Tokugawa Japan’s cities, however, whether in Edo, where Matsuko was buried, or Osaka, where Oshin was buried —or, for that matter, Yokohama, under the prying eyes of Francis Hall—the pressure to appear composed would have been that much more intense. City funerals were public events of a sort, and as such forced mourners to expose themselves to the gaze of others. Understandably they would not have wished to appear undignified before strangers, more particularly if, like Francis Hall, any of those strangers happened to be foreigners. Under such circumstances mourners would have concealed their sorrow as best they could, either by impassivity, or the feigned smiles Lafcadio Hearn later observed. Anyone unable to summon this degree of fortitude was more likely to have stayed at home, which is precisely what Hirose Kyokuso¯ did when, weeping all the while, he saw his daughter’s coffin to the door and then went no further. But if it is understandable that some Japanese should have concealed their feelings in public, it is more puzzling when it comes to their writings. If people in Tokugawa Japan grieved

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when those close to them died, what could possibly have prevented them from admitting as much when, away from the inquisitive public gaze, they took up their brushes to record a loss? The answer is that, for literate Japanese, conventional restraints applied as much to writing as to behavior. This was a society in which diaries and similar material were considered to be, if not actually public documents, then certainly serious life records, compiled for the instruction and edification of posterity, and so subject to the same inhibitions. In document after document personal affection was routinely disclaimed, wives left unnamed and children unacknowledged. If mentioned at all in correspondence, family members were all too often denoted by standard derogatory epithets—‘‘my stupid wife,’’ ‘‘my swinish son,’’ and the like.7 It is not so surprising, therefore, that in the written record bereavement should have been marked with stony silence. This is the background against which the three men whose stories I have translated—Zenjo¯ the priest, Issa the poet, and Kyokuso¯ the scholar—stand out so starkly. Each one of them, by delineating the particulars of bereavement at such length and in such detail, parted unequivocally from convention and so were, for their time, anomalous to the point of eccentricity. Because their accounts were so much out of the ordinary, therefore, before we ask what, if anything, offered them consolation in their losses, we must first determine, as best we can, the credibility of the records themselves. ‘‘Serious works on death,’’ as Philippe Ariès observed, in a rather different context, ‘‘are never completely free of ambiguity,’’ 8 and this is a judgement which could conceivably apply here. After all, any one of these accounts might have been the product of conscious manipulation. Zenjo¯, a busy preacher always needing fresh material for his sermons, could have anticipated turning his son’s death to practical use, winning new converts or confirming old ones by the simple expedient of reducing his hearers to tears. Alternatively, as Asaeda

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Zensho¯ has suggested,9 he might have thought to have Mutsumaru’s story included in the series of religious biographies initiated by his grandfather, as the later deaths of Zenjun and Zenbo¯ were. Then there is Issa who, by casting himself in the role of dutiful and loving son, could well have intended his account to win over village opinion, redirecting local resentment towards its proper targets, his greedy stepmother and unfilial half-brother. Hirose Kyokuso¯’s description of Matsuko’s illness and death was also perhaps disingenuous. By confessing to a lesser charge—that he was unable to control his wife in the last months of her life, and so deflecting attention from his own failings to hers—he might have hoped to escape the criticism of his censorious elder brothers. Any or all of these caveats are possible. However, the circumstances surrounding each of the three major thanatologues argue against it. Two of them, Zenjo¯’s and Kyokuso¯’s, were written in haste, immediately after the events they described, although Kyokuso¯ did add his brief postscript later. Neither appears to have been either planned or revised. Issa’s account, on the other hand, is rather different: it was not completed for several years after Yagobei’s death, and, compared to the associative and chronological leaps and repetitions that characterize (and lend authenticity to) the other two records, is far more studied and self-consciously ‘‘literary.’’ Still, none of the three bothered to identify peripheral figures with any consistency, something which, had they anticipated a wider readership, they would surely have done. Apparently, too, they made no effort to distribute their accounts. Zenjo¯ scribbled his story of Mutsumaru into his day book, where it remained for Asaeda Zensho¯ to discover almost two centuries later; then, too, had he really wished to use Mutsumaru’s death as a proselytizing tool, he would have produced something closer to the stereotypically pious deaths of his other sons. Hirose Kyokuso¯, far

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from sending off his record immediately to forestall fraternal censure, waited nine years before doing so, long after its contents might have spared him adverse comment. With Issa, of course, it is a different matter. There was obviously an agenda behind his record of his father’s death, although not the one you might expect. There is no evidence to suggest that he wrote it to show to others, or that he ever did so. The timing, however, some eight years after the event, when negotiations with Senroku, his half-brother, were reaching a climax, suggests that this was how the poet stoked his resentment while preparing to make his unreasonable demands on the family estate. If anybody was being manipulated, it was the poet himself, and by his own volition, If we conclude, as I think we must, that the records themselves are genuine—even, to a lesser extent, Issa’s self-serving journal of the event—it is still too soon to discuss consolation. For consolation to be necessary, there must be genuine grief, and for that we must first prove attachment to those who have died. To be sure, neither of these, the attachment or the grief, can ever really be known, no matter who the actors, when the time, or what the circumstances.10 All we have are the words, and these, as we are so often told, are inherently unreliable guides to human feelings, motivations, and behaviour. To try to judge such things from the writings of men long dead, in another language and from a different cultural setting, and then to draw any definitive conclusion from them is—and there is no way around this—intrinsically impossible. Yet with so little else to guide us, the testimony of the bereaved themselves must surely count for something. At the very least it is an alternative to the lofty theoretical generalities that, no less suspect, would otherwise have sole command of the field. So, to begin with, how far do any of these accounts testify to the writer’s affection for the person he mourns? Not one of them does so openly, or not in so many words. None of the three

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men used the word for love, ai, to describe his own feelings for the person he had lost. Issa, precluded perhaps by his complex history with his father, defined their relationship by the conventional term, on, the impersonal sense of obligation owed by every child to a parent. The ai word itself surfaces in his record only once, attributed to the poet’s stepmother, who used it to jeer at the dying Yagobei’s solicitude for his son. In Kyokuso¯’s description of his infant daughter’s death the word appears not at all, and just the once in his memoir of Matsuko. Even then it does not refer either to his feelings for his wife, or to hers for him. Instead, Matsuko used it when speaking of the affection in which her brother-in-law (and adoptive father-in-law) Tanso¯ and his wife held her. In Zenjo¯’s account, by contrast, the ai word emerges eleven times within the space of a few lines, with the author observing that ‘‘everybody loved’’ Mutsumaru, that his grandparents ‘‘loved’’ him, that all who saw him ‘‘loved’’ him, that the priest at Ko¯sho¯ji ‘‘loved’’ him, that the maid at Okuradani ‘‘loved’’ him, that a Kyoto theatergoer ‘‘loved’’ him, that people at Renko¯ji and Butsuzenji ‘‘loved’’ him.11 Of his own feelings, however, the priest said nothing. Plainly none of the three men could comfortably confess affection. Nevertheless, even though they stopped short of saying so, the documents they wrote speak for themselves, indicating indirectly, but beyond all doubt, that the writers cared for those they had lost. In their several ways their records can be seen as love stories of differing intensity. With Kyokuso¯, his feelings for his wife lay implicit in his admission of dependence, in his recognition of her long-suffering loyalty and dependability, and in the nostalgic recalling of domestic details—the care she took that he be well fed, well groomed, and well dressed, her saving his letters, and, most telling of all, her habit of peeping in on him while he worked in his study. True, it could be argued that when he took a concubine just a few months after Matsuko’s death the

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scholar was simply conforming to a universal pre-modern norm, like the men of eighteenth-century France described by John McManners as ‘‘unsentimental about marriage, quickly finding a new partner when the first one died.’’ 12 But, like them, Kyokuso¯ had very good practical reasons, which had nothing to do with sentiment. Married or widowed, he had a living to make, and experience had taught him that a lone man running a boarding school was at a disadvantage. He needed someone to take charge of the meals and the laundry, and the cheapest solution was either to remarry or to hire a concubine. Issa’s record of his father’s death, however, does present a problem. Yagobei was portrayed as a far from lovable figure, a peevish old man, selfish, greedy, intemperate, and, for all his autocratic facade, still very much under the thumb of his wife. While the poet emphasized his sympathy and filial concern for the dying man, he did so mechanically, devoting his ingenuity instead to castigating his stepmother and half-brother, and, incidentally, to displaying himself in his favorite role as the hapless victim of both circumstance and the malevolence of others. Only in the subsidiary material, the brief references to the illnesses and deaths of his children, did his affections really seem to be engaged. Yes, he had a lot invested in his children, but clearly they were more to him than mere pawns in an intrafamilial power struggle. The position of children in these stories of bereavement is interesting. It would be reasonable to conclude from common theories about the young in the pre-modern world—that their parents, anticipating bereavement, suppressed affection for them—that in Tokugawa Japan also people valued their children less than we do. The grim evidence of aggressive family planning seems to confirm this. Nevertheless, children appear to have been valued and cherished. If in some families convenience dictated which children should be jettisoned and which kept,

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then those chosen must therefore have been not merely tolerated, but actively wanted, all the more so, perhaps, because of the sacrifices made for them, and because still more dangers lay ahead. In any family losses planned, losses unplanned, and losses anticipated must have made those who survived all the more precious.13 Material evidence, from the many woodblock prints in which chubby infants frolic with, or nurse from, their adoring mothers,14 to the ingenious toys Laurence Oliphant judged so attractive as to ‘‘create a revolution in the nurseries of England,’’ 15 suggests anything but habitual parental detachment. So, too, do the comments of foreign visitors, Francis Hall among them, on the affectionate interaction they saw between Japanese parents and their offspring.16 None of this is easily reconciled with the assumption that the deaths of those children held so lovingly and indulged so thoughtfully could leave their parents unmoved. This was definitely not the case with the priest, the poet, and the scholar. Nothing in their accounts suggests anything other than that they wanted their children, felt responsible for them, took pleasure in them, loved them, worried frantically when they took sick, and mourned them when they died. The emotions of all three men came closest to the surface in this context, close enough in the case of Hirose Kyokuso¯ in  as to push him over the final barrier and into using the ai word. In a letter of that year, referring to his two-year-old son Jinshiro¯, he wrote, ‘‘I dearly love [sho¯ai ] this child of my old age.’’ 17 Earlier the same son’s illness had forced the father to confess that ‘‘for the past few days I have been out of my mind.’’ 18 Zenjo¯, on the other hand, was unable to go that far with Mutsumaru. He was, after all, a Buddhist priest, and so supposedly removed from the world of illusion and indifferent to, if not actively suspicious of, onnai, the ties of affection which bind human beings to each other. But it is obvious that he cared deeply for Mutsumaru, convey-

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ing his pride and affection in his memories of his son—of the charm which made everyone eager to hold him, of his precocious talent with chopsticks, of his discriminating artistic eye, of his unconscious drollery. These, and the forlorn farewell gestures—cutting the locks of Mutsumaru’s hair, and sketching the dead child’s face—speak of Zenjo¯’s feelings far more expressively than words. Then there is Issa, who also took pleasure in his children and showed it. His accounts of them, while not nearly so lengthy as his record of Yagobei’s death, are infinitely more spontaneous, heartfelt, and compelling. Genuine affection seems to have diverted the poet, at least for a time, from his perennial preoccupation with himself and his troubles. Just looking at his daughter Sato, he wrote, ‘‘wipes all my cares away.’’ As parents, then, these three men were neither detached nor indifferent. Involved with their children, and concerned for them, of course they grieved when they died, and grieved, moreover, in ways we recognize.19 One of the standard reactions to bereavement, we are told, is anger, exhibited by casting around for someone to blame.20 Both Issa and Kyokuso¯ did precisely that. Although they realized that any given child was just as likely to die as grow to adulthood, they chose to see the deaths of their own children as preventable, attributing them to the inattention or stupidity of others. Issa was quick to blame his wife— ‘‘as stubborn as a one-leaved rush’’—for the deaths of their first three children, accusing her, in the case of Ishitaro¯, the third, of actually killing him. He prepared himself for Konzaburo¯’s eventual death by denouncing the handyman and his daughter, the deceitful wet-nurse, for their duplicity. Kyokuso¯ seems to have accepted Yomi’s death from smallpox well enough, but he berated Matsuko for the death of his second son Teijiro¯, just as later, when Oshin died, he lost no time in fixing the blame on Eiko, his third wife. Amidst this welter of accusation, Zenjo¯ the priest stands apart in his bereavement. He blamed himself, in a

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somewhat muted way, for Mutsumaru’s death, speculating that had the child been given medicine more regularly, or had the family been less complacent, they might have been spared this tragedy, but the general tone of his account is one of acceptance. Amida has taught them a painful lesson, for which they must be grateful. Job, in comparable circumstances, cursed his God; Zenjo¯ did not. All the same, despite these formulaic touches, the telling of Mutsumaru’s story, especially when judged against the transparently didactic deaths of Zenjun and Zenbo¯, is a raw and powerful cry of grief. Each of the men mourned his children as individuals: the engaging Mutsumaru; Ishitaro¯, the ‘‘little pebble’’ whose short life was spent in the middle of an alpine winter; Oshin, the infant daughter cuddled by her father ‘‘seven or eight times a day.’’ These attachments alone would make the bereavements poignant enough, but throughout each document are scattered traces of something more. Each father was implicitly reproaching himself for a personal failure. They had all failed to protect and nurture a defenseless dependent. Beyond that, too, lies an additional consideration. Mutsumaru had been destined to be priest of Jo¯senji, as his father was and his grandfather and greatgrandfather had been before him. Issa’s sons, Sentaro¯, Ishitaro¯, and Konzaburo¯, had each in his turn carried his father’s hope that he might ultimately head the Kobayashi family. Kyokuso¯ had surrendered two of his sons to childless siblings, his brothers Tanso¯ and Teien, to help preserve the Hirose name. Family planning aside, to lose a wanted child, in a society where the continuity of the family unit was so prized, was to fail in one’s obligations to previous generations. With the deaths of Yagobei in his seventieth year, and that of the twenty-eight-year-old Matsuko, however, expressions of grief were inevitably more equivocal. In place of a life cut short, we see Issa’s father, full of years, whose death could be ac-

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cepted as a sad, but natural, affirmation of the universal truth that ‘‘all who meet must part, all who live must die.’’ In place of an unformed child, too, both Yagobei and Matsuko were fully developed personalities with flaws very much to the fore. Where innocent Mutsumaru took his medicine without complaint, both Yagobei and Matsuko, as invalids, were willful, devious, and, by their self-indulgence, held to be to some extent complicit in their own deaths. Unlike the helplessness and dependence of children, whose passing could be mourned wholeheartedly, the interdependence of adult relationships forced Issa and Kyokuso¯ to acknowledge more selfish concerns. With Issa, Yagobei’s illness reminded him of the way his father had betrayed him all those years before, and it is not hard to sense the resentment seething under the thin crust of concern. The death of this parent conjured up all the poet’s fears of abandonment and its attendants—hunger, cold, and rejection. Kyokuso¯, ‘‘alone and far from home,’’ was ‘‘dazed’’ and ‘‘stunned’’ at the loss of his wife. His fears, voiced less theatrically than Issa’s, were those of a man who, with a houseful of students to look after, and ‘‘not knowing where to find clothes or where to look for kitchen utensils,’’ dreaded disruption, discomfort, and disorganization. Both men expressed the familiar disorientation of the bereaved with the same common simile, that of a lamp extinguished on a dark night. Yet, even admitting the ambiguities, it is hard to deny the grief. The stories of the priest, the poet, and the scholar have a degree of specificity which confirms that it was the loss of a particular individual which most saddened them. Issa’s account of Yagobei’s death is obviously calculated. The more he emotes, the less convincing he is, revealing far more about himself, and his abiding self-pity, than any grief for his father. Against this, however, we have the evidence of the later diaries, with their terse reports of repeated visits to Yagobei’s grave. These speak

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more forcefully than all the sickbed histrionics. With Hirose Kyokuso¯, there is no reason to doubt that he wept every day for forty days, even as his dying wife gently teased him for it, or that, overcome by grief, he would faint from time to time. These were extraordinary admissions. Most men of his education and aspirations, anxious above all to appear dignified and self-controlled, would have been ashamed to admit to any such weakness, but not Kyokuso¯. What the documents and their stories suggest is that, despite Francis Hall’s judgement, the priest, the poet, and the scholar were really quite serious in the face of death. True, we cannot determine precisely just how attached these three men were to the people they lost, nor can we truly calculate how much they grieved for them. With the priest, the poet, and the scholar we are, after all, forced to rely on what they chose to tell us. Their evidence is obviously better than nothing and, however ambiguous and misleading it may be, does at least nudge us away from assumptions and nearer to the experience of the bereaved themselves. All the same, these records need to be read with some suspicion. No matter how carefully we interpret them, all they can yield are conclusions which are at best tentative, limited, and undeniably impressionistic. Paradoxically, however, when we turn from attachment and sorrow to consider what, if anything, consoled these three men, we reach firmer ground, simply because it is here, on this particular issue, that the documents fall silent. Their very silence shows us more than words ever could. Anthropologists tell us that the ceremonies associated with death, while they differ from culture to culture, console the bereaved by smoothing the way from life with the loved one to life without the loved one. The funeral itself, signalling the end of the period of most intense upheaval, allows the family to take its first steps back towards something more normal. It represents an incontrovertible sign of finality, with the dead person consigned

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to the earth, or the flames, or the elements. The more elaborate the ceremonial, the more the family asserts the depth of its sorrow, but also confirms its standing in the community and its piety. By proclaiming its solidarity at a stressful time, it derives a sense of security and continuity. The funeral is also an occasion for a comforting display of public support, the larger the attendance signifying the higher the regard in which the dead person and his family are held. That, at least, is the position in theory. Unfortunately, not one of the three major thanatologues presented here suggests any such thing. The deaths of Mutsumaru, Yagobei, and Matsuko themselves, not the rituals associated with them, take pride of place in these accounts. Had the priest, the poet, and the scholar valued funeral ceremonies and been consoled by them, then they would presumably have taken the trouble to describe them. They did not. Issa’s description of his father’s cremation is brief, and gives not the least hint of comfort. Matsuko’s funeral must have meant even less to Hirose Kyokuso¯, since he did not bother to describe it. It is impossible to tell from his account whether he actually attended the funeral or whether, as implied in the anniversary poem in which he ‘‘fell senseless in the snow,’’ he was too overcome to do so. We do not even know whether Matsuko was buried or cremated. With the funeral of his daughter Oshin, however, we are much better informed. Her tiny body, we know, was placed in an urn and escorted to the graveyard by a procession of forty-five men—priests, students, and family friends. The route was long, and the weather uncertain. It is unlikely that many of the forty-five took part because of their attachment to a baby who had lived for just seven weeks. Their presence, rather, was a tribute to Kyokuso¯ himself, and, given his punctiliously detailed record of the event, we can assume that this meant something to him. How much satisfaction he ultimately derived from it, however, is debatable. He himself took no part in the

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ceremony, choosing to nurse his grief at home. With Zenjo¯ it is at least possible that the arrangements for Mutsumaru’s funeral distracted him for a time. After all, his position in the community made a modest ceremony out of the question. Instead he was forced to host a public event at which the immediate community, together with representatives from temples throughout his diocese, could give due acknowledgement to the passing of an heir apparent. It was not Zenjo¯ the grieving father who described the preparations, but rather Zenjo¯ the ecclesiastical dignitary whose duties to his many subordinate congregations outweighed any private sorrow. Beyond identifying the officiant, however, no details of the service itself—the length of the procession, the number of mourners, the prayers—are recorded. The only affecting detail, and far more affecting than consoling, is that Mutsumaru’s cremated remains—the teeth and bones— were carried by a priest who had been exceptionally fond of the child. As Pompe van Meerdervoort observed,21 Japanese were particularly attentive to their family graves, so one might assume that the graves themselves, at some level, provided solace of a kind. If so, it eluded both Zenjo¯ and Issa, whose stories, while mentioning cremations and the subsequent gathering of remains, said nothing of graves, plots, or headstones. Hirose Kyokuso¯, on the other hand, laid great store by such things. The elaborate grave furnished for his wife, in a corner of Edo’s most fashionable cemetery, was far beyond his means. So also was the nine-character posthumous name engraved on her tombstone. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the scholar spent so much money—money he did not have—simply to express his love and grief. Something else was involved. Of the three men, Kyokuso¯ was the only city-dweller, and while decorum would have prevented his weeping at Matsuko’s funeral, maintaining face, if not enhancing it, mandated a substantial token

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of mourning. The ostentatious grave and the imposing posthumous name (‘‘of which,’’ so said his rival, Takenouchi Ju¯hei, ‘‘he need not feel ashamed’’) had less to do with Kyokuso¯’s feelings, and therefore less to do with consolation in his mourning, than with his own social status and aspirations. Even after he had moved back to Osaka, those same considerations dictated that he make arrangements to have the grave looked after, which it was. In fact those arrangements outlived him. Some years after his death, when his son Ko¯nosuke, now grown to manhood and newly arrived in Edo, first visited his mother’s grave, he was gratified to find it ‘‘extremely tidy.’’ 22 Grief, as every Buddhist knew, was an unavoidable by-product of attachment. In a world of impermanence, with all things subject to change and decay, to be anything other than disengaged only invited sadness. It was a cheerless message, based on a profound pessimism, but still it was this same Buddhism which offered the bereaved of Tokugawa Japan their best hope of consolation. Government policy, by making temple affiliation compulsory for everybody, also guaranteed Buddhism a funerary monopoly.23 Buddhist priests were notified of each death,24 Buddhist priests presided over funerals, Buddhist priests conducted the sequence of memorial services, Buddhist temples provided the graveyards, and Buddhist custom, mindful of the condition of Buddhist exchequers, conferred upon the dead, for a price, laudatory posthumous names.25 More than that, however, as popularly conceived, Buddhism also promised an afterlife, although one not totally free from risk. The Buddhist afterlife could, in the worst case, include damnation in any one of a series of hells, each more fearsome than the last. It could include a season in purgatory, with regular interrogations by a series of ruthless judges. Less pessimistically, but still far from reassuring, it could also include rebirth into a life among strangers in another place at another time. To the bereaved, hoping to be

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reunited with those they had lost, these would not have been inviting prospects. But, comfortingly, the Buddhist afterlife also included the possibility of rebirth in Paradise. In fact, as proclaimed in the Amidist sutras, this was more a promise than a possibility. It was generally accepted, too, although without the ratification of those same sutras, that if people were ever to meet again beyond the grave and the family unit be reassembled, this was where it would be. For anyone convinced of this, presumably death would have been robbed of much of its consequence, with the resulting lack of seriousness Francis Hall had described. Presumably, but not demonstrably. We do not know that this belief, comforting in the abstract, made any particular bereavement easier to bear. The experience of the priest and the poet is especially useful here, for both men belonged to that branch of Buddhism which subscribed most explicitly to this doctrine. Whether or not their faith gave them comfort in bereavement remains to be seen, but we need to note that in one important respect it really did spare them anxiety. Unlike people elsewhere,26 neither Zenjo¯ nor Issa believed he was consigning his dead into the hands of an angry and punitive God, or, for that matter, that Mutsumaru and Yagobei would go to purgatory, much less Hell. There is no hint that they even considered such things. They were lucky to have had no Cotton Mather to tell them otherwise.27 Where the notion of damnation was invoked, as in Rizen’s prayers for his grandson, it was as a matter of routine, free from the slightest overtones of urgency. All the same, while it was one less thing for the bereaved to worry about, this falls far short of consolation. The same could be said of the possibility of rebirth. Both Zenjo¯ and Issa wrote of a belief in past lives (‘‘I like to think they loved [Mutsumaru] so because of what he had done in some previous life,’’ Zenjo¯ wrote), and therefore should logically have anticipated that the

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child Mutsumaru and the old man Yagobei might conceivably return to start life anew. But there is not the slightest indication that they expected any such thing. Even had they done so, it is hard to imagine what comfort could be taken from the belief that the son, or the father, would sooner or later reappear as a member of some completely different family in a completely different corner of the world, and so be lost to them just as surely. The only thing that could have consoled them, should have consoled them, was the certainty that Yagobei and Mutsumaru were destined for Paradise, and so, though lost to them for a time, would be waiting there for a joyous and radiant reunion. Indeed the two accounts were careful to underline this by noting that on their deathbeds both Mutsumaru and Yagobei gave positive signs of grace. These, while perhaps not as obvious as Catholicism’s contrition, absolution, and viaticum, would nevertheless have been recognized by Japanese of the period for what they were. In the Jo¯do Shinshu¯ tradition, a token of imminent salvation was for the dying person to contemplate a Buddha image,28 so Mutsumaru’s deathbed request to see a statue, and his vain attempt to join his hands in prayer once it was produced, were actions charged with significance. In the Shinzoku myo¯ko¯ninden accounts of Zenjun and Zenbo¯, too, the intent was plain. Both boys, so the writer was careful to record, were eager to hear stories of the Dharma, while Zenbo¯, going one step further and emulating the long-dead Mutsumaru, also asked that he might be shown a Buddha image. Issa’s father, Yagobei, too, feverishly intent on entry into the Western Paradise, chanted a rather garbled approximation of a passage from Shin Buddhism’s central text, the Muryo¯ju Sutra. Unmistakably, by these actions, their salvation was guaranteed. Sadly, though, Zenjo¯ and Issa, while affirming these signs of grace, seem to have taken no comfort from them. Religious affiliation and protestations notwithstanding, it is hard to believe

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that either of these men really expected those they mourned to be waiting for them in Paradise. If, as has been claimed, hope for reunion beyond the grave made death easier for British Evangelicals to bear,29 then one might have anticipated that Japanese, sustained by a Buddhist Evangelicalism of their own, would find equal comfort. Apparently neither Issa the believer nor even Zenjo¯ the practitioner did. The language in which they recorded their bereavements left little room for any such hope. It would have been easy enough for either of them to make use of the standard religious euphemism, to affirm by their choice of words that what they had witnessed was not a death, but rather a rebirth—o¯jo¯—in Paradise. This is certainly how the didactic Shinzoku myo¯ko¯ninden described the passing of Zenjun and Zenbo¯, both of whom ‘‘as if falling asleep, were reborn [in the Pure Land]’’ (neruga gotoku o¯jo¯ shi tamaikeri ). But the poet and the priest, avoiding the comforting cliché, chose terms emphasizing the finality of their bereavement. In Issa’s case, his father ‘‘stopped breathing, as if asleep,’’ (neru gotoku iki taesase tamaikeri ) while the passings of his first son and his daughter were observed in his diary with the one blunt character, botsu, ‘‘expired.’’ Mutsumaru’s death, while not expressed with quite such brutal frankness, was nevertheless described in no more optimistic terms. ‘‘Gradually his eyes glazed,’’ the priest wrote, ‘‘and finally, at what I think was around eleven o’clock, he breathed his last (koto kirenu).’’ With Issa, indeed, it is difficult to gauge just what his hopes for the afterlife might have been. Death, as Erwin Panofsky noted, is a subject which can elicit any number of contradictory beliefs,30 and it certainly did with Issa, who effectively boxed the eschatological compass. Whether writing of his father, his grandmother, or his children, he seems never to have been wholeheartedly committed to the prospect of a joyous reunion in Paradise. His belief was too amorphous to permit any such

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certainty. Instead, unconvinced, he shifted uneasily between an embarrassing number of alternatives, as if prepared to accept— or at least not to exclude—every one of the current conventions. His grandmother, he claimed, was bound for Yomi, the cheerless Yellow Springs where all the dead must go. But he also accepted, without comment, his father’s grim scenario, in which the old man’s spirit would remain on earth, aware of events, and saddened by them, but unable to influence them. The poet himself vacillated between the prospect of serving Yagobei when they met again in the Pure Land, while at the same time (‘‘knowing that the following dawn was to part us forever’’) resigning himself to never seeing his face again. Nor, for that matter, was he persuaded that he himself was bound for Paradise. Issa may have died uttering the one phrase calculated to deliver him there,31 but a late poem conveys something entirely different, and far from reassuring: Hana no kage nemaji Mirai ga osoroshiki Wakeful among the flowers, I dread what is to come.32 More telling is the testimony of Zenjo¯ the priest. Of these two Shinshu¯ believers it was Zenjo¯ who should have been most consoled by his faith, committed as he was to preaching salvation by the power of Amida’s vow. As the descendant of a long line of Shinshu¯ divines, he would have been taught from birth to trust in the welcome guaranteed the faithful departed by an all-compassionate Buddha. Mutsumaru, who exhibited as many tokens of grace as could reasonably be expected of a threeyear-old, could confidently have been assumed to enter Paradise, there to await the arrival of the rest of his family. That is what Zenjun and Zenbo¯ took for granted in the Shinzoku

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myo¯ko¯ninden telling of their deaths, and Mutsumaru, though considerably younger, was just as pious as they were, requesting the Buddha image, trying to pray, foreseeing his own death (although not with the questionable precision of Zenjun, who predicted the exact day, or Zenbo¯, who predicted the exact hour),33 bidding farewell to his playmates,34 and, though lifeless, appearing to be ‘‘sunk in a deep and peaceful sleep.’’ 35 But far from expressing rapturous certainty, Zenjo¯ the priest, refusing the facile consolation of the o¯jo¯ formula, said nothing of his hope of meeting his son in Paradise, or anywhere else, ever again. Neither Issa, with his despairing stories of bereavement, nor Zenjo¯, with the bleak record of his own loss, appears to have found much comfort in his faith. Both wrote as if the separations were final, as if the prospect of reuniting in Amida’s Pure Land, beguiling enough in the abstract, could not sustain the burden of reality. This makes the experience of Hirose Kyokuso¯ all the more curious. Kyokuso¯ was no Buddhist. On the contrary, like so many Confucians, he had no love for Buddhism, which he considered superstitious nonsense, and no sympathy for those who practised it.36 In his essay collection, the Kyu¯keiso¯do¯ Zuihitsu, he brags of the way he dealt with one of his students, a Shinshu¯ priest whose wife had recently died. ‘‘You believe your wife has gone to Paradise,’’ taunted Kyokuso¯, ‘‘so I don’t know what consolation I have to offer you.’’ Sobbing, the priest confessed that he was brokenhearted. ‘‘Then convert to my side [Confucianism],’’ Kyokuso¯ said, pressing home his advantage, ‘‘and mourn your loss.’’ At this, so the scholar wrote with evident satisfaction, the priest, speechless, took his leave.37 Religion, therefore, at least in the transcendental sense, played no part in Kyokuso¯’s story. That his wife or children might be reborn did not occur to him any more than it seems to have done to Zenjo¯ and Issa, and if they did not think Hell an option then he certainly would not have: anybody unwilling to accept the

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idea of Paradise, with its rewards, would have had little incentive to acknowledge the penalties of Hell. Still, Kyokuso¯ went through the conventional motions—and expensive motions they were—as conscientiously as any Buddhist. Like almost everybody else, he gave his wife and children Buddhist funerals, Buddhist posthumous names, and Buddhist memorial services. But he did so quite cynically. After his daughter Yomi died, he later recalled, the priest had come to his house each night for a week to read the sutras and, at the same time, to try to convert him to Buddhism. When the week was up Kyokuso¯ gleefully turned the tables, going each day to visit the priest in an effort to convert him to Confucianism, although after six days of that the priest laughingly barred the door and refused to let him in.38 Obviously, if Kyokuso¯ himself was to find any solace in his bereavement, it was not going to be through religion. As a Confucian, Hirose Kyokuso¯ would have wished to be considered a rationalist, although there is something oxymoronic about a Confucian rationality which allowed him to seek advice from his ancestors, to use geomancy in choosing a bride, to pray to the spirits that Matsuko might be saved, and to find ominous significance in events surrounding the birth of Oshin. Nevertheless, the comfort of religion and specifically the prospect of ultimate reunion in a better world (although there is no sign that it did much for Zenjo¯ and Issa) were denied him. Paradoxically, however, it was Kyokuso¯, the anti-Buddhist Confucian rationalist who, alone of the three men, became convinced that life could continue beyond the grave. It was not the fact that Matsuko died chanting the nenbutsu that persuaded him, although that might have been enough for some people. Ironically it was the strange case of the maidservant and the medium which broke through his scepticism. Normally, he was far from gullible about mediums, whom he knew to be frauds. His essay collection attests to that, recounting in some detail a comical in-

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stance of mediumistic trickery, exposed when a man presumed dead proved to have been alive all the time, and as mystified as everybody else when told that his spirit had been summoned from beyond the grave.39 All the same, his maidservant’s report of her conversation with the dead Matsuko forced Kyokuso¯ to suspend his disbelief.40 And that was not all. The subsequent eerie occurrences—flowers and incense overturned in front of the family altar on a particular series of days—were adduced as further proof that in some form his wife still existed and, existing, was able to make her presence felt. This was decidedly no endorsement of the Buddhist conception of the afterlife. Kyokuso¯ would have denied strenuously that Matsuko was going to be reborn anywhere, either in this world or on a lotus pad in Paradise. Nor, if the implicitly openended commitment of ‘‘watching over Ko¯nosuke and surreptitiously protecting him’’ meant anything, did it restrict her activities to forty-nine days spent in limbo awaiting the judgement of Enma-o¯, the chief justice of the underworld. But Kyokuso¯ cannot have found it wholly unacceptable to think of his wife as a disembodied spirit. In fact it fitted quite neatly with his inchoate beliefs about the ability of ‘‘the spirits,’’ ancestral and otherwise, to influence events. The same ancestors who punished Matsuko for her carelessness with the family genealogical table, and on whose advice Kyokuso¯ left Edo to return to Osaka, could also, on a later occasion, save him from being struck by lightning,41 so Matsuko, now an ancestral spirit herself, could conceivably perform a comparable service on behalf of her young son. Unlike the priest and the poet, the scholar was able to believe that somewhere, somehow, part of his dead wife continued to exist, but it would be difficult to maintain that this left him any better off. His grief was no less than theirs. Like them, he expressed no hope of ever seeing his dead wife again, either on this side of the veil or beyond it. The spirit watching over Ko¯nosuke

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in Kyushu, and flitting back to Edo and Osaka from time to time to hand out warnings to Kyokuso¯’s concubine and third wife, failed to contact him in any way. Nor, apparently, would he have expected—and perhaps not even welcomed—any such thing. He continued to mistreat his subsequent partners, marital and quasi-marital, much as he had mistreated Matsuko, not at all inhibited by the thought that her spirit might be looking over his shoulder. Kyokuso¯, exactly like Zenjo¯ and Issa, had lost something which could never be restored. It is impossible to draw any general conclusions from the stories of the priest, the poet, and the scholar. Their experience of bereavement belonged to them, and to them alone; it may, but equally may not, tell us anything about consolation in the rest of Tokugawa Japan. The most that can be said of it is that none of the standard hypotheses seems to have given them any comfort. If, as a general rule, ‘‘the perceived immutability of the group is dominant and symbolically relativizes the death of the individual,’’ these three men did not think so: it was individuals they had lost, and individuals they mourned. If they derived any solace from the knowledge that, come what may, the Japanese people as a whole would continue, they did not see fit to mention it. If they had all been culturally conditioned to take satisfaction in sadness, it does not seem to have helped them through these particular losses. If young children were not usually considered important enough to be given formal funerals, or graves, or offered memorial services, as has been claimed,42 that news had certainly reached none of these men, who did all those things for the children they had lost.43 If any of the three thought that young children were either expendable or interchangeable, or at best might be returned to the Buddha like library books, to await the next borrower, they gave no sign of it in their writings. If they believed in some kind of afterlife, where the dead could be contacted perhaps at the cemetery or

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the household shrine, or welcomed at the annual Urabon reunion, or, otherwise, might be in Paradise patiently awaiting the arrival of other family members, they failed to suggest that this in any way eased their grief—not even Hirose Kyokuso¯, the only one of the three who claimed to have positive proof. If they had been able to find consolation in any of these possibilities, they surely would have said so. They did not. In assessing the strength of their attachments and the depth of their sorrow, all we have are their own words, and words, even when handled with care, can take us only so far. With consolation, however, it is not their words—for they say nothing about it—but their silences which tell the story, and tell it more eloquently than words ever could. All that we can say, therefore, is that none of these three men had any uniquely Japanese defense against grief. All they had was time, which is all anybody ever has. Sometimes not even that was enough. Eleven years, one concubine, and two further wives after Matsuko’s death, Hirose Kyokuso¯ was still grieving for the woman he had lost. ‘‘From that day to this,’’ he wrote, ‘‘I have been without my helpmeet. Even now I miss her desperately.’’ 44

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Consolation in Tokugawa Japan / 

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A 

HKz Hirose Kyokuso¯ zenshu¯ Iz Issa zenshu¯ Kh Kaikyuro¯ hikki Kks Kyu¯keiso¯do¯ zuihitsu Sks Hirose Tanso¯ Kyokuso¯ shokanshu¯

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

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N

Introduction . Quoted in Hoffman, Japanese Death Poems, . On normal lifespan, see, for example, Suzuki Bokushi, Akiyama kiko¯, . . Hanley, Everyday Things in Premodern Japan, passim. . Tatsukawa, Edojin no sei to shi, , , . . For smallpox in Japan, Janetta, Epidemics and Mortality in Early Modern Japan, passim; Haga, Sugita Genpaku, ; van Meerdervoort, Doctor on Desima, ; Tatsukawa, Edo byo¯so¯shi, , , , . . I owe information on Ko¯mei to Mark Brewer. For Ienari and Ieyoshi, Saiki, ‘‘Tokugawa sho¯gun,’’ ff. . Kitajima, Mizuno Tadakuni, ; Watanabe, Abe Masahiro jiseki, I: –; Ikko¯shu¯ kinsei kankei shiryo¯, VI; Daisho¯ji han shidan, –; Yokoyama, Uesugi Yo¯zan, , , . . Matsuoka, Iwase Tadanari, –; Ogushi, Higashi Honganji, –; Hori, Yamaga Soko¯, ; Lidin, Ogyu Sorai, –; Miyazaki, Oritaku shiba no ki, ; Suzuki Yuriko, ‘‘Juka josei,’’ ; Tahara, Hirata Atsutane, ; Ban Nobutomo zenshu¯, –; Tatsukawa, Nihonjin no shiseikan, ; ¯ hira, Sakuma Sho¯zan, ; Nakada, Egawa Tan’an, . O . Nakamura, Hoshina Masayuki, ; Ujiie, Tonosama to Nezumi Kozo¯, – ; Ishida, Ito¯ Jinsai, ; Drake, ‘‘Saikaku’s Haikai Requiem,’’ ; Lidin, –; Tahara, –; Koike, Santo¯ Kyo¯den, . . Kasahara, Kinsei o¯jo¯den, passim. . Yamaga Soko¯ zenshu¯, : , , , , . . Miyazaki, . . Ibid., . . Notehelfer, Japan through American Eyes, , , . In the latter instance, to his horror, Hall observed rice cakes being grilled at the funeral pyre, prompting him to castigate the Japanese for their ‘‘barbarity.’’ . See, for example, Lerner, Angels and Absences, passim. . Lifton, Kato, and Reich, Six Lives, Six Deaths, . . Hoffman, –. Apparently this sentiment is still widely endorsed in

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

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Japan. Kuno, Shi ni wakareru, ; Tatsukawa, Shiseikan, –. See also New York Times, September , . Hoffman, . Matsumoto, Unmasking Japan, . Lifton et al., . Keene, Essays in Idleness, , . McManners, Death and the Enlightenment, . LaFleur, Liquid Life, ff.; see also Hardacre, Marketing the Menacing Fetus, . Hanley and Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change, . Ibid., ff., ; Smith, Nakahara, –, . LaFleur, ; Hardacre, . Okada, Kinsei Shinto¯, –. Mencius, . Hirai, ‘‘Law and Morality,’’ . Ishida, ; Noguchi, Rai Sanyo¯, . Brownlee, ‘‘The Jewelled Comb-Box,’’ ; McNally, Spectral History, passim; Kato¯, Tsuwano han, –. Tucker, ‘‘Ghosts and Spirits,’’ –. Teiser, Scripture on the Ten Kings, –. Ishida, . See for example Tamamuro, So¯shiki to danka, ff. Jo¯do Shinshu¯ seiten, . Ibid.,  (Hymn no.  in the Ko¯zo¯ Wasan collection). Keene, Major Plays of Chikamatsu, . Imai, Shinran to sono kazoku, –. LaFleur, ff., ff. Bolitho, ‘‘Metempsychosis Hijacked,’’ passim. Brief biographies of both Zenjo¯’s grandfather, Go¯sei, and his father, Rizen, can be found in Inoue, Shinshu¯ honpa gakuso¯ menden. Yaba, Issa daijiten; Matsuo, Kaneko, and Yaba, Issa jiten. See Koshi and Shimizu, Zo¯ho¯ Issa no kuhi, passim. Asaeda, ‘‘Shin shiryo¯,’’ . Yaba, Chichi no shu¯en nikki, . ¯ tani, Hirose Kyokuso¯ no ‘Tsuishiroku,’ . O Robert N. Huey published his translation, ‘‘Journal of My Father’s Last Days,’’ in . Hirose Tanso¯, Kaikyu¯ro¯ hikki (hereafter Kh), .

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 / Notes to Pages –

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 Zenjo¯ the Priest . An invocation, Sanskrit in origin, and variously translated. Some alternatives: ‘‘I take refuge in the Buddha Amida’’; ‘‘All praise to the Buddha Amida.’’ . Miyawaki, Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Sekishu¯-ha, . . Fukuma, Shoki Myo¯ko¯ninden hensan, . . Between them, the ten branches of Jo¯do Shinshu¯ are thought to have accounted for half the population of Tokugawa Japan. Kasahara, . By , Nishi Honganji, the most powerful of them, presided over an ecclesiastical empire of , branch temples. Mori, Honganji, . For the sixteenth century, see Tsang, The Development of Ikko¯ Ikki, and for the seventeenth Dobbins, Jo¯do Shinshu¯, ff. For an example of the sect’s proscription, see Ikko¯shu¯ kinsei kankei shiryo¯, ff. . Moriwaki, Ochi-gun shi, ; Miyawaki, –; Hamada-shi shi, , –. . Moriwaki, . . Imai, Shinran, –. . Mizuho-cho¯ shi, : ; Asaeda, Myo¯ko¯ninden kiso¯ kenkyu¯, ; Fukuma, –. . Hamada-shi shi, : –. . Fukuma, . . A useful summary of the Sango¯ wakuran dispute is to be found in Asaeda, Zoku Myo¯ko¯ninden kiso¯ kenkyu¯, ff. . Ibid., –. For Zenjo¯’s portrait of Go¯sei, see the frontispiece of Asaeda, Myo¯ko¯ninden. . This account is available in three different forms. The original version (and the one which first caught my eye) is Asaeda Zensho¯, ‘‘Shin shiryo¯.’’ More recently it has been reprinted in Asaeda, Zoku myo¯ko¯ninden, and, in Asaeda’s modern Japanese translation, in Anjari, –. The original manuscript is in the possession of Professor Asaeda. . Now part of the town of Mizuho. There is a Go-o Bridge spanning the Yato River at Kannonji-hara. . Rizen, protesting the Sango¯ wakuran doctrine, had retired some months earlier, but was still active at both local and national levels. Shinseiji, one of Jo¯senji’s subordinate temples, was located at Tadokoro. . Kakunyo (–) was Shinran’s great-grandson. The term sho¯nin, often translated as ‘‘Saint,’’ denotes a religious figure of particular piety. . Dr. Kendatsu is unidentified. Honji, some thirty miles south of Ichigi, is

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Notes to Pages – / 

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. . . . .

. .

.

.

. .

.

.

. .

now part of the town of Chiyoda, in Hiroshima Prefecture. Yakami lay five miles to the northeast of Ichigi, and Izuwa twelve miles to the east. A service commemorating Shinran’s death, held each year on the twentyeighth day of the eleventh month of the Japanese calendar. Ebaku was the priest of To¯ko¯ji at Wada village. The pass at Kamedani was a three-mile climb through hilly country. A subsidiary temple within the Jo¯senji precincts, founded by the third priest of Jo¯senji to house him in his retirement. Mizuho-cho¯ shi, : . This was Tsuya, or Myo¯sho¯ (–), who had been wet-nurse to Zenjo¯’s mother, and who took care of Zenjo¯ when she died. Asaeda, Myo¯ko¯ninden, –. Throughout the text she is given the courtesy title of grandmother, or granny. Yamaguchi Kyo¯an, who had finally arrived from Yakami. Zenjo¯’s stepmother was Iku, Rizen’s second wife, whom he married after the death of Tamaki, his first wife. Presumably Iku was the mother of Omasa, Okin, and Fuchimaru, who appear later in the text. Sagami was Zenjo¯’s wife and Mutsumaru’s mother. Born the daughter of the ¯ mi, she was subsequently adopted by the priest of Matsumoto family in O Myo¯kakuji in Kyoto. A reference to the Gobunsho¯, the Epistles of Rennyo, a collection of eighty letters in five volumes. Part of what Rizen quotes here is to be found in the fourth epistle of the second book. Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Seiten, . Godo¯ and Rokudo¯, the Five Realms and the Six Realms. The former consists of Hell, the Hell of Hungry Ghosts, the Hell of Wild Beasts, the Human World, and Paradise. Sometimes added to these five is a sixth, the World of Violent Beings, or Ashura. Karakogami in Japanese; a popular hairstyle for children in which the head was completely shaven except for a tuft of hair on either side. Yoshioka, Kinsei Nihon yakugyo¯-shi, , lists six patent medicines of this name, some of which were claimed to cure any ailment whatsoever, and one of which was to be used to rid children of intestinal worms. None of them came specifically from the Hiroshima area. This could be either an infusion of dried bear gallbladder or an infusion of Korean ginseng, which often went under the same name. Both were equally expensive. Fuchimaru, a child of Rizen’s second marriage, was Mutsumaru’s uncle and, being just a few months older, also his playmate. Toshimaru was five months old. For Kakunyo, on /. ¯ asa some eight miles away, was the most important of Enritsuji, at O

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 / Notes to Pages –

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. .

. . . . .

. .

.

. . .

.

. . .

Jo¯senji’s subordinate temples. Zenjo¯’s daughter Tei, born in , was later married to the priest there. Renko¯ji, a neighbouring temple, was also one of Jo¯senji’s subordinates. Presumably to temples in each of these areas to which Zenjo¯ and members of his family had connections. A combination of characters meaning ‘‘goodness’’ and ‘‘deep water,’’ from a passage in the Tao Te Ching, in which goodness is compared to water. E.g., Lao Tzu, : ‘‘In quality of mind it is depth that matters.’’ The posthumous name of Go¯sei, Zenjo¯’s grandfather, who had died four years earlier. Cremation, although by no means universal at this time, was particularly associated with the Jo¯do Shinshu¯. See Shokoku fu¯zoku to¯monjo, passim. A neighbouring temple. This information has been added from the modern Japanese version published by Asaeda Zensho¯ in Anjari, , . Zenjo¯ referred to his stepmother as ‘‘my present mother’’; Tsuya, mentioned before, had been nurse to Zenjo¯’s mother; the Taya was a local store. The Raisho¯ji priest. See Anjari, : . ¯ tani became a favored As the site in which Shinran’s ashes were buried, O Shinshu¯ cemetery. Provincial temples like Jo¯senji maintained a symbolic presence there by erecting a gravestone on behalf of their congregations. The Gion Festival, held in the middle of the sixth month by the old calendar. Zenjo¯ and his family spent the three summer months of  in Kyoto. Literally, wearing kazuki, or kinazuki, a stole worn in public by women of high status. The area immediately to the east of Nishi Honganji. This may be what Yoshioka, , lists as Cho¯rigan, written with characters meaning ‘‘a pill to settle diarrhea,’’ and claimed to be effective for all ailments of the lower intestinal tract. A common procedure in East Asian medicine in which a pellet of dried mugwort, placed on an appropriate part of the body and set alight, is thought to stimulate the circulation of vital energy. Literally ‘‘turned to foam,’’ foam being a common symbol for evanescence. The Shoshinge, a collection of  of Shinran’s brief maxims. Omasa, born , and Okin, born the following year, were Rizen’s daughters by Iku, his second wife, and therefore Zenjo¯’s half-sisters and Mutsumaru’s aunts.

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. Presumably the Wakan meihitsu gaei and the Wakan meiga-en, popular collections reproducing famous Chinese and Japanese paintings, both published in . I am unable to identify the Tsu¯ho¯shi. . Edo-e, literally ‘‘Edo pictures.’’ . Saxifrage stolonifera, used as a remedy for whooping cough and convulsions. . There is some confusion about their birth dates. . Tatsukawa, Edo byo¯so¯shi, . . The two following accounts, from Shinzoku myo¯ko¯ninden, are reprinted in Doi, Myo¯ko¯ninden no kenkyu¯, –. For this, as for much else, I am grateful to the Reverend Professor Asaeda Zensho¯. . Zenjo¯ was actually the thirteenth priest of Jo¯senji. . Rizen, with whom Kokujo¯ had studied. . Most likely an error—this date, which is also repeated in Asaeda, Zoku Myo¯ko¯ninden, , and attributed to the Jo¯senji keifu, is more probably the birth date of his younger brother, Zenbo¯. From internal evidence Zenjun must have been born at least two or three years earlier than this. . A collection of Shinran’s correspondence. . The former, ‘‘Sho¯ji no kukai hotorinashi,’’ is hymn number  in the Ko¯zo¯ wasan collection. In it, Amida’s vow to save mankind becomes a lifeboat for those drowning in a sea of troubles. The latter, ‘‘Mumyo¯ jo¯ya no to¯ko nari,’’ hymn number  in the Sho¯zo¯matsu wasan collection, depicts Amida as a lantern for those lost in ignorance, and a raft for those drowning in sin. Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Seiten, , . . Rizen died eleven days later. . First for the cremation on the twenty-ninth day, and then on the following day to help gather the bones and ashes. . The first and second letters in Book  of the Gobunsho¯, the Epistles of Rennyo, a series of  letters addressed to the faithful by the eighth patriarch of the Shin sect. These two particular letters assert that a wholehearted belief in Amida’s mercy will help even the ignorant and wicked attain the Pure Land, but that, without such faith, piety and learning alone are of no value. Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Seiten, . . The first, which Zenjun also sang on his deathbed, is hymn number  in the Sho¯zo¯matsu wasan collection. The second, ‘‘Mushi ruten no ku o sutete,’’ expressing gratitude to Amida for delivering mankind from the eternal cycle of lives and deaths, is hymn number  from the same collection. Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Seiten, . . Presumably the wife of Toshimaru, Zenjo¯’s second son, born in — although Toshimaru himself is absent from this account.

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. This would seem to be a mistake. Asaeda, Zoku Myo¯ko¯ninden, –, gives Tadamaru as Zenjun’s childhood name, and Sasuke as Zenbo¯’s own birth name. . Rizen, who died at the age of sixty-five. . Nihon meisatsu daijiten, under Jo¯senji.  Issa the Poet . . . . . . .

. . .

.

. .

. . .

. .

Koyama, Kusa no tsuyu, . Issa zenshu¯ (hereafter Iz), : . Alternatively, Hatsu. Koyama, ff. Iz, : . Notably in his Oraga haru collection, Iz, . Koyama, . Jizo¯ was the bodhisattva believed to guide souls through the perils of the Buddhist netherworld. Yomi, or Yellow Springs, was the underworld as conceived in early Japanese mythology. Iz, : . Iz, :. Iz, : –. The turtle simile, which Issa was to employ more than once, is borrowed from the Nirvana Sutra: ‘‘just as in the middle of a great ocean a blind turtle should chance upon a floating log.’’ See also Dobbins, ‘‘Genshin’s Deathbed Nembutsu Ritual,’’ . There are several printed versions of this work, and I have relied upon three in particular: Iz, : –; Yaba, Chichi no shu¯en nikki, –; Maruyama, Chichi no shu¯en nikki, –. At the time I was working on my own English translation, I was unaware of Professor Huey’s. Literally, ‘‘he suddenly felt the spring sunshine on his back.’’ Literally, that he would die, an oblique reference to a poem from the early thirteenth-century Shinkokinshu¯, in which the poet, lamenting the death of a child, refers to dewdrops beneath the mugwort. Chikuyo¯, who lived in the neighbourhood, was one of Issa’s haikai students. These two expressions are given in the regional dialect. Takeuchi Jinseki, an eminent physician, said to have been one of the three best in northern Shinano. He lived at Nojiri, three miles away. Koyama, . Yagobei’s younger sister. Literally, ‘‘the Founder’’ of the Jo¯do Shinshu¯, to which both Issa and his

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.

.

. . . .

. .

. . . .

. .

father—like almost everybody in Kashiwabara—belonged. Kobayashi, Kobayashi Issa, ff. Shinran had died on the twenty-eighth day of the eleventh month, so the twenty-eighth day of each month had special significance for the faithful. Inheritance customs in this part of Shinano favored an equitable distribution of property—in this case land producing an estimated  koku (around  bushels) per year, more than half of it being paddy fields—between siblings. The Nakajima land mentioned here was marshy, which may have accounted for Senroku’s unhappiness. In , when the property distribution was finalized, that particular piece of land was allotted to Issa.Yaba, Shinano no Issa, . Literally, ‘‘a world in which the five defilements run riot.’’ The five defilements, as defined in the Lotus Sutra, are ‘‘the defilement of the kalpa, the defilement of the agonies, the defilement of the beings, the defilement of views, and the defilement of the life-span.’’ Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom, . The movement of the tides was thought to have an effect upon illness, with the ebb tide being especially dangerous. Presumably Takeuchi Jinseki, mentioned previously. Reflecting Yagobei’s concern that Issa, with little agricultural experience, should be interfering in farm affairs. Literally, ‘‘forgetful of the Three Deferences’’—the deference due from a daughter to a father, the deference due from a wife to a husband, and the deference due from a widow to her son. To Jo¯do Shinshu¯ adherents only Amida, the Buddha of the Western Paradise, could be invoked, and only to assure entry into the Pure Land. Tsukada Do¯yu¯, an eminent, well-connected—and presumably expensive—physician, lived in Zenko¯ji (now Nagano City), fifteen miles to the south. Kobayashi, –. A porridge of edible starch from the dog-tooth violet. A neighbouring village to the south. Issa’s mother died in the early autumn of , and in , Issa, then fourteen, left for Edo. A circuit of twenty-four temples, extending from Ueno in the south to Morioka in the north, associated with Shinran’s disciples. Tsuchida and Takemura, Shinran o aruku, –. Some years earlier, in , Issa had noted in his journal that, although he was not yet thirty, his hair was already beginning to turn grey. Iz, :. These are murdering a father, a mother, or an arhat, injuring the Buddha, or fomenting trouble among the faithful.

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. Issa’s childhood name. . Misuzukaru no Shinano—literally ‘‘where misuzu is gathered,’’ misuzu being a variety of bamboo peculiar to the Central Alps region. First used in the Manyo¯shu¯, the seventh-century poetry collection—e.g., poems , —it was by this time a common poetic epithet, expressive of barrenness, for Shinano. . From Po Chu-i’s ‘‘In Praise of Wine.’’ . A series of references to Chinese legends. Meng Ch’ang of Ch’i tricked his enemies by imitating a cockcrow; containing fire in a bag was a magical art mentioned in Chuang-tzu; Duke Yang of Lu was said to have used his spear point to delay the setting sun. . It was customary to have picnics in the hills once the rice seedlings had been planted out. . Five miles south of Kashiwabara on the way to Zenko¯ji. . Zenko¯ji, with its central image of Amida Nyorai, and its connection with Jo¯do Shinshu¯, was considered an especially sacred site. . Meng Tsung and Wang Hsiang of the Chin Dynasty (–), whose stories are among the twenty-four notable accounts of filial piety, were famous for these particular feats. . Now part of Nagano City. . Thirty miles north of Kashiwabara. . Literally ashura, pugnacious supernatural beings from the Buddhist pantheon. . A story from the Shang Dynasty, – .., contained in the Shih-chi. . His stepmother and half-brother. . This would have been Tsukada Do¯yu¯ at Zenko¯ji. . A common simile, implying a hopeless task, taken from a story in Chinese antiquity in which a praying mantis reared on its hind legs to confront a chariot. . A sarcastic reference to the belief that in this part of Japan the elderly were taken into the mountains and left to die. . Sugar, used to dissipate phlegm, was expensive. . A slightly garbled phrase from the eighteenth of Amida’s vows in the Muryo¯ju Sutra, the Sutra of Eternal Life, one the three central texts of Jo¯do Shinshu¯. Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Seiten, . . Two legendary healers: Jivaka, said to have been the Buddha’s physician, and Pien Ch’ueh from China’s Warring States Period. . An eminent Chinese doctor of the Wei Dynasty. . Quotations from the Heike monogatari.

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. Matsushima and Kisakata are on the northeast and northwest coasts of Honshu, respectively, while Yoshino and Ohase are both in Nara Prefecture. . The god of the Suwa Shrines,  miles to the south, was also the guardian of Kashiwabara village. . Literally ‘‘Adashino,’’ a reference to the famous graveyard near Kyoto, and by poetic extension, any cemetery. Deutzia (utsugi) branches, which are both slender and strong, were used in the Nagano area to collect remains after cremation. (Personal communication from Yaba Katsuyuki.) . The first of a series of memorial services. . Kobayashi Yaichi, head of the main branch of the family. . Yaba, Shinano no Issa, . . Ibid., ; Kobayashi, –, . . These negotiations are detailed inYaba, Shinano no Issa, –, and Kobayashi, –. See also Kaneko, Kobayashi Issa, –. While both Yaba and Kaneko agree on the conditions, they differ on chronology, the former dating the demand to , and the latter to . With a koku being equivalent to roughly five bushels of rice, the original offer made to Issa would have brought him around thirty-one bushels a year. . A poem written towards the end of . Iz, : . . Iz, : . . He had already lost his hair, and his last tooth went in . Iz, : . . Kobayashi, . . Iz, : . . Oniibara, literally ‘‘Prickly Devil.’’ Iz, : . He also described her as ‘‘prickly,’’ or ‘‘thorny.’’ Iz, :–; Kobayashi, , . . Tatsukawa, Edojin no sei to shi, . . Iz, : , , ; : . . Issa recorded acts of intercourse by the Sino-Japanese compound ko¯go¯ (meaning ‘‘congress’’); later, as the frequency of these episodes mounted, abbreviated to ko¯. See particularly Iz, :–. For the poet’s absences seeYaba, Shinano no Issa, . . Iz, : , . For inyo¯kaku, or ikariso¯ (Ch. yinyanghuo), see Tanobe, Isha mitate Edo no ko¯shoku, ; osei, or narukoyuri, was a plant known for its restorative properties—see Iz, :, , , , ; kuroyaki, the reputed aphrodisiac mentioned in Iz, :, was a powder made from roasted newts—see Tanobe, . . Kobayashi, –; –: Iz, : , . . Tanobe, . Cf. Mencius, . ‘‘There are three ways of being a bad son.

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . .

The most serious is to have no heir.’’ Publication of Eisen’s Keichu¯ kibun makura bunko¯ began in . Akai, Ukiyoe ni okeru Kasei, . Issa was dead by the time Senroku’s son, Yahei, was born. Kobayashi, . Iz, : –. Iz, : , . This is an earlier version of the more famous poem Issa wrote in  on the death of his daughter. Iz, : . The following selection is taken from Iz, : , –, . Zo¯ni is a soup traditionally served at New Year. By traditional Japanese reckoning a child was deemed one year old at birth, and two years old on the next New Year’s Day. From satori: understanding, wisdom. Iz, : . Iz, : –. Confucius. The reference is to a passage in the Analects, XVII, . At the beginning of , Kiku, twenty-five years younger than her husband, was thirty-four years old. Iz, : –. Iz, : , and a variation on . Iz, : –. The following account is taken from Iz, : –. Issa’s stepmother and neighbour. An allusion to the Pillow Book, Section , in which Sei Shonagon refers to the legend of the basket worm ( J. yamimushi, L. psychidae) which, bereft of its mother, keeps calling for milk (chichi). See Morris, The Pillow Book, –. Iz, :; Ito¯, –. Katsuobushi is dried bonito. Iz, : . Tatsukawa, Nihonjin no shiseikan, –; Kobayashi, .  Kyokuso¯ the Scholar

. By Western reckoning he was still thirty-seven. . Kudo¯, Hirose Tanso¯, Hirose Kyokuso¯, –; see also Hirose Kyokuso¯, Baiton shisho, III: : . . In fact he appears to have been much disliked. Hirose Tanso¯ Kyokuso¯ shokanshu¯ (hereafter Sks), . . Hirose Kyokuso¯, Kyukeiso¯do¯ zuihitsu (hereafter Kks), .

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. Hakura was closely associated with several of Mizuno Tadakuni’s Tempo¯ Reforms. See Kitajima, Mizuno Tadakuni, esp. , –, . . Hirose Tanso¯, Kaikyu¯ro¯ hikki (hereafter Kh), . . The Chinese poet Yu Ch’u-yuan (–), who judged Kyokuso¯ ‘‘the best poet in the eastern land,’’ gave his work pride of place in his anthology of Chinese poetry by Japanese poets. Hino, Shin Nihon Koten bungaku taikei, –. . Kh, . . Kitajima, ; Mori Senzo¯, Shiden kampo, . . Kh, . . Kks, . . See Rubinger, Private Academies, and also Kassel, The Kangien Academy. . O¯ita-ken jinbutsu-shi, ff.; Sugimoto, Tenryo¯ chiho¯ toshi,  ff.; Sks, –. . Kh, ; Kks, . . Kks, . . Kyokuso¯ had become head student in . Kh, . . Kks, . . O¯ita-ken jinbutsu-shi, –. . Kh, . . O¯ita-ken jinbutsu-shi, ; His eye trouble had begun as early as , and by  he was, by his own estimation, ‘‘half blind.’’ Kh, ; Sks, . . Kks, –. . Kks, . . Kks, . . Kh, . . Kks, –; Kh, –. . Kks, . . Kh, –, , , , . Fuller versions of this conflict are to be found in both Rubinger and Kassel. . Kh, . . Kks, . . Kks, . . Kks, . . Kks, ; Kh, –. . Kh, –. . O¯saka no gakumon to kyo¯iku, . . Kks, –. . Kh, –. . Hirose Kyokuso¯ zenshu¯ (hereafter HKz), : .

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 / Notes to Pages –

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. Kh, . . Literally, ‘‘as green as a mustard plant,’’ a phrase he was to use again a decade later, when his daughter Oshin died. . HKz, : –. . Kh, . . Tsuishiroku can be found either in a photographic reproduction in HKz, : –, or as a printed version in Nihon jurin so¯sho, . . On the whole Confucian scholars do not seem to have been much given to self-scrutiny. . Matsuko’s family name is usually read Aihara, but, Tanaka Akira assures me, Go¯baru is the locally favored pronunciation. Yoshiki, her family’s residence, is now subsumed into Kitae, on the Kunisaki Peninsula. . Hirose Saburo¯emon was in his eighty-first year. . This took place while Kyokuso¯ was away sightseeing. ‘‘That year I went to Mt. Ho¯shu¯,’’ he wrote in his reminiscences, ‘‘and during my absence my Adachi wife went back to her family, promising to return when I did. But she did not come back, and in the end we divorced.’’ Kks, . . Teien was Hirose Sadamoto (–), the third of Kyokuso¯’s elder brothers, and Nangai, Hirose Kyu¯bei (–), was the second. . Hirose Nachi (–), the second of Kyokuso¯’s elder sisters, who married into the Aso family in . Kh, , . . Shinozaki Sho¯chiku (–) was an Osaka Sinologist. O¯ita-ken jinbutsu-shi, –; Shioda Jun’an and Yoshino Teigoro¯ were at that time ¯ tani, Hirose Kyokuso¯ no Kyokuso¯’s neighbour and landlord, respectively. O Tsuishiroku, . . Hsun Feng-ch’ien, a famously uxorious scholar of the Wei Dynasty who stayed out in the cold so that he might then reduce his wife’s fever by lying with her. His death followed shortly after hers. . ‘‘Jitsu wa Ten o osore,’’ a sentiment, expressed in several different (but always cryptic) forms, which had become something of a mantra in the Hirose family. Kassel, passim. . Hirose Gozaemon, who founded the Hakataya in Hita in . . Tanso¯ was thirty when his mother died at the age of forty-seven in . Married at fourteen to a husband twice her age, she bore him eleven children, of whom seven survived to maturity. Kh, ff.; Kyo¯sei Hirose Tanso¯, –. . The youngest of Kyokuso¯’s elder brothers was Hirose Bunji (–). Sks, –. In  he married into a sake-brewing family, the Karashima, eventually taking the name Karashima Yaroku, and fathering a son, Karashima Tatsunojo¯. Kh, , –.

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. Hirose Ko¯nosuke, later Hirose Ringai (–). In  he was adopted by Tanso¯, and, in , became headmaster of the Kangien. The last years of his life were spent in Tokyo. . Yomi, Kyokuso¯’s first daughter, died in , and Teijiro¯, the second of his sons, in . Shinsuke, Go¯baru Sataro¯, had gone to Osaka to study with Kyokuso¯ and had taken the Hirose family name, so it is likely that Kyokuso¯ had intended to adopt him, but the boy died in  at the age of eighteen. Kh, . . The accumulation of merit had become something of an obsession with Hirose Tanso¯, who kept a ledger of his good deeds. Kh, ; Furukawa, Hirose Tanso¯, ; Kassel, . . Upon Tanso¯’s retirement—one of several—in . Kh, , . . Shionoya Masayoshi. Ming-fu, or Meifu in Japanese, was a Han Dynasty term for provincial governors. . Kyokuso¯’s marriage prompted Tanso¯ to comment, ‘‘For the first time I realized how difficult worldly matters are.’’ Kh, . . Ko¯nosuke. . A sixth-century .. Chinese ruler ruined by his own ruthlessness and arrogance. . Shingai, now part of Oita City, was then a small village some fifty miles from Hita. Kyokuso¯ had gone there to open a school at the urging of his brother Kyu¯bei, who was involved in land reclamation nearby, but was soon brought home by one of Tanso¯’s recurring bouts of ill-health. In , after leaving Hita, Kyokuso¯ first opened a school in Sakai before moving on to Osaka in . Kks, –; Kh, –. . A nine-character posthumous name was one of the most elaborate and expensive. See Tamamuro, –. Fujita Renpei was a samurai from the Funai domain then stationed in Edo, Kks, , while Takenouchi Ju¯hei (Ho¯shu¯) (–) was at one time headmaster of the Funai domain school. . Furuya, who had studied with Kyokuso¯ in Hita, followed him first to Osaka and then to Edo. Kks, , . . Tanso¯ and his wife. ¯ mura domain in . . Kyokuso¯ spent six months as a consultant to the O . Taige, literally ‘‘below the sash’’; leucorrhea. . Tsuboi Shindo¯ (–) and Ito¯ Genboku were both physicians in the European, rather than the Chinese, style. At the time Kyokuso¯ wrote this account these two men were reputedly among the three best doctors in Edo. Shioda Jun’an, Kyokuso’s neighbour, was also a doctor. See

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 / Notes to Pages –

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. . .

.

.

. . . .

.

. . .

.

Goodman, Japan: The Dutch Experience, –; Bowers, Western Medical Pioneers, ; Rubinger, –. Udagawa Kyo¯sai (–), later an eminent physician and astronomer. ¯ tsuki Shunsai (–), another physician in the European style. O Bowers, . Taki Motokata (–), had been Chinese-style physician to the previous shogun, Tokugawa Ienari. In  he was awarded the courtesy title Ho¯in, a Buddhist term denoting high priestly rank. Whatever Taki’s advice, Kyokuso¯’s friends, trained in Western-style medicine, seem to have ¯ tani, . dissuaded him from taking it. O A great-uncle, Kiun, had died on //, in his eighty-sixth year, and Kyokuso¯ had just received the news. Kh, –. Among samurai—which Kyokuso¯ was not—ten days was the prescribed mourning period for a maternal uncle. Ofuregaki, . It was believed that paper charms from particular Shinto shrines, if ingested, possessed curative powers. Branch shrines of Kurume Suitengu¯ and Kompira Daigongen had been established in Edo, the former at the Akabane mansion of the Arima family, and the latter at the residence of the Matsudaira of Takamatsu. Tanso¯ notes in his memoirs that his mother had to deal with her ‘‘irritable’’ husband’s ‘‘frequent rages.’’ Kh, . A sweetened form of sake, taken cold. A samurai from the Kurume domain, then serving in Edo. Mizumochi are rice cakes preserved in water; katakuriko are noodles made from starch derived from the dog-toothed violet; kanzarashi no dango are dumplings made from bleached rice flour. Hizakurige, Jippensha Ikku’s humorous picaresque novel, was first published in ; O¯kubo Musashi abumi, date of publication and author ¯ kubo Hikounknown, was a fictionalized account of the career of O zaemon. The summer festival held to comfort the souls of the departed. The studio name of Nana, Tanso¯’s wife, who had visited them in Osaka. ¯ tani, . O Presumably the reference is to Hirose Teien, the third of Kyokuso¯’s elder brothers, who had married twenty years earlier, on //, and had just spent six months away from home. Kh, . Tanso¯’s recollection was slightly different. He noted in his memoirs that Matsuko left at night while her son was asleep ‘‘because he would have been sad at parting from her.’’ Kh, .

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. It was commonly believed that a person’s ninth, nineteenth, twentyninth, etc. years were unlucky. Kh, . . When a Buddhist service was held, marking the end of the period of most intense mourning. . HKz, : –. . Hyappiki, or one hundred hiki; one hiki represented ten copper cash. . A sleeveless formal jacket with stiffened shoulders. . In an episode from the Chin Dynasty, T’ao K’an’s mother rose from her sickbed to entertain a prominent official, thereby assuring her son’s promotion. . Mizuno Tadakuni had been restored to office early in ; his second and final dismissal came early in , just four months after the approach described here. It was not the first such overture. The same man had visited Kyokuso¯ in the summer of . Kh, –. . Mencius, : ‘‘Mencius said, ‘A great man is one who retains the heart of a new-born babe.’’’ . Pellets of dried mugwort which, applied to the skin and set alight, are believed to help cure illness in humans, although not in insects. . A variety of pickled radish popular in northern Kyushu. . A major funerary temple in what is now Tokyo’s Bunkyo¯ Ward. . Kyokuso¯ was to move back to Osaka towards the end of . . Now a small urban temple, more graveyard than temple, on the fringes of Denzu¯in. There is no trace of Matsuko’s grave, and no space for a plot of the dimensions Kyokuso¯ described. . Tsuboi Shinro¯ (–), who had been adopted by Tsuboi Shindo¯ in , became one of Kyokuso¯’s students the following year. Miyachi, Bakumatsu ishin, ff. . Kenjuin (denoted here by the circumlocution ‘‘the house of King Brahma’’), where Matsuko was buried, lay to the north of Edo Castle, at the top of the steep slope known as Tomizaka. Ch’ing-ming is the Chinese festival, held at the beginning of April, during which people decorated their family graves and ate only cold food. . Denzu¯in, to which the Kenjuin, where Matsuko was buried, was affiliated, bore the formal title Muryo¯zan Jukyo¯ji. . Kyokuso¯’s third wife, Eiko. In this context Kyokuso¯ gives her family name as Yamana, although in his memoirs, written in , it is given as Kimura. . This involved going without meat and sake. . Hirano Kei, from Shinano.

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 / Notes to Pages –

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. Kh, . Hsiao Ying-shih was a famously short-tempered private scholar of the T’ang Dynasty. . Sks, . . Sks, . . Kudo¯, . Chiu Yuan was a cemetery for officials of the Tsin Dynasty, third century. . This was a lesson he had learned in Osaka in . ‘‘I have five or six students,’’ he wrote to Tanso¯, ‘‘but they will not live in the dormitory, the reason being that my wife is not with me, and I don’t know how to cook rice, so I want Omatsu [Matsuko] to come to join the household as soon as possible. I hired a maidservant the other day, but after a night or two, when her parents learnt I was here on my own, they came and took her away . . . my clothes are in rags and there is nobody to do the washing . . .’’ Sks, . . For Kyokuso¯’s account of his several marriages, see Kks, –. . Kks, –, –. . HKz, : . . Hirose shiryo¯kan ms.O-/. . Shinsuke (Matsuko’s brother) and Teijiro¯ (the second of Kyokuso¯’s sons). In his memoirs Kyokuso¯, lamenting the lack of a mature heir to succeed him, records a visit to their graves, but fails to mention the daughter buried between them. Kks, . . Teijiro¯, Kyokuso¯’s second son, who, like Oshin, had also lived for less than three months. . An infusion of several different kinds of herbs. . The account in Kyokuso¯’s journal, which parallels this quite closely, adds, ‘‘At this point I threw down my brush.’’ HKz, : . . Literally, ‘‘as green as a mustard plant.’’ . A febrifuge made from the murasaki plant. . Kyokuso¯ was in the habit of giving his schools fanciful names, Kichijinkyo (The Abode of the Blest) being one, and Nankunshitsu (The Chamber of Southern Fragrance) another. . The posthumous name given to Kyokuso¯’s daughter Yomi. . Presumably, in the intervening eight years, Tetsu’un had succeeded his elder brother to the Tokusho¯ji incumbency. . A strip of wood inscribed with the dead person’s posthumous name. . The ward headman, whose duty it was to take note of births and deaths in the area for which he was responsible. . Literally ‘‘Foam Shadow Girl.’’ Foam and shadows, both of which were

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Notes to Pages – / 

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. .

. . . . . . .

particularly expressive of evanescence, were familiar elements in the posthumous names of children. Refreshment offered to funeral guests. Kamishimo, the formal dress for males of the Tokugawa period, consisted of full trousers (hakama) topped by a sleeveless, stiff-shouldered jacket of the same material, all worn over a kimono. A jittoku was a short, full-sleeved coat, and a haori a jacket with natural shoulders and full sleeves. Sweets made from bean paste. Sks, . Kks, . Sks, –. Sks, . Kks, . ¯ mura, Funai, Tawara, and Koromo. Kudo¯, . Among them O Conclusion

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Elison, Deus Destroyed, . Cooper, They Came to Japan, . Heine, With Perry to Japan, . Hearn, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, : . Matsumoto, Unmasking Japan, ff. Fukuzawa, Autobiography, . For examples of this see Sks, , . Ariès, Hour of Our Death, . Asaeda, ‘‘Mutsumaru myo¯ju¯ no ki,’’ , . A conclusion already reached by David Cannadine, ‘‘War and Death,’’ . This is not obvious in my translation where, to avoid repetition, I have used several other alternative terms. McManners, Death and the Enlightenment, . ¯ ta, Edo no oyako, , See also Takahashi, Kazoku to kodomo, –; O –, ff. See Inagaki, Ukiyoe no kodomotachi, passim. Oliphant, Earl of Elgin’s Mission, II: . E.g., Cooper, –; Morrow, A Scientist with Perry, ; Brooke, Pacific Cruise and Japanese Adventure, ; Notehelfer, Japan through American Eyes, , , .

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 / Notes to Pages –

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. Sks, . . Sks, . . Viorst, Necessary Losses, ff., lists the following reactions to bereavement: shock, denial, anger, guilt, idealization, and fear of abandonment. See also Bowlby, Loss: Sadness and Depression, ff. . Cf. Bowlby (p. ), ‘‘the more untimely a death is felt to be the more likely is someone to be held to blame.’’ . So also did Laurence Oliphant, II: . . Ringai iko¯, , . In  he was buried in the same plot. O¯ita ken jimbutsu-shi, . . There were, in fact, both Confucian and Shinto ceremonies, but no evidence of widespread use of either. See also Okada, Kinsei Shinto¯, and Kondo¯, Mito no so¯rei. . Kato¯, ‘‘Tsuwano han,’’ . . Tamamuro, So¯shiki to danka, ff. . Kselman, Death and the Afterlife, –. . See Stannard, The Puritan Way, passim. . See Dobbins, ‘‘Genshin’s Deathbed Nembutsu Ritual,’’ –. . Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family, . . Panofsky, ‘‘The Dangerous Dead,’’ –. . Kobayashi, Kobayashi Issa, . . Kaneko, Kobayashi Issa, ; Iz, :. . A number of Japanese priests were credited with similar foresight. See Hoffmann, Japanese Death Poems, passim. In medieval Europe such prescience was a characteristic of what Ariès has called ‘‘the tame death.’’ Ariès, –. . Formal farewells were also tokens of a ‘‘good’’ death in Catholic convention. Jalland, . . Another traditional sign of grace. See Kasahara, Kinsei o¯jo¯den no sekai, . . Later, judging his country to be deplorably priest-ridden, and vulnerable in consequence, he caustically observed that while other nations produced soldiers, Japan produced priests. Kks, –. . Kks, . . Kks, . . This is the story of Bunsaku the manservant. Kks, –; Bolitho, ‘‘Tidings from the Twilight Zone,’’ –. . A decade later, on the other side of the world, the same thing happened to Victor Hugo, who became convinced that his dead daughter still lived somewhere. Kselman, –.

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. Kks, . . LaFleur, Liquid Life, ; Hardacre, Marketing the Menacing Fetus, . . Every one of Kyokuso¯’s six dead children, even infants like Oshin, were given graves, memorial services, and posthumous names. . Kks, .

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 / Notes to Pages –

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B

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I

All Japanese names appear in the Japanese style of name ordering, family name followed without comma by given name. sciousness of, ix–xi; Japanese accounts of, –; reactions to, n; writing as expression of, . See also consolation; grief birthdays: Japanese reckoning of, n; superstitions concerning, , n ‘‘Brief Biography of the Baby Girl, Ho¯ei,’’ – Buddhism: afterlife in, –, –; branches of, –; family life in, , –; Five and Six Realms of, , n; funeral rituals in, , , , –, n; metempsychosis doctrine of, ; mono no aware theme and, –; role of grief in, –; Shinto theology and, , , –,  butsudan,  byakuden, 

Abe Masahiro,  Adachi family, , – affect, absence of, in Tokugawa bereavement, –,  afterlife (rebirth): Buddhist concept of, –; Japanese concepts of, –; Kyokuso¯’s attitude on, –. See also Yomi (Yellow Springs) Amida (Amida Nyorai, Mida Nyorai), –, , n, n,  Amida Sutra,  Amidism, , –, , n, n ancestor worship,  Aoki Kenzo¯, –,  Arai Hakuseki, , – Ariès, Philippe, , ix Asaeda Zensho¯, , –, n, n Asaya Shinsuke,  ashura, , n

Cabral, Francisco,  Cannadine, David, n cemeteries, –, –, , – , –, –, n, n

Ban Nobutomo,  Barnett, Samuel, ,  bear gall, , , –, n bereavement: detachment in face of, –, –; historical con-

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Chichi no shu¯en nikki, –, , n Chikamatsu Monzaemon, , – Chikuyo¯, –, n childhood disease and mortality: bereavement in face of, –, –, –, –; Buddhist concepts of, –; Western attitudes concerning,  Ch’ing Feng, , n Ch’ing-ming, , n Chinsho¯gan, –, n Chiu Yuan, , n Cho¯ri Ichiryu¯gan, , n class structure, mortality and disease and, – Confucianism: afterlife in, –, ; mourning ritual in, –, –, n consolation: Buddhism and, – ; historical consciousness of, ix–xi; Japanese bereavement and, –. See also bereavement; grief cremation, , , , , , –, n, n, n cultural practices: bereavement in Tokugawa Japan and, –, –; comparisons with West, – currency, , n Dazai Shundai,  death: cultural attitudes toward, –, –, n; detachment in face of, –; historical consciousness of, ix; prediction of, , n

Denzu¯in, –, n; n detachment, as cultural trait, – disease, – ‘‘display rules,’’  Ebaku, , n Egawa Taro¯zaemon,  Eisen, , n emotional expression: lack of, – , –; in thanatologues, – Enritsuji, –, n epidemics, – Essais sur l’histoire de la mort, ix family altars, , ,  family planning, – Five Great Sins, , n Fujita Renpei, –, , , n Fukuzawa Yukichi, – funerals: cultural significance of, –; description in thanatologues, –; Kyokuso¯’s description of, –; rituals, –, –, , –, n; Western perceptions of, –. See also bereavement Furuya Hidehira, , –, n ginseng, n Gion festival, , n Go¯baru Aki no Kami, , n Go¯baru Matsuko. See Hirose Matsuko Go¯baru Shinsuke (Sataro¯), ,

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6863 Bolitho / BEREAVEMENT AND CONSOLATION / sheet 237 of 242

–, –, , , , –, , n, n Gobunsho¯, , n, n goko¯yu, , n Go¯sei, –, , n, n graves. See cemeteries Greene, Graham, xiii–xiv grief: Buddhist view of, –; perceived absence of, –, ; thanatologues as expression of, –. See also bereavement; consolation haikai, ,  hakama, , n Hakataya (Hirose family business), , –, n Hakura Nagayoshi, –, n Hall, Francis, –, , –, , , , n haori, , n happonzuke, , n Haruta Genzo¯, – Hearn, Lafcadio,  Heike monogatari, , n Heine, William,  Hekinan taiben,  Higashi Honganji, –,  Higashi Kenritsu (Dr.),  Hirano Kei, –, n Hirata Atsutane, –,  Hirose Bunji, , n Hirose Chu¯zaburo¯,  Hirose family, status of, –, – Hirose Gozaemon, , , n Hirose Jinshiro¯, ,  Hirose Kiun, , n Hirose Ko¯nosuke, , –,

, , , , , , n, n, n Hirose Kyokuso¯: bereavements of, –; conflict with Shionoya, –; failing eyesight of, , n; failings of, –; family and ancestors of, –; financial difficulties of, – ; marriages and children of, –, –, –, – , n, n; poetry of, n; scholarly career of, – , n; thanatologue for wife Matsuko, –, –, – Hirose Matsuko: admiration for, –, –, , , – , , –; marriage to Kyokuso¯, –; posthumous name for, –, n; thanatologue for, – Hirose Nachi, –, n Hirose Nangai (Kyu¯bei II), , –, , , –, –, , , , n, n Hirose Ogi,  Hirose Oshin, –, –,  Hirose Ringai. See Hirose Ko¯nosuke Hirose Saburo¯emon, –, , n, n Hirose Sho¯kichi,  Hirose Tanso¯, , n, n; nn,; n; n, n; n; career of, –, ; on death of Matsuko, –, ; relations with Kyokuso¯, –, –, –, , –, 

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Hirose Teien (Sadamoto), , , , –, , n, n Hirose Teijiro¯, , , , – , , n, nn, Hirose Yomi, –, , , , , , n, n Hita, –, ,  Hizakurige, , n Ho¯ei. See Hirose Oshin Hoshina Masayuki,  Hsiao Ying-shih, , n Hsun Feng-ch’ien (Hsun Ts’an), , n Hua T’o (Chinese physician), , n Huey, Robert N., n Hugo, Victor, n Ihara Saikaku,  Ikko¯ Sect. See Jo¯do Shinshu¯ Imakita Shinzaburo¯,  inheritance customs, in Shinano, n inyo¯kaku, –, n ‘‘In Praise of Wine,’’ , n Issa. See Kobayashi Issa Ito¯ Genboku (Dr.), –, , , , n Ito¯ Jinsai, ,  Iwanaga Minetsugu, , , n Iwase Tadanari,  Jippensha Ikku, n jittoku, , n Jivaka, , n Jizo¯, , , n Jo¯do Shinshu¯, –, –, n; clerical marriage in, –

; concept of death in, –; Ichigi as religious center of, – ; Issa’s observance of, , , n, n Jonyo, – Jo¯senji, –, , –, ,  Kabashima Sekiryo¯,  Kakunyo, , n Kamei Sho¯yo¯,  kamishimo, , n Kammuryo¯ju Sutra,  Kaneko To¯ta, n Kangien academy, –, n Kanryo¯en, , n Kan Sazan,  kanzarashi no dango, , n Kanzawa Toko¯,  Karashima family, n Kashiwabara, , –, –, , , , n, n, , n kataginu, , n katakuri, , n katakuriko (noodles), , n katsuobushi, , n Kawakami Ryomin (Dr.),  Kawamoto Bunji,  Kenjuin temple, , n; n Kobayashi Ishitaro¯, –, – Kobayashi Issa: bereavement of, –; career of, –, –; childhood of, –, , n; n, n–; children of, –, –; inheritance dispute, –, n; marriages of, –; relations with stepmother, – , , –; sex life of, –,

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n–; thanatologue of father’s death, – Kobayashi Kiku, –, –, n Kobayashi Konzaburo¯, –, – Kobayashi Magotaro¯,  Kobayashi Sato, –, , n Kobayashi Satsu, –, –, , , , –, , , Kobayashi Senroku, , , , –, –, n, n Kobayashi Sentaro¯, –,  Kobayashi Yagobei: second marriage of, ; thanatologue for, –, –, – Kobayashi Yahei, n Kobayashi Yaichi, , n Kodama So¯shin,  Kokugaku,  Kokujo¯, – Ko¯mei (Emperor),  Kompira Daigongen, n Ko¯zo¯ wasan, , n kuroyaki, , n Kurume Suitengu¯, n Kyokuso¯. See Hirose Kyokuso¯ Kyu¯keiso¯do¯ Zuihitsu,  Lao-tse,  life expectancy, – Lotus Sutra, n Maeda Toshikore,  Manyo¯shu¯, n Mather, Cotton,  Matsuko, See Hirose Matsuko Matsuo Basho¯,  Matsuura Hiromu, 

Matto¯sho¯, , n McManners, John, ,  medicine: aphrodisiacs, –, n; in Hirose thanatologues, –, n; n; in Issa thanatologue, –, , n; in Mutsumaru thanatologue, –, –, , nn,, n; in Tokugawa Japan, . See also specific types of medicines melancholy, Japanese affinity for, – Mencius, , , n Meng Tsung, n metempsychosis, Buddhist doctrine of, , – mimikusa, , n Mito Gentaku (Dr.), , ,  Miyagawa Yu¯kichi,  Miyazaki Michio,  mizumochi, , n Mizuno Tadakuni, , –, , , n mono no aware, Japanese cultural theme of, – Mori Ryo¯shu¯,  mortality, – Motoori Norinaga,  mourning. See bereavement; funerals moxa cautery, , , n, n Mujo¯kan,  Muko¯jima, –, n Murakami Shu¯suke,  Muryo¯ju Sutra (Sutra of Eternal Life), –, –, n Mutsumaru, journal of the death of, –, –, –;

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Mutsumaru (continued) thanatologue of, –, –, n Myo¯ko¯ninden,  Namu Amida Butusu invocation, , , n nativism. See Kokugaku nenbutsu, n; at Issa’s death, ; in Issa thanatologue, –; in Matsuko thanatologue, , ; in Mutsumaru thanatologue, , , –, –, – Nichiren sect,  Nirvana Sutra, n Nishi Honganji, , –, n Ogyu¯ Sorai,  O¯jo¯den, – Oka Kumaomi,  Okamoto Genshuku (Dr.),  Okinagusa,  O¯kubo Musashi abumi, , n Oliphant, Laurence,  ¯ mura, –, n O onnai, ,  Oraga haru, – Oritaku shiba no ki,  osei,  ¯ tani cemetry, , n O Otsuki Shunsai (Dr.), , , n Panofsky, Erwin,  Perry, Matthew (Commodore),  Pien Ch’ueh (Chinese healer), , n Pillow Book, , n

posthumous names, , –, , –, n, n; n Pure Land (True Sect of ): Buddhist afterlife and, –; in Japanese Buddhism, – , –, n, n; in thanatologues, –, –, n. See also Jo¯do Shinshu¯; Zenko¯ji Rai Sanyo¯,  Rai Shunsui,  rebirth. See metempsychosis religious beliefs, –, –; Kyokuso¯’s repudiation of, – , n. See also specific religions Renko¯ji, –, n Rennyo, , , n, n Rizen, –, –, –, – , , , n, n, n–, n, n Sagara Bunkei, –,  Saikaku. See Ihara Saikaku Sakuma Sho¯zan,  Sango¯ wakuran, –, n Santo¯ Kyo¯den, – Sei Sho¯nagon, n shiage, , n shien, , n Shigetomi Kanae,  Shih ching,  Shimazu Narinobu,  Shimizu Taki,  Shinano, –, , , n, n, n Shingai, Kyokuso¯’s visit to, , n

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Shinju¯ mannenso¯,  Shinkokinshu¯, n Shinozaki Sho¯chiku, –, n Shinran, –, , , ; anniversary of death of, , n; burial site of, , n; correspondence of, , n; Memorial Day service for, –, n Shinseiji, , n Shinsuke. See Go¯baru Shinsuke Shinto theology: Buddhism’s impact on, –, , – ; curative shrines, –, n; funeral practices and, n; funeral rites in, , ; in Tokugawa Japan,  Shinzoku myo¯ko¯nin den, –, , –, n Shioda Jun’an (Dr.), , , , , –, , n, n Shionoya Daishiro¯ Masayoshi, –, , –, n shirozake, –, n Shoshinge, , n Sho¯zo¯matsu wasan, , , n; n smallpox,  Sonezaki shinju¯,  Sudo¯ Kameuemon,  sugar, , n Sugita Genpaku,  Suitengu¯ amulet, , n Suwa Shrines, , n Tabuchi Sensho¯ (Dr.),  Takenouchi Ju¯hei, –, , n

Takeuchi Jinseki (Dr.), , , , n, n Taki Rakushin’in (Motokata), , , n Tanaka Akira, n Tanaka Gensho¯ (Dr.),  T’ao K’an, ,  Tao Te Ching, n Teien. See Hirose Teien Tetsu’un, –, n thanatologues: grief expressed in, –; literary analysis of, –; translations of, –. See also specific thanatologues theater, portrayal of death in, – To¯kaido¯ Yotsuya kaidan,  Tokito¯ Ryu¯taro¯,  Tokugawa Iemochi,  Tokugawa Ienari, – Tokugawa Ieyasu,  Tokugawa Ieyoshi,  Tokugawa period (–): bereavement and consolation in, –, xi–xiv; economic and social conditions during, –; provincial politics and religion during, –, n Tomiemon, – Tsuboi Shindo¯ (Dr.), –, –, , , , n, n Tsuboi Shinro¯, , n Tsu¯ho¯shi,  Tsuishiroku (Memoir), –,  Tsukada Do¯yu¯, , , n, n Tsurezuregusa,  Tsuruya Nanboku,  Twenty-Four Sites, , n

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Udagawa Kyo¯sai (Dr.), , – , , n Uesugi Yo¯zan,  underworld. See Yomi (Yellow Springs) Urabon (Obon) festival, , , n Valignano, Alessandro, – van Meerdervoort, Pompe, , ,  Wakan meiga-en, –, n Wakan meihitsu gaei, –, n Wang Hsiang, n Wataya Bo¯emon, – Western culture: bereavement and consolation in, –, xii– xiii; foresight concerning death in, n; Japanese bereavement compared with, –; religious beliefs in,  women, mortality among, – Yaba Katsuyuki, , n; n

Yamaga Soko¯, , –,  Yamaguchi Kyo¯an (Dr.), , , –, n Yamana Eiko, , , , n Yo¯gai Kenzaburo¯,  yo¯kan, , n Yomi (Yellow Springs), , , n Yosa Buson,  Yoshida no Kenko¯,  Yoshino Teigoro¯, , , n Yu Ch’u-yuan, n Zenbo¯, thanatologue for, –, , , , , n Zenjo¯: bereavements of, –, –; career as priest, – ; death of, ; thanatologue for Mutsumaru, –, –, n Zenjun, thanatologue for, –, , , , , n Zenko¯ji, , , –, n Zen sect, –

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