English
The modern literary language of Japan owes much to the Kangakusha, more especially to those of the seven- teetith. and early <ighteénth centuries. The older Japanese of the Zazhezkt was wholly inadequate for the expression of the host of new ideas which were the off- spring of the revival of learning and the reorganisation of the State. The social changes ahd the marked advance in civilisation and the arts which accompanied this movement required a new vocabulary. Just as we resorted to Latin and Greek to meet a similar want, the Kangakusha enriched their language by the adoption of large numbers of Chinese words. This process was carried to great excess in later times. But writers like Hakuseki and Kiusd were no pedants. They were practical men who were accustomed to use their pens for practical purposes, and who wrote to make themselves understood, not to display their cleverness or learning. 266 JAPANESE LITERATURE In their hands the Japanese language not only gained much in fulness of vocabulary, but acquired a clearness and directness unattainable with the more cumbrous forms of the older language. Needless to say, pillow- words, pivot-words, and all such frivolous excrescences of style were utterly disdained by them. CHAPTER ile THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY POPULAR LITERATURE—SAIKAKU—CHILDREN’S STORIES —CHIKAMATSU, AND THE POPULAR DRAMA CONCURRENT with the movement described in the pre- ceding chapter, another and very different development of literature was going on in Japan. It was threefold, comprising fiction, the drama, and a new kind of poetry known as Haikai. But while the Kangakusha wrote mainly for the Samurai class, the writers of romances, plays, and Haikai addressed themselves for the first time in Japanese history to the people. Their public consisted more especially of the populace of the three great cities of Yedo, Kidto, jand Osaka. In Japan as in China, the traders occupy a very low place both morally and socially. Of the four classes into which the population is divided, the Samurai, including men of learning, soldiers, and officials of all grades, stand at the top. Next to them are the peasants, the artisans come third, and the merchants last of all. It cannot be denied that there was much justice in this classification. Under the Tokugawa régime the city populations enjoyed great material prosperity. But their moral standards were not high. Naturally quick-witted, and educated up to a point _ which may fairly be described by our own slang phrase, 267 268 JAPANESE LITERATURE “the three R’s,” they had little real culture or refine- ment. The many-headed beast had, however, learned to read, and demanded an intellectual pabulum suited to its tastes. A want had been created which required to be supplied. The result was a popular literature of which some account must now be given. The seventeenth century has not. much to show in the way of fiction. One of the earliest romances of this time was the Mokuzu Monogatari, a highly melodramatic tale of love, jealousy, and revenge, the leading feature of which is of such a nature as to debar more particular description. The Usuyukt Monogatari and the Hannosuke no Soshi (1660) both relate the same story. A man while visiting the temple of Kiyomidzu, in Kioto, meets a woman named Usuyuki (thin-snow). They love and are united, but the woman dies soon after, and the man shaves his head and retires to a monastery. IBARA SAIKAKU was the founder of a new school of popular writing in Japan. He revived a class of com- position which had been sadly neglected since the days of Murasaki no Shikibu and Sei Shdnagon, and gave to the world a large number of volumes consisting of tales, novels, and sketches of contemporary life and manners. The latter are extremely lifelike and humorous. Sai- kaku was a resident of Osaka, where he followed the profession of composer of Haikai. The world has very willingly forgotten his poetry. Nor have the short dra- matic pieces which he wrote for the Osaka stage fared much better with posterity. He was a man of no learning. Bakin says that he had not a single Chinese character in his belly,! and his books, most of which have very little story, are mainly descriptions of the man- * The seat of knowledge, according to the Chinese and Japanese, SAIKAKU 269 ners and customs of the great lupanars which then, as now, formed a prominent feature of the principal cities of Japan. The very titles of some of them are too gross for quotation. The immoral tendency of his works was denounced even in his own day by a hostile critic under the suggestive title Sazkaku no Jigoku Meguri (“ Saikaku in Hell’), and led to their suppression by the Govern- ment. It is only recently that a new edition has been permitted to appear, the reason for this tolerance being perhaps the circumstance that the fugitive humour of fast life in the seventeenth century has become in a great measure unintelligible to modern readers. Saikaku has written one decent book, a collection of gossipy stories about his fellow-writers of Haikai. It is entitled Sazkaku Nagori no Tomo, and was published posthumously in 1699. He died in 1693, in his fifty- second year. For various reasons it is impossible to give a really characteristic specimen of Saikaku’s writings. The fol- lowing is a story of the Enoch Arden class, with a Japanese ending. It is one of a series of tales woven into a work entitled Hudokoro no Suzurt or “ Bosom Ink-. slab,” a fanciful title for what we might call Votes of Travel (1687). This work is less objectionable than most of his productions :— “Listening to the cries of the plovers that frequent the Isle of Awaji, one may perceive the sadness of the things of this world. “ Our junk anchored for the night in a harbour called Yashima. A wretched place it was. With what eyes could the poet. have regarded it who called it ‘the flowery Yashima’? Even though it was spring, there were no cherry-flowers ; so, with feelings suited to an 270 JAPANESE LITERATURE autumn eve, I approached a mat-roofed shed which stood near the beach. There were some women assembled here enjoying themselves over a cup of tea. Usually it would have been a case of commonplace ill- natured daughter-in-law gossip ; but judging from their excited manners that something unusual was going on, I inquired what was the subject of their important-seem- ing conversation. It appeared that a fisherman of this shore, by name Hokugan Kiuroku, was in the habit of hiring himself annually for the sardine fishery off the east coast. He usually went down there in company with many others, but the previous autumn nobody else came forward, and so he wilfully went alone. Time passed and nothing was heard of him. Being an illiterate man, he naturally held little communication with the world, and thus became a cause of anxiety to his rela- tions. That autumn there were many storms, and great numbers of fishing-vessels were lost. All his family, when they listened to the noise of the wind, lamented, ‘Ah! Kiuroku is no more of this world.’ Others talked as if they had actually witnessed his end. There was a rumour that two hundred and fifty men had perished in a body in the outer sea, and all congratulated themselves that owing to a presentiment of ill-luck they had this year stayed at home. His wife hearing this, even in the depth of her misery and sorrow, felt her condition still more profoundly wretched. Morning and evening she could think of nothing else, to such a degree that she was on the point of throwing away her life. Thus she gave proof of a gentle, womanly heart. Moreover, Kiu- roku, in his capacity of zr?-muko,! had been on excellent terms with his wife, and had done his duty faithfully + Adopted heir and son-in-law, SAIKAKU 271 towards her parents, so that when she remembered his position, his loss was a source of great grief to her. “Winter arrived, spring came and went, nearly a year passed with no news of him. There could be no longer any doubt that he was dead. The day on which he said good-bye and left his native village was chosen for the anniversary of hisdeath. Priests said the proper masses, his personal effects were restored to his true parents, and, as is the way of the world, he began gradually to be forgotten. “Now his wife was still young. People thought it a pity she should remain a widow, and urged her to take a second husband for the relief of her parents’ cares, as was the custom. But she could by no means be persuaded to give her consent. She resolved by-and-by to shave her head, to abandon the world, and with profound ‘incense-and-flowers’ purpose of heart to devote herself to her husband’s memory. Everybody did his best to dissuade her, saying first of all how undutiful it would be towards her parents. In short, they insisted with such success that a lucky day was chosen for her nuptials. The man selected for her husband was a fisherman of the same village, named Iso no Mokubeli, a far better match than Kiuroku, and satisfactory in every respect. The parents rejoiced, the friends exulted, and though it was a second marriage, even in this fishing hamlet every- thing was done in a style equal to that of the ceremony of breeching a boy. The women had on their boxwood hair-combs ; saké was circulated freely. But there are jealous people everywhere, and the company were dis- turbed from time to time by pebbles flung against the door. As the night went on, this too ceased. The bride and bridegroom retired to their chamber, and placing DID JAPANESE LITERATURE their wooden pillows side by side, began a confidential talk, in which Kiuroku was naturally forgotten.