English
350 JAPANESE LITERATURE Not a day elapses in which some one does not pass to exile here. Dew [of tears] follows upon dew, one smoke [of cremation] succeeds another without an interval. The lines— ‘ The name remains, the form has vanished, The bones beneath the fir-clad mound Are changed to ashes in the grassy mead’— must have been said of some such place as this. An utterly wild and dismal moor it was, the deep grass ’ drenched with dew, and here and there a bleached bone showing among it. A weird, uncanny spot indeed, fit to inspire such sentiments as those of the poet, who says— * He is gone to his long home, And we who now return Will one day follow him On the rugged path That leads to, Hades. While in such gloomy thoughts tmmersed, The moon glimmering through the smoke [of cremation] Seems like a crag of the Eagles Mount? “Well, then, our pilgrim Sonematsu, brushing away the dew from the moss below an ancient fir-tree, put down his portable shrine. It was the season of the festival of the dead, so by way of a fire to light their path from Hades [the dead are supposed to revisit the earth at this time], he gathered some leaves and kindled them, the dew _ upon them standing for the offering of water. Then turning to the Buddha of the shrine which he carried with him, and striking his bell, he recited the prayer for the dead. Whilst he was thus deep in his devotions, the 1 A mountain in India where Buddha preached—put for the other world, KIODEN 351 moon was shedding a full flood of crystal light, and the lespedeza, the Platycodon grandiflorum, the Anthesteria barbata, the valerian, the pampas grass [or something like it], the Dolichos bulbosus, and such-like flowers! were blossoming luxuriantly and heavy with dew. The shrill notes of various insects piping with all their might, mingled with the chanting of the prayers and the sound of the bell, produced a sense of loneliness and desolation. There was borne on the wind the boom of a bell struck in some temple away on the moor, which by the number of its strokes indicated that the night was already far spent. His fire, too, had gone, out, so the pilgrim thought to himself, ‘I must snatch a short sleep.’ He hung up a tent of oil-paper, and spreading on the grass his rain coat to keep off the dew of night, with a tree-root for his pillow he laid himself down. He was soon plunged in deep slumber, forgetful alike of past and future. But after awhile he woke, and pricking up his ears, ‘Was that an insect’s cry? No! it was a faint, far-off sound of music. The pilgrim wondered how on this desolate moor, at this late hour of the night, such beautiful music could be heard. Was it not an enchantment by some fox, badger,.or wild cat? Presently he raised up his tent, and putting out his head, looked round. The weather had changed, and a night mist had gathered thickly, obscuring the moon. Even nigh*at hand nothing could be seen. But the music came closer and closer.” The mist clears away, the moon again shines out, and a splendid palace is seen, which Kidden describes with great wealth of language. It proves to be inhabited by the spirits of a wicked lady of noble birth and her equally wicked retainers, who use the brief respite 1 Such are some of the difficulties of a translator from the Japanese, | 352) JAPANESE LITERATURE granted them from the tortures of hell to plot further mischief against their former enemies in this life. One of the few Japanese authors whose fame has penetrated to Europe is KIOKUTEI BAKIN (1767-1848). In his own country he has no rival. Nine out of ten Japanese if asked to name their greatest novelist would reply immediately “ Bakin.” He was born in Yedo, and was the youngest of three sons of a retainer of an official of the Shogun’s Govern- ment, named Matsudaira Shinsei. When only eight, Bakin was appointed to attend upon the son of his lord, who was a boy like himself. At the age of thirteen, unable any longer to endure the tyranny of his young master, he ran away from home. His elder brother pro- cured him several other situations, but he had not the patience to remain in any of them. He was also appren- ticed to a physician, and became the pupil of a Kanga- kusha or Chinese scholar, but completed his studies with neither. At this period of his life he was for a short time a public fortune-teller at Kanagawa, close to the treaty port of Yokohama ; but having lost all he possessed by a flood, he returned to Yedo. Here he made the acquaintance of the novelist Kidden, who received him into his house and showed him great kindness. It was while residing with Kidden that Bakin produced his first novel (1791). Kidden admired it so much that he ex- claimed, “In twenty or thirty years I shall be forgotten.” In the title-page of this work Bakin describes himself as Kidden’s pupil. It is not creditable to him that at the height of his fame he tried to destroy all traces of this fact, and with this object bought up as many copies of his early publication as he could find. Through Kioden’s influence, Bakin obtained a position BAKIN 3 ‘ _ as a bookseller’s assistant, in which situation he re- mained three years. A novel which he wrote at this period, and which was illustrated by Hokusai, was very successful. Bakin was a tall, well-built man. One day the manager of a company of wrestlers came into the bookseller’s shop. He greatly admired Bakin’s stature (over six feet), and said, “Join us, my boy, and I promise you a reputa-, tion which will extend everywhere within the four seas.” Bakin laughed, but vouchsafed no answer. The old Samurai pride still clung to him. The uncle of his em- ployer, who kept a tea-house, supported by the custom of an adjoining brothel, proposed to Bakin that he should marry his daughter, a girl of considerable personal attrac- tions. Bakin refused disdainfully to become connected with a family which drew its income from this source. Brothel-keeping, he said, was no better than begging or thieving, and he must decline to disgrace the body he had received from his parents by such a marriage. He left the bookseller in order to marry the daughter of the widow of a dealer in shoes in Iida-machi, becoming his mother- in-law’s adopted son and heir, as is the Japanese custom. He was too fond of the pen and ink-slab, however, to be a good business man, and as soon as his daughter reached a marriageable age he provided her with a hus- band, to whom he handed over the shoe business. He himself went to live with his son, who now held the position of physician-in-ordinary to the Daimio of Mat- sumaye. Bakin not only contributed to the household resources by keeping a school, but earned a consider- able income from the novels which he produced in rapid succession. At the age of seventy he became almost blind, but he still continued his labours, his 354 JAPANESE LITERATURE \ widowed daughter-in-law acting as his amanuensis. He died at the age of eighty-one, after a career as an author of more than sixty years. The amount of saleable “copy” produced by Bakin can have few equals in literary annals. His pen was never at rest, and the rapidity with which he composed may be inferred from the circumstance related by himself, that one of his novels (of about two hundred pages) was completed by him in a fortnight, “to stay the demands of an impor- tunate publisher.” He is said to have written no fewer than two hundred and ninety distinct works, many of which were extremely voluminous. Some authorities put the figure still higher. Bakin was not an amiable man. He is described as upright, but obstinate and unsociable. A single word which offended him made of him an enemy for life. Even Kidden, to whom he owed so much, could not get on with him. The famous artist Hokusai, who illustrated many of his novels,! had also reason to com- plain of his morose and intractable temper. Edmond de Goncourt, in his life of Hokusai, says that the quarrel between the painter and Bakin occurred in 1808, and was caused by the immense success of the illustrations to the Nanka no Yume, of which Bakin was jealous. It was smoothed over by friends, but broke out again with great violence in 1811, when a continuation of that novel was brought out. Bakin accused Hokusai of paying no attention to his text, and demanded that the drawings should be altered. But the publishers had already en- graved both text and pictures. It was in consequence of Bakin’s recriminations on ‘ See Mr. W. Anderson’s Catalogue of Japanese Pictures in the British Museum, p. 357- vy BAKIN .- 255 this occasion that Hokusai turned his attention to pub- lishing volumes of pictures without text. It is impossible to notice more than a few of Bakin’s publications. The early years of the century were a time of great literary activity with him. In 1805 he published the Yumibari-tsuki (“The Bow-bend or New Moon”), which is thought by some to be his masterpiece. It professes to be an imitation of the Chinese romantic histories, but departs far more widely from historical truth, and is indeed a romance pure and simple, though a few of the personages have names taken from real history. The hero of this story is one Hachiro Tametomo, a famous archer of the twelfth century, whose adventures and exploits fill over eight hundred pages of the modern closely printed edition. For intelligence and valour he had no peer. His stature was seven feet. He had the eyes of a rhinoceros, and the arms of a monkey. In strength he had no equal, and was skilled in drawing the nine-foot bow. Nature seemed to have destined him for an archer, for his left arm was four inches longer than his right. His eyes had each two pupils.