A History of Japanese Literature/Book 6/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
NINETEENTH CENTURY (Continued)—FICTION
Romantic School—Kiōden, Tanehiko, Bakin.
Humourists—Samba, Ikku. Sentimental Novels
—Shunsui. Works in Chinese of Yedo Period
The eighteenth-century writers of Jitsuroku-mono or historical novels did not attempt to invent plots for themselves or to introduce imaginary personages of importance, although in minor details they allowed their fancy free play. Santō Kiōden (1761–1816) was the first to give to the world the romantic novel pure and simple. He was followed by Bakin, Tanehiko, and a host of other writers whose existence can only be indicated. It is quite impossible to notice them or their numerous works more particularly.
Kiōden was a genuine Yedokko or Child of Yedo, the Japanese term corresponding to our "Cockney." He was born in that city in 1761, of parents of the merchant class. His youth was unpromising. He spent much of his time in places of ill resort, sometimes remaining away from home for weeks together. Books were his abhorrence, and all attempts to teach him a profession were in vain. He took lessons in painting from the well-known artist Kitawo Shigemasa, and it is stated by Mr. W. Anderson[1] that he has left many beautiful chromoxylographs, but his native biographers pronounce him a failure in this respect also. In 1790 he married a woman of the harlot class. Notwithstanding what has been asserted by some English writers, such unions are regarded in Japan with marked disapproval, and his friends augured little good of Kiōden's choice. His wife, however, proved an exception to the general rule. She made an excellent housewife, and, the chief of virtues in a Japanese married woman, was unremitting in her dutiful attentions to her father-in-law. In short, she won respect from all Kiōden's acquaintances, and was spoken of by them as "the lotus-flower which has its roots in the mud." When she died he married another woman of the same class, who also made him a good wife.
Kiōden's place of business was near the Kiōbashi (a bridge) in the street called Temmachō. Hence the name by which he is known as an author, and which is composed of the first syllables of the names of these two places. His real name was Iwase Denzō, and he had half-a-dozen other appellations at various periods of his life and in various capacities. Kiōden sold smoking apparatus, such as pipes, tobacco-pouches, and the like, while he was also the inventor and compounder of a quack medicine, to which he gave the name of Doku-shogwan, or Reading Pills, the precise operation of which I have not been able to discover. He had the reputation of a shrewd and successful man of business, and was especially noted for his quickness at mental reckoning. He seldom bought books, but was always borrowing, and made it a rule when drinking with a friend that each should pay his own share, which, as we know from "Auld Lang Syne," was also the practice of Robert Burns. This became known as the Kiōden fashion.
Kiōden's first work (1782) was an imitation, more by way of joke than anything else, of some ephemeral publications describing the manners of the brothel-quarter of Yedo. It was successful to a degree which surprised no one more than the author. His next work was equally well received. Fortunately for his fame, his career as a purveyor of pornography was put a stop to by the police authorities. Kiōden, with many others, was prosecuted under the edict promulgated in 1791 for the suppression of such publications, and was condemned to fifty days' handcuffs (in his own house). The work which brought down on him this punishment he had had the audacity to describe on the cover as an "Edifying Story-book." He wrote no more books of this kind. In one of his later prefaces he protests strenuously that his works, although fiction, would be found to inculcate the highest morality. It is quite true that they are free from coarseness or licentiousness, although their moral tendency leaves something to be desired, at least from the European point of view. Kiōden lost nothing by his reformation. The bookshops were crowded by eager purchasers of his novels. The very horse-boys and cow-herds knew his name, and his house was besieged by rival publishers clamouring for manuscript. Kiōden took advantage of his popularity to insist on definite payment for his compositions. His predecessors, we are told, received nothing for their works but an occasional invitation to supper in some place of public resort, or presents of trifling value when their books sold well.
The first work for which Kiōden bargained for payment was an early production entitled Shōgi Kinuburui, a share-bon, for which he received the munificent sum of one rio.
Kiōden's best known stories are the Inadzuma Hiōshi (1805), of which some account is given below, the Honchō Suibodai (1806), the Udonge Monogatari (1804), the Sōshōki (1813), the Chiushin Suikoden (1798), a version of the forty-seven Ronin legend, and the Fukushiu Kidan Asaka no numa. He was also the author of two works of antiquarian research which are much valued by native specialists: these are the Kottōshiu and the Kinse Kikeki Kō.
Kiōden's writings would be classed by us among "sensation" novels. Wonder, amazement, and horror are the feelings which he aims, not unsuccessfully, at exciting. His style, however, is simple and straightforward; and although he can be graphic and picturesque upon occasion, he is not fond of that superfine writing to which some of his successors and contemporaries were so prone, and which is so exasperating to European readers.
It is possibly a mere personal bias which leads me to prefer him to his pupil, the much-vaunted Bakin. If any Japanese novel deserves to be published complete in English dress, one of Kiōden's would, I think, be found the most suitable for this purpose.
His masterpiece is perhaps the Inadzuma Hiōshi, one of those tales of revenge of which the Japanese popular literature contains many examples. The characters are so numerous and the plot so complicated that it is impossible to give an adequate summary of it here. Amongst the incidents related are several murders and homicides, described with much vigour and an abundance of gruesome details, a hara-kiri and other suicides, thefts, sales of women by their relatives, terrific combats, hairbreadth escapes, dying speeches of great length, tortures, strange meetings, and surprising recognitions. There is an excellent description of a Japanese fair, with its booths of merchandise, its lecturers, quack-doctors, fortune-tellers, and shows of wonders. There are beauteous maidens at the sight of whom the moon hides her head for shame and the flowers close, demons of smallpox and of suicide, scenes of witchcraft and enchantment, with
"Dreams, magic terrors, spells of mighty power,
Witches and ghosts who rove at the nightly hour."
This is surely a sufficient stock of material with which to furnish a novel of twenty chapters and about three hundred pages.
Each chapter, as is the custom with Japanese novelists, has a sensational heading, such as "The Hovel and the Strange Stratagem," "The Danger by the Wayside Shrine," "The Guitar's Broken String," "The Witchcraft of the Venomous Rats," "The Drum of Hell."
The following is part of the opening chapter of the Honchō Suibodai:—
"In the reign of Go Hanazono [fifteenth century] there was a pilgrim named Shikama no Sonematsu. He had been told in his youth by a soothsayer that his physiognomy indicated a danger by the sword, so in order to avoid such a calamity he entered the way of Buddha. He had no settled residence, but wandered about visiting one province after another. At length he arrived at a place called Rokudō, in the district of Atago, in the province of Yamashiro. Darkness came on. A wide moor stretched out before him which afforded no lodging, so he resolved to spend the night there, and take shelter under a tree. This Rokudō is a place of burial on the moor of Toribe, provided for all sorts and conditions of men. Here the monuments of the dead stand in long rows, some overgrown with moss, some freshly carved. 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 immersed,
The moon glimmering through the smoke [of cremation]
Seems like a crag of the Eagle's Mount.' [2]
"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 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[3] 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 Kiōden 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 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 Shōgun's Government, 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 procured him several other situations, but he had not the patience to remain in any of them. He was also apprenticed to a physician, and became the pupil of a Kangakusha 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 Kiōden, who received him into his house and showed him great kindness. It was while residing with Kiōden that Bakin produced his first novel (1791). Kiōden admired it so much that he exclaimed, "In twenty or thirty years I shall be forgotten." In the title-page of this work Bakin describes himself as Kiōden'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 Kiōden's influence, Bakin obtained a position as a bookseller's assistant, in which situation he remained 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 reputation 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 employer, 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 attractions. 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 husband, 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 Matsumaye. Bakin not only contributed to the household resources by keeping a school, but earned a considerable 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 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 importunate 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 Kiōden, to whom he owed so much, could not get on with him. The famous artist Hokusai, who illustrated many of his novels,[4] had also reason to complain 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 engraved both text and pictures.
It was in consequence of Bakin's recriminations on this occasion that Hokusai turned his attention to publishing 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 Hachirō 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.
Tametomo on one occasion was allowed to attend a lecture given before the Mikado by a scholar named Shinsei. The conversation afterwards turned on the great archers of ancient and modern times. Tametomo, at this time a boy of twelve, broke in with the following speech:—
"'It is useless to discuss the superiority of this one or that, for among archers of the present day I do not think there are any who excel Tametomo in repulsing myriads of stalwart foes.' Shinsei, on hearing this, was so taken aback that for a while he made no answer. Then bursting suddenly into a boisterous laugh, he said, 'An art requires months and years of hewing and polishing before it reaches perfection. Even if you had practised since your babyhood, you are little over ten years of age. Bethink yourself. Men are not wooden figures. If you try to shoot them, they will try to shoot you. Those who are skilled in shooting should also learn to ward off the shafts. Are you prepared to catch the arrows shot at you?' Tametomo, without waiting for him to finish his speech, replied, 'Hoi, in his eighth year, acted as general for the Chinese Emperor Shun; Duke Yeki, in his fifth year, had the direction of fire. Wisdom and folly, skill, and the want of it, are not to be reckoned by years. Be pleased to summon archers the most nimble-handed. Even though it were the arrows endued with understanding of the goddess Kwannon, I will show you how easily I shall catch them.' Shinsei, who from the first had intended to give him a sharp lesson, at the unflinching attitude of Tametomo became highly exasperated. Probably thinking it an opportunity for making a display of his own influence, he stood up abruptly and called out, 'Who are in attendance? Let them bring bows and arrows.' 'Your will shall be obeyed,' was the answer. Two of the Imperial Guards, named Norishige and Norikazu, now advanced with bows and arrows to the foot of the stairs [leading from the courtyard up to the hall where the Mikado held his court]. Shinsei, turning to them, explained the circumstances, and told them to have a shot at this youngster.
"Now, these two guards were originally soldiers of the Emperor Shirakawa, and skilled archers. When Gotoba no In came to the throne they were enlisted in the Imperial Guards. Once the Mikado gave them a target of 3½ feet in diameter, telling them to shoot away its centre. The order was given at the hour of the Serpent [ten o'clock], and the target was returned without its centre at the hour of the Rat [two o'clock]. 'Yōyu himself could do no better,' exclaimed everybody in admiration. These men were now advanced in years, but their vigour had not failed. Even my Lord Yorinaga thought that Tametomo, had he six arms, could never escape the arrows of such archers. He could no longer bear to look on, and, turning to Shinsei, said, 'Tametomo, though he has a grown-up appearance, is still, so to speak, a yellow-mouthed boy. Even a joke should have some relation to the person it is practised on. This conduct is most unlike Shinsei.' Then turning to Tameyoshi [the boy's father], he advised him to retire at once and take his son with him. Tameyoshi, who up till now had remained silent, replied with deep respect, 'Tametomo is only twelve, but he is no longer a baby. If he does not stand the test on this occasion, I would call it worse than to turn his back on the enemy. I could bear the loss of one son without regret. What I should hate would be to disgrace the soldier-fame of the house of Gen, established for many generations. I earnestly beseech your Lordship to grant your permission, and allow the matter to proceed as Shinsei wishes.'
"Yorinaga offered no further opposition. Tametomo was delighted, and addressed Shinsei as follows: 'Norishige and Norikazu are peerless bowmen. To be a target for their shafts is an inappreciable boon. But if I fail to seize their arrows my life will end in a moment. I am therefore placing it in your hands. What will you give me if I succeed in catching their arrows?' Shinsei smiled. 'If you succeed, this head of mine shall be your recompense. Shinsei belongs to the Gate of Buddha, and should you now be slain, he will not continue his revenge after your death.' Tametomo paid no attention to this taunt, but rushed down into the larger courtyard and stood up at the distance of a bowshot. . . . The two archers took two arrows each, and stood over against him. Not only the sovereign but all present wrung their hands till they perspired, expecting every moment to see Tametomo's life fade faster than the clear dew beneath the sunbeams. Norishige fitted an arrow to his bow, and drawing it till it bent into a full moon, let fly with an accompanying shout. With his right hand Tametomo caught the arrow in the nick of time, while with his left he stopped the shaft which Norikazu the next moment shot at him just as it flew close to his heart. 'A miss!' exclaimed the two archers, disappointed. 'We don't want to kill him, but this time he won't catch our arrows.' They drew their bows together, and watching a proper moment, let fly with a whiz. One arrow Tametomo stayed by entangling it in the sleeve of his garment but as he had no other means of catching the second, he seized it firmly between his teeth, and at once crunched its head to atoms. All this was done with a rapidity which may be compared to the flickering air dancing over the hot ground, or to the lightning's flash. To all the spectators it seemed more than human. They felt as if intoxicated. It was beyond all praise, and no one said a word. Tametomo flung aside the arrows to right and left. 'Now, your Reverence, you will be so good as to give me your head,' he cried, and springing up the stairs, was about to take hold of Shinsei, when his father, Tameyoshi, interfered."
Tametomo has to leave Kiōto for political reasons. He goes down to Kiushiu, where he has a number of surprising adventures. He becomes possessed of a wonderful crane, and an equally remarkable tame wolf. A strange hunter, who has neither bow nor shafts, but who brings down his prey by stones flung with marvellous precision to an incredible distance, attaches himself to his service. With him he proceeds to Loochoo, where, among other adventures, he falls over a cliff "several thousand feet" to the bottom. He is a little stunned, but walks home afterwards as if nothing had happened. He subsequently goes to Hachijō and other islands off the Bay of Yedo, and then again to Loochoo, where the principal events of the story take place.
Bakin's Seiyuki, or "Journey to the West" (1806), is not an original work, but an adaptation of the well-known Chinese romance Siyuki, in which a Buddhist ecclesiastic, attended by a magician-monkey and a semi-human hog, goes to India from China in order to procure Buddhist scriptures. It is full of supernatural occurrences from beginning to end,[5] and is wholly lacking in human interest.
He also translated the Shui-hsü-ch'uan (Sui-ko-den in Japanese), a much more amusing Chinese story, which fills over two thousand pages of small print in the modern Japanese edition. The influence of these and other Chinese romances is very noticeable in the works of Bakin and his school.
The Nanka no Yume (1807) is a story of fairyland in the Chinese manner.
The Shichiya no Kura ("Pawnbroker's Store"), 1810.— In this work a pawnbroker lying awake at night hears a noise in his storehouse. He peeps in and sees the pledges deposited there assembled in conclave. Each tells its story.
The Musōbiōye Koshō Monogatari [6] is an allegorical novel in which the hero visits the Land of Childhood, the Land of Lust, the Land of Drunkenness, the Land of Avarice, the Village of Lies, the Village of Sinful Desires, the Village of Grief, and the Village of Pleasure. The idea is borrowed from the older work Wasōbiōye, noticed in a previous chapter. It is very learned, intensely moral, and insufferably tedious. The same criticism will apply to the Shichiya no Kura.
The most famous of Japanese novels is the enormous work entitled Hakkenden. Begun in 1814, it was not finished until 1841. In its original form it consisted of one hundred and six volumes, and even in the modern reprint it forms four thick volumes of nearly three thousand pages.
The Hakkenden ("Story of the Eight Dogs") narrates the adventures and exploits of eight heroes of semi-canine parentage, who represent the eight cardinal virtues. After a perusal of some hundreds of pages of this work I can only express my amazement at its extraordinary popularity in Japan. It is full of physical and moral impossibilities, and, worse still, is often pedantic and wearisome. Yet it was greedily bought up by the public. The wood-engravers came daily for copy, and as soon as a part was ready it was printed off in an edition of ten thousand copies, creating a demand for paper which, we are told, appreciably affected the market-price of that commodity.
In addition to his novels, Bakin wrote a miscellany entitled Yenseki Zasshi, which gives interesting information on such subjects as folk-lore and popular superstitions. His Gendo Hōgen is another work of a somewhat similar character. He also wrote an account of a journey to Kiōto in 1802, which was published long after his death.
Bakin's writings have some obvious merits. They prove, sometimes only too conclusively, that he was a man of great learning, intimately acquainted with the history, religion, literature, and folk-lore both of China and Japan. His style is usually flowing, perspicuous, and elegant, and he possesses a command of the resources of his own tongue unique among his contemporaries. His language is a happy medium between the purism of such writers as Motoöri and the semi-Chinese jargon of the later Kangakusha. It is honourable to him that at a time when pornography was the rule rather than the exception with writers of fiction, his writings are free from all indecency of language, and are invariably moral in their tendency. They alone were excluded from the sweeping prohibitive measure directed against light literature by the Shōgun's Government in 1842.
Perhaps the quality which most strikes European readers of Bakin's novels is his prodigious fertility of invention. The number and variety of surprising incidents with which they are crowded can have few parallels. On the other hand, his faults are as glaring as his merits are conspicuous. For the profusion of incidents with which he crowds his pages, he has recourse to his memory as well as to his invention, and, what is worse, he constantly overleaps the bounds of possibility to an extent which tries the patience of the most indulgent reader. The deus ex machinâ, in the shape of a ghost, demon, or supernaturally gifted animal, is in far too frequent requisition. His moral ideals are of the common conventional type of his day and country, the product of the teachings of China grafted on a Japanese stock. His power of delineating character is extremely limited, and reminds us very much of the portrait-painting of Japanese pictorial art. He has little or no humour, and his wit is mainly of the verbal kind. The sentiment of love is dealt with by him in a way which is to us very unsatisfactory. While he can describe the mischief produced by unlawful passion, and wifely fidelity and devotion are his frequent themes, such things as the gradual growth of the sentiment in man or woman, the ennobling influence of a pure love, and all the more delicate shades of feeling are wholly neglected by him. The pathos which native admirers find in his works fails to move his European readers, although they are not insensible to the same quality in other Japanese authors. In short, human nature as depicted by Bakin is far too sophisticated to appeal to our sympathies. He shows us men and women as they might be if constructed on principles derived from the Chinese sages and their Japanese expositors, and goes for his material to books rather than to real life. It is characteristic of him, that unlike many of the dramatists and novelists of his time, he avoids the common speech for his dialogue, and confines himself entirely to the more stilted literary language.
Bakin's style, which is his strong point, is occasionally disfigured by lapses into fine writing adorned with pivot-words[7] and other artifices of Japanese rhetoric irritating to all plain-minded people. Nor can he always resist the temptation of bestowing on his readers tedious displays of his erudition, or of introducing foreign or obsolete words not understanded of the people.
It may be a question whether the rhythmical character of much that Bakin has written is a merit or a defect. It results from the more or less regular alternation of five and seven syllable phrases so often referred to, and produces much the same effect as the blank verse to which some English novelists are addicted. Bakin borrowed it from the popular dramatists of the preceding century; but while it is obviously in its proper place on the stage, where the words are chanted to a musical accompaniment, it seems a more doubtful kind of ornament in an ordinary romance. Japanese critics have an unqualified admiration for this feature of Bakin's works, and suggest that it entitles the Hakkenden to be classed among epic poems.
It may be thought that the above is too low an estimate of a writer whose enormous popularity with all classes of his own countrymen is unquestionable. I therefore append the judgment of the authors of the only native History of Japanese Literature. It will enable the reader to correct any injustice which may have been done by the barbarous Western critic.
"Bakin was a man of immense erudition. His flow of ideas was profuse. When he took up his pen, a thousand words were quickly formed, long chapters fell from his hand. He, nevertheless, from time to time, used deep thought and mature reflection, giving profound attention to plot and construction. His pen darted hither and thither, following his thoughts wherever they went, accompanying his sentiments wherever they turned themselves. In describing men and events, his style changed with the change of subject. Many there have been in ancient and modern times who gave their attention to style, each of whom has his own particular merits. Some excel in depicting scenes of grief and affliction, some of gladness and jollity, while others possess unrivalled gifts of indignant or satirical language. But how many are there who, like Bakin, can build on so vast a scale, and include within their scope the billows of mankind with all their varied capacities and qualities? How many possess the styles fitted for this purpose wherein are seen ever and anon magical things which far transcend our comprehension? In short, Bakin comprises in himself the best points of many men. We see in him numerous resemblances to Shakespeare. It is not only women and children, tradespeople and peasants, who admire him. Even educated gentlemen are frequently moved to tears or laughter, or made to gnash their teeth and strain their arms [with rage] by his writings."
That there is some truth in this I am not concerned to deny. I nevertheless venture the prediction that when the Japanese people have more completely shaken off, as they are doing every year, the Chinese influences which have moulded their character and formed their tastes for centuries, Bakin's heroes and heroines will appear to them as grotesque and unreal as they do to us. His works will then be relegated to the same limbo which contains the romances of chivalry so dear to Europe before Cervantes, and be regarded merely as a document of a passing phase of the national development.
The best known of Bakin's contemporaries is Riutei Tanehiko (1783–1842), a Samurai of the Tokugawa house, from which he received an annual allowance of two hundred bales of rice. Like Kiōden, he was in early life an artist. He also practised Haikai writing with some degree of success. As a writer of fiction he is best known for his romantic novels; but he also published stories in dramatic form (shōhonjidate), meant only for reading, and not for the stage. Another kind of novel, of which he wrote a few volumes, was the ninjōbon or "sentiment book," which will be noticed presently. He was also the author of several works which are of a useful character, but have no pretensions to be regarded as literature.
Among his novels may be mentioned the Awa no Naruto (1807), the Asamagatake Omokage Zōshi (1808), and its continuation the Shujaku Monogatari (1812). The plot of the last two works is taken from an old play, and the scene is in the fourteenth century.
Tanehiko's principal work, the Inaka Genji, "A Rusic Genji" (in ninety volumes), is an imitation of the Genji Monogatari, the well-known romance of the Heian period. It was a great success, and other authors, by choosing titles which included the word Genji, endeavoured to persuade the public that their works were of a similar character. In 1842 the Shōgun's Government took measures to suppress publications of an immoral tendency. The Inaka Genji was considered objectionable on this score, and Tanehiko received a private intimation that he had better give up writing novels. He was only too glad to escape so cheaply, as any official condemnation would have entailed the loss of his allowance from the Government.
I have not had access to this work. It is much admired by native critics for its style and sentiment; and the illustrations, to which Tanehiko attached great importance, set an example to which was due a marked improvement in Japanese wood-engraving.
Tanehiko's shōhonjidate or dramatic stories differ chiefly from ordinary Japanese novels by the preponderance of dialogue over narrative, and by the choice of the ordinary spoken language for the speeches of the characters. They are also more realistic, and vary less violently from actual living manners, than the romantic novel.
The great defect of his books is their want of human interest. Like Kiōden, Bakin, and the other novelists of the romantic school, Tanehiko accepts implicitly the conventional standards of honour and morality, and deviates little from the types of character which were the common property of the writers of his day. Indeed he carries unreal sentiment and artificial rules of conduct to a more fantastic extreme than either of his rivals. Human nature is travestied by him in such a manner as to be no longer recognisable. How can one take any interest in a heroine of fifteen years of age who sets out to travel through Japan in quest of her father's murderer with the intention of making love to him and thus finding an opportunity for putting him to death? Or in the murderer himself, who is a magician with the power of making himself invisible, but who finds no better use for such a gift than to rob unsuspecting travellers? In another work of Tanehiko's the hero submits patiently to be insulted and beaten in the presence of his inamorata by her temporary owner, and then indemnifies himself by waylaying his enemy in a lonely spot with the intention of assassinating him. It is true that the author tries to save his credit a little by making him, in the first place, discharge his money obligations to his intended victim.
It is to be regretted that Tanehiko's writings should be marred by so vital a defect. They contain many interesting glimpses of manners and customs in a state of society which has now passed away, and his style, when not too ornate, is graceful and pleasing.
Shikitei Samba (1775–1822)—his numerous aliases may be omitted—was a native of Yedo. He belonged to the trading class, and in his boyhood was apprenticed to a bookseller. He subsequently opened a book-shop on his own account. His first work was written in 1794, when he was in his nineteenth year. In 1799 he was reported to the authorities by some person who objected to the immoral tendency of his writings. His parents and relatives, alarmed on his account, urged him to give up authorship, but he refused to do so. He was a prolific writer. Among his numerous publications he is now remembered chiefly by two—the Ukiyo-furo and the Ukiyo-toko. The Ukiyo-furo was first published in 1809; but the blocks having been burnt, a second enlarged edition was brought out in 1811. The name of this work means "The World's Bath-house." It consists of a series of realistic sketches of everyday life, something in the manner of Mr. Anstey's Voces Populi, a certain unity being given to them by assigning the dialogues to the frequenters of a public bath-house—an institution well known in Japan as a centre of gossip for the neighbourhood. In the preface Samba protests that he writes in the interests of morality. "In bringing up children," he says, "we give them bitter pills and sweet malt-extract. The Chinese classics resemble the pills, while novels and stories correspond to the sweet stuff. Both convey instruction, though in different ways." The edifying character of the Ukiyo-furo is not very obvious to a casual observer, but it is undeniably amusing. Some Japanese critics rank it even before the Hizakurige. If any one cares to know what subjects are discussed by Japanese of the middle and lower classes when they meet, he will find ample means of gratifying his curiosity in this work. Here is a conversation between two matrons at the bath-house:—
Mrs. A. Well! I have tried lots of servants, but I find that instead of their serving you, it is you who have to serve them.
Mrs. B. Really? But I thought the maid who was with you till last year was such an amiable girl.
Mrs. A. Yes, and she was bound over to me for a long term; but as she had a good offer, I married her off and let her go.
Mrs. B. That was very nice of you.
Mrs. A. The one I have now has such a temper that I don't know what to do. If I reprove her she gets into a rage and smashes everything, and if I humour her it makes her so conceited. The worst of it is that when I lie down to sleep I cannot get that face of hers out of my mind.
Mrs. B. Our hussy Rin is just as bad. She is always putting herself forward, and talking when she is not wanted. So she gets the place to herself, and as soon as she has cleared away the breakfast things she goes upstairs and spends half the day doing her hair. Then, until I tell her to get dinner ready, she is always going out, as she says, to hang out the washing, but really for gossip. There is not a day that she does not excite herself about matters of course, crying and laughing over them, but grudging to take pains with her needful work. She will take up a pail, and with "I am going to fetch water, ma'am," off she goes to the well, and does not get back for a couple of hours. No wonder! When she is not making a fool of herself with all the young men in the row, she joins girls like herself in abusing the masters and mistresses. The other day I wondered what they were talking about, so I slipped behind the outhouse, and there she was praising her last master, &c., &c.
The Ukiyo-toko ("The World's Barber's Shop") is of a similar character. Other works of Samba are the Kokon Hiakunin Baka ("One Hundred Fools Ancient and Modern") and Shijiuhachi Kuse ("The Forty-eight Humours").
His works had a great popularity and have been often imitated.
Jippensha Ikku (?–1831) was the son of a petty official of Suruga. His early life was very unsettled. We hear of his holding small appointments in Yedo and Ōsaka, and his name appears with those of two others on the title-page of a play written for an Ōsaka theatre. He was three times married. On the first two occasions he was received into families as irimuko, that is, son-in-law and heir. In Japan such situations are notoriously precarious and unsatisfactory. "Don't become an irimuko," says the proverb, "if you possess one go of rice." Ikku did not remain long with either of these wives. Very likely his parents-in-law objected to his Bohemian habits and dismissed him. In his third marriage he was careful not to sacrifice his freedom. Ikku's biographers relate many stories of his eccentricities. Once when on a visit to a wealthy citizen of Yedo he took a great fancy to a bathtub. His host presented it to him, and Ikku thereupon insisted on carrying it home through the streets, inverted over his head, confounding with his ready wit the passengers who objected to his blindly driving against them.
One New Year's Day a publisher came to pay him the usual visit of ceremony. Ikku received him with great courtesy, and prevailed on him, somewhat to his bewilderment, to have a bath. No sooner had his guest retired for this purpose than Ikku walked off to make his own calls in the too confiding publisher's ceremonial costume, Ikku not being possessed of one of his own. On his return, some hours later, he was profuse in his thanks, but said not a word of apology.
When he was engaged in composition he squatted on the floor in a room where books, pens, inkstone, dinner-tray, pillow, and bedding lay about in confusion, not an inch of free space being left. Into this disorderly sanctum no servant was ever admitted.
Ikku's ready money went too often to pay for drink, and his house lacked even the scanty furniture which is considered necessary in Japan. He therefore hung his walls with pictures of the missing articles. On festival days he satisfied the requirements of custom, and propitiated the gods by offerings of the same unsubstantial kind.
On his deathbed he left instructions that his body should not be washed, but cremated just as it was, and enjoined on his pupils to place along with it certain closed packets which he entrusted to them. The funeral prayers having been read, the torch was applied, when presently, to the astonishment of his sorrowing friends and pupils, a series of explosions took place, and a display of shooting stars issued from the corpse. The precious packets contained fireworks.
Ikku's first work, exclusive of the dramatic piece above mentioned, was published in 1796 at Yedo, where he had then been settled for six or seven years. Others followed, but it is useless to enumerate them, as their fame has been eclipsed by that of the Hizakurige, the great work with which Ikku's name is always associated.
The Hizakurige was published in twelve parts, the first of which appeared in 1802, the last not until 1822. It occupies a somewhat similar position in Japan to that of the Pickwick Papers in this country, and is beyond question the most humorous and entertaining book in the Japanese language. Hizakurige means "knee-chestnut-horse," the Japanese equivalent for our "shank's mare." It is the history of the travels, mostly on foot, as the title indicates, of two worthies named Yajirōbei and Kidahachi along the Tōkaidō and other great highways of Japan, and of their manifold adventures and mishaps. Yajirōbei, Yajirō, or Yaji, as he is indifferently called, is an elderly man of the shopkeeper class, whom some Japanese insist on identifying with Ikku himself. There are points of resemblance, but this, like most such identifications, is in reality fallacious. Indeed there is a passage in the fifth part of the Hizakurige which seems intended as a repudiation of the suggestion. Yaji is here represented as involved in cruel embarrassments by an attempt to impose himself on some provincial virtuosos as the renowned poet and novelist Jippensha Ikku. Ikku says elsewhere that Yaji was intended as a tada no oyaji or "ordinary elderly man." But in truth he is neither Jippensha Ikku nor yet a tada no oyaji. He and his younger companion belong to that class who having never lived can never die. They are humble but not unworthy members of the illustrious fraternity which includes Falstaff, Sancho Panza, Sam Weller, and Tartarin—to us far more real personages than any originals which may have supplied hints for them.
Yaji and Kida are by no means heroes. They are cowardly, superstitious, and impudent. Lies, "gross as a mountain, open, palpable," fall from their lips on the smallest provocation or in mere wantonness. Yaji has a certain share of good sense and bonhomie which goes some way to redeem his character, but Kida is a fool positive whose idiotic sallies and ill-advised amorous schemes are continually entangling him in scrapes from which it requires all the wit and savoir faire of his elder companion to extricate him. Nor is Yaji, from a moral point of view, much better. Both are, in sooth, shameless wights, whose moral principles are on a par with those of Falstaff or Sir Harry Wildairs, and for whose indecency of speech and conduct even Rabelais hardly affords an adequate comparison. The most that can be said for them is that their grossness is the grossness of the natural uncultured man, and not the con amore concentrated filth which revolts us in some European authors, and that with two continents and a wide gulf of social and racial differences intervening, their indecency somehow creates less disgust than if they were Englishmen or Frenchmen. Still, people of nice taste had better not read the Hizakurige.
It is hopeless by translation to give any idea of the copious flow of rollicking humour which pervades every page of this really wonderful book. Those who have read it will not forget the scene in a roadside inn where some terrapins laid on a shelf overnight come out when Yaji, Kida, and their party are all sound asleep, and insinuate themselves among the bedding; or Kida's misadventure at the river ford with the two blind men who had agreed that one should carry the other over on his back. Yaji cleverly substitutes himself, and so crosses over dry-shod. But Kida, in endeavouring to follow his example, is detected, and shot off in mid-stream. Then there is the scene in which a strolling medium (a young woman) delivers to Yaji a terrific but untranslatable message from his deceased wife, who adds a climax to his fright by proposing to come and pay him occasional friendly visits; and one where Yaji, fancying that Kida is a fox which has taken the shape of his friend, belabours him soundly to make him resume his natural vulpine form. Another amusing scene is one in which the owner of the pack-horse which Kida is riding, meets a man to whom the animal had been assigned as security for a debt. The creditor threatens to foreclose then and there. As the negotiations between the two sway backward and forward, Kida is made alternately to mount and dismount, until at last the situation is cleared by the horse bolting with debtor and creditor in hot pursuit, while Kida is left bruised and shaken on the ground where he had fallen.
The great drawback to the fun of the Hizakurige is that it is unrelieved by more serious matter. Doubtless Bottom the weaver and Falstaff would still be amusing even if they stood by themselves, but they gain immeasurably by contrast with the poetry of fairy-land and the stately court of Theseus in the one case, and with grave political surroundings on the other. In the Hizakurige there is no suggestion of serious thought or feeling; all is broad, frequently even farcical humour. It is, however, excellent fooling of its kind.
There can be no greater contrast than that between Ikku and the romantic school of novelists. He repudiates utterly their entire equipment of fantastic notions of right and wrong, artificial sentiment, supernatural interventions, impossible exploits, and euphuistic fine-writing. He is a realistic writer in the good as well as in the bad sense of the word. The Hizakurige is a picture of real life, for every detail of which Ikku has drawn on his own observation. We know that he actually travelled through the places which are the scenes of his heroes' exploits; but even if there were no record of the fact, it is obvious to every reader who knows Japan. There is little word-painting or description of scenery, but the human life of the great highways is depicted with photographic accuracy, and with a verve and humour which no mere observation, however minute, could ever impart. We see the Daimio's train, slow-moving, silent, and imposing—but nevertheless containing a rowdy element—and hear Yaji and Kida's very free criticisms as they squat humbly by the roadside until the great man has passed. The religious processions, noisy and disorderly, are treated by them with more open ridicule. We meet provincial Samurai, the butt of the more quick-witted citizens of Yedo, obsequious innkeepers, facile waiting-maids, begging priests, Rōnins, Komusō (criminals of the Samurai class who have been permitted to become priests, and who lead a wandering life with their faces wholly concealed under immense basket-hats), pilgrims (who nowadays travel by excursion trains with tickets available for two months from date of issue), boy pilgrims to the shrines of Ise with all the precocious shrewdness of a gamin or a street arab, Tome-onna or female touts who beset the highway near their master's inn at sundown and wheedle or hustle the traveller into it, coolies with their degraded dialect (all Ikku's personages use the language and speak the dialect proper to them), thieves, jugglers, rustics, ferrymen, horse-boys, and many more. Most of these have disappeared for ever, but they still live in Ikku's pages to delight many a future generation of readers.
It has been said that there are no terms of vulgar abuse in the Japanese language. The compliments exchanged by the coolies and pack-horse men in the Hizakurige are a sufficient answer to this rash assertion. There is more truth in the statement that profane language is unknown in Japan. A European Yaji and Kida would certainly have been as richly supplied with terms of this kind as Ernulphus or our armies in Flanders, but the only oath uttered by the heroes of the Hizakurige is the very mild Namu San or Namu Sambō, that is to say, by the three holy things, namely, Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood. Paradoxical though it may appear, this is probably owing to the want of any very deep-seated sentiment of piety in the Japanese nation. Their language is equally deficient in such phrases as "God bless you," "Thank God," and "Adieu."
The Ninjōbon
All students of Japanese literature are familiar with the Ninjōbon or Sentiment Book, a species of novel which flourished most in the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century. It was at last prohibited by the Government, like its predecessor and model the Share-bon.
The best known writer of this class of story was Tamenaga Shunsui, who also called himself (after 1829) Kiokuntei. He was a pupil of Samba. Shunsui was a bookseller of Yedo. He began his literary career with some tales of an unedifying character, which he styled Fujo Kwanzen no Tame ("For the Encouragement of Women in the Paths of Virtue"). He died in 1842 whilst undergoing a sentence of confinement to his own house in handcuffs for publishing works of a tendency prejudicial to public morals. The blocks from which they were printed were at the same time destroyed. Even his admirers cannot say that Shunsui's punishment was altogether unmerited.
One of Shunsui's best known stories is the Mume Koyomi ("Plum Calendar"), with its continuation entitled Shunshoku Tatsumi no Sono ("Spring-Colour Eastern-Garden"), which appeared in 1833. It is a novel of low life, and the characters are singing-girls, harlots, Rōnins, professional jesters, and the like. Its morality cannot be defended, but in decency of language it is superior to the Hizakurige, and even to the Ukiyo-furo.
The Iroha Bunko, which is considered Shunsui's greatest work, is not a typical Ninjōbon, though from some points of view it belongs to this class of literature. It is one of the numerous versions of the story of the revenge of the forty-seven Rōnins. Few worse arranged books have ever been written. The scenes of which it is composed have no sort of order, chronological or otherwise, and in many cases have no obvious connection with the main action of the book. Shunsui, in writing it, seems to have had two objects in view, irreconcilable with each other. One was to produce a historical narrative (he describes it as a true record) enriched by matter drawn from genuine documents; the other to enhance the interest of the story by the addition of imaginative details. As a contribution to historical research the Iroha Bunko is worthless. It is not always possible to distinguish Shunsui the historian from Shunsui the romancist; and in order to comply with the edict forbidding novelists to meddle with real personages of the Yedo period, he was obliged to garble his materials, transferring the scene of the story from Yedo to Kamakura, and from the eighteenth to the fourteenth century, and altering the names of the characters. In this he was only following the example of the Chiushingura, the famous drama which deals with the same subject. The judicious reader will skip his historical disquisitions, nor care, for example, to follow him in discussing the question of the precise date when shops for the sale of buckwheat vermicelli were first established as separate institutions. He will turn from such muda-banashi (vain talk), as Shunsui himself calls it, to the scenes where he abandons his facts, and endeavours by the help of a sympathetic imagination to realise the feelings and emotions of the actors in the tragedy, filling in their surroundings, supplying them with parents, wives, sweethearts, or children, inventing romantic incidents and passionate speeches, and, in short, converting them from vaguely outlined personages of history into real men and women.
The great service rendered by Shunsui and his fellow-composers of Ninjōbon was to recall the attention of writers and readers of fiction to human nature as the proper subject of the novelist's art. Since the time of Murasaki no Shikibu this branch of study had been sadly neglected in Japan. The novelists of the romantic school were too much occupied with sensational situations, hairbreadth escapes, and supernatural wonders, to study the human heart with its affections and passions; while Ikku and Samba, though excellent in their way, were humourists and nothing more.
The Ninjōbon, it is true, do not show us human nature at its best. The society into which they introduce the reader is far from select, and the morality sadly defective. But the vital element of fiction is there. We find in these works real human beings depicted in such a way that we can follow their fortunes with interest, and sympathise with them in their joys and sorrows.
The dialogue of the Ninjōbon is in the ordinary colloquial language of Yedo, the narrative portion in the written style.
Amongst other Ninjōbon may be mentioned the Tsuge no Ogushi (1834), by Jippensha Ikku the younger; Imosedori (n. d.), by Tamenaga Shunga, a pupil of Shunsui; Musume Setsuyō (1831) and Musume Taiheiki (1837), by Kiokusanjin; and Temari Sannin Musume, by Shōtei Kinsui.
During the remainder of the Yedo period Japanese fiction presents no feature of special interest. A good many novels were produced in the several styles described above, but there was no new departure and no writer of conspicuous merit.
Works in the Chinese Language
During the Yedo period the Chinese language held a position in Japan similar to that of Latin in Europe during the Middle Ages. It was the vehicle of all literature of a serious kind, and more especially of history. Japanese scholars attained to great skill in composition in the literary dialect of the Han dynasty, a period which may be taken as corresponding for China to the Augustan era in Rome.
One of the chief historical works of this kind was the Dainihonshi, a history of Japan from the accession of the first Mikado, Jimmu Tennō, B.C. 660, to the abdication of Go Komatsu in A.D. 1413, which, with its numerous addenda, extends to one hundred volumes. It was written by a number of scholars engaged for that purpose by Mitsukuni, Prince of Mito, and was completed about 1715, although not printed until 1851. The Dainihonshi is much admired for its concise and elegant style.
The Nihon Gwaishi, which was brought out by Rai Sanyo in 1837, is probably the best known work of its class in Japan. It relates the history of the Shōgunate from its beginnings in the twelfth century down to the establishment of the Tokugawa dynasty of Shōguns under Iyeyasu in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Both this and the last-named work are invaluable for the study of Japanese history; but they present few attractions to ordinary European readers, who will heartily concur in the unflattering estimate of the Gwaishi contained in Mr. Chamberlain's Things Japanese.
Another important work by Rai Sanyo is the Nihon Seiki, a history of Japan in sixteen volumes.
Towards the end of the Yedo period there was a great falling off in the literary use of the Chinese language in Japan. At the present day it is employed only for a few special purposes similar to those for which Latin is still resorted to in Europe.
- ↑ In his Catalogue of Japanese Pictures in the British Museum.
- ↑ A mountain in India where Buddha preached—put for the other world.
- ↑ Such are some of the difficulties of a translator from the Japanese.
- ↑ See Mr. W. Anderson's Catalogue of Japanese Pictures in the British Museum, p. 357.
- ↑ An episode of this story has been dramatised in Japan. A version of this in the Ingoldsby legend style is given in M'Clatchie's Japanese Plays Versified.
- ↑ This work has been translated into English by L. Mordwin (Yokohama, 1881). An English version of Bakin's Kuma no tayema amayo no tsuki, by Edward Greey, was published in Boston in 1886. A French translation of his Okoma appeared in Paris in 1883.
- ↑ The more frivolous of my readers will perhaps pardon the following attempt to give an example of the sort of thing which we might have if the pivot style were adopted in English. It illustrates the mode in which Japanese novelists and dramatists frequently slur over the transition from one scene to another by a use of this device; something on the same principle as their artists introduce a golden mist between different parts of the landscape in order to disguise defects of perspective.
"The sun went down, and the welcome, the thrice-wished for, the most fair, the best beloved night
knight sought a well-earned repose. On the morrow he rose from his couch at dawn
donned his armour and sallied forth in quest of fresh adventuresome as was his bold spirit, his courage was now to be put to a testy old fool
full of meat as an egg-shaped domes, slender minarets, and square-built towers rose in picturesque confusion from the summit of a hill where dwelt," &c., &c.