Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (38 page)
Read Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories Online
Authors: Ryunosuke Akutagawa
15
.
A Hunter's Diary
: Turgenev's
A Sportsman's Notebook
(1847â51) had deeply influenced modern Japanese lyricism since its partial translation into Japanese (as
Ry
Å
jin nikki
(
A Hunter's Diary
)) in 1888. Doppo was among those who wrote affectingly about the work. Akutagawa (or at least Shinsuke) would have read the 1906 Constance Garnett translation,
A Sportsman's Sketches
, in 1909 when he was seventeen.
16
.
Outlaws of the Marsh
: Translated into English variously as
Water Margin
,
The Men of the Marshes
,
Outlaws of the Marsh
,
The Marshes of Mt. Liang
, and
All Men are Brothers
, the multivolume vernacular Chinese adventure novel of the fourteenth century known in China as
Shuihu zhuan
by Shi Nai-an was translated into Japanese in the early nineteenth century and since then has been widely known and loved in Japan as
Suikoden
. Akutagawa read it in the edited translation by the Edo novelist Takizawa Bakin (1767â1848) which was included in a popular uniform library called
Teikoku bunko
.
Battle flag
â¦
Zhang Qing's inn
: from Chapters 76, 23, and 27 respectively;
done battle with characters
: from Chapters 48 and 4 passim respectively.
17
.
Reineke Fuchs
: Goethe's 1792 version of
Reynard the Fox
, first translated into Japanese in 1884.
18
.
Murata Seif
Å«
to Yamagata Aritomo
: Murata Seif
Å«
(1783â1855) was a pioneer advocate of the kind of strong military policy that Yamagata Aritomo (1838â1922) helped realize as one of the central Restoration leaders.
19
.
Genroku Period
â¦
night heron's scream
: The greatest haiku poet, Matsuo Bash
Å
(1644â1694), flourished during the Genroku Period (see “Green Onions,” note 5). All four images are from haiku by Bash
Å
and his disciples: “Matsutake, oh!/Shape of the mountain/Near the capital” (
Matsutake ya/Miyako ni chikaki/Yama no nari
) by Hirose Izen (d. 1711); “Here the morning dew!/In turmeric fields/The wind of autumn” (
Asa-tsuyu ya/Ukon-batake no/Aki no kaze
) by Nozawa Bonch
Å
(d. 1714); “How busy they areâ/Offshore in chilly rain/Sails running, sails reefed” (
Isogashiya/oki no shigure no/maho-kataho
)by Mukai Kyorai (1651â1704); and “A lightning flash!/Into the darkness goes/A night heron's scream” (
Inazumaya/Yami no kata yuku/Goi no koe
) by Bash
Å
.
20
.
used bookstores that lined Jinb
Å
ch
Å
Avenue
: On Jinb
Å
ch
Å
, see “Green Onions,” p. 120.
21
.
Å
hashi to the Imperial Library
: The
Å
hashi Library was a private institution founded in 1901 by the publisher and politician
Å
hashi Shintar
Å
(1863â1944). The Imperial Library was the fourth incarnation of a public library founded in 1872 in Ueno Park by the national government, and, generally known as the Ueno Library, it is now part of the National Diet Library.
22
.
Livingstone
: David Livingstone (1813â73), Scottish doctor, missionary, and explorer, and author of
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
(1857).
23
.
Herr und Knecht
: Master and servant (German).
24
.
Mushanok
Å
ji Saneatsu
:(1885â1976), novelist much admired by young readers of Akutagawa's day for his philosophical musings. See also “The Writer's Craft” (and note 3).
25
.
To be continued
: Akutagawa appended a note indicating his intention to expand the story to three or four times its present length. He never did write the longer version, but the other stories in this section have been arranged to continue the narrative of a life resembling Akutagawa's.
THE WRITER'S CRAFT (Bunsh
Å
)
1
.
Krafft-Ebing⦠Masoch
: Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840â1902), German neuropsychologist, author of
Psychopathia Sexualis
(1886). Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836â95), Austrian novelist.
2
.
in the style of the old Japanese Jesuit translations of Aesop
: Akutagawa's “Kirishitohoro-sh
Å
nin den” (“The Life of Saint Christopher”) (March 1919), a stylistic tour-de-force which has not been translated into English, employs archaic language modeled on the sixteenth-century Japanese Jesuit translation of
Aesop's Fables
.
3
.
Hitomaro⦠Saneatsu
: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (late seventh century) and Mushanok
Å
ji Saneatsu (1885â1976) mark either end of Japanese literary history as seen at the time of the story. Akutagawa undoubtedly chose Mushanok
Å
ji, a master of pseudoprofundities, for his sonorous aristocratic name (see also “Daid
Å
ji Shinsuke: The Early Years,” note 24).
4
.
“Funerals”
: Akutagawa never wrote such a story.
Å
moto-ky
Å
, a religion of spirit possession with Shint
Å
roots, was founded in 1892 and suppressed by the Japanese government in 1921 (and again in the 1935â45 wartime period). His predecessor at the Naval Engineering School inadvertently created the position for Akutagawa in 1916 by resigning to enter the controversial sect.
5
.
Shinnai style
: A school of plaintive narrative singing with samisen accompaniment that originated in the eighteenth century.
6
.
D
Å
my
Å
⦠H
Å
rinji Temple
:D
Å
my
Å
(?â1020) was said to be such a marvelous chanter of the Lotus Sutra that deities once came from some of the holiest sites in Japan to hear him chanting at the H
Å
rinji Temple in Kyoto. For a translation of a twelfth-century story about the event, see Dykstra,
The Konjaku Tales
, 1:156â9.
THE BABY'S SICKNESS (Kodomo no by
Å
ki)
1
.
Natsume Sensei⦠Mus
Å
: Natsume Senseiâ“Master Natsume” âis the novelist Natsume S
Å
seki, Akutagawa's late literary “master.” See Chronology and “Spinning Gears.” In this brief dream sequence, Akutagawa deliberately jumbles references to two nineteenth-century Confucian scholars, brothers Hirose
Kyokus
Å
(1807â1863) and Hirose Ens
Å
(1782â1856), and the fourteenth-century Zen priest Mus
Å
Soseki (1275â1351), whose name means “Dream Window.” The storyteller Tanabe Nans
Å
(1775â1846) will be added to the mix a few paragraphs later.
2
.
Taka
: “Taka” is Akutagawa Takashi, who was seven months old at the time of the story (1923). Since he had already lived in two calendar years, the original text calls him “two years old” following the traditional method of counting ages. His elder brother Hiroshi was three years old.
3
.
Dr. S
: Dr. Shimojima Isaoshi, Akutagawa's own physicianâand close friendâsince the family moved to Tabata. The baby's temperature below (37.6°C) is 99.7°F.
4
.
like a schoolgirl again
: Tsukamoto Fumi was a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl when Akutagawa, eight years her senior, first began to consider the possibility of marrying her.
5
.
H
Å
itsu
: Sakurai H
Å
itsu (1761â1828), a figure associated with late-Edo frivolity.
6
.
Sainted Founder
â¦
Lotus Sutra
: The founder of the Nichiren sect, the central scripture of which is the Lotus Sutra, was Nichiren (1222â82). On the Lotus Sutra, see “The Nose,” note 1.
DEATH REGISTER (Tenkibo)
1
.
Shiba Ward
: A west-bank “low city” ward near Akutagawa's birthplace. See also “Daid
Å
ji Shinsuke: The Early Years,” note 1. His “
Å
ji Auntie” (p. 181) is from
Å
ji Ward at the north end of Tokyo. Yanaka (p. 181) is a west-bank low-city neighborhood with many temples and cemeteries.
2
.
Story of the Western Wing
:
Xixiang ji
(
Seis
Å
ki
or
Seish
Å
ki
in Japanese), by Wang Shifu (
c
. 1250â1300). Akutagawa slightly misquotes the source but with little change in impact. See Wang Shifu,
The Story of the Western Wing
, tr. Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 4. p. 242.
3
.
Iris Bouquet
: Ayame K
Å
sui seems to have been the brand name of a perfume.
4
.
memorial tablet
: A plain wooden slat, usually 4 or 5 feet long, 4 inches wide and perhaps
'' thick, inscribed vertically in black India-ink characters with the posthumous Buddhist name of the deceased (see next note) and erected at the cemetery during the interment ceremony. After the first forty-nine days of mourning,
a smaller tablet, perhaps 8 inches high and 3 inches wide and usually finished in glossy black lacquer with the posthumous name inscribed in gold characters, is installed in the family altar at home, where prayers are offered up to the departed spirit. On the “tiny memorial tablet” (p. 183) for Little Hatsu: as her younger brother, Akutagawa would have seen only the small tablet in the shrine at home.
5
.
Kimy
Å
in My
Å
j
Å
Nisshin Daishi
: The lengthy “preceptive appellation” (
kaimy
Å
) was an entirely typical agglomeration of Sino-Japanese labels indicating that she was a faithful adult female lay member of the Nichiren sect: Kimy
Å
in (Taking (faithful) refuge in the hall (of Buddha))/My
Å
j
Å
(Wondrous Vehicle (of the Buddhist Law))/Nisshin (Sun-Advance: a name in the style of sect founder Nichiren (Sun-Lotus))/Daishi (Elder (Lay) Sister). On the Nichiren sect, see “The Baby's Sickness,” note 6.
6
.
Little Hatsu
: Niihara Hatsu (1885â91).
7
.
a Mrs. Summers⦠Tsukiji
: Ellen Summers (1843â1907), the wife of English literature instructor James Summers, ran a school in her home
c
. 1884â1908. Among her pupils was the writer Tanizaki Jun'ichir
Å
(see “The Life of a Stupid Man,” note 5). Perhaps a fifteen-minute rickshaw trip northeast of Shiba, Tsukiji was a treaty-designated foreign residential area in the early Meiji period, until such segregated housing was abrogated by new treaties signed in 1899.
8
.
boke
: The name of the tree, known as a Japanese quince (
Pyrus japonica
) in English, is a homonym for “dimwit.” Before the aunt can joke with her that both she and the tree are “
boke
,” Hatsu cleverly makes up her own remarkably similar word play using “
baka
” (dummy).
9
.
Shinjuku
: Then a western suburb, but now one of the most intensively developed commercial, municipal government, and entertainment districts in Tokyo, Shinjuku could not have supported a pasture much after the death of Akutagawa's father (in 1919), and certainly not after the earthquake of 1923 triggered its transformation.
10
.
Uoei restaurant in
Å
mori
: Local records indicate that the restaurant was in business from approximately 1895 to the mid-Taish
Å
period.
Å
mori was a southern ward of Tokyo.
11
.
Irish reporter friend
: Thomas Jones (1890?â1923) came to Japan in 1915 as an English teacher and became a correspondent in the Reuters Tokyo office. Called “my brother's best friend” by Jones's sister Mabel, Akutagawa wrote movingly of this some
what naïve admirer of Japan when both were idealistic 25-yearolds and then again when they were closer to 30 and more jaded. Jones was killed by smallpox after being reassigned to Shanghai in 1919 (“Kare/Dai ni” (1926) and IARZ 14:289).
12
.
J
Å
s
Å
's
: Nait
Å
J
Å
s
Å
(1662â1704), one of Bash
Å
's “ten wise disciples,” wrote this haiku (
Kager
Å
ya/Tsuka yori soto ni/Sumu bakari
) on the occasion of a visit to Bash
Å
's grave that gave rise to thoughts about his own declining health. J
Å
s
Å
must have sensed that the entire difference between himself and the dead occupant of the grave was as insubstantial as a shimmering wave of heat.