This Scheming World. Ihara Saikaku

      

      This Scheming World

      Ihara Saikaku (1642-93), bom Hirayama Togo in Osaka, was originally a successful merchant, but the tragedy of losing his wife and blind daughter moved him to forgo business and to travel and write. He began his literary career as a haiku poet, astonishing contemporaries with his skill at composing thousands of stanzas in a single sitting. Later he turned to writing ukiyozoshi, a popular prose form in which he enchanted readers with racy accounts of the amorous and financial affairs of the merchant class and the demimonde. In addition to This Scheming World, his masterpieces include The Life of an Amorous Man, Five Women ‘Who Loved Love, and The Life of an Amorous Woman.

      Masanori Takatsuka, a graduate of Hiroshima Koshi, and David C. Stubbs, a graduate of Florida State University, were both faculty members of Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan at the time they translated This Scheming World.

      Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions, with editorial offices at 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, Vermont 05759

      Copyright© 1965 by Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Co., Inc.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      First Tuttle edition, published 1965

      ISBN 978-1-4629-0260-6

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      TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword	7
The Extravagant Wives of Wholesalers	19
Pawning an Old Halberd Sheath	24
When Ise Lobsters Were as Scarce as Crimson Leaves in Springtime	30
The Mouse Messenger	37
The One-Momme Club	42
It’s Expensive to Lie When You’re Lying Low	49
Sensible Advice on Domestic Economy	54
Life and Doorposts: Both Are Borrowed	60
The Opening Performance by the New Players	65
How Lovely the Sight of Rice-Cake Flowers at New Year’s	71
Golden Dreams	77
Even Gods Make Mistakes Sometimes	82
The Night of Insults	88
The Kitchen Floor Parties of Nara	94
When Masters Exchange Houses	99
The Pillar Rice-Cakes of Nagasaki	104
A Night Auction at the Year-End	109
Blinds from Brush-Holders	115
Hirataro	120
The Perennially Prosperous Shops of Edo	126

      Portrait of Saikaku Ihara by Kazumasa Haga

      FOREWORD

      THE LATTER half of the 17th century is a significant age in the history of Japanese literature, for it was in this age that the townspeople, who could boast of neither rank nor birth, came to hold the hegemony of literary