Frontispieces
Caption: The secrets of / swordsmanship—a willow / in the wind
Figure Labels: Inukai Kenpachi Nobumichi.
Notes: The poem is in Japanese, in waka form.
Caption: On the day Tian Dan destroyed Yan / He scorched the plain with flame / The year Ananda died / With smoke he mollified both sides
Figure Labels: Inuyama Dōsetsu Tadatomo.
Notes: Tian Dan was a general of the state of Qi; he is famous for masterminding an attack using a herd of oxen, whose tails he set on fire (see Shiji, chapter 82). Ananda was a disciple of the Buddha who, when he died, immolated himself in the middle of a river so that the kings on either side could divide his relics equally among themselves. This poem is a kanshi couplet.
Caption: Beneath the eaves / as lonely as half / an abalone shell / fishing for a hundred nights / for ferns beneath the snow
Figure Labels: Hikami Kyūroku [standing]. Sesuke, a servant [half kneeling].
Text in colophon, bottom left: Illustrations on these pages carved by Asakura Ihachi.
Notes: The poem is in Japanese, in waka form. Half of an abalone shell is an old poetic image for loneliness. A hundred nights may suggest the legend that Ono no Komachi, the famed Heian poet, refused to accept the Fukakusa Captain’s suit until he had visited her for a hundred nights in a row. The ferns mentioned in the poem (shidakusa) were also known as nokishinobu, a name that connotes yearning while incorporating the word for “eaves”; the word shidakusa is used to similarly suggest longing in poem #2475 in the eighth-century poetry anthology Man’yōshū. The strips attached to the cords by Sesuke’s knee read “I” and “love you.”
Caption: If I had some vinegar / I could make a miso marinade / of this netted fish / and shrimp from the Kaniwa / right here in the boat
Figure Labels: Ōtsuka Hikiroku [standing]. Nukasuke, a peasant [seated].
Notes: The poem is in Japanese, in waka form. Hikiroku holds a miniature pine with a fishing net strung from it, a construction that might be used as a centerpiece at a banquet. Nukasuke is seated at a cutting board. The combination suggests preparations for a wedding feast.
Caption: The great emptiness contains truth, made out of the ether
Before Heaven and Earth were parted, which was the hero?
As I climb / And climb in years / My shames / Like words and leaves pile up / And make a mountain
Epigrams composed by Old Shinten, master of the Lone Grass Pavilion between Heaven and Earth
Notes: The first poem is a kanshi couplet. The second is in Japanese, in waka form. The characters used to write “Old Shinten,” or “Old Believes-in-Heaven,” can also be read ahōdori, “gooney bird” (i.e. “albatross”). Old Shinten was another of Bakin’s pseudonyms. Lone Grass Pavilion between Heaven and Earth is a reference to the Du Fu poem also invoked in Bakin’s seal (see Preface to this Volume).