近松物語

choi

This posting is about A Story From Chikamatsu (1954; Japanese title: 近松物語) -- by director 溝口 健二 and cinematographer 宮川 一夫.

(1) The above film is translated as The Crucified Lovers in en.wikipedia.org, which traces its origin: "adapted from CHIKAMATSU Monzaemon's 近松 門左衛門 1715 jōruri 浄瑠璃 play Daikyōji Mukashi Goyomi 大経師 昔暦."
(a) However, do not read en.wikipedia.org for the plot, whose English is awful -- and later in the plot, the character Osan was mistyped as Isan.
(b) 浄瑠璃, also known as bunraku 文楽
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunraku
(photos)
, is Japanese puppet theater.
(c) The "mukashi" and "koyomi" are both Japanese pronunciations of kanji 昔 and 暦, respectively. The "k" in Koyomi" is softened to "g" as the latter is in the second position of a compound word. 昔暦 means old calendar; see (5) below.

(2) The two characters Mo-hei 茂兵衛 (where "ei" denotes a long vowel of "e") and Osan おさん are famous in Japan. Here are two ukiyo-e, which are found in many other museums and places.
(a) KITAGAWA Utamaro 喜多川 歌麿, Osan and Mohei, from the series "True Feelings Compared: The Founts of Love" (Japanese title: Jitsu kurabe iro no minakami 実竸色乃美名家見: Osan おさん, Mohei 茂兵衛). Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M Sackler Museum, (bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs in 1965; Object Number 1965.497).
https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/202914
(b) KITAGAWA Utamaro, The Face of Osan, Wife of Mohei (Mohei nyōbo Osan ga sō 茂兵衛女房おさんが相), from an untitled series. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts (Accession Number 11.14330).
http://www.mfa.org/collections/o ... itled-series-206467

(3) Japanese-English dictionary:
* nyōbo 女房 【にょうぼう】 (n): "wife"
* kyōji 経師 【きょうじ】 (n): "scroll mounter; picture framer" (In 近松物語, the occupation of the husband is both: mounting scrolls and printing almanacs.)

(4) The real event:

Chapter 3 Ihara Saikaku and the Books of the Floating World. In Haruo SHIRANE 白根 治夫 (ed), Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900. Columbia University Press, 2004, at page 61
https://books.google.com/books?i ... %20real&f=false
(" 'The Calendar Maker's Wife,' the third volume [which called the husband 暦屋 (not 大経師); in Japanese 屋 means either a small business or its proprietor] of Five Sensuous Women 好色五人女 [written by 井原西鶴 and published in 1686], which is translated here is loosely based on a famous incident that had occurred three years earlier, in 1682. It involved a prestigious Kyoto printer who maintained a virtual monopoly on the printing and  and marketing of almanac calendars, widely coveted because of yin-yang divinations and warnings given for each day. According to a contemporary ballad, Osan committed adultery with the clerk Mohei (Moemon 茂右衛門 in Saikaku's narrative) with the aid Tama [actually Otama お玉, where 'o" is an honorific] (Rin [りん or 鈴] in Saikaku's version [which retained the name Osan]) while her husband was away on business in Edo. Osan and MOhei escaped to Tanba [丹波(国); presently 京都府船井郡 丹波町 -- created in 1955 for both name and administration] (east of Kyoto) with Tamawhen Osan's pregnancy became apparent, but they were finally discovered, brought back to Kyoto, and quickly tried and executed. The crime of adultery was compounded by Mohei's violation of the strict boundary between employer and employee and by Osan's absconding with her husband's money. In 1683, both were crucified and then speared; the maid Tama was beheaded. Saikaku uses only the bare outlines of this incident, however, gabricating almost all interesting details * * * Only the ending was never in doubt")

IHARA Saikaku 井原 西鶴 (1642 – 1693; pen name of 平山藤五)

(5) Jessica Kennett Cork, The Lunisolar Calendar; A sociology of Japanese time. Boca Raton, Florida: Dissertation.com, 2010
https://books.google.com/books?i ... e&q&f=false
http://www.dissertation.com/book ... amp;book=1612337600

Quote:

"Introduction[:] On the ninth day of the Eleventh Month of Meiji 5 (1872), the people of Japan received the startling news in the form of an imperial decree that the notationson the calendar they had been using for over 1,200 years 'are false, have no factual basis, and hinder the development of human knowledge,' and the emperor would 'abolish the old calendar, adopt the solar [Gregorian] calendar, and order the realm to obey ir for eternity.' * * * The lunisolar calendar was the principal method of timekeeping in Japan from 604 to 1872"  page 3.

"Chapter 1 The Cultural Significance of the Lunisolar Calendar as Viewed Through Classical Texts * * * The calendar that originated in China in the thirteenth century BCE and is [note the present tense] used throughout Asia is often called a 'lunar calendar' in English, but this is a misnomer. This calendar is actually a lunisolar calendar, or a calendar that 'integrates the solar-based unit of the year with the lunar-based unit of the month * * * [paying attention to the waxing and waning of the moon while also observing the solstices and equinoxes.' This contrasts with pure lunar calendars, such as the Islamic calendar, on which 'no attempt is made to keep the start of the year in synchrony with the sun.'"  page 5.

"Footnote 25 to an old Japanese  calendar: "The Western seven-day week first appeared in China during the Táng Dynasty (618-907) and was brought to Japan in 806 by Buddhist monk Kōbō-Daishi 弘法大師 (774-835) as part of the Sutra on the Lunar Mansions and Luminaries [English from Sanskrit: nakshatra 宿曜経]. Prior to this, Japan used the sexagenary cycle for naming the days of the week.  Western nomenclature for the seven-day week disappeared in China, but was revived in Japan on the Jōkyō 貞享 [年号] calendar in 1689. However, the seven-day week had no significance in Japan other than for divination purposes until Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1873 and Sunday was made a day of rest. * * * On the lunisolar calendar, the days of the month correspond to the phases of the moon, which always occurs on the same day every month"  pages 16-17.

"In Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Daikyōji Mukashi Goyomi (1715; [translation:] The Almanac Maker and the Old Almanac), the plot hinges on readers' awareness that the date the story occurs, the first day of the Eleventh Month, is a dark, new moon night. Ishun's wife, Osan, overhears her husband making a pass at the maidservant, Otama, and goes to sleep in Otama's room in an attempt to prevent Ishun's philandering [Ishun had come into Otama's room every night but was repelled by Otama]. On the same night, Mohei, grateful to Otama for covering up a crime he had committed, visits Otama's room. With no moonlight to guide him, he doesn't realize that it is actually Osan sleeping there, not Otama. The two are put to death for the crime they commit."  pages 18-19.
(A) Jessica Kennett Cork "graduated with a BA in sociology Japanese Language and Literature from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MA in Advanced Japanese Studies from the University of Sheffield in the UK."  Dissertation.com (Presumably the book is her master’s thesis.)
(B) the husband Ishun: (大経師 or 暦屋) 以春

(6) If you wish to read plot of 近松物語, see
Osan Mohei. Kabuki21.com, undated
https://www.kabuki21.com/osan_mohei.php

(7) The difference -- between 近松 門左衛門's  1715 puppet play 大経師 昔暦 on the one hand, and both 井原 西鶴's 1686 好色五人女 and 溝口 健二's 1954 film 近松物語 on the other hand -- is in the latter two, Osan and Mohei were executed by crucifixion, and yet in the former a Buddhist monk named Tōgan 東岸[和尚] came to rescue the duo at the last moment. See
Keiko I McDonald, Japanese Classical Theater in Films. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994, at page 187
https://books.google.com/books?i ... epage&q=film%20
("Yet, with all in readiness to punish the lovers for violation of the feudal social code, Chikamatsu provides a deux [sic]-ex-machina surprise ending. In his historical plays supernatural intervention often reverses the misfortune of the hero. * * * Such a device seems oddly placed in a narrative pattern rooted in realism, yet The Almanac-Maker's Tale ends with something like a last-minute rescue. Earlier in the play, a Buddhist monk, Togan, appeared in aid of Osam's distressed parents. Now he reappears at the place of execution to claim the lovers. By taking them into custody, Togan embodies the ideal of heavenly benevolence readily accepted by the audience as being 'possible' in the best of all possible worlds.  Mizoguchi's film version of Chikamatsu's tale ends very differently. Like Saikaku Ihara's novelized version, it carries the logic of the plot to the lovers' death, with their becoming 'part of the dew-covered grass' of the execution ground")
(A) Fairleigh Dickinson University (1942- ; private; was named after a benefactor Colonel Fairleigh S Dickinson, co-founder of Becton Dickinson; both the university and Becton Dickinson are based in New Jersey)  en.wikipedia.org
(B) deus ex machina (n; New Latin, a god from a machine, translation of Greek theos ek mēchanēs; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deus%20ex%20machina