Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/339

  

 

[Kōshoku Gonin Onna, Book III]&emsp;by Ihara Saikaku



According to the almanac for 1682, New Year’s Day was to be devoted to the practice of calligraphy. Then, having started the year auspiciously, men could start making love on January 2. In the Age of the Gods this art was taught by the wagtail bird and ever since those days it has brought endless mischief between the sexes.

In Kyoto there lived a lady known as the Almanac-maker’s Beautiful Spouse, who stirred up a mountain of passion in the capital and figured again and again in notorious romances. Her moon-shaped eyebrows rivaled in beauty the crescent borne aloft in the Gion Festival parade; her figure suggested the cherry buds, not yet blossoms, of Kiyomizu; her lovely lips looked like the topmost leaves of Takao in full autumnal glory. She lived in Muromachi-dori, the