chanoyu-to-wa - Tumblr blog

chanoyu-to-wa · 6 days ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 113.

〽 Rikka nado yorite kenbutsu-suru-toki ha ōgi wo nukite yorite miru-mono

[立花などよりて見物する時は扇を拔てよりて見るもの].

“Because there is a rikka [立花], or something of that sort, when [approaching] to inspect [the toko], only once [the guest] has taken out [his] fan should [he] then [proceed to] look at what has been displayed.”

Rikka [立花 or 立華] is a formal floral arrangement that, in its most conventional form, was intended to represent an idealized landscape¹.

A sketch of a rikka, by Sōami [相阿彌; ? ~ 1525] (the grandson of the great Nōami [能阿彌; 1397 ~ 1471], and son of Nōami’s successor Geiami [藝阿彌; 1431 ~ 1485])², the author of the O-kazari ki [御飾記], composed of the three elements shō or matsu [松] (pine tree), chiku or take [竹] (bamboo), and bai or ume [梅] (flowering plum) -- the suì-hán sān yǒu [歳寒三友] (sai-kan san yū in Japanese), which means Three Friends of the Cold Season³ -- is shown above.

Rikka nado yorite [立花などよりて] means “as a consequence (yorite [依りて, 因りて]) of the rikka [立花], or other things of that sort (nado [など]⁴)....”

Kenbutsu-suru-toki [見物する時]: kenbutsu-suru [見物する] means to view, to inspect⁵, so kenbutsu-suru-toki ha [見物する時は] means “when inspecting (the rikka or other things of that sort).”

Ōgi wo nukite yorite miru-mono [扇を拔てよりて見るもの]: ōgi [扇]⁶ is the folding fan; the verb nuku [拔く] means “to take out” (for example, extracting the fan from one’s obi, or drawing or unsheathing a sword from its scabbard); yorite [依りて, 因りて], as above, means “as a consequence of (having done something),” or “after (he) has done something;” and, miru-mono [見るもの]⁷ means things to see, what there is to see.

Putting these ideas together, we understand Joo to be saying that only after the fan has been taken out should (the guest) look at whatever it is that has been displayed. Note that, in Jōō’s period the act of “taking out one’s fan” meant that the fan was to be opened and held in front of the face. Putting it down on the floor to create some sort of “virtual wall” to separate the guest from the object that is going to be examined is a rather meaningless gesture.

The reason why the fan is held in front of the nose is because rikka arrangements are very complicated, and if the exhaled breath caused some of the flowers to become disarranged, this would spoil the effect. Rikka were typically arranged in the toko of the large rooms, wile arrangements that we would identify as “chabana” were displayed on the chigai-dana, or on the dashi-fuzukue [出し文机], the built-in writing desk in the shoin room (this desk is often referred to as the tsuke-shoin [付け書院] today). And the reason why the tea schools abjure this action today appears to be because certain ikebana schools teach that it should be done⁸.

The version of this poem archived by Katagiri Sadamasa seems to be a revised (and so more inclusive) version of the original⁹:

〽 nani-shite mo hana wo haiken-suru toki wa¹⁰ sensu wo nukite yorite miru-mono

[なにしても花を拜見する時わ扇子をぬきてよりて見るもの].

“Whatever sort of flowers you are inspecting at the time, take out [your] sensu and [only] then look at whatever it is [that has been displayed for you to appreciate].”

Nani-shite mo [なにしても] means things like “no matter what,” “whatever (they are),” “in any case,” and “regardless.” In other words, irrespective of the kind of flower arrangement (whether it is a more formal sort of arrangement created according to the rules of ikebana, or whether it is a case where the flowers have simply been “thrown into” the hanaire casually)....

Haiken-suru [拜見する] is the verb for to inspect, to look at, to view, that has been come to be preferred over kenbutsu-suru [見物する], in chanoyu, since the Edo period.

In chanoyu, sensu [扇子] has supplanted ōgi [扇] in general use since the beginning of the Edo period.

So, aside from the fact that this version has broadened the types of floral arrangements about which the poem is speaking, the meaning is basically the same as we find in Jōō’s Matsu-ya manuscript version.

_________________________

¹An idealized landscape that was technically intended to represent, or invoke the Buddha Amida’s Pure Land (as described, for example, in the Lotus sūtra).

²Together the three -- Nōami, Geiami, and Sōami -- were known as the san-Ami [三阿彌], on account of their inestimable influence on the courtly arts during the second half of the fifteenth century, and on into the sixteenth century (and beyond).

³Suì-hán [歳寒] (sai-kan) literally means the cold (months) of the year, so suì-hán sān yǒu (sai-kan san yū) is often translated “the Three Friends of Winter.”

In Japan they are used as a symbol of the New Year’s season because the Lunar New Year occurs around the time of the “official” end of winter (symbolized by setsu-bun [節分], the parting of the seasons, on February 3rd or 4th).

⁴Rikka nado [立花など] means rikka and other things of that sort.

This “things of that sort” appears to be referring to things that were formally arranged in the toko* (such as the oshi-ita kazari [押板餝] shown above in a sketch from Sōami’s O-kazari ki†)

As mentioned above, the intention behind this kind of arrangement (the scroll or scrolls, the “landscape” floral arrangements, and incense to perfume the air) was to create a stylized vision of Amitābha’s Pure Land. __________ *The implication seems to be that the action described in this poem -- taking out the fan with the intention of covering one’s nose (so the breath will not disturb the things that one is inspecting) -- might be unnecessary when looking at more casually arranged things.

The verb-construction used to describe the mechanics of arranging an “ordinary” chabana is nage-ireru [投げ入れる], which literally means “thrown in” or “dumped in together” -- that is, the flowers should be arranged without any show of artifice. (That said, even such arrangements should be inspected with the fan in front of the nose when composed of grassy flowers -- plant material that can easily be disarranged by the slight breeze resulting from an exhaled breath.)

†In this arrangement, a rikka of the sort shown in Sōami’s painting (in the body of the translation) was supposed to be arranged in each of the flower vases placed on the two sides of the arrangement. These rikka would be constructed as mirror-images of each other, that would be focused toward the incense burner (in the center of the arrangement).

⁵Today, the world of chanoyu prefers the expression haiken-suru [拜見する], which is a more formal way of saying exactly the same thing.

⁶Sensu [扇子], which we usually use in chanoyu, is an alternate form of the same word.

⁷Cf. kenbutsu [見物], which has essentially the same meaning of something to see (and so is also used to name the act of sightseeing, as well as to describe things that we would call a spectacle, a sight-worth-seeing, an attraction).

Miru-mono [見るもの] is conventionally written without the second kanji, to avoid any verbal confusion with kenbutsu.

⁸In other words, the rules for chanoyu must be different from ikebana -- an excellent example of the Edo period nonsense that resulted from the separation of the different arts from each other -- this despite the fact that Rikyū was the “master” who was charged with creating the rikka arrangements for Hideyoshi’s reception rooms.

In which capacity, Rikyū invented a new sort of flower shears that have a rounded tip (because Hideyoshi objected to the presence of even a small knife in his rooms -- which had been the usual implement for cutting the stems of the flowers theretofore).

These shears are, unsurprisingly, known as Rikyū-basami [利休鋏]. Their use is forbidden by the tea schools, however, because chanoyu must be different from ikebana.

Apotheosize Rikyū as the God of Tea, and perform rites and ceremonies to his memory by all means; but it is “unprofessional” for someone to be involved with more than one art*: ignore (or even denigrate) what he actually did or taught. This appears to have been the guiding principal of chanoyu since the Edo period. __________ *Given the definition that has held since the Edo period, it becomes necessary to ask, was Rikyū a “professional” chajin? Did the profession of chajin even exist during his lifetime? Was it even a business at all?

The Japanese say that a professional is supposed to be dispassionate about his art (to the point, apparently, of having no personal interest in it at all beyond what will bring in the maximum profit); but Rikyū appears to have been unusually passionate about chanoyu. And he was as proficient in flower arranging, and incense, as he was in tea. Ergo he must not have been a professional at anything.

Sometimes crude ignorance manifests itself in curious ways, such as in this approach to “professionalism.”

I know I have come down on this before, but this is really my pet peeve with the state of things. Indeed, it is, I believe, the reason why chanoyu in Japan has degenerated into little more than utensils (as financial investments -- or ways to hide money) and food. And since the whole system appears to be breaking down (as a result), I cannot imagine that there is much that can be done to salvage things there. Unfortunately, however, this “approach” is also spreading among tea people in other countries, and that is to be regretted -- and avoided in so far as it is possible. Forget about the monetary aspect of tea. Make chanoyu a part of your life as much as you can. Participate because you enjoy it, and serve tea to your guests with utensils that appeal to you. And when you are the guest, look at the utensils and try to understand what the host sees in them; and forget about who the maker was. In that day, nobody knew -- or cared -- who Chōjirō was. Newly made pieces were easy to replace, and used as such -- so it was only the interest that the utensils themselves provoked that made them memorable. Ideally, it should be something like that....

⁹Though the problem is -- by whom.

The changes seem better to reflect the sensibilities of the Edo period, rather than Jōō’s day -- especially regarding the word rikka [立花], which, by the Edo period, had become inexorably fixed to the art of ikebana, meaning it would not be acceptable to find it in a poem about chanoyu.

¹⁰Most curiously, the person responsible for this version has written the kana wa [わ], rather than the particle ha [ハ or は]. In other words, the kami-no-ku [上の句] (the first “half” of the poem) should read: nani-shite mo hana wo haiken-suru toki ha [なにしても花を拜見する時は].

This might suggest that someone other than Jōō undertook the reconfiguring of this incarnation of the poem,

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

❖ As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more necessary than heretofore, since this blog is my only source of income. Please donate, if you can.

1 note · View note

chanoyu-to-wa · 10 days ago

Text

Appendix: the Rikyū Chaire Kiri-gata [利休茶入切型], Part 2.

[Returning to] this kiri-gata [of the Nitta-katatsuki], the inscription reads, “an orange-red [color] appeared on the nadare during firing²⁶.”

In the Tennōji-ya kaiki [天王寺屋會記] (Sōtatsu ta-kaiki [宗達他會記]²⁷), in an entry for the 17th day of the Fourth Month of Tenbun 19 [天文十九年卯月十七日] (1550), in which [Sōtatsu] describes the physical details²⁸ of the Nitta-katatsuki (which was, at that time in the Ōsaka-Kyōto area²⁹), it says: “at the edge of the nadare streaks -- on both streaks -- an orange-red [color] appeared during firing” (nadare no suji no fuchi ni, futa-suji nagara, shu wo yaki-dashi sōrō [なたれのすちのふちに、二筋なから、しゆをやき出候])³⁰.

Tsuda Sōtatsu had a discerning eye, so every detail of [his] description matches exactly [the actual appearance of the chaire]. This being the case, it [might] lead to the conclusion that it was not Sōtatsu, but rather his son Sōkyū who wrote these notes [on the kiri-gata] -- though there is no way to know for sure. We must also remember that there was a close relationship between the Tennōji-ya [house] and the Ōtomo clan³¹.

In the end, while the possibility of the Rikyū chaire kiri-gata being created by Rikyū remains, there might be a stronger likelihood that they were Tsuda Sōkyū’s chaire kiri-kata [which are occasionally mentioned in documents from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries].

This is not to say that there is no connection between Rikyū and the [concept of] kiri-gata, however. During the Tenbun [天文], Kōji [弘治], and Eiroku [永祿] eras, when the tea ceremony was flourishing in Sakai, [many] machi-shū were actively cultivating their expertise in judging the utensils used for chanoyu -- and Rikyū, as he was approaching his prime, spent his years immersed in this environment. Which is to say that the impetus was certainly there for Rikyū to also create his own kiri-gata³².

This kind of [tactile] approach may have, in turn, played a role in Rikyū’s activities of not so many years later³³, when Rikyū began guiding Chōjirō [長次郎; 1516? ~ 1592?] in the development of the ima-yaki chawan [今燒茶碗]³⁴ (Raku-chawan [樂茶碗])³⁵. Furthermore, in the Ninth Month of Tenshō 15 [天正十五年] (1587), Yoshida Kanemi [吉田兼見; 1535 ~ 1610]³⁶ asked [Rikyū’s disciple] the Tōyō-bō [東陽坊]³⁷ to help him seek out one of Rikyū’s kiri-gata³⁸ from the kama foundry at Sanjō (located several blocks east of Hideyoshi's Nijō castle compound) -- this is another example that we should consider.

So, here, in Yonehara Masayoshi sensei’s essay, we have read that there is some reason to doubt whether the Rikyū chaire kiri-gata were actually cut by Rikyū, or by someone else -- one of his contemporaries. This is hardly unique, in Rikyū’s history. Many of the most famous stories about Rikyū, and (perhaps even more so) his chanoyu, do not stand up to scrutiny. After his family lost their fortune, he was able to recover, to be sure, but after Jōō’s death the backlash from the tea world drove him into a sort of self-imposed semi-retirement. He rose up again, because the simplicity and rationality of his style of chanoyu impressed the greatest military minds of that day; but even under Hideyoshi, his influence remained limited to Hideyoshi’s inner circle. And because of this, his fall came fast, and the limits on his influence lead to the rapid fading of his legacy, to be supplanted by the teachings of his greatest rival. And when it became expedient that Rikyū become a combination of national teacher and virtual God of Tea, his general lack of history made it easy for the teachings and anecdotes of others to be transferred to glorify him, and his descendents.

But as for the chaire kiri-gata themselves, even if they were actually cut by a hand other than Rikyū’s, they still provide us with a wealth of information that could be gathered only by someone who had held those famous chaire in his hands, cut their silhouettes, and then recorded their details for his own edification -- and our own.

_________________________

²⁶Nadare ni shu wo yaki-dete [ナダレニシュヲヤキ出].

Nadare [雪崩] -- the kanji-compound literally means an avalanche of snow (which this sort of glaze effect resembles) -- refers to a run of glaze that occurs during the glazing process. There are two ways this can occur (naturally*). The first is when the glaze is especially watery, this may occur immediately (as we see on the left); or it may run as the glaze begins to vitrify during the firing process (as in the middle example), in which case the nadare appers within the glaze). These effects are seen on many of the karamono-chaire, and in this case, the effect was purely accidental (since these pieces were produced for utilitarian purposes, so the only really important features were that their sizes and shapes be identical, whether made as medicine jars or containers for souvenir liqueurs or hair pomade).

The other is when a drop of glaze accidentally drips down from a piece that was loaded higher in the kiln, or else natural ash glaze that sometimes collects on the ceiling of the kiln drips down onto the pieces below. Particularly in the latter case, this often results in the nadare being colored differently to the rest of the glaze on the piece (as seen in the example on the right).

Nadare ni shu wo yaki-dete [ナダレニシュヲヤキ出] means an orange-red color appeared† on the nadare during the firing process‡. It might be difficult for anyone who is not grounded in the chanoyu aesthetic to understand how such technical flaws came to be transmuted into beauty marks.

Though it is all but impossible to read, the handwriting does not seem to be Rikyū’s. __________ *Today the nadare seen on modern-made chaire is usually artificially induced, by dripping additional glaze (either the same color or one that will contrast with the other) on the shoulder before firing. Then, when the glaze begins to melt in the kiln, this extra glaze begins to flow over the other, producing a dramatic nadare.

†More literally, “came out” (during firing).

‡They actually appear to be finger marks, the result of the potter’s holding the chaire when it was dipped in the vat of glaze. When the pot was put down to dry, the glaze on the places where the fingers touched it was very thin, so that it started to burn away during firing, resulting in the orange-red blooms.

²⁷Tennōji-ya kaiki [天王寺屋會記] (Sōtatsu ta-kaiki [宗達他會記]):

Tennōji-ya kaiki [天王寺屋會記] is the general name for a collection of five kaiki, written by three successive generations of the Tennōji-ya family*, Tennōji-ya Sōtatsu [天王寺屋宗達; 1504 ~ 1566], Tennōji-ya Sōkyū [天王寺屋宗及; ? ~ 1591], and Tennōūji-ya Sōbon [天王寺屋宗凡; his dates are unknown†].

Sōtatsu and Sōkyū both wrote two books each -- one that memorializes the details of tea gatherings that they attended as guests (called ta-kaiki [他會記]), and the other (called ji-kaiki [自會記]) that documents gatherings that they hosted for others. Sōbon only authored a ta-kaiki. The books are all styled chanoyu nikki [茶湯日記], which means tea diary.

◦ Sōtatsu chanoyu nikki・ta-kaiki [宗達茶湯日記・他會記], two volumes, covering the years Tenbun 17 [天文十七年] (1548) to Kōji 2 [弘治二年] (1556); and Kōji 3 [弘治三年] (1557) to Eiroku 9 [永祿九年] (1566).

◦ Sōkyū chanoyu nikki・ta-kaiki [宗及茶湯日記・他會記], five volumes, covering the years Eiroku 8 [永祿八年] (1565) to Tenshō 3 [天正三年] (1575); Eiroku 9 [永祿九年] (1566) to Genki 3 [元龜三年] (1572); Tenshō 3 [天正三年] (1575) to Tenshō 6 [天正六年] (1578); Tenshō 7 [天正七年] (1579) to Tenshō 11 [天正十一年] (1583); and, Tenshō 11 [天正十一年] (1583) to Tenshō 13 [天正十三年] (1585).

◦ Sōbon chanoyu nikki・ta-kaiki [宗凡茶湯日記・他會記], two volumes, covering the years Tenshō 18 [天正十八年] (1590), and Genna 1 [元和元年] (1615).

◦ Sōtatsu chanoyu nikki・ji-kaiki [宗達茶湯日記・自會記], two volumes, covering the years Tenbun 17 [天文十七年] (1548) to Kōji 2 [弘治二年] (1556), and Kōji 3 [弘治三] (1557) to Eiroku 9 [永祿九年] (1566).

◦ Sōkyū chanoyu nikki・ji-kaiki [宗及茶湯日記・自會記], six volumes, covering the years Eiroku 9 [永祿九年] (1566) to Tenshō 3 [天正三年] (1575); Tenshō 2 [天正二年] (1574) to Tenshō 4 [天正四年] (1576); Tenshō 4 [天正四年] (1576) to Tenshō 6 [天正六年] (1578); Tenshō 5 [天正五年] (1577) to Tenshō 10 [天正十年] (1582); Tenshō 10 [天正十年] (1582) to Tenshō 15 [天正十五年] (1587); and, Tenshō 11 [天正十一年] (1583) to Tenshō 13 [天正十三年] (1585). ___________ *In interactions with Japanese entities the family used the surname Tsuda [津田].

†This is very curious, considering he was (presumably) Tennōji-ya Sōkyū’s oldest son and heir.

Kogetsu Sōgan [江月宗玩; 1574 ~ 1643], who became the 156th Abbot of the Daitoku-ji, was Sōbon’s younger brother. But since he was born rather late in Sōkyū’s life (Tennōji-ya Sōkyū, though his year of birth is not known, was probably close in age to Rikyū, with whom he had a deep and warm friendship), this gives us no help pinpointing when Sōbon may have been born (meaning it could have been any time between roughly 1540 and 1573).

²��Nitta-katatsuki...no keijō [新田肩衝...の形状], which are Yonehara sensei’s exact words, more literally means “the shape of the Nitta-katatsuki.”

However, the majority of Sōtatsu’s comments, and the quotation in question in particular, are focused on a discussion of the peculiarities of the glaze of this chaire.

²⁹The text actually states, in a parenthetical gloss, tōji zai Kamigata [当時在上方], which means “at that time* (tōji [当時] (the Nitta-katatsuki) was in Kamigata (zai Kamigata [在上方]).” Kamigata [上方] refers to the Ōsaka-Kyōto area.

It can be inferred from what he wrote that Sōtatsu had been summoned to Jōō’s place, across from the Ebisu-dō [惠比壽堂], specifically to inspect the Nitta-katatsuki.

According to the denrai, the Nitta-katatsuki had originally been owned by Shukō, and then by the military commander Miyoshi Masanaga [三好政長; 1508 ~ 1549]†. After him, it was in the possession of Oda Nobunaga, who seems to have given it to Ōtomo Sōrin; with Sōrin, in turn, passing it on to Hideyoshi when Hideyoshi asked him for it‡. ___________ *In other words, at the time when Tennoji-ya Sōtatsu inspected the chaire during a chakai, and wrote this entry in his tea diary.

†He was also known as Miyoshi Sōsan [三好宗三], and was an avid practitioner of chanoyu.

While the denrai implies that this chaire went from Shukō to Miyoshi Sōsan, Shukō died in 1502, while Miyoshi Masanaga was not born until 1503. Therefore the chaire must have passed through at least one other pair of hands in the interum, but this person’s name has not made it into the records.

In the present instance, too, Sōsan died in 1549, Sōtatsu was called to Jōō’s compound to inspect the Nitta-katatsuki in 1550, but the denrai states that the next owner after Sōsan was Oda Nobunaga. Perhaps the chaire remained in the possession of the Miyoshi family following his death, with Sōsan’s heir ultimately deciding to part with it (to, or through, Jōō) in 1550. Precisely when Nobunaga acquired it, or under what circumstances, is not known.

Nevertheless, if it was in Jōō’s keeping, at least temporarily, in 1550, then it certainly was in Kyōto at the time when Sotatsu inspected it.

‡This was a sort of trade. Hideyoshi gave Sōrin a (karamono) nasu-chaire, as well as 100 silver coins, in exchange for the Nitta-katatsuki.

³⁰From the Sōtatsu chanoyu nikki・ta-kaiki (jō) [宗達茶湯日記・他會記・上] (cf. Sadō ko-ten zenshū [茶道古典全集], vol. 7, pages 21 to 22). While I have essentially translated the entire entry below, the passage that is quoted in Yonehara sensei’s essay has been indicated with boldface type.

The entry begins:

The sameᵃ, U-tsukiᵇ, Second day of the Horseᶜ (onaji u-tsuki uma-futatsu [同卯月午貳]).

A message was received from [Jō]ō, [brought by] Takasugi [隆軼] and Sōka [宗珂], togetherᵈ.

￮ Katatsuki [カタツキ], Nitta [につた], the bag is kantō (fukuro kantō [袋かんとう]) with the appearance of a grate (samaᵉ kōshi [no] kokoro ari [さまかうし心在]), the tailᶠ is crimson-purple [kurenai no o [くれなヰの尾].

[This is a photo of the original shifuku (or possibly an early Edo period reproduction, if the original was lost in the fire that consumed Hideyoshi’s Ōsaka castle in 1615, at the conclusion of the war between Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyori). Note that the colors -- especially the color of the himo (and other red and purple tones) -- will have faded from what they were in the middle of the sixteenth century.]

Sōtatsu then goes on to describe the Nitta-katatsuki in great detail.

一、The shape is like a cylinderᵍ [nari ha tsutsu-giri to aru [なりハつつきりと在]); the neck rises straight up (kubi tachi-nobi sōrō [くひたちのひ候]), so that there is a feeling of unity between the twoʰ (futari to shitaru-kokoro ari nari [ふたりとしたる心有也]); the shoulders are also rounded, without a sharp point [where the body turns into the shoulder], it seems to be [more] gradualⁱ (kata mo kyū ni ha tsukanu nari mukuri to ari yo [かたもきうにハつかぬ也むくりと有歟]).

一、The clay is a whitishʲ, with a smooth surfaceᵏ that nevertheless appears dampˡ (tsuchi, usu-shiroi-yō ni te, sarari to ari, saredo mo, shirui to ari nari [土、うす白きやうにて、さらりと有、されども、しるりと有也]).

一、The glaze (kusuri [藥]): the under-glazeᵐ is blackish, with perhaps a hint of cobalt-blue (ji-gusuri usu-kuroku, ruri-gokoro isasaka-hodo ari yo [地藥うすくろく、るり心いさゝかほと有欤]); there is also a feeling of seaweed-greenⁿ (miru-iro kokoro mo ari nari [みる色心も有也]).

On the surface of the [outer-]glaze, the glaze [has flowed into] two streaks of nadare, which turn toward the left side of the jar (uwa-gusuri men ni aru-tokoro, sono kusuri ni te men [h]e ni suji nadare ari, tsubo no hidari no kata [h]e nejitaru nari [上藥面に在所、其藥にて面へ二筋なたれ在、壺の左の方へねちたる也]). There is a small[er] nadare on the shoulder (kata mijika ni nadare ari [かたみしかになたれ在]).

At the edge of the nadare streaks -- on both streaks -- an orange-red [color] appeared during firingᵒ (nadare no suji no fuchi ni, futa-suji nagara, shu wo yaki-dashi sōrō [なたれのすちのふちに、二筋なから、しゆをやき出候]).

The [outer] glaze stops rather high [on the side of the chaire] (kusuri taka-taka to tomari sōrō [藥たかゝゝととまり候]). Also, even though the glaze is thinner on the sides, there are places where it flowed downwardᵖ (waki [h]e mo kusuri isasaka-hodo-tsutsu sagaritaru tokoro ari nari [わきへも藥いさゝか程つゝさかりたる所有也]). At the edges of the two streaks of nadare, the glaze has a feeling of being a little fuller𐞥 (futa-suji no nadare no saki ni, isasaka-hodo mashiri kusuri no kokoro ari yo [二筋のなたれのさきに、いさゝか程ましり藥の心有欤].

___________ ᵃOnaji [同], “the same,” referring to the year (Tenbun 19 [天文十九年], 1550).

ᵇU-tsuki [卯月], “the month of Deutzia”, in other words, the month when Deutzia (Deutzia crenata) blooms is a poetic name for the Fourth Lunar Month. This name is of great antiquity -- and in the sixteenth century it continued to be used even in cases where the other months are not named in this elegant way (as in this document). This was so that the scribe could avoid writing shi-gatsu [四月] (which sounds like “the month of death”).

ᶜUma-futatsu [午貳] means the second Day of the Horse* (in the Fourth Month). In Tenbun 19 [天文十九年] (1550), this corresponded to the 17th day of the Fourth Month, which was would have been May 3, 1550 (in the proleptic Gregorian calendar). _____ *The days were named according to the usual cycle of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. The series continued irrespective of the change from one month to the next, so that each animal appeared two or three times each month.

ᵈShū Ō ki-sōrō shimu [從鷗来候使] means a message was brought from Jōō* (perhaps to come and inspect the chaire).

Takasugi・Sōka ryōnin [隆軼・宗珂兩人]: Takasugi [隆軼] has not been identified; Sōka [宗珂] is possibly Wakasa-ya Sōka [若狹屋宗可; dates unknown], though this should be considered far from proven; ryōnin [兩人] means both of them, implying that the two men conveyed Jōō’s message to Sōtatsu.

Though the details are not clear, it appears that Jōō was summoning Tennōji-ya Sōtatsu to come to inspect the Nitta-katatsuki. Perhaps this was to be done in his compound at Shijō [四条]†; but, as I said, nothing is clear from what Sōtatsu has written.

This gathering, if it can be called that, does not seem to have been a chakai‡. ___________ *Jōō’s [紹鷗] name was commonly abbreviated to Ō [鷗] by his contemporaries.

†The Daikoku-an [大黒庵].

‡There is no indication that anything else was done but inspect the Nitta-katatsuki. Nothing is said about anyone else who may have been present; and no mention is made of refreshments or other amenities.

ᵉSome commentators suggest the first word of this phrase should be shima [しま = 縞], “stripe,” rather than sama [さま], which, in this context, would mean “appearance.”

In the case where the word is shima, the phrase shima kōshi [no] kokoro ari [さまかうし心在] would mean “the stripes give the feeling of a grate.” The word grate implies that the stripes are horizontal (woven with the weft), rather than vertical (set out with the warp), as can be seen in the photo.

Traditionally, most kantō have vertical (warp) stripes.

The original shifuku (or possibly an early Edo period reproduction, as noted above) is shown above.

ᶠKurenai no o [くれなヰの尾]: kuranai [くれない = 紅] is a deep crimson-purple color. O [尾], which literally means tail, is referring to the uchi-dome [打ち留め, 打ち止め] (the part of the himo where the two ends of the cord are braided together into a single length, ending in a little tassel).

Since the kanji that the tea world pronounces himo [緖] can also (and more correctly) be pronounced o, Sōtatsu is either abbreviating or has misunderstood the correct kanji. (The proper kanji for himo is “紐” -- which, for some reason, the tea schools do not like to use.)

ᵍTsutsu-giri [筒切り] is described as being like a length cut from the middle of a daikon (by chopping off the two ends). So it is cylindrical, but also slightly fatter in the middle than at the ends.

ʰIn other words, the way neck rises out of the body of the chaire is pleasing to the eye.

“The two” (futari [ふたり, 二り]) could refer to the lower and upper ends of the neck, or to the feeling of balance between the neck and the shoulder/body of the chaire.

ⁱIn many katatsuki, the line between the shoulder and the body is a sharp ridge. In the case of the Nitta katatsuki, however, the transition from vertical (the side of the body) to horizontal (the surface of the shoulder) is gradual, rounded -- reminiscent of a (cloth) ball or flattened globe.

In the Edo period, this kind of shape came to be described as nadekata [撫で肩], which means “sloping shoulders.”

This sentence concludes with the kanji yo [歟], which indicates that Sōtatsu is framing his remark as a question -- in other words, he is undecided about the exactitude of his description (probably because he only was able to look at the chaire briefly -- during haiken -- and was recording his impressions in his kaiki several hours later).

ʲUsu-shiroi [うす白き] means whitish*. The clay from which the kansaku-karamono were thrown ranged (after firing) from a brownish terracotta color to a light brown or beige. Here it is the latter, albeit pailer or whiter than usual. (Note that the clay became darker after the chaire passed through the fire that burned down Ōsaka castle in 1615.) __________ *Not “light white,” as some have rendered it.

ᵏSarari to ari [さらりと有]: sarari means sleek, smooth. The unglazed clay body of many chaire has a minutely coarse texture (from the fine-grained sand it contains which separates as the clay dries), but that of this chaire is remarkably smooth, as if intentionally rubbed with a fine slip after the pot was thrown.

ˡShiruri [濕り] means damp, moist. The unglazed clay has a slight sheen, as if it were damp.

ᵐJi-gusuri [地藥]: it appears that this chaire was dipped into the glaze vat two times. The first time the glaze was very thin (probably the heavier constituents had settled, leaving a thin, blackish glaze). Perhaps, noticing the problem, the potter dipped it into the vat again (after stirring up the glaze), resulting in a second coating. It was the second coat that produced the nadare.

ⁿMiru-iro [海松色]: miru [海松] is a type of seaweed (Codium fragile, below), the color of which is somewhere between an olive green and a khaki green, as seen on the right.

This is roughly the shade that Sōtatsu is describing here.

ᵒIt is this detail that Yonehara sensei has latched on as proof of the authenticity of Rikyū’s comments that were recorded on the kiri-gata of the Nitta-katatsuki. (Though since anyone with reasonable eyesight would be able to notice this pair of orange-red blushes, it really does not prove any more than that the person who produced the kiri-gata -- whether that was Rikyū or someone else, such as Tsuda Sōkyū -- had first examined the chaire before writing the comments.)

As noted above, this orange-red color developed where the glaze was so thin (because the potter’s fingers had grasped it in those places when it was lowered into the vat of glaze) that it began to burn away during firing.

ᵖPresumably, if the glaze was too thin, even as it melted it would not be able to flow in this way. The most likely reason is that the glaze was rather thin (in other words, the potter had not bothered to stir the glaze before dipping this chaire into the vat), and so the nadare notice on the sides was the result of the liquid glaze flowing before it dried. This, then, had nothing to do with the firing process.

𐞥When the glaze ran as the chaire was being lifted out of the vat of glaze, at some point it lost the ability to continue flowing (a result of the amount of water remaining versus the dryness of the clay), so a little glaze continued to flow on top of the other before it dried completely, making the edges seem slightly thicker. This can be easily seen in the photo (under footnote 25), where the edges of the nadare appear slightly darker than the glaze immediately above them. This effect could also have been the result of the first coat of very thin (albeit blackish) glaze dissolving off the surface of the pot as it was dipped into the vat, and being carried to the edges as the second glaze ran over the surface.

Pots like the katatsuki chaire were usually dipped into the vat of glaze with the mouth facing downward (because the intention was to glaze the outside, not the inside*), and then turned over with the wrist (so the mouth was facing upward) before putting them down on a board to dry. The nadare developed on the side that had been held lowest as the chaire was being turned over (since the glaze would have flowed toward that side when wet, with the result that the layer of glaze would have been slightly thicker on that side of the pot). Care was taken to keep glaze off of the foot (otherwise the chaire would stick to the other pieces when the glaze melted). The actual flowing of the glaze during firing seems to have been minimal in the case of this particular chaire. __________ *These jars were originally made to contain powdered medicinal herbs. Glazing the outside while leaving the foot and inside unglazed would allow atmospheric moisture to pass through the clay, so that the medicinal herbs did not become too dry.

It is only in relatively recent times that chaire were intentionally glazed on the inside (to help prevent the matcha from sticking to the inside, making the chaire difficult to clean completely) -- and this is one way to tell if the chaire was really made several hundred years ago nor not.

³¹Tennōji-ya to Ōtomo-shi to no kōryū no shinmitsu sa mo kangaete yoi [天王寺屋と大友氏との交流の親密さも考えてよい].

Yoneyama sensei appears to be arguing that, because of the intimate relationship between the Tennoji-ya house and the Otomo clan, it seems easier to believe that Sōtatsu, or perhaps his son Sōkyū, would have been able to trade on this intimacy to gain access to this treasured chaire for long enough not only to inspect it carefully, but also cut the silhouette (which would have had to be done with the chaire physically in front of the cutter)*. And this connection would also explain the near-identical wording between Sōtatsu’s tea diary entry and the kaki-ire inscribed on the Nitta-katatsuki kiri-gata†.

The same cannot be said if the cutter is supposed to have been Rikyū, since nothing that is known might suggest that he was similarly placed vis-à-vis the Ōtomo family in 1559 -- especially if we also remember the logistical problem of his needing to travel from Sakai to Bungo in the little time available between the conclusion of his chakai in Sakai on the morning of the 23rd day of the Fourth Month, and his cutting of the kiri-gata on the first day of the Fifth Month -- which would have required his gaining access to the chaire immediately upon his arrival at Ōtomo Sōrin’s Fuchū-jō. ___________ *Then, too, there is the matter of Ko-getsu Sōgan’s association with the Ryūkō-in [龍光院] (following the almost immediate death of Shun-oku Sōen, the actual founder of that sub-temple, after he took up residence there). This connection would explain why these chaire kiri-gata came to be preserved there (if we assume they were made by either Ko-getsu’s grandfather Sōtatsu, or his father Sōkyū) -- while a connection between Rikyū and this temple could not have existed, since it was not erected until more than a decade after Rikyū’s seppuku (and the tea connection was to Kuroda Nagamasa, Tennōji-ya Sōkyū, Kobori Masakazu, and the Sakai, Chikuzen, and Hakata merchants of the early Edo period).

†Sōkyū, as Sōtatsu’s son, would have had access to his father’s papers, and was inspired by them to create his own series of tea diaries.

³²Sunawachi shigeki ga ōku, Rikyū mo chaire kiri-gata wo sakusei-shita de arou [すなわち刺激が多く、利休も茶入切型を作成したであろう].

Yonehara sensei is here arguing that, while the chaire kiri-gata that we are considering in this appendix may have been made by someone else (such as Tennōji-ya Sōtatsu or his son Sōkyū), it is also likely, given the environment in which he was living, that Rikyū, too, produced some (unknown) kiri-gata of his own during these years*. The problem is that if any such were the case, there is simply no evidence to suggest that he actually did so†. __________ *It must be mentioned that Yonehara sensei was commissioned to write a biography of Rikyū for the Rikyū daijiten [利休大事典] (which was scheduled to be published just in advance of the 400th anniversary of Rikyū’s death in 1992). And the curious lack of a notable surviving record from that period suggests that in the decade or so following the death of Jōō, Rikyū was living under a cloud, with little participation in the tea life of his community. The fact of the matter is that if Yonehara sensei did not bring up these purported Rikyū chaire kiri-gata, he would have had nothing at all to say about Rikyū between the ages of 37 and 43 -- the very time when he would presumably have been building up his store of fiscal and intellectual resources that would ultimately propel him into a public life that brought him close to the highest power brokers in the land.

†As I mentioned earlier in the footnotes, it really does not seem to be in character that Rikyū would have made tools like this. One of the points of gokushin training was that the chajin should train his eye and develop his muscle memory so that the whole concept of kane-wari became ingrained into his subconscious. The chaire kiri-gata, on the other hand, suggest someone who lacks a true understanding of kane-wari trying to make sense of the matter of why these specific chaire were considered meibutsu -- where, according to the original definition, meibutsu implied a utensil that, in the context of kane-wari, either defined a new temae or so perfectly fit into the temae defined by some other utensil that it could be used interchangeably. If this “rule” was not understood, then the question of why the size of the utensils (measured down to fractions of a bu [分]) would be mystifying -- both then, and in the present day.

³³Can we really justify considering a decade “not so many years*?” Rikyū first made Chōjirō’s acquaintance during the time when he was sculpting the finials and other ornamental figures that would grace the roofs of Hideyoshi’s monumental Juraku-dai [聚樂第] palace†, circa 1586‡.

Far from creating something new (as the effort is often portrayed), Rikyū’s original desire was for Chōjirō to produce a reproduction of the honey-brown Seto-chawan that Rikyū had received (as a sort of parting gift or consolation prize**) from Kitamuki Dōchin at the time when his collapsed finances no longer permitted him to continue receiving Dōchin's instructions††. __________ *Yagate [やがて] literally means soon, presently, before long, in a short time -- so even my translation of “not so many years” is a stretch that, one might argue, goes beyond Yonehara sensei's language.

(Many chajin appear to believe that Chōjirō began to produce chawan for Rikyū even as early as the 1570s, despite there being no actual evidence to support such a belief. The same kind of idea regarding the earlier origins of the small room is pervasive, even though the evidence all points to the spring or early summer of 1555 as the most likely starting date.)

†The purpose of the “Raku” [樂] seal was to distinguish these works as having been produced specifically (and exclusively) for Hideyoshi’s building project -- and so discourage theft. The seal was not used to indicate the name of the potter, and never was considered in that light at the time.

‡Construction began in 1586, though it is unclear how long before that date the production of the roof tiles actually commenced. Be that as it may, even though he was a member of the expatriate community in Sakai, Rikyū does not seem to have known Chōjirō before he became involved in Hideyoshi’s project.

**Unfortunately, when Rikyū’s house was forced into bankruptcy by their creditors, Dōchin immediately brought an end to the lessons, since Rikyū no longer held any interest for him. Still, in light of the money and gifts that Rikyū had given to Dōchin over the years, Dōchin was obligated to give Rikyū some sort of parting gift (and this Seto chawan is shown below, on the left).

However, by the nature of this chawan, Dōchin was clearly telling Rikyū that he should give up any pretense at practicing gokushin tea; and, rather, focus his future tea activities on wabi-no-chanoyu.

His decision to introduce Rikyū to Jōō was also a kindness, and one that allowed Dōchin to extricate himself from Jōō’s apparently incessant questions about the secret details of gokushin-no-chanoyu and kane-wari (since Rikyū would be able to barter his knowledge to ingratiate himself with the master), as well as allow Rikyū to offload his collection of Chinese utensils on the most favorable terms possible. (Jōō’s gifts to Rikyū at the conclusion of their deal aligned with Dōchin’s recommendation, while also filling in the gaps in Rikyū’s new collection of emphatically wabi utensils: for example, while Dōchin gave Rikyū a small chawan, Joo added the large chawan that would allow Rikyū to use the smaller one as his kae-chawan, in accordance with gokushin practice.)

††Dōchin’s chawan (on the left, alongside one of Chōjirō’s first red chawan) had been selected according to the teachings of kane-wari, making it valuable to anyone who understood (or wished to understand) those teachings. For this reason, Rikyū was able to sell it shortly after receiving it, to raise money to sustain his family.

³⁴Ima-yaki [今燒] means “fired in the present.” This is how Chōjirō’s early chawan were styled in the tea documents that survive from the 1580s. They were sometimes also known as Rikyū-yaki [利休燒], indicating that it was common knowledge that these bowls were being made under Rikyū’s direct influence. The term Raku-yaki [樂燒] does not seem to have been used before the Edo period.

When Rikyū referred to these bowls, he usually did so by the names that he had given them (such as O-guro [小グロ, オグロ]/Ō-guro [大グロ, オーグロ]* and Ko-mamori [木守, コマモリ]); or, alternatively, simply as kuro-chawan [黒茶碗]† or aka-chawan [赤茶碗]. __________ *Rikyū seems to have preferred using these two black bowls together, since the fact that the one was a little larger than the other meant that they could be stacked together (with a dry chakin in between, to keep them from sticking together). When he did so, he wrote just a single, ambiguously rendered, name as “オ・グロ” which could be interpreted as either O-guro or Ō-guro (and so naming both of them at once).

†This can be confusing, since he also calls other contemporaneous black-glazed bowls kuro-chawan, such as those produced at the Seto kiln by Furuta Sōshitsu.

³⁵This gloss is formatted as such in Yonehara sensei's text.

While a paper kiri-gata may have sufficed for the early Raku bowls (since the original model, the honey-brown Seto chawan shown under footnote 32, has a fairly regular shape), some scholars argue that Rikyū’s models for Chōjirō were more likely made from a sort of papier-mâché, made by soaking waste paper in water for some time -- since the three-dimensional qualities of these later chawan could never be suggested by a two-dimensional silhouette (which is useful only when attempting to represent highly symmetrical objects -- such as the classical chaire).

³⁶Yoshida Kanemi [吉田兼見; 1535 ~ 1610] was a Shintō shrine official who lived from the Sengoku to the early Edo period. He was born in 1583, as the eldest son of Yoshida Kaneyoshi. He served at the Yoshida Shrine (Yoshida jinja [吉田神社] in Kyōto. In 1586, after receiving permission to rebuild the Jingikan [神祇官] (the Shrine’s administrative office) of the Hasshin-den [八神殿] (all of which existed within the confines of the Yoshida Shrine), his family assumed the duty of officiating at the rituals (saishi [祭祀]) in that shrine. He also appears to have been an avid practitioner of chanoyu.

Kanemi died on the second day of the Ninth Month of Keichō 15 [慶長15年] (1612).

³⁷Tōyō-bō [東陽坊] is referring to the monk Tōyō-bō Chōsei [東陽坊長盛; 1515 ~ 1598]. He was a disciple of Rikyū’s -- from whom he received the black Raku-chawan that is eponymously known as Tōyō-bō*.

Chōsei lived as the resident monk in the Tōyō-bō, a small hall on the grounds of the Shin-nyō-dō [眞如堂], a Tendai temple (the principal image is of Amida Buddha [阿彌陀佛]) northeast of the Heian Shrine in Kyōto, where Chōsei is also buried.

Chōsei participated in the Kitano Grand Tea Gathering (Kitano ō-cha-no-e [北野大茶ノ會]), in the autumn of 1587; and the room he erected at Kitano was later relocated to the grounds of the Kennin-ji, where it remains to this day. This ni-jō daime chashitsu is accordingly known as Tōyō-bō†. ___________ *Though considered by many to be the original, this bowl appears to have been a copy made during the early Edo period (perhaps at the time when the original was damaged or broken).

Scholars also suggest that this is likewise the case for most of the chawan purportedly made by the first three generations of the Raku family.

†This Tōyō-bō chashitsu was modelled on Rikyū’s 1555 tea room, the Jissō-an [實相庵], with the details of the windows that give light to the utensil mat perhaps borrowed from Nambō Sōkei’s Shū-un-an [集雲庵].

³⁸Tenshō ju-go nen (1587) ku-gatsu Yoshida Kanemi ga Tōyō-bō ni annai-sare, San-jō kama-za de Rikyū kiri-gata no kama wo motomete-iru rei mo kono-sai sōki-shite okō [天正十五年 (1587) 九月吉田兼見が東陽坊に案内され、三条釜座で利休切型の釜を求めている例もこの際想起しておこう].

Yonehara sensei’s argument seems to be that the existence of the story of this episode can be taken as a kind of proof that Rikyū created kiri-gata -- even if the kiri-gata in question was of a kama, rather than a chaire or chawan. That said, it would be rather curious that Rikyū would have created a kiri-gata of his own kama (or a kama that he designed) -- unless Yonehara sensei means that this was the kiri-gata that Rikyū provided to the kama-shi when ordering the kama.

Traditionally, the craftsmen preserved the official shapes of the various named utensils as wooden kiri-gata (which represented the negative of the silhouette), such as that shown above (this one depicts the kiri-gata for the Tōyōbō-kama [東陽坊釜]). It is possible that Yoshida Kanemi was searching for the kiri-gata of the Tōyōbō-kama on the described occasion* (the authenticity of which he may have wished the Tōyō-bō to confirm). ___________ *Otherwise why involve Tōyō-bō Chōsei at all?

The most likely reason for all this trouble was that Kanemi wished to order a copy of the Tōyōbō-kama, and wanted Chōsei to confirm that it was correct before going to the expense of having one cast. Though such a story would be more at home in the Edo period than in 1587.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

❖ As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more necessary than heretofore, since this blog is my only source of income. Please donate, if you can.

1 note · View note

chanoyu-to-wa · 17 days ago

Text

Appendix: the Rikyū Chaire Kiri-gata [利休茶入切型], Part 1.

The Rikyū chaire kiri-gata is a collection of cut-paper silhouettes¹ of a number of the famous chaire of Rikyū’s day, perhaps a byproduct of his reflections on Jōō and his teachings². This collection of kiri-gata are preserved in the Daitoku-ji, but they are rarely exhibited, and so are not widely known.

In a blog post devoted to this collection of chaire kiri-gata, Kawabe Rieko [川邊りえこ; her date of birth cannot be verified at this time] wrote that [the word] kiri-gata [切型] [generally refers to] silhouettes used to order utensils from artisans³.

[But] these [chaire kiri-gata] are kept secret⁴. Rikyū crafted them himself to memorialize the shapes (and other details) of the famous chaire that he saw at gatherings and on other occasions⁵. They were handmade and inscribed between the First Year of Eiroku 1 [永祿元年] (1558) and Eiroku 7 [永祿七年] (1564), when Rikyū was between 37 and 46 years of age⁶.

The kiri-gata were cut from a variety of different kinds of scrap paper, including the paper used as kaishi [懷紙]⁷.

The shapes of the famous chaire of his period, such as Hatsu-hana [初花], nasu [茄子], and the Uesugi hyōtan [上杉瓢簞] have been preserved among these paper kiri-gata. Rikyū’s careful recording of specific details, where these were critical to the identification of a specific chaire, is a testimony to Rikyū’s deep dedication to chanoyu. [...]

❦ ❦ ❦

Detailed descriptions of the chaire kiri-gata are few and far between⁸. The most commonly referenced discussion is found in an essay by the Japanese scholar and historian Yonehara Masayoshi [米原正義; 1923 ~ 2011] in the Rikyū Daijiten [利休大事典]⁹. This essay was included in the chapter Rikyū and the Ruler (Rikyū to tenka-bito [利休と天下人]), in the subsection entitled Rikyū chaire kiri-gata [利休茶入切型]. Translating from that source:

During the Eiroku [永祿] era¹⁰, Rikyū entered his forties. During that period he was motivated¹¹ to embark on a study of the meibutsu-chaire -- observing them with his own eyes wherever they were to be found, cutting paper silhouettes [of each], and writing down a careful record of his observations as part of his learning process. This can all be understood from the roughly 50 chaire kiri-gata of Rikyū that are preserved in the Ryūkō-in [龍光院]¹² sub-temple of the Daitoku-ji. It is believed that these chaire kiri-gata were created between 1558 and 1567, when Rikyū would have been 37 to 43 years of age.

The earliest known photographs [of some of these chaire kiri-gata] were published in 1931, in the second volume (part 2) of the Sakai-shi shi [堺市史] (Sakai City History)¹³, under the title Rikyū ji-saku chaire kiri-gata [利休自作茶入切形]. The next mention is in the 1935-published Sadō zen-shu [茶道全集], volume 9, where Nakamura Kiyozō [中村喜代三; his dates cannot be confirmed] contributed an essay entitled Rikyū ji-saku chaire kiri-gata [利休自作の茶入切型] that included detailed descriptions of 24 of the chaire¹⁴.

Recent scholarship appears to confirm that these chaire kiri-gata were cut by Rikyū with a degree of certainty, although the basis for this argument rests on a written statement to that effect that is found on the paper wrapper [in which the kiri-gata are kept]. This certification reads:

yotsu no nasubi katatsuki mata ko-tsubo tomo kata natsume ni ka kata

nani mo Sōeki kirare-sōrō nari

[四ツノナスビカタツキ又小壺共かたナツメ二ヶかた

何も宗易切られ候也]¹⁵.

However, since the Ryūkō-in was [effectively -- see footnote 12] established by Tsuda Sōkyū’s son Ko-getsu Sōgan [江月宗玩; 1574 ~ 1643], many scholars consider that the most logical way to understand the matter is that the kiri-gata were created by [Ko-getsu’s] father Sōkyū (for example, the argument laid out in the second volume of Nagashima Fukutarō’s Sadō-bunka ron-shū [茶道文化論集]¹⁶).

Now, [with respect to the words] nani mo Sōeki kirare-sōrō nari [何も宗易切られ候也] -- “all were cut by Sōeki” -- let us look at kiri-gata that depicts the Nitta-katatsuki [新田肩衝]¹⁷, which is among the ones [kept in that wrapper].

[I have no idea why a photograph of this kiri-gata was not included in Yonehara Masayoshi’s essay¹⁸. The editors included the two large color photos reproduced above, but the Nitta-katatsuki is not to be found among the 32 kiri-gata arranged in those photos. At any rate, this is the kiri-gata that Yonehara sensei is discussing here -- taken from the chapter in volume 9 of the Sadō zen-shū ( 茶道全集巻の九 ), page 364.]

[The block of text on the right side of] this kiri-kata reads, “on the first day of the Fifth Month of the Second Year of Eiroku, ki-bi, in Bungo, [I] examined [this chaire]¹⁹.” If we accept that Rikyū [was the man responsible for] cutting this kiri-gata on the first day of the Fifth Month of Eiroku 2 [1559], then he must have examined the Nitta-katatsuki in Ōtomo Sōrin’s Fuchū castle [府中城] in Bungo [since that is where the katatsuki was being kept at that time]. However, since (according to the Hisamasa cha kai-ki [久政茶会記]²⁰) Rikyū hosted a tea gathering in Sakai on the morning of the 23rd day of the Fourth Month, this raises the problem [of logistics²¹].

For Sōrin and the Bungo Ōtomo clan [豊後大友氏], moreover, Eiroku 2 was a truly momentous year: in the Sixth Month he was appointed shugo [守護; military governor] of the six provinces; and in the Eleventh Month, [Sōrin] was elevated to Kyūshū tandai [九��探題; in effect, the governor of Kyūshū]. Moreover, [Ōtomo Sōrin] also succeeded to the role of katoku [家督], the headship of the Ouchi clan [大内氏]²², and from this time onward his power was in the ascendant.

Furthermore, in a letter addressed to Ōtomo Yoshishige [Sōrin] dated the 20th of the Eleventh Month [of the same year, Eiroku 2], [the nobleman] Koga Sōnyū [久我宗入; 1519 ~ 1575] ([known more formally as] Harumichi [晴通])²³ wrote: “since [I] have a desire to see [your] chanoyu, I will definitely go down [to Bungo, to visit you]²⁴.” The kuge-shū [公家衆; court nobles] in Kyōto were clearly well aware of Ōtomo Yoshishige’s attachment to chanoyu, and this had given rise to his reputation for owning meibutsu utensils. There is no reason to doubt that the Nitta-katatsuki was certainly in Ōtomo Yoshishige’s hands [at this time], so the surrounding context of this episode leaves us with nothing to question²⁵.

[Yonehara sensei’s essay will continue in the next post.]

_________________________

¹The word kiri-gata [切型], most of the well-known examples of which were produced during the Edo period, usually referred to silhouettes cut from paper that were used to order chaire from potters in China -- either as replacements* for famous chaire that had been presented to the daimyō early in the Edo period (as rewards for their assistance in the wars against Toyotomi Hideyori and Ishida Mitsunari: when the government started to run out of money and fiefs that they could grant to the daimyō for their military support, they turned to the only resource that had survived the wars -- Hideyoshi’s collection of meibutsu tea utensils).

The kiri-gata in this set, however, were created by Rikyū for his own use, as a way to preserve the details of the famous chaire that he had been able to inspect closely over the years for his own reference. __________ *When, for example, the chaire had been broken -- sometimes accidentally, but on at least several occasions this was done on purpose (so that the daimyō in question could “share” the government's bounty with his own retainers by offering each a shard, as he would have done had the donation come in the form of money or a grant of land).

While originally these chaire had been gifts that would belong to the daimyō and his family in perpetuity (which was why some of the daimyō, seriously offended by this poor reward for their services, treated them so cavalierly), eventually the bakufu, finding that their supply of tea utensils was running low, changed the policy by declaring that the gift was only for the lifetime of its recipient -- after which the chaire had to be returned. It was in the rush to replace pieces that had been broken that the idea of ordering directly from Chinese potters had begun (since trade relations with the continent had been normalized during the early Edo period) after this new policy was announced; and later the idea was expanded as a sort of insurance policy (often with numerous identical examples being ordered at the same time) to protect the family against the possibility of their chaire being broken or lost at some future date. (This also fueled the establishment of special fabric mills in both Kyōto and Edo that specialized in the reproduction of high-quality copies of the meibutsu-gire [名物裂] that had been used to make the original shifuku of the famous chaire -- since this would enhance the feeling of authenticity of the fake chaire.)

Some of these “sets” of identical chaire copies are still known to exist, though in the present climate they are rarely displayed together (since that would cast doubt on the authenticity of the one that is supposed to be the original).

²The whole idea of kiri-gata [切型] seems closer to Jōō’s early approach to chanoyu than to Rikyū’s*. This suggests that either Rikyū was carrying on a tradition that was initiated by Jōō, or that the urge to produce these kiri-gata was inspired by his reflection on Jōō and his approach to chanoyu.

Many of the chaire included in this selection had passed through Jōō’s hands at one time or another during his career as an antique dealer, and that may have been where Rikyū first saw them (or at least learned about their importance to the preservation of these important details).

The reflection on, and attempts to preserve, Jōō’s teachings seems to have been a common motivation shared by his principal disciples. In addition to Rikyū, during the same time frame the daimyō Uesugi Kenshin [上杉謙信; 1530 ~ 1578] set about writing down (and commenting upon) the secret teachings imparted to him by Jōō, which collection of three scrolls is today known as the Chanoyu san-byak’ka jō [茶湯三百箇條]; while Nambō Sōkei spent this time pondering the series of kiri-kami [切紙]† that set out the evolution of the tea of the daisu which Jōō had bequeathed him from his deathbed -- the collection of documents that ultimately came to be preserved as Book Five of the Nampō roku. ___________ *Jōō, as has been mentioned many times before, was originally an antique dealer. This, coupled with his continued pestering of Kitamuki Dōchin over the details of the gokushin-temae (in which the rules of kane-wari play a decisively fundamental part), suggests that Jōō -- like the chajin of the Edo period and after -- was intrigued, yet mystified, regarding the reason for the specific sizes of the various utensils that were used for chanoyu. And so, rather than simply accepting them and then moving on, he would have fixated on this detail, making things like the fabricating kiri-gata a valuable exercise that would help visualize the utensils, and so inform the way that those utensils combined together during the service of tea.

†Kiri-kami [切紙], in this context, refers to a collection of unbound, individual leaves of paper -- in this particular case, with one arrangement illustrated on each sheet.

In 1573 Nambō Sōkei took this collection of papers to Rikyū, and asked him for an explanation of them. This is how the numerous kaki-ire [書入] that appear throughout Book Five of the Nampo roku came to be there.

³However, this was not their purpose in the present context. Rikyū created these chaire kiri-gata as a way to memorialize the details -- including the shape and size -- of the meibutsu pieces of his day for his own reference.

The first part of this appendix is based on the blog-post entitled Rikyū chaire kiri-gata [利休茶入切型], from Kawabe Eriko sensei’s blog Kawabe Eriko no Tsure-zure-gusa [川邊りえこの徒然草].

The URL for Kawabe sensei’s post is:

http://miyabigoto.com/blog/2010/04/post-255.html

I have generally translated her remarks rather freely, so they will be part of the narrative that I wish to delineate here. (Kawabe sensei, on the other hand, was describing a special exhibition when she was able to inspect some of the chaire kiri-gata along side the chaire that they represented, so her remarks are focused on that situation. Her account is the only one that I was able to find online, and that is why I decided to lead with it in this post.)

⁴This statement seems to be referring specifically to the Rikyū chaire kiri-gata, with their being kept “secret” perhaps because they disclose not only the shapes and peculiarities of the glazes of the various chaire, but also the minute details of their dimensions*.

It is an unfortunate fact of history that, when the Japanese tea schools† do not understand something, or do not understand the purpose for something or why something is so, they inevitably declare it to be “secret.” This, coupled with their penchant to quote “authorities” without ever bothering to fact-check them (so that a certain statement might be repeated for literal centuries -- yet when one actually goes back to the purported original source, it is found that it either never existed, or has been conveniently “lost” without any trace, usually long before the teaching that is ascribed to it ever began circulating), is why Japanese scholarship (on chanoyu and the other cultural / traditional arts organizations controlled by similar iemoto-style systems, at least) is fraught and, frankly, almost impossible for an “outsider” to crack‡. ___________ *The sizes relate directly to the teaching of kane-wari. While this may have been the reason why they were considered “secret,” the more likely explanation is that, once the theory of kane-wari was forgotten (over the course of the several decades after Rikyū’s death, when the practice of chanoyu went into a sort of forced hibernation), the reason why such details were significant was no longer known. So, lacking this reason, they were declared “secret” to actively discourage further questioning.

†There is no such thing as an independent scholar working in the field of chanoyu studies. Everyone is affiliated with one or another of the modern schools -- and it is a prerequisite of their work that it must reflect the views of the school with which he or she is connected.

As one Japanese scholar said to me, “to attempt to pursue such research without any affiliation would be tantamount to professional suicide.”

‡While the “insiders” content themselves with mindlessly repeating what they were told.

A small, and very trivial example of this: several decades ago a certain authority said, during a presentation in a Western country, that Rikyū’s favorite color was dark blue, and that he always wore a dark blue kimono when serving tea.

Yet if we actually go back to the records from his time, we have to conclude that his favorite colors were dark blood-red and black; and, when serving tea Rikyū invariably wore a kami-ko [紙子] (a kimono made from heavy, specially processed paper) that had been dyed with shibu [澁] (persimmon juice, which makes the paper slightly impervious to water), so it would have been brick-red, over which he wore a black jittoku [十德], with a black-dyed cotton zukin [頭巾] on his head -- as imagined in the picture, above (which I modified to reflect the description in period documents). Yet in no modern books is Rikyū ever said to be dressed in this way (though the blue-garbed anecdote continues to manifest itself in prose -- and cinematic -- depictions to this day).

‡This was not difficult because it appears that Rikyū’s influence had remained primarily within a small circle of Hideyoshi’s closest advisors and confidants, while the fact that Imai Sōkyū retained control of Jōō’s collection of meibutsu utensils (and so his legacy as a teacher) meant that the tea world, in general, looked to him for guidance -- and, following his death, to Oribe.

⁵In addition to their use during tea gatherings, it was not uncommon for famous pieces to be displayed in the reception rooms of the wealthy, usually arranged in situ, even when they were not actually being used to serve tea.

⁶During this period Rikyū was still under a cloud -- the blame for the drastic changes that had been made during Jōō’s final months (following, and inspired by, Rikyū’s return from the continent) having been rained down on him following the master’s death -- and appears to have largely kept himself out of the public eye when that could be avoided. This is probably why the only reference to Rikyū’s activity during this period that Yonehara sensei could uncover was these chaire kiri-gata.

It may have been for this reason -- to amuse himself during his self-imposed semi-retirement -- that he began working on this collection of kiri-gata.

⁷Paper was a precious commodity, and the people of that day did not ruin a perfectly good sheet of paper for purposes such as this. However, there were always random bits of paper, cut from the ends of letters, and so forth, and this paper would be put to use on projects such as this*.

While kaishi originally referred to a packet of note-paper that people kept in the futokoro (so they had something to write on if the occasion demanded it), here the reference is to the smaller kind of kaishi (Rikyū’s kaishi was the size of modern women’s kaishi, though the paper was much thinner than what is seen today) that is used during the tea gathering when handling the footwear and eating the kashi.

The use of this kind of paper suggests that those particular kiri-gata may have been made during chakai that Rikyū attended, when the chaire was directly in front of him. ___________ *Love letters were traditionally written on just these kinds of odd scraps -- the use of which was supposed to imply that the author had been so overcome by passion, or other emotion, that he or she could not wait long enough to provide themself with a properly cut piece of writing paper.

As has been mentioned before in this blog, there was an entire industry that grew up around the recycling of waste paper -- and, indeed, it was for just this reason that Nambō Sōkei, charged (in his unofficial capacity as Rikyū’s steward of the Sakai household) with disposing of Rikyū’s old archives -- as the household was preparing to remove to the newly constructed compound at Mozuno. Thus Sōkei was able to peruse, and so rescue, many of the documents that eventually made their way into the Rikyū chanoyu sho [利休茶湯書] and the Nampō roku [南方錄].

⁸Unfortunately, the only photos available (which are the two reproduced above) are not clear enough for me to be able to read the writing, even when enlarged.

⁹利休大事典, 淡交社, 1989・10; ISBN4-473-01110-0.

Yonehara sensei’s essay Rikyū chaire kiri-gata [利休茶入切型] is found on pages 46 to 48.

¹⁰1558 ~ 1570.

¹¹Hagemi [励み] means encouragement, incentive, motivator, inducement.

However, Yonehara sensei does not give us any clue as to what he believes motivated Rikyū's (apparently) sudden interest in undertaking this kind of study.

My personal feeling (as I suggested above) is that his efforts were inspired by reflecting on Jōō and his legacy. While Rikyū had studied gokushin-no-chanoyu under Kitamuki Dōchin, which would have informed him why the measurements of the various utensils were important, it was from Jōō that Rikyū learned about the utensils themselves (as an antique dealer, Jōō had vast hands-on experience with them -- especially since most of them had been in his hands at one time or another -- whereas Dōchin's rather modest means meant that he was principally teaching his disciples theoretically, with probably little more than a single set of utensils with which they could practice the temae in his presence).

¹²The Ryūkō-in [龍光院] is technically a tat’chū [塔頭], which is a sort of mortuary or memorial temple -- in this case, the Ryūkō-in was erected by Kuroda Nagamasa [黒田長政; 1568 ~ 1623]* in 1606, as a memorial to his father, Kuroda Yoshitaka [黒田孝高; 1546 ~ 1604]. The name of the temple, Ryūkō-in, comes from Yoshitaka’s posthumous Buddhist name, Ryōkōinden-josui-ensei dai-kōji [龍光院殿如水圓淸大居士].

This sub-temple was founded under the auspices of Shun-oku Sōen [春屋宗園; 1529 ~ 1611], the 111th abbot of the Daitoku-ji, who retired to the Ryūkō-in during the winter of 1610~11, dying shortly thereafter. Because Shun-oku Sōen was resident in the Ryūkō-in only briefly, however, it is often considered that Ko-getsu Sōgan [江月宗玩; 1574 ~ 1643], the 156th Abbot of the Daitoku-ji, to have been its de facto founder.

The Ryūkō-in preserves a large collection of tea utensils, the core of which were pieces donated by Nagamasa from the Kuroda family’s collection -- though this was greatly expanded by gifts from various Sakai merchant-chajin and, through Ko-getsu Sōgan, much of the collection of Tennōji-ya (Tsuda) Sōkyū†. __________ *One of his retainers was Tachibana Jitsuzan, and it was Nagamasa who gave Jitsuzan permission to make an excursion to the Nanshū-ji during their journey to Edo; while it was at his request that Jitsuzan was given permission to unseal the Shū-un-an and peruse the collection of documents housed in Nambō Sōkei’s wooden chest.

†Ko-getsu Sōgan was the son of Tennōji-ya (Tsuda) Sōkyū.

¹³Sakai-shi shi, dai-ni-kan, honpen dai-ni [堺市史第二巻・本篇第二].

There is some confusion regarding this document, since Yonehara sensei states that this document dates from Shōwa 6 [昭和六年] (1931). Unfortunately, this document appears to have been lost, since the Sakai-shi shi in the Sakai City Library (as well the earliest edition held in the National Diet Libraries) only goes back to Volume 3 (Sakai-shi shi, dai-san-kan, honpen dai-san [堺市史第三巻・本編第三]). Volume 3, furthermore, is dated 1930 in the catalog.

Be that as it may, since Volume 2 is unavailable, it is not possible to check this reference to see which Rikyū chaire kiri-gata were photographed for preservation there.

¹⁴Sadō zen-shu, maki no ku [茶道全集巻の九], pages 361 to 404.

The details of the 24 chaire kiri-gata are discussed in this section by the Urasenke-affiliated scholar Nakamura Kiyozō [中村喜代三; his dates cannot be confirmed]. This material will be translated in the next post.

¹⁵Yotsu no nasubi, katatsuki mata ko-tsubo tomo kata, natsume ni ka kata, nani mo Sōeki kirare-sōrō nari [四ツノナスビ、カタツキ又小壺共かた、ナツメ二ヶかた、何も宗易切られ候也].

Yotsu no nasubi [四ツノナスビ] means “four nasubi” (that is, four nasu-chaire [茄子茶入]). The kanji-compound “茄子” can be read nasubi as well as nasu.

Katatsuki mata ko-tsubo tomo kata [カタツキ又小壺共かた] means “katatsuki, and also ko-tsubo, of the same sort*.”

Nani mo Sōeki kirare-sōrō nari [何も宗易切られ候也] means “all of which were cut by Sōeki (in other words, Rikyū).”

The last sentence could be taken to mean that this identification written on the wrapper might have been written by someone other than Rikyū†. __________ *Meaning they were paper silhouettes like the others.

†Though we occasionally find references to oneself phrased in the third person in documents from that period. So this cannot be taken as definitive.

¹⁶Sadō-bunka ronshū, ge-kan [茶道文化論集・下巻]: Collected Essays on Tea Ceremony Culture in English.

Nagashima Fukutaro [永島福太郎; 1912 ~ 2008] was another Urasenke-affiliated scholar, with his several books all being published by Tankōsha.

¹⁷Nitta-katatsuki [新田肩衝].

In the Taishō mei-ki kan [大正名器鑑], Takahashi Yoshio [高橋義雄; 1861 ~ 1937] (also known as Takahashi Sōan [高橋箒庵]) describes this chaire in this way:

Ō-meibutsu [大名物]ᵃ. Kansaku-karamono [漢作唐物]ᵇ. Katatsuki [肩衝].

[Illustrations from the Taishō mei-ki kan showing the front of the Nitta-katatsuki, the bottom, and the lid of its hikiya (挽家).]

The name Nitta [新田] is thought to be the name of a person, but [this person] has not been identified.

Height: 2-sun 8-bu [二寸八分] (8.5 cmᶜ); diameter of the body: slightly over 2-sun 5-bu [二寸五分強]ᵈ (7.7 cm); circumference of the body: 8-sun 1-bu [八寸一分] (24.5 cm); diameter of the mouth: 1-sun 5-bu [一寸五分] (4.5 cm); height of the koshiki [甑]ᵉ: slightly over 5-bu [五分強] (1.4cm); width of the shoulders: 3-bu 5-riᶠ [三分五厘] (1.0 cm); weight: 32 monmeᵍ [三二匁] (120.0 g).

The koshiki [甑] is slightly elongated, with a single ridge running along the neck’s inner surface; the mouth flares, the shoulders are slightly rounded and sloping, and the body is quite bulbous. Furthermore, while this type [of chaire] often has a flat base [resulting from its being cut from the potter’s wheel with a bamboo spatula], this one has a base that was cut with a string, resulting in a concentric swirl forming a concavity. Overall, [the chaire] is a yellowish-gray-brown color with a glossy finishʰ. The glaze on oki-gata [置形]ʲ has flowed into a thin line, so that a faint decorative pattern.

The record of transmission (denrai [伝来]): Murata Shukō [村田珠光] to Miyoshi Sōsan [三好宗三], to Oda Nobunaga [織田信長], to Ōtomo Sōrin [大友宗麟] until, in Tenshō 13 [天正13年] (1585) Toyotomi Hideyoshi requested it [from Sōrin], in exchange for which [Sōrin] was given the Nitari-nasu [似茄子]ᵏ and 100 silver coins (hyakkan [百貫]) in return. After the fall of Osaka Castle, Fujishige Tōgen [藤重藤元] and his son Tōgan [藤巌], were ordered to retrieve it from the ruins and restore it with same-colored lacquerʲ, after which it became Tokugawa Ieyasu’s [徳川家康] personal possession. It was subsequently bestowed upon the first head of the Mito-Tokugawa family [水戸徳川家], Yorifusa [頼房], and then passed down through his family [to the present day]. Today it is a treasure of the Mito-Tokugawa Museum [水戸徳川博物館].

The shifuku are made from brown ken-saki ume-bachi donsu [剣先梅鉢緞子], and dan-ori donsu [段織緞子]. There is [only] one lid. The outer box is made of unpainted paulownia wood. The hikiya [挽家] is black-lacquered. The gomotsu-bukuro [御物袋]ᵐ is made of navy blue kinran [金襴] with a pattern of small peonies and diamonds [小牡丹菱紋].

The Yamanoue Sōji ki [山上宗二記] has, “this jar is the finest katatsuki in the worldˡ. Together with Hatsu-hana [初花] and Narashiba [楢柴], it is one of the three [greatest] meibutsu under heaven” (kono tsubo katatsuki no tenka-ichi nari, Hatsu-hana・Narashiba to tomo ni tenka ni san-meibutsu no ichi nari [此壺肩衝ノ天下一ナリ、初花・楢柴と共に天下に三名物ノ一ナリ]).

__________ ᵃŌ-meibutsu [大名物]. Takahashi is using the traditional system of classification (proposed by Kobori Masakazu), where ō-meibutsu [大名物] refers to meibutsu utensils from the time before Rikyū; with meibutsu [名物] referring to those elevated to this status during Rikyū’s lifetime; while the term chūko-meibutsu [中古名物] designates meibutsu classified as such during (roughly) the first half-century of the Edo period.

ᵇKansaku-karamono [漢作唐物] despite the distaste that nationalist scholars have for the idea, the kansaku-karamono were made in Korea during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but more importantly -- and unlike the Chinese chaire -- they were specifically made for use in chanoyu. In other words, they conform, as closely as technically possible, to the teachings of kane-wari.

ᶜThe measurements in centimeters were provided by the editors who collated Takahashi’s material into this summary.

ᵈNi-sun go-bu-kyō [二寸五分強]: ...go-bu-kyō [...五分強] means that this chaire is ever-so-slightly larger than 5-bu -- so little that it was technically impossible to measure it.

The ideal large katatsuki, according to kane-wari, should be 2-sun 5-bu in diameter. In this case, since the glaze is fully vitrified, the increase was probably the result of a slight flow of glaze toward the widest part of the diameter during firing.

ᵉIn ancient times koshiki [甑] was the name of a simple kind of pottery still with an elongated and narrowing neck where the vapor was cooled into a distillate (later the word came to be used for a sort of ceramic steaming vessel, and this is the meaning generally given in dictionaries today). In chanoyu, it is used to refer to the neck of the chaire. Here the measurement refers to the height to which the neck rises above the shoulders.

ᶠThe kanji can also be pronounced rin [厘]. As a measurement, it means a tenth of a bu [分], or essentially 0.03 cm.

ᵍAlso written momme [匁], a traditional unit of weight (for things like pearls, paper, and silk). One momme is equal to 3.75 g.

ʰAsagi-nezumi-iro de kōtaku ga aru [浅黄鼠色で光沢がある]: asagi(-iro) [浅黄(色)] means a pale yellow with a greenish tinge; nezumi-iro [鼠色] means mouse-brown, that is a deep gray-brown hue (slightly grayer than chocolate); kōtaku ga aru [光沢がある] means (the glaze) has a high sheen (indicating that the part of the kiln where this chaire was fired was slightly hotter than usual, resulting in vitrification and, as noted above, a slight running in the glaze).

ⁱThe term oki-gata [置形] refers to what we call the front of the chaire. This name comes from the fact that the side with the most beautiful “scenery” (keshiki [景色] which literally means “scenery,” is the Japanese term; it refers to the decorative appearance resulting from pleasing imperfections or inclusions in the glaze) -- visual highlight -- such as the side featuring a run-mark (nadare [なだれ; 雪崩; 傾れ; 頽れ], originally referring to a place where the glaze flows downward from the shoulder during firing: sometimes this was caused by uneven thickness because the piece was held at an angle after being lifted from the glaze-vat, at other times because drops of glaze fell from pieces stacked higher in the kiln, or sometimes dripping from the kiln ceiling -- the latter usually resulting in a nadare colored differently from the base color of the glaze), is always handled so that this side is in front. During haiken, the chaire is turned so that the oki-gata faces toward the guest.

Chaire without this kind of feature are said to lack an oki-gata (oki-gata naku [置形なく]).

However, some chaire (like the Matsu-ya katatsuki [松屋肩衝], shown below) may have several sides that may potentially be considered oki-gata.

ʲTomo-iro nuri de shūfuku-shi [共色漆で修復し]. Same-colored lacquer (tomo-iro nuri [共色漆]) -- that is, lacquer that was the same color as the broken utensil -- was used so as to hide the damage, make the repair work invisible.

The technique of kin-tsugi [金継ぎ], where powdered gold is dusted over the partially set lacquer (so that the repair appears like a metallic gold inlay when the lacquer has dried) did not come into vogue until later in the seventeenth century. But even if something like that had been available at the time, it is unlikely that it would have been used to repair a meibutsu utensil -- since the whole idea was that a meibutsu utensil was supposed to be perfect in every way*, including in perfect condition. Only “wabi” utensils were repaired with kin-tsuki (or, before that technique appeared, with simple black or red lacquer, where no attempt was made to match the repair to the original color of the piece). __________ *Even after any idea of kane-wari had been forgotten, this was still the rule (though “perfection” was now in the eye of the beholder, rather than defined by the rules of kane-wari).

ᵏNitari-nasu [似茄子] was a very famous meibutsu karamono nasu-chaire that is described as having been nearly identical to the Tsukumo-gami nasu [九十九髪茄子] (also known as the Tsukumo-nasu [九十九茄子 = 付藻茄子]), shown below, in both shape and glaze.

But whereas the Tsukumo nasu was purportedly valued at 99 kan [貫], the Nitari-nasu was said to be worth 100 kan.

ˡThe word gomotsu-bukuro [御物袋] refers to a relatively simple kind of storage bag (it is never used during a temae) that consists of a pair of circular pieces of cloth with a thin layer of cotton wool in between, and with a long himo stitched around the entire circumference. When pulled, the himo forms the cloth into a loose bag.

The hikiya [挽家] -- originally made of ivory, but since the second half of the fifteenth century more commonly made of lacquered wood -- is the container in which a meibutsu chaire is stored (its interior is carefully turned so that the chaire fits into the hikiya firmly, with no extra room for it to move around and so be in danger of cracking), and this hikiya is tied into a gomotsu-bukuro (for added protection) before being inserted into its wooden storage box.

ᵐTen-ka [天下] literally means “under heaven;” and ten-ka-ichi [天下一] means “first (in other words, ‘best’) under heaven.”

These expressions are often translated “in the world” rather than “under heaven.”

¹⁸Both the Rikyū daijiten [利休大事典] (published in 1989) and the Sadō zen-shū [茶道全集] (originally published in 1935, though reissued after the war) were published by Tankōsha, so the photographic negatives that showed the kiri-gata of the 24 chaire that are described in vol. 9 of the latter should have been kept on file. But even if they were somehow lost during the war (though Kyōto itself was not bombed), if I (with my horrible eyesight) can reproduce them acceptably using a simple camera (and by taking a gaggle of photos while fiddling blindly with the focus), certainly Tankōsha’s staff must have the capacity to do so.

Considering how often photos originally published in books from the 1950s and 1960s are reused again and again (and again), it is really inexcusable that none of the photos used to illustrate this part of Yonehara sensei’s essay actually show the kiri-gata upon which his arguments rest.

¹⁹Eiroku ni-nen (ki-bi) go-gatsu tsuitachi oite Bungo haiken [永禄二年己未五月朔日於豊後拝見].

Ki-bi [己未], which means earth-sheep, indicates that Eiroku 2 was the 56th year of the sexagenary cycle. Since a person was unlikely to live through two such years (at least as an adult who is making records of things), the inclusion of this qualifier fixes the year exactly.

Bungo [豊後] was a province in north-eastern Kyūshū, at that time governed by the daimyō Ōtomo Yoshishige [大友義鎮; 1530 ~ 1587] -- today better known as Ōtomo Sōrin [大友宗麟]. As we can read in Takahashi’s entry in the Taishō mei-ki kan (quoted above), Sōrin was the owner of the Nitta-katatsuki at that time.

²⁰The Hisamasa cha kai-ki [久政茶会記 is the first of the three books* included in the Matsu-ya kai-ki [松屋會記].

The reference is to the entry (Eiroku 2 [永祿二年], Uzuki [卯月]†) Nijū-san nichi asa [廿三日朝]‡, Sen no Sōeki [千宗易].

In the Sadō ko-ten zenshū [茶道古典全集], this entry is found in Volume 9, pages 37 ~ 38.

My reason for including the details of this chakai here is to show that, given the special nature of the utensils employed, Rikyū was hardly likely to leave everything as it was, and rush off to Bungo so he could inspect Ōtomo Sōrin’s chaire. After a gathering using such utensils, the host would have had to wait several days before he could put the treasured kōro, and even the chawan, away**. ___________ *They are tea diaries, documenting the details of chakai in which the three generations of the Matsu-ya family participated.

†Uzuki [卯月] is the classical name for the Fourth Lunar Month.

‡23rd day, morning. The entry reads:

nijū-san nichi asa [廿三日朝]

一、Sen Sōeki [千宗易(ヘ)ᵃ]　Jōsa [紹佐]ᵇ Hisamasa [久政]ᶜ futari [貳人]ᵈ

hidari-kamae yojō-han, minami-muki [左カマヘ四疊半、南向]ᵉ tohin gotoku [トヒン五德]ᶠ

toko ni, hō-bon ni Zenkō te-ro [床ニ、方盆ニ善光手爐]ᵍ, kō ha takazu [香ハタカス]ʰ

katte yori, Shukō-chawan [カツテヨリ、珠光茶碗]ⁱ

[...]ʲ

一、Sōeki no kaeri-kake ni [宗易ノ歸リカケニ]

Sakai, oite Sōgorō, ō-jiku no “Yamaichi-seiran” miru nari [堺、於宗五郎、大軸ノ山市晴嵐ミル也]ᵏ.

___________ ᵃ[H]e (ヘ), meaning to -- as in “to Sōeki’s (gathering).” While Matsu-ya Hisamasa usually adds this particle (to indicate the host), for some reason he failed to do so in this case. Not really important, but the editors of the Sado ko-ten zen-shu [茶道古典全集] felt it was important to point this out to the reader.

ᵇJōsa [紹佐] is referring to Abura-ya Jōsa [油屋紹佐; his dates are not known], one of the ultra-wealthy machi-shū chajin of Sakai. The Abura-ya house dealt in oils. Josa had been a disciple of Jōō, and a benefactor of Kokei Sōchin [古渓宗陳; 1532 ~ 1597 ] (Jōsa contributed 30 kanmon [貫文], equivalent to 30,000 coins, to Kokei in the first year of Tenshō [天正元年]. 1573, when the monk was moving to the Daitoku-ji).

ᶜHisamasa [久政] is Matsu-ya Hisamasa [松屋久政; 1521 ~ 1598], the initiator of the Matsu-ya kaiki [松屋會記], as well as the person for whom Jōō wrote the Matsu-ya manuscript version of the Chanoyu hyaku shu [茶湯百首]. He was one year older than Rikyū, and among his tea friends. The Matsu-ya house were the preeminent lacquer artisants of that period.

ᵈFutari [貳人] means two people. There were only two guests at this chakai.

ᵉHidari-kamae yojo-han, minami-muki [左カマヘ四疊半、南向].

This refers to a room arranged and oriented as shown above. This room imitates Jōō’s preferred 4.5-mat room (though it is said that Rikyū’s room was covered with kyōma-tatami, while Jōō’s was spread with inakama-tatami).

ᶠTohin gotoku [トヒン五德]: the word tohin [トヒン = 土品] seems to be referring to a clay furo (painted with black lacquer), perhaps a mayu-buro [眉風爐]. In such a furo, the kama would rest on a gotoku [五德]. In 1559 the gotoku would have been arranged standing on top of the hai-gata, with the ring uppermost (at, or slightly above, the rim of the furo): a kiri-kake kama [切掛釜] or ha-gama [羽釜] (the latter is also called a shin-nari gama [眞形釜]) would rest on the gotoku as if it were resting on the rim of a kimen-buro.

ᵍToko ni, hobon ni Zenkō te-ro [床ニ、方盆ニ善光手爐]: a te-ro [手爐], also called a kiki-kōro [聞き香爐] is a small ceramic incense burner made to be held in the hands (so the incense can be smelled directly).

The incense burner mentioned here was the one that had formerly belonged to Ōtomi Zenko [大富善好; dates unknown].

When it came into Jōō’s possession, Zenkō’s famous te-ro was renamed Chidori [千鳥], and this is the name it still bears to this day. This incense burner is shown above. It was displayed in the toko on a square tray -- which was probably made for it by Jōō.

ʰKō ha takazu [香ハタカス] means that incense was not burning in the censer when the guests entered the room and inspected the toko.

This indicates that incense was going to be appreciated after the sumi-temae, in the manner preferred by Jōō. This could potentially prolong the gathering to twice the usual length (since not only was the host required to supply at least two different varieties of kyara from his own collection, but each guest was also invited to contribute up to two varieties of his own kyara -- each of which would be appreciated slowly, by being passed around three times through the whole group).

ⁱKatte yori, Shukō-chawan [カツテヨリ、珠光茶碗]. The Shukō-chawan had been given to Rikyū by Jōō, at the time when Jōō took away all of Rikyū’s imported tea utensils (because the family had fallen into bankruptcy).

Because the Shukō-chawan had been broken and then repaired using same-colored lacquer, it was only suitable to be used for wabi-no-chanoyu, in which setting it was not appropriate to display the chawan in the tea room beforehand. This is why it was brought out from the katte at the beginning of Rikyū’s temae.

Because the original Shukō-chawan was lost in the fire that destroyed the Honnō-ji in 1582, the bowl shown above is another of the same type. These chawan were fired in the mountains near Guangdong [廣東], in southern China, as bowls for cold noodles, and sold in stacks of 10 bowls, which the Korean monks visiting China brought back as souvenirs. As a result, there were originally 20 or so nearly-identical chawan of this sort brought to Japan during the middle of the fifiteenth century, each of which came to be known by the name of its original owner.

Rikyū’s chakai was very heavily based on Jōō’s style of chanoyu, suggesting that he was still hiding himself under the master’s shadow (even though Jōō had died some 4 years before).

ʲI have left out the details of the kaiseki menu, in the interests of keeping this footnote as short as possible. Matsu-ya Hisamasa appears to have been quite the gourmand, so the greater part of each entry is dedicated to a recetation of the menu in all of its details.

ᵏSōeki no kaeri-kake ni, Sakai, oite Sōgorō, ōjiku no “Yamaichi-seiran” miru nari [宗易ノ歸リカケニ、堺、於宗五郎、大軸ノ「山市晴嵐」ミル也].

This means “on the way back from Sōeki’s [chakai], [we stopped to visit with] Sōgorō in Sakai, where we saw the large scroll “Yamaichi-seiran” [山市晴嵐]. This is the landscape entitled “Shān-shì qíng-lán” (Mists trailing over a mountain village) by one of the greatest Southern Song monk-painters, Mùqī Fǎcháng [牧谿法常; 1210? ~ 1269?].

Matsu-ya Hisamasa lived in Nara, not Sakai, so he surely took advantage of his visit to that city to pay a call on Sōgorō [宗五郎; his dates are not known]*, and inspect this famous painting. This painting, originally owned by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu [足利義満; 1358 ~ 1408], was one of the Xiāo-xiāng bā-jǐng [瀟湘八景] (Eight scenes of the Xiāo-xiāng). ___________ *His family name is sometimes given as Kinoshita [木下], and sometimes Sakura [佐倉]. His personal name seems to have also been written Sōgorō [惣五郎]; and he was also sometimes known as Sōgo [宗吾]. Various stories are told about him, mostly from the early decades of the Edo period, but it is difficult to prove that they all refer to the same man -- who would have been quite elderly, if he was already active in the middle of the sixteenth century.

**Putting these things into storage before they were ready could result in their being ruined.

The kōro would have had to be allowed to cool down completely for several days, then tied into its shifuku (with the special ash left inside, protected by its lid). If the process was rushed, the ash could draw moisture from the air, and then begin to molder once put into the storehouse.

Likewise, the Shukō-chawan had to be allowed to dry slowly before it could be tied into its shifuku and put away in its box. Attempting to store it while still damp would not only encourage mold to develop, but also risk loosening the lacquer repair work, meaning that the chawan might fall apart the next time it was taken out of storage.

As a result, it is impossible to argue that Rikyū could somehow have arrived in Bungo by the first day of the next month after hosting such a chakai on the 23rd of the previous month.

²¹The fastest way to journey from Sakai to Bungo would have been by ship; but, given the very significant danger from pirates operating out of Shikoku (meaning that the ship would have to hug the coast of Honshu) -- plus the fact that Rikyū could hardly have left Sakai immediately after the chakai on the 23rd concluded, nor, arriving at Ōtomo Sōrin’s Fuchū-jō [府中城] (Fuchū castle) in Bungo, marched in and immediately demanded to see the daimyō’s treasured katatsuki -- the trip would have taken far longer than the six or seven days available.

²²Even though Yonehara sensei unambiguously has written Ōuchi clan [大内氏] in his essay, I have been unable to confirm any connection between Ōtomo Sōrin and that family.

The Ōuchi clan, traced their ancestry back to Prince Imseong [임성태자, 琳聖太子; 577 ~ 657), of the Korean Baekje [백제 = 百濟 or 佰濟] kingdom. They were the most prominent family in western Honshū, ruling from the castle town of Yamaguchi*.

The Ōtomo family, however, traced their roots back to the Minamoto clan; and their hereditary lands were always located in Kyūshū†.

It therefore seems more likely that Ōtomo Yoshishige (Sōrin) would have succeeded to the headship of the Ōtomo clan, rather than to a clan with which he had apparently no historical connection. ___________ *Cf., the Wikipedia article Ōuchi clan; the URL for which is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cuchi_clan

†Cf. the Wikipedia article Ōtomo clan; the URL for which is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ctomo_clan

²³Sōnyū [宗入] was the name Koga Harumichi’s [晴通] used from the Fourth Month of 1553, when, shortly after being appointed ukonoe no taisho [右近衛大将], Commander of the Right Division of the Imperial Guards, he suddenly retired from the world, and became nyūdō.

²⁴O-chanoyu ikken no nozomi sōrō jō, kanarazu makari-sagaru-beku sōrō [御茶湯一見の望み候条、必ず罷り下がるべく候].

The construction makari-sagaru-beku is self-depricating phrase* that means he is inviting Sōrin to come to him. __________ *Makari [罷り] is a humble verb-prefix. Sagaru-beku [下がり可く] means should come down, should descend.

Implicite in this is that one should travel from the capital (Kyōto) into the countryside.

²⁵In other words, since Ōtomo Sōrin was widely known to be passionate about chanoyu, and, moreover, that he had amassed a collection of famous meibutsu utensils was also well known among the people who would have been interested in such things, the matter of Rikyū’s visiting him in Bungo to inspect the Nitta-katatsuki is not out of the question. The denrai handed down with this katatsuki suggests that it would have been owned by Sōrin in 1559.

The only problem is the matter of logistics: would Rikyū have been able to go from Sakai to Bungo in the available time; and, at that particular point in time, would Ōtomo Sōrin have been receptive to such a visit (since Rikyū was not affiliated with the government at this time, but would have gone to Bungo as a private person, with only the claim of having been Jōō’s principal disciple -- something that he appears to have been at great pains to demonstrate to his contemporaries and peers in Sakai and Kyōto, according to his early densho -- to open the door for him)?

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

❖ As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more necessary than heretofore, since this blog is my only source of income. Please donate, if you can.

0 notes

chanoyu-to-wa · 20 days ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 112.

〽 Ko-tsubo ni te cha wo tatsuru ni ha sukuu to mo kumu to mo iwaji sashi-nuku to iu

[小壺にて茶を立つるには掬うとも汲むとも云わじ差し拔くと云う].

“When serving tea with a ko-tsubo [小壺], say neither sukuu [掬う] nor kumu [汲む]. [Rather, you should] say sashi-nuku [差し拔く].”

Ko-tsubo [小壺]: originally, chaire were divided into two classes -- the katatsuki [肩衝], the larger, square-shouldered chaire with wider mouths, and the ko-tsubo [小壺]. Put simply, the term ko-tsubo encompasses all of the shapes that were not katatsuki.

Karamono ko-tsubo tended to be small in size (holding enough tea for between one and three guests¹), and typically had much smaller mouths. While the katatsuki were originally made in sets as pharmacologist’s medicine jars (the wide mouths and larger sizes made it easy to measure out appropriate quantities of the crushed or powdered medicines using a measuring spoon), the ko-tsubo that came from China were containers for souvenir preparations from famous scenic sites and tourist destinations, made to hold single servings of medicinal spirits (about enough to fill a small sake-cup) for men, or hair-pomade for women -- both of which were popular gift items for the “folks back home” from the places to which Chinese holidaymakers flocked on holiday (most of which were centered around ancient temples, with these items based on secret formulae concocted by famous Buddhist monks or Daoist healers, and sold in the temple’s gift shop).

Sukuu [掬う] is the verb that means to pull the matcha out of a small-mouthed chaire using the side of the chashaku². This word was typically used to explain the way tea should be removed from a ko-tsubo.

Kumu [汲む] means to ladle out³, and described the way matcha was traditionally scooped out of a wide-mouthed katatsuki. However, since the fifteenth century (in Korea) ko-tsubo shapes with wider mouths came to be fired specifically for use in chanoyu, and since the wider mouths invited the host to scoop (kumu) the tea out, just as he did when using a katatsuki, this soon became a point of confusion for the beginner -- and it was this problem that Jōō hoped to address in this poem.

Iwaji [云わじ] is a verb phrase that combines the verb iu [云う] to speak (as iwa- [云わ-], the negative stem), with the auxiliary verb ji [じ], which indicates a negative intention (not do something; refrain from doing something): therefore, iwaji means��(to) refrain from saying; to not say; to keep silent; to not mention.

Jōō is saying that, when speaking about chanoyu, we should avoid using these technical terms when describing the act of transferring the matcha from the chaire to the chawan, since the result could be a source of conflict and criticism between host and guest (if the guest, for example, noticed the host scooping the tea out of his ko-tsubo, and either decided to chide him on the spot, or whisper to others once they got outside the tearoom).

Sashi-nuku [差し拔く] means to extract, to take out, to remove⁴. This verb describes the general action of transferring the matcha from the chaire to the chawan, while sukuu and kumu are technical terms used during the learning process. This is the point that Jōō wants to emphasize (because the technical terms seem to confuse people⁵).

This poem is found in the Matsu-ya manuscript, with a modified version also present in Katagiri Sekishū’s Jōō collection of the Chanoyu hyaku shu⁶, but both versions essentially mean the same thing.

_________________________

¹This is why the ko-tsubo were used in the original gokushin-temae, where the object was to prepare a single bowl of tea that would be offered to the Buddha. Because only enough matcha was needed for a single portion of tea, very small chaire were preferred, since the chaire was supposed to be filled fully*, so a smaller size meant that the monk performing the ritual would not waste tea. ___________ *If a large empty space remained in the chaire, the volatile components would escape into that air pocket, and then dissipate as soon as the lid was removed during the temae. By filling the chaire fully (to perhaps 90% of the total capacity of the chaire), this evaporation would be kept to a minimum, thereby keeping the flavor and aroma of the tea as good as possible.

It is important to point out that, since we all use commercially processed matcha nowadays, we do not understand why the chajin of the sixteenth century were so concerned about the loss of these flavor-compounds through this evaporation (since they are already long gone before the commercially-ground matcha is ready to be sealed into cans).

In Jōō and Rikyū’s day, matcha was ground in hand-mills, where the upper stone weighed about 10 kg. When turned by hand, the friction of the upper stone rubbing against the lower one is not enough to even warm the stones noticeably. Commercial tea mills, however, use much heavier stones (20 kg or more), and these are turned many times faster than is possible by hand, meaning that the friction results in the stones becoming too hot to even touch. It is not surprising, then, that the more volatile components are quickly lost into the air of the grinding room -- which is only made worse by the fact that the tea is only collected one or two times a day, rather than immediately after the desired quantity has been ground (as is the case when the tea was being ground at home on the morning of the gathering).

²The original meaning of sukuu [掬う] was to dip up water (as from a stream) with the hand with a semi-circular motion. Because ko-tsubo chaire have such narrow mouths, the tea cannot be scooped out. So it is pulled out* with the side of the bowl of the chashaku lightly touching the inside of the neck and mouth of the chaire. ___________ *Imai Sōkyū encouraged the practice of rotating such chaire above the chawan, so that the matcha could be poured out. Though this way of doing things violated the traditional rules (which Rikyū pointed out in many of his densho), following Rikyū’s death it became mainstream, entering general practice through the teachings of Sōtan and his sons.

³The action is similar to drawing out a powder using a measuring spoon, as mentioned above. Matcha was originally a medicine, so this was the original -- and most natural -- way to transfer the powdered tea from the chaire into the chawan (where it could be mixed with hot water to prepare a suspension). It was only the narrowness of the mouth of many ko-tsubo that made a different technique necessary.

⁴In this construction, the first element sashi [差し] functions as a prefix that stresses or gives emphasis to the meaning of the second without substantially altering its meaning: nuku [拔く] means to extract, to take out, to remove.

Sashi-nuku [差し拔く], then, has exactly the same meaning -- to extract, to take out, to remove -- albeit rather emphatically so (so that it contrasts strongly with sukuu and kumu, which also expressed the idea of transferring the matcha, though in more specific ways).

⁵While the original rule was that sukuu [掬う] was used to describe the way that tea was removed from a ko-tsubo, while kumu [汲む] described the way to transfer tea from a katatsuki, the actual usage was based on the size of the mouth of the specific chaire. Karamono ko-tsubo are very small, and originally made to hold liquids of some sort (so the rule holds). But the chaire made in Korea* during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are usually closer in size to the katatsuki†, and have wider mouths, even though they imitated the original Chinese ko-tsubo shapes‡. As a result, since the larger size of the mouths allowed the host to scoop ou (kumu) the matcha, the two words were often conflated in the minds of the beginners; and it was to avoid this confusion that Jōō tells us to simply avoid them when specificity is not needed. ___________ *Called kan-saku karamono [カン作唐物 = 韓作唐物].

Since the early 20th century, when Western-trained Japanese archaeologists and anthropologists began to assert that most of what was considered Japanese high culture was actually imported from Korea, the Japanese nationalists have made every attempt to divorce chanoyu from its Korean roots, resulting in a proliferation of (nonsensical) “theories” that try to make kan-saku mean something else -- most commonly that these chaire were made during the (Chinese) Han dynasty (even though stoneware did not exist at that point in time). This must always be kept in mind when reading Japanese versions of tea history.

†It appears that the idea of serving three to five guests was already a sort of convention even before chanoyu was brought to Japan, so the kan-saku chaire combined the decorative element of the classical ko-tsubo shapes with the practicality of a larger volume of matcha, and so allow for the service of a larger group of people than would be possible with the original Chinese ko-tsubo.

‡The basic ko-tsubo shapes are the nasu [茄子] (shaped like fruit of the eggplant, with the widest point slightly below the midline, as seen in the example on the left), the bunrin [文琳] (shaped like an apple, with the widest point slightly above the midline, as seen in the middle example), and the maru-tsubo [丸壺] (shaped like a ball, with the widest point at the midline -- with or without an elongated neck -- as seen on the right).

These examples were taken from a collection of cut-paper silhouettes known as the Rikyū chaire kiri-gata [利休茶入切型], which will be discussed more fully in an appendix (which, on account of its length, will be published in the next two posts).

In the early days, the taikai [大海] (which is shaped like a flattened globe, with a wide to very wide mouth) was also considered to be a member of the ko-tsubo class; though it was segregated into its own class during the sixteenth century.

⁶Katagiri Sadamasa’s discovered version reads:

〽 ko-tsubo ni te cha wo tatsuru ni ha sukuu to mo kumu to mo iishi sashi-nuku to iu

[小壺にて茶をたつるにはすくふともくむともいいしさしぬくといふ].

This differs from the version found in the Matsu-ya manuscript only in the first line of the shimo-no-ku, in the verb used to indicate that the words sukuu [掬う] and kumu [汲む] should not be used in general speech. The Matsu-ya version has iwaji [云わじ]*, which means “not be allowed to say (something);” while the version in Sekishū’s possession employs the verb-form iishi [云いし]†, indicating that (the foregoing examples) “should not be said.”

Since the meaning of the two versions is really the same, it is entirely possible (since he was probably writing the poems out for different disciples from memory) that Jōō wrote one form on one occasion, and the other on a different occasion, since both forms would have been in common use at the time -- because the only purpose of the poems was to pass the teaching on to his followers in an easily remembered (i.e., mnemonic) way. ___________ *Iwaji [云わじ], as mentioned above, combines the negative stem (iwa [云わ]) of the verb iu [云う], to speak, with the auxiliary verb ji [じ], which indicates a negative intention.

†Iishi [云いし] is the present progressive negative form of the verb iu [云う].

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

❖ As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more necessary than heretofore, since this blog is my only source of income. Please donate, if you can.

3 notes · View notes

chanoyu-to-wa · 27 days ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 111.

〽 Kanete-yori yakusoku-shikeru kyaku naraba kokoro ha shin ni waza ha karukare

[豫てより約束しける客ならば心は眞に業は輕かれ].

“If [the chakai] had been scheduled with the guest in advance, the mood [effected by the host] should suggest [that everything has been] well thought out, while [his] way of doing [everything] should appear confident and relaxed.”

Kanete-yori yakusoku-shikeru [豫てより約束しける]: kanete-yori [豫てより] means “from before,” “in advance,” “previously,” “beforehand;” yakusoku-shikeru [約束しける] means “to have made a promise.” Thus, the phrase means (something that had been) previously agreed upon.

Kanete-yori yakusoku-shikeru kyaku naraba [豫てより約束しける客ならば], therefore, means “if this is for a guest (kyaku naraba [客ならば]) with whom (the chakai) had been previously arranged (kanete-yori yakusoku-shikeru [豫てより約束しける])¹....”

Kokoro ha shin ni [心は眞に] means “the mood should be true to form,” “the feeling should be authentic (or genuine).” Since the host has had sufficient time to think everything through, everything should be done fully and correctly², without cutting corners or making unnecessary abbreviations (particularly of the sort that might be acceptable on occasions when the host had not had the opportunity to think everything out carefully beforehand -- such as when the person who will be the guest visits the host unexpectedly³).

Waza ha karukare [業は輕かれ]: waza [業] means the way something is done, the modus operandi, the way of doing things; karukare [輕かれ] means things like simply, easily, gently, in a relaxed manner. In other words, everything should seem well thought out, and well rehearsed -- so the host way of performing is confident and relaxed⁴.

In other words, because this gathering had been scheduled in advance⁵ -- since the guest had been invited to come for chanoyu several days (or weeks) before the day of the gathering -- the host should be fully prepared, and well rehearsed, so that everything is correct and appropriate, and his presentation is confident and relaxed⁶.

This poem is found not only in the Matsu-ya manuscript and Rikyū’s 1580 copy, but also in the Jōō collection discovered by Katagiri Sadamasa⁷.

_________________________

¹The implication is that the host will have had sufficient time to make all of his preparations carefully and thoroughly, so nothing will be left to chance.

²Nothing should seem, or give the impression of being, extemporaneous, unplanned, accidental, inadvertent, spontaneous, or unforeseen.

The word shin [眞] was borrowed from the calligrapher’s art, where it means writing the “full form” of the kanji, without any abbreviations. This same idea is supposed to be applied to the previously scheduled gathering: in each detail, everything should be full and complete.

³This story is told about the famous tayu [太夫], Yoshino [吉野; 1606 ~ 1643]* of Kyōto. According to the Edo period Kōshoku ichi-dai otoko [好色一代男]†,

on a certain occasion (around the beginning of the rainy season), the father of Yonosuke [世之介; dates not known]‡ (who was firmly set against the union of his son to a professional woman of pleasure**) was taking a walk in the hills east of the city when he was overcome by a heavy shower of rain. He took shelter under the eves of a house that was standing near the road. Being informed by her servant of this situation, and apprized of the discomfort that he must be feeling, the mistress of the house told her to ask him in, and she served him tea in her small tea room. And though the reception of a guest was clearly unexpected, she served him with poise and elegance, giving the impression that she was a woman of great dignity and breeding.

After being informed, on a later occasion, that this was the wife of his son -- whom he had disinherited over the affair -- he relented and welcomed her into the family.

This story describes, in very clear language, the appropriate attitude of the host when serving tea, even when the gathering was unanticipated, and so no preparations had been made beforehand.

Yoshino’s two-mat room, now known as the Ihō-an [遺芳庵]††, with the utensil mat on the right side of the room (with a large, circular window opened in the wall behind the guests’ seats, known as the Yoshino-mado [吉野窓], and a shitaji-mado [下地窓] in the wall to the left of the guests’ seats), accessed via a hinged sadō-guchi, is still preserved on the grounds of the Kōdai-ji in the Higashiyama area of Kyōto. ___________ *She was the second geiko [藝子] to use this name, and so is often referred to, in Japanese documents, as ni-daime Yoshino tayu [ 二代目吉野太夫], tayu [太夫] indicating that she was a geisha of high rank. And though several other geisha used this name, unqualified references to Yoshino tayu are generally taken as referring to her.

Her birth-name had been Matsuda Tokuko [松田德子], and she was the daughter of a samurai (likely made a ronin [浪人] after the battle of Sekigahara, wherefore she was sold to the Hayashi house as a kamuro [禿], a girl who attends on a professional woman of pleasure) from the west country (perhaps Kyūshū).

†Written by the poet-novelist Ihara Saikaku [井原西鶴; 1642 ~ 1693]. The title of this novel is usually translated The Life of an Amorous Man.

‡He is a major character in Ihara Saikaku’s Kōshoku ichi-dai otoko [好色一代男], and the husband of Yoshino.

**Yoshino, and her fellow geisha, are referred to as yū-jo [遊女], which means ladies of pleasure, or maybe more literally, “women to be played with.”

††Ihō [遺芳] means “a memento of one who is deceased,” and is often used to refer to a letter or autograph that remains as a keepsake after someone has died. In this case, Ihō-an [遺芳庵], then, means that the hermitage or tea hut itself is the memento of Yoshino. The name was probably coined by her husband.

⁴If the host is nervous or apprehensive, or confused, the guest might begin to feel that he is imposing, that the host was not really sincere in his invitation if he appears not fully prepared, for whatever reason, for this visit. This will create the opposite effect from what was desired.

⁵Poem 36 (in the Kyūshū manuscript) is a sort of antipode to this verse, since it deals with the opposite situation -- the case where a guest arrives unexpectedly, and is, on the spur of the moment, invited (or expresses a desire) to take tea at an impromptu chakai:

〽 toki-narazu kyaku no kitara-ba temae wo ba kokoro ha sō ni waza wo tsutsushime

[時ならず客の來らば手前をば心は草に業を愼しめ].

“If a guest comes unexpectedly, with respect to [the host’s] temae, the mood should be sō [草], and his actions should be restrained.”

In this case, sō [草] means informal, casual; while the verb tsutsushimu [愼しむ] means “to be restrained;” “to forbear from doing (something)” -- in the sense of being prudent, careful, cautious, humble, and discreet.

Because no preparations could have been made beforehand, whether physical or mental, the host should make do with what is most easily available, and perform his temae in as simple a manner as possible, doing nothing that is flashy, or flamboyant, or out of the ordinary (since, having not practiced serving tea with these utensils, it would be all too easy to make some sort of mistake; and the more elaborate the thing the host is attempting to do, the more easily everything can be thrown into utter disarray by some unforeseen happenstance).

In every way, this is the exact opposite of what we are considering in poem 111.

⁶It has long been said that, beginning several days before the chakai, the host should take out all of the utensils, arrange them in his tea room, and practice his temae several times on successive days*. By doing so, the host will insure that he is completely familiar with his utensils, which will allow him to use them to serve tea to his guest with confidence and assurance†. This is the meaning that the word karukare was intended to suggest. ___________ *During the 20th century, it became the practice for wealthy businessmen to have a sort of playbill or programme printed for each guest, detailing every aspect of the gathering -- from a description of the various rooms included in the venue, to a full menu of the kaiseki, and a description (and complete denrai [傳來] -- a sort of catalog of the object’s history, including a list of all previous owners) of all the utensils that will be used at every point during the chakai.

The preparation of this document forced the host to encounter the utensils many days in advance, giving him the opportunity to study them, and explore the way he intended to use them when serving his guests.

†Utensils that have been in storage for a long time will often become tainted with a musty smell, which can take several days (and potentially several uses during a temae) to dissipate. This is why people who take their practice of chanoyu seriously often keep a full set of utensils ready in their mizuya, which they change season by season, so they will never be caught off guard, and forced to use utensils that have not been aired and prepared carefully.

⁷It was probably removed from the Edo period collections because the word shin [眞] had by then come to mean formal -- in the sense of stiffness and rigid adherence to correct deportment, and suggesting an association with the tea of the daisu and the shoin. None of which has any relevance to the idea that Jōō was intending to express through this poem.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

❖ As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more necessary than heretofore, since this blog is my only source of income. Please donate, if you can.

1 note · View note

chanoyu-to-wa · 1 month ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 110.

〽 E ni yorite hana ni kokoro ha ōkaran kaze ni tate-tsuku kusa-bana mo nashi

[繪によりて花に心は多からん風に立付く草花も無し].

“Depending on the painting, [the host] should carefully consider that there may be few reasons [to display] a flower [arrangement]. [And] if the wind is blowing, grassy flowers should not be used.”

In this poem, Jōō discloses two¹, not necessarily related, teachings that describe situations when a flower arrangement should not be included during the gathering.

E ni yorite [繪によりて]¹ could be translated “according to the painting²,” “because of the painting,” or “depending on the painting.”

Hana ni kokoro ha ōkaran [花に心は多からん]: kokoro ha [心は] means “as for thinking (about displaying flowers)³;” the classical expression ōkari [多かり] means “there are many” (in context, there are many reasons to do something), so the negative ōkaran [多からん] would mean “there are no (reasons for doing something).”

The meaning is that, after considering the painting, the host should give serious thought to whether it is (even) appropriate to display a flower arrangement during the gathering. Though this part of the poem is usually explained in terms of moro-kazari [諸飾]⁵ as it is effected today, the teaching embodied in this poem was intended to apply even when the painting would be displayed during the shoza, while the flowers would not be arranged in the toko until the goza. Looking at Rikyu’s surviving kai-ki [會記], we find many occasions when a flower arrangement was not included⁶ (though not always for this particular reason⁷).

Kaze ni tate-tsuku [風に立付く]: the verb tate-tsukeru [立て付ける] refers to something that happens in succession to, as a consequence of, or being dependent on, the thing that was mentioned earlier. In this case, the thing mentioned earlier is the wind (kaze [風]), implying that the wind is blowing (kaze ni [風に]) during the gathering (or at least the part of the gathering when the chabana is going to be displayed).

Kusa-bana mo nashi [草花も無し] means “grassy flowers should also be excluded⁸.”

In other words, if the wind is blowing, grassy flowers should not be used. This is because they will dry out too easily, the leaves will curl up, and the flowers will begin to collapse. Even if the ends of the stems were cut and singed, or treated in some other way that the masters of Japanese floral art tell us will help insure that they take up water, and last longer, blowing wind will inevitably dry the flowers and leaves faster than water can be taken up through the stems. And even if the host soaked such flowers in water prior to arranging them, the effects of the wind will be realized sooner or later; and if the chabana is seen to be wilted when the guests are leaving at the end of the goza, the sight will spoil their pleasure, since it will suggest that they stayed too long. If the flowers will not remain in good condition until after the guests depart, then the host should not include a chabana during that gathering.

This poem is found only in Jōō’s Matsu-ya manuscript -- perhaps because, by the early Edo period⁹, the modern convention whereby a floral arrangement must be displayed during the gathering had been firmly established¹⁰.

_________________________

¹The first teaching is articulated in the three lines of the kami-no-ku [上の句]; the second is revealed in the two lines of the shimo-no-ku [下の句].

²When Jōō first created the chakai, the custom of always displaying a (Buddhist themed or inspired*) painting was prevalent. Only later did bokuseki come into vogue, in the context of the wabi setting†.

According to Jōō, then, the question regarding whether to display a flower arrangement or not depended on whether flowers were depicted in the painting -- since Jōō felt that redundancy was, at the very least, uninteresting‡. ___________ *In the early days of chanoyu in Japan, paintings were preferred; and among these, the works of Chinese monks took pride of place (though paintings by secular artists, such as the triptych “Shaka Leaving the Mountain, and Snowy Landscapes,” by the imperial tutor Liáng Kǎi [梁楷; c. 1140 ~ c. 1210], were acceptable -- if the subject matter was appropriate).

Some were actual paintings of the Buddha, or Buddhist figures, while others were meditative landscapes (taken from collections such as the Xiāo-Xiāng bā-jǐng [瀟湘八景], “Eight Famous Scenes in the Region of the Xiāo-Xiāng,” that were sold in the area as souvenirs -- much as the calligraphy of certain famous monks are sold in the Daitoku-ji gift shop even today).

The ink painting known as Yān-sì wǎn-zhōng [煙寺晚鐘] (Evening Bell at a Misty Temple), by the Song dynasty monk-painter Mùxī Fǎcháng [牧谿法常; 1210? ~ 1269?], is one such well-known example.

(The seal, in the lower left-hand corner, indicates that this scroll was added to the shōgun’s private collection of art during the time of Yoshimitsu (足利義満; 1358 ~ 1408], the third Ashikaga shōgun, at the time when chanoyu was being first introduced into Japan.)

Secular paintings were generally rejected because the original intention was to create a tableaux-like representation of Amida’s “Pure Land” (jìng-tǔ [淨土], jō-do in Japanese; which refers to the transcendental or celestial realm; the word is often translated “Paradise”) within the tokonoma. There were exceptions, as noted above, but in general the preference was overwhelmingly for paintings done by monkish artists.

†While Shukō is said to have hung a fragment of the text of a sermon by the Song dynasty monk Yuán-wù Kèqín [圜悟克勤; 1063 ~ 1135], editor and commentator on the Bì-yán lù [碧巖錄] (Heki-gan roku; Blue Cliff Records), said to have been given to him by Ikkyū Sōjun (this scroll is shown below), this anecdote only appeared during the sixteenth century, specifically as a justification for replacing Buddhist paintings with bokuseki, in the setting of wabi-no-chanoyu.

Whether or not it is true, we should also consider that, even if Shukō actually did hang this writing in his cell when serving tea, the idea of a tea-gathering -- a chakai in the sense in which Jōō used the word -- did not exist at that time: so Shukō’s hanging of this scroll would have been for personal inspiration, rather than as a decoration (in other words, to please or impress the monks who were coming there to take tea as his guests for tea).

‡Or could cause the guests to criticize the painting of flowers in comparison with the real ones.

Jōō’s idea contrasts, of course, with the original intention (as articulated by the great dōbō Nōami, and his grandson Sōami), where the pair of rikka [立華] arrangements (which were each intended to represent complete landscapes in miniature -- and can be seen, in the above sketch, on the left and right sides of the arrangement) were considered to extend the scene depicted in the paintings into the real world occupied by the guests. (The illustration is from the book entitled Higashiyama-dono o-kazari sho [東山殿御飾書], which was the Tokugawa bakufu’s official version of Sōami’s O-kazari ki [御飾記], which was intended as a guide for the correct appointment of the shōgun’s shoin.)

³Today the classical construction ni yorite [によりて = に依りて or に因りて] is usually abbreviated ni yotte [によって].

Both expressions mean “according to;” “due to;” “by (means of);” “because of;” “on the basis of;” “depending on;” “from one...to another;” “by virtue of” -- and so forth.

⁴In other words, mental activity, using the mind (an extended meaning of kokoro [心], which literally means heart); cogitation, mentation.

⁵Moro-kazari [諸飾] (which means “displaying everything together”) refers to the case where the scroll and chabana are arranged in the toko at the same time.

While (today) moro-kazari is something that the modern schools argue should only be attempted in the shoin setting, on the occasion when Rikyū essentially created the hakobi-chakai [運び茶會]*, he arranged the chabana with the kakemono (during the goza) in the most wabi setting available at that time. ___________ *This was on the occasion of Jōō’s first visit to his home -- as a thank you for Jōō’s having purchased all of Rikyū’s imported utensils, and so restored Rikyū’s house (or at least his branch of the family) to something resembling financial security.

When Jōō took away Rikyū’s collection of tea utensils, he gave him several other utensils (as a sort of consolation prize -- to encourage Rikyū to continue with the practice of chanoyu, while also subtly shooing him away from the more performative aspects of tea, since none of these utensils were “worthy” of being used when serving tea to important guests): among which were the (cracked and repaired) Shukō chawan, and the maki-e large natsume (decorated with turtle-shell hexagons).

Since neither of these things were appropriate for display, when Jōō entered Rikyū’s wabi 4.5-mat room for the shoza (the smaller rooms had not yet been created), it contained only the kama in the ro, and a bokuseki hanging in the toko; and when Jōō returned for the goza, he found that Rikyū had simply added the chabana to the kakemono, with nothing else in the room but the kama boiling in the ro. Rikyū carried all of the other utensils out at the beginning of his temae, and then took them all back to the preparation area when the temae was concluded. So even though this was an extremely wabi kind of gathering, Rikyū still employed moro-kazari during the goza (in order to change the kane-wari count from the yin two to the yang three).

⁶Indeed, modern scholarly commentators often complain that there are far too many occasions when a flower arrangement was not mentioned in Rikyū’s notes, and so argue that the documenting of the flower arrangement must have been considered unimportant -- even though, on those occasions when Rikyū does so, the detailed nature of his account (even when the flowers were nothing special or carried any significance to the gathering as a whole) belies their (wholly anachronistic) reasoning.

⁷Rikyū insisted on using flowers that were absolutely “of the moment” in the place where the gathering was being held. Thus, to him, bringing a flower from some other place -- even if it was only a short walk away -- was entirely out of the question.

The flowers had to be growing within the same compound as the room where tea was going to be served. As a result, Rikyū grew a small selection of flowering plants in his kitchen garden*. And, as for the question of whether to display the flower in a kake-hanaire, or in one that was arranged on the floor of the toko, this was determined by the actual height of the flower when Rikyū cut it. And if there were no flowers blooming, or in bud, on the morning of the day when Rikyū was planning to serve tea, then no chabana was present during the chakai.

Thus, his reason for not including a flower arrangement did not always have anything to do with the subject matter of the scroll -- though this also could have been part of the reason on certain occasions†. ___________ *This was an area near the rear wall that surrounded the compound where fresh vegetables would be heeled in so they could continue growing until needed, in the days before refrigeration made it possible to store them in the kitchen. This is why, in traditional vegetable markets in East Asia, leaf vegetables are still often sold with their roots intact.

†Rikyū seems to have had a preference for writings over paintings. The paintings he is recorded to have hung during his chakai were all at gatherings when he was entertaining guests on behalf of Hideyoshi -- so he may have been following Hideyoshi’s directions on those occasions.

⁸More literally, “there are (or should be) no grassy flowers.”

⁹When most of the other collections of the Hundred Poems were set down for posterity.

¹⁰The Tokugawa bakufu set down the basic formula for chanoyu gatherings at which a representative of the government was a participant, and the dichotomy of shoza-kakemono, goza-chabana* was thus established as a feature of the gathering that was held in the wabi small room. ___________ *At night, these could be reversed. But one part of the gathering had to include a flower arrangement, and the other a hanging scroll of some sort.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

❖ As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more important, since this blog is my only source of income. Please donate, if you can.

0 notes

chanoyu-to-wa · 1 month ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 109.

〽 Usu-ita no nagami isshaku san-sun go-bu yoko-no-hirosa ha ku-sun to zo kiku

[薄板の長み一尺三寸五分橫の廣さは九寸とぞ聞く].

“The length of the usu-ita [薄板] is 1-shaku 3-sun 5-bu; and the breadth of the width is 9-sun -- that is what [I] have heard.”

The usu-ita [薄板] is the board that is placed under a hanaire when it is stood on the floor of the toko. The usuita protects the tatami from being damaged by moisture seeping from the hanaire, or dripping from the flowers.

Today, a number of different kinds of boards are used as usu-ita -- which are often classified as shin [眞], gyō [行], or sō [草] -- but Jōō and Rikyū used only one board (regardless of the hanaire that they were going to use), which was derived from the Gassan-nagabon [月山長盆]¹ that was used for gokushin tea.

Nagami isshaku san-sun go-bu yoko-no-hirosa ha ku-sun [長み一尺三寸五分橫の廣さは九寸]: nagami [長み] means the length, the longer dimension; yoko-no-hirosa [橫の廣さ] means the breadth (or size) of the lesser dimension, or width.

Measured across the rims, the Gassan-nagabon is 1-shaku 3-sun 2-bu by 9-sun 2-bu. Whether for poetic reasons, or because the measurements of his copy of the Gassan nagabon differed slightly from the original, the dimensions described in this poem -- 1-shaku 3-sun 5-bu by 9-sun -- have been rounded to the nearest half-sun (5-bu).

Jōō’s and Rikyū’s usu-ita was painted with shin-nuri.

Then, as now, the edges of this usu-ita were notched. Jōō’s idea being to replicate the edge of the Gassan-nagabon in miniature (this means that the upper side of the board is slightly wider than the lower, as shown above²).

To zo kiku [とぞ聞く]: means (I) have heard (people) say.... In other words, Jōō is stating that he received this teaching from an earlier generation of chajin -- which would give the statement greater credibility. In fact, it appears that the usu-ita was actually created by Jōō, since there are no historical accounts of such a board ever being placed underneath a hanaire prior to his use of an usu-ita in his own tea room³.

An usu-ita is used only when the floor of the tokonoma is covered with a tatami mat. When the toko has an uncovered wooden floor, an usu-ita should never be used⁴.

This poem is found only in Jōō’s Matsu-ya manuscript, and Rikyū’s Tenshō 8 [天正八年] (1580) rescript⁵.

_________________________

¹The Gassan-nagabon is the large tray that was originally used for the gokushin-temae (where, during the temae, it functions as the chaire-bon, supporting the chaire, the chashaku, the chasen, and the chakin*).

Jōō acquired a copy of the Gassan-nagabon that was made by Haneda Gorō [羽田五郎; dates unknown, but active during the second half of the fifteenth century], in the time of Ashikaga Yoshimasa; though whether this was the tray that he had made for Yoshimasa, or another made for someone else, is unclear†.

Jōō, however, did not use the tray to perform the gokushin-temae because, he said, he was unable to acquire the other utensils that were used for it‡. Rather, he placed it under his bronze hanaire (as shown above) when displaying it on the floor of the toko**. This practice ultimately lead to the creation of Jōō’s usu-ita (which imitates the side of the tray in miniature). ___________ *The original Chinese Gassan-nagabon was made to resemble a framed painting, with the elements of the painting indicating where each of the utensils was to be rested during the temae (the mother-of-pearl inlay representing a full moon in the very center of the tray [where the chaire was to be stood]; on the right, a mountain village [chakin] with high mountains behind [chasen]; and, on the left, a band of mounted guards, the leader of whom carried a polearm decorated with a tassel of horsehair [over which the chashaku was laid]).

†The original Gassan-nagabon, along with the Kamakura-nasu [鎌倉茄子], the Kazan-temmoku [花山天目] and its black-lacquered meibutsu temmoku-dai, the lid of the seiji unryū-mizusashi [青磁雲龍水指], and most of the remainder of Yoshimasa’s personal collection of tea utensils and scrolls, were destroyed when Yoshimasa’s storehouse was burned down by the supporters of his younger brother (who had been replaced as Yoshimasa’s presumptive heir by Yoshimasa’s newborn son) in the incident that precipitated the Ōnin wars.

The loss of this tray made it difficult for Yoshimasa to continue practicing chanoyu thereafter. However, it eventually came to light that an ancestor of Hosokawa Sansai, who was then a lowly official in the shogun’s archives, had preserved the dimensions of the six meibutsu trays, and it was based on this information that Yoshimasa ordered the foremost lacquer craftsman, Haneda Gorō to recreate the six trays (albeit painted with Gorō’s special kagami-nuri [鏡塗り], since replicating the different Chinese lacquer techniques of the originals would have been near-impossible in the absence of detailed records). The tray made for Yoshimasa would have been as close to the original measurements as possible. Perhaps trays produced for other people were less carefully made (for the same reason that Rikyū changed the dimensions of the shin-daisu itself after 1586 -- to prevent others from attempting to replicate the details of the secret temae). The tiny differences in the measurements can, then, be explained if we assume that Jōō had acquired one of these other trays.

‡The original chaire and temmoku had been destroyed, of course. But, that being said, after receiving the copy of the Gassan-nagabon from Haneda Gorō, Yoshimasa resumed practicing the gokushin-temae using a different chaire and temmoku (since it was the size of these things that was the important detail).

This reticence suggests that Jōō simply did not know how to perform the gokushin-temae (indeed, it was for this information that he had been wont to pester Kitamuki Dōchin, apparently without success) -- since he is known to have owned chaire and temmoku that were of the correct sizes.

**He also placed it on the mat below his tsuri-bune -- which was suspended on a chain from the ceiling of the toko -- to catch any drops of water that might drip from the boat (which, he asserted, should always be liberally splashed with water -- because such was the nature of boats).

²This is what gave the board the name by which it is commonly known today: Yahazu-ita [矢筈板] -- where the notch is likened to the nock (yahazu [矢筈]) of an arrow. And though, as mentioned above, the top and bottom sides were not equal on Jōō’s (and Rikyū’s) usu-ita, the name yahazu-ita resulted in some people insisting that they should be equal (resulting in boards that are, in this way, different from Jōō's prototype).

Both types of Yahazu-ita are seen today.

³Earlier references, dating back to Nōami’s Kun-dai kan sa-u chō-ki [君臺觀左右帳記], always state that a tray of some sort should be placed underneath a hanaire* when it is displayed on the chigai-dana, or on the dashi-fuzukue. During that early period, things like the hanaire were never displayed at mat-level†. ___________ *The original reason for doing so seems to be that bronze vessels like hanaire were often cast without a bottom, which was soldered on later. Because of this, water could sometimes seep out of bronze hanaire, so the tray prevented the hanaire from leaving a ring on the writing desk or shelf.

†In other words, some sort of stand or table was always used underneath, to elevate the things arranged in the tokonoma to the eye-level of the viewer.

⁴The reader should not confuse the usu-ita with a ka-dai [花臺 or 華臺], such as the one that Rikyū used in his Mozuno ko-yashiki, or Furuta Sōshitsu when displaying the hanaire on the floor of a room that lacked a toko (this arrangement, in a room that lacks a toko, is referred to as the Oribe toko [織部床]).

Even though the recess in that small room was wood-floored (with ordinary floor boards), the floor was raised only to the same level as the surface of the mats on which the guests and host would sit. Consequently, it was necessary to elevate the hanaire to the same level as if it were displayed on an usu-ita in an ordinary toko (which is a sort of jō-dan [上段], an elevated floor) -- so that the flowers could be viewed properly. In such settings, the host should place a low stand* on the mat, to effectuate the elevation of the hanaire. ___________ *Rikyū’s kara-ki ka-dai [唐木華臺] was 2-sun 4-bu high (meaning the hanaire placed on it would be oriented in the same way as if standing on an usu-ita in a toko that was 2-sun high -- though a toko of this dimension seems rather low).

Oribe’s shu-nuri kara-mono kadai [朱塗唐物華臺] is approximately 3-sun 5-bu high (which would elevate the hanaire to something closer to what is seen in the average tea room of his time).

A suitable size would be something between these two extremes.

⁵It is difficult to ascertain whether its absence from the Jōō manuscript reviewed by Katagiri Sadamasa was the result of Jōō’s subsequent self-censorship, or whether Sekishū (or someone else) chose to eliminate it (because it went so strongly against contemporary preferences -- even those that were developing during Jōō’s lifetime).

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

❖ As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more necessary than heretofore, since this blog is my only source of income. Please donate, if you can.

0 notes

chanoyu-to-wa · 1 month ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 108.

〽 Kōgō to kan to habōki oku-toki ha migi-ba hidari-ba gimmi-shite oku

[香合と鐶と羽箒置く時は右羽左羽吟味して置く].

“When placing the kōgō or¹ kan with the habōki, [you] have to examine [the habōki] closely [to determine whether it is made from] right-feathers, [or] left-feathers, when setting them [on the shelf].”

Migi-ba [右羽]² means a feather, or feathers³, taken from the right side of a bird -- these feathers are widest on the right side of the rachis.

In Rikyū’s Nomura Sokaku-ate no densho [野村宗覺宛の傳書]⁴, the arrangements of the kōgō (left) and kan (right) with a migi-bane habōki are shown in this way:

In other words, the kōgō and kan are to be placed on the right side of the habōki -- in the latter case, with the widest part of the feathers overlapping the kan, as shown.

Hidari-ba [左羽]⁵ refers to a habōki made from feathers taken from the left side of a bird. Such feathers are widest on the left side of the rachis.

When placed on the shelf together with a hidari-bane habōki, the kōgō and kan should be disposed as shown below.

Again, the arrangement of the habōki together with the kōgō is shown on the left, while that where it has been placed with the kan is shown in the right sketch.

Because the way the utensils should be arranged depends on the nature of the feathers from which the habōki was made, it is important for the host to ascertain (ginmi-suru [吟味する]⁶) whether it is a migi-bane or hidari-bane before proceeding to lay out the arrangement.

Once again, this is another poem that is found in both Jōō’s Matsu-ya manuscript, and in the Jōō collection that was preserved by Katagiri Sadamasa.

The differences between Sadamasa’s version and what is found in Jōō’s manuscript are synonymic, and so do not have any bearing on the actual sense of the poem:

〽 kōgō no kwan no habōki kazari-okaba migi-ba hidari-ba ginmi-shite oke

[香箱のくわんの羽箒かざりをかば右羽左羽吟味してをけ].

“If [one] is going to place the kōgō⁷, the kan⁸, on display together with the habōki, [you] must⁹ scrutinize closely [to determine if it is made from] right-feathers [or] left-feathers, when placing them [on the shelf].”

_________________________

¹The particle to [と] should more literally be translated “and.” However, this might lead to the impression that both the kōgō and kan can be arranged with the habōki at the same time -- which is never the case.

²Migi-ba [右羽] is more usually read migi-bane. Migi-ba seems to have been used for poetic reasons (i.e., syllabic count).

Migi-bane are widest on the right side of the rachis, as can be seen above.

³Ordinary habōki are made from three feathers*, joined together at their calami† by a handle -- that may be either made of dried bamboo-sheath or wood (usually lacquered)‡.

The ultra-wabi ichi-wa [一羽] habōki, however, which was created by Sen no Dōan**, is made from a single feather, without a handle.

Ordinary habōki are made either using migi-bane [右羽] (right feathers) or hidari-bane [左羽] (left feathers). Habōki made from migi-bane are used with the furo; those made from hidari-bane are to be used with the ro††.

Habōki made from three identical central tail-feathers (which are symmetrical -- the left and right sides are of identical width, and are called moro-bane [雙羽], as seen above) were originally the preferred habōki for use with the daisu‡‡.

Habōki intended for use in the larger rooms are made from feathers that are between 8-sun and 1-shaku long; those for the small room should have feathers 5-sun long, and are consequently known as go-sun-hane [五寸羽]***. ___________ *The three feathers were originally supposed to be absolutely identical in size and shape, if not pattern. Today it is almost impossible to find habōki made like this. Rather, the top and bottom feathers are roughly the same size (though the bottom feather has an inferior color or pattern), while the one in the middle is smaller, and in every way inferior to the other two. This reflects the way that chanoyu has evolved from the early days down to the present (where appearance is more important than the true nature of things).

†The calamus (plural calami), sometimes called the shaft, is the lower part of a feather which lacks barbs, and which terminates in a point.

‡The handle of the original habōki was always lacquered. Some scholars ascribe this kind of habōki to Jōō, but it almost certainly predates him by decades, if not centuries.

The handle covered with bamboo sheath (which usually has a wooden core) is said to have been first made by either Jōō, or Rikyū.

The wood, in either type of handle, is bored with three holes into which the calami fit, and into which they are glued.

**The story is told that the teenaged Dōan (at a time when the family’s finances had not yet been stabilized) found an old mayu-buro [眉風爐] in the local dump, that had been thrown away because the mayu had been broken. He took it home, and cut away the remaining parts of the mayu, so that the sides of the hi-mado extended in a straight line up to the rim; after which he rubbed it with several coats of lacquer, and so used it for the style of wabi-no-chanoyu that he practiced.

Because this furo had been a broken piece, he felt it was wrong to use an ordinary habōki with it, so he found a large right-feather, and used that, without a handle, as his habōki when serving tea with this furo.

††Cf. poem 41:

〽 habōki ha furo ni migi-bane wo ro-toki ha hidari-bane wo ba tsukau to zo shiru

[羽箒は風爐に右羽を爐時は左羽をば使うとぞ知る].

“With respect to the habōki, in [the case of] the furo, [it should be] a migi-bane; [but] when using the ro, a hidari-bane should certainly be used: [you should] understand [this]!”

The URL for the post entitled the Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part II: Poem 41, which discusses the relevant poem, is:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/755652293596217344/the-chanoyu-hyaku-shu-%E8%8C%B6%E6%B9%AF%E7%99%BE%E9%A6%96-part-ii-poem-41

‡‡It is extremely difficult to find three central tail feathers -- which would have had to come from three different birds -- that are identical in every way. Thus moro-bane habōki were always exceedingly rare, and very costly.

While it was originally taught that the habōki (like the chasen, chakin, hishaku, and chashaku) should be used only once, the rarity and high price of the moro-bane habōki argued against this practice, so that such things would be kept carefully, and reused whenever appropriate. This eventually became accepted practice for all habōki.

***Because this was the rule from Rikyū’s day until the beginning of the Edo period, habōki made from the larger, beautiful feathers were either thrown away, or else put into storage.

Beginning in the early Edo period, when antiques were preferred, people began to search their storehouses, to find old utensils that had fallen out of favor during Rikyū’s push for simplicity. And since the only habōki found in storage were those made from the larger feathers, people started using them even in the small room. As a result, while not really unknown today, go-sun-hane [五寸羽] are rarely seen in modern chanoyu.

Also, because the ro was originally supposed to be used in the small room all year round, ordinary go-sun-hane are made from hidari-bane, even today. But after the use of the furo (during the summer months) came to be accepted in that setting (during the summer of 1587), go-sun-hane made from migi-bane came to be the appropriate habōki to use in the small room with the furo.

⁴The Nomura Sōkaku-ate no densho [野村宗覺宛の傳書] is dated “an auspicious day” in the Ninth Month of Tenshō 9 (which was the Year of the Snake)*.

Though the identification of Nomura Sōkaku with the military man Nomura Naotaka [野村直隆; his dates are unknown†] is tenuous, it is not unreasonable, given his period and well-documented associations‡.

Naotaka is first mentioned (c. Eiroku 13 [永祿十三年], 1570) as being an adherent of the daimyō Asai Nagamasa [淺井長政; 1545 ~ 1573]; though, after the defeat of the Asai clan (at the hands of Oda Nobunaga), he joined Nobunaga, and then continued to serve Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who gave him a fief of 20,000 koku at Kunitomo [國友], in Omi Province [近江國], present day Shiga prefecture. Kunitomo was famous for the production of firearms during the Sengoku-jidai, which suggests that Hideyoshi considered Nomura Naotaka to be a man worthy of considerable trust; and, given Hideyoshi’s passion for chanoyu (which was shared by his entire court), it is logical to conclude that Naotaka, too, would have cultivated an interest in tea -- and so been an appropriate recipient of the densho in question**.

He participated, with Hideyoshi and Rikyū, in the Battle of Odawara, leading a contingent of Hideyoshi’s musketeers; and at the Battle of Sekigahara, he fought on the side of Hideyoshi’s heir, Hidenori, and Ishida Mitsunari. Naotaka disappears from history after that battle, though the exact year in which he died, or the circumstances of his death, are unknown.

In the Rikyū Daijiten [利休大事典] (Tankōsha, 1989), a similar text is reproduced under the name Tenshō 9-nen ki-mei no densho [天正九年記銘の傳書]††. __________ *Tenshō ku[-nen] mi no ku-gatsu kichi-nichi [天正九巳ノ九月吉日].

Other copies of the document date it to Tenshō 13 [天正十三], 1585, which would establish Nomura Naotaka firmly in Hideyoshi’s court.

The original document appears to have been in an extremely poor state of preservation when it was inspected by Suzuki Keiichi, which is why he copied the drawings, and much of the text, from later copies of the densho.

†The first historical mention of Nomura Naotaka is dated to sometime in 1570, at which time he was already a military man of some standing (suggesting he was firmly in his middle years).

The last puts him at Sekigahara, in the ranks of Ishida Mitsunari’s Western Army, though the implication is that he survived the battle and the immediate fallout that rained down on the more prominent members of the losing side.

‡The name Sōkaku would have been a religious name, of the sort used in the context of chanoyu, while the surviving information paints Naotaka in an exclusively military context, with the only side note being that he retired from public affairs and became nyūdō toward the end of his life (though the actual name that he assumed in his retirement has not been recorded -- he is referred to only as Higo-nyūdō [肥後入道], which, of course, was simply a reference to his having served as governor of Higo province, in west-central Kyūshū).

**The Nomura Sokaku-ate no densho has a certain focus on practices that might best be associated with the larger rooms, rooms such as Hideyoshi and his courtiers might be received on formal occasions -- a class of sahō [作法] that a courtier would be required to master. Since nothing that is known about Naotaka would lead us to believe that he and Hideyoshi were on intimate terms (and so would have reason to enjoy chanoyu in the small room setting), Rikyū’s focus on the more formal settings is completely understandable.

††This appears to be a generic copy of the densho from Rikyū’s personal archive. (It appears that Rikyū, perhaps because of his dyslexia over the Japanese language, wrote a basic draft of each of his densho first, which he then personalized before sending a copy to each of the disciples who had requested it -- and this Tenshō 9-nen ki-mei no densho was the document from which Rikyū adapted the text of his Nomura Sokaku-ate no densho.)

Both versions of this densho were translated earlier in this blog.

⁵Hidari-ba [左羽] is more usually read hidari-bane. Hidari-ba was probably used by Jōō because he needed a word with four syllables.

Feathers of this sort are widest on the left side of the rachis.

⁶Ginmi-suru [吟味する] means to examine closely, scrutinize.

⁷Kōgō [香箱] could also be read kō-bako (without any change to the syllabic count of the line). Both kanji-compounds (and pronunciations) were used interchangeably during the sixteenth century.

⁸Kōgō no kan no [香箱のくわんの]: this use of the particle no [の] is similar to using the particle ga [が] (which indicates the subject of the verb), albeit in the context of a subordinate phrase. In other words, both of these items (kōgō, kan) are subjects, albeit subordinate to the habōki (since that is the subject of the verbs okaba [をかば = 置かば] and oke [をけ = 置け], and to which the text of the shimo-no-ku [下の句], refers).

⁹The verb oke [をけ = 置け] is a command, indicating that the host must look carefully to ascertain the kind of habōki he is using before arranging the kōgo or kan with it.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

❖ As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more necessary than heretofore, since this blog is my only source of income. Please donate, if you can.

2 notes · View notes

chanoyu-to-wa · 1 month ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 107.

〽 Gedai aru-mono no hon nado miru-toki ha kōsha ni gedai misete hirake yo

[外題あるものヽ本など見るときは功者に外題みせてひらけよ].

“When inspecting something like a book -- or some other such [object] -- that has a gedai [外題], the most skillful [among the guests] should first show the gedai [to the others], and [only] then spread [the book] open [so they all may examine its contents together].”

The word gedai [外題] is usually understood as meaning a title. However, in this context it is referring specifically to the case where the book (or scroll) has its title¹ written on the cover -- usually on a slip of paper that is pasted onto the outer-facing side, as can be seen below.

In this example, we can see a gedai has been attached to the cover of the Waka-murasaki [わかむらさき = 若紫] volume (which is chapter, or book, 5), of the ao-byoshi bon [靑表紙本] edition of the Genji monogatari [源氏物語].

The gedai (and, indeed, the entire text of this series) was written by Fujiwara no Sadaie [藤原定家; 1162 ~ 1241] (he is also known as Fujiwara Teika). The present poem is referring to occasions when books of this sort are displayed during the tea gathering -- whether that may be in the toko², or on the chigai-dana in a shoin³.

Hon nado [本など]: in addition to books (hon [本]), certain scrolls⁴ (including both horizontal handscrolls, makimono [巻物], and scrolls that were intended to be displayed hanging in the toko -- that is, kakemono) also are adorned with gedai of this type.

Miru-toki [見るとき] refers to what is currently called haiken [拜見] -- that is, the formal inspection of something that is displayed in the tea room.

Kōsha [功者] means a skillful person, someone (in this context) who is well versed in the conventions and techniques associated with chanoyu⁵.

Kōsha ni gedai misete hirake yo [功者に外題みせてひらけよ]: this shimo-no-ku [下の句]⁶ contains two directives:

- first, the kōsha should handle⁷ the book or scroll in such a way that everyone will be able to see and read the gedai⁸;

- and, after they are satisfied, he should lay the book or scroll down on the floor of the tea room, and open it carefully (and as fully as possible⁹), so that everyone will be able to inspect the work closely¹⁰.

When everyone is finished, the book or scroll should be closed up again, and returned to the toko¹¹.

In addition to being found in the Matsu-ya manuscript, this poem was also included (in a slightly altered form¹²) in the Jōō collection that was preserved by Katagiri Sekishū.

_________________________

¹Even the word “title” needs to be taken with a grain of salt, at least when speaking about books and scrolls from the fifteenth century, since often it was the identity of the author or artist that was being certified on the gedai, rather than the title of the work*. __________ *Which would usually have been irrelevant, since such details would only rarely accompany the document across the numerous changes of hands though which it would have passed before finally ending up in the shōgun’s collection -- hence any title of this sort would have been subjective at best.

When such an identification was included on the gedai, it was most often a simple, and usually generic, description of the work -- such as byaku-i Kannon [白衣觀音] (“white-robed Kannon”) for the portrait of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara that acts as the chū-zon [中尊] (central figure) in the famous triptych Byaku-i Kannon, saru, tsuru [白衣觀音、猿、鶴] that is preserved in the Daitoku-ji, Kyōto.

²While it would be possible to place the book or books* on the floor of the toko, it was considered better form to display them on a tray, or on a stand of some sort†. ___________ *Generally it was preferred for the entire set to be displayed at one time, rather than just a single volume (if the host actually owned all of them).

†Jōō created his Jōō-dana [紹鷗棚], shown below, for just this kind of purpose.

Books and the like were usually displayed on the naka-dana (though, according to the circumstances, they could also be arranged on the top shelf, or even placed within the ji-fukuro. While it is possible that the tana may have been moved to the utensil mat during the naka-dachi, surviving records are unclear; though it seems that Jōō considered this tana to be mostly a display tana, rather than one that was used on the utensil mat during the temae.

Jōō primarily used the kiri-kiji [桐木地] fukuro-dana [袋棚] (which was derived from the Shino-dana [志野棚] that was used by the Shino family at their kō-kai [香會]) on the utensil mat, and it is to this kiri-kiji fukuro-dana that the famous Daikoku-an uta [大黒庵歌] -- as well as most of the mentions of a tana in Jōō’s kai-ki -- referred.

³Displaying a book in the small room, in particular, was something that was virtually unheard of* prior to the beginning of the Edo period -- when all of the rules and conventions that separated the small room from the shoin† were beginning to degenerate into the confused state that they still exist in today. ___________ *Probably because most of the books that would have been worthy of display were also secular themed, something that would have been inappropriate to the setting. However, even though Rikyū owned an original manuscript copy of the Bìyán lù [碧巖錄] (Hekigan-roku), written by Yuánwù Kèqín [圓悟克勤; 1063 ~ 1135] himself, he seems to have displayed it only on the dashi-fuzukue in the shoin of his residence.

†Unfortunately, the use of the bon-chaire in the small room was something that Rikyū himself appears to have been responsible for. And once the separation between the shoin and the ko-zashiki had been breached, it was probably inevitable that other chajin would claim this as a precedent (since Rikyū and Jōō had jointly defined the rules governing chanoyu in the small room months before Jōō’s death, leaving it in Rikyū’s hands to see to their enforcement throughout the tea world), and take it forward step by step.

⁴In the case of makimono [巻物], which are always unrolled toward the right, the gedai should be attached to the upper part of the byōshi [表紙] (the piece of cloth that is pasted to the back side of the scroll, to protect the scroll when it is rolled up -- this cloth panel on the back side of the scroll is also called the maki-ginu [巻絹]), as shown below.

In the case of makimono, the maki-ginu is usually a heavier, and more elaborate, variety of cloth, such as Chinese brocade (nishiki [錦]) -- something that will afford the scroll the maximum level of protection..

As for kakemono, the gedai is supposed to be attached to the same side as that on which the artist or calligrapher’s name-seal was impressed on the obverse of the work.

The maki-ginu pasted onto the back side of kakemono is traditionally a thin, pale-blue-colored silk (kinu [絹]), because this type of cloth is very light-weight, yet stronger (and so offering better protection) than it might appear to be.

In both of these cases, the gedai is attached near the maki-ita [巻板] (the half-roller to which the maki-o [巻緒], the cord that ties the scroll shut when in storage, is attached).

⁵When something like a book (or, more usually, a set of books) was displayed in the tea room, or a scroll that had a gedai was displayed so that the guests could read the gedai*, the object was usually inspected after being opened on the floor of the tea room -- which allowed everyone to look at it closely and carefully -- and only then (in the case of a kakemono) was it hung up in the toko (from which the guests were usually separated during the usual haiken). As an understanding of how to do these things would only be acquired over time, this poem informs us that the best trained among the members should take responsibility for helping the others†. __________ *In the case of meibutsu scrolls (especially those that came from the shōgun’s collection), the gedai was usually written by one of the dōbō-shū [同朋衆] (the primarily Korean group of “companions” -- who left Korea during the collapse of the Goryeo dynasty, subsequently gaining employment in Japan as cultural advisers -- and their direct descendants). The advice of such foreign experts was necessary because many of the Chinese paintings that had been brought to Japan over the years either lacked a signature (often because they were too large to be hung in Japan, so they had been cut into pieces), or other information, and the gedai provided this missing information -- information that nobody in Japan was competent to ascertain -- as well as certifying their authenticity. (The shōgunal and imperial archives had also accumulated many forgeries, and works of low quality, because the Japanese connoisseurs lacked the competence to judge them. Part of the dōbō-shū’s duties was also to weed out these inferior pieces, and so improve the quality of the collection as a whole.)

†He would be able to insure that everyone was satisfied, while also making sure that no damage was done to the precious book or scroll as a result of inexperienced handling by one of the other guests.

⁶The second (or lower) “half” of the traditional waka structure, containing two lines with 7 syllables each. In the Chanoyu hyaku shu [茶湯百首], the shimo-no-ku frequently answers or clarifies the proposition that was stated in the kami-no-ku [上の句] (the first or upper part of the poem, consisting of three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively).

⁷Usually by taking the object down from the toko or shelf where it had been displayed, and holding it up so that the others could see the gedai clearly. A person who is skilled in chanoyu will know how to do this so that the scroll or book will not be damaged during the inspection process.

⁸Gedai misete [外題みせて], being past tense, would therefore be translated “after showing (them) the gedai....”

⁹“Accordion books” (ori-hon [折本], “folding book”), horizontal scrolls, and kakemono, could all be opened fully, if the space in the room permits*. Bound books would have to be leafed through, though this should be done carefully (with only the kōsha actually touching the document with his hands). __________ *This was another reason why such things were not displayed in the small rooms -- since there was not enough room on the floor for them to be opened, and so appreciated, as they deserved.

¹⁰The verb hiraku [披く] means to spread something out, unfold it, open it (literally, with the sense of opening a book*).

Hirake yo [披けよ] is a command: “(the kōsha) should spread it out (on the floor of the tea room).”. __________ *Rather than, for example, opening a door (which would use the homophonous verb hiraku [開く]).

¹¹The host usually comes out into the room during the inspection process, so that he can answer any of the guests’ questions*.

In the case of a scroll, after the kōsha has rolled it back up again, the host will take it from him, and hang it up in the toko. Books might be returned to their former place (until the naka-dachi), or the host may choose to take them out to the katte (so they will not distract the guests during the rest of the gathering†).

That said, entries in documents from the sixteenth century, such as the Matsu-ya kaiki [松屋會記] and Tennōji-ya kaiki [天王寺屋會記], suggest that the host was not always disposed to do so‡.

And in the case of the multi-character bokuseki (such as the Tōyo bokuseki [東與墨跡] shown above, written by the Yuan period monk Dōnglíng Yǒng-yú [東陵永璵; 1285 ~ 1365]**), the result was often that the guests had little or no understanding of what the text actually said††. __________ *Today, many schools teach that the host should come out and take responsibility for handling the precious object himself -- thereby relieving one of the guests from the responsibility of any damage that might ensue during the inspection process.

†The worry being, perhaps, that the guests might try to inspect the book again when they are leaving the room for the naka-dachi. This might not only throw the timing of the whole gathering off (an important consideration in Rikyū’s gatherings, since the fire was supposed to be built, at the beginning of the shoza, to last until the service of usucha was concluding, so a delay of this sort might mean the fire would begin to fail too early), but also risk the book’s being damaged through careless handling (since one of the other guests might take it upon himself to look at it, and in the hurry to do so after the others had left cause serious damage to the book).

For this reason, it was usually thought best to remove the book to the katte once everyone had had the chance to look at it.

‡There is perhaps an implication that he kept himself absent because he did not understand the text either, so he could therefore avoid uncomfortable questions.

In many of these instances, the guests seem to have gotten no farther than the first line, or even just the first five or six kanji, before giving up.

**His name is pronounced Tōryō Eiyo in Japanese, so the name for this scroll was composed of the first (to [東]) and last (yo [璵]) kanji of his name.

††This was perhaps the primary reason why bokuseki of this sort came to be rarely used as the Edo period dawned -- put aside in favor of ichi-gyō-mono [一行物], where the text is limited to a single line of five or seven kanji (since such brief texts were easier to grasp).

Even though it is the custom to hang a kakemono during the shoza, nobody -- neither foreigners nor Japanese practitioners -- should ever do so if they do not understand what the writing means. It would be better to leave the toko empty, than utterly loose face should the guests ask for an explanation.

¹²The Sekishū version (which could plausibly have been composed by Jōō for another of the collections of the Hundred Poems that he prepared for one of his other disciples*) reads as follows:

〽 gedai aru-mono no hon nado miru-toki ha hajime ni gedai misete hirake yo

[外題あるものヽ本など見る時ハはじめに外題見せて披けよ].

“When inspecting something like a book that has a gedai [外題] -- or some other such [object] -- first show the gedai, and [only] then open [the book].”

This is the rule that is taught, even today. ___________ *Matsu-ya Hisamasa [松屋久政; 1521 ~ 1598], who was a year older than Rikyū (though he commenced his studies with Jōō several years after Rikyū had begun to study gokushin-no-chanoyu with Kitamuki Dōchin) appears to have been a complete novice when his association with Jōō began. Thus the Matsu-ya manuscript version of the poem may have been tailored to guide the rank beginner -- by dissuading him from even considering to handle the precious book by himself.

This other version would have been appropriate for someone with more experience -- not necessarily someone possessed of the requisite skill, but rather someone experienced enough that he would recognize his limitations, and so be ready and willing to defer to someone who was more experienced under the circumstances.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

As the international exchange rate continues to collapse, your help is even more necessary than heretofore. Please donate, if you can.

2 notes · View notes

chanoyu-to-wa · 2 months ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 106.

〽 Kanshō ha hajime mitsu ni ato futatsu awasete itsutsu-utsu to koso kike

[喚鐘は初め三ツに後二ツ合せて五ツ打つとこそ聞け].

“With respect to the kanshō [喚鐘], at first [it is struck] three [times], and afterward, two [times more]: added together they make five strokes -- make sure you do [things] just like that!”

Kanshō [喚鐘]: the name is a compound, composed of the kanji kan [喚] (meaning to call, summon, or invite), and shō [鐘] (which refers to a clapperless bell that is sounded by being struck on its side with a wooden mallet). While often described as a prayer bell (and, in the present day, often presented as such¹), the name makes it clear that the kanshō is a variety of tsuri-gane [釣り鐘] intended for use as a signal bell (which was hung above the veranda on the outward-facing side of the monk’s dormitory) that was sounded to call the monks in from the fields² -- as well as signaling to the meditation group that they should begin their return from the transcendent realm -- for convocations (communal prayers, and meals).

Hajime mitsu ni [初め三ツに]: hajime [初め] means at first, in the beginning; mitsu [三ツ] means three, indicating the first group of strokes with which the kanshō is sounded. The particle ni [に] implies that this group of three strokes will be joined to another group.

Ato futatsu [後二ツ]: ato [後] means later, afterward, subsequently; futatsu [後二ツ] means two (strokes). This is the second group.

Awasete itsutsu-utsu [合せて五ツ打つ] means “added together (awasete [合せて]) these make (a total of) five strokes (itsutsu-utsu [五ツ打つ]).”

To koso kike [とこそ聞け] means “pay attention (kike [聞け]³) that you do it exactly like that (to koso [とこそ]).

Since ancient times, the shō has traditionally been struck five times: three strokes in more or less rapid succession (the purpose of which was to catch the monks’ attention), followed by two clear and distinct strokes (which confirmed the signal): the musical structure (based on what I have personally heard used in the temple context) is as represented below:

The volume of each stroke should be similar -- that is, the host should not try to do anything to make any of the strokes louder or softer than the others⁴ (as, for example, is done deliberately when sounding the dora [銅鑼]⁵).

It seems that the kanshō was, historically speaking, the original kind of narimono [鳴り物] used to summon the guests into the tea room for the service of tea⁶. In contrast, using the dora [銅鑼] (and the practice of its being struck in such a way that the sound imitated that of a mountain temple’s bell at a distance, and its echo across the valley) only began to appear, among the machi-shū chajin of Sakai, during the sixteenth century.

The version of this poem that is found in the Matsu-ya manuscript confirms that this was Jōō’s original teaching on the way to strike the narimono (which would have been a kanshō, as he indicates) at tea gatherings. (The dora does not seem to have come to be used in chanoyu until very late in Jōō’s lifetime, or possibly not until after his death at the end of 1555.)

Katagiri Sadamasa recorded two different versions of this poem in his archive -- one, which preserves (and so confirms) Jōō’s original text; and another, which is supposed to represent Rikyū’s version (though this version differs from what is found in Rikyū’s Tenshō 8 [天正八年] rescript) -- and which, as quoted by Sekishū, is textually corrupt⁷ (as was explained in the post devoted to Poem 76, the URL for which is given below -- this is why it has been highlighted in purple, which is intended to indicate apocryphal or unsubstantiated versions of a poem).

_________________________

¹That is, they are suspended on a rack, like a prayer bell (as seen below), rather than hung from one of the rafters on the veranda, or above the dashi-fuzukue [出し文机]*.

The kanshō is always sounded by striking it with a small wooden mallet, called a shimoku [鐘木]† -- the length of the handle of which is determined by whether the bell is suspended on a stand (as above), or from a hook nailed into the ceiling (since the kanshō , regardless of its orientation, should always be sounded with the host seated on the floor). ___________ *Since the dashi-fuzukue projects out onto the veranda, suspending the shō from the ceiling erected over the writing desk oriented it in a similar manner as if it were hung from one of the braces that support the rafters, while protecting the bell (which, being made of bronze, had to be imported from either Korea or China, and so were very costly) from birds and the elements.

The paper-covered windows that enclose the dashi-fuzukue would not dampen the sound of the bell significantly when it was used to call the guests in for chanoyu. The bell was struck to call the guests in from the large reception room (typically on the second floor of a mansion) -- where, for example, they might be engaged in a poetry competition -- so they could be served tea (in small groups of three to five individuals) in the small shoin (on the ground floor).

†In temple contexts, the name is usually pronounced shumoku [シュモク = 鐘木] -- nevertheless, on the above sketch (showing a fragment of Nōami’s Kun-dai kan sa-u chō-ki [君臺觀左右帳記]) the name is clearly written in katakana as shimoku [シモク].

²Large monastic communities were effectively self-sufficient*, in so far as the necessities of life were concerned. Below the administrative level, the monks were divided into two congregations: one group pursued meditation, religious scholarship (for example, the study of the Buddhist sūtras, and their commentaries), and other associated activities, while the other group worked in the fields that surrounded the temple, and which provided its needs. Periodically, the members of the two groups changed sides, so that each monk spent half the year training, and half working for the upkeep of the institution. ___________ *While some may have had cloth-making facilities, it seems to have been more common that some of the produce and rice that were grown was taken to market and sold, to provide money to cover such expenses. (Also, it was not uncommon for donations to the temple to be made in kind, with bolts of cloth being a popular item.)

³Kike [聞け] is the imperative form of the verb kiku [聞く], which means to hear, to listen. This is reason for the exclamation point that was added to the end of the translation.

⁴Because of its cylindrical shape, the wave of energy travels around the perimeter of the bell, and creates a standing wave. As a result, it is not really possible to increase the volume of sound (the way it is with a relatively flat object like a dora). Attempting to change the volume will either result in a sound too weak to be heard in the koshi-kake*, or will shatter the stem of the shimoku, or crack the kanshō itself. __________ *The assumption being that the guests are far enough removed from the host that some sort of signal is necessary to call them back to the room.

If they are seated somewhere close (such as on the veranda beyond the shōji that functioned as the guests’ entrance -- as in Rikyū’s Mozuno ko-yashiki, illustrated above), there would be no reason to use a narimono at all: the host would simply ask them to enter. (The veranda in Rikyū’s room was the size of a full tatami mat because this would allow the guests to sit comfortably -- in earlier times, the guests sat seiza, even on a typical koshi-kake that is half this one’s width -- while also allowing the host to move into the room to clean, and arrange the utensils for the goza, without disturbing the guests.)

⁵Dora [銅鑼]*, bronze gongs, were originally made for use in the China trade, as a way to signal the approach of a vessel to the port, so as to alert the authorities (as well as other ships operating in the area) -- since failing to do so might result in the vessel’s being misidentified as hostile. These nipple-gongs (which produce a stronger sound than flat gongs) would thus have first come into the hands of those machi-shū involved in international shipping.

The fact that, unlike the shō, dora allow for considerable control of the volume, made more creative ways of sounding them possible† -- which is imitated by the way they are stuck so that the sound, reaching the koshi-kake, resembles that of the bell of a temple deep in the mountains, followed by its echo. But while the effect is very interesting, and even magical (depending on the circumstances), the appearance of the dora was indicative that chanoyu was beginning to diverge on a more performative path.

The teaching that the dora should be used during daylight hours, and the kanshō after dark‡ only evolved during the 19th and 20th centuries, and has no historical standing. ___________ *See the post entitled the Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part IV: Poem 76.

The URL for that post is:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/774962837329231872/the-chanoyu-hyaku-shu-%E8%8C%B6%E6%B9%AF%E7%99%BE%E9%A6%96-part-iv-poem-76

†The poem in the above-cited poem reads:

〽 dora utsu ha dai to shō to ni chū-chū ni dai to itsutsu no kazu wo utsu nari

[銅鑼打つは大と小とに中〻に大と五ツの數を打つ也].

“The way to strike the dora: big, then small, then middle-middle, and finally big – the number of strokes is five.”

Dai [大] means it should be struck with some force, so as to produce a markedly louder sound; shō [小] means it should be struck no harder than what is necessary for the stroke to be heard in the koshi-kake. Thus, even though the way the dora is sounded is very different, the number of strokes remains set at five.

Such things cannot be done with the kanshō.

‡The reasoning is that daylight is yang, with which the deep sound of the dora (deep sounds being yin, according to this argument) contrasts nicely.

Likewise, since darkness is yin, the sharp, bright sound of the kanshō (which is yang) is appropriate.

It must be pointed out that throughout the Edo period, the different schools had a preference for only one or the other (which, of course, was then used anytime during the day and night). It is only in modern times that people have had the luxury of procuring both types of narimono. In the Edo period, and even more so before, a chajin would have considered himself very lucky indeed if he had the means and opportunity to add just one of them to his collection. (If he had neither, then he, or his assistant, would have had to go out and invite the guests to enter the room personally -- something that was easier to do in the early days, when simplicity and naturalness were the preferred way of doing things.)

Of course, in the case of Jōō’s early gatherings, the guests were sitting on the veranda just outside the tea room, so the host’s opening the door and asking them to enter was hardly impractical or disruptive -- and, of course, the performative aspect of chanoyu was much less blatant, even if (as an antique dealer) Jōō originally placed great emphasis on the utensils. By the nineteenth century, and even more so in the 20th (when the tea world became dominated by female practitioners), the host was expected to make a complete costume change during the naka-dachi -- so having to go out and ask the guests to come back to the tea room would have ruined the reveal prematurely. (In Japan, this only began to fall into disuse during the second half of the 20th century.)

⁶The shō was simply the instrument sounded in order to inform people, who were some distance away from the tea room*, that the preparations for the service of tea were complete, and so they should come into the tea room. The bell appears to have been the original narimono that was used since chanoyu was first practiced in Japan (during the early fifteenth century) -- and likely also in Korea, in the context of chanoyu as originally performed in a monastery setting. __________ *Mansions typically had one large room on the second floor, while the ground floor was divided into smaller residential apartments and private reception rooms (the structures set up to accommodate the fusuma and the like also giving structural support to the upper floor). On occasions such as poetry competitions, tea was often served during the intermissions between innings, and the guests would be informed that the servants were ready to serve tea by their ringing of a kanshō -- the sound of which would easily be heard by the people on the second floor.

⁷That the idea expressed in that version of the poem does not agree with Rikyū’s own teachings -- because this was addressed in his own writings.

The most likely source of the corrupted text was Hosokawa Sansai*, since it is this version that we find in all of the collections that can be associated with him. ___________ *Sansai seems to have remembered the teachings associated with the dora (the dai-shō-chū-chū-dai [大小中中大] indicating the strength with which the gong should be struck) well enough, but inadvertently directed them at the kanshō (since that is the instrument named in Jōō’s original version of the poem).

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

1 note · View note

chanoyu-to-wa · 2 months ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 105.

〽 Chū-ō ni kyōji koji-tate oku-toki ha hai-oshi hidari hibashi migi nari

[中央に香筯火箸建置く時は灰押左火箸右也].

“In the middle are the kyōji, when [the incense utensils] are placed in the koji-tate. The hai-oshi is on the left, and the hibashi are on the right.”

This poem informs us that Jōō’s Matsu-ya manuscript dates from early in his middle period (when the appreciation of incense was still an important part of the shoza of his tea gatherings, in imitation of the kō-kai [香會] hosted by the Shino family¹).

Kyōji [香筯] are special chopsticks -- made either of ebony (kokudan [黒檀], as seen above) or ivory (zōge [象牙])², both of which materials are not only odorless, but also resistant to becoming contaminated by the smell of incense that they might contact -- used to move the small pieces of kyara from the kōgō into the kōro³.

Koji-tate [火箸建, 火箸立] is a small vessel (usually bronze or silver, though occasionally ceramic koji-tate are seen), resembling a miniature shaku-tate [杓立]⁴, in which the various implements used to prepare the kōro are stood⁵.

Hai-oshi [灰押] is a spoon-like utensil, often shaped like a folded fan, that is used to lightly press the ash (in the kōro) into a cone around the burning piece of charcoal (which is called a tadon [炭團]⁶).

Hibashi [火箸] are (miniature) metal chopsticks⁷ that are used to transfer the burning tadon from the akoda [アコダ = 阿古陀]⁸ (or, in Jōō’s case, from the furo) into the kōro. In the discipline of incense, the name of these chopsticks is usually pronounced koji [火筯 or 火箸]⁹ -- hence the name koji-tate [火箸建, 火筯立] for the stand in which they are stood.

So this poem is saying, quite clearly, that when the host prepares the koji-tate (which was either carried out into the room on the kō-bon -- together with the kōro, kōgō, and taki-gara-ire [炷空入]¹⁰ -- or else displayed in the room, arranged on the kō-bon, on the tana), the ebony or ivory chopsticks used to handle the incense are placed in the center (leaning against the front side of the mouth of the koji-tate), the hai-oshi (ash press) is on the left, and the metal chopsticks that are used to handle the tadon are placed on the right, as shown above.

This poem is found in Jōō’s Matsu-ya manuscript, and in the Jōō collection of the Chanoyu hyaku shu [茶湯百首] that was preserved by Katagiri Sadamasa (Sekishū).

_________________________

¹The Shino family’s kō-kai [香會] consisted of two sessions, separated by a naka-dachi:

◦ At the beginning of the gathering, the host’s mat was decorated with the Shino-dana [志野棚]*, while the chū-ō-joku [中央卓] (shown in the below pair of sketches) was displayed in the tokonoma. The shoza began with the preparation of the incense burner, followed by the appreciation of a number of varieties of kyara [伽羅] incense†. This was followed, in turn, by a meal and the service of kashi. Then the guests went out onto the veranda, where they sat composing poems that were inspired by the occasion, and the meditative state that smelling kyara could induce. (The guests could also avail themselves of the toilet facilities during this naka-dachi.)

◦ During this “recess” the host swept the room, while also changing the arrangement of objects displayed there -- bringing out a ko-ita furo with a kama of boiling water, he arranged it on the host’s mat, moving the chū-ō joku from the tokonoma to stand beside the furo the host’s mat, while the Shino-dana (decorated with the various incense utensils) was displayed in the toko.

A chaire‡ was displayed on the upper shelf of the chū-ō-joku (replacing the incense burner or kōgō that had originally been displayed there during the shoza), and the mizusashi and futaoki were arranged on the lower shelf (replacing the flower arrangement that had been exhibited during the shoza).

◦ After the room was ready, the guests were called back for the goza, where they were served usucha while reading and discussing their poems.

This model was adapted by Jōō into what he (rather unimaginatively, it must be said) called a cha-kai [茶會]:

◦ The shoza began with the preparation of the furo (i.e., the sumi-temae, the laying of a set of charcoal around the shita-bi [下火] -- against which the piece of charcoal that would be used to heat the censer was also placed, to set it alight), followed by an abbreviated kyara-appreciation session (featuring no more than two varieties of incense in total). After which a meal was served**, followed by kashi; after which the guests went out to the veranda (which was still attached to the tea room, in the manner of the Shino family’s venue) to rest their legs (and use the toilet).

◦ The length of the naka-dachi was truncated, so it only lasted long enough for all of the guests to be able to use the toilet, if they so wished.

◦ When the guests returned for the goza, they were first served koicha; and, after more charcoal was added to the furo, the service of usucha (during which quiet conversation was allowed).

While Jōō’s original group consisted primarily of people with whom he had become acquainted at the Shino family’s kō-kai, as additional members joined it became necessary to teach these novices about incense matters -- and it was at this time that Jōō wrote the poem that we are considering here. Matsu-ya Hisamasa [松屋久政; 1521 ~ 1598], for whom the Matsu-ya manuscript of the Chanoyu hyaku shu [茶湯百首] was written, was one such person -- the family was the great lacquer master of the period; but, based in Nara, they seem to have had limited practical experience of things like incense and poetry. ___________ *The Shino-dana [志野棚] was brought from Korea by the first-generation Shino Sōshin around the middle of the fifteenth century.

His tana was approximately the width of an inaka-ma tatami, rubbed with tame-nuri [溜め塗] (a dark brown lacquer popular in Korea that is produced by mixing shin-nuri [眞塗] with what, in Japan, is called Shunkei-nuri [春慶塗]). His tana featured Korean bronze corner-guards on the shelves, and a pair of doors fitted with a bronze locking device (by means of which the kyara stored inside could be kept secure) on the ji-fukuro. (Japanese reproductions generally feature more carefully painted lacquer and silver fitments -- since bronze-making was not introduced into Japan until the very end of the sixteenth century).

Jōō’s fukuro-dana [袋棚] was modeled on the Shino-dana, though Jōō replaced the hinged doors with a single lift-out panel (subsequently allowing his guests to open the ji-fukuro when they inspected the utensil mat, so they could look at the utensils arranged inside).

†In addition to those prepared by the host, it was common for at least some of the guests to bring kyara of their own, so that this appreciation of incense by itself could easily last for an hour or more.

‡In the early days, chaire (tied in shifuku) were used both when serving koicha, as well as for the service of usucha.

**The lightness or heaviness of which was determined by the time of day at which the gathering was held -- when that was in the evening, Jōō originally served a multi-course meal that resembled a formal banquet, such as the Shino family had done.

Later in his life, however, Jōō came to practice the style of meal-service that he called isshu san-sai [一汁三菜]: one soup (miso-shiru [味噌汁]), and three dishes of vegetables (one raw, usually with a miso or vinegar-based dipping sauce; one boiled in broth; and one either grilled over charcoal or deep-fried), together with a bowl of steamed rice accompanied by tsukemono [漬け物] (pickled vegetables).

²Ebony seems to have been preferred by monastic-adjacent practitioners (such as those who were using incense smelling as a way of training, in the manner of the original Korean generations of the Shino family*), while ivory was preferred by the courtly practitioners.

The same distinction can be detected with regard to Korean bronze versus silver utensils. __________ *The Korean family became extinct during the 1570s (Shino Shoha, or Shopa [志野省巴; 1502 ~ 1571], the last of the Korean generations, died in 1571 without any issue). The name and school were subsequently revived during the early Edo period, at which time the Shino-ryū [志野流] adopted the practices of the other (native Japanese) schools of incense, while (like chanoyu) severing all connection with its meditative/quasi-religious roots.

³Depending on the school, and the circumstances of the gathering (for example, whether the host is hosting a kō-kai in the shin [眞], gyō [行], or sō [草] manner*), other sorts of utensils might be employed for this, and other, purposes. ___________ *It appears that, from the beginning, Jōō incorporated the sō style of incense appreciation into the shoza of his early tea gatherings.

⁴The vase-like stand* in which the hishaku is stood when displayed on the daisu (or naga-ita [長板]) as part of the nanatsu-kazari. ___________ *Indeed, Yoshimasa’s “original” shaku-tate, which he called “U-mon momojiri” [有文桃尻], was actually the bronze flower vase from the set of implements made to be arranged on the family altars in China.

Because every home had an altar of this sort, usually set up in the main room of the residence (which was also the room in which the master’s bedstead was erected), vases, incense burners, and candlesticks from this set were fairly easy to procure, even in Japan.

⁵Today these are most often encountered labeled as kō-tate [香立] -- that is, stands in which a number of sen-kō [線香] (stick incense) are stood. Sen-kō was introduced into Japan later. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, crushed incense blends (usually a mixture of jin-kō [沈香] and byakudan [白檀], along with other dried and crushed herbal aromatics such as cinnamon and cloves) were sprinkled on a burning coal in the censers of temples, both during ritual services, and when offering prayers privately.

⁶The tadon [炭團] is made from crushed high-quality (scentless) charcoal that is formed into a small briquette that burns slowly and uniformly. It is the heat-source that is placed in the incense burner (kōro [香爐]), buried within a cone of ash, the purpose of which is to slow the burning process, while modulating (through distance) and directing the heat (by means of a narrow chimney made by pushing an object -- either one of the koji or a special pin called an uguisu-kushi [鶯串]) toward the bottom of the piece of kyara (which is resting on a thin flake of mica -- since the resins in the kyara melt when heated and would contaminate the ashes were it not for the mica on which it rests).

⁷Usually bronze of silver were preferred, since these metals transfer heat less effectively, meaning that the hibashi will not get too hot to handle.

⁸This is a rather large vessel (very similar to a small hibachi hand-warmer), usually made of paulownia (kiri [桐]) wood -- which is an excellent insulator -- with a copper liner filled part way with ash, in which the burning tadon are brought out from the mizuya. The generic name for this object is hi-tori kōro [火取香爐].

It is commonly called an akoda [阿古陀] because it usually resembled this variety of melon (which is cylindrical, but squat, with a bottom slightly wider than the top).

For an incense gathering, usually two burning and one unlit tadon were placed in the akoda; but Jōō used only one or two tadon (often placing them in the furo, so they would catch fire from the shita-bi -- and so eliminate the need for an akoda entirely) for the abbreviated incense session during the shoza of his cha-kai.

⁹Jōō would, of course, have been perfectly familiar with the name koji [火箸].

It seems he fell back on the word hibashi [火箸] because his poem required the extra syllable.

¹⁰The taki-gara-ire [炷空入] is a ceramic or metal container into which the used mica flakes (to which the piece of kyara had become fused during the heating process) are discarded, when a new piece of kyara will be appreciated.

Together with the kōro and kōgō, the various pieces* were usually selected around a sort of theme (in the above case, perhaps the theme was a pond-side garden -- the kōro has nodes like bamboo, the kōgō is shaped like an ancient turtle, and the taki-gara-ire bears an image of flowering lotus and water-weeds). They are arranged on a kō-bon [香盆], and like this were either carried into the room, or displayed on the tana beforehand, in anticipation of the appreciation of incense.

In addition to the hibashi, kyōji, and hai-oshi, this set of incense utensils also includes a ginyō-basami -- an implement used to handle the mica flakes. In the absence of a ginyō-basami, the mica flakes can also be handled (albeit with some difficulty) with the hibashi). ___________ *Notice how the arrangement of the incense utensils on the kō-bon mirrors that of the kaigu on the daisu: the kōro is for heating the incense, the kōgō contains the unused incense, the koji-tate holds the different utensils, while the taki-gara-ire is the receptacle for the discarded mica-flakes and burned-out pieces of incense.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

1 note · View note

chanoyu-to-wa · 2 months ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 104.

〽 Wa-guchi wo ba uba-guchi-sue ni suete yoshi saredo kaku-kō mi-awasete seyo

[輪口をば姥口据えに据えてよしされど格合見合わせてせよ].

“If it is a wa-guchi [kama], it is possible to arrange it [in the ro] as if it were an uba-guchi [kama]. Even so, be sure that each of the [other] details conforms to [the rules of the uba-guchi arrangement].”

Wa-guchi [輪口] is referring to a wa-guchi kama [輪口釜]. The name means a kama with a “ring-mouth,” such as that shown below.

The mouth of the wa-guchi kama is elevated above the shoulder¹ of the kama. In practice, however, this could refer to almost any kama where the mouth is raised above the level of the shoulder.

Uba-guchi [姥口] is referring to an uba-guchi kama [姥口釜]. This is a kama where the mouth is recessed below the level of the shoulder, so that the lid, when closed, is flush with (or sometimes even below) the level of the shoulder, as seen below:

Both Oda Nobunaga and Furuta Sōshits (Oribe) declared themselves completely enthralled by the uba-guchi kama².

The traditional rule was that kama with a raised mouth should be arranged in the ro so that the mouth is 6- or 7-bu above the upper surface of the ro-buchi³; and uba-guchi kama should be arranged so that the mouth is 6- or 7-bu below the upper surface of the ro-buchi⁴. However, because Rikyū explained that the degree of wabi is directly correlated with the height of the mouth of the kama relative to the surface of the mats, practitioners of wabi wished to arrange the kama so that its mouth was below the surface of the mats, regardless of the shape of the kama. And it is to this desire that this poem gives assent⁵.

Wa-guchi wo ba uba-guchi-sue ni suete yoshi [輪口をば姥口据えに据えてよし]: wa-guchi wo ba [輪口をば] means if it is a wa-guchi kama; uba-guchi-sue ni [姥口据えに] means settling (into the ro) like an uba-guchi kama -- that is (as stated above), so that the mouth of the kama is 6- or 7-bu below the level of the ro-buchi; suete-yoshi [据えてよし] means (this way of) settling (the kama into the ro) is acceptable, suitable, or possible⁶.

Saredo [去れど] is an expression that implies conditionality, and so should be translated “be that as it may,” “even so,” “though that be so,” and so forth.

Kaku-kō [格合]⁷ means to be suitable, to fit, to be compatible, to be in harmony (with), to match, to be appropriate -- in reference to what one does vis-à-vis the traditional rules governing the handling of an uba-guchi kama.

Mi-awasete seyo [見合わせてせよ]: mi-awasete [見合わせて] means to do something so it looks appropriate, or appears to be visually suitable; seyo [せよ] is the imperative form of the verb suru [する], which means (in this case) to do.

In other words, the host must be careful that the way he handles a wa-guchi kama that has been arranged in the ro as if it were an uba-guchi kama visually conforms with the accepted way that tea is to be served when using an uba-guchi kama, in every detail -- most importantly that the cup of the hishaku should rest on the mouth of the kama, as shown above (rather than with the handle resting against the mouth, as when a wa-guchi kama is arranged in the ro in the ordinary way, as can be seen in the sketch in footnote 3).

Once again, this poem is found both in the Matsu-ya manuscript (and Rikyū’s 1580 facsimile), and in the Jōō collection that was preserved in Katagiri Sadamasa’s official archives⁸.

_________________________

¹The kanji wa [輪] means a ring, and the original wa-guchi was shaped like that. However as more kama came to be cast in Japan (and the practice of chanoyu expanded beyond the first generation expatriate community in Sakai), their elevated price meant that more input from the purchaser came to be accepted by the craftsmen, and so more exaggerated ways of treating the mouth began to appear -- each of which was usually christened with a unique identifier either at that time, or (more commonly) during the Edo period (when such things became standardized). But while this is so, any of these kama could theoretically be handled in the same way as is described in this poem.

While the original reason for lowering the kama deeper into the ro was in order to create a more wabi feeling (by effectively eliminating the expensive kama from the sight of the guests -- and so their calculation of the overall amount of wealth that the host was displaying at his chakai), during the Edo period a rationale was articulated to the effect that that this was something that should be done specifically when a chakai with the ro was being held during the furo season (that is, between the Third and Ninth Months of the Lunar calendar -- roughly early April through the end of October), with the idea being that the fire should be moved farther away from the guests (while ignoring the fact that whether the fire is higher in the ro, or lower, the same amount of heat would still be necessary to bring the kama to a boil and keep it boiling until the service of usucha had concluded and the gathering was ending* -- though here it is a question of whether the fire is visible to the guests, rather than the actual amount of heat that it is giving off). ___________ *The thing that has a far greater effect on the ambient temperature within the small room is the proximity of the ro to the furosaki-mado [風爐先窓].

This is because, during the furo season, the mukō-ro is supposed to be pushed 2-sun closer to the far wall than in the cold season, which allows the rising heat to escape from the room directly, without contributing to the temperature in the room itself -- assuming that the layout of the room (and the location of the two shitaji-mado [下地窓] -- the furosaki-mado and bokuseki-mado, which are the room’s air vents -- have been oriented properly, so as to enhance this effect).

The locations of the furosaki-mado and bokuseki-mado in a typical Rikyū-style two-mat room are indicated in the above sketchs (the winter arrangement of the mukō-ro and its 2-sun 5-bu ko-ita [小板] -- not to be confused with the furo’s ko-ita -- is shown above; while the summer arrangement, where the ko-ita has been cut into two pieces, one 5-bu wide and the other 2-sun wide, is below). While Rikyū usually located the bokuseki-mado behind the shōkyaku’s shoulder (this was the traditional scheme, which draws warm air toward the principal guest during the winter, while pulling fresh air in from behind during the summer), Furuta Sōshitsu moved the bokuseki-mado into the toko itself, and this is what we usually see today.

Rikyū seems to have appreciated Oribe’s innovation, and in some of his last rooms he seems to have done so as well.

²The early generations of expatriate chajin appear to have liked the uba-guchi kama precisely because the recessed mouth allowed them to use antique bronze mirrors (that had lost their coating of reflective silver, and so were rendered useless) as lids (at a time when bronze-making technology had not yet been introduced into Japan, and imported Korean bronze lids were in perpetually short supply -- so much so that, in Jōō’s day iron lids with beaten copper “three-plum-blossoms” handles* were being painted with brown lacquer in an attempt to imitate bronze, though their weight was usually a negative). ___________ *In Korean (but not in Chinese or Japanese) the name “three-plum-blossoms lid” -- sam-mei-gae [삼매개 = 三梅蓋] or sam-mei-hwa-gae [삼매화개 = 三梅花蓋] -- is homophonous with samme-gae [삼매개 = 三昧開] or sammei-hwa-gei [삼매화개 = 三昧花開], which means reveal one’s samādhi (or open the flower of one’s samādhi, in the longer version of the name). All of the old bronze lids of this sort came from Korea -- and lids of this kind are found on all old kama (lids with other shapes of handles were first cast iron, beginning during the first half of the sixteenth century, with bronze examples only appearing after the start of the Edo period).

³Cf. poem 39:

〽 fuyu-no-kama irori-buchi-yori roku- nana-bu takaku-sueru-zo narai nari-keru

[冬の釜圍爐裏緣より六七分高く据えるぞ習いなりける].

“The wintertime kama, from the [upper surface of the] irori-buchi, it should be arranged so it is 6- or 7-bu higher! This is how [you] should practice [doing it].”

The URL for this post is:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/755018131958824960/the-chanoyu-hyaku-shu-%E8%8C%B6%E6%B9%AF%E7%99%BE%E9%A6%96-part-ii-poem-39

⁴Poem 61 reads:

〽 uba-guchi ha irori-fuchi yori roku- shichi-bu hikuku-sueru zo narai nari-keru

[姥口は圍爐裏緣より六七分低く据えるぞ習いなりける].

“With respect to the uba-guchi [kama], it should be lowered to 6- or 7-bu below [the level of] the irori-fuchi: this is how [you] should practice [doing it]!”

The URL for the post discussing poem 61 is:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/768970049455308800/the-chanoyu-hyaku-shu-%E8%8C%B6%E6%B9%AF%E7%99%BE%E9%A6%96-part-iii-poem-61

⁵Because the kama was one of the most expensive utensils, the less seen of it (literally), the more wabi the gathering was, and this was the original justification for lowering it deeper in the ro.

The most formal setting is when the kama is arranged on a furo that is resting on the daisu (the ji-ita of which is 1-sun 5-bu thick): this is designated shin [眞].

Next is when the furo is standing on a naga-ita or one of the several types of shiki-ita (the naga-ita and shiki-ita, regardless of their other dimensions, are always 6-bu thick). Below which is when the furo is placed on top of the closed lid of the ro (which is at the same level as the surface of the mats). These arrangements are designated gyō [行].

When the kama is lowered into the ro, at most only the mouth and lid are visible above the mats (the mouth projects just 6- or 7-bu above the surface of the mats), and this can be made even more wabi by lowering the kama so that the mouth and lid are now completely below the level of the ro-buchi (and so the mats). These arrangements are sō [草].

⁶But not something that has to be done. This poem is giving permission for a possible -- albeit uncommon -- way of orienting the kama, not declaring a rule that must be followed in every instance. It is important to understand this distinction.

⁷The classical reading* appears to have always been kaku-kau [格合 = かくかう] -- at least in instances where furigana [振り仮名]† are present to inform the pronunciation. Kaku-kō [格合 = かくこう] represents the most likely way that the word would be pronounced today. ___________ *This expression is rarely, if ever, used today, and so usually not found in lexicons.

†Kana, usually in a smaller typeface or size of handwriting, located beside the kanji (to the right in vertical script, and above when the text is oriented horizontally) that they are intended to illuminate or clarify, to show their pronunciation (and/or meaning).

⁸Katagiri Sekishū’s document had deteriorated by the time it was examined by Nakayama Sohaku sensei, resulting in part of the shimo-no-ku of this poem being illegible.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

1 note · View note

chanoyu-to-wa · 2 months ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 103.

〽 Waga-nomi-shi susugi-ato wo ba itadakite nomu ha ayamaru-ashirai to kiku

[我呑みし濯ぎ跡をば頂きて呑むは誤る遇いと聞く].

“After I have drunk, with respect to the rinsing out of the [cha-no]-ato, to request to drink it¹ [also], [I] have heard that doing so is an error in procedure.”

Waga-nomi-shi [我呑みし]: waga [我] means I, myself²; the verb nomu [呑] means drink, have drunk; and the suffix -shi [し] means did, have done.

Susugi-ato wo ba [濯ぎ跡をば] means “as for the rinsed-out remains (of the koicha)....” That is, the cha-no-ato mixed with a little hot water (to resuspend the tea so it could be drunk -- or so it could simply be poured out into the koboshi, as the modern schools mostly teach³).

Itadakite-nomu [頂きて呑む] means to receive⁴ and drink (the cha-no-ato).

Ayamaru-ashirai [誤る遇い] means a mistaken way of dealing with something.

After the guest has drunk the koicha, the host drinks the cha-no-ato during the cleaning process. For the guest to ask to be allowed to drink it is wrong⁵.

In addition to the Matsu-ya manuscript and Rikyū 1580 monograph, this poem is also found in the Jōō collection of the Chanoyu hyaku shu [茶湯百首] that was archived by Katagiri Sadamasa.

_________________________

¹This is referring to the cha-no-ato (mixed with a little hot water). The correct way is for the host to drink it. The guest should not ask to be allowed to drink it.

This all refers to the cha-no-ato after drinking koicha*. After usucha, ideally no visible trace of the tea should remain in the chawan. But even if there is some dried foam, it should not be mixed with water and drunk. ___________ *Whisking the cha-no-ato (left photo) with a little hot water produces a thin usucha (right photo).

In contradiction to the teaching expressed in this poem, Sen no Sōtan (following the machi-shū conventions initiated by Imai Sōkyū) routinely served the cha-no-ato to his guests as their usucha (which, like the koicha, was supposed to be shared among all of them). This is why the schools that most closely adhere to the practices of Sōtan (such as Omotesenke itself) prefer to serve usucha with only a little foam -- since this is what the “usucha” that results from whisking a little hot water with the cha-no-ato looks like.

²More literally, waga [我] means “my” or “my own” -- that is, “after my own drinking has been done....”

³This distaste for (the host’s) drinking of the cha-no-ato only began to appear during the early 20th century.

When the practice of chanoyu was largely confined to men, doing this kind of thing was considered an indication of the communality between the host with his guests.

⁴Itadaku [頂く], as a verb, literally means to receive a crown -- the implication being something given by a person of higher status to one of lower status.

However, it is today used as a polite way of expressing the idea of receiving something (for example, by saying itadakimasu [頂きます] -- “I am receiving it” -- before drinking the tea); and, by extension, as a way of indirectly requesting someone to do something for, or on behalf of, the speaker (in this specific case, for the host to prepare the cha-no-ato and offer it to the guest).

⁵In the Sakuma Bokusai-ate no densho [佐久間卜齋宛の傳書]*, in the section where he narrates the complete koicha-temae, Rikyū wrote:

chawan wo shita ni oku, yu wo ire, mata mizu wo nomu shiawasete, futa-kuchi mi-guchi nomu-koto ha, cha ni doku-nado no iretaru-koto mo ari, kyaku [h]e no kore hitotsu-shiki nari, mata ato no usucha no toki no mizu-nomu ha kaken wo min-tame nari

[茶碗を下に置、湯を入、又水をのむ仕合せて、二口三口のむ事ハ、茶に毒などの入たる事もあり、客への是一ツしき也、又後の薄茶の時の水のむハかけんを見んため也].

“After the chawan [has been returned to the host, and] is set down [on the mat in front of the host’s knees] and hot water is [poured] into it, then [the host drinks] this water in two or three sips as a sort of propitious gesture -- the reason for which is because, since it is possible for poison or some other substance to have been put into [the tea], [the host’s drinking of the cha-no-ato] will reassure the guests. But later, when usucha [is served], drinking this [rinsing-]water should not be done.”

The argument is here phrased in political terms (since the recipient was a member of a daimyō household, and probably one of Hideyoshi’s personal attendants). The idea that this is (also) done so that the tea will not be wasted is implied elsewhere.

The practice of the guest asking to drink the cha-no-ato seems to have arisen among the monastic practitioners of chanoyu, as a way to prevent the host from simply discarding the cha-no-ato as waste water. It was also adopted by certain practitioners of wabi -- which is how it became part of Sōtan’s way of serving tea (though, importantly, it was not the guests who requested to be allowed to drink the cha-no-ato in his case, but rather Sōtan simply offering it to them as a matter of course: since he only prepared enough matcha for the communal bowl of koicha†, offering them the cha-no-ato in this way was the only way that “usucha” could be included in his service of tea‡).

The fact that Jōō felt that it was necessary to include this subject in his collection of dō-ka [道歌] suggests that asking to be allowed to drink the cha-no-ato was an uncomfortably common practice among his contemporaries. ___________ *While the Sakuma was an important daimyō family, with close ties to the military rulers and their households during the sixteenth century and after, with a number of individuals of an age that they could potentially be the recipient of this densho (which is dated “an auspicious day in the Eleventh Month of Tenshō 9 [天正九年十一月吉日],” 1581), none of them are recorded to have used the name Bokusai [卜齋].

The most likely contender seems to be Sakuma Masakatsu [佐久間正勝; 1556 ~ 1631] -- who, however, used the name Fukansai [不干齋] in his retirement. He was the son of the military commander Sakuma Nobumori [佐久間信盛; ? ~ 1582], one of Nobunaga’s senior vassals (rō-shin [老臣]), to whom Rikyū sold a hira-gama [平釜] for 500 kan [五百貫]; but because Nobumori failed to achieve anything of note during Nobunaga’s siege of the Ishiyama Hongan-ji [石山本願寺], Nobunaga exiled him to Kōya-san [高野山], where it appears he died.

Like his father, Masakatsu was also deeply interested in chanoyu. As he is said to have begun his studies in 1581, one year before this densho was written, this densho (which was written for a beginner) seems appropriate to what would have been Masakatsu’s level at that time.

†Tea was expensive, so preparing only what was needed, and nothing more, was Sotan’s way of expressing his idea of “poverty tea” (wabi-cha [侘び茶], where wabi means distressed, impoverished -- the kanji was changed to the otherwise obsolete wabi [佗] in order to escape the negative nuance of Sōtan’s term).

‡Sōtan seems to have been following Rikyū’s practice of including the service of usucha during the koicha-temae. But whereas Rikyū used the matcha remaining in the chaire to serve each guest one or two bowls of usucha, Sōtan dumped the entire contents of his natsume into the chawan when preparing the koicha, so nothing remained that could subsequently be used for usucha. So, following what he understood to be the monastic practice (Sōtan was playing at being a tonsured monk who yet lives in the world), he added more hot water to the cha-no-ato and then offered that to the guests as their usucha.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

3 notes · View notes

chanoyu-to-wa · 2 months ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 102.

〽 Natsume ni te koicha wo tate-ba itsu totemo futa-suru toki ha fukusa ni te fuke

[棗にて濃茶を立てば何時とても蓋する時は拭紗にて拭け].

“When preparing koicha with a natsume, every time the lid is closed it should be wiped with the fukusa.”

According to the Matsu-ya manuscript, Jōō’s original version of this poem referred specifically to the service of usucha¹. Rikyū (according to his 1580 manuscript) modified this verse to direct the reader’s attention to the necessity of also performing this action when preparing koicha.

When performing the koicha-temae, the host should open the lid of the tea container (regardless of what it is) as little as possible (since each time he does so, more of the volatile elements will escape, degrading the tea that remains within the container). Thus, the only time the lid should be opened is when the host is transferring tea from the tea container into the chawan².

On occasions when the host is using a natsume as his tea container³, each time the lid is closed, he should wipe the lid with his fukusa. This is the teaching that this poem is supposed to be imparting to the reader.

In practice, this means that, after transferring the tea, the host should rest the chashaku on the rim of the chawan. Then pick up the lid and close it. And then, while still holding the natsume in his left hand, the host reaches into the futokoro of his kimono, takes out his (already folded) fukusa, wipes the lid of the natsume -- after which he returns the fukusa to his futokoro. Only then is the natsume placed down on the mat near the mizusashi, as usual. And then, after smoothing out the tea with the chashaku, the chashaku is rested on the lid of the natsume.

Poem 102 is first found in Rikyū’s Tenshō 8 [天正八年] (1580) copy of the Chanoyu hyaku shu⁴, and in the Rikyū version of the Hundred Poems collection that was preserved in Katagiri Sadamasa’s archive⁵. It was probably not included in any of the other collections because the machi-shū did not include the action described in this poem in either their usucha- or koicha-temae (so it would be unknown today were it not for this poem)⁶.

_________________________

¹Jōō's version of this poem reads:

〽 natsume ni te usucha wo tate-ba itsu tote mo futa-suru toki ha fukusa ni te fuke

[棗にてうす茶をたてばいつとてもふたするときはふくさにてふけ].

“When preparing usucha with a natsume, every time the lid is closed it should be wiped with the fukusa.”

Identical, except that Rikyū has replaced the word usucha [うす茶 = 薄茶] with koicha [濃茶].

Jōō created two kinds of natsume. The first, which was inspired by (and derived from*) Shukō’s shin-nakatsugi [眞中次]†, was the large natsume.

This large natsume was supposed to be used when serving usucha‡ to a large group of guests** -- and so the original version of the poem taught the beginner that, even though it might seem troublesome, the correct way was to wipe the lid of the natsume each time it was opened -- that is, after scooping out the tea for each bowl of usucha that was being served during the gathering.

The small natsume was created much later (many years after his manuscript copy of the Chanoyu hyaku shu [茶湯百首] was presented to Matsu-ya Hisamasa)†† -- a product of Jōō’s deepening idea of wabi -- as a container for koicha. The same rule of usage (that is, that the lid should be wiped with the fukusa each time it was closed) applied.

However, after Jōō’s death it seems that a certain confusion arose within the tea community as a result of Jōō’s wording‡‡. Thus, to resolve the matter, Rikyū composed his variation to clarify that, when serving koicha, this rule should be followed, too. ___________ *The volume of the two containers is the same. The photo shows the two containers side by side, with these examples made by the Nakamura family. based on the Matsu-ya originals (the Matsu-ya family were the preeminent makers of lacquerware during Jōō’s lifetime, which is how Hisamasa became acquainted with the master).

The Matsu-ya family created the first large natsume (shown above), based on Jōō’s specifications. After Rikyū’s family fell into bankruptcy, Jōō presented this natsume to Rikyū as a sort of consolation prize (when he took away all of Rikyū’s imported Chinese utensils), so that Rikyū would not be forced to give up the practice of chanoyu entirely. This is why some scholars associate this large natsume with Rikyū, rather than Jōō.

†At first, Shukō used a ko-tsubo for koicha, and a large katatsuki for usucha, as was the usual convention at that time. Then, he began to use the katatsuki for koicha, and a shin-nakatsugi (which was actually the black-lacquered hikiya [挽家] from his ko-tsubo) for usucha. This was a radical departure from the norms, a large step in the direction of wabi.

‡According to Jōō, the service of usucha was the “shin” [眞] temae. Koicha, on the other hand, was “sō” [草]. As a result, some of his contemporaries (particularly beginners) may have understood this wiping of the lid each time it is closed as being an expression of “shin” -- so that doing so was unnecessary (if not actually inappropriate) when serving koicha.

However, Jōō’s actual point was that, when serving usucha, one can focus on the temae (this is why it is “shin”); but when serving koicha, the host’s focus should be wholly on the tea, while the notion of performing the temae strictly may be put aside for the nonce. This has nothing to do with the rules for handling the utensils.

**When Jōō first created his cha-kai [茶會], he followed the details of the Shino family’s kō-kai [香會], meaning that the ordinary guest list usually contained ten names. The large natsume was designed to hold enough matcha for ten guests to each be served two bowls of usucha, with some tea remaining so there would be no danger of running out before the service was finished.

††The large natsume was for usucha. Jōō, in his last years, created the small natsume specifically as a wabi container for koicha. And Rikyū created the medium-sized natsume so that usucha could be served using the left-over matcha that had been first served as koicha -- that is, the chū-natsume [中ナツメ = 中棗] holds enough tea so that two or three guests can be served koicha, with enough matcha remaining so that each person can then be served two bowls of usucha.

Serving usucha during the koicha-temae, using the matcha remaining in the tea container (so it would not go to waste), was a special feature of Rikyū’s approach to wabi-no-chanoyu.

‡‡Originally, manuscripts like the one presented to Matsu-ya Hisamasa were supposed to be kept private, and not shared with others. But after Jōō’s death, it seems that people began to circulate the collection (because the master was no longer alive to answer their queries or initiate new disciples).

²That said, certain modern schools (mostly derived from one of the daimyō traditions) tie the himo of the chaire around its neck (rather than on top of the lid*), so that the guests can open the lid to examine the tea when they inspect the utensil mat at the beginning of the goza†. ___________ *The actual purpose of the shifuku -- that is, the reason why the chaire is displayed tied in its shifuku at the beginning of the koicha-temae -- is to protect the tea by pressing the lid tightly against the mouth of the tea container, so as to create as airtight a seal as possible. (This is why the ivory lid -- which is slightly flexible -- is backed with a piece of gilded paper:�� the gold foil creates the seal, while the paper allows the gold to be pressed into any irregularities on the mouth so as to effectuate that seal.)

†The idea seems to be that poison could be detected because the color of the tea would be strange. The origin of the practice appears to be based on the following historical precedent:

On the 24th day of the second (intercalated First) Month of Tenshō 19 [天正十九年] (1591), Rikyu was to receive Tokugawa Ieyasu for chanoyu. On the morning of that gathering Hideyoshi sent Rikyū some (presumably poisoned) matcha, which he desired Rikyu to serve to Ieyasu. (The suspicious chaire of tea was brought to Rikyū’s house by a group of seven important officials from Hideyoshi’s court -- who requested to be entertained at an ato-mi no chakai [跡見], “following Ieyasu’s departure” -- which appears to have aroused Rikyū’s suspicions.) Rikyū displayed Hideyoshi’s chaire in the tokonoma, but instead served Ieyasu with tea that he had ground himself.

Hideyoshi became irate when his courtiers reported to him later, because Ieyasu did not die (which proved that Rikyu was not following his orders); and this incident appears to have been the final trigger that precipitated Hideyoshi’s order demanding Rikyū’s seppuku. This chakai (and its ato-mi gathering) are the final entries in Rikyū’s Hyakkai-ki [百會記].

The next (and last) time he would perform chanoyu would be on the morning of his death.

³While certain ultra-wabi chajin preferred to use a natsume as their tea container every time they served tea, the original reason for using a natsume was because the tea it contained had not been ground by the host on the morning of the gathering*. Most commonly this was when the tea had been received as a gift from someone else -- in Rikyū’s period, this usually meant the tea was from one of Hideyoshi’s cha-tsubo†, but during the Edo period it was often brought as a gift from the shōkyaku (or one of the other guests). ___________ *Occasionally, when the host had received a very special guest the day before (for whom an excess amount of very high-quality matcha would have been prepared), the left over tea was tied in a natsume and might be used the next day (usually for guests who were the host’s close friends -- since reused tea would have been inappropriate to serve to guests with whom the host was on less than intimate terms).

†This was tea that had been ground for potential consumption by Hideyoshi or a member of his household, hence was of the highest quality available. At the end of the day, any unused matcha was sent off to people who had requested it (one applied by simply adding one’s name to a list; the tea was supposedly distributed on a first-come first-served basis, and without any cost to the petitioner). This tea was placed in a ko-natsume [小ナツメ = 小棗], which held sufficient tea for 2 or 3 guests, tied in a purple-dyed cloth (that was the size of the modern temae-fukusa) as shown below, and then sealed in a wooden box (with a paper tape pasted around the circumference of the box where the lid joined the body). When the official who prepared this box was Rikyū, the natsume was inscribed with his kaō [花押] (written signature); and to the underside of the box lid was affixed a small piece of paper describing the tea (in other words, it indicated which of Hideyoshi’s jars it had come from, and whether the tea was hatsu-no-mukashi or ato-no-mukashi koicha).

If more than one variety of tea was being sent, each of the containers would have a paper label attached to the front flap of the wrapping cloth.

Though there does not appear to be any extant evidence, presumably the other sadō [茶頭] (of which there were eight) prepared the box in the same way, certifying things with their own kaō.

⁴Because Jōō’s original differs from the Rikyu version that we are considering in this post -- because it specifies usucha rather than koicha -- the version found in the Matsu-ya manuscript has been colored yellow in the chart to indicate that it differs from the other.

It is important to understand that it is correct to wipe the lid of the natsume both when serving koicha, and when serving usucha. Rikyu wished to emphasize that this action should not just be limited to the service of usucha (which could be one possible interpretation of Jōō’s original poem).

⁵Katagiri Sekishū’s research discovered two different versions of the Hundred Poems: one by Jōō (though this collection is not exactly the same as the Matsu-ya manuscript*), and a second by Rikyū (this manuscript was dated Tenshō 8 [天正八年]). ___________ *This suggests that Jōō wrote the text out from memory each time he was called upon to produce one for a special student whom he wished to favor in this way.

⁶Wiping the lid of the natsume parallels the way the lacquered lid of the mizusashi* is wiped with the fukusa -- in this case, just before it is opened. and immediately after it is closed. ___________ *A tomo-buta [共蓋] (a lid that is made of the same material as the mizusashi itself -- in this case referring specifically to a lid made of pottery) is not wiped during the temae. It was supposed to be wiped with the damp chakin after adding water to it at the time when it was first placed on the utensil mat during the naka-dachi (when carried, the mizusashi should be no more than 70% full: after it is arranged on the utensil mat the host is supposed to bring out a mizu-tsugi and add more water, until it is 90% full -- which is the proper amount of water for the koicha-temae).

As with wiping the lid of the natsume after it is closed, these rules regarding the mizusashi were forgotten, since they were not part of Imai Sōkyū’s way of doing chanoyu.

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

1 note · View note

chanoyu-to-wa · 2 months ago

Text

The Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part V: Poem 101.

〽 Cha wo tate-ba chashaku ni kokoro yoku-tsukete chawan no soko ni tsuyoku-ataru na

[茶を立てば茶杓に心よく付けて茶碗の底に强く當るな].

“When preparing the tea, take exceptional care with the chashaku, so you do not strike the bottom of the chawan with excessive force.”

Kokoro yoku-tsukete [心よく付けて] means (the host) should be exceptionally (yoku-tsukete [よく付けて]¹) sensitive (kokoro [心]²). As a whole, this phrase is interpreted to mean being very, very careful or attentive (to something).

Chawan no soko ni [茶碗の底に]: chawan no soko [茶碗の底] means the bottom, the inner face, of the bowl -- specifically the part elsewhere called the cha-damari [茶溜り], the often slightly depressed area where the tea is laid as it is being unloaded from the chaire; the particle ni [に] indicates the direction of focus of the words that follow.

Tsuyoku-ataru na [强く當るな]: tsuyoku [强く] implies things like strongly, powerfully, forcefully, intensely, robustly; ataru [當る] means confront, meet, encounter, and by extension to strike, to hit, to touch, to contact (it is the latter two of these “extended meanings” that allow for several of the possible interpretations of this verse described below); while the particle na [な] is a contracted form of naa [usually written なー or なあ], which is an imperative prohibitive, which would be translated “don’t (do that)!”

This poem can be interpreted in several different ways³:

1) After transferring the matcha into the chawan, the host needs to tap the chashaku in order to dislodge any tea that is still clinging to it, and it is to this tap that the verb ataru [當る] is assumed to refer.

This is usually done by tapping the side of the chashaku against the rim of the chawan. However, in the case of an old chawan (which may have unrecognized cracks mascarading as crackles in the glaze), or a meibutsu chawan, doing so can risk damaging the rim. In such cases, it was thought better to tap it against the bottom of the bowl (since the risk of damage is significantly less).

Today, striking the chashaku against the bottom of the bowl is most commonly done when serving tea with a temmoku-chawan⁴.

2) After transferring the matcha into the chawan, the tea should be spread out across the cha-damari into a uniform layer, using the tip of the chashaku. At this time, if the host notices any clumps⁵, he should try to break them up (unobtrusively) with the tip of the chashaku -- with this poem being understood to remind him to do this gently, so as not to damage the chawan.

3) Others explain this poem to mean that the host should be careful when spreading the matcha across the cha-damari, because he could accidentally scratch⁶ the bottom of the chawan with the tip of the chashaku if he presses down⁷ too forcefully.

The fact that one of these explanations might be preferred as an interpretation of this particular poem does not necessarily invalidate the others -- since, in technical terms, all of them are important points that the beginner should be careful to avoid when serving tea.

This poem is found only in Jōō’s Matsu-ya manuscript (and Rikyū’s 1580 version, which essentially reproduces Jōō’s text)⁸.

_________________________

¹Yoku-tsukete [よく付けて]: yoku [よく = 良く], acting as an adverb, means thoroughly, very, fully; the verb tsukeru [付ける] means affix, attach, join, apply (to). In other words, the host should be extremely careful (when performing the action described in the shimo-no-ku of this poem).

²Kokoro [心] literally means heart or, by extension, mind or spirit. These derived meanings are further extended to mean the actions of the mind or spirit -- in this case, via mood or feeling, to the idea of sensitivity to something, being hyper-aware of the intimacies of a particular situation.

³In order of decreasing frequency in the scholarly explanations.

⁴Because such chawan often have a thin metal band* applied to the rim, which can be dented by a blow from the chashaku, the tap was directed at the bottom of the bowl -- usually on one side of the chawan-damari (which is above the thickest part of the foot). ___________ *This band is called a fukurin [覆輪]. It was traditionally heat-shrunk onto the rim of the bowl (so the use of adhesives could be eschewed -- both because the adhesive might contain a toxic material, and because any adhesive will weaken over time, making the fukurin liable to falling off unexpectedly).

The most commonly used metals were gold and silver, in Rikyū’s day (and before), with bronze and then brass appearing later, in the Edo period. The former are very soft, and easily dented; that latter two came into use precisely because they are less easy to dent (however, the higher heat necessary to shrink these fukurin onto the rim of the bowl carried an elevated risk, and so was used more commonly for newly imported pieces). Nevertheless, the meibutsu pieces still retained their original gold or silver fukurin, so the advisory remained in force.

⁵These clumps in the powdered matcha* can easily develop into katamari [固まり] (lumps remaining in the blended koicha -- or even usucha -- that can not be dispersed, even if the host tries to break them up with the chasen), which will ruin the guest’s enjoyment of the tea. ___________ *Katamari [固まり] are most commonly a result of the host’s failing to sift the matcha prior to dispensing it into the chaire.

However, even when the tea was sifted first, if the chaire is jarred or bumped with sufficient force, or if the tea was loaded into it too long beforehand (something that beginners are often wont to do), the tea can settle and compact into clods of this type, which become even denser when they are dumped into the chawan from some height (which is why Rikyū discouraged the practice of pouring the matcha into the chawan by rotating the chaire above its mouth, as most modern schools teach -- this was another way that Imai Sōkyū exhibitedᵃ his sense of “wabi”).

The matcha should always be handled gently and carefully in order to insure a good a bowl of koicha as possible. ___________ ᵃThis is something that modern practitioners of chanoyu need to understand -- at least if they are interested in experiencing (or, at least, understanding) Rikyū’s approach to chanoyu: Imai Sōkyū’s modus operandi was demonstrative, while Rikyū’s was logical and practical:

- In this case we are considering here, Sōkyū demonstrated his unconcern with the chaire by handling it roughly (rotating the chaire above the chawan is dangerous, since accidentally dropping it could not only shatter the chaire, but crack the chawan as well), while Rikyū held that, expensive or inexpensive, the chaire (and, indeed, all the utensils) should be handled carefully -- since someone who is careful when using an inexpensive and easily replaced utensil will naturally handle a meibutsu piece appropriately.

- When performing the chasen-tōshi, Imai Sōkyū went through an elaborate ritual of lifting up the chasen so that he could inspect the tines closely, to make sure none were loose or broken. Rikyū, however, held that, since the host had already examined the chasen carefully when preparing the chawan in the mizuya, there was no need to do so during the temae. Rather, by prolonging the chasen-tōshi in this way the host was allowing the hot water in the chawan to cool, defeating the purpose of performing the chasen-tōshi in the first place (since the idea was to allow the chawan to warm completely, so the koicha could be served to the guest as hot as appropriate to the season).

- When serving tea with the daisu in front of Hideyoshi, Sōkyū cleaned the temmoku with his thumb at the beginning of the temae, to demonstrate his dedication to cleanliness. Rikyū, on the other hand, explained that, since the temmoku had already been cleaned carefully and thoroughly in the mizuya before it was brought out to the daisu, there was no reason to go through this action again in front of the guest -- because the more likely outcome would be that the host was soiling the temmoku unnecessarily by rubbing it with his thumb.

It is said that it was this explanation that earned Rikyū the title of chief tea official -- though, of course, he had already clinched that position by going to Yamazaki to meet Hideyoshi on his return from his battle with Akechi Mitsuhide, while Sōkyū had stayed safely behind in Kyōto, preferring to await the outcome, and so reserving his allegiance for the actual victor rather than throwing in his lot before anything had been decided.

⁶Bamboo contains a significant amount of crystalline silica, which can easily scratch low-fired glazes (such as the transparent glaze used on traditional red Raku bowls).

⁷When spreading the matcha, so it is distributed uniformly across the cha-damari, it should not be necessary for the tip of the chashaku to come into contact with the bottom of the bowl at all. That said, beginners are often more aggressive than need be (especially after learning that clumps of matcha can easily develop into katamari, which will ruin the tea -- and so give the host a bad reputation*).

The same word of caution was also given with respect to the handling of the chashaku during the action of blending or whisking the tea†. ___________ *This is a common motivation behind many of the mistakes that beginners typically make.

In the Matsu-ya manuscript, this poem is found fairly early in the series (it is #11), indicating its importance for the beginner.

†As discussed in the following footnote, which draws attention to that poem.

⁸One possible reason for this is that it was conflated with poem 75 (in the Kyūshū manuscript), which provides a parallel word of caution against pressing the chashaku forcefully against the bottom of the chawan:

〽 cha wo tate-ba chasen ni kokoro yoku-tsukete chawan no soko [h]e tsuyoku-ataru na

[茶を立てば茶筌に心よく付けて茶碗の底へ强く當るな].

“When preparing tea, the chasen [should be] handled with great care, so that it does not scrape forcefully against the bottom of the chawan*.”

The matter of being conflated is only amplified by the absence of the above-cited poem from the Matsu-ya manuscript (and other early collections of the Chanoyu hyaku shu [茶湯百首], such as Rikyū’s 1580 manuscript) -- leading some scholars to suggest that they should actually be the same poem, and that one or the other of these versions was the result of an early copyist’s error. (That said, the fact that the version found in the Matsu-ya manuscript is, by far, the earliest, and so presumably the original, would suggest that Hosokawa Sansai may have been responsible for the erroneous rendering -- since his version is found only in the collections that can be connected directly with him.) __________ *Please refer to the post entitled the Chanoyu Hyaku-shu [茶湯百首], Part III: Poem 75. The URL for which is:

https://chanoyu-to-wa.tumblr.com/post/774043500239028224/the-chanoyu-hyaku-shu-%E8%8C%B6%E6%B9%AF%E7%99%BE%E9%A6%96-part-iii-poem-75

==============================================

◎ If these translations are valuable to you, please consider donating to support this work. Donations from the readers are the only source of income for the translator.

To contribute, please use the following link:

https://PayPal.Me/chanoyutowa

1 note · View note