¹ Donald Keene, Dawn to the West (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984), 204.

² Ikuta Chōkō, “Izumi Kyōka shi no shōsetsu o ronzu,” in Tanizawa and Watanabe, eds., Kyōka ronshūsei (Tokyo: Rippu shobō, 1983), 177.

³ Noguchi Takehiko, “Izumi Kyōka kenkyū annai,” in Izumi Kyōka, Kanshō Nihon gendai bungaku 3 (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1982), 400.

⁴ J. Keith Vincent, Two-Timing Modernity: Homosocial Narrative in Modern Japanese Fiction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asian Manuscripts, 2012).

⁵ Eve Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley and L.A.: University of California Press, 1990), 47-48.

⁶ Iris: Kakitsubata. Rabbit-ear iris, Iris Laevigata. Over two feet tall with broad, sword-shaped leaves, it grows in water or swamp-land. It may have purple or white blossoms. Kakitsubata is also the title of a noh drama of the Katsura (wig) type; It is also a makurakotoba (pillow word) for niou (fragrance).

⁷ Minstrel girl (torioi), a type of street musician. During the Edo Period (1600 - 1868) on New Year, torioi would stand at residential gates, sing, play the samisen and beg for alms.

⁸ Yukari no iro. Yukari means something like “mystical connection,” but yukari no iro means “purple.”

⁹ Koishikawa is a part of present-day Bunkyo-ku in Tokyo. It was one of the 35 prefectures which comprised old Tokyo.

¹⁰ The fifth year of Kansei: 1793.

¹¹ The word I have translated as a “tale of doomed love” is the Japanese word michiyuki. Nakanishi Susumu defines michiyuki as follows: “a travel passage. A michiyuki is a technique used to depict characters' movements, typically their approach toward imminent death, by stringing together a series of place names. The most widely known examples of this kind are the michiyuki in the joruri (puppet play) narratives by the Edo-period writer, Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Nakanishi Susumu, ”The Spatial Nature of Japanese Myth,“ in Principles of Classical Japanese Literature, Earl Miner ed. (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1985) 117. Donald Keene defines it as: ”The journey section of a play or work of fiction, often relating, with references to places passed on the way, the feelings of suicidal lovers on their way to death.“ Donald Keene, World Within Walls (New York: Grove Press, 1976) Glossary 576.

¹² Firearms Corps: One of the Edo-Period army divisions. As is evident from the name, a division which used guns.

¹³ Literally: michiyuki wo kita: wearing traveling (clothing is inferred). There is also a repetition of the word michiyuki, or the lyrical account of doomed love affair.

¹⁴ Benzaiten is the Japanese name for Sarasvati, Buddhist Goddess of music, speech, wealth, wisdom, longevity, success, and protection against calamity. Bishomonten is the Japanese name for Kubera, one of the four Heavenly Kings, guardian of the north.

¹⁵ Musashi Plain: Musashino. The great Kanto Plain. The beauty of Musashi Plain has been celebrated in many modern works, including a collection of stories by Kunikida Doppo, Musashino. Yamada Bimyo also wrote a text entitled Musashino. It is also the title of an eight-volume work published in 1673 which attempted to make linked poetry (renga and haikai) linking phrases more accessible to the public by listing famous beauty spots and lines of renga poetry associated with these spots. A two-volume work of haikai also entitled Musashino was written in 1676 but only the second of the two volumes exists today.

¹⁶ Shogunal family members: Reference to the Tokugawa family, under whose aegis Japan was united under centralized, yet feudal rule. In other words, the authorities.

¹⁷ Takimotoin, a Fudo temple. The word fudo literally means immobile. It is an abbreviation for Fudo Myoo (Sanskrit: Acala) Buddhist God of Fire. Acala is often identified in Japan with the Shinto deity, Ebisu. He is usually depicted with glaring black eyes, and a rageful countenance, teeth clenched. He holds a sword to subdue demons in his right hand, and a rope to truss them in the other, and is seated on a stone dais, enveloped in flames. He has eight disciples, among them the two mentioned later: Kimkara and Cetaka. See note 37.

¹⁸ A translation of each character in his name: Samurai-castle-red-north-true-man-front-enclosure-decree-exhaust-ten-side-hut-big-pure-revere-order-old-pilgrim. Issen means “one cup of tea.”

¹⁹ Nichiren (1222-1282) was the founder of the Nichiren Sect of Buddhism. The sect held the Lotus Sutra supreme, and believed that salvation could be achieved through recitation of the sutra's name. Nichiren was a vociferous critic of established sects and patronage of these sects by the authorities, and so suffered greatly at the authorities' hands, and was banished to an island off the mainland.

²⁰ Night soil: Euphemism for human excrement.

²¹ Japanese legends abound in tales of bewitched foxes (and other animals). The candyman is afraid that Issen is not really human but a fox in human manifestation out to trick him.

²² Hakuzosu is the name of the chief priest of a Shorin Temple in the Eitoku Period (1381-1382). Legend has it that he believed in Inari (a fox deity), and made pets of three foxes which were endowed with divinity and prophetic ability. A kyogen (comic drama interlude between no plays) play called Tsuri kitsune is based on this legend.

²³ A reference to the sankin kotai (alternate attendance) system by which samurai were required to travel to and reside in Edo annually or biannually.

²⁴ Jippoan is used both to designate the priest, and to designate his hermitage.

²⁵ Moxibustion is a medical treatment by which herbs are burned on certain body points to cure a variety of ailments.

²⁶ Literally, furameki, also meaning “aimlessly.”

²⁷ Japanese: Kappa taiji.

²⁸ River-imp: kappa. Ka means river and pa means imp. Issen substitutes the character for water, also pronounced ka, for river, and the character for tiger, pronounced pa, instead of the one for imp. Kahaku (river-demon) and kawataro (river-creature) are synonyms for river-imp. The priest was asked to write kappa taiji, in the characters 河童退治, and he muses over which Chinese characters he should use, listing 河童kappa (river imp), 河伯kahaku (river demon) 河太郎kawataro (river creature) but ends up choosing 水虎 suiko (water tiger) synonym for kappa. Usually pronounced suiko, the rubi pronunciation guide reads it as kappa. The kappa is a mythical creature of Japanese folklore. It is also a term used for an excellent swimmer. Kyoka uses the term both ways: to describe Seisaburo's skill as a swimmer and to denote the mysterious demon of the underwater caves. Although kappa legends extend throughout Japan, local traditions have different versions. Usually found in rivers, or other freshwater sources, the kappa is generally a skillful swimmer, often depicted with a saucer or plate (or depression) filled with water at the top of its head – and if that saucer cracks or dries up, the kappa dies. The kappa sports a beak, and on its back, a shell like a turtle. Although some kappa are depicted as more mischievous than evil, others indeed drag people who venture near their watery lairs into the water and drown them, of course drowning swimmers as well. Kappa are also known for a particular erotic fondness for young men. This example is well illustrated in the popular and well-known 1763 Edo tale “Rootless Weeds,”(Nenashigusa), in which a kappa takes the form of a samurai to seduce a famous kabuki onnagata (biological male player of female roles). Second, they stink, and apparently, according to some sources, have 3 anuses. Moreover, they are known for stealing people's shirikodama or a ball or jewel that it is imagined people have inside their anuses, and either eating this shirikodama or else using it to pay taxes to the turtle king. People whose shirikodama have been stolen have weakened sphincters, and become cowardly.

²⁹ Hachiman is the Shinto God of War. Gu means shrine.

³⁰ Munatsuki: literally “the steepest part” of a mountain pathway.

³¹ Kappa have scales on their backs, and also sometimes leap on their victims' backs. Either of which might make his back itch!

³² Eta and hinin: heavily polluted and non-human. Early Tokugawa society was rigidly structured into four classes: (in descending order) samurai, peasant, artisan, and merchant. Beneath these four was an underclass consisting of those who worked in certain trades such as tanning, butchery, or burials - any occupations deemed unclean by prevailing Buddhist and/or Shinto beliefs. See Mikiso Hane, Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982), 139-143. There was some movement in and out of the hinin class, but eta were fixed by birth. These words are no longer used today and have been replaced with the term hisabetsu burakumin.

³³ Seashell contest evokes the heyday of Japanese aesthetics, the Heian Period, when such contests were held by court aristocracy; many other such contests included poetry, screen painting, etc.

³⁴ Samisen were made from dog or cat skins, and often the skins retained the marks of the position of the teats, so although the text makes it comparative, the comparison is logical.

³⁵ Musashi Plain - see note 10. The grounding flower in a flower arrangement is a flower that offsets, balances and enhances a higher, more centrally placed, or more important blossom.

³⁶ In Part One the date of the discussion meeting is given as the thirteenth. Most likely an oversight by Kyoka.

³⁷ Ura ni naru refers to the practice of linking poetry through kokoro (conceptual association) rather than kotoba (word association). See Earl Miner, Japanese Linked Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) for a discussion of Japanese linked poetry.

³⁸ Arhat: Sanskrit for realized being. A man who has attained Buddhist enlightenment within his lifetime.

³⁹ A spot for performing water-purification rites. See note 12 for background on Acala.

⁴⁰ His outfit is bellicose. Black lacquer was often used on weapons as well as garments to indicate warring intention.

⁴¹ Eastern Capital is a reference to Edo, present day Tokyo. The capital was moved from Kyoto to Edo by the Tokugawa Shogun to consolidate power. Banto (Bando) Hikosaburo, 1754-1828. Kabuki actor.

⁴² Cetaka is one of Acala's eight disciples. See note 12.

⁴³ Oyakata is a respectful title. He is addressing Bando Hikosaburo.

⁴⁴ Red lotus level of Hell: The seventh of the eight cold levels of Hell. The skin of sinners who fall into this level splits and their blood flows out, said to resemble red lotus flowers.

⁴⁵ The Katsura is a tree indigenous to Japan. Approximately thirty meters in height, with grayish bark, heart-shaped leaves and red blossoms. In Chinese folklore this tree can be found growing on the moon.

⁴⁶ Shrine of the Monkey God at Tamba. Tamba is an old province name for an area included in present-day Kyoto. Statues of various animals, often horses, called otsukai (messenger) can be found on the environs of many Shinto shrines. The reason for choosing a particular animal may have been as simple as the animal's presence in the particular area.

⁴⁷ A reference to a Japanese legend. A white-feathered arrow shot to the roof of a household informed people of a god's summons to a woman he desired. It means: Seisaburo is already chosen.

⁴⁸ Goddess Sarasvati: See note 9 on Benzaiten.

⁴⁹ Iron staff Li was one of the eight mythical Chinese Immortals. He supposedly lived during the Sui Dynasty (589-618).

⁵⁰ Mountain demons: Tengu. Mythological creatures said to inhabit deep mountains, endowed with mysterious powers and capable of taking on human manifestation. In original form they have long noses, red-faces and wings. See note 23 on the kappa river imp or demon.

⁵¹ Noh drama side door entrance (literally: coward-doorway) is the one used by the musicians. Also an entry-exit doorway for performers on the Kabuki stage.

⁵² Yuten is the name of an early Edo Period Jodo sect (Pure Land) Buddhist priest who was awarded the purple robe. The reference here is to an historical novel based on the legend of Priest Yuten, Yuten shonin goichidai ki in which Yuten is reported to have thrust Acala's sword down his throat to vomit out bad blood which had been preventing him from learning the sutras. After he cleansed himself in this manner, he was able to learn.

⁵³ Hinin means “non-person,” and Kiyomitsu means “pure light.”

⁵⁴ Echizen comic-entertainer and his partner: manzai comic duo. Heinz Morioka and Miyoko Sasaki define manzai as follows: “‘Cheering manzai’ was established as a narrative art when it became the custom for two representatives of a Shinto shrine to go from house to house during the first few days of the year. They performed comical dances and engaged in congratulatory repartee believe to be messages from local deities or prayers for ‘10,000 years’ (manzai) of long life and good luck. During mid-Edo, the two performers came to be called tayu and saizo.” Heinz Morioka and Miyoko Sasaki, Rakugo, Council on East Asian Studies (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University, 1990), 6. Tayu (translated as comic) and Saizo (translated as partner) are titles for two distinct roles, wit and straight man.