I go to-morrow or the next day to Shimo-ichi. If you get the shōryō-bune, let me know. Any of your servants can, I think, fix the little masts and pennons in place. A small incense vessel and kawarake with dango, or models of dango, might be added by Dr. Tylor to the exhibit; but I suppose these are not essential.
With sincerest regards, ever truly,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN
Matsue, August, 1891.
Dear Mr. Chamberlain,—Before leaving, I must trouble you with another note or two.
For “Things Japanese,” I would like to make a suggestion about the article “Theatre.” The refer ence to O-Kuni seems to me extremely severe; for her story is very beautiful and touching. She was a miko in the Great Temple of Kizuki, and fell in love with a ronin named Nagoya Sanza, and she fled away with her lover to Kyōto. On the way, another ronin, who fell in love with her extraordinary beauty, was killed by Sanza. Always the face of the dead man haunted the girl.
At Kyōto she supported her lover by dancing the Miko-kagura in the dry bed of the river Kamogawa.
Then they went to Tōkyō (Yedo) and began to act. Sanza himself became a famous and successful actor. The two lived together until Sanza died.
Then she came back to Kizuki. She was learned, and a great poet in the style called renga. After Sanza’s death she supported herself, or at least occupied herself, in teaching this poetic art. But she shaved off her hair and became a nun, and built the little Buddhist temple in Kizuki called Rengaji, in which she lived, and taught her art. And the reason she built the temple was that she might pray for the soul of the ronin whom the sight of her beauty had ruined. The temple stood until thirty years ago. Nothing is now left of it but a broken statue of Jizō. Her family still live in Kizuki, and until the restoration the chief of the family was always entitled to a share of the profits of the Kizuki theatre, because his ancestress, the beautiful miko, had founded the art.