maker in Sakai whose business had declined to the point that he had to sell his shop and stand on the streetcorner hawking fans. Then one day Ikkyu came by carrying some fans decorated with his own famous calligraphy and asked the man to take them on commission. Naturally they all sold immediately and, by subsequent merchandising of Ikkyu's works, the man's business eventually was restored. In gratitude he granted Ikkyu his daughter, from which union sprang Ikkyu's natural son, Jotei.
This story is questionable but it does illustrate the reputation Ikkyu enjoyed, both as artist and lover. Furthermore, he wrote touching and suspiciously fatherly poems to a little girl named Shoko.
Watching this four-year-old girl sing and dance,
I feel the pull of ties that are hard to dismiss,
Forgetting my duties I slip into freedom.
Master Abbot, whose Zen is this?21
When Ikkyu was in his seventies, during the disastrous civil conflict known as the Onin war, he had a love affair with a forty-year-old temple attendant named Mori. On languid afternoons she would play the Japanese koto or harp and he the wistful-sounding shakuhachi, a long bamboo flute sometimes carried by monks as a weapon. This late-life love affair occasioned a number of erotic poems, including one that claims her restoration of his virility (called by the Chinese euphemism "jade stalk") cheered his disciples.
How is my hand like Mori's hand?
Self confidence is the vassal, Freedom the master.
When I am ill she cures the jade stalk