CHAPTER 5
1 . Fukurokuju: One of the seven “gods of fortune,” of Chinese origin. Fukurokuju is characterized by a very elongated head. Childless couples could pray to a chosen deity in hopes of receiving the gift of a child from him.
2 . Anglo-Japanese Alliance: In 1902 England and Japan drew up a military alliance. It was celebrated in Japan by the issue of sets of tiny crossed flags of the two nations.
CHAPTER 6
1 . Wen Tong’s bamboo . . . the human figures of Buson: Wen Tong (1018-79) was a Chinese ink painter famed for his bamboo. Unkoku Togan (1547-1618) was a bold and expressive painter of screens. Taigado (Ike Taiga, 1723-76) painted in the style of the Southern School of Chinese painting known as Nanga. Yosa Buson (1716-83) was a haiku poet and painter in the Nanga style.
2 . Sesshu: Sesshu (1420-1506) was an ink painter of landscapes.
3 . Lessing: Gotthold Lessing (1729-81) was a German dramatist and essayist who wrote on the theory of aesthetics, most famously in Laocoön.
CHAPTER 8
1 . the Nanso School: Nanso was a style of traditional ink painting originating in China.
2 . Mokubei: Aoki Mokubei (1767-1833) was a well-known Kyoto ceramicist and ink painter.
3 . Sanyo: Rai Sanyo (1780-1832) was a Confucian scholar and aesthete, as was his father, Shunsui (1746-1816).
4 . Tankei: Tankei is an area of China that gave its name to the ink stones produced from its prized stone. The stone was characterized by round red spots known as shrike spots.
5 . Kyohei: Rai Kyohei (1756-1834) was a disciple of Shunsui.
6 . Sorai: Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) was a Confucian scholar and poet.
7 . Kotaku: Hosoi Kotaku (1658-1735) was a Confucian scholar and calligrapher.
CHAPTER 9
1 . “The woman emanated . . . his veins”: A free translation of a scene at the end of Chapter 8 of Beauchamp’s Career by the English novelist George Meredith (1828-1909).
CHAPTER 10
1 . the Iwasakis and Mitsuis of this world: The Iwasaki family, founders of the Mitsubishi Company, and the Mitsui family, founders of the Mitsui Company, were the two great financial families of the Meiji period.
2 . Timon of Athens: This famously misanthropic Greek ruler (fifth century B.C.) was portrayed in Shakespeare’s 1623 play of that name.
CHAPTER 11
1 . Iwasa Matabei: Matabei (1578-1650) was a Japanese painter with a quirky, freestyle form.
2 . nembutsu: A repeated chant invoking Amida Buddha. An early form of nembutsu worship included dance.
3 . Chao Buzhi: Buzhi (1053-1110) was a Chinese poet, painter, and scholar. The following quotation is from Traveling to the Northern Mountains of Xincheng.
CHAPTER 12
1 . Goodall: Frederick Goodall (1822-1904) was a British portraitist and landscape painter.
2 . There was once a youth . . . on the rock above: In 1903, at the age of eighteen, Fujimura Misao, a disciple of Soseki, committed suicide at the Kegon Falls in Nikko. He left a final poem on a nearby tree.
3 . Beset by thoughts . . . all about: A poem composed by Soseki in March 1899, contemporaneously with the period of his life on which this novel is based.
4 . in the style of the Kano School: Kano was an elegant painting style dating from the fifteenth century.
Sōseki Natsume, Kusamakura
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