About This Print

The eleventh print appearing in Volume 3 of Gishi taikan, edited by Fukumoto Nichinan. 

The female artist, Shima Seien, presents us with Ōishi Kuranosuke's mistress Okaru covering her koto, after entertaining him. Fukumoto in his commentary tells us that "Ōishi Kuranosuke took a beautiful woman named Okaru as his concubine" and that "she was the daughter of Nimonji-ya Jirōzaemon who lived in the Nijō Teramachi area [of Kyoto]."[1]

The story about Kuranosuke and his mistress became embellished over the years, with Okaru becoming a major character in the play Kanadehon chushingura. Historians Federico Marcon and Henry D. Smith II, tell us, "Although it remains unclear whether her name was really 'Okaru' (or 'Karu'), it seems to be established historical fact that Kuranosuke had a mistress in his final months in Kyoto, before leaving for Edo in the tenth month of 1702. The most revealing evidence is to be found in a letter that he wrote to a priest in Kyoto on 1702.11.25, just twenty days before the attack on Kira, in which he sought assistance in providing for the impending "Nijō birth" (Nijō shussan), an apparent reference to Okaru's family residence at Nijō Teramachi and to her pregnancy by Ōishi. Remarkably, however, we have been unable to locate mention of Okaru in any of the early chronicles of the Akō incident, a circumstance that suggests that her existence was known to only a few people."[2] 

[1] In the commentary, Fukumoto uses the characters 阿輕 for Okaru's name, supplementing it with おかる to be clear on the pronunciation "Okaru". The translation in quotations is my own.

[2] "A Chūshingura Palimpsest: Young Motoori Norinaga Hears the Story of the Akō Rōnin from a Buddhist Priest", Federico Marcon and Henry D. Smith, II appearing in Monumenta Nipponica, Winter, 2003, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Winter, 2003), Sophia University, pp. 439-465; Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/25066252, p. 458-459.

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