Love, lust and life in Saikaku’s Japan

A portrait of Japanese poet Ihara Saikaku, circa before 1693, from the Tokyo National Museum. | WIKIMEDIA/ PUBLIC DOMAIN

Sep 2, 2026

A man overhears two young men talking on a ferry. One pursues love even if it kills him, as it well may: “His face was pale, and he was thin and worn, obviously from too much lovemaking.” The other, soberer, seeks “a country without women” where a man can live in peace.

The ferry lands, the passengers disembark, and the listener, curious, follows the two friends deep into a wood, to a rude cottage fronted by a “weathered plaque” reading, “Hut of a Sensuous Hermit.” Greeting the young men as welcome visitors is an old bent-backed woman, “to whose face the years had given a refined beauty.” They’ve come for a reason: “Neither of us understands the ways of sensuous love deeply enough yet… You’re so experienced, won’t you please tell us the story of your life?”

What a story, what a life!

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