Twice ToldYotsuya kaidan in Kinsei jitsuroku zensho vol. 4 (1918): the opening, the matchmaker and the letter of release
- Language
- Japanese
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 15 October 2026
近世実録全書 (Kinsei jitsuroku zensho, “Complete documentary novels of the early modern period”) is a series of printings of Edo-period “true record” novels, edited by the Waseda University editorial office and published by Waseda University Press. Volume 4, dated 1918 in the NDL catalogue, holds four pieces, the third headed 四谷怪談. The text is typeset in modern type with readings printed beside the characters and no author named. Saitō Takashi lists this printing among the available editions of the documentary novel Yotsuya zōdan, dating it 1929 (斎藤 2019, p. 21, note 3), where the NDL catalogue says 1918; we did not compare it with a manuscript, so this page records what the 1918 printing says, not what the 1727 manuscripts say. The three passages below are the opening of the story, the matchmaker’s description of Oiwa and the first meeting of the couple, and the moment the letter of release is given.
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[p. 1, columns 1 to 10] 爰に御先手組與力伊藤喜兵衞、同心田宮伊右衞門、秋山長右衞門等三人の者ども、人の報いに依て其家永く絶えたる譚話あり、其根元を尋ぬるに田宮又左衞門と云ふ同心あり、人柄實體なる男ゆゑ頭三宅彌次兵衞殿に能く思はれけれ共、眼惡しく勤め難きゆゑ、幸ひお岩とて成人の娘あれば、これに聟を取り隱居せんとて、此四五年尋ね求むれども、此娘至つて性質惡しく誰れあつて娶んと云ふ者なし、然る所二十一歳の春疱瘡を煩ひ、至極大切なる病態となれども本復して、辛くも命は助かりしが、面體澁紙の如く引張り、髮は年にも似ず白髮交りに縮み上りて枯野の薄の如く、聲なまり響きて狼の友呼ぶ聲に等し、腰は曲み歪みて、松の枯木の如くに成り、剩さへ目つぶれて絶えず泪を流し、其見苦しき事譬ふるに物なく、女の數に入り難き風情なれども、其身と成りては惡しきとも思はざるにや、道行く人の怪しからぬ女の粧ひ顏と、立止り見返りけるを我に心ありてのことかと思ひて、得ならぬ顏癖をなすぞ大き成る了簡違ひなる、然るに父又左衞門偶と煩ひつき、其年五十一歳にて無常の身と成
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[p. 4, columns 1 to 2] 「左して氣遣ひなし、生れ付き十人竝に少し劣り、右の片目の内少し星あれども、結句目付き優美らしく見え、其上物縫ひ物書く事は並びなし、人柄は至極柔和なり」と拵へければ
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[p. 4, column 4, first sentence] 伊右衞門生國は攝州にて年三十一なる華車男なり
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[p. 4, columns 10 to 12] 黄昏時に及び且明るき方を後にして、打傾ぶきて居たりけり、伊右衞門怪しみて差覗き、一目見るより興を覺し、這は如何せんと思ひけれども今更すべき樣もなければ
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[p. 17, columns 4 to 8] 伊右衞門云ふべき詞も無く止みにけるが、扨て夫れより喜兵衞伊右衞門相談して、女房に暇の状を取らせ衣類夜の物残らず返しければ、お岩大きに悦び兼て約束の如く喜兵衞取持ち、四ッ谷鹽町二丁目紙賣又兵衞と云ふ者を請人に頼み、三番町邊の小身なる屋敷へ物縫ひ奉公に出しぬ、お岩は一向鰐の口を遁れし心地して奉公を勤め居たりけりと云ふ、
Translation
1. The opening. Here is a story of how three men, the Sakite-gumi yoriki Itō Kihei and the dōshin Tamiya Iemon and Akiyama Chōemon, saw their houses end for good through other people’s retribution. To find the root of it: there was a dōshin called Tamiya Matazaemon, a steady and honest man whom his superior, Miyake Yajibei, thought well of. His eyesight was poor and the duties were hard for him, and since he had a grown daughter, Oiwa, he meant to take a son-in-law for her and retire. For four or five years he searched, but the girl’s temper was so bad that nobody would take her as a wife. Then, in the spring of her twenty-first year, she caught smallpox and came very close to dying. She recovered and kept her life, but her face was pulled tight like persimmon-stained paper; her hair, grey for her age, was shrivelled like pampas grass in a dead field; her voice was thick and carried like a wolf calling for company; her back was bent and twisted like a dead pine; and on top of that she had lost her sight and her eyes ran with tears without stopping. Her ugliness was beyond comparison and she hardly counted as a woman, yet perhaps she did not think herself ugly. When passers-by stopped and looked back at a woman got up so strangely, she took it that they had a fancy for her, and she made faces [of an indescribable kind], which was a great mistake. Then her father Matazaemon fell ill and died at the age of fifty-one.
2. The matchmaker. “There is no great cause for worry. By birth she is a little below the ordinary, and there is a small white spot in her right eye, but if anything her eyes look graceful; and she is unrivalled at sewing and at writing; her nature is very gentle.” So he put it, dressing it up.
3. The husband. Iemon came from Settsu and was an elegant-looking man of thirty-one.
4. The first sight. It was dusk, and she sat with the bright side behind her, head tilted. Iemon looked in, puzzled, and at one glance his interest cooled. He thought, what is to be done, but there was nothing to be done now.
5. The letter of release. Iemon found nothing to say and let it drop. After that Kihei and Iemon talked it over, and gave his wife a letter of release and sent back all her clothes and bedding. Oiwa was greatly pleased. As had been agreed, Kihei looked after her: he asked Matabei, a paper seller of Shiomachi 2-chōme in Yotsuya, to stand guarantor and placed her as a sewing servant in the household of a samurai of modest means near Sanbanchō. Oiwa served feeling that she had entirely escaped the jaws of a crocodile, it is said.
Notes
The reading is from the NDL page images (pid 953586, rights marked public domain, internet), and I compared each passage line by line with the printed page. The readings printed beside the characters, the repetition marks and the punctuation are not reproduced beyond the printed 、 and 。; old character forms (衞, 髮, 澁, 惡) are kept as printed, and 〳〵 repetition marks in the source are written out where they occur in these passages (none do).
Uncertain: in passage 1, 得ならぬ顏癖 (we render “faces of an indescribable kind”; the phrase can be read as pulling odd faces or as coquettish ones); 粧ひ顏 (we render “got up so strangely”). In passage 2, 星 is a spot in the eye; our “small white spot in her right eye” is a loose rendering of 右の片目の内少し星あれども. In passage 5, 暇の状 is a letter of release from the marriage; 取らせ here means the letter is given to her, and the passage does not say who writes it; 鰐の口 is our “jaws of a crocodile”; 華車男 (passage 3) we render “elegant-looking”, since 華車 is a delicate, graceful look.
Passage 5 matters because in this printing the divorce is arranged by Kihei and Iemon together (the page before it, p. 16, has Kihei advising her to cut the tie and go into service), and she learns of Kihei’s and Iemon’s plan only afterwards. The summary of the 1884 edition by Saitō (2019, pp. 23 to 24) agrees: Oiwa asks for the divorce herself and goes into service elsewhere.
The text names the dōshin’s superior as Miyake Yajibei (三宅彌次兵衞) and Oiwa’s father as Tamiya Matazaemon; the 1827 report and the shrines name a Matazaemon too.