courtesans, prostitutes & whores: Finale

new orleans had its storyville, paris montmartre, and edo had the yoshiwara. the last two, anyway, shared several things: a severe ranking system, a prominant (and defining) social presence, and an opportunity for the brilliant and talented woman to gain the world outside the home.

in these prints we see poets, painters, musicians, writers; were you to go looking for them during this edo era, you would only find them in courts, and in courtesans.

The great majority of Japanese women who succeeded as artists were also talented poets. Because so many noblewomen of earlier ages were renowned for their novels, dairies, and poetry, the Edo-period literary world was prepared to accept women. Those who won the most popular acclaim did so because their talents were visible to the public. Many were courtesans, employed in one of the few vocations in which intelligent women of the plebian classes were encouraged to display their talents. Within this profession there were many levels: At the bottom were low-class prostitutes, but at the top were exceptionally talented women skilled in traditional poetry, calligraphy, and painting. 1

The licensed pleasure quarter of Edo, Yoshiwara, famed for its government-sanctioned brothels, kabuki theater, fashionable restaurants, and street entertainment, was a principal inspiration for many Ukiyo-e artists. It was here -- in this "floating world" of pleasure and entertainment -- that the confines of social class could be pushed aside. Various forms of entertainment, particularly kabuki theater and the pleasure quarters, lured monied patrons who were eager in turn to acquire the vivid images of celebrated actors and exquisite courtesans created by Ukiyo-e artists.

The high-ranking courtesans from Yoshiwara are identified on each print by their names, the houses in which they worked, and the locations of the houses. Gorgeously attired from their elaborately coiffed hair to their lofty platform shoes, these women create a dramatic impression. There were several parallels between kabuki actors and high-ranking courtesans during the Edo Period, including the use of hereditary names that could carry the caché of celebrity down through generations.

This print by Kikugawa Eizan (1787-1867) depicts Ono no Komachi (ca. ninth century), a celebrated poet, famed also for her spectacular beauty and its decline in her old age. The translated inscription on this print reads:

Even if we say life is limited,
The accumulating years would not matter
If one's appearance did not change. 2

(though i could find no other clear evidence of it, she is clearly depicted here as a courtesan.)

Is this love reality
or a dream?
I cannot know
when both reality and dreams
exist without truly existing. 3

(also by ono no komachi)

Collectors and connoisseurs sought out verses written by eminent courtesans like Ohashi, who was active in the mid-eighteenth century. In her poems on decorated paper, Ohashi positioned the words beautifully, the lines of writing bridging the division between the upper blue field and the plain paper below. Heavily inked strings of characters deftly balanced against lighter ones created when her brush began to run dry. Her poem refers to the inevitable parting between lovers at dawn, and the sadness that follows.

Kinuginu no
Wakare wa yume ni
Nariyuke to
Ukarishi tori no
Ne koso wasurene

"On the morning after,
Let your parting
Be like a dream."
I cannot forget
The wretched cry of the bird. 3

There were, of course, varying degrees of courtesans, and, as a rule, it is only those of the highest class, called oirans, that are represented in prints.

The dress of all courtesans, particularly of the oiran, was of a splendour wholly different from the costume of the ordinary woman, and their coiffure also was of a very elaborate nature, which was built up upon a light frame and kept in position by a regular forest of light metal or wooden pins, which framed the head like the halo of a saint in a stained-glass window.

They were further distinguished by wearing the sash (obi) tied in front, whereas all other women, including geisha (dancing and singing girls), tied them with the bow behind. It is often in the decoration of the obi that we find the most elaborate and brilliant designs, even in a costume which is gorgeous throughout. 4

the stresses of setting style may have been set aside by a sense of sisterhood, and some oirans commanded enough to bring down a castle in exchange for an evening's pleasure, but as with the women in montmartre, in storyville, they were surely stars, but stars of a ghetto.

courtesans, prostitutes & whores: Part IIIC Courtesans

A LEGEND OF FUGEN-BOSATSU 1

Lafcadio Hearn

There was once a very pious and learned priest, called Shôku Shônin, who lived in the province of Harima. For many years he meditated daily upon the chapter of Fugen-Bosatsu [the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra] in the Sûtra of the Lotos of the Good Law; and he used to pray, every morning and evening, that he might at some time be permitted to behold Fugen-Bosatsu as a living presence, and in the form described in the holy text. 2

One evening, while he was reciting the Sûtra, drowsiness overcame him; and he fell asleep leaning upon his kyôsoku.3 Then he dreamed; and in his dream a voice told him that, in order to see Fugen-Bosatsu, he must go to the house of a certain courtesan, known as the "Yujô-no-Chôja,"4 who lived in the town of Kanzaki. Immediately upon awakening he resolved to go to Kanzaki; — and, making all possible haste, he reached the town by the evening of the next day.

When he entered the house of the yujô, he found many persons already there assembled — mostly young men of the capital, who had been attracted to Kanzaki by the fame of the woman's beauty. They were feasting and drinking; and the yujô was playing a small hand-drum (tsuzumi), which she used very skilfully, and singing a song. The song which she sang was an old Japanese song about a famous shrine in the town of Murozumi; and the words were these: —

Within the sacred water-tank5 of Murozumi in Suwô,
Even though no wind be blowing,
The surface of the water is always rippling.

The sweetness of the voice filled everybody with surprise and delight. As the priest, who had taken a place apart, listened and wondered, the girl suddenly fixed her eyes upon him; and in the same instant he saw her form change into the form of Fugen-Bosatsu, emitting from her brow a beam of light that seemed to pierce beyond the limits of the universe, and riding a snow-white elephant with six tusks. And still she sang — but the song also was now transformed; and the words came thus to the ears of the priest: —

On the Vast Sea of Cessation,
Though the Winds of the Six Desires and of the Five Corruptions never blow,
Yet the surface of that deep is always covered
With the billowings of Attainment to the Reality-in-Itself.

Dazzled by the divine ray, the priest closed his eyes: but through their lids he still distinctly saw the vision. When he opened them again, it was gone: he saw only the girl with her hand-drum, and heard only the song about the water of Murozumi. But he found that as often as he shut his eyes he could see Fugen-Bosatsu on the six-tusked elephant, and could hear the mystic Song of the Sea of Cessation. The other persons present saw only the yujô: they had not beheld the manifestation.

Then the singer suddenly disappeared from the banquet-room — none could say when or how. From that moment the revelry ceased; and gloom took the place of joy. After having waited and sought for the girl to no purpose, the company dispersed in great sorrow. Last of all, the priest departed, bewildered by the emotions of the evening. But scarcely had he passed beyond the gate, when the yujô appeared before him, and said: — "Friend, do not speak yet to any one of what you have seen this night." And with these words she vanished away, — leaving the air filled with a delicious fragrance.

✤

The monk by whom the foregoing legend was recorded, comments upon it thus: — The condition of a yujô is low and miserable, since she is condemned to serve the lusts of men. Who therefore could imagine that such a woman might be the nirmanakaya, or incarnation, of a Bodhisattva. But we must remember that the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas may appear in this world in countless different forms; choosing, for the purpose of their divine compassion, even the most humble or contemptible shapes when such shapes can serve them to lead men into the true path, and to save them from the perils of illusion.

1 From the old story-book, Jikkun-shô.

2 The priest's desire was probably inspired by the promises recorded in the chapter entitled "The Encouragement of Samantabhadra" (see Kern's translation of the Saddharma Pundarîka in the Sacred Books of the East, — pp. 433-434): — "Then the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Samantabhadra said to the Lord: . . . 'When a preacher who applies himself to this Dharmaparyâya shall take a walk, then, O Lord, will I mount a white elephant with six tusks, and betake myself to the place where that preacher is walking, in order to protect this Dharmaparyâya. And when that preacher, applying himself to this Dharmaparyâya , forgets, be it but a single word or syllable, then will I mount the white elephant with six tusks, and show my face to that preacher, and repeat this entire Dharmaparyâya." — But these promises refer to "the end of time."

3 The Kyôsoku is a kind of padded arm-rest, or arm-stool, upon which the priest leans one arm while reading. The use of such an arm-rest is not confined, however, to the Buddhist clergy.

4 A yujô, in old days, was a singing-girl as well as a courtesan. The term "Yujô-no-Chôja," in this case, would mean simply "the first (or best) of yujô."

5 Mitarai. Mitarai (or mitarashi) is the name especially given to the water-tanks, or water-fonts — of stone or bronze — placed before Shintô shrines in order that the worshipper may purify his lips and hands before making prayer. Buddhist tanks are not so named.

from this story ruth st. denis created her "dance drama" O-Mika. inspired by seeing sado yacco's work, and by studying noh theater, she created a japanese dance illustrating, interestingly, the true nature of the courtesan. i am not completely certain these all come from that one ballet, but most of them did. most of the images are from the nypl.

O-Mika means "New Moon."

courtesan sidebar part b: Salomé-mania!

almost every artist here has been featured in this blog before. can you guess who the artist is without looking?

what a day it's been. i had a rising feeling of discontent as i thought more and more about the inherent misogyny in this story, and how at the moment when women shed their corsets they became frightening on a new level.

of course, this myth, the woman with the knife, with the scissors, wasn't born then. salome is an ancient tale, and the form takes so many names: delilah, for one.

THE SEVEN VEILS OF SALOME

Salome Awaits Her Entrance.

I was standing in the doorway
when he reproached her.
Not with words, but a simple
absence of attention: She was smiling,
holding out a slip of meat, skewered fruit--
some delicacy he'd surely never seen
in all his dust-blown, flea-plagued
wanderings--and he stared at it
for the longest while,
as if the offer came from it and not
those tapered fingers, my mother's
famous smile. He said nothing,
merely turned away his large
and beautifully arrogant head.

Herodias, in the Doorway.

More than anything I ache to see her
so girlish. She steps languidly
into their midst as if onto a pooled expanse
of grass ... or as if she were herself
the meadow, unruffled green
ringed with lilies
instead of these red-rimmed eyes,
this wasteland soaked in smoke and pleasure.
Ignorant, she moves as if inventing
time--and the musicians scurry
to deliver a carpet of flutes
under her flawless heel.

Herod, Watching.

I should have avoided this, loving her mother
as I do, to the length and breadth of my kingdom
even to the chilly depths of history's wrath.
But it was my birthday; I was bent upon
happiness and love, I loved
Herodias, my Herodias!--who sends
her honeyed daughter into the feast.
The first veil fell, and all
my celebrated years
dissolved in bitter rapture. O Herodias!
You have outdone us all.

The Fool, at Herod's Feet.

Just a girl, slim-hipped, two knots
for breasts, sheathed potential
caught before the inevitable
over-bloom and rot (life's revenge
if death eludes us)--all
any of us men want, really.
Just a girl. Otherwise,
who can fathom it, how is it
to be fathomed? At his behest, her mother's?
It matters little--she was dispatched
into the circle of elders, and there
she rivets the world's desire.

Salome, Dancing.

I have a head on my shoulders
but no one sees it; no one
reckons with a calculated wrist or pouting underlip.
I've navigated this court's attentions
and I will prove I can be crueler than government,
I will delegate what nature's given me
(this body, this anguish,
oiled curves and perfumed apertures),
I will dance until they've all lost their heads--
the nobles slobbering over their golden goblets,
the old king sweating on his throne,
my mother in the doorway, rigid with regret,
the jester who watches us all and laughs--

O Mother, what else is a girl to do?

Rita Dove

RITA DOVE served as United States Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995. Among her many literary and academic honors are the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and the 2001 Duke Ellington Lifetime Achievement Award. Her most recent poetry collections are Mother Love and On the Bus with Rosa Parks.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Modern Poetry Association

courtesan sidebar: Salomé-mania!

Early twentieth-century Paris saw an embarrassment of half-naked women dancing with seven veils and papier-mâché heads: ‘Salomania’ had gripped the capital. By 1913 Salome was a regular feature on music hall show-bills, besides the balletic and operatic stage.

...Three variations on Salome's notorious Dance of the Seven Veils, [were] performed by Loie Fuller (1907), Ida Rubinstein (1909) and Maud Allan (from 1906) on music by Florent Schmitt, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and Richard Strauss respectively. 1

what about this moment in time brought about this mania?

Bram Dijkstra has written of the general fin-de-siècle interest in Salomé that "Salomé's hunger for the Baptist's head thus proved to be a mere pretext for the men's need to find the source of all wrongs they thought were being done to them. Salomé, the evil woman, became their favourite scapegoat." In order for the spirit to triumph over the body, Salomé had to be executed "in a cleansing massacre." Her death became the triumph of the Victorian male over sexual temptation. 2

Christians traditions depict her as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness, for instance depicting her dance mentioned in the New Testament (in some later transformations further iconised to the dance of the seven veils), or concentrate on her lighthearted and cold foolishness which according to the gospels led to John the Baptist's death.

A new ramification was added by Oscar Wilde, who in his play Salome let her devolve into a necrophiliac, killed the same day as the man whose death she had requested. This last interpretation, made even more memorable by Richard Straus's opera. 3

Joseph Cornell's L 'Egypte de Mile, Cléo de Mérode, 1940, is not the Egypt seen by Flaubert, detachedly noting the gleam of his white socks at mid- night on the Nile. Cornell had never been, or wished to go, to that Egypt. But in his mind the image of Cléo de Mérode, a courtesan who so enraptured Paris society in the '90s that even Proust is said to have murmured "Gloria in excelsis Cléo!" when she walked into Maxim's, fused with those of Cleopatra and the Sphinx. 4

Within a short number of years, Otero grew to be the most sought after woman in all of Europe. She was serving, by this time, as a courtesan to wealthy and powerful men of the day, and she chose her lovers carefully. She associated herself with the likes of Prince Albert I of Monaco, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Kings of Serbia, and Kings of Spain as well as Russian Grand Dukes Peter and Nicholas, the Duke of Westminster and writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. Her love affairs made her infamous, and the envy of many other notable female personalities of the day.

Six men reportedly committed suicide after their love affairs with Otero ended, although this has never been substantiated beyond a doubt. It is a fact, however, that two men did fight a duel over her. She was pretty, confident, intelligent, with an attractive figure, and was famed for her voluptuous breasts, and one of her most famous costumes featured her breasts partially covered with glued-on precious gems, and the twin cupolas of the Hotel Carlton built in 1912 in Cannes were modeled after her breasts.

It was once said of her that her extraordinarily dark black eyes were so captivating that they were "of such intensity that it was impossible not to be detained before them." 5

The Belle Epoque, the period that Otero symbolized, was famous not only for its writers, artists, playwrights, and actors but also for the glittering social scene which was staged almost continuously on the Grands Boulevards in Paris, the epicenter of the atmosphere, and the stage on which the courtesan played a vital and charismatic role. 6

Just as Venus arose from the sea instead of a lake or a river, the courtesan emerged from a very particular medium. The waters of her birth, salted by the bitter tears of women who were condemned to penury and by those of wealthy and poor women alike who lamented the rules that limited and constrained their erotic lives, were made up of a perfect blend of injustice and prudery.

The genius of the courtesan was in how she turned the same ingredients to her advantage. Considering the distribution of power between men and women in the times during which she lived, to say that she turned the tables would be an understate- ment. If we ponder very long the fact, for instance, that La Belle Otro, the famous courtesan of the Second Empire, successfully demanded from one of her lovers the priceless long diamond necklace that had once belonged to the former queen, Marie-Antoinette, we may begin to appreciate the dimensions of the reversal. Yet exactly how this stunning victory was achieved remains a mystery.

Some clues are given to us in a story that Colette tells about a conver- sation she had while she was still performing in music halls with La Belle Otro. Thinking the young woman somewhat green, Otro offered her some advice. "There comes a time," she said, "with every man when he will open up his hand to you."

"But when is that?" Colette asked.

"When you twist his wrist," Otero replied.

Like many courtesans, Otero was known for her wit. Doubtless, that is why Colette remembered the dialogue. Indeed, the key we are seeking to the mystery is less in the content of Otero's answer than in the way it was given. She delivered her last line with con- summate timing. And looking further at what she told her young protegee, it becomes quickly evident that the crucial phrase in her advice is not in the last line but in the first phrase, "There comes a time." The secret of her success was that she chose exactly the right moment to twist her lover's wrist. 7

And there is reason for the disappearance of this tradition. The temper of the times has shifted, too. Technically speaking, many women today do what courtesans did; it is quite common still for a married man to support his mistress, and a whole population of highly cultivated and elegant women serve today as escorts, call girls, and modern hetaerae. But just as surely as the role of the courtesan was created by historical conditions, she was also inextricably linked to a historical mood that had come to an end by the third decade of the last century. In 1948, after visiting La Belle Otero, Anne Manson wrote: "When Otero departs there will depart with her the last symbol of an epoch, superficial, light and at the same time virtuous and cynical, covetous toward others yet madly extravagant in its pleasures, full of faults but not without its splendors." 6

i didn't expect to go here, but here came to me, with six of these women having been known as being courtesans in addition to being in the theater. another writes about courtesans, but, as phyllis rose says, "Colette's courtesans don't die of tuber- culosis. They guard their jewels and railway shares and, with good humor and a firm hand on the servants, gracefully grow old." (8) others are dancers, actors, authors, yet inseparable from that moment's demi- monde. one more installment in paris tomorrow, and then we visit another time and place where there was a very very similar demi-monde.

courtesans, prostitutes & whores: Part IIIB Courtesans

from fiction we can learn a tremendous amount about how courtesans lived, how they were perceived, and how, in the stories, operas and tales written by men, die in the end.

from an english translation of camille (dumas):

In the midst of these thoughts I fell asleep; I was awakened by a letter from Marguerite containing these words:

"Here are my orders: To-night at the Vaudeville. Come during the third entr'acte."

I put the letter into a drawer, so that I might always have it at
band in case I doubted its reality, as I did from time to time.

She did not tell me to come to see her during the day, and I dared not go; but I had so great a desire to see her before the evening that I went to the Champs- Elysees, where I again saw her pass and repass, as I had on the previous day.

At seven o'clock I was at the Vaudeville. Never had I gone to a theatre so early. The boxes filled one after another. Only one remained empty, the stage box. At the beginning of the third act I heard the door of the box, on which my eyes had been almost constantly fixed, open, and Marguerite appeared. She came to the front at once, looked around the stalls, saw me, and thanked me with a look.

That night she was marvellously beautiful. Was I the cause of this coquetry? Did she love me enough to believe that the more beautiful she looked the happier I should be? I did not know, but if that had been her intention she certainly succeeded, for when she appeared all heads turned, and the actor who was then on the stage looked to see who had produced such an effect on the audience by her mere presence there.

And I had the key of this woman's room, and in three or four hours she would again be mine!

People blame those who let themselves be ruined by actresses and kept women; what astonishes me is that twenty times greater follies are not committed for them. One must have lived that life, as I have, to know how much the little vanities which they afford their lovers every day help to fasten deeper into the heart, since we have no other word for it, the love which he has for them. 1

her allure was irresistible, and bestowed upon her by the devil. it is her fault entirely that he feels such desire, and so her inevitable death at the end is just. apparently.

from an english translation of nana (zola):

He, who had never seen the Countess Muffat putting on her garters, was witnessing, amid that wild disarray of jars and basins and that strong, sweet perfume, the intimate details of a woman's toilet. His whole being was in turmoil; he was terrified by the stealthy, all-pervading influence which for some time past Nana's presence had been exercising over him, and he recalled to mind the pious accounts of diabolic possession which had amused his early years. He was a believer in the devil, and, in a confused kind of way, Nana was he, with her laughter and her bosom and her hips, which seemed swollen with many vices. But he promised himself that he would be strong—nay, he would know how to defend himself.

Then with brain on fire Muffat decided to walk home. The struggle within him had wholly ceased. The ideas and beliefs of the last forty years were being drowned in a flood of new life. While he was passing along the boulevards the roll of the last carriages deafened him with the name of Nana; the gaslights set nude limbs dancing before his eyes—the nude limbs, the lithe arms, the white shoulders, of Nana. And he felt that he was hers utterly: he would have abjured everything, sold everything, to possess her for a single hour that very night. Youth, a lustful puberty of early manhood, was stirring within him at last, flaming up suddenly in the chaste heart of the Catholic and amid the dignified traditions of middle age.

Thereupon Nana became a smart woman, mistress of all that is foolish and filthy in man, marquise in the ranks of her calling. It was a sudden but decisive start, a plunge into the garish day of gallant notoriety and mad expenditure and that daredevil wastefulness peculiar to beauty. She at once became queen among the most expensive of her kind. Her photographs were displayed in shopwindows, and she was mentioned in the papers. When she drove in her carriage along the boulevards the people would turn and tell one another who that was with all the unction of a nation saluting its sovereign, while the object of their adoration lolled easily back in her diaphanous dresses and smiled gaily under the rain of little golden curls which ran riot above the blue of her made-up eyes and the red of her painted lips. And the wonder of wonders was that the great creature, who was so awkward on the stage, so very absurd the moment she sought to act the chaste woman, was able without effort to assume the role of an enchantress in the outer world. Her movements were lithe as a serpent's, and the studied and yet seemingly involuntary carelessness with which she dressed was really exquisite in its elegance. There was a nervous distinction in all she did which suggested a wellborn Persian cat; she was an aristocrat in vice and proudly and rebelliously trampled upon a prostrate Paris like a sovereign whom none dare disobey. She set the fashion, and great ladies imitated her. 2

(and again... to be continued...)