SOURCE: Kawachi, Yoshiko, ed. “The Merchant of Venice and Japanese Culture.” In Japanese Studies in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, pp. 46-69. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998.

[In the following essay, Kawachi chronicles the reception of Shakespeare's play in Japanese translation.]

In the sixteenth century Venice became one of the most prosperous hubs of East-West trade. Trading and commercial activities in the city filled the city's coffers and stimulated a growth in moneylending. Consequently, a Shylock could find eager clients who needed to finance the cost of supplying and manning merchant ships. At that time, traders could reap huge fortunes or lose everything, and merchant ships commonly sailed from Venice to England, Lisbon, Mexico, the Barbary Coast, and India. Only a few ships sailed to Japan, perhaps because of the distance.

William Adams, a contemporary of Shakespeare's and a pilot of Dutch merchant ship, de Liefde, landed in Japan in 1600. Born in 1564, Adams was the first Englishman of note to arrive in Japan. He became a close adviser of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the lord who succeeded in pacifying the warring lords and establishing a close-knit, highly regulated feudal society. Adams provided Tokugawa with useful information about shipbuilding, European foreign and trade policies, and Western culture and civilization. In return, Tokugawa rewarded Adams by bestowing upon him the rank of a minor feudal lord.

Had trade continued between Japan and England, Shakespeare and his plays might have been introduced to the Japanese during the Tokugawa period (1603-1867). Iemitsu Tokugawa, however, had closed Japan to other countries, except Holland and China, and forbidden Japanese from trading with the “hairy barbarians.”

During the Meiji period (1868-1912), Japan shook off the feudal system of the Tokugawa period and adopted vital aspects of Western culture and civilization. Significantly, Shakespeare and his plays gained currency among the literati of Japan during this period.

Mention of Shakespeare came as early as 1841 in a translation into Japanese of Lindley Murray's English Grammar. In 1871, a short biography of Shakespeare and the famous quotation from Hamlet, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” (1.3.75), were introduced in the translation of Samuel Smiles' Self-Help. And in 1874, Charles Wirgman, an English correspondent who established the Japan Punch magazine in Yokohama, translated the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy into broken Japanese. This is regarded as the first translation of Shakespeare into the Japanese language.

As early as 1864, English language newspapers made their appearance in Yokohama. Soon after, Japanese language newspapers appeared and became part of the ongoing modernization process. Newspapers and periodicals helped spread the stories of Shakespeare to a reading public hungry for Western culture. In 1875, Hamlet was published in a newspaper. The first Japanese production of Hamlet took place in 1886 under the title of Hamlet Yamato Nishikie (The Japanese Color Print of “Hamlet”). In 1877, Kyoniku no Kisho (A Strange Litigation about Flesh of the Chest), an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, was published in two installments in the Minken Zasshi (Popular Rights Magazine), by Keio Gijuku, a school founded by Yukichi Fukuzawa. The anonymous writer explained that the story was an adaptation of a novel written by Shakespeare of England. In those days, most translations were either loose adaptations of Shakespearean plots, or constructed from Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb.

Kyoniku no Kisho, the first of Shakespeare's plays printed in book form, takes place in Sakai, a seaport near Osaka. The translator renamed the characters, giving them Japanese names for easier comprehension by Japanese readers. Portia, for example, became Kiyoka, meaning the Odor of Purity, and Shylock became Yokubari Ganpachi, or Stubborn Close-Fisted. Below is a summary of the plot.

Once upon a time there lived near the seaport of Sakai a rich man named Setsunosuke Matsugae. He possessed a chivalrous spirit and was always willing to provide assistance to those less fortunate. His friend Umejiro Murano, whose father died while Umejiro was still a young boy, became the pupil of Gaunsai Shirane, an expert in military science. Umejiro studied hard and Gaunsai was pleased. He placed his future hopes on young Umejiro. Then misfortune struck. Umejiro's mother became seriously ill and in need of medicine. Umejiro, penniless, went to Setsunosuke to borrow money.

Setsunosuke was sympathetic to Umejiro's request and decided to lend him the money. However, until his ship returned after having finished a trading expedition in the northern provinces, Setsunosuke himself had to borrow money. He went to Yokubari Ganpachi, a man of great wealth, to seek a loan. Ganpachi agreed upon the condition that Setsunosuke repay with one kin of flesh cut from his heart should Setsunosuke fail to repay the debt on the date agreed.

The date for repaying came, but Setsunosuke learned that his ship would be delayed one day. He asked Ganpachi for a day's grace; Ganpachi refused. “The court will decide which of us has right on our side,” Ganpachi said.

In the meantime Gaunsai heard about the situation. Known also for his civic wisdom, the Governor of Sakai often consulted him. The governor sent for him in order to discuss Setsunosuke's predicament. Now among Gaunsai's students was an intelligent woman named Kiyoka, the daughter of wealthy parents. She had recently become betrothed to Umejiro and was surprised at the painful situation Umejiro and Setsunosuke were in.

Gaunsai, feigning illness, sent Kiyoka to the governor instead. Kiyoka, disguised as a lawyer, pleaded the case for Setsunosuke, citing appropriate Buddhist teachings. Ganpachi argued that he cared for nothing but the law of the state. Then she offered to repay Ganpachi three times the amount borrowed. Ganpachi refused. Then Kiyoka said she was ready for a judgment. She asked Ganpachi if he brought with him scales to weigh the kin of flesh and a surgeon. Ganpachi had brought the scales but did not bring a surgeon, since it was not required by the contract. Kiyoka then told him that the kin of flesh was his by law, but that no drop of blood must be spilled. “If a drop of blood is spilled, you shall be put to death without mercy,” Kiyoka said. Ganpachi became nervous and backed away from the contract. The governor then said: “I spare your life in mercy, but your wealth is forfeit by law.”

Because the story shows both the swift turning of the heavenly wheel of retribution and the upholding of poetical justice, it appealed to large numbers of the reading public who were familiar with similar themes in Kabuki plays.

In 1883 Tsutomu Inoue translated The Merchant of Venice into Japanese and gave it a Japanese title, Seiyo Chinsetsu Jinniku Shichiire Saiban (A Western Strange Story of the Trial of Pawned Flesh). This adaptation condensed and Japanized Lamb and was popular enough to warrant several reprintings after it was first published by Kinkodo. A brief outline of Inoue's translation follows. He used a Japanese name only for Shylock.

There was a moneylender named Sairoku (Shylock) in Venice. People hated him because he was a cruel and unmerciful Jew, a person likened to the hated eta-hinin, the humble people of the lowest class in Japan who lived in a limited area. Antonio was a rich merchant who had many steamships. He was kind enough to help Bassanio marry Portia, he borrowed 300 dollars from Sairoku, and he gave it to Bassanio. Sairoku wanted to take a kin of Antonio's flesh as security for the loan.

Portia was a rich and beautiful lady who had black hair and red lips. She lived in Belmont together with her maid Nerissa. Bassanio took a train to Belmont together with Gratiano to propose to Portia. When Portia met Bassanio, she gave him a diamond ring, and they married. Gratiano and Nerissa also got married.

They received Antonio's letter saying that he was imprisoned because he could not pay back the borrowed money to Sairoku. Portia advised Bassanio to hurry to Venice, and she disguised herself as a lawyer and went to the court. Portia tried to persuade Sairoku, telling him the importance of mercy, but he refused to listen to her. Therefore, Portia ordered Sairoku not to shed blood while cutting Antonio's flesh. Thus Sairoku, a plaintiff, lost the suit and signed the bond in which his possessions should be given to his daughter after his death. Antonio's life was saved. Bassanio was very pleased and thanked Portia. She coaxed him to give her his diamond ring which she had given to him before. Unwillingly, he agreed to her request. Then Portia went back to Belmont by train. Antonio and Bassanio came to Belmont later, and the truth was revealed. After the quarrel between the couple, the ring was returned.

The translator, Inoue, concludes, “This is a moving story of Europe where virtue and goodness are admired.”¹ In this translation, Inoue stressed the court scene and used three of his six chapters to describe the details of the trial. The translator omitted the casket scene, the story of Shylock's conversion to Christianity, and the plot of Jessica's elopement with Lorenzo, her Christian boyfriend. In other words, he made no mention of the religious opposition between Jews and Italian Christians.

Possibly Inoue omitted the story of Jessica's elopement because Japanese women were forbidden from marrying anyone their families did not approve. Cecil Roth writes that the Renaissance period in Italy was, from certain points of view, an age of feminine emancipation in life, if not in law.² If so, Jessica's elopement may be evaluated from the viewpoint of feminism. Therefore, the translator may have deleted this sub-plot because elopement was regarded as immoral in Japan due to the strong influence of Confucianism. Moreover, the translator describes Portia as an obedient and uneducated Japanese woman.

It is also interesting that Inoue's characters took a train—an invention which Shakespeare had never even imagined—from Venice Station to the fictitious town of Belmont.³ In Inoue's translation, the characters travel this way because it was in keeping with the process of modernization then occurring. In 1872 Japan's first train line between Shinbashi and Yokohama opened. Two more lines were built: between Osaka and Kobe in 1874, and between Kyoto and Osaka in 1877. The opening of these train lines excited the Japanese imagination.

The translator's use of eta-hinin, or outcasts, to make comparisons with the Jews of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, reflects in part Inoue's cultural and social milieu. During the Tokugawa period, the Japanese social order was divided into four classes: the samurai class, the peasants, the artisans, and the merchants. At the very bottom were the outcasts.

Forced to live in restricted areas, they engaged in the leather industry and were hired to perform tasks looked down upon by the other classes, such as executing criminals. In 1871, the Meiji government passed a law emancipating these people. However, they remained de facto outcasts.

Perhaps another reason Inoue makes the comparison between the Jews in Venice and the outcasts in Japan comes from his interpretation of Shylock's words: “He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what's his reason?—I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? …” (3.1.50-4)

As minorities both the Jews and the outcasts in Japan suffered the sting of discrimination. We know that the Jews were ordered to live in Ghetto Nuovo in Venice in 1516. As Roth writes: “In the Venice of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which became one of the luxury cities of Europe, Jews intermingled freely with non-Jews.”⁴ In addition, the Jews engaged in business activities and professions that the outcasts of Japan were forbidden from entering. Thus the comparison breaks down. Outcasts were considered unclean and unworthy of living in general society and were restricted to performing jobs and tasks considered unclean in a predominantly Buddhist society. Jews, though forced to live in ghettos, could work among gentiles as moneylenders, doctors, and scholars. Undoubtedly, Inoue did not know these details of Jewish life.

In 1885 Bunkai Udagawa, a journalist, adapted The Merchant of Venice for a newspaper entitled Osaka Asahi Shinbun, and Genzo Katsu dramatized it for the Nakamura Sojuro Kabuki Company. The title of this adaptation, performed at the Ebisu-za Theater in Osaka on May 16, 1885, was Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka (The Season of Cherry Blossoms: The World of Money). It was also performed under the same title at two other theaters in Osaka in June 1885 and November 1893.

This adaptation, set in the Osaka of the Tokugawa period, was the first performance of Shakespeare in Japan. In fact, until the end of World War II it was the most frequently performed play of all of Shakespeare's plays; and sometimes the trial scene alone was performed as an independent production. (Since 1945, Hamlet has become the most frequently performed play of Shakespearean plays.)

Why was The Merchant of Venice chosen as the first staging of Shakespearean plays in Japan? Why was its adaptation so successful in Osaka? The summary below indicates the reasons.

In Osaka there was a woman whose name was Ume. Her father, a rich peasant, asked Denjiro Kinokuniya, a wealthy ship merchant, to take care of her when he died. After her father's sudden death, Ume came into a rich inheritance. Her uncle, Gohei, was a usurer like Shylock. He intended to rob her of her property. After the funeral he went to the crematorium to steal money and goods from her father's coffin. Then an old traveler came, and Gohei, robbing him of his money, put the old traveler into the fire.

Shotaro Aoki, a middle-class samurai and scholar, happened to come to the crematorium. He thought that the dead traveler must be his teacher, Dr. Kansai Nakagawa, a famous scholar of Japanese, Chinese, and Dutch studies, who was going to Nagasaki, the mecca of Dutch studies.

One year later, Gohei forced Ume into an apprenticeship at a geisha house. But Tamaei, Dr. Nakagawa's only daughter, saved Ume, and Ume became Tamaei's maid. Tamaei had been proposed to by two students of her father, Aoki and Ichinojo Kawashima. Aoki did not have money to buy the right to be adopted into the Nakagawa family and to succeed Tamaei's father as head of the family. Therefore, Aoki prepared himself for death, but his friend Kinokuniya offered his help, borrowed money from Gohei, using his own flesh as collateral, and gave it to Aoki.

Going on a trip to Nagasaki, Dr. Nakagawa willed his property to his daughter and ordered her to marry the man who would find his will in one of three caskets—the first made of gold, the second of silver and the third of iron. Tamaei and Aoki had loved each other. Aoki who had already gotten the money to defeat his rival chose the iron casket. Luckily, it was the right casket and he was able to marry Tamaei, while his rival Kawashima chose the gold one and was expelled. At night, just before the couple consummated their marriage, they received the news that Kinokuniya's ships had been wrecked. Aoki said to Tamaei, “Please pay back the money to Kinokuniya later,” and left her immediately. Tamaei asked Ume to carry money to Kinokuniya, but on the way Ume was robbed of the money and was cast into the river.

In the trial scene, Kawashima, a judge, became angry when he learned that the money in question was the key money for the marriage of Aoki and Tamaei, and ordered Gohei to cut the flesh of Kinokuniya's chest according to the bond. Just as Gohei was going to cut it, a public servant named Heijiro Mizuki told him not to shed the defendant's blood. Gohei resigned himself to receiving the money, and he was subsequently arrested. He repented his misconduct. Aoki and Tamaei had a happy life because Dr. Nakagawa returned home safely from Nagasaki, and Kinokuniya married Ume.

As noted earlier, Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka was originally a novel published in serial form in an Osaka newspaper from April 10 to May 20, 1885. The novel was dramatized and performed on May 16, 1885, even before it was completed. In both the novel and the stagescript, Kinokuniya is equivalent to Antonio, Aoki to Bassanio, Tamaei to Portia, and Gohei to Shylock. Ume plays the role of Nerissa, though she is a typical old-fashioned woman in feudal Japan.

The full text of Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka, published by Bunpodo in 1886, consists of 190 pages and contains a series of illustrations. The title page says, “The idea is from Shakespeare's ‘Flesh of the Chest’ and the style is that of Kabuki script written by Tanehiko Ryutei, a dramatist of the Edo period. …”⁵

In the Preface, the young literary scholars meet by chance in the center of Osaka where the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. One has a Kabuki script by Ryutei while the other has the translation of The Merchant of Venice by Inoue. The latter young man says,

“I hear that recently the pupils of the primary schools learn the English language. English studies have become more and more popular, and there is a tendency for people to read English books. This is a shortcut to our Westernization, I think. By the way, the book you have now is, as you know, written by Shakespeare, a famous English dramatist. Its original title is ‘Flesh of the Chest’ and it is a novel written to let the people know the relationship between morality and law. It is a very good book for the public, but its idea is a little strange.”⁶

The first young man says, “The spirit of European novel is noble, but the idea of Japanese and Chinese novels is much better.” The second replies, “European novels appear to be simpler than Japanese novels because the Westerners, who are more scientific and intelligent, do not want to speak about strange or complicated things.” Thus the two young men are remarkably influenced by European literature. Then the third boy says,

“I have overheard your conversation. At a bookstore near here, I bought an old manuscript, a collection of the trial records of the Edo period, one of which is very interesting. I will be very grateful to you if you lend me your books tonight. I want to write a story and mix the spirit of European novels with the idea of Japanese novels, by referring to this trial record. I will follow the Kabuki style. I wish to ask you to criticize my story when it is completed.”⁷

This is, in effect, how this adaptation was written. At the same time Japan was at the peak of Europeanization. We find in this adaptation the reflection of Japanese cultural and social development of that time. For instance, the adapter changed the gold, silver, and lead caskets of Shakespeare's original to gold, silver, and iron. Why? The reason may be explained by the following words in the adaptation:

Iron is very important because it is used for guns, swords, spears, spades, hoes, scythes, axes, hammers, saws, pots and pans which the people of the four social ranks of Japanese feudal society (warriors, farmers, craftsmen and merchants) use everyday. Without iron, we Japanese can neither defend our country nor make our living. Iron is the most valuable treasure for us. We hear that the railroad has been built of iron recently in Europe and that they have made iron ships for wars.⁸

In this passage, the adapter stated the practical importance of iron for Japan's industrial development and showed the people's concern for technology. Thinking that iron was more important than lead in Japan's policy for enhancing wealth and military strength, he changed the casket from lead to iron. However, if the choice of the lead casket symbolizes wisdom and also allegorically represents the choice of Christ as Wisdom, as Joan Ozark Holmer suggests,⁹ the Japanese adapter who changed the lead casket into an iron casket ignored the Christian background of the scene.

This adaptation gained in general popularity mainly because of the trial scene. The people of those days were very interested in law; they studied European law as a model for modernizing the legal system. In Japan, the criminal codes were promulgated in 1880, the constitution was established in 1889, and the civil codes were completed in 1896. The amazing frequency of the performances of the trial scene in this comedy indicated the Japanese people's growing interest in and awareness of their legal system.

The shocking episode depicting Gohei's attempt to cut Kinokuniya's flesh must have both horrified and thrilled audiences. When Gohei demands Kinokuniya's flesh, Tamaei—in the disguise of a boy, Yoneda—says to him, “Gohei, you were born in Japan, a country of gods. I'm sure that you believe in gods. The gods always tell us to have mercy. You know that a human being should show mercy to the poor and the weak.”¹⁰ The gods mentioned here refer to the gods of Shintoism and Buddhism. Shintoism and Buddhism were mixed in those days, and people prayed to both at home. In addition, the cruel episode must have reminded audiences of the Kabuki play, Shakanyorai Tanjoe (The Picture of the Birth of Buddha) written by Monzaemon Chikamatsu in 1695. In act 3, a foolish man named Handoku kills a dove, and the servant of Davedatta, a disciple of Buddha, is going to cut the flesh of Handoku.¹¹ This episode found in Buddhist scripture seems to have been based on an historical event. Audiences were probably accustomed to this kind of story and were surprised to find a similar episode in a different cultural context.

The second reason this adaptation gained in popularity may be found in the title, Zeni no Yononaka (The World of Money). People of the Meiji era believed that Western civilization had a close relationship with economics and that finance was most important for Japanese modernization. Therefore, this Japanese title must have appealed to audiences who were gradually becoming aware of capitalism.

Shylock performs the function of a banker in a capitalist society: he lends money and charges interest. That explains in part why Shylock dislikes Antonio: Antonio “lends out money gratis” (1.3.42). Many Christians considered usuary to be sinful. They cited Deuteronomy, where it is written: “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother. … Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury” (23:19-20). For Christians, lending freely is a way to show wise love, but lending at interest violates the love of friendship.¹² But Shylock, a Jew, is an alien in Venice. Therefore, he lends money at high interest to Christians without feeling any guilt.¹³

Note that the adapter changed the setting from Venice to Osaka, an old commercial city. Many wealthy merchants lived there, and the citizens had a strong sense of financial matters. Moreover, Osaka's topography resembles that of Venice. Because of the many canals, people often refer to it as “the city built on water.”

In the year following the performance of this adaptation, the Society for Dramatic Improvement was organized. Prominent people who took part in the society included Kenji Yasui, a member of the municipal assembly; Bunkai Udagawa, a journalist and writer of this adaptation for the newspaper; Sojuro Nakamura, a Kabuki actor who played the leading role in the stage production of the adaptation; and Genzo Katsu, who adapted the newspaper story for the stage. We do not know whether their efforts to make improvements to Japanese drama by introducing Western elements were completely successful. However, I think it was not entirely accidental that these people, who wanted to improve Japanese drama by introducing the influence of Westernization, chose The Merchant of Venice for their first performance in Osaka. Perhaps they thought that it was the easiest to understand of Shakespeare's plays; perhaps they also thought it held the most appeal for audiences in Osaka where the people were deeply interested in earning money and improving Japanese drama.

The third reason this adaptation gained in popularity can be attributed to the women in the play. Portia, a woman of intellect, feelings, and will power, was introduced into Japan as an ideal of European women in the days of Westernization. The differences in the images of Eastern and Western women are significant. I think that to discover in Tamaei the reflection of Portia or to compare Tamaei with Portia is useful for clarifying the status of Japanese women of the Meiji era.

In The Merchant of Venice, there are three kinds of social groups: the Jewish community, the Christian male society, and the female group in Belmont. Portia is the queen of Belmont. Anna Brownell Jameson, a pioneer of feminism in the nineteenth century, described the character of Portia as follows:

She treads as though her footsteps had been among marble palaces, beneath roofs of fretted gold, o'er cedar floors and pavements of jasper and porphyry; amid gardens full of statues, and flowers, and fountains, and haunting music. She is full of penetrative wisdom, and genuine tenderness, and lively wit; but as she has never known want, or grief, or fear, or disappointment, her wisdom is without a touch of the sombre or the sad; her affections are all mixed up with faith, hope, and joy; and her wit has not a particle of malevolence or causticity.¹⁴

This is a romantic interpretation of Portia; Jameson described Portia as though she were a goddess living in a mythic world. She also stressed Portia's intellect, and mentioned Portia as the first of Shakespeare's intellectual women. She wrote, “The wit of Portia is like attar of roses, rich and concentrated.”¹⁵ According to Jameson, “Intellect is of no sex … [but] in men, the intellectual faculties exist more self-poised and self-directed … than we ever find them in women, with whom talent … is in a much greater degree modified by the sympathies and moral qualities.”¹⁶ In short, she appraises Portia's intellect and morality as well as her beautiful and graceful figure.

Bassanio says that Portia “is a lady richly left, / And she is fair, and, fairer than that word, / Of wondrous virtues” (1.1.161-63). Indeed, Portia is a fair lady such as those painted by Titian and Giorgione of the Venetian School. Her golden hair attracts the suitors' attention just like “a golden fleece,” the most valuable and expensive commodity for the Argonauts.

In contrast, Bassanio is a scholar, soldier, and poor gentleman. Gentleman is the key term in the stratification of classes. To be a gentleman placed one within the 4 to 5 percent of the population that exercised power in Shakespeare's time. A gentleman did not work with his hands; he could live off his income.¹⁷ However, Bassanio went bankrupt and wanted to borrow money from Antonio, a merchant, in order to marry the fair, rich Portia. In a word, Portia symbolizes wealth. J. R. Brown says, “Shakespeare wrote of love as a kind of wealth in which men and women traffic. Of all the comedies, The Merchant of Venice is the most completely informed by Shakespeare's ideal of love's wealth.”¹⁸ We find the dynamics of erotic and economic desires at play in this romantic comedy.

Bassanio must choose the casket which contains Portia's portrait, if he is to win her hand in marriage. Portia is a wise woman and an obedient daughter when she says, “I will die as chaste as Diana unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will” (1.2.103-5). According to Freud, “Caskets are also women, symbols of the essential thing in woman, and therefore of a woman herself, like boxes, large or small, baskets, and so on.”¹⁹ If so, in the casket scene, a man selects not only a casket but also a woman. Here a woman is regarded as the object of man's desire, and the casket has a sexual meaning just like Nerrisa's ring.

In the patriarchal society of the English Renaissance, Portia is both an obedient wife and an obedient daughter when she says to Bassanio:

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am. Though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish
To wish myself much better, yet for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself,
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,
That only to stand high in your account
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account. But the full sum of me
Is sum of something which, to term in gross,
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractisèd,
.....This house, these servants, and this same myself
Are yours, my lord's.

(3.2.149-71)

In this speech, where Portia confesses her love through the imagery of wealth, we also see the relationship between marriage and property. As Lawrence Stone pointed out, one of the objectives of family planning in pre-Reformation England was the acquisition through marriage of further property.²⁰ Moreover, we see that a woman's body is regarded as a man's possession or a commodity in this male-dominated society, though Portia herself is an intellectual. I think that one of the themes of this comedy, the exchange of goods at both the erotic level and the economic level, is illustrated in this passage.

In Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka, Aoki comments, “Tamaei is different from ordinary women because she is educated at home. … Although she is not twenty years old yet, she manages her father's property, uses servants and maids, and leads her life admirably.”²¹ Tamaei is as beautiful as Portia, but she seems to be more independent and more highly educated than Portia. She says to her first suitor Kawashima, “I do not know who will succeed to the head position in my family, but I will never rely on my future husband. I will make my way skillfully in life by means of the lessons that my father has taught me. I think a wife should have the spirit of independence.”²²

Kawashima asks, “Why?” and she answers,

“My father always says that men and women are physically different but that they have the same mind given by the creator, and that the European people advance the equal rights for men and women. In our country, however, men regard women as slaves, and women believe that they should obey their father, husband, and son. In addition, women are satisfied with learning only the three R's, sewing and dancing. They live meaninglessly, relying on their husbands and sons. This is not good. I am Dr. Nakagawa's daughter. I am quite different from the common women. I have studied Japanese, Chinese, and Dutch, and I will live independently.”²³

From her speech, we discover the progressive thinking of Tamaei's father. As a pioneer of Westernization, he educated his daughter according to equality of the sexes. However, Tamaei is a special woman educated in a family of intellectuals. Her family background and upbringing must have been unfamiliar to audiences living under male hegemony and patriarchal power. In short, she is a model of the “new woman” in the Meiji era. Perhaps the adapter wanted to show what women's education should be in the period of modernization. As a result, Tamaei was described as a fresh but rather radical woman.

Ume, her maid, is a contrast to Tamaei. Representing one type of traditional Japanese woman, Ume reveals how some women living in a feudal society often had to sell themselves for money. When Gohei was going to sell her to the geisha house, he regarded her body as a commodity. There were really such women in the Meiji era, so the audiences must have been sympathetic with Ume. In this adaptation, she plays the role of Nerissa, but she is quite different in personality. Nerissa is shrewd enough to test how deeply her husband loves her by using her ring just as Portia does. Ume is also different from Jessica, who is “wise, fair, and true” (2.6.56) and strong enough to deprive her father of his money and jewels and elope with Lorenzo.

The contrasting personalities of Ume and Tamaei show us the two different types of women, old and new. The traditional image of a Japanese woman evolved in response to the influences of Buddhism, Confucianism, and the samurai ethic. Ekiken Kaibara (1630-1714), the Neo-Confucian scholar, was the most influential in defining the role of women. He wrote Onna Daigaku (Great Learning for Women), which became the primary text for women because it reinforced the feudal aim of perfecting the family system. In this book published in 1790, he wrote that a woman must look to her husband as her lord and that the great lifelong duty of a woman was obedience.

A woman's legal status during the Tokugawa period was completely dependent first on her father, then on her husband and eventually on her son, as Tamaei points out in the adaptation. If a couple gave birth only to daughters, a son was frequently adopted and married to the oldest daughter. Therefore, Aoki would take the family name of Nakagawa. However, when feudalism finally collapsed in the Meiji era, there were some champions of women's rights. Tsutomu Inoue, the above-mentioned translator of The Merchant of Venice, wrote Joken Shinron (A True View of Women's Rights) in 1881. While the Confucian concept of the feminine role continued to keep women out of school for a long time, Arinori Mori, the Minister for Education in 1885, supported education for women. Yukichi Fukuzawa, also an educator, championed equality of opportunity for women. He believed that a change of attitude toward women should accompany their education, and he published two critiques of Onna Daigaku in 1899. Thus Meiji leaders, realizing that education was essential to modernization, gave it a high priority.

It seems to me that the contrasting images of Ume and Tamaei reflect these confusing social conditions in which people wanted to introduce culture from abroad into Japan without abandoning traditional Japanese culture.

An informative book, Things Japanese, written by the Englishman, Basil Hall Chamberlain, introduced Japan to the West. Chamberlain, who arrived in 1873 as a professor of Japanese and philology at Tokyo University, had this to say about the status of Japanese women:

Japanese women are most womanly,—kind, gentle, faithful, pretty. But the way in which they are treated by the men has hitherto been such as might cause a pang to any generous European heart. No wonder that some of them are at last endeavouring to emancipate themselves. … Two grotesquely different influences are now at work to undermine this state of slavery—one, European theories concerning the relation of the sexes, the other, European clothes! … But many resident foreigners—male foreigners, of course—think differently, and the question forms a favourite subject of debate. The only point on which both parties agree is in their praise of Japanese woman. Says one side, “She is so charming that she deserves better treatment,”—to which the other side retorts that it is just because she is “kept in her place” that she is charming. The following quotation is from a letter to the present writer by a well-known author, who, like others, has fallen under the spell. “How sweet,” says he, “Japanese woman is! All the possibilities of the race for goodness seem to be concentrated in her. It shakes one's faith in some Occidental doctrines. If this be the result of suppression and oppression, then these are not altogether bad. On the other hand, how diamond-hard the character of the American woman becomes under the idolatry of which she is the object. …”²⁴

The “well-known author” of the above-mentioned letter is Lafcadio Hearn who came to Japan in 1890 and married a Japanese woman.

When Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka was performed, the ring episode and Tamaei's disguise were omitted. In the newspaper, the adapter made Tamaei say to Aoki, “I hear there is a custom of exchanging rings for marriage in European countries. You and I studied Dutch culture, so we had better keep this habit.”²⁵ However, there was no scene where Tamaei gave her ring to Aoki on the stage. I suspect this omission occurred because the Japanese of those days were not familiar with this custom, and because Tamaei did not disguise herself as a lawyer. Consequently, there was no chance for the ring to be used in a love test.

Next, I wish to consider the omission of the dramatic ploy of making use of disguises. In The Merchant of Venice, Jessica, a Jewish girl, disguises herself as a boy when she escapes from oppressive patriarchy and elopes with Lorenzo, an Italian Christian. She says, “I am much ashamed of my exchange” (2.6.35), but Lorenzo says, “So are you, sweet, / Even in the lovely garnish of a boy” (2.6.44-5). Her festive cross-dressing helps her break down racial prejudice and cross the boundary between the Jewish community and Christian society.

When Portia and Nerissa go to Venice, they disguise themselves as a young lawyer and his clerk. Portia says:

… they shall think we are accomplishèd
With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accountered like young men
I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
And speak between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride, and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth, …

(3.4.61-9)

Belmont is a static space where people are given love and wealth; Venice is a dynamic world where people must fight for money and love. Venice is a city full of competition between races, as well as in economy and religion. Venice is a topos of a homosocial bond, “a continuum of male relations which the exchange of women entails,”²⁶ while Belmont is a place of marriage. Venice is, so to speak, a masculine society while Belmont is a feminine society. Therefore, women, who wish to compete in Venice, have to wear male clothes. Portia knows well that cross-dressing potentially involves both inversion and displacement of gender binaries.²⁷

Portia is never ashamed of her transformation, indeed she uses her exchange effectively. In Belmont she conforms to the Renaissance ideal of womanhood: chaste, obedient, and silent. In the trial scene, however, Portia as the upright judge is strong, decisive, and wise. The Portia who speaks about mercy and monarchy in the Venetian court bears some resemblance to Queen Elizabeth who called herself “a prince” in the English Court.²⁸ In the trial scene, Portia is not only an androgynous justice-figure but also a person of “the supernumerary gender” or “the superior sex.”

Portia is also a predecessor of the female pages of Shakespeare's romantic comedies. Rosalind in As You Like It wears a skirt for a few minutes. In the Forest of Arden, however, she enjoys the opportunity to play a man. But she has, in truth, no doublet and hose in her disposition. Viola's cross-dressing in Twelfth Night makes her feel uncomfortable because she cannot confess her love to Orsino. Portia's disguise, however, is unlike those of Rosalind and Viola. Portia does not choose a disguise for protection. Instead she disguises herself in order to play at being a man. Keith Geary says, “What is most striking about Portia's disguise as Balthazar is the absence of the psychological and sexual ambiguity that informs the disguises of the other heroines.”²⁹ In The Merchant of Venice, the complex feelings of female pages are found more clearly in Jessica's speech than in Portia's speech, both of which are quoted above.

The female pages are sometimes discussed from the viewpoint of feminism.³⁰ Moll Cutpurse, in The Roaring Girl by Middleton and Dekker, is a case in point. However, in English Renaissance theaters the female pages were played by boy actors. They were the “little eyases” (Hamlet, 2.2.339) who were “not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy.” (Twelfth Night, 1.5.151-52). Consequently, the eroticism of the Elizabethan stage was probably different from that of the present-day stage where an actress plays the role of a female page. For example, in Rome, at a performance of Goldoni's La Locandiera, Goethe was surprised to see men acting women's parts, and he experienced the unique aesthetic pleasure which Elizabethan playgoers must have felt.³¹ Transvestism has such a dramatic effect. In addition, the transvestite stage gives men and women an opportunity to reconsider both the sex-gender system in their society and the ideological meaning of the semiotics of dress.

In Japan, boys played the female roles in the seventeenth century. People called this troupe “Wakashu Kabuki” (Lad Kabuki). They danced, mimicked, and performed a skit or acrobatics. They were effeminate enough to be the partners in homosexual relationships. As a result, the government prohibited their performances in 1652. Now Kabuki actors called onnagata play female roles on the stage. The word onnagata means “a woman's form” or “the woman side.” An onnagata is not a boy but a male actor who plays the role of a young woman very skillfully and gracefully in a Kabuki play. Even an older actor would play these roles. Japanese audiences, who are accustomed to this dramatic convention, suspend their belief and forget that the onnagata is actually a male actor.

Of the trial scene where Tamaei disguises herself as a lawyer, Bunkai Udagawa writes, “Tamaei Nakagawa makes up like a woman and has her hair dressed like a young man. But nobody knows whether she is a male or a female.”³² Tamaei herself says, “I am disguised as a young man, taking the name of Kosaburo Yoneda. As an official spy, I will go to the court. I encourage myself in order to imitate a man just like a Kabuki actor imitates a woman.”³³

It is noteworthy that Tamaei is conscious of the onnagata when she disguises herself as a young lawyer. In the stagescript, however, there is no cross-dressing. Instead of Tamaei, a young lawyer named Mizuki appears on the stage. This name reminds Japanese audiences of a famous onnagata named Tatsunosuke Mizuki (1673-1745). Why did the dramatizer, Genzo Katsu, omit Tamaei's disguise? I think the main reason was that he thought of the audiences' response: the audiences of those days were more familiar with a man in woman's disguise than a woman in man's disguise.

Clearly there are many major differences between Shakespeare's play and the Japanese adaptation. The following are minor differences between them. First, Bassanio borrows money to marry Portia and get her property, while Aoki borrows money not only to marry Tamaei but also to succeed to the family name and scholarship of Dr. Nakagawa. This change may have occurred because the adapter was profoundly conscious of Japanese feudalism. Second, Shylock holds strong principles as a Jew who places more importance on justice than on mercy or on Old Law than New Law, while Gohei has neither prejudice nor religious theory. Third, while Gohei is a villain, he does not have the same overwhelming desire for revenge that Shylock has. Consequently there is little serious opposition between Kinokuniya and Gohei, while there is much between Antonio and Shylock. Shakespeare's Antonio says that Shylock is “a stony adversary, an inhuman wretch / Uncapable of pity, void and empty / From any dram of mercy” (4.1.3-5). But Heinrich Heine recalls, “A British beauty wept passionately to see the end of act 4 behind me in the box of Drury Lane.”³⁴ It is unlikely that anyone wept upon seeing Gohei in the Japanese theater. This adaptation resembles a morality play in the style of Kabuki, while Shakespeare's original dramatizes the religious opposition between Judaism and Christianity.

I think these differences between Shakespeare's original play and its adaptation reflect Japan's hasty introduction of European culture during the Meiji era. The Japanese people of those days did not understand Renaissance ideas, English dramaturgy and the Western mode of living as well as Japanese do today. They had no time to value substance above form. They wanted to adapt European culture to the Japanese lifestyle as soon as possible.

We may, therefore, reasonably conclude that The Merchant of Venice was introduced into Japan to enlighten the public and improve the standard of culture. In other words, Shakespeare was used as one means of improving Japanese culture. While Udagawa and Katsu did not know European dramaturgy and conventions, they were strongly aware of Kabuki plays when they adapted Shakespeare's comedy to the Japanese stage. Later, Shoyo Tsubouchi, the first translator of Shakespearean works, compared Shakespeare with Monzaemon Chikamatsu, a great Kabuki playwright, and enumerated eighteen similarities between the two great dramatists.³⁵ Tsubouchi was the first to give serious consideration to what the Japanese people should learn from Shakespeare and how Japanese drama should be improved by a study of Shakespeare's dramaturgy.

A sketch of the stage history of The Merchant of Venice in Japan shows a great variety and innovations. Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka performed by the Kabuki actors acquired great popularity. In this adaptation, Sojuro Nakamura played the part of Kinokuniya, while Jusaburo Bando, an onnagata, played the role of Tamaei. Thus the first performance of The Merchant of Venice in Japan was an all-male production. However, when Otojiro Kawakami, a star of shinpa (New School of Theater), produced the trial scene of this comedy in 1903, Sadayakko, his wife, performed the part of Portia. Kawakami and his wife, who had seen The Merchant of Venice in Boston, tried to produce this comedy in the European style for Japanese audiences. Kawakami imitated Henry Irving's Shylock, and Sadayakko copied Ellen Terry's Portia. This production was criticized by Tsubouchi, but it is noteworthy that Kawakami took the lead in staging the translated drama of Shakespeare in Japan for the first time.

The Bungei Kyokai (The Association of Literature and Arts), established by Tsubouchi in 1906, performed only the trial scene at the Kabuki Theater. This was an all-male production, and Shunsho Doi, who had seen Shakespearean plays in America with Kawakami, played the role of Portia. His performance was well received. In 1913 Kabuki actors also performed the trial scene. Sadanji Ichikawa played the part of Shylock, and Shocho Ichikawa, an onnagata, played the role of Portia. In an essay about this performance, Tsubouchi wrote that Portia disguised as a lawyer was not so manly and that Shylock did not look so cruel.³⁶

In 1903, the actress Sadayakko was the first woman to play Portia; in 1915, Ritsuko Mori was the second. In those days actresses were not recognized as professionals by the public. However, Mori was the first student to enter a drama school for women and to become an actress. Since then, the female characters of The Merchant of Venice have been acted by women.

In 1926 The Merchant of Venice directed by Yoshi Hijikata was performed by the actors and the actresses of the Shingeki (New Drama) troupe. This dramatic group was founded in 1924 and performed mainly modern and realistic dramas such as those by Ibsen, Chekhov, and Gorki at the Tsukiji Small Playhouse in Tokyo.

Modern dramatic interpretations of Shylock have varied between sympathetic portrayals and critical portrayals. In 1968 Keita Asari directed The Merchant of Venice, using Tsuneari Fukuda's translation. Osamu Takizawa, a leading actor of the Mingei troupe, played the role of Shylock and expressed his deep sympathy with Shylock. When Asari directed the comedy for the Shiki troupe in 1977, however, Takeshi Kusaka, who played the part of Shylock, was critical of the racial discrimination in the play.

During the 1970's and 1980's, the Shakespeare Theater group displayed considerable activity. They played all of the Shakespearean plays translated by Yushi Odashima at a small underground playhouse called “Jan Jan.” Norio Deguchi directed The Merchant of Venice in 1976, 1977, and 1978. These performances—given by the players dressed in T-shirts and jeans on a simple stage—were very popular among younger Japanese.

In 1973 Fukuda directed The Merchant of Venice for the Keyaki troupe, using his own translation. In 1982 Toshikiyo Masumi directed the same comedy for the Haiyu-za dramatic company, and players in Victorian costumes performed on the modern stage. This performance was moderate; Shylock did not appear at all villainous.

In 1983 the Subaru troupe performed The Merchant of Venice directed by Toshifumi Sueki and Asao Koike, who played Shylock. Koike thought that the story of this comedy was the nightmarish experience of Antonio, and he expressed this idea on stage. Five years later, in 1988, the Globe Tokyo, a new arena playhouse, opened. Here Tetsuo Anzai directed the En troupe in The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta in 1990. He wanted the Japanese audience to compare Shakespeare's Shylock with Marlowe's Barabas.

In 1993 Gerard Murphy, an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was invited by the Globe Tokyo to direct a group of Japanese actors in The Merchant of Venice. He thought that this comedy had a strong modern aspect because its themes were racial and sexual discrimination and the gap between the rich and the poor. In addition, he was very interested in both the Japanese way of thinking and the Japanese style of acting, and he wished to express both British and Japanese cultures on stage.³⁷

Over the years, The Merchant of Venice has maintained the attention of Japanese audiences. Since the Meiji era, there have been various productions of this play, and Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka became a model for adapting Shakespeare's plays to the Japanese stage. In this sense, it is of historical importance. I think that Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka is the fountainhead of Japanized Shakespeare, such as Kumonosujo (Throne of Blood), NINAGAWA Macbeth, and Ran. In Ran, a film adaptation of King Lear, Akira Kurosawa successfully reproduced the atmosphere of feudal society in Japan. He described the life of a feudal samurai lord by combining Shakespeare's plot with the style of the Noh play. NINAGAWA Macbeth, which received favorable reviews in Edinburgh and Amsterdam in 1985, revealed Yukio Ninagawa's consciousness of the dramatic technique of Kabuki plays. Moreover, his production of The Tempest, which also earned high praise in Edinburgh in 1988, represented his boldest experiment in combining Shakespeare's plot with elements of traditional Japanese culture.

Thus the fusion of Shakespeare with Noh or Kabuki plays represents a current trend in today's Japanese Shakespearean theater. I think that adaptation means that many people of different languages and cultures can enjoy the limitless “performability” of Shakespeare's play-texts while searching for their own images of Shakespeare on the stage or in the film. These film or stage adaptations have allowed audiences all over the world to consider a new interpretation of Shakespeare.

While there are obvious gaps in time and space between Renaissance England and modern Japan, Shakespeare is “not of an age, but for all time,” as Ben Jonson remarked, and Shakespeare's language is cross-cultural and universal. We should recognize that Shakespeare is accepted in different cultural and social contexts and that Shakespeare is a criterion by which to determine the cultural standards of the world. From this standpoint, how to produce Shakespeare and what to receive from Shakespeare are important and ongoing problems.

Notes

1. Tsutomu Inoue, Seiyo Chinsetsu Jinniku Shichiire Saiban (Tokyo: Kinkodo, 1883), 330.

2. Cecil Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 49.

3. There is a railway station named “Montebello” near Venice. This is a reversal of “Belmont,” which means “a beautiful mountain.” As the name suggests, “Montebello” is located in a hilly country.

4. Roth, Jews in the Renaissance, 13.

5. Bunkai Udagawa, Sakuradoki Zeni no Yononaka (Osaka: Bunpodo, 1886), title page. (Hereafter cited as Sakuradoki.)

6. Ibid., 2.

7. Ibid., 3-4.

8. Ibid., 104-5.

9. Joan Ozark Holmer, “Loving Wisely and the Casket Test: Symbolic and Structual Unity in The Merchant of Venice,” in Shakespeare's Christian Dimension: An Anthology of Commentary, ed. Roy Battenhouse (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 85.

10. Sakuradoki, 163-66.

11. Monzaemon Chikamatsu, Shakanyorai Tanjoe, vol. 4 of The Complete Works (Osaka: 1906), 61-63.

12. Joan Ozark Holmer, “The Merchant of Venice”: Choice, Hazard and Consequence (London: Macmillan, 1995), 33.

13. See Francis Bacon, The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, ed. Michael Kiernan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 124-29. Here Bacon wrote that usury was necessary. Furthermore, in England, moneylending became a legitimate commercial activity, and merchants, tradesmen, scriveners, and others involved in trade and business became moneylenders, provided they had the money to lend. Compare E. C. Pettet, “The Merchant of Venice and the Problem of Usury,” in Shakespeare: “The Merchant of Venice”: A Casebook, ed. John Wilders, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1977), 102. (Hereafter cited as A Casebook.) Also see Joan Ozark Holmer, “Miles Mosse's The Arraignment and Conviction of Vsurie (1595): A New Source for The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Studies, 21, eds. Leeds Barroll and Barry Gaines (London: Associated University Presses, 1993), 11-54. Holmer regards The Arraignment and Conviction of Vsurie (1595) as the most likely source for Shakespeare's decision to stage a debate between Shylock and Antonio in order to present the case for and against usury. A contrasting view may be seen in Ralph Berry, Shakespeare and Social Class (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1988), 44. Berry asserts that Antonio and Shylock dramatize the tension between collecting interest and collecting excessive interest.

14. Anna Brownell Jameson, Shakespeare's Heroines: Characteristics of Women Moral, Poetical, and Historical (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1916), 35-36.

15. Ibid., 33.

16. Ibid., 31.

17. Berry, Shakespeare and Social Class, xii.

18. John Russell Brown, “Love's Wealth and the Judgement of The Merchant of Venice,” in A Casebook, 163.

19. Sigmund Freud, “The Theme of the Three Caskets,” in A Casebook, 60.

20. Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800, 6th ed. (London: Penguin Group, 1988), 37.

21. Sakuradoki, 54.

22. Ibid., 61-63.

23. Ibid., 63-64.

24. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanese Things: Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan (originally entitled Things Japanese and published in 1890), 17th ed. (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1987), 500-1.

25. Sakuradoki, 113-14.

26. Karen Newman, “Portia's Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchange in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Quarterly 38: 1 (Spring 1987): 22.

27. Jonathan Dollimore, Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault, 4th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 288.

28. J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments 1559-1581 (1953; reprint, London: Jonathan Cape, 1971), 127, 147-50.

29. Keith Geary, “The Nature of Portia's Victory: Turning to Men in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Survey 37 (1984): 55.

30. Juliet Dusinberre, Shakespeare and the Nature of Women, 3rd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1985), 231-34.

31. A. M. Nagler, A Source Book in Theatrical History (New York: Dover Publications, 1952), 433-35.

32. Sakuradoki, 183-86.

33. Ibid., 188.

34. Heinrich Heine, “Shakespeare's Mädchen und Frauen,” in A Casebook, 29.

35. Shoyo Tsubouchi, “Chikamatsu vs. Shakespeare vs. Ibsen,” vol. 10 of The Selected Works (Tokyo: 1977), 769-96.

36. Shoyo Tsubouchi, “Staging Shakespeare's Plays Translated into Japanese,” Sao Fukko (Shakespeare Revival), 4 (1933; reprint, Tokyo: Meicho Fukyukai, 1990): 4-6.

37. Gerard Murphy, “Gerard Murphy Talks about Himself and His Production,” The Globe 21 (1993): 5.

All quotations from Shakespeare's works are cited from William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, eds. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).