Tokyo nichinichi shinbun Story translation (partial)There was a woman named Osetsu, the daughter of Takahashi Rokubee, a farmer in Hisakuni village in Chichibu district of Bushu [Musashi province] under the jurisdiction of Kumagaya prefecture. She married into a certain family in Hannya village in the same district and there were two children. Osetsu in name only, she was a pillar of water with no setsudo [moderation]. And there was a man with whom she chatted in secret . . . . Mortified by talk of separation, she took a razor and cut his nose from the root and sliced it off. . . . Osetsu, in addition to being jailed for sixty days, was made to eat a fine. As for the man, he was calmed with seventy lashes, but . . . . [Unsigned] [Translated by William Wetherall] |
Commentary
Kuna village (久那村 Kunamura) is now part of Chichibu city of Saitama prefecture. Bushu (武州 Bushū) was otherwise known as the province of Musashi (武蔵国 Musashi no kuni).
A man discovers what a rejected woman can do. At least he kept his life, but he probably spent the rest of it pondering what else he might have lost.