Tayû: Illusion and Reality Ilana Singer Blaine Abstract The article examine the illusion of transforming the Tayû, the high ranking courtesan of the pleasure quarters of the Edo era (1603-1868), from a saleable commodity to a vendor of love, as a result of which the relationship between herself and her client was reversed within the narrow confines of her world. Historical background: The rise of the pleasure quarters In the year 1603, after a long and bloody civil war, the Tokugawa Shogunate came to power in Japan, a military rule that lasted more than 250 years. The Edo period (1603-1868) 1 was a time of tranquillity and economic prosperity in a country almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. There was a hierarchy which enforced political order, creating a division between the upper classes (the samurai) and the lower classes – peasants, craftsmen and tradesmen. Social status was inherited, and it was not possible to move out of one’s class, even through marriage. Those who married women from a different class were sentenced to death. 2 Centralized government and social status were partly responsible for the establishment of the pleasure quarters as a “necessary evil”. 3 In this manner the government could oversee the quarters, and perhaps also restrain the lower classes from any active involvement in politics. 4 Sexual gratification in return for payment was not unknown in Japan. From the Nara era (710- 784) onwards, it was known that certain women offered their sexual services to men, and in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) the military government controlled prostitution. In other words, it was part of the establishment. The first official pleasure quarter, the Yûkaku or Yûri (play quarter) was set up in 1589 in the Nijo Yanagi-machi district of Kyoto. Thirteen years later it was transferred to the outskirts of the city, and in 1640 it was established in the Shimabara area, even further away from the city centre. The largest quarter was built in 1617 in the Yoshiwara district of Edo which had, at that time, about one million inhabitants. However, after the great Meireki 5 conflagration which broke out in 1657, the quarter was moved to the edge of the city, to Shin-Yoshiwara (New Yoshiwara), where there was also a great fire in 1787. In 1716 there were some 3,000 prostitutes working in the quarter. By the 1760s there were about 10,000 residents, of whom 2,500 were prostitutes. 6 In 1631 the Shinmachi pleasure quarter was created in Osaka, as well as dozens of other pleasure quarters throughout Japan. Prostitution was forbidden by law in 1956, but Shin-Yoshiwara only finally closed down in 1958. Since the pleasure quarter was a place of enjoyment, the prostitutes ( yûjo , asobime : “pleasure girls” 7 ) were also regarded as toys. They were known as “vendors of the spring” ( baishun) because, of course, they were selling the “springtime of their life”. The women of the quarter were ranked according to their beauty and talent. As of the 12th century, the highest were called “Keisei” (destroyer of citadels), a term derived from the Chinese belief that the power of a beautiful woman could destroy kingdoms. Names were used for ranks of prostitutes. 8 They were different in each quarter, and they also changed with time, although the prostitutes were classless outside the quarter. Until about the middle of the 18th century, the high-ranking courtesans of Yoshiwara were called “ Tayû ” (also an appellation for Kabuki actors who performed as onna-gata i.e. in female roles ) . Girls who did not become high-ranking courtesans