Even

Even a wise man can fail, Even a fool has a moment of brilliance. Boldness wins in the face of death, But negligence -- ha ha! Loud laughter!

Composed by the Zen monk Sengai (1750-1837)

on a painting of go players.

The Widow of Hinodeya

Print 10-3, Kiseido Publishing; Tokyo Japan

Oban print by Utamaro, published by Omiya Gonkuro ca. 1796.

The article is by William Pinckard

This print is titled Komei Bijin Rokkasen (Six Famous Beauties). The woman here was one of the most famous beauties in Edo. She is depicted just stepping out of the bath and with her eyebrows shaved. Although her name is not given, it can be deduced from the cartouche in the upper left. The rising sun there identifies the shop, Hinodeya (Rising-Sun Shop), owned by her deceased husband, and the go board with the clipping of hair (ke in Japanese) beneath it imply goke, meaning widow.

Utanosuke Playing Go

Print 10-6, Kiseido Publishing; Tokyo, Japan

Oban print by Kunisada (signing as Toyokuni III), published by Tsutaya Kichizo in 1861. From the series Meigi Sanju-rokkasen (A Selection of Thirty-Six Famous Geisha). The haiku in the panel reads:

With the first move at go

the heat of this evening

is quite forgotten.

Raiko and the Ground Spider

(See if this story matches with Go World cover depicting the apparation of the ground spider. If so. List the issue Season and No., and Link Kiseido)

Raiko, more formally known as Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948-1021), was a warrior of noble birth around whom gathered many legends celebrating his exploits in ridding the country of a variety of robbers, demons and ogres. One of these demons was known as Tsuchigumo, or The Ground Spider.

Folklorists think the name may denote a real person, possibly a brigand or highwayman who made his headquarters in a cave. In the stories, however, Tsuchigumo is a monstrous arachnid, notorious for luring travelers into the subterranean cavern where he dwells and dining on their blood.

Two of these legends contributed ideas to the theater, and from the theater to woodblock prints connected with go. In one of these legends Raiko and his lieutenant Watanabe no Tsuna are out on the moors investigating the strange apparition of a huge skull in the sky. They come to the hut of Yamamba, a man-eating hag. With her lives a boy known as Kaidomaru, brought up among animals and endowed with superhuman strength (his childhood is the subject of an independent cycle of legends). At the boy's own request Raiko receives him as a retainer and bestows on him the name of Kintoki.

Continuing their search, the small band enters a cavern beneath the hut. They make their way past a threatening host of goblins and at length encounter a mysterious woman of baleful beauty. As Raiko studies her he feels himself becoming enmeshed in a net of cobwebs and realizes that he is being bewitched. He cuts through the net with his sword, wounding the woman. She vanishes, for she was nothing more than an emanation sent out by the spider demon himself. They follow a trail of ichor deeper into the cavern, and at the end they find the horrible Ground Spider, which Raiko kills after a violent battle.

In the other legend, Raiko is suffering from a mysterious debilitating ailment and is sleeping in his own mansion. He is guarded by Watanabe no Tsuna, two other retainers named Urabe no Suetake and Usui Sadamitsu, and by the former Kaidomaru, who is now dignified with the name Sakata no Kintoki and who is always shown in prints (and on the stage) as a burly and choleric warrior with a red face. (These four together were popularly known, in an allusion to Buddhist mythology, as The Four Guardian Kings.)

Two of them pass the time by playing go. A goblin appears, sent by the King of Demons (apparently one of Tsuchigumo's titles) to take advantage of Raiko's weakness and kill him. This creature is usually depicted in prints as having three eyes and a long tongue. In the most famous treatment of the subject, Kuniyoshi's great triptych published around 1843 (see Print 6-4), a whole troop of spooks takes shape as if out of a nightmare. Raiko wakes in the nick of time, however, and cuts off the principal demon's leg (see left panel of Print 6-12), whereupon they all vanish. Again Watanabe and his companions follow a trail of blood deep into a cave where they find a huge spider, Tsuchigumo himself. They manage to kill it, and Raiko quickly recovers.

The classic Noh play Tsuchigumo, based on these legends, is divided into two scenes. In the first, the spider, disguised as a sympathetic monk, visits the ailing Raiko. When it begins to spin a web Raiko realizes its true nature and slashes the creature with his sword, whereupon it vanishes. In the second scene, his retainers follow the trail to the spider's cave and destroy it.

This play was adapted as a dance drama for the kabuki stage by the great playwright Kawatake Mokuami in 1881, under the same title, and this is the version familiar to most theatergoers today. A popular moment in the staging of both the Noh drama and the kabuki play occurs when the disguised Tsuchigumo flings out long coils of paper that unravel all over the stage, very dramatically entrapping everyone in a tangled web.

Earlier plays that made use of the spider-as-beautiful-woman theme include the dance-drama Waga Seko no Koi no Aizuchi (Responding to the Siren's Call), by Sakurada Jisuke, staged at the Nakamura Theater in Edo in 1781, and a history play, Yama Mata Yama Oyozume-Banashi (The Tale of a Noble Guardman), by Segawa Joko II, staged at the Tamagawa Theater in Edo in 1818 (see Print 6-1).

Apparition of the Spider Princess

Print 6-11, Kiseido Publishing; Tokyo Japan

Oban diptych by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, published by Kobayashi Tetsujiro in1886.

Sakata no Kintoki, one of Raiko's retainers, has been dozing with his head on the go board. He suspiciously opens his eyes as a seductive woman -- actually an apparition created by the Ground Spider -- glides by on her errand of mischief. An unusual conception showing Yoshitoshi's fresh approach to traditional themes.

The raid

One evening many years ago, I was playing Go at the Korean Club on Lawrence Avenue. I left the club early that night to go home and watch a White Sox game. The next day, I counted myself a lucky fellow upon hearing that the club was raided by the Chicago police. They hauled away 13 Koreans in a paddy wagon on gambling charges. With no windows to the street, I wondered how the police could make such a claim. Later, it came out that undercover officers had been spying on the gamers through a narrow crank window in the alley.

Go is a game of skill; it involves no luck. Technically, gambling requires an element of luck. In essence, a few dollars wagered on Go is akin to a few dollars bet at a bowling alley. The wife of a physicist, a well known Chicago mystery writer, informed Mike Royko of the incident. He wrote a column questioning why the Chicago cops spent so much time hunting gaming geeks while gangs and thugs ravished nearby neighborhoods. Eventually charges were dropped and the club resumed its gaming activities.

Later, it came to light that a Go widow (the wife of a player who stays out all night playing Go) informed on the club in order to get her husband back.

Go story and poem

Graphic art from Go World magazine, No. 81

Chinese legends abound of people who had chance meetings in the mountains with immortals. The legend of Wang Chih, a woodcutter, has survived the ages.

From Go World magazine, No. 69, Kiseido Pubishing

Wang Chih was a hardy young fellow who used to venture deep into the mountains to find suitable wood for his axe. One day he went farther than usual and became lost. He wandered for a while and eventually came upon two strange old men who were playing go, their board resting on a rock between them. Wang Chih was fascinated. He put down his axe and began to watch. One of the players gave him something like a date to chew on, so that he felt neither hunger nor thirst. As he continued to watch he fell into a sort of trance for what seemed like an hour or two. When he awoke, however, the two old men were no longer there. He found that his axe handle had rotted to dust and he had grown a long beard. When he got back to his native village he discovered that his family had disappeared and that no one even remembered his name.

Inspired by the legend, Ki no Tomonori, a Japanese poet and court official, returned to his home capital from a distant land circa A.D. 900 and wrote:

I've come back home/
There is no friend to play go with/
That place far away/
where an axe handle turned to dust--/
how dear to me it has become!

Go tournament

StevieG and gloved opponent with interested Korean onlooker

A game for the ages

The strategic board game Go challenges players, more than any other game of strategy, to use both sides of the brain. Simple rules soon encounter complex situations as spherical pieces of equal value form groups of variable strength. A player's skill in managing weaknesses will, in most cases, decide the eventual winner. To become skillful, a player develops both abstract and logical thinking capacity, and the talent to adjust each like nobs governing a faucet.

In ancient China, two opposing generals about to do battle first met in the middle of a field. After a short discussion, instead of fighting the battle and suffering many deaths among their soldiers, they decided to play a Go game between themselves to decide the victor. But this is not a game just for men. Many women enjoy the game and often beat their male opponents.

For decades, Japan has been the world leader in promoting the game. In Japan, it is called Igo; in China it is known as Weichi, and in Korea, Baduk. It is all the same game, played by young and old.

For information about Go, instructional books and magazines, Go equipment, and online game server access, visit Kiseido Publishing.