Four smiths from 1998 Fujishiro Koto volume (attached)

[Gabriel L]

Hello,

 

In the 1998 printing of Fujishiro's Nihon Toko Jiten - Koto Hen there are four new smiths not covered by my copy of Mr. Watson's translation.

 

Would anyone do me the favor of translating the body of these entries (or even just part of it)? Their headers are as follows, and I have highlighted the areas I would like help with if possible:

 

1. Page 96: Naoe Shizu Kanenobu (兼信 直江志津); [Eitoku 永徳 – Mino 美濃] — Chūkotō Chūjōsaku (中古刀 中上作)

 

EDIT: Please ignore the caption highlight, I see it's Katakiriha

 

 

 

(Also if you can confirm the bonji that's cool, but I will try this myself anyway.)

 

2. Page 102: Seki Kanefusa (兼房 関); [Tenshō 天正 - Mino 美濃] — Suekotō Chūjōsaku (末古刀 中上作)

 

EDIT: Please ignore the caption highlight, I see it's "Figure 1" and "Figure 2"

 

 

 

3. Page 245: Jirōbei no Jō Nagamitsu (永光 次郎兵衛尉); [Eiroku 永禄 - Bizen 備前] — Suekotō Jōsaku (末古刀 上作)

 

(Is the year "ni-ni" {4} or something else?)

 

 

 

4. Page 619: Hokke Suetsugu (季次 法華); [Ōan 應安 - Bingo 備後] — Chūkotō Chūjōsaku (中古刀 中上作)

 

 

 

 

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Thank you very much in advance!

—GLL

[Gabriel L]

OK, so nobody wants to do the heavy lifting… I don’t blame you. Unfortunately I don’t actually know anything about Japanese grammar, etc. and have not studied the language outside of mei kanji. But I bit the bullet and laboriously looked up each kanji for the first entry, then tried my best to interpret the phrases logically.

 

Could someone please double-check my translation of this entry and answer the specific questions / doubts I have?

 

1. Kanenobu

 

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兼次門 左衛門尉と称す, 作品先反短刀 小五ノ目乱 草の龍, 剣, 梵字等の彫を見る

 

He is of the Kanetsugu Mon and is called Saemon no Jô. Earlier works include curved tanto with ko-gonome midare hamon. I have seen horimono of so no ryu (arabesque dragon), ken, bonji etc.

 

Questions: First of all, I’d like to be sure the translation of “earlier works” is correct. Also, Fujishiro writes 反短刀, and I took 反 as shorthand for “sori,” so interpreted the phrase as “curved tanto.” Is this right? Likewise, he uses 乱 alone, and I am assuming this is a shorthand for “midare.” Please confirm.

 

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小五ノ目乱匂締まり小錵つく, 小反備前, 吉井等に似る.

 

Ko-gonome midare in tight nioi with ko-nie attached. Kozori group in Bizen; resembles Yoshii etc.

 

Questions: pretty sure I got the translation right, but I don’t get what 小反備前 (Kozori Bizen) is doing in the middle there. Is Fujishiro indicating that this smith is part of that group, or is it supposed to belong to the next phrase (Kozori-Bizen, Yoshiie etc.)? Having trouble interpreting the intent.

 

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Thanks very much to anyone who can help with this! Doing it this way (having never taken a Japanese lesson) takes me a damn long time, so any charitable soul who wants to also go ahead and translate or transcribe any of the other entries is more than welcome...

[Markus]

Oh, I totally missed this post. Here are my translations:

 

1.

 

Kanetsugu school, called „Saemon no Jô“, works include tantô with sakizori and ko-gunome-midare, also horimono in the form of sô no ryû, ken and bonji can be found.

 

katakiriba

 

ko-gunome-midare with a tight nioiguchi with ko-nie which resembles Kozori-Bizen, Yoshii and such kind

 

 

2.

 

There were several Kanefusa, also such which had changed their name from Kanefusa to Kunifusa or Sukefusa for example. Dated works are rare what makes a differentiation difficult. The signatures in pictures 1 and 2 are similar but differ a little and go thus back to the hand of different craftmen. The yasurime are both katte-sagari and we know hira-zukuri and ko-wakizashi from the Tenshô-era Kanefusa which show often a gunome-midare (Kenbô-midare) or notare and other hamon interpretations.

 

The two pictures to the right are made by the same smith. The hira-zukuri blade shows higaki yasurime and the shinogi-zukuri blade takanoha yasurime. There exists a mei „Nôshû Seki-jû Kanefusa saku“ with an identical signature style which is dated Bunroku two (1593).

 

 

3.

 

Made a lot of sunnobi-tantô. The hamon is a suguha-ko-midare with tight nioiguchi.

(Yes, the hightlighted part of the mei is the alternative writing for „four“, i.e. two times two.)

 

 

4.

 

Lived in Kusado in the Ashida district (of Bingo province). At that time, the Mihara smiths focused basically on suguha but Hokke Suetsugu often tempered in midareba.

[Gabriel L]

Wow Markus, that's spectacular! I really appreciate it, you saved me a lot of inefficient work. On the other hand I'm glad I did at least one entry myself as it both helped me learn more kanji and spurred me to continue at least a casual self-study of the language.

 

Warm regards,

—GLL