Shunshoku Umegoyomi Vol. 1: Yonehachi & Tanjirou, Reunited (part 2)

Continuing Yonehachi and Tanjirou's conversation from the previous post:

Fig. 1: 亭主はびっくり顔
うちながめ

The husband seemed to show surprise on his anxious face (fig. 1).

 The first thing to note here is the nonstandard use of 「亭主」 (read as 「ていしゅ」 in modern Japanese) for 「あるじ」. Although it was relatively easy to identify the second kanji, as by itself it is the standard kanji for 「あるじ」 (and because the bottom part of the 「主」 kanji, the 「王」 radical, is frequently seen in the same form as a kuzushiji 「わ」), the first one was more challenging.

This is a situation where you really have to take the idea that kanji are about meaning first and pronunciation second to heart. 「亭主」 is another word for "husband" in modern Japanese. I was able to find it with the help (once again), of Nihongo Resources. A quick search for "?主" (making sure to change the "word start" option to "whole word") returned a manageable list of 60 possibilities. Considering the non-standard kanji usage during the Edo period, it makes sense that inconsistencies like this would exist.

Another point of interest is that my earlier statement that small kana did not exist in pre-modern Japanese is not actually universally true. Although it's difficult to definitively say so, it appears that the second kana in 「びっくり」 is actually the small version of 「つ」. As I've never seen in this practice in Heian-era literature, it's most likely something that gradually developed since that time, with it becoming standardized only after WW2.

The final point of interest is the final verb, 「うちながめ」, which appears to be the continuative form （連用形） of the verb 「打ち眺む」. Since both the imperfective （未然形） and continuative forms end in 「め」, the fact that it's continuous was determined from the context - the next sentence (fig. 2) contains a quote by Tanjirou. As for the meaning of the verb itself, my classical Japanese dictionary defines it as 「もの思いにふけり、ぼんやりと見る」, meaning "to be lost in thought/anxiety and appear absentminded". Since the idea of being lost in thought seemed to clash with the 「びっくり顔」 ("surprised face") mentioned in the quote, I went with "anxious". I still think I might be missing something here though.

Fig. 3: どふして来た。

Fig. 2: 主「米八じやアねへか。

"It's you, Yonehachi, isn't it? (fig. 2) Why have you come?" (fig. 3)

There are a few things to note about the speech pattern. First of all, note the 「じやアね」 in fig. 2 - if I'm not mistaken, this is still a feature peculiar to the Tokyo dialect, which suggests that Tamenaga tried to inject some verbal authenticity into his characters' speech styles. Second, the sentence in fig. 3 is identical to modern Japanese in pronunciation. Rather than using the classical Japanese 「来」 (pronounced 「き」) for the realis (past tense) form of the verb "to come", Tamenaga has used the form we still utilize in modern Japanese - 「来た」. Once again, despite the undeniable classical influence on the narrative style, Tamenaga appears to be making the effort to prevent that from percolating into the characters themselves.

Fig. 4: そして隠れて
居る此所がしれると
い ふもふしぎなこと。

"And it's also odd that you knew that I was hiding here" (fig. 4).

One of the harder parts of this sentence was figuring out the kanji for 「此所」. According to Tangorin, both 「此処」 and 「此所」 are valid for 「ここ」 (which made grammatical sense here), so I checked on an online kuzushiji database, and the second kanji looks like 「所」, though I'm not quite sure why, from examining the radicals.

「知れる」 is 「知る」 ("to know", just as in modern Japanese), a yodan verb in the realis form （已然形）, followed by the auxiliary verb 「り」, in the attributive form （連体形）. 「り」 has several possible meanings, but I think it has the "resultative" connotation here, meaning it refers to something that has happened and continues to be true in the present. The reason why 「り」 is in the attributive form is because it's followed by the quotative particle 「と」, which must be preceded by either a noun or the attributive form of a verb, the latter of which implies an omitted noun between that verb and 「と」.

Another difficulty I faced was deciphering the last 3 kana in the sentence, because the middle one, 「こ」, does not have a distinct upper stroke. However, I knew the sentence wouldn't make grammatical sense if it ended with 「ふしぎなと」, not to mention there was an extra stroke lying unused between 「な」 and 「と」. So I turned again to Nihongo Resources, and searched for "?と".

Fig. 5: マアヽヽこちらへ
夢じやアねへかト
おきかへりてすはる

"Well, in any case, come over here. This must be a dream," Tanjirou said, rising and sitting down (fig. 5).

Not too much to comment on here. Note the lack of a period after 「こちらへ」, even though it would have been grammatically appropriate. 「おきかへりて」 is 「起き返る」 ("to rise/sit up") in the continuative form （連用形）, followed by the continuative particle 「て」, and then the verb 「座る」 in the predicative form （終止形）, since it's at the end of the sentence.

I believe this is the first time we're encountering the placement of two parallel lines of text describing the action of the speaker after a quote, 「おきかへりてすはる」 in this case. I've never seen this before in any sort of Japanese writing, modern or classical, so if anyone can shed some light on the practice, I'd appreciate it. Edit: from the comments, looks like this is called togaki （ト書き）, literally "stage directions" ― the term/usage originates from manuscripts for premodern Japanese plays.