Poetess, actress, singer. Famous courtesans of the East who remained in the history of art of their countries

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The word "courtesan" comes from the French word for "courtier" and is related to the term "courtly". To be considered a courtesan, it is not enough to be unmarried, but in the presence of a lover or lovers, one must also "light up", arranging evenings with the faces of high society and shining on them with manners, education, and talents. Courtesans were legendary and sometimes developed the arts.

Xue Tao from the "spring quarter"

Tao was born into the family of an official named Xue Yong and at the age of eight she began to write her first poems. According to legend, when he saw the first line of Tao's first poem, his father was upset, seeing in him a special craving for voluptuousness. The three-line poem itself can be translated as follows: "The branches meet the birds arriving from the north and south, the leaves move with every gust of wind."

When Tao entered the age of brides, her father agreed to marry her off to one of the local aristocrats. But he died before the wedding, and as a result, the groom refused Tao. Probably, the man was going to marry her only in order to become the son-in-law of the tax collector. Tao found herself without a patron and a livelihood. She had no choice but to settle in a brothel.

The Chinese were obsessed with a strict hierarchy, and the girls in the brothel also had their own "estates." Well-educated, beautiful, resourceful in conversation girls became something like animators on call, they decorated banquets with themselves, replacing lawful wives locked in their houses. Of course, these girls were molested by drunken officials, but it was believed that they were free to choose their lover themselves. Moreover, the freedom of these courtesans was conditional. Each belonged to her own brothel until she found the means to pay off.

Xue Tao became famous as a shrewd and witty companion and a poet of remarkable talent. She was not only invited to the evenings - they had long correspondence with her just for the sake of pleasure. For the correspondence, Tao developed her own kind of paper, a sensual red. Her talent drew the attention of famous poets of our time to her, and one of them, an innovator and experimenter in the world of Chinese poetry, Yuan Zhen, became her lover.

Later, Tao changed the poet to the military governor Wei Gao, becoming not only his favorite, but also his personal secretary. By that time, she was already free. Soon, Wei Gao died and Tao settled in seclusion. Until her death, she continued to write poetry and carry on correspondence, but she no longer looked for patrons for herself. Perhaps Wei Gao left her enough funds so that she would not need anything.

The poetess lived for sixty-three years and wrote more than four hundred poems. Her cycle of poems "Ten Partings" is classified as a treasure trove of Chinese literature. In our time, a monument has been erected to her, and one of the craters of Venus is named after Tao.

Sadayakko

As you know, geisha do not sell their bodies, but at least in the old days, they had constant lovers. Often such a lover for many years was a man who bought a geisha's virginity during the mizuage ritual, the only time a geisha was put up for auction - at the end of his apprenticeship.

Sada was the twelfth child in the family of a bankrupt merchant. When she was four years old, she was given up for adoption by the owner of a geisha house (okiya). This happened in the second half of the nineteenth century. The new mother looked to the future and decided to give the girl an education that the geisha of those times had not yet received. Sadayakko was taught to read and write, to play billiards - a game that came from the west, horse riding and judo. Sadayakko had to compare with the legendary women of Europe, like Diane de Poitiers.

At the age of fifteen, Sadayakko was bought by the Prime Minister of Japan, Ito Hirobumi, at mizuage, and it was he who paid for the girl's further education. Although the minister ceased to be her patron after two years, friendship remained between them for life.

Leaving the craft of geisha, Sadayakko became a stage actress and traveled with her troupe throughout Japan. At twenty-two, she married another actor, popular rights activist and Hirobumi's friend, Kawakami Otojiro. Within four years, the husband simultaneously went broke and lost the election. But the couple did not lose heart and began to take their theater out on foreign tours, for the first time in history.

At forty, widowed, Sadayakko became the mistress of a wealthy entrepreneur Fukuzawa Momosuke. He was married but practically forgot his way home and lived with Sadayakko. They broke up only twenty years later. However, Sadayakko went down in history not for her men, but for her contribution to the development of the theatrical art in Japan. She opened schools of acting and drew the attention of foreign audiences to the art of Japanese theater. She died at seventy-five years of age from cancer.

Kayna Arib

The Kains, courtesans of the Arab world of the Abbasid era, did not belong to organizations like brothels or geisha houses, but to specific men. They sang, wrote poems, played musical instruments, had witty conversations and retired with men, each time hoping that the client would be so inflamed with passion for them that he would then redeem and make him his concubine for life. The elderly kaina was not needed by anyone, and it was very important to arrange your fate while you were young.

Arib was rumored to be the daughter of the vizier Harun ar-Rashid by a slave. Arib was brought up by a certain Christian, so the girl grew up very independent, daring, behaved as if she was free. She was able not only to compose and sing long qasidas compiled according to all the canons and to joke aptly over a cup of wine, but also to ride a horse, play backgammon and chess. The Arab historian Al-Isfahani claimed that she lived for 96 years and during this time seven caliphs managed to fall in love with her.

One day Arib fell in love with one of the guests, a blue-eyed young man named Muhammad ibn Hamid al-Hakani al-Hasin. The client could not redeem her, so they fled together. Oddly enough, the act caused more than just condemnation. The master's son Arib wrote a poem to justify this escape. But Muhammad disappointed the singer, she left him, and the master's servants put her in her place.

This story made Arib extremely famous and, combined with her talents, fascinated many. Khali Al-Amin, having heard about the extraordinary kaina, invited her to the palace, after which he tried to ransom it, but did not have time. He was just at war, and he was killed. So Arib bought out his successor, Caliph Al-Mamun. After the death of Al-Mamun, Arib also went to the new caliph, Al-Mutasim, who loved her so much that he gave her freedom.

After that, Arib began to lead a lifestyle in the spirit of European courtesans. She herself chose her lovers and received gifts from them, at the same time, she continued to compose songs and conduct conversations, thanks to which she received more respect than any woman of her time. Refined correspondence was conducted with her, asking her opinion on various issues and enjoying her literary style. Her main source of income, by the way, was not her patrons. She was hired to write songs for the holidays.

In her old age, Arib recalled that she shared a bed with eight caliphs, but wanted only one of them, the ruler and poet Al-Mutazza.

If you are interested in kaines, you should read about the fate of three famous slaves of the East, West and New World.