Kokoro - free ebook by Lafcadio Hearn

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Kokoro

Lafcadio Hearn

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KOKORO

KOKORO

THE papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than of the outer life of Japan,—for which reason they have been grouped under the title Kokoro (heart). Written with the above character, this word signifies also mind, in the emotional sense; spirit; courage; resolve; sentiment; affection; and inner meaning,—just as we say in English, "the heart of things." KOBE September 15, 1895. I. AT A RAILWAY STATION II. THE GENIUS Of JAPANESE CIVILIZATION III. A STREET SINGER IV. FROM A TRAVELING

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KOKORO

KOKORO

Seventh day of the sixth Month;— twenty-sixth of Meiji. Yesterday a telegram from Fukuoka announced that a desperate criminal captured there would be brought for trial to Kumamoto to-day, on the train due at noon. A Kumamoto policeman had gone to Fukuoka to take the prisoner in charge. Four years ago a strong thief entered some house by night in the Street of the Wrestlers, terrified and bound the inmates, and carried away a number of valuable things. Tracked skillfully by the police, he was cap

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THE GENIUS OF JAPANESE CIVILIZATION

THE GENIUS OF JAPANESE CIVILIZATION

Without losing a single ship or a single battle, Japan has broken down the power of China, made a new Korea, enlarged her own territory, and changed the whole political face of the East. Astonishing as this has seemed politically, it is much more astonishing psychologically; for it represents the result of a vast play of capacities with which the race had never been credited abroad,—capacities of a very high order. The psychologist knows that the so-called "adoption of Western civilization" with

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II

II

As I muse, the remembrance of a great city comes back to me,—a city walled up to the sky and roaring like the sea. The memory of that roar returns first; then the vision defines: a chasm, which is a street, between mountains, which are houses. I am tired, because I have walked many miles between those precipices of masonry, and have trodden no earth,—only slabs of rock,—and have heard nothing but thunder of tumult. Deep below those huge pavements I know there is a cavernous world tremendous: sys

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III

III

Generally speaking, we construct for endurance, the Japanese for impermanency. Few things for common use are made in Japan with a view to durability. The straw sandals worn out and replaced at each stage of a journey, the robe consisting of a few simple widths loosely stitched together for wearing, and unstitched again for washing, the fresh chopsticks served to each new guest at a hotel, the light shoji frames serving at once for windows and walls, and repapered twice a year; the mattings renew

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V

V

The absence of any huge signs of the really huge things that Japan has done bears witness to the very peculiar way in which her civilization has been working. It cannot forever so work; but it has so worked thus far with amazing success. Japan is producing without capital, in our large sense of the word. She has become industrial without becoming essentially mechanical and artificial. The vast rice crop is raised upon millions of tiny, tiny farms; the silk crop, in millions of small poor homes,

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III

III

A woman carrying a samisen, and accompanied by a little boy seven or eight years old, came to my house to sing. She wore the dress of a peasant, and a blue towel tied round her head. She was ugly; and her natural ugliness had been increased by a cruel attack of smallpox. The child carried a bundle of printed ballads. Neighbors then began to crowd into my front yard,—mostly young mothers and nurse girls with babies on their backs, but old women and men likewise—the inkyo of the vicinity. Also the

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FROM A TRAVELING DIARY

FROM A TRAVELING DIARY

OSAKA-KYOTO RAILWAY. April 15, 1895. Feeling drowsy in a public conveyance, and not being able to lie down, a Japanese woman will lift her long sleeve before her face ere she begins to nod. In this second-class railway-carriage there are now three women asleep in a row, all with faces screened by the left sleeve, and all swaying together with the rocking of the train, like lotos-flowers in a soft current. (This use of the left sleeve is either fortuitous or instinctive; probably instinctive, as

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II

II

Kyoto, April 16. The wooden shutters before my little room in the hotel are pushed away; and the morning sun immediately paints upon my shoji, across squares of gold light, the perfect sharp shadow of a little peach-tree. No mortal artist—not even a Japanese—could surpass that silhouette! Limned in dark blue against the yellow glow, the marvelous image even shows stronger or fainter tones according to the varying distance of the unseen branches outside. it sets me thinking about the possible inf

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III

III

Kyoto, April 16. Of all peculiarly beautiful things in Japan, the most beautiful are the approaches to high places of worship or of rest,—the Ways that go to Nowhere and the Steps that lead to Nothing. Certainly, their special charm is the charm of the adventitious, —the effect of man's handiwork in union with Nature's finest moods of light and form and color,—a charm which vanishes on rainy days; but it is none the less wonderful because fitful. Perhaps the ascent begins with a sloping paved av

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IV

IV

KYOTO, April 10-20. I have passed the greater part of three days in the national Exhibition,—time barely sufficient to discern the general character and significance of the display. It is essentially industrial, but nearly all delightful, notwithstanding, because of the wondrous application of art to all varieties of production. Foreign merchants and keener observers than I find in it other and sinister meaning,—the most formidable menace to Occidental trade and industry ever made by the Orient.

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V

V

These thoughts came:— That nudity which is divine, which is the abstract of beauty absolute, gives to the beholder a shock of astonishment and delight,—not unmixed with melancholy. Very few works of art give this, because very few approach perfection. But there are marbles and gems which give it, and certain fine studies of them, such as the engravings published by the Society of Dilettanti. The longer one looks, the more the wonder grows, since there appears no line, or part of a line, whose be

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VI

VI

Kyoto, April 21. The noblest examples of religious architecture in the whole empire have just been completed; and the great City of Temples is now enriched by two constructions probably never surpassed in all the ten centuries of its existence. One is the gift of the Imperial Government; the other, the gift of the common people. The government's gift is the Dai-Kioku-Den,—erected to commemorate the great festival of Kwammu Tenno, fifty-first emperor of Japan, and founder of the Sacred City. To t

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VII

VII

Kobe, April 23. I have been visiting the exhibition of fishes and of fisheries which is at Hyogo, in a garden by the sea. Waraku-en is its name, which signifies, "The Garden of the Pleasure of Peace." It is laid out like a landscape garden of old time, and deserves its name. Over its verge you behold the great bay, and fishermen in boats, and the white far-gliding of sails splendid with light, and beyond all, shutting out the horizon, a lofty beautiful massing of peaks mauve-colored by distance.

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V

V

When O-Toyo's husband—a distant cousin, adopted into her family for love's sake—had been summoned by his lord to the capital, she did not feel anxious about the future. She felt sad only. It was the first time since their bridal that they had ever been separated. But she had her father and mother to keep her company, and, dearer than either,—though she would never have confessed it even to herself,—her little son. Besides, she always had plenty to do. There were many household duties to perform,

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II

II

Then twice, within the time of three days, those masters of life and death whose ways belong to the eternal mysteries struck at her heart. First she was taught that the gentle husband for whom she had so often prayed never could return to her,—having been returned unto that dust out of which all forms are borrowed. And in another little while she knew her boy slept so deep a sleep that the Chinese physician could not waken him. These things she learned only as shapes are learned in lightning fla

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IV

IV

They built for her a small An-dera, or Nun's-Temple, in an empty court where another and larger temple, called Amida-ji, had once stood. The An-dera was also called Amida-ji, and was dedicated to Amida-Nyorai and to other Buddhas. It was fitted up with a very small altar and with miniature altar furniture. There was a tiny copy of the sutras on a tiny reading-desk, and tiny screens and bells and kakemono. And she dwelt there long after her parents had passed away. People called her the Amida-ji

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I

I

Hyogo, May 5, 1895. Hyogo, this morning, lies bathed in a limpid magnificence of light indescribable,—spring light, which is vapory, and lends a sort of apparitional charm to far things seen through it. Forms remain sharply outlined, but are almost idealized by faint colors not belonging to them; and the great hills behind the town aspire into a cloudless splendor of tint that seems the ghost of azure rather than azure itself. Over the blue-gray slope of tiled roofs there is a vast quivering and

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II

II

But in this radiant spring of the Japanese year 2555, the koi might be taken to symbolize something larger than parental hope, —the great trust of a nation regenerated through war. The military revival of the Empire—the real birthday of New Japan—began with the conquest of China. The war is ended; the future, though clouded, seems big with promise; and, however grim the obstacles to loftier and more enduring achievements, Japan has neither fears nor doubts. Perhaps the future danger is just in t

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IV

IV

Kobe, June 9. Last year, while traveling from Shimonoseki to the capital, I saw many regiments on their way to the seat of war, all uniformed in white, for the hot season was not yet over. Those soldiers looked so much like students whom I had taught (thousands, indeed, were really fresh from school) that I could not help feeling it was cruel to send such youths to battle. The boyish faces were so frank, so cheerful, so seemingly innocent of the greater sorrows of life! "Don't fear for them," sa

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VII.

VII.

Haru was brought up, chiefly at home, in that old-fashioned way which produced one of the sweetest types of woman the world has ever seen. This domestic education cultivated simplicity of heart, natural grace of manner, obedience, and love of duty as they were never cultivated but in Japan. Its moral product was something too gentle and beautiful for any other than the old Japanese society: it was not the most judicious preparation for the much harsher life of the new,—in which it still survives

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II

II

For a long time the merchants of the concessions had their own way in everything, and forced upon the native firms methods of business to which no Occidental merchant would think of submitting,—methods which plainly expressed the foreign conviction that all Japanese were tricksters. No foreigner would then purchase anything until it had been long enough in his hands to be examined and re-examined and "exhaustively" examined,—or accept any order for imports unless the order were accompanied by "a

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III

III

During all this time of outward changes the real feeling between the races—the mutual dislike of Oriental and Occidental—had continued to grow. Of the nine or ten English papers published in the open ports, the majority expressed, day after day, one side of this dislike, in the language of ridicule or contempt; and a powerful native press retorted in kind, with dangerous effectiveness. If the "anti-Japanese" newspapers did not actually represent—as I believe they did—an absolute majority in sent

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IV

IV

Really the dullest foreigner could not have believed that a people of forty millions, uniting all their energies to achieve absolute national independence, would remain content to leave the management of their country's import and export trade to aliens, —especially in view of the feeling in the open ports. The existence of foreign settlements in Japan, under consular jurisdiction, was in itself a constant exasperation to national pride,—an indication of national weakness. It had so been proclai

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V

V

The foregoing brief account of existing conditions may suffice to prove the evolution in Japan of a social phenomenon of great significance. Of course the prospective opening of the country under new treaties, the rapid development of its industries, and the vast annual increase in the volume of trade with America and Europe, will probably bring about some increase of foreign settlers; and this temporary result might deceive many as to the inevitable drift of things. But old merchants of experie

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VI

VI

What of the future of Japan? No one can venture any positive prediction on the assumption that existing tendencies will continue far into that future. Not to dwell upon the grim probabilities of war, or the possibility of such internal disorder as might compel indefinite suspension of the constitution, and lead to a military dictatorship,—a resurrected Shogunate in modern uniform,—great changes there will assuredly be, both for better and for worse. Supposing these changes normal, however, one m

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II

II

A priest died recently under very peculiar circumstances. He was the priest of a temple, belonging to one of the older Buddhist sects, in a village near Osaka. (You can see that temple from the Kwan-Setsu Railway, as you go by train to Kyoto.) He was young, earnest, and extremely handsome—very much too handsome for a priest, the women said. He looked like one of those beautiful figures of Amida made by the great Buddhist statuaries of other days. The men of his parish thought him a pure and lear

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III

III

I called upon a Japanese friend, a Buddhist scholar, to ask some questions about the religious aspects of the incident. Even as a confession of human weakness, that suicide appeared to me a heroism. It did not so appear to my friend. He spoke words of rebuke. He reminded me that one who even suggested suicide as a means of escape from sin had been pronounced by the Buddha a spiritual outcast,—unfit to live with holy men. As for the dead priest, he had been one of those whom the Teacher called fo

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A CONSERVATIVE

A CONSERVATIVE

Amazakaru Hi no iru kuni ni Kite wa aredo, Yamato-nishiki no Iro wa kawaraji. He was born in a city of the interior, the seat of a daimyo of three hundred thousand koku, where no foreigner had ever been. The yashiki of his father, a samurai of high rank, stood within the outer fortifications surrounding the prince's castle. It was a spacious yashiki; and behind it and around it were landscape gardens, one of which contained a small shrine of the god of armies. Forty years ago there were many suc

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II

II

The policy of Iyemitsu, forbidding any Japanese to leave the country under pain of death, had left the nation for two hundred years ignorant of the outer world. About the colossal forces gathering beyond seas nothing was known. The long existence of the Dutch settlement at Nagasaki had in no wise enlightened Japan as to her true position,—an Oriental feudalism of the sixteenth century menaced by a Western world three centuries older. Accounts of the real wonders of that world would have sounded

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III

III

It soon became evident that the foreign "barbarians" were not to be driven away. Hundreds had come, from the East as well as from the West; and all possible measures for their protection had been taken; and they had built queer cities of their own upon Japanese soil. The government had even commanded that Western knowledge was to be taught in all schools; that the study of English was to be made an important branch of public education; and that public education itself was to be remodeled upon Oc

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V

V

The study and the thinking were to lead the young man much further than he had thought possible. After the recognition of Christianity as a great religion came recognitions of another order, and various imaginings about the civilization of the races professing Christianity. It then seemed to many reflective Japanese, possibly even to the keen minds directing the national policy, that Japan was doomed to pass altogether under alien rule. There was hope, indeed; and while even the ghost of hope re

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VI

VI

Those who hope to substitute their own Western creed in the room of one which they wreck by the aid of knowledge borrowed from modern science, do not imagine that the arguments used against the ancient faith can be used with equal force against the new. Unable himself to reach the higher levels of modern thought, the average missionary cannot foresee the result of his small teaching of science upon an Oriental mind naturally more powerful than his own. He is therefore astonished and shocked to d

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VIII

VIII

It was through the transparent darkness of a cloudless April morning, a little before sunrise, that he saw again the mountains of his native land,—far lofty sharpening sierras, towering violet-black out of the circle of an inky sea. Behind the steamer which was bearing him back from exile the horizon was slowly filling with rosy flame. There were some foreigners already on deck, eager to obtain the first and fairest view of Fuji from the Pacific;—for the first sight of Fuji at dawn is not to be

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XI

XI

"Do you know anything about josses?" "Josses?" "Yes; idols, Japanese idols,—josses." "Something," I answered, "but not very much." "Well, come, and look at my collection, won't you? I've been collecting josses for twenty years, and I've got some worth seeing. They're not for sale, though,—except to the British Museum." I followed the curio dealer through the bric-a-brac of his shop, and across a paved yard into an unusually large go-down(1). Like all go-downs it was dark: I could barely discern

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I

I

Were I to ask any reflecting Occidental, who had passed some years in the real living atmosphere of Buddhism, what fundamental idea especially differentiates Oriental modes of thinking from our own, I am sure he would answer: "The Idea of Pre-existence." It is this idea, more than any other, which permeates the whole mental being of the Far East. It is universal as the wash of air: it colors every emotion; it influences, directly or indirectly, almost every act. Its symbols are perpetually visib

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II

II

The interpretative power of Buddhism, and the singular accord of its theories with the facts of modern science, appear especially in that domain of psychology whereof Herbert Spencer has been the greatest of all explorers. No small part of our psychological life is composed of feelings which Western theology never could explain. Such are those which cause the still speechless infant to cry at the sight of certain faces, or to smile at the sight of others. Such are those instantaneous likes or di

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IV

IV

That the idea, which has been for thousands of years so vast a factor in Oriental thought-life, should have failed to develop itself in the West till within, our own day, is sufficiently explained by Western theology. Still, it would not be correct to say that theology succeeded in rendering the notion of pre-existence absolutely repellent to Occidental minds. Though Christian doctrine, holding each soul specially created out of nothing to fit each new body, permitted no avowed beliefs in pre-ex

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V

V

The prodigious complexity of the methods by which Science has arrived at conclusions so strangely in harmony with the ancient thought of the East, may suggest the doubt whether those conclusions could ever be made clearly comprehensible to the mass of Western minds. Certainly it would seem that just as the real doctrines of Buddhism can be taught to the majority of believers through forms only, so the philosophy of science can be communicated to the masses through suggestion only,—suggestion of

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VI

VI

More detailed consideration of these probabilities may be ventured. They will not, perhaps, be acknowledged as probabilities by persons who regard science as a destroyer rather than a modifier. But such thinkers forget that religious feeling is something infinitely more profound than dogma; that it survives all gods and all forms of creed; and that it only widens and deepens and gathers power with intellectual expansion. That as mere doctrine religion will ultimately pass away is a conclusion to

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VII

VII

The influence of Science will not be the only factor in the modification of Western religious beliefs: Oriental philosophy will certainly furnish another. Sanscrit, Chinese, and Pali scholarship, and the tireless labor of philologists in all parts of the East, are rapidly familiarizing Europe and America with all the great forms of Oriental thought; Buddhism is being studied with interest throughout the Occident; and the results of these studies are yearly showing themselves more and more defini

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II

II

The pipe-stem seller used to make his round with two large boxes suspended from a bamboo pole balanced upon his shoulder: one box containing stems of various diameters, lengths, and colors, together with tools for fitting them into metal pipes; and the other box containing a baby,—his own baby. Sometimes I saw it peeping over the edge of the box, and smiling at the passers-by; sometimes I saw it lying, well wrapped up and fast asleep, in the bottom of the box; sometimes I saw it playing with toy

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XIV

XIV

"For twelve leagues, Ananda, around the Sala-Grove, there is no spot in size even as the pricking of the point of the tip of a hair, which is not pervaded by powerful spirits." —The Book Of the Great Decease. The truth that ancestor-worship, in various unobtrusive forms, still survives in some of the most highly civilized countries of Europe, is not so widely known as to preclude the idea that any non-Aryan race actually practicing so primitive a cult must necessarily remain in the primitive sta

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III

III

Out of these primitive, but—as may now be perceived—not irrational beliefs about the dead, there have been evolved moral sentiments unknown to Western civilization. These are well worth considering, as they will prove in harmony with the most advanced conception of ethics,—and especially with that immense though yet indefinite expansion of the sense of duty which has followed upon the understanding of evolution. I do not know that we have any reason to congratulate ourselves upon the absence fro

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IV

IV

If we think a little about our position as debtors, and our way of accepting that position, one striking difference between Western and Far-Eastern moral sentiment will become manifest. There is nothing more awful than the mere fact of life as mystery when that fact first rushes fully into consciousness. Out of unknown darkness we rise a moment into sun-light, look about us, rejoice and suffer, pass on the vibration of our being to other beings, and fall back again into darkness. So a wave rises

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V

V

It is through the teachings of evolution that there will ultimately be developed in the West a moral recognition of duty to the past like that which ancestor-worship created in the Far East. For even to-day whoever has mastered the first principles of the new philosophy cannot look at the commonest product of man's handiwork without perceiving something of its evolutional history. The most ordinary utensil will appear to him not the mere product of individual capacity on the part of carpenter or

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VI

VI

"Evolution" the reader may say, "does indeed show through its doctrine of heredity that the living are in one sense really controlled by the dead. But it also shows that the dead are within us, not without us. They are part of us;—there is no proof that they have any existence which is not our own. Gratitude to the past would, therefore, be gratitude to ourselves; love of the dead would be self-love. So that your attempt at analogy ends in the absurd." No. Ancestor-worship in its primitive form

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II

II

There is no more Ichi-dai-me Kimiko: she is only a remembrance. Kimika was quite young when she called that Kimiko her professional sister. "An exceedingly wonderful girl," is what Kimika says of Kimiko. To win any renown in her profession, a geisha must be pretty or very clever; and the famous ones are usually both,—having been selected at a very early age by their trainers according to the promise of such qualities, even the commoner class of singing-girls must have some charm in their best ye

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III

III

Between Kimiko and other geisha there was a difference of gentle blood. Before she took a professional name, her name was Ai, which, written with the proper character, means love. Written with another character the same word-sound signifies grief. The story of Ai was a story of both grief and love. She had been nicely brought up. As a child she had been sent to a private school kept by an old samurai,—where the little girls squatted on cushions before little writing-tables twelve inches high, an

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IV

IV

It was in the period of the fourth moon that Kimiko was carried away to the home prepared for her,—a place in which to forget all the unpleasant realities of life,—a sort of fairy-palace lost in the charmed repose of great shadowy silent high-walled gardens. Therein she might have felt as one reborn, by reason of good deeds, into the realm of Horai. But the spring passed, and the summer came,—and Kimiko remained simply Kimiko. Three times she had contrived, for reasons unspoken, to put off the w

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V

V

Nobody knew when or how or whither she had gone. Even in the neighborhood of the home she had left, none had seen her pass. At first it seemed that she must soon return. Of all her beautiful and precious things-her robes, her ornaments, her presents: a fortune in themselves—she had taken nothing. But weeks passed without word or sign; and it was feared that something terrible had befallen her. Rivers were dragged, and wells were searched. Inquiries were made by telegraph and by letter. Trusted s

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THREE POPULAR BALLADS

THREE POPULAR BALLADS

Read before the Asiatic Society of Japan, October 17, 1894. During the spring of 1891, I visited the settlement in Matsue, Izumo, of an outcast people known as the yama-no-mono . Some results of the visit were subsequently communicated to the "Japan Mail," in a letter published June 13, 1891, and some extracts from that letter I think it may be worth while to cite here, by way of introduction to the subject of the present paper. "The settlement is at the southern end of Matsue in a tiny valley,

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THE BALLAD OF SHUNTOKU-MARU

THE BALLAD OF SHUNTOKU-MARU

Ara!—Joyfully young Daikoko and Ebisu enter dancing Shall we tell a tale, or shall we utter felicitations? A tale: then of what is it best that we should tell? Since we are bidden to your august house to relate a story, we shall relate the story of Shuntoku. Surely there once lived, in the Province of Kawachi, a very rich man called Nobuyoshi. And his eldest son was called Shuntoku-maru. When Shuntoku-maru, that eldest son, was only three years old, his mother died. And when he was five years ol

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I. THE BIRTH

I. THE BIRTH

The famed Takakura Dainagon, whose other name was Kane-ie, was so rich that he had treasure-houses in every direction. He owned one precious stone that had power over fire, and another that had power over water. He also had the claws of a tiger, extracted from the paws of the living animal; he had the horns of a colt; and he likewise owned even a musk-cat (jako-neko)(1). Of all that a man might have in this world, he wanted nothing except an heir, and he had no other cause for sorrow. A trusted

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II. THE BANISHMENT

II. THE BANISHMENT

Very quickly the child grew; and when he became fifteen, the reigning Emperor gave him the name and title of Oguri-Hangwan Kane-uji. When he reached manhood his father resolved to get him a bride. So the Dainagon looked upon all the daughters of the ministers and high officials, but he found none that he thought worthy to become the wife of his son. But the young Hangwan, learning that he himself had been a gift to his parents from Tamon-Ten, resolved to pray to that deity for a spouse; and he h

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III. THE EXCHANGE OF LETTERS

III. THE EXCHANGE OF LETTERS

Only a little while after the banishment of Kane-uji, a traveling merchant, seeking to sell his wares, visited the house of the exiled prince at Hitachi. And being asked by the Hangwan where he lived, the merchant made answer, saying:—"I live in Kyoto, in the street called Muromachi, and my name is Goto Sayemon. "My stock consists of goods of one thousand and eight different kinds which I send to China, of one thousand and eight kinds which I send to India, and yet another thousand and eight kin

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IV. HOW KANE-UJI BECAME A BRIDEGROOM WITHOUT HIS FATHER-IN-LAW'S CONSENT

IV. HOW KANE-UJI BECAME A BRIDEGROOM WITHOUT HIS FATHER-IN-LAW'S CONSENT

Traveling with great speed, the nakodo quickly arrived at the dwelling of the Hangwan, and gave the letter to the master, who removed the cover with hands that trembled for joy. Very, very short the answer was,—only these words: Oki naka bune , "a boat floating in the offing." But Kane-uji guessed the meaning to be: "As fortunes and misfortunes are common to all, be not afraid, and try to come unseen." Therewith he summoned Ikenoshoji, and bade him make all needful preparation for a rapid journe

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V. THE POISONING

V. THE POISONING

The next day Yokoyama sent to Prince Kane-uji a message, inviting him to come to his house, there to perform the wine-drinking ceremony of greeting each other as father-in-law and son-in-law. Then the Princess Terute sought to dissuade the Hangwan from going there, because she had dreamed in the night a dream of ill omen. But the Hangwan, making light of her fears, went boldly to the dwelling of the Choja, followed by his young retainers. Then Yokoyama Choja, rejoicing, caused many dishes to be

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VI. CAST ADRIFT

VI. CAST ADRIFT

The cruel Yokoyama thought that it would not do to suffer his daughter to live, after he had thus killed her husband. Therefore he felt obliged to order his faithful servants, Onio and Oniji, (1) who were brothers, to take her far out into the sea of Sagami, and to drown her there. And the two brothers, knowing their master was too stony-hearted to be persuaded otherwise, could do nothing but obey. So they went to the unhappy lady, and told her the purpose for which they had been sent. Terute-Hi

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VII. THE LADY YORIHIME

VII. THE LADY YORIHIME

The canoe bearing poor Terute was tossed about by the waves for seven days and seven nights, during which time there was much wind and rain. And at last it was discovered by some fishermen who were fishing near Nawoye. But they thought that the beautiful woman was certainly the spirit that had caused the long storm of many days; and Terute might have been killed by their oars, had not one of the men of Nawoye taken her under his protection. Now this man, whose name was Murakimi Dayu, resolved to

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VIII. BECOMING A SERVANT

VIII. BECOMING A SERVANT

After this misfortune, the unhappy princess passed from one master to another as many as seventy-five times. Her last purchaser was one Yorodzuya Chobei, well known as the keeper of a large joroya(1) in the province of Mino. When Terute-Hime was first brought before this new master, she spoke meekly to him, and begged him to excuse her ignorance of all refinements and of deportment. And Chobei then asked her to tell him all about herself, her native place, and her family. But Terute-Hime thought

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IX. DRAWING THE CART

IX. DRAWING THE CART

And now we shall tell what became of Kane-uji. The far-famed Yugyo Shonin, of the temple of Fujisawa in Kagami, who traveled constantly in Japan to preach the law of Buddha in all the provinces, chanced to be passing over the moor Uwanogahara. There he saw many crows and kites flitting about a grave. Drawing nearer, he wondered much to see a nameless thing, seemingly without arms or legs, moving between the pieces of a broken tombstone. Then he remembered the old tradition, that those who are pu

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X. THE REVIVAL

X. THE REVIVAL

At last the gaki-ami was brought to the hot springs of the famed temple of Kumano Gongen, and, by the aid of those compassionate persons who pitied its state, was daily enabled to experience the healing effects of the bath. After a single week the effects of the bath caused the eyes, nose, ears, and mouth to reappear; after fourteen days all the limbs had been fully re-formed; And after one-and-twenty days the nameless shape was completely transformed into the real Oguri-Hangwan Kane-uji, perfec

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XI. THE INTERVIEW

XI. THE INTERVIEW

One day Oguri-Hangwan left his residence to make a journey of inspection through the provinces of which he had been appointed ruler. And reaching Mino, he resolved to visit Kohagi of Hitachi, and to utter his thanks to her for her exceeding goodness. Therefore he lodged at the house of Yorodzuya, where he was conducted to the finest of all the guest-chambers, which was made beautiful with screens of gold, with Chinese carpets, with Indian hangings, and with other precious things of great cost. W

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XII. THE VENGEANCE

XII. THE VENGEANCE

This is the district of Soba, in the province of Sagami, the native land of Terute: how many beautiful and how many sorrowful thoughts does it recall to their minds! And here also are Yokoyama and his son, who killed Lord Ogiri with poison. So Saburo, the third son, being led to the moor called Totsuka-no-hara, was there punished. But Yokoyama Choja, wicked as he had been, was not punished; because parents, however bad, must be for their children always like the sun and moon. And hearing this or

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THE BALLAD OF O-SHICHI, THE DAUGHTER OF THE YAOYA (1)

THE BALLAD OF O-SHICHI, THE DAUGHTER OF THE YAOYA (1)

In autumn the deer are lured within reach of the hunters by the sounds of the flute, which resemble the sounds of the voices of their mates, and so are killed. Almost in like manner, one of the five most beautiful girls in Yedo, whose comely faces charmed all the capital even as the spring-blossoming of cherry-trees, cast away her life in the moment of blindness caused by love. When, having done a foolish thing, she was brought before the mayor of the city of Yedo, that high official questioned

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