Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
After long reflection, he resolved to try to send her a letter. The
attempt would be dangerous, of course: any writing sent to her might
find its way to the hands of the daimyō; and to send a love-letter to
any inmate of the place was an unpardonable offense. But he resolved to
dare the risk; and, in the form of a Chinese poem, he composed a letter
which he endeavored to have conveyed to her. The poem was written with
only twenty-eight characters. But with those twenty-eight characters he
was about to express all the depth of his passion, and to suggest all
the pain of his loss:—[4]
Kōshi ō-son gojin wo ou;
Ryokuju namida wo tarété rakin wo hitataru;
Komon hitotabi irité fukaki koto umi no gotoshi;
Koré yori shorō koré rojin
[_Closely, closely the youthful prince now follows after the gem-bright
maid;—
The tears of the fair one, falling, have moistened all her robes.
But the august lord, having once become enamored of her—the depth of
his longing is like the depth of the sea.
Therefore it is only I that am left forlorn,—only I that am left to
wander along._]
On the evening of the day after this poem had been sent, Tomotada was
summoned to appear before the Lord Hosokawa. The youth at once
suspected that his confidence had been betrayed; and he could not hope,
if his letter had been seen by the daimyō, to escape the severest
penalty. “Now he will order my death,” thought Tomotada;—“but I do not
care to live unless Aoyagi be restored to me. Besides, if the
death-sentence be passed, I can at least try to kill Hosokawa.” He
slipped his swords into his girdle, and hastened to the palace.
On entering the presence-room he saw the Lord Hosokawa seated upon the
dais, surrounded by samurai of high rank, in caps and robes of
ceremony. All were silent as statues; and while Tomotada advanced to
make obeisance, the hush seemed to him sinister and heavy, like the
stillness before a storm. But Hosokawa suddenly descended from the
dais, and, while taking the youth by the arm, began to repeat the words
of the poem:—“_Kōshi ō-son gojin wo ou_.”... And Tomotada, looking up,
saw kindly tears in the prince’s eyes.
Then said Hosokawa:—
“Because you love each other so much, I have taken it upon myself to
authorize your marriage, in lieu of my kinsman, the Lord of Noto; and
your wedding shall now be celebrated before me. The guests are
assembled;—the gifts are ready.”
At a signal from the lord, the sliding-screens concealing a further
apartment were pushed open; and Tomotada saw there many dignitaries of
the court, assembled for the ceremony, and Aoyagi awaiting him in
brides’ apparel... Thus was she given back to him;—and the wedding was
joyous and splendid;—and precious gifts were made to the young couple
by the prince, and by the members of his household.
For five happy years, after that wedding, Tomotada and Aoyagi dwelt
together. But one morning Aoyagi, while talking with her husband about
some household matter, suddenly uttered a great cry of pain, and then
became very white and still. After a few moments she said, in a feeble
voice: “Pardon me for thus rudely crying out—but the pain was so
sudden!... My dear husband, our union must have been brought about
through some Karma-relation in a former state of existence; and that
happy relation, I think, will bring us again together in more than one
life to come. But for this present existence of ours, the relation is
now ended;—we are about to be separated. Repeat for me, I beseech you,
the _Nembutsu_-prayer,—because I am dying.”
“Oh! what strange wild fancies!” cried the startled husband,—“you are
only a little unwell, my dear one!... lie down for a while, and rest;
and the sickness will pass.”...
“No, no!” she responded—“I am dying!—I do not imagine it;—I know!...
And it were needless now, my dear husband, to hide the truth from you
any longer:—I am not a human being. The soul of a tree is my soul;—the
heart of a tree is my heart;—the sap of the willow is my life. And some
one, at this cruel moment, is cutting down my tree;—that is why I must
die!... Even to weep were now beyond my strength!—quickly, quickly
repeat the _Nembutsu_ for me... quickly!... Ah!...”
With another cry of pain she turned aside her beautiful head, and tried
to hide her face behind her sleeve. But almost in the same moment her
whole form appeared to collapse in the strangest way, and to sink down,
down, down—level with the floor. Tomotada had sprung to support
her;—but there was nothing to support! There lay on the matting only
the empty robes of the fair creature and the ornaments that she had
worn in her hair: the body had ceased to exist...
Tomotada shaved his head, took the Buddhist vows, and became an
itinerant priest. He traveled through all the provinces of the empire;
and, at holy places which he visited, he offered up prayers for the
soul of Aoyagi. Reaching Echizen, in the course of his pilgrimage, he
sought the home of the parents of his beloved. But when he arrived at
the lonely place among the hills, where their dwelling had been, he
found that the cottage had disappeared. There was nothing to mark even
the spot where it had stood, except the stumps of three willows—two old
trees and one young tree—that had been cut down long before his
arrival.
Beside the stumps of those willow-trees he erected a memorial tomb,
inscribed with divers holy texts; and he there performed many Buddhist
services on behalf of the spirits of Aoyagi and of her parents.
JIU-ROKU-ZAKURA
Uso no yona,—
Jiu-roku-zakura
Saki ni keri!
In Wakégōri, a district of the province of Iyo (1), there is a very
ancient and famous cherry-tree, called _Jiu-roku-zakura_, or “the
Cherry-tree of the Sixteenth Day,” because it blooms every year upon
the sixteenth day of the first month (by the old lunar calendar),—and
only upon that day. Thus the time of its flowering is the Period of
Great Cold,—though the natural habit of a cherry-tree is to wait for
the spring season before venturing to blossom. But the
_Jiu-roku-zakura_ blossoms with a life that is not—or, at least, that
was not originally—its own. There is the ghost of a man in that tree.
He was a samurai of Iyo; and the tree grew in his garden; and it used
to flower at the usual time,—that is to say, about the end of March or
the beginning of April. He had played under that tree when he was a
child; and his parents and grandparents and ancestors had hung to its
blossoming branches, season after season for more than a hundred years,
bright strips of colored paper inscribed with poems of praise. He
himself became very old,—outliving all his children; and there was
nothing in the world left for him to love except that tree. And lo! in
the summer of a certain year, the tree withered and died!
Exceedingly the old man sorrowed for his tree. Then kind neighbors
found for him a young and beautiful cherry-tree, and planted it in his
garden,—hoping thus to comfort him. And he thanked them, and pretended
to be glad. But really his heart was full of pain; for he had loved the
old tree so well that nothing could have consoled him for the loss of
it.
At last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which
the perishing tree might be saved. (It was the sixteenth day of the
first month.) Along he went into his garden, and bowed down before the
withered tree, and spoke to it, saying: “Now deign, I beseech you, once
more to bloom,—because I am going to die in your stead.” (For it is
believed that one can really give away one’s life to another person, or
to a creature or even to a tree, by the favor of the gods;—and thus to
transfer one’s life is expressed by the term _migawari ni tatsu_, “to
act as a substitute.”) Then under that tree he spread a white cloth,
and divers coverings, and sat down upon the coverings, and performed
_hara-kiri_ after the fashion of a samurai. And the ghost of him went
into the tree, and made it blossom in that same hour.
And every year it still blooms on the sixteenth day of the first month,
in the season of snow.
THE DREAM OF AKINOSUKÉ
In the district called Toïchi of Yamato Province, (1) there used to
live a gōshi named Miyata Akinosuké... [Here I must tell you that in
Japanese feudal times there was a privileged class of
soldier-farmers,—free-holders,—corresponding to the class of yeomen in
England; and these were called gōshi.]
In Akinosuké’s garden there was a great and ancient cedar-tree, under
which he was wont to rest on sultry days. One very warm afternoon he
was sitting under this tree with two of his friends, fellow-gōshi,
chatting and drinking wine, when he felt all of a sudden very
drowsy,—so drowsy that he begged his friends to excuse him for taking a
nap in their presence. Then he lay down at the foot of the tree, and
dreamed this dream:—
He thought that as he was lying there in his garden, he saw a
procession, like the train of some great daimyō descending a hill near
by, and that he got up to look at it. A very grand procession it proved
to be,—more imposing than anything of the kind which he had ever seen
before; and it was advancing toward his dwelling. He observed in the
van of it a number of young men richly appareled, who were drawing a
great lacquered palace-carriage, or _gosho-guruma_, hung with bright
blue silk. When the procession arrived within a short distance of the
house it halted; and a richly dressed man—evidently a person of
rank—advanced from it, approached Akinosuké, bowed to him profoundly,
and then said:—
“Honored Sir, you see before you a _kérai_ [vassal] of the Kokuō of
Tokoyo.[1] My master, the King, commands me to greet you in his august
name, and to place myself wholly at your disposal. He also bids me
inform you that he augustly desires your presence at the palace. Be
therefore pleased immediately to enter this honorable carriage, which
he has sent for your conveyance.”
Upon hearing these words Akinosuké wanted to make some fitting reply;
but he was too much astonished and embarrassed for speech;—and in the
same moment his will seemed to melt away from him, so that he could
only do as the _kérai_ bade him. He entered the carriage; the _kérai_
took a place beside him, and made a signal; the drawers, seizing the
silken ropes, turned the great vehicle southward;—and the journey
began.
In a very short time, to Akinosuké’s amazement, the carriage stopped in
front of a huge two-storied gateway (_rōmon_), of a Chinese style,
which he had never before seen. Here the _kérai_ dismounted, saying, “I
go to announce the honorable arrival,”—and he disappeared. After some
little waiting, Akinosuké saw two noble-looking men, wearing robes of
purple silk and high caps of the form indicating lofty rank, come from
the gateway. These, after having respectfully saluted him, helped him
to descend from the carriage, and led him through the great gate and
across a vast garden, to the entrance of a palace whose front appeared
to extend, west and east, to a distance of miles. Akinosuké was then
shown into a reception-room of wonderful size and splendor. His guides
conducted him to the place of honor, and respectfully seated themselves
apart; while serving-maids, in costume of ceremony, brought
refreshments. When Akinosuké had partaken of the refreshments, the two
purple-robed attendants bowed low before him, and addressed him in the
following words,—each speaking alternately, according to the etiquette
of courts:—
“It is now our honorable duty to inform you... as to the reason of your
having been summoned hither... Our master, the King, augustly desires
that you become his son-in-law;... and it is his wish and command that
you shall wed this very day... the August Princess, his