The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike Read online

  And loosing off his twenty-four arrows like lightning-flashes he slew twelve of the Heike soldiers and wounded eleven more. One arrow yet remained in his quiver, but, flinging away his bow, he stripped off his quiver and threw that after it, cast off his foot-gear, and springing barefoot on to the beams of the bridge, he strode across. All were afraid to cross over, but he walked the broken bridge as one who walks along the street Ichijo or Nijo of the Capital. With his naginata he mows down five of the enemy, but with the sixth the halberd snaps asunder in the midst and flinging it away he draws his sword, wielding it in the zigzag style, the interlacing, cross, reversed dragonfly, waterwheel, and eight-sides-at-once styles of fencing, and cutting down eight men; but as he brought down the ninth with an exceeding mighty blow on the helmet, the blade snapped at the hilt and fell splash into the water beneath. Then seizing his dirk which was the only weapon he had left, he plied it as one in the death fury.

  Now a retainer of Ajari Kyōshu, Ichirai Hoshi by name, a man of great strength and courage, was fighting behind Jōmyō, but as the beams were so narrow he could not come alongside him, so placing a hand on the neckpiece of his helmet, he shouted: "Pardon me Jōmyō, this is no good," and springing over his shoulder to the front fought mightily until he fell. Ichirai Hoshi being killed, Jōmyō crawled back again and retired to the Byōdō-in, where he sat down on the grass before the gate, and stripping off his armour, counted the dints of the arrows that had struck him.

  There were sixty-three in all, but of these only five had pierced through, and none of the wounds being very severe, he treated them with cautery; then, covering his head and changing his clothes, using his broken bow as a staff he went down on foot to Nara. Following the example of Jōmyō the soldier monks of Miidera with the Watanabe clan of Gensammi Nyūdō's men vied with each other in pressing forward over the beams of the bridge, and fought till sundown, some returning victorious, and some, after being wounded, cutting themselves open and jumping into the river.

  Then the commander of the samurai, Kazusa-no-kami Tadakiyo, came to the commander-in-chief of the Heike forces: "See here," he said "the battle on the bridge is very fierce; we ought to ford the river, but after the rains of the fifth month neither man nor horse can live in the stream; shall we go round by Yodo, Moarai, or Kawachiji? What is to be done?"

  Then Ashikaga Matataro Tadatsuna, a young man in his eighteenth year, spoke saying: "Why not leave the samurai of India or China to go to Yodo, Moarai or Kawachiji, for that is not our way. If we don't rout the enemy that confront us here, the Prince will get away to Nara, and then you will have all the forces of Yoshino and Totsugawa to deal with and that will be no light affair. On the boundary of Musashi and Kozuke there is a great river called the Tonegawa, and there the Ashikaga and the Chichibu are always fighting each other, and on one occasion, when the front were attacking at Nagai ford and the rear at Kogasugi ford, a certain Nitta Nyūdō of Kozuke, who was coming to the help of the Ashikaga from the Sugi ford, being told by them that the Chichibu had destroyed all the boats that had been provided to cross, exclaimed: "If we do not ford the river here it will be a disgrace to our reputation as samurai; to be drowned is but to die. Forward then!" and using their horses as a raft they forded the river.

  As the samurai of the East Country say: "Keep your face to the enemy, and when separated by a river, shun the swift rapids by the bank. This river is neither more nor less swift and deep than the Tonegawa, so come along sirs," and he plunged into the stream. Ogo, Omuro, Fukasu, Yamakami, Nawa-no-Taro, Sanuki, Hirotsuna, Shirodaiyu, Onodera-no-Zenji Taro, Heyako-no-Shiro, and among the younger men Ubukata-no-jiro, Kirifu-no-Rokuro, and Tanaka-no-Sota immediately dashed in after him with some three hundred men behind them, shouting the Ashikaga war-cry.

  "Put the heads of the weaker horses downstream, those of the stronger upstream!" he shouted. "If the horses keep their feet give them the rein and let them walk, but if they get off their feet let them have their heads and swim them; if you are washed downstream stick the butt of your bow down into the bottom; join hands and go across in line; if your horse's head gets down pull it up, but don't pull it up too far or you will fall off backwards; sit tight in the saddle and keep your feet firm in the stirrups. Where the water is slow and deep get up over the horse's tail; don't shoot while in the water; if the enemy shoots don't draw bow in return; keep your head down and your neck-piece well sloped upwards, but not too far or you will be shot in the crown of the helmet; be light on the horse and firm against the stream; don't go straight across or you will be washed away, keep obliquely to the stream." Thus advising and encouraging them he brought the whole three hundred rapidly across without losing a man.

  THE FATE OF THE PRINCE

  Then Ashikaga Matataro, wearing armour with red leather lacing over a hitatare of russet-gold brocade, with a helmet ornamented with lofty horns, a gold-mounted tachi by his side, and twenty-four black-and-white spotted arrows on his back, carrying a black lacquered bow lashed with red bands, and riding on a light-brown horse with a gold-mounted saddle on which was the crest of an owl on an oak bough, stood up in his stirrups and shouted loudly: "I am Ashikaga Mata-taro Takatsuna, aged seventeen, son of Ashikaga Taro Toshitsuna of Shimotsuke, descended in the tenth generation from Tawara Toda Hidesato, the renowned warrior who gained great fame and reward for destroying Masakado the enemy of the Emperor, and though it may be at the risk of divine anger that one without rank or office should draw bow against a Prince of the Royal House, yet as I owe deep gratitude to the Heike for many favours, here I stand to meet any on the side of Gensammi Nyūdō who dares to face me." And he made an onset and fought his way within the gate of the Byōdō-in.

  Then the commander Sahyoye-no-kami Tomomori, seeing this, ordered his forces to cross over, and about twenty-eight thousand horsemen plunged into the river, so that the rapids of the Ujigawa were dammed and stayed by the mass of men and horses, and the foot-soldiers crossing below the horsemen were hardly wetted above their knees. But everything is carried away by the natural force of water, so the men of Ise and Iga, to the number of six hundred horsemen, were washed away through their ranks being broken by the force of the current, and their armour of various hues, green, scarlet and red, rose and sank as they were swept away, like the maple leaves on Kannabiyama, when in late autumn they are blown by the mountain blasts into the Tatsuta river and collect in masses where the flood is dammed.

  Among them three gallants, clad in the scarlet armour of a leader of armies, stuck helplessly in a fish decoy, and Izu-no-kami, watching them as they struggled in the rapids, composed this stanza:

  See the Ise braves

  All in scarlet armour bright,

  What a gallant show!

  Uji's decoys hold them fast

  Like a lot of frozen fish!

  They were Kuroda-no-Gohei Shiro, Hino-no-Juro and Otobe-no-Yashichi, all men of Ise, and Hino-no-Juro, a veteran soldier, wedging the butt of his bow into a cleft of the rock, scrambled out by its aid and then pulled out his two companions, thus saving their lives.

  Now when the whole force had reached the other side they advanced and fought their way in through the gate of the Byōdō-in and in the confusion the Prince attempted to escape toward Nara, while Gensammi's men the Watanabe and the warrior priests of Miidera strove to hold back the foe with their bows and arrows. The veteran warrior Gensammi, now more than three score years and ten, was soon wounded in the right elbow by an arrow and was about to retire within the temple to die calmly by his own hand, when a band of the enemy threw themselves in his way, whereupon his second son Gendaiyu-no-Hangwan Kanetsuna turned to counter them and let his father escape.

  His armour laced with Chinese silk was worn over a hitatare of dark blue brocade, and he rode a cream coloured horse with a saddle mounted in gold. Then Kazusa-no-Taro Hangwan shot an arrow that struck him beneath the helmet, and as he staggered at the blow, Kazusa-no-kami's son Jiro Maru, a strong and valiant fighter, clad in green armour with a he
lmet of three plates on his head, unsheathed his sword and sprang upon him.

  They both grappled immediately and fell together, when Gendaiyu-Hangwan, who was a powerful man, gripped Jiro Maru, pressed him down and cut off his head, but just then fourteen or fifteen of the Heike horsemen came up and Kanetsuna was overpowered at last by numbers and slain. Izu-no-kami Nakatsuna too, after fighting with reckless bravery, covered with wounds, retired to the Tsuridono of the Byōdō-in and there put an end to himself, his head being taken up by Shimokawabe-no-Tosaburo Kiyochika and thrown under the veranda.

  Gensammi Nyūdō Yorimasa, calling Watanabe Choshichi Tonau, bade him strike off his head, but he refused, overcome by the thought of cutting off his master's head while alive, but offered to do so after he had committed suicide. Then Gensammi Nyūdō, turning to the West, put his hands together and repeated the Nembutsu ten times in a loud voice, after which he composed this sad stanza;

  Like a fossil tree

  On which never flower grows

  Even so am I.

  Sad indeed has been my life

  Without any hope of fruit.

  And with these last words he thrust the point of his sword into his belly, and bowing his face to the ground pierced himself through and died. It was not a time when people usually make poems, but as he had been extremely fond of this pastime from his youth up, so even at the hour of death he did not forget it. Choshichi Tonau took his head, and fastening stones to it sunk it in a deep part of the Ujigawa.

  Now Hida-no-kami Kageie, a veteran soldier, suspecting that Prince would certainly attempt to flee to Nara under cover of the fighting, rode hard on his track with four or five hundred men in full armour, and as he expected, overtook him in front of the torii of Kōm-yōzan with his escort of about thirty horsemen. As the arrows flew like rain no one could tell whose it was, but one of the arrows of the Heike struck the Prince in the side so that he fell from his horse, whereupon they killed him and cut off his head.

  Oni Sado, Aratosa, Kodaiyu, and Gyobu-no-Shunshu who accompanied him, not wishing to live after their master, threw themselves upon the enemy and died fighting together. Among them his foster-brother, Rokujo-no-suke no Taiyu Munenobu, jumped into the pond at Niino, and hiding his face among the water-weed, lay there trembling. Soon after the Heike came riding back again to the number of four or five hundred horsemen, laughing and shouting as they rode, and peeping out he could see in the midst of them a headless corpse in white clothing borne on a shutter. It was the Prince without doubt, for in his girdle was the flute "Koeda" which he had bidden them bury with him in the coffin if he died. He earnestly wished to rush out and throw himself on the body, but fear restrained him, and after the enemy had all passed by he came out of the pond, and wringing out his wet garments returned weeping to the Capital, where there was none who did not hold him in aversion.

  Now about seven thousand soldier-priests of Nara in full armour had gone forth to meet the Prince, and while the vanguard reached as far as Kōzu and the rearguard was still surging out of the southern gate of the Kōfukuji, they heard that the Prince had been siain before the torii of Kōmyōzan, alas! but fifty cho distant from Kōzu. So, unable to do any more, they halted, lamenting that they had not come up in time.

  THE AUGUST LYING-IN OF THE EMPRESS KENREI-MON-IN

  Now from the hour of the Tiger (4 a.m.) on the twelfth day of the eleventh month of the same year the Empress began to be in travail, and Rokuhara and all the Capital were in an uproar. The place of lying-in was the Ikedono mansion at Rokuhara and the Hō-ō himself made an august visit of ceremony: after him all the Courtiers from the Kwampaku and Dajo-daijin downwards, every one who could be considered anyone at all, and every one without exception who held emoluments or office and hoped for place and promotion in future, came and presented themselves at Rokuhara.

  When we refer to former cases of the lying-in of Consorts and Empresses there was always a great pardon. On the first day of the ninth month of the second year of Daiji, when Tai-ken-mon-in was brought to bed, a great pardon was proclaimed, and on this occasion things were done according to that precedent and a very extensive pardon was issued, so that among those guilty of serious offences Shunkwan Sōzu was unhappily the only one who did not share in it. A vow was made that there should be an Imperial Progress of the Empress and Crown Prince to the shrines of Hachiman, Hirano, and Oharano if the birth was easy and a prince was born. This vow Sengen Hōin respectfully heard: we speak of it with reverence.

  Prayer was also made at twenty shrines of the Kami beginning with Ise Daimyojin, and the Sutras were read at the temples of Tōdaiji and Kōfukuji beside sixteen others, those who read the Sutras being chosen officials among those who served the shrines. Retainers wearing kariginu of ornamented brocade and girt with swords walked in procession, carrying various sacred vessels and the Imperial Sword and The Imperial Vesture, crossing over from the Higashi-no-dai to the southern court and going forth from the middle-gate. A most auspicious and beautiful scene.

  Taira Shigemori as was natural to his calm and unmoved nature, came long after the others with his eldest son Koremori and many nobles of lesser rank in a procession of cars bringing presents; forty changes of garments of various kinds, seven silver ornamented swords borne upon large trays, and twelve horses. Shigemori was the elder brother of the Empress and since his relation was especially paternal there was reason why he should send these horses.

  Gojo-no-Dainagon Kunitsuna also sent two horses, and people wondered if this was because of his great desire for a prince to be born or because of his great virtue. Moreover horses were presented to seventy shrines from Ise even to Itsukushima in Aki, and very many sets of decorations for the horses in the Imperial Stables.

  The Lord Abbot of Ninnaji, Shukaku Hō-Shinno, read the Kujaku Sutra, while the Tendai Zasshu Kakukai Hō-Shinno chanted the Sutra of the Seven Buddhas. The Lord Abbot of Miidera, Enkei Shinno, chanted the Sutra of Kongo Doji, beside which Godaikokuzo, the Six Kwannon, the Ichiji Kinrin Godan Sutra, Rokuji Karin, Hachiji Monju, and the Fugen of long life were all invoked and recited from beginning to end. The smoke of incense filled the whole Palace and the sound of bells echoed to heaven, while the sonorous chanting of the Sutras made men's hair stand up. Whatever evil spirits there might be, and in whatever direction they might turn, they were put to flight. Then too a life-size statue of Yakushi Nyorai and the Five Wondrous Kings* was begun for the chapel of Buddha.

  Now though all these things were done and the pains came continually upon the Empress, yet she was not quickly delivered, and Kiyomori and the Nii Dono his consort, pressing their hands to their breasts in perplexity, continually ejaculated: "What is to be done? What shall we do?" And whenever anyone inquired something of them, all they replied was: "Do as you please. Do as you like:" the Lay-priest adding, "Ah, if I were with my army in the field I should not feel anxiety like this."

  All the while the diviners, the two Sōjō, Hokaku and Shō-un, Shunkei Hōin, and the two Sōzu, Kōzen and Jissen, were chanting the Sutras and incessantly telling their rosaries and praying, invoking the Three Treasures of their temples and all their ancient and venerated statues and books and holy pictures. Indeed it was a most blessed sight. And amid all this sanctification, the Hō-ō, who was just at this time engaged in purification ceremonies preparatory to making a pilgrimage to Kumano, sat in a chamber near the brocade curtain behind which the Empress was, and recited the Sutra of Kwannon of the Thousand Hands.

  Now at this moment a change came. Though the holy mediums who were wildly dancing went into a trance, for some time they were silent. "Ah," quoth the Hō-ō, "whatever evil spirit there may be, how can it come near when I am present? Beside which all these hostile influences have been granted Our Imperial Benevolence and restored to mankind, and even though they are not grateful yet how can they now hinder us? Let them quickly be put to flight!" (When women have difficult labour and there is some obstacle hindering them, however troublesome and difficult it may be,
if a mighty spell be chanted earnestly then the demon will depart and the birth become easy and successful.)

  So they all applied themselves diligently to their crystal rosaries with the result that not only was the Imperial Consort safely delivered but a Prince was born. Then Hon-Sammi Chūjō Shigehira, who was then acting as Chugu-no-Suke, came forth from behind the curtain and announced in a loud voice: "The august labour is safely ended and a Prince has deigned to be born."

  The Ho-ō was the first to offer his congratulations; then the Kwampaku Matsu Dono and the Dajo-daijin and all the courtiers below him and all the assistants and acolytes, the chief astrologers, chief physicians, and all the diviners high and low, shouted aloud their joy in concert so that the sound reverberated even to without the gates and did not subside for some while. The Nyūdō too, in the excess of his joy, lifted up his voice and wept: these were tears of joy indeed.

  Komatsu Dono immediately hurried to the Palace of the Empress bringing ninety-nine mon in coin to place beside the pillow of the baby Prince saying: "Heaven is father and Earth is mother. May your life be as long as that of the magician Tung Fang Sō: may your mind be as that of the Sun Goddess." And taking a bow of mulberry and six arrows of "Artemisia," he shot them toward heaven and earth and the four-quarters of the world.

  There were many things that people thought laughable in the lying-in of the Empress. For instance, the Hō-ō acting as a soothsayer; and in the second place, as it is the custom at the lying-in of an Imperial Consort that a rice-vessel (koshiki*) should be rolled down from the ridge of the Palace roof, if a Prince is born it is to be rolled down the south side, and if a Princess, down the north side,† this was done as usual; but by mistake it was rolled down the north side, whereat there was a great uproar, and it was brought up again and rolled down once more in the proper manner. This was an ill-omened event in the opinion of most people. What appeared ridiculous was the flurry and agitation of the Lay-priest Chancellor, in contrast to the conduct of Shigemori, which was much admired.