The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike Page 9

  I cannot bear it,

  For far as is the Northland

  She is removed.

  So far and yet so near—

  My love avails me nothing.

  Though in her heart Kōgō would have liked to answer it, yet for the Emperor's sake and to avoid causing him any pain she did not even touch it, but bade one of her maids pick it up and throw it out into the courtyard. Takafusa could hardly contain his anger and disappointment at this treatment, but, remembering that if he were seen the results would be serious, he hastily picked up the paper, and, putting it in his bosom, returned to his house and gave vent to his feelings in these lines:

  Alas! how cruel!

  Even to touch my letter

  She will not venture.

  Yet how can I extinguish

  The love that burneth in me?

  And he prayed that he might die rather than continue to live on in the world when he could no longer see her.

  But when these things came to the ears of the Lay-priest Chancellor he burst forth: "What a condition of things is this! The Empress is my daughter and the wife of Reizei Shosho is my daughter also, and how does this Kōgō dare to take the husband of both? Let her be put out of the way forthwith!"

  Then Kōgō, caring nothing about her own fate, but anxious lest the Emperor should in any way be troubled, fled away one night from the Palace so that no one knew whither she had gone. This grieved the Emperor exceedingly, and he would not leave his bedchamber, but spent his days moping and in tears. When Kiyomori heard of this he remarked: "Ah, His Majesty is distressed about Kōgō I see, then something must be done," and he gave orders that none of the Ladies-in-waiting were to be allowed to attend the Emperor, and as he even frowned on other people who paid visits, no one went to Court at all, since they did not care to risk offending him, and all the Palace was gloomy and deserted.

  Now on the tenth day of the eighth month there was a most beautiful moon without a trace of clouds in the sky, and His Majesty was gazing at it, but as his eyes were full of tears even the moon looked misty, and as the hour grew late he called for one of his attendants, but for some time no one answered, so deserted was the Palace. But a certain officer of the Palace Guard named Danjo-no-Daihitsu Nakakuni, who happened to be on duty that night, though in a remote part of the Palace, heard his master's voice through the silent halls and made reply.

  Then the Emperor bade him come near, for he had something to ask, whereupon Nakakuni, wondering what it could be, entered the Imperial Chamber, and His Majesty inquired of him if he knew where Kōgō had hidden herself. "How should I know such a thing?" replied the retainer. "I have heard that she is living in a cottage with a single folding-door somewhere near Saga," said the Emperor, "but I do not know the name of the person with whom she is staying. Do you think you could find her?" "If I do not know the name of the master of the house, how can I find her?" replied Nakakuni in perplexity, whereat the Emperor in despair wept bitterly.

  After some further thought Nakakuni remembered Kōgō's skill on the lute and said to himself: "Ah, on a moonlight night like this she will surely be thinking of His Majesty here in the lonely Palace, and no doubt she will play on the lute; now when she played in the Palace I used to be the one to accompany her on the flute, so none knows her playing as well as I, and if I go round about all the houses in the neighbourhood of Saga, why should I not find out where she is? Then" he said at last, "though I do not know in whose house she is lodging, I will go and search for her in that part, but if I find her and have no letter, perhaps I shall not be believed, so let Your Majesty write one that I may take it with me."

  Then the Emperor gave him the letter and ordered him to take a horse from the Palace Stables, and he started off at a gallop, whipping up his horse under the clear light of the moon and singing as he rode the verse that begins: "The mountain village where the wild stag cries," feeling, no doubt, the pathos of the autumn scenery of Saga. So he rode on, stopping his horse to listen whenever he came to a cottage with a single folding-door, and wondering if the lady he sought was within, but no sound of a lute broke the silence. Then, wondering whether she had perhaps retired to some temple, he went to all the temples in that part, but still could find no trace of her. Then in a hamlet among the pines near Kameyama he thought he heard the sound of a lute; straining his ears he was uncertain whether it was not the blasts from the mountain-tops, or the soughing of the wind in the pine-trees. Urging on his horse he rode on farther and became aware that the sounds were indeed those of a lute, and that they proceeded from a cottage with a single folding-door, and stopping to listen awhile he perceived that without doubt the player was Kōgō, and that the piece she was playing was one called "Sōfōren," which expresses the longing felt by a wife for her absent husband.

  Nakakuni was touched at the tender feeling for His Majesty that prompted her to select this piece from the many that she played, and drawing his flute from his girdle joined in the tune for a few bars, and then knocked softly at the door. The music immediately ceased, whereupon Nakakuni called out: "It is Nakakuni who has come from the Palace with a message from the Emperor;" but though he knocked several times no one answered from within. After some time there was a sound as of some one coming to the gate, and as he stood there in joyful anticipation, the lock was unfastened, and the gate opened a very little and disclosed only the face of a beautiful young girl.

  "Have you not mistaken the house?" she asked, "for a Palace Messenger can have no errand here," whereat Nakakuni, since he feared that if he made answer the gate would be shut and locked again, pushed it open by force and entered. Standing on the veranda of the house he told his story: and he took out a letter and handed it to her. The girl took it to Kōgō, who opened and read it, and found that it was indeed His Majesty's writing. In a short while she had written an answer and sent it to Nakakuni with a lady's suit of Court dress as a present. On receiving the answer he said: "Although perhaps I ought not to ask for more than this letter, yet as I was specially sent thither by my Lord, and am not unknown to your mistress, how can I return without a message from her own lips?"

  Then Kōgō, consenting to his wish, came forth and excused herself saying: "As you know, in fear of the threatening and angry words of the Chancellor, I fled away secretly one night from the Palace, and as I have been staying in a place like this I have not played the Koto at all but as I am going away to-morrow into the recesses of Ohara, and this night is my last, the mistress of this house persuaded me to play, saying that it was late and there would be none to hear, and so I yielded, for the remembrance of former days stirred within me and my fingers yearned for my beloved instrument," and as she spoke her tears flowed freely, while Naka-kuni too hid his face in his sleeve.

  After a while Nakakuni calmed his emotion and said: "Doubtless your intention in going into the recesses of Ohara is to become a nun; this, I think, is not a proper thing to do, for how will the Emperor feel about it? Nay, I can by no means allow it." and turning to his attendant he added; "See that this girl does not leave this place;" and leaving him there to guard the house, he sprung upon his horse and rode back again, reaching the Palace just as the dawn was beginning to break.

  Tying up his horse and throwing the lady's dress over the Palace doors, he went toward the Shishinden, thinking that the Emperor would surely be sleeping by this time, and wondering who to send to him, but as it happened His Majesty was still sitting as he had left him the night before in melancholy abstraction, as the poet says:

  Soaring up to the southward and wheeling round to the northward,

  Vainly in autumn the goose seeks for the heat or the cold;

  Flying forth to the eastward and sweeping round to the westward,

  Ever its lonely eye stares at the moon of the dawn.

  So Nakakuni came and gave him the letter of Kōgō and reported all he had done. The Emperor's joy was extreme, and he ordered him to go again that night and bring her back with him. Nakakuni, though he feared the
wrath of Kiyomori if he should hear of it, yet as it was the Emperor's order, borrowed an ox-car from somebody and went down that night to Saga, and although Kōgō at first refused to accompany him, at last he prevailed on her and brought her back to the Palace.

  There she lived secretly in a remote chamber, and used to visit His Majesty every night, so that in the course of time a Princess was born to her, and this is the Princess who is known as Bōmon-no-Nyōin. Then the matter came to the ears of the Lay-priest Chancellor and he was very angry, exclaiming: "Then it was all a lie that I was told that Kōgō had been got rid of; but at all events she shall be removed now," and somehow or other they decoyed her from the Palace and forced her to shave her head and become a nun. She was then only twenty-three years old, and though she had wished to retire from the world before, how sad a fate was it to be compelled to do so in this peremptory manner, and to put on black robes and go and live in the wilds of Saga. It was these painful events that aggravated the illness of the Emperor so that he died. The Hō-ō had nothing but troubles, one coming fast after the other.

  DEATH OF KIYOMORI

  On the twenty-third day a Council of Courtiers was suddenly called at the Palace of the Hō-ō, the Sento Gosho, and Munemori addressed them thus: "The expedition we made into the East Country did not effect anything very much, so now I myself should like to take command and lead an army to chastize these rebels in the East and North." This bold speech was received with applause by all the rest, and they praised Munemori for his decisive action; the Hō-ō too seemed quite delighted, and every one who had the least experience of martial exercises, even though he might be a Courtier or Noble, declared himself ready to follow Munemori.

  On the twenty-seventh day they intended to set out, but as Kiyomori had been taken ill during the night they did not move. On the twenty-eighth day is was reported that his condition was grave, and all Rokuhara and the Capital was in an uproar, every one running about and whispering together. From the day that the Chancellor was taken ill he could not drink even hot water, and the heat of his body was like a burning fire, so that if anyone came within eight or ten yards of him the heat was unbearable. All he could do was to mutter "Ata! Ata!" (Hot! Hot!): it was a most extraordinary sickness. To relieve him somewhat they brought water from the well of Senshuin on Hieizan and filled a stone tank with it, into which they lowered him, but the water began to bubble and boil and immediately became like a hot bath.

  When water was poured on him from a pipe, it flew off again hissing in clouds of steam and spray, as though it had struck red-hot iron or stone, and the water that did strike him burst into flames so that the whole chamber was filled with whirling fires and thick black smoke. It must have been just such a sight that Hōgyō Sōzu saw formerly when he entreated Emma, the King of Hades, to show him the place where his mother was; for Emma, moved by his prayers, sent his jailers to guide him to the hottest Hell, and when he had passed through the iron gate he saw the flames shooting up like meteors, thousands of miles high.

  Moreover the wife of the Chancellor, Hachijo-no-Nii-dono, had a terrible dream. She dreamed that a flaming chariot entered the gate of her mansion without any driver, and in front and behind it stood two creatures, one with the head of an ox and the other with that of a horse, while on the front of the chariot appeared an iron tablet inscribed with the single character MU, signifying Not. The Nii Dono, in her dream, asked whither it had come, and the answer was: "Because the evil Karma of the Priestly Chancellor of the Heike is so great, this chariot has come to fetch him from the Palace of Emma-0 the Dread King." "Then," said she, "what is the meaning of that tablet?" "Because of the crime of the burning of the great bronze image of Vairochana a hundred and sixty feet high, it has been decreed at the tribunal of Emma-0 that he shall go down to the Avichi Hell, the hottest of the hot hells where rebirth is unceasing, and so it is that the character Not has been written; but the character signifying 'Cease' has not yet been written."

  Then the Nii Dono awoke, bathed in a cold sweat; and when she told what she had seen, the hair of all that heard it stood up with affright. Then they hastened to offer gold and silver and all manner of precious things to the shrines and temples of the gods and Buddhas, and fetched thither their horses and saddles and armour and swords and bows and arrows, and prayed with might and main, but no sign was vouchsafed them; and the Courtiers and their wives assembled around the bed of the Nyūdō and mourned and lamented bitterly.

  On the second day of the second month, this year being leap-year, the Nii Dono came to the bedside of the Chancellor, in spite of the intensity of the heat, and said: "Though my visits to inquire about you every day may seem few, yet perchance, while still you are able, you may tell me of something that you desire." Then Kiyomori, though his sufferings were so great, summoned up his fast-failing strength and said in a weak voice:

  "Since the time of Hogen and Heiji my unworthy house subdued the enemies of the Emperor many times and thereby gained great rewards, for which we are most grateful, and I, having been permitted to become the maternal relation of the Heavenly Sovereign and to reach the office of Prime Minister am about to hand down my glory to my descendants, wherefore in this world I have nothing else left to desire. The only thing I have to regret is that I cannot see the head of Yoritomo. When I am dead do not perform any Buddhist services or make offerings for me, or build temples or pagodas; only make haste and slay Yoritomo and cut off his head and lay it before my tomb. That will be the best offering you can make me either in this world or the next."

  So deep indeed was his guilt. Then they put water on a board and rolled him on it to ease him, but it did no good, and on the fourth day of the same month he at last expired in great anguish. When it was known the commotion and galloping to and fro of horses and carriages was such as to make the sky echo and the earth tremble. Even if he had been the Heavenly Sovereign, the Lord of ten thousand chariots, it could hardly have been greater.

  He was sixty-four years old this year. He cannot be said to have died of old age, for when the result of man's karma comes upon him the most potent Sutras have no efficacy, nor can the power of the gods and Buddhas avail anything; yea, all the deities of heaven cannot protect him, so what can ordinary men do? Even if tens of thousands of loyal warriors, all willing to lay down their lives for him, were ranged around both above and below, they could not fight with the unseen and invulnerable powers of the underworld. And so alone and without a companion he must go down to the Yellow Springs of Death, across the Sanzu-no-kawa, the river of Hades, and ascend the Mountain of Shide whence no traveller returns. And the evil karma that he has made will take shape as the jailers that come to meet him.

  And so, as it must be, on the seventh day his funeral pyre was lighted at Otaki, and Enjitsu Hogen took his bones and brought them down to the province of Settsu, where they were desposited at Kyogashima. Thus though he wielded such great authority that his name was feared through the whole Empire, his body rose up in smoke to the sky of Kyoto, and his bones mingled with the sand of the shore.

  THE ADVENTURES OF THE PRIEST JISHIN

  It was said, as has been related, that Kiyomori was not an ordinary man at all, and it was rumoured that he was an incarnation of Jie Sojo.* The reason for this was the following story. In the temple of Seichoji in the province of Settsu there lived a certain saintly monk named Jishin Bo Sonei. He had formerly been attached to Hieizan, where for many years he had meditated on the Hokke Sutra, but at last his religious zeal drove him to leave that mountain and come and live in this temple, so that all believed in him and were converted.

  On the twenty-second day of the twelfth month of the period Shoan, Sonei went as usual to the altar of Buddha to perform the evening service, and was sitting supported by his arm-rest reading the Lotus Sutra, when, it seemed neither in a dream or reality, there entered two men clad in white Kariginu and Eboshi and wearing leggings and straw sandals, carrying an open letter. When Sonei, as in a dream, asked them from whom they h
ad brought it, they replied: "From the Court of Emma-Ō," whereupon he received it from their hands and opening it read as follows:

  "To the Priest Jishin Bo Sonei, residing in the temple of Seichoji, in the province of Settsu, in the Country of Dai-Nihon which is in the Djambudvipa. On the twenty-sixth day at the Palace of Emma there will be held a recitation of the ten myriad portions of the Hokke Sutra, and ten myriad priests from ten myriad countries will be entertained. As you have been included in the number do you proceed hither as appointed. The above given at his Court, at the command of Emma-Ō. Twenty-second day of the twelfth month of the second year of Shoan."

  As Sonei could by no means refuse the dread command, he wrote an acknowledgment, after which he awoke, and when he related the vision to Ko-ei, the chief priest of the temple, the hair of all who heard it stood up with affright. Thinking that his end was near he gave himself up to prayer, repeating the Nembutsu continually, and trusting that Buddha would have compassion on him and receive him into his Paradise. On the twenty-fifth day he went as usual to the altar of Buddha and recited the Sutras, and at the hour of the Rat (12 p.m.), feeling sleepy, he returned to his room and lay down to rest.