The Lives of the Eight Dogs of the Satomi of Southern Fusa

Volume IV, Book IV

Assembled by the Master of the Crooked Pavilion in the Eastern Capital

Chapter XXXVII

An ailing guest refuses medicine but lengthens his years;

A gallant man kills himself but obtains benevolence

Hearing this, Fusahachi grinned broadly and said: “Those with understanding always say, ‘The house that stores up good shall glory have as its inheritance forevermore.’¹ Golden words, and how justified. Master Inuzuka and his sires for three generations have displayed a kind of loyalty, fidelity, duty filial, and righteousness seldom met. This I knew well, for I overheard him speaking in the boat. It is, then, Heaven’s darkling blessing that the lifeblood of my wife, who gave her life so unexpectedly, should naturally be a remedy to him. And in this way I, too—for it was my error—seem as if I may be able to lift up my countenance a little. A thousand, nay, ten thousand words would not suffice to tell the grief that my heart holds because I now can never tell my wife of all my love and gratitude for her. But let us not waste time so recklessly. Take her lifesblood quickly now, I pray. A single sword-cut brought her death: the warmth within her body cannot yet have cooled, but once ’tis lost how can you wring from it the blood you need? Oh, hurry, please.” He urged Kobungo on.

Kobungo followed Fusahachi’s counsel and rose, at last; he looked around him, but no suitable vessel could he find. “What should I use?” he said, glancing about: and there beside the lantern lay the conch that the bonze Nengyoku had left behind. “Aha!” he said. “This is just the thing!” Thus muttering to himself, he took it up in his left hand, and sat his fallen sister upright.

She gave a cry—“Ah!”—and as she did, her lifeblood spurted from her injury—he pressed the shell against the lip of the wound and chanted “Hail Amitabha Buddha! Hail Amitabha Buddha!” As he chanted, he caught within the conch half its fill of Han crimson.

Sternly bracing his wavering heart, Kobungo called to her, to revive her—“Nui dear, Nui dear”—she ope’d her eyes thinner than a thread and said:

“O brother of mine, does my mate yet live? I heard, although I feared it was a dream, those passages in which he clarified his ever so reliable true heart, and now I wish to speak to him, but cannot raise my voice nor move to lift my body up. I do not regret the passing of this body that disappears along with all my doubts, dispelled by list’ning, weeping, and rejoicing; no, I only leave behind but one regret, that in my heart it feels as if I stand within the rushing rapids of a riv’r that robs me of my words: nor I nor they can reach the other shore and speak with him.”

This she said with dying breath, in voice as weak as singing insects in a field withered on a winter’s morn, and Kobungo’s chest tightened within him; his brave heart did overflow with tears like puddles in a rainstorm, and he said, “Now then, Nui, did you really hear the most part of what was said? Then is your confusion on that darkling road dispersed. Yamabayashi is over there.”

He turned her so that she could face her husband; Fusahachi looked at her and said, blinking his eyes, “Dear Nui, my suddenly crazed and erring blade, the cutting-short of your life, the violent death of our son—these are karmic retribution from past lives, and no apology now has any power to take them back. And yet if the lifesblood of a husband and a wife can become a medicine to revive one whose excellence is rarely found, there can be no greater merit or virtue than this. Well might you be confused in your heart, but do not let your true mind be disordered.”

She nodded at this encouragement. “I understand all of that—I do, and I can endure it. What I cannot endure is what has happened to Daihachi. Please look at him once more, even if it is only to see his corpse,” she moaned.

Fusahachi shook his head. “That would do no good—’twould only increase our laments. All this carping—’tis womanly, if I may say so—I cannot countenance it. Now quickly loose this cloth and take my blood, Lord Inuta!”

Nor could he refuse such a command: and though he had tied it as if it were a pledge bound to the bough of the pine at Iwashiro,² now Kobungo loosed the binding-cloth.

But as he did there came a stifled cry from without: “Wait a moment more! Let me, too, take my leave of him.” It was Toyama Myōshin. The door—she slid it open, entered, then slid it to again—swiftly ran, but all too slowly did it her admit—no purchase for her hands, no place for her feet to stand could she find—beside herself she flung herself to the floor beside Daihachi and Nui, choking on sobs, collapsing in tears.

After a time she wiped her tears and spoke. “Lo, Fusahachi, your laments are greater than they were, and yet, upon this journey you now take, from which you never shall return, I send companions: your wife, and even my grandchild, I loose to follow you, and I alone remain, and what of me? Who shall be my friend tomorrow, who shall comfort me? Unhappy are they whose children go before them. ’Tis ever thus, in every generation, every world, and this is the sorrow I enter today. So rather than pass this bitter night alone in my room, in sadness that will never let me sleep, I wished that I might see your stalwart end, and so I rose and left my inn in stealth, but when I reached the eaves of this one, still I could not enter for fear I should be scolded for following my son to howl at him in tears when all the while I knew full well that he could never, in no wise, hope to prolong his life. And so I stood and listened. I heard everything, all that was said and every end. Perhaps I should turn back, leave him unmet, I thought, but my feet could not be moved; I leaned my body up against the closed door and, like the summer insects, softly burned, felt the jewel-like drops of rain that fell from the eaves as tears of self-reproach. Had I known that it would end like this I never would have brought Nui to you—nor would I have brought Daihachi with us. The snipe pecks its feathers, a hundred times it pecks them with its beak³; a hundred beaks could never tell the tale of my regrets and sorrows—I weigh them now, Lord Inuta. Oh, how must your honored father hate me now! Is there no way to let him know tonight the laments a later hour must bring to him?

“Lo, Nui dear, I knew the state in which the affair stood, and never told you. How you must hate the hardness of my heart! How unhappy must the new grass be, falling to the sharp scythe before the frost! And even more than this, how sore do I regret Daihachi’s death! There, there, my grandson—’tis grandmama—oh, will you never speak?”

His corpse she took and hugged it to her breast, shaking it; again she choked on sobs, and tears ran down her face in a thousand courses like cataracts that run over the rocks and crush what lies below, e’en as her breast was crushed by sadness; helpless were her moans.

Nui heard the voice of her mother-in-law, but saddened though she was, indeed her wound was too severe for her to catch her breath.

Fusahachi felt his heart falter, too, but braced himself with courage, saying, “Mother, never give yourself to such laments, nor let yourself suffer so, I pray you. If I should kill myself to satisfy my father’s last commands, then I should be unfilial to my mother, and err toward my child in lacking charity. One is a yea, the other a nay. How difficult is the way of filial duty! My mother, bereft of support, I now commend to you, Lord Inuta, my elder brother. My pain shall only last as long as I recklessly preserve breath in this locust-husk of a body. Oh, quickly loose this cloth, I beg of you!”

Thus urged on, Kobungo could not comfort him, but only sighed. “If I cut down my sister’s husband in error, then she in error was by him cut down. My father? Whom shall he hate? Mother, ’tis reasonable for you to lament, but a thousand, ten thousand persuasions will do you no good now. What matters now is the karma that rules your next life.”

Having remonstrated thus with her, Kobungo now took himself close to Fusahachi. He loosed the bandage, let the lifesblood spurt, and caught it in the conch: unblown it was, and yet the swift wind of impermanence caressed Death’s Mountain that he now like monkish mountain man ascended, as he and his wife, like eagles who grasp rocks in their talons, entered its peak, clutching each other’s hands, carrying their child whither they went, across ten trillion Buddha-lands to the lotus pedestal amid the clouds of the Law, not to go astray in which their mother did beseech them, chanting the Name, her voice muffled by tears.

Meanwhile, the sounds of clashing swords wielded by Kobungo and Fusahachi having reached the little parlor, Inuzuka Shino had become uneasy, thinking that “something is afoot.” He calmed his breast and, enduring the pain, he tried to stand up, but could not raise his waist, and so he took the sword that lay by his pillow and, using it as a crutch, he dragged himself along the floor a space, then stopped to breathe, and so crawled his way, like a bug, through this house of not many rooms until he came to the paper door that stood between the outer chambers and the main house. Then had Fusahachi taken his wound and revealed, naked and red, the truth of his heart, and Shino, hearing the tale of this, and of the untimely deaths of his wife and son, was so astonished and pained that his own sufferings were pushed aside. He was moved to tears that he could not forbid—thoughts of the others weakened him, and though he was separated from them by but a single paper door, he could not go to where they were—his suffering was unendurable—and so he lay himself down where he was.

Thus it was that when Kobungo filled, for Shino’s sake, the conch with the lifesblood of Fusahachi and his wife, Shino was stricken with grief—at last he raised his head and thought, “To love life and hate death: this accords with Heaven’s will, so much so that ’tis said the princely man even avoids kitchens.⁴ And yet, even with my life about to end, how can I be physicked by the blood of this righteous warrior and this chaste woman? The tempers of these people’s hearts are to be honored and rejoiced in, not partaken of with a by-your-leave. Filial piety and righteousness like what Fusahachi displays is hardly to be found in any age, past or present. I shall not last through the morrow. While I have breath I would meet him and let him know of my aspirations.”

And so, with great effort he dragged himself closer, even putting a hand on the middle brace of the door, but he lacked the strength to open it—it galled him how wasted he had become.

Then, Kobungo having caught his lifesblood in the conch, Fusahachi gestured repeatedly with his chin, as if to say, “Inside, inside—quickly.”

Kobungo guessed his meaning and nodded. “So many strange things have I been caught up in all evening that I have never had the chance to inquire about his illness, and now I have misgivings—may not this remedy, so hard procured, be in vain? Well, then.”

And he softly stood up, holding in his right hand the conch-shell, filled to overflowing with blood, and hastened toward the little parlor, but when he slid the door, light to the touch, open and tried to step through it, there was Shino, unexpected—Kobungo nearly trod on him— he tripped, teetered, and dropped the shell he held—it fell crashing to the floor, and Shino was drenched, from shoulder to calf, with blood—no part of him was dry—his robe being thin, it soaked through to the skin, and must have entered his wounds, for he screamed and arched his back.

Kobungo looked, in panicked surprise—it was Shino. “How long then has Inuzuka been there? This remedy, mysteriously gained—oh, how I regret dropping it! What shall become of him? What shall we do?”

But it was too late for regrets to do any good. He put an arm under Shino’s neck and another under Shino’s arm and sat him up, but lo! his breath was gone. Kobungo hesitated his voice to raise for fear it would awaken Nengyoku within. He cared for Shino as he could, tormenting himself with wondering what to do, while Myōshin, though she also worried what should happen were the scene observed without, pushed the lantern’s opening closer.

And as she asked “What happens? What transpires,” Shino shook himself as one awakening from a sleep—he ope’d his eyes, gasped for breath, sat up—his color swiftly changed for the better like a blossom blooming on a withered branch—the openings of his swollen, livid wounds scabbed over in the blinking of an eye, his evil fever receded, his limbs grew light, and his spirits were better than they had ever been, as he felt cleansed and purified.

Kobungo was dumbfounded once again with joy at what his eyes showed him now. At last he understood. He raised his head. “This must be the virtue of the blood, the medicine I accidentally spilled on him.”

He thus proclaimed it, and Myōshin then praised it for her son and daughter’s sake: “’Tis what they most wanted.”

Then Shino straightened his posture and turned to Kobungo, saying, “Sore have been my misgivings ever since I heard the sound of swordplay, so that I endured the pain and dragged myself here, but I could not open the door. I collapsed, and in that position heard the whole affair, and it touched me deeply. Even so, I could not allow the blood of that couple to be poured on my tetanus—that was something not to be born. I would have refused, but by a misstep their lifesblood was spilled upon me, and by its efficacy I was healed of my illness in that very moment. There is nothing left for me to refuse.”

Thus he spoke, proclaiming his gratitude and that he felt their righteousness, now seeking to comfort Myōshin, now joining her in going to Fusahachi and addressing him, naming himself, praising the other’s courage in the right, rejoicing in his obliging virtue, pitying his death, lamenting that they had not more days in this life to spend in each other’s company, and saying, further, “How hateful do I find it, my lord and lady, that while your blessing has healed me of stubborn wounds, I have no medicine that will heal you. If, happily, I should escape my hardships and realize my aspirations, then I shall keep forevermore this robe dyed with your lifesblood, treasure it, and with it pass on your virtue, for which I am so obliged, to my descendants. Alas, it seems that Heaven’s ways are dark, for you need not have perished simply to fulfill your dying father’s last request and cleanse an ancient anger, and yet Heav’n killed not only you, a strong and good courageous warrior in his prime—the sorrow!—but also slew your wife and son. Ah, shall even this be called fate? If your child, son of such a proper mistress of the inner chambers, and grandson of such a wise lady, had grown to manhood, must he not have taken after his father in loyalty and duty, righteous courage? Must he not have all the world excelled? I mourn that such a future has perished.

“Nor is that all, for Inuta’s father and he the son are also men of loyalty: faithful, filial, and righteous. Such goodly people, bound to such fates, cleaving so to righteousness—has the God of Calamity stricken them? Nay, everything that worries this house was brought recklessly by me, who was saved from death, tethered to them like a floating boat to a tragic shore, and so I cannot rejoice in my mysterious healing from a stubborn ailment. To read sutras and commend them to the Buddha’s truth, to offer offerings and memorials, is work for a priest. How can I repay this debt of gratitude?”

The purity of his heart revealed itself in the jewels of dew, the tears and sighs, he shed. Kobungo and Myōshin both were heartened by his sincerity, and so much reason filled his every word that they could find nothing else to utter besides sorrowful, comfortless moans.

As this was going on, Fusahachi plucked up his flagging spirits and looked about him joyfully, saying, “You are a princely man, Master Inuzuka. Your laudatory leaves of speech, full of fidelity and righteousness, the guidance of your knowledge of good, are better than any sermon that could be given by a thousand, nay, ten thousand monks. Now that your ailment is cured, milord, freedom of movement is restored to you. Therefore quickly take, I pray of you, my head, and with it deceive Hodayū, keep at bay his reinforcements by sea and land: escape, milord, with easeful mind, and cause to be loosed the fetters of the old man, the master of this house. Lord Inuta, I beg of you, be my second now, and quickly take my head!”

Unto these urgings Kobungo replied with sighs. “Is not that premature, Yamabayashi? For hours have you resisted your deep wound, and still you speak—who else, lacking Your Lordship’s boldness, could have done as much? And yet your injury is in a vital spot. Even if you stood at the gate of a famous physician, no hope of longer life would yet be yours. Then how shall I not follow your will? What nevertheless gives me apprehension is that ascetic Nengyoku, to whom I was forced to give lodgings tonight. He is in the detached room, and all through the evening he was playing on a flute, but since then there has been no sound. If he has been sound asleep, and knows nothing of what has transpired here, then ’tis well enough. But men’s hearts today are such as to hide a blade within a smile, and he alone still weighs upon my thoughts, and since I have neither four eyes nor eight arms, I never had the chance to check if he yet waked or if he, rather, slept. Let us first peek into his bedroom, and should we find anything boding ill, then let us nip disaster in the bud. Affairs like this are easily leaked, thus hardly accomplished. Unless we shore our rear defenses up, then all our care shall be as naught.”

When he had done whispering these things he stood. Shino, who had been listening, now nodded and said: “Listening to all that you have spoken, I find that something else makes sense to me. When I was in the little parlor I heard, from what I believe was the direction of the detached room, voices whispering in conversation. Not only that, but when I was on the other side of yon paper door I heard, many times, the creaking of porch-boards. I wanted to look around, but at the time my pain was still acute, and I was utterly unable to move as I would, to advance or to retreat, in addition to which it was dark; I could not be certain whether what I heard was a man or a cat, or perhaps even a rat. May it not have been that ascetic?”

Kobungo was surprised. “I have no doubt that it was Nengyoku. And if he spoke in secret councils, then he must have spoken to somebody else, somebody who sneaked in by the back gate. If these events have already leaked out—if we have been informed upon—we shall find escape is difficult. Ah, carelessness is our nemesis, and I, despite myself, have been a fool, have greatly erred.”

Unable to put aside his shame and chagrin, he screwed tighter his sidearm’s peg, that it might not slip loose in battle, and as he did so his faced screwed up in hatred—but as he forward stepped, Myōshin stopped him. “If he has cronies then you cannot tell if your enemy be few or many. Oh, be not reckless in your haste, I pray you.”

Such care she showed. But Fusahachi, who was suffering in spirit all the while, urged him on: “Make only haste!” he cried, while Shino, saying, “I will go with you,” hurried to pick up his sword and get to his feet. They stood by Kobungo, and all as one would go to the detached parlor. But as they made to leave, someone appeared on the other side of the door between the receiving room and the main house.

He surprised them all by raising his voice and crying: “Halt, all of you! The bonze Chudai is here, the priest Kanamari Daisuke Takanori, only son of Kanamari Hachirō Takayoshi, meritorious retainer from the outset of the Minister of the Court Satomi Yoshizane, Major of the Governance Ministry and Lord of Awa. With me is Amasaki Jūichirō Terubumi, son in the main line of Amasaki Jūrō Terutake, a samurai of that fief who served Her late Ladyship Princess Fuse. Now that I have come face to face with you I shall dispel all your doubts. Only wait a while.”

Thus crying out, he slammed the sliding door open wide and there they were—the others crowded close to look and saw that it was none other than Nengyoku the Great Guide. He wore, all threadbare now from many years of travel, an ink-black hempen priestly robe, its hems hitched up short around his waist, and gaiters of paper-mulberry white; his mendicant’s pouch was thrown across his back. A woven sedge hat he held in his left hand while with his right he planted his ringed staff against the floor. Quietly he strode forward and sat in the high seat. This was Chudai.

With him was Kantoku the Ascetic. His long hair had been pulled into a topknot, and he wore a hempen robe with broad stripes horizontal and field trousers of stiffened silk with hems picked out in damask that he had shortened at the waist; two scarlet-scabbarded swords were thrust horizontally through his sash, and he worshipfully proffered a small stand of blond wood on which sat four or five documents. He took the seat next to Chudai. This was Amasaki Terubumi.

Who would have failed to find this scene, so wholly unexpected, strange? None there could gauge whether it boded well or ill; none of them were easy in their hearts.

Then Chudai turned his stern regard upon each member of the company and said:

“People, do not be so sore perplexed. I had reasons of my own for not telling you the truth from the beginning. For lo these many years, I have had cause to search for eight beads on which appear, of themselves, the eight characters for benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, loyalty, fidelity, filiality, and fraternity; but though I have journeyed through sixty-some provinces, never have I seen a single one of these beads. Thus it was that early in the fifth month of this year I dragged my walking stick to Kamakura where I chanced to meet one who has been my friend since when we both rode wooden horses, Amasaki Jūichirō Terubumi, who, having been so commanded by his lord, was trav’ling incognito through the East, searching unobtrusively in every land for drifters wise and good, martial and brave.

“By happenstance report had come to him— faintly, as a rumor born by wind—of just such mighty men in Gyōtoko, one of whom, ’twas said, displayed a mark, one great and black, shaped like a peony, located on his buttock. That such a mark a peony might resemble reminded me of something else, and so I wished to see the mark, and by the way to test the strength of its bearer’s thews; I conspired in secret with Jūichirō, and we decided that I would give myself the alias of Nengyoku, an ascetic from Kamakura, and he likewise would give himself the alias of Kantoku, an ascetic from Kamakura. By the time we hired an escort on the road, we had changed our clothing and packs for something more befitting, and made ourselves out to be monkish mountain men.

“And then together came we to this bay, where we contrived to make it seem as if we were vying for the office of Guide, settling it before the shrine of Yawata that day with Inuta and Yamabayashi trying our causes in a wrestling match. In skill and power neither was inferior nor superior, only Fusahachi seemed somewhat to lack the martial artistry of Kobungo. It happened that at last I saw the mark of Inuta before my very eyes, and from that time it seemed to me I must not let him go. Nevertheless, to have strength but no intelligence is to be no different from an ox or a horse, and to be fierce but cruel is to be no different from a tiger or wolf. Yea, though Inuta and Yamabayashi possessed such strength and skill as to surpass other men, unless their hearts were right, we could not recommend them. To carefully observe their actions and then decide was all our thought, and so we feigned to be here on a trip of pleasure, Jūichirō and I, and thus stopped here until this night.

“And thus it was that yestereve when I returned to the inn from the oceanside, I called, but there was no one to make me an answer. Accordingly I came in by the back and aimlessly I wandered round the premises until I suddenly o’erheard, as through the hedge, the master and his son in the little parlor, sitting in a circle with Inuzuka and Inukai, speaking confidentially about the beads in question, and the marks as well, and about Gakuzō Sōsuke: I stood and listened, though I had not meant to hear; I peeked inside; I thought the time had come at last, and that the hope that I had nurtured all these years had been fulfilled: my joy surpassed what hungry ghosts might feel beholding Ks·itigarbha’s holy jewel.⁵

“Nonetheless I did not spend that evening here, but through the rear-gate garden I betook myself and went to where Jūichirō was lodging. There I told him privately of all these things, and we agreed to lodge here one more night until the cock should crow toward the East, in which capacious countries yet is rare the kind of man that Fusahachi is, whose filial obedience and righteous death, along with the good and faithfulness of Inuta son and sire, and Inuzuka’s intelligence in misfortune, and Inukai’s leaving for Shiba Cove for friendship’s sake, and all your other myriad sorrows and hardships, we heard and saw in secret. We were much moved, pained—our sleeves grew damp as we considered how both we and those we watched were like the trav’lers forced to share a lone umbrella in the rain, chance meeting in this floating world of grief. And yet the moment had not come for us to show ourselves and tell you who were we were, and so we stayed to see how all would end—until this very moment did we wait.

“Thinking that this moment must come, I opened my pack and changed my attire to show myself as I am, an old monk peripatetic, tired and wasted from journey upon journey; I also hoped that I might act for Fusahachi, his wife and son, as a last preceptor, that they might face the end with focused thoughts, that their spirits might find release. For more than twenty years now I have been forgotten and buried like wood that petrifies, and now again I wrap my unflowering self in mossy robes, my true garb. Ah, when I think of four such righteous warriors and their misfortune and unhappiness, or of a charitable father, a wise mother, a chaste woman and her child and their untimely deaths, I know I am unworthy who lament that I could not endure the sorrow of this world and thus abandoned it to live in ink-black robes whose sleeves can never cover it. Hail Amitabha Buddha, hail,” he chanted, to conclude his bare account.

Then Amasaki Terubumi spoke, standing his folding fan up on his knee: “My wise ones, have you or have you not heard tell that my lord and master, Lord Satomi, who surrounds himself on the right with the works of the brush and on the left with the works of the sword, is a good general, unequalled in this present day? Therefore he never moves save it be toward benevolence and righteousness; he never stands save it be for propriety and wisdom; he never employs save it be loyalty and fidelity; he never rewards save it be filiality and fraternity. Nevertheless Awa and Kazusa are on the extreme edge by the Southern Isles: they are imperfectly situated for beckoning the perspicacious. And so I was vouchsafed by my lord and master a secret charge to leave our marches and collect heroes, and also to inquire as to whether the initiate Takanori, the bonze Chudai, of whom nothing had been heard for two and twenty years, yet lived or had died. This year, as I circulated among the Eight Countries of the East, I was unexpectedly reunited with this priest, even as Chudai has just now informed you.

“Thus it was that Chudai and myself did alter our appearances and come to this place and treat each other, outwardly, with unpleasantness, even as within our hearts we were like fish and water, or shadow and form: inseparable. And thus it was that I this evening crept in through the back gate and into the detached parlor where he was. When Chudai blew upon his flute then I did leave the room and see what I could see of everyone’s situation, and when I retreated then the priest Chudai did stand and take my place, spying, and so we heard and saw the whole affair, missing naught, and so our sleeves were moistened with a steady stream of empathetic tears.

“Inuzuka, Inukai, and Inuta are already tied by karma to my master’s house. Yamabayashi has no such ties, but is a champion nonetheless—a prize. It fills me with regret to know he rushed to exchange his life for Inuzuka’s, when I might have been able to devise some way to save Inuta from the peril that presses down upon him tonight. My lord and master, Lord Satomi, along with his honored father the Minister of the Court Suemoto, was an ally of the Minister of the Court Nariuji at the siege of Yūki, by virtue of his righteousness in fighting loyally on Nariuji’s behalf. In recent times, however, tales of the nefariousness and lawlessness of the Chancellor at Koga, Yokohori Fuhito Arimura, have convinced him to distance himself from Nariuji: their association is not what it once was. That being so, I am quite willing, should hardship come upon Inuzuka, to lend a hand in killing and scattering any men-at-arms sent in pursuit of him, that then we might return together to my country. People, set your hearts at ease.”

These earnest words of comfort spoke he, proclaiming in every particular his intention in coming here, and his listeners were amazed and astonished, bewildered in their minds as if they dreamed a dream within a dream from which they could not wake.

Then in the midst of this, Shino and Kobungo advanced together on their knees. They faced Chudai and Terubumi and said: “Unlooked for was your speech, our lords, revealing your names and aims in coming here, and our suspicions now have melted like the ice. And yet for what reason, pray, are Your Holinesses seeking these eight beads on which appear the eight characters for benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and the rest? And for what reason have you set your sights in secret upon men with peony-like marks on their bodies? This we cannot understand.”

These questions did they speak as with one voice, and Chudai nodded several times, then said: “Well might you wonder, well might you ask me that. Therefore let me tell you from the beginning. The reason is,” he began, and then he told of Yatsufusa the dog, and all about Princess Fuse, of the vision of En the Ascetic, and his responsiveness; he also told of the prayer beads, and the white gems, and of how he himself had renounced the world and wandered through every land for twenty-two years; he laid everything out before them, shortly, from the beginnings of the affair in the matter of Anzai Kagetsura’s death to the matter of Princess Fuse’s suicide, and then again he spoke: “Princess Fuse’s mind was sharp and wise, and the temper of her heart was masculine: she was full of filial piety and deep charity, a maiden of unequaled talent and appearance. Therefore although she went into the depths of Mount To accompanied by the dog Yatsufusa, she did not allow her body to be defiled, but rather, through the efficacy of her chanting the Lotus Sutra, even the dog was reborn as a buddha.

“Karmic causes and effects, however, seem to be ineluctable. Unintending she felt his spirit, and having reached her sixth month of pregnancy, she killed herself in shame. From the wound sprang forth a white vapor that carried into the sky her prayer beads of holy provenance. They flashed and scattered, and the eight larger beads, upon which appeared the characters for benevolence, righteousness, and the rest of the Eight Virtuous Acts, flew off in eight different directions and disappeared, while the rest of the beads fell to the earth.

“In my error I had shot the dog to death with a fowling-piece, and what is worse had wounded the Princess, but my lord, in his benevolence and charity, stayed my hand then when I would have killed myself; with his own hand he cut off my topknot and cast it away, allowing me to renounce the world. I then left my homeland, swearing not to return until I had somehow located the eight missing beads and strung them together again.

“Now you and Genpachi, and Inukawa Sōsuke, too, not only possess beads of holy provenance, but the characters that appear upon them tally with these prayer beads of mine. Then, too, the dog Yatsufusa’s coat was mixed white and black, the black consisting of spots resembling peony blossoms, of which there were eight: he was named Yatsufusa for these eight bunched blossoms. Do not the four of you, even including Sōsuke, all have marks on your bodies shaped like peonies? Therefore while each of you has his own father and mother, in your previous incarnations you were that white vapor that rushed out of Princess Fuse’s womb, now come, it seems, to fruition. Speculating as to the karmic cause and considering its effects, I think you are all sons of Princess Fuse and grandsons of the Minister of the Court Yoshizane. Yea, each of your clan names—be it Inuzuka, Inukawa, Inukai, or Inuta—contains the element Inu, appellating you all Dogs: it is a karmic connection mysterious and unfathomable.

“Accordingly, there can be no doubt that there are, in addition to the four of you, four more Dog Warriors, furnished with beads and marks resembling yours. I have not yet found them, but shall you not all be gathered in the end? The time of my long-held vow has, it seems, begun to arrive: indeed, it is half fulfilled here. If you doubt me, then look at this.”

To bolster his explanation he now produced his keepsake of the Princess, the prayer beads that had once belonged to her, and Shino and Kobungo gazed on them with wonderment, for now they understood the origin of their beads. Quickly they took the prayer beads, carefully they examined them, only to find that indeed they differed not a whit from the beads that each of the four individually possessed, except in that they bore upon their surfaces no writing. The string contained a hundred beads, but was missing the eight large counting-beads. “What we have, then, are the large beads from this string,” they thought.

But even as the two Dog Warriors marveled at themselves and their past lives, Myōshin added her exclamations to theirs, gazing on the beads worshipfully. And happily, the news seemed to have reached the ears of the expiring couple, for Fusahachi gasped for breath and opened his eyes wide. “How I envy you! My child’s untimely death is not worth lamenting, but even after I am gone I shall wish it had been possible for me to join your pack! Ah, ’tis hateful, hateful,” was his cry.

But Chudai pitied him, and coming close he said: “Lo, Fusahachi, do not find it so hateful. You may not be a Dog Warrior, but will not your virtue be ever spoken of together with theirs? That shall be your epitaph. As for myself, I am the only son of Kanamari Hachirō, master and teacher in the martial arts of your grandfather, Bokuhei of Somaki in Awa. His Eminence Hachirō killed himself because he did not wish, in destroying Sadakane, to earn merit or make a name for himself: it was the desire of a loyal retainer’s heart to die, and by that death, not to perish. Nevertheless Bokuhei’s error was what my father despised most of all, for who could call it good? But here is his obedient grandson Fusahachi, whose works are sufficient to cleanse the evil name of his grandsire. Therefore for your sake I will now pray that my late father might overlook Bokuhei’s crime of recklessness. Let that be my gift to you as you go unto that darkling province, where I pray you might bring forth some purer fruit.”

His explanation gave to Fusahachi strength; the latter lifted his gaze along with his left hand and bowed repeatedly and worshipfully to Chudai. Myōshin sobbed again and cried, “Such joy—that, that indeed!”

After a time the priest Chudai looked more closely at the body of Daihachi, lying beside Myōshin. He sighed and said, “This infant deserves our pity. He has been dead for some time now, but the color has not left his face; he looks, although he cannot be, alive. Can this be without a reason? Nay. Another prodigy it is.”

Thus murmuring, he knelt and hoisted up the baby’s corpse and set it on his knees to take its pulse: but when he grasped the child’s left wrist, Daihachi suddenly revived. “Wah!” he cried, over and over, again and again.

And then, what is more, the child opened for the first time his left fist, that had been clenched shut since birth, and there in his palm was a bead, no different from Shino’s or Kobungo’s beads, and on it appeared the character jin, “benevolence.” Not only that, but a mark had appeared on Daihachi’s side, over his ribs, blackly visible now through the side vent of his singlet, and in shape it resembled a peony blossom. This mark had been made when his father Fusahachi had kicked him, but had gone unnoticed by anyone until now.

Everyone who was present exclaimed upon this marvel, lamentations turning to cries of joy; the rain that falls to end a drought, bringing parched straw to ears eightfold, could never surpass them. Then Myōshin wiped away the tears that overflowed from her rejoicing and, together with Kobungo, sought to comfort the wounded: into their ears she said, “Fusahachi—lo, Nui—Daihachi has revived. Hear the marvel that has occurred.” She repeated it. Then, “Look at this,” she said, and brought the babe before them so that they could see, and displayed his jewel. “Now, now, behold,” she called, as she attempted to revive them.

Fusahachi nodded at long last and said to her, “Well, then, my child, too, has past lives. Ever since his birth his left fist has never opened once—for this he was despised, called a cripple, and made to bear his nickname, Daihachi—now see how far he has in birth excelled his father. Since he has the bead and mark who may deny he is a Dog Warrior? With this to be his parting gift upon the darkling road, his father, too, now has a karmic reward; his mother, too, must feel her hopes fulfilled—how fine a child you bore!”

Nui opened her eyes to hear this praise, but all she said, her final verse, was this: “How joyful.” Then, alas, the gemm’d thread finally snapped.

“Ah, it grieves me so!” said Myōshin, pressing her hand to the empty husk of Nui’s body and calling her back, but she had gone and must be numbered now among those never to return. Then Daihachi, not understanding, clung to her and said, “Hello, dear mother, let me suckle at your breast.”

At last Kobungo stayed him from behind, picked him up and said, “That will not do,” but what he could not stay were the bitter tears bereavement brought; he turned his face and wept.

Then Toyama Myōshin lifted her head, blew her nose, and turned to face Chudai and the others. “It was because, ever since he was in the womb, he was clutching that bead that my grandson Daihachi was born with his left fist clenched, so that he might only open it in response to the touch of the holy man who had striven for the enlightenment of Her Highness this Princess Fuse. All this I understand, and yet there is much I still find strange.

“This grandson of mine is called Daihachi, but that is a nickname given him by others, a riddle meaning cripple-cart. In truth he is named Shinpei. Fusahachi’s father named him that, taking the character shin from his own name, Shinbei.⁶ Our clan name is Inue, and we call our house by that name, too, the Inueya.⁷ Now that I think of it, this, too, speaks of a mysterious karmic connection: he is crowned with the character inu, ‘dog.’ I beg that from now on you will call my grandson Inue Shinpei. He may be unworthy to be counted among them, but if you will allow him to sit behind the Dog Warriors, then it will be greater than any other filial nourishment he could give to his parents, whose eyes now close.”

Chudai heard her tearful pleading, then smiled and replied, “A fine thing, this grandmother’s wish. And what a prodigy it is that both clan name and house name are Inue, that of a dog who knows his master! Furthermore, his father Fusahachi in killing himself acted benevolently, and thus his son gained the bead on which that character appears. Benevolence is the chief among the Five Eternal Verities: it is, indeed, the mind of Heaven, and even the wise have difficulty in attaining unto it. Now Shinpei shall enter into the pack of Dog Warriors in the stead of his parent: if we replace the shin in his name that means ‘true’ with the shin that means ‘parent,’ and name him Inue Shinbei Masashi, it shall be as if his father Fusahachi had been reborn in his son, and had joined the pack of the Dog Warriors himself.⁸ Furthermore, if we reverse the two characters in Fusahachi we have Yatsufusa, and if we reverse the name Nui it is inu.⁹ Myōshin’s worldly name, Toyama, is read the same as Toyama, Mount To.¹⁰ In each case the name names the thing, and these things have their karmic causes in the dog Yatsufusa upon Mount To. Furthermore, the name Myōshin expresses the wondrous idea of the absolute and conventional truths, and that a single thought contains three thousand worlds¹¹: thereby did her husband, her child, and her daughter-in-law attain to the bringing forth of pure karmic fruit.

“If we trace your sufferings to their conception, it is this: because of Fusahachi’s grandfather Bokuhei’s error in violating Master Mitsuhiro’s person, the master’s concubine Tamazusa was able to seize the moment and help his disloyal retainer Sadakane to usurp his lord’s house. And if we trace your happiness to its base, it is that Bokuhei’s only son Inueya Shinbei was a man of natural rectitude. Thus he desired, for the sake of his descendants, to dispel the ancient enmity that faced them, and he made a vow of charity and good, although he was not able to fulfill it. His son Fusahachi obeyed his father’s last command; he performed an act of benevolence in killing himself. In other words, two generations of merit and virtue have now come to fruition. Karmic causes will inevitably bring effects, like birds roosting in trees or insects swarming in the grass, but they are hard to know. Therefore do not mourn their deaths; only take joy in their lives. What think you?”

When he had expounded these things, everyone awoke as if from a drunkenness of ignorance; all were touched, and all gasped as one.

Then Kobungo advanced on his knees and spoke to Chudai, saying, “Holy man, your teachings are most wise. To them I would add the story of a prodigy. Thinking now of how my nephew Daihachi, Shinbei, was born clutching a bead, I am reminded of a bedtime story my parents told me when I was yet an unshorn youth. Once upon a time, in, I think it was, the third year of the Kanshō era,¹² a light shone in the water of the inlet river night after night. All thought it strange, but everyone was too afraid to search the riverbed for it. My father Bungobei had been an avid fisherman for many years, and so one evening he took his net and went to the inlet riverbank. There he cast his net again and again, hoping to catch the glowing thing, but nothing did he take, and hope left him. Toward dawn he returned to his dwelling, and on the morrow, when he sought to dry the net, suspending it below the eaves, it seemed to him that something within the net slipped out and fell, with a tinkling sound.

“Nui was in her second year of age. When she saw her father spreading out his net she crawled to him, and the thing he thought he saw fall she plucked from the ground and placed inside her mouth. ‘Ah!’ cried Father in astonishment. He poked his finger in her mouth, ignoring her tears: he searched, but it may have been that she had already swallowed it, for never did he find it, so he stopped. And yet, what manner of thing had it been? This thought made him uneasy, but the days raced by and nothing seemed to be the matter with Nui, and so he rested.

“He had thought that perhaps the thing shining in the water might be a sword of great repute or the like. That was why he had rent the night with his net, but the bottom seemed barren even of seaweed-trash. Thereafter nothing shone from the inlet river. So my father told me, once upon a time. Now that I reflect on this tale, it must be that the thing that fell from the net, that my sister swallowed at such a tender age, was that bead. And so the bead spent fifteen years in her belly, until Nui went in marriage to Fusahachi in the spring of her sixteenth year. No long time had passed when she became with child, and in the winter of that year she bore a babe who clutched that bead in his left hand, which he could not unclench, for the time had not yet come. Yet here and now, some four years on, the bead appears. Is this not a mystery?”

Everyone listened attentively as he proclaimed this tale, and when he had finished, they all exclaimed in admiration.

1. From the second section of the Yi jing (J. Ekikyō), commonly known as the Book of Changes, dealing with the hexagram kun.

2. The seventh-century prince Arima was arrested at Iwashiro for insurrection. As he was being taken away he tied a poem to a pine; the poem expressed hopes for his future. See Man’yōshū, poem 141.

3. The snipe pecking at its wings at dawn is an old poetic image associated with longing endlessly multiplied. These phrases are a near quotation from poem 761 in Kokin wakashū, which laments the countless nights on which the poet’s lover has failed to visit.

4. From the first part of Chapter 1 of Mengzi (J. Mōshi), commonly known as Mencius.

5. Ks·itigarbha (J. Jizō) is a bodhisattva whose vow leads him to minister unto denizens of the various worlds, including that of hungry ghosts (gaki). He is often depicted holding a hōju, a holy pearl.

6. The first element in Shinpei is the character otherwise read makoto. The second element is “flat” or “common” (otherwise read taira). The second element in Shinbei is an element derived from a Heian court post, meaning “guardsman.”

7. Like Inukawa, Inue may be translated “dog river.” The e character refers, as a rule, to larger rivers than does kawa.

8. This new writing of “Shinbei” combines the character for “parent” with the “guardsman” bei. “Masashi” is an alternate reading of jin, “benevolence.”

9. The characters in Fusahachi’s name are indeed the same as those in Yatsufusa’s, in reverse order. The character pronounced hachi in the one (meaning eight) is read yatsu in the other. The characters Nui’s name are written with have nothing to do with dog, but their readings, nu and i, respectively, produce the word inu if the characters are reversed.

10. The Toyama in Fusahachi’s mother’s name is written with characters that mean “door mountain.” The mountain in Awa is written “treasure mountain.”

11. Myōshin is written with characters that mean “marvelous truth.”

12. 1462.