Chapter XVI

Under bare blade, phoenix and luan-bird¹ bind their fates together;

In the chapel of the heavenly maiden, a couple prays for a child

Thus it was that Ōtsuka Bansaku—having traveled many roads over the course of a day and a night, while bearing many wounds, though all of them light—was stricken with fatigue and the pain of his injuries so that, though he lay down, he could not sleep, but listened to the voice of the pines and the busy sounds of river and dale as they came to him on his pillow. At length his eyes drooped into a state that was almost slumber, until he was awakened with a start by a voice on the other side of the papered doors. He propped up his pillow and listened intently. It was a man’s voice, one touched by age. “So the master of the hermitage has returned,” thought Bansaku. “I wonder what he will say.” He listened more closely.

Suddenly he heard a girl’s voice, and she was weeping. “Never have I heard of such a thing! ’Tis heartless! To save all sentient beings was what the Buddha taught—even if you cannot do that, how can your heart be so polluted as to break this commandment? To take up a blade and kill, without regard for how it shames the robes you wear—’tis utterly unfeeling!” The speaker was none other than the girl who had given Bansaku shelter.

“Then the master of this hermitage is an evil, commandment-breaking monk who has taken to wife a comely maiden, whom he uses to lure travelers here, that he might murder them in secret and take their belongings. This is the very epitome of mountain banditry. Have I avenged my lords and father, cleansed my own shame, and endured so many dangers and hardships only to whimper and die here at the hands of a bandit? To act first is to conquer²—I shall strike now, and kill them both,” thought he.

Making up his mind without the slightest disturbance, he stealthily arose and tightened his sash, his sword at his waist, and then with the greatest care in his movements he approached the papered doors. Through a sliver of an opening afforded by the warping of the wood he peered at the scene beyond. He saw the evil monk, a man over forty years of age, brandishing a vegetable cleaver at the girl in a threatening manner. Bansaku could not make certain of what was being said, but a murderous spirit showed in the monk’s face—he would kill Bansaku—while the girl seemed to be trying, without success, to prevent him from so doing—her hair was loose and wild, and she was convulsed with sobbing.

The malice he saw displayed so clearly before him removed any last doubts: Bansaku kicked down the papered doors and burst into the kitchen, crying, “So, bandit, you would kill me? Then I shall kill you first!”

He flew at the man, cursing, while the evil monk, much astonished, slashed at him with the blade in his hand, which flashed as it cut through the air. Bansaku ducked the monk’s stroke, while throwing out his leg so that he caught the monk with a kick just above his waist. The monk stumbled forward some five or six steps before regaining his footing; he then turned and met Bansaku’s charge, warding off his blows to the right, deflecting them to the left, making several attacks himself; but being constantly harried, he grew tired, and that was when Bansaku struck beneath his guard, causing the monk finally to drop his blade. This sent the evil monk’s mind into a panic, and he sought to flee, but Bansaku handily retrieved the vegetable cleaver, and now with a condemnatory shout—“Piratical monk, you shall know Heaven’s punishment!”—he brought it down like lightning, slicing deep into the monk’s backbone.

Not long could the wicked monk resist a wound in such a vital spot: he fell, with a final cry of anguish, and then Bansaku gave him the coup de grâce, stabbing him right through the chest. He withdrew the cleaver, dripping blood, and wiped the blade, then turned to the girl, who in her overpowering panic and confusion had not fled, but simply sunk to the floor. Eyes flashing and voice taut with wrath, Bansaku said to her, “You vouchsafed me rice last night—it would seem I owe you a debt of gratitude equal to that bowl. In addition, you tried to prevent the bandit monk from killing me on his return, which speaks of a heart not without its hidden wells of pity; notwithstanding this, however, there is no telling how many you have killed since becoming his wife. Therefore accept the ineluctable judgment of Heaven as it falls swiftly upon your head—make a clean breast of it by receiving this blade upon your outstretched neck. What say you?”

To this she merely raised her head a little and said, “What confusion must reign in your heart for you to doubt me so, I know not. I have never been what you say I am.”

But hardly had she finished speaking when Bansaku laughed her to scorn, saying: “You would encircle me with false words, gaining time until your cronies return that you might then retaliate on your husband’s behalf—such resentment dwells within your breast, but shall I be taken in by such meager cunning? Now, say what I have bidden you, or I shall make you say it—with this!”

The vegetable cleaver gleamed as he raised it, and in the instant that it flashed she flew backward, saying, “Wait, oh wait! I have that which I would say to thee.”

But rage that would neither hear nor forgive flashed from the tip of the blade as he pursued her all around the room: and she was shieldless before its edge, like a bamboo shoot bent ’neath the heavy snows—she flung out her right hand, sank down on her left, on one knee raised herself to twist away, and backward, ever backward, did she flee—while Bansaku, determined not to let her, struck—she gave way—he slashed—she sank down—and when she tried to stand again the blade was glittering above her like ice—she evaded it, and slipped a hand into her bosom—he instantly advanced—she pulled out a paper and thrust it before his eyes—“See this, and let it dispel your suspicions! Will you not hear me out?”

The thing she held before him, unrolled between her hands, was a record of her lineage, written with brushstrokes that now meant her life: Bansaku gave it a cursory examination, and then readjusted his grip on the blade without thinking. “The signature-mark on this document is difficult to accept. I might have surmised this the love letter of a priestwife³ or brigandess, but this, the last testament of a brave warrior, belies my suspicion. There must be a reason: then say what you have to say.” He gave way, thrust the blade upright into the floor-matting, and knelt, keeping a close watch on her.

Then the girl rolled up the paper and put it away, wiped her eyes, and spoke. “This evening I stayed to keep watch over this sanctum, an act unbecoming my position, and calamity fell on my head because of it—and upon yourself, of course—which you, sir, overheard, as well you might. What good can it do me now to hide behind modesty? I am, I say, the daughter of Tanzō Naohide of the I clan⁴—I am called Tatsuka. My father Naohide was a warrior deeply indebted to the Kamakura Lord [meaning mochiuji], and when word reached him that the Minister of the Court Mochiuji had perished, and that the two princes were besieged in Yūki Castle, he left Misaka instantly and galloped, with his tiny force of a dozen or so men, to Yūki, where he joined the defenders. The battle stretched on year after year, and Their Young Highnesses were not favored with good fortune at arms: on the sixteenth of this past month, Yūki was reduced, and my father Naohide was cut down along with many other men of great name.

“That is what is told in this letter, which, on the morning the castle fell, he gave to an old family servant whom he sent back to Misaka. My mother had spent her days since last year gazing longingly at the sky in the direction of where my father was, and in the end her sickness of mind came to ravage her body, endangering her life—and at that very juncture came the message, carried as if on a wind of impermanence by our aged servant, that Yūki had fallen and Father had died. The messenger bore, besides, many wounds and the fatigue of the journey, and thought he must not live longer—he slit his belly on the spot that he might follow his lord in death. The other servants of our house perhaps feared guilt by association, for every one of them absconded that very night, the unreliable creatures. We were left alone and helpless, a child and the mother she could not nurse, while locusts cried, who soon would turn to husks, of autumn’s coming. Mother would not wait that long, but weakened quickly, until on the eleventh day of this month, she finally breathed her last. Her burial was accomplished in the gloaming of that day by the goodwill of a few villagers with whom we had been on close terms, who brought her here to this sanctum.

“Yesterday marked a month since my father’s death, and today marks a week since my mother’s. As I came here, yesterday and today, to pray before their graves, bearing what alms I could—mere tokens of what I felt—the master of the hermitage sought earnestly to comfort me, and after a while entrusted the care of the place to me as he went off: just as I told you, sir, last evening. The name of this hermitage is the Nenge, and its master’s name in the Law is, I believe, Bungyū—his flock includes many in the region hereabout, and my own family were patrons of his, so I harbored no suspicions of him to make me refuse what he asked of me. Thus it was that I watched over the hermitage all day. It was only after he returned that I began to know that he had acted with a purpose. O wretched priest! His thoughts had become fixated upon me—when did it begin?—asking me to watch over the hermitage was his snare, that he might have me here at evening. He returned as the night reached its deepest point, and took hold of me, and breathed to me seductions that no priest should speak, lascivious words that made my heart sink—I rejected him, would not suffer him to come near me—and in the end he threatened me, brandished the cleaver, and as he did so he raised his voice—which is what aroused your suspicions, sir—what caused him to be taken unaware and killed.

“It must be karma from a past life. He was a disciple of the Buddha, but he embraced fleshly lust; he deceived me to keep me here, and he tried to violate me, with force; and darkling punishment overtook him on the spot. How greatly it is to be mourned. Furthermore, I had no opportunity of telling the master of the hermitage that you lodged here, and see how things have turned out—how could he have known there was anybody here besides myself? I pray you, sir, reflect on this and let it assuage your doubts. Now, I am one of the Yūki stragglers: if you were to take another’s failings as profit for yourself—if you were to take me prisoner and haul me to the Capital—I would have no means of escape. Only I cannot die before clearing my name of this calumny you have heaped upon it—calling me a brigandess or a priestwife, that kills people to steal their goods. It is not my own shame alone that I regret, but that ’twould stain my late parents’ names—therefore do I begrudge you my life.”

As he listened to the maiden’s manly tale, related with much wiping of eyes, Bansaku slapped his knee in spite of himself. “Then you are the daughter of Lord Tanzō Naohide of the I! I read the name Naohide on the document you showed me just now, but as there may be two by that name, I waited to introduce myself until I knew the circumstances. I am Bansaku Kazumori, son of Ōtsuka Shōsaku Mitsumori, a close retainer in the hereditary service of Kamakura. He was at the siege from the beginning, in the service of the Princes. Your father and mine were together responsible for the maintenance of the rear gates—they were in close congress—nothing came between them. Then came the day the castle fell, when my father and I, both with the same thought in mind, escaped the tiger’s maw and followed the Princes’ trail: we came to Tarui, where our lords were killed, and where my father Shōsaku died fighting. There and then I avenged my father upon a man named Kakisaki Kojirō, stole my father’s and lords’ heads, and after a bloody battle made a desperate escape; then I traveled day and night, until, having come some fifty miles, I thought to bury the three heads I carried. Finding the graveyard that belongs to this temple, I thought it an opportune spot, so I dug up the earth next to some newly sanctified ground and interred the heads there in secret. Only when I had done this did I come begging for lodgings. From what I saw of the priest’s appearance, and what I heard him say (although I could not hear him well), I thought he meant to do me harm, and I did not stop to consider, but rushed out to kill him—for I am a fugitive, blown before the wind. This may appear to have been rashness on my part, and yet I saved you without knowing—I carried out a darkling punishment without meaning to, by executing that evil monk.

“I find it difficult to say what I must say now, as it might make me appear to have designs on you, but during the days of the siege, Lord Naohide made a promise to my father, saying, ‘I have a daughter whom I would give in marriage to your son when our lords’ fortune at arms improves, and these eastern lands return to tranquility.’ To this my father replied, in pledge, ‘That would be adding a great personal happiness to my satisfaction at such an outcome—I shall give my son to her, without fail.’ Our fathers both perished without achieving their aims, and now their children both escape certain death to make their names known to each other. Such a harsh thing is life! If in my error I had harmed you—though truly ’twould have been in ignorance—and only later learned who you were, how could I have explained it, palms pressed together in prayer, to our late fathers? O, the danger I was in!” His sincerity, as he spelled out his condition and hers, showed in his address.

As Tatsuka listened in rapt attention, she again spread open her document, and then said, “I have heard your name, milord Bansaku—for you to be here, now, to introduce yourself to me, is the mark of a fate not yet spent. Behold in these lines my father left, the only part of him left to me now, the deep regret and pain that he expressed on your behalf. And that pledge was not made in vain: the newly sanctified ground you speak of, beside which you interred the heads of your lords and father, is, I make no doubt, the dirt that covers my mother’s tomb. Though it does embarrass me to find that we have been given to each other by our fathers as lovers, I have no other wish from this day forth than to live and die together with thee, may it please Your Lordship.” Thus she spoke, covering her face as she did so.

Bansaku heard this and exclaimed, “Truly, I doubt not that ’tis the guidance of my departed father’s spirit that has led me thus to encounter the woman to whom I was betrothed—a promise that seemed so hard of fulfillment—and, what is more, to place the Princes’ relics next to the tomb of my father and mother-in-law, there to be protected. Therefore I must take you with me as I sink out of sight into the depths beneath this floating world. And yet, as we are both in mourning for parents, it would hardly behoove us to call each other spouse as yet. Let us wait until after we lose our mourning weeds, after the end of the year, and then become man and wife, properly.”

To this Tatsuka assented, saying, “Precisely what I was thinking, my lord. Now, you have killed the priest Bungyū, and someone is likely to find out about this, which bodes ill for you, does it not? It occurs to me, therefore, that you cannot go back with me to my house at Misaka. I have connections on my mother’s side living in Chikuma, in Shinano—furthermore, it is said that the hot springs there are effective in the healing of sword-wounds. Once upon a time His Imperial Highness of Kiyomihara made a visitation to these springs, in preparation for which the Minister of the Court Ashize, of the Karube, caused a temporary palace to be constructed⁵: even today the place is called the Royal Springs. If it please you, let us go at once to the village of Chikuma.”

Bansaku followed her advice. They hurried themselves, that they might depart before dawn, and then Bansaku, with Tatsuka at his side, fled Nenge Hermitage. They had not even gone half a mile, however, when a look back showed them flames rising in the distance, in the direction of the sanctum, bright enough to light the way before them. Tatsuka was surprised to see this, and muttered to herself, “What a fool am I! In my agitation, I must have neglected to put out the fire when we left. This is my fault.”

Hardly had she said this when Bansaku smiled at her and replied, “Be not surprised, Tatsuka. Nenge is a mountain cloister, in a grand setting far from the floating world, but worthy priests are rare in this disordered age. Bungyū lost himself in sensuality, and carelessly let evil arise in his heart. With him dead, and none to take his place as incumbent, the hermitage was bound, thought I, to become the lair of bandits, and so when we left I stirred up the fire that had been banked down, and pulled down some papered doors and blinds to throw upon it. By now the building has been reduced to ashes and cinders. As for Bungyū, he had indeed sinned, but he had not yet consummated his lusts when he died at my hand, and while it is not for us to pity him, neither should we find his fall pleasant. I cremated him, that his shame might be concealed—an instance of old-womanish concern on my part, perhaps. It was not well to scorch the burying ground of my lords and sire, but I could not bear to see it become the lair of bandits. I could do nothing else. If I ever attain what I aspire to, which is no common thing, then I shall erect there a great sanctuary—though how difficult it now seems!”

Tatsuka, upon hearing his explanation, found it enlightening—she was moved, she exclaimed—and now, by the illumination provided by the blaze, they hurried on their way, she following at first, and then taking the lead.

We now divide the thread of our story and take up that strand that concerns Ōtsuka Shōsaku’s daughter Kamezasa, who had been living unobtrusively these many years with her mother in the village of Ōtsuka, in Musashi. She was the child of Shōsaku’s previous wife, and thus an elder stepsister to Bansaku. Her heart resembled neither her father’s nor her brother’s, but was such as to display no concern for their plight in being besieged, nor yet a dewdrop of sympathy for her stepmother’s myriad sufferings. Ever since she had come of age, or nearly so, she had found the spring days not long enough for all she would do in putting up her hair and making up her face, the autumn nights too short for all her secret trysts with the boys she fancied. She was stupid and a seductress, and yet her mother, not being the one who bore her, made not bold enough to scold her for it; she simply stood by and watched, pained, and then sank down in sickness.

Thus Kamezasa became deeply involved, to the point of exchanging vows, with a village ne’er-do-well named Yayayama Hikiroku. In their passion they were as if stuck together with fish glue—they were as one flesh—they surrendered their bodies to entanglement with each other. Day by day they became more determined never to be apart; but while it was happy for them that Kamezasa’s father was besieged (and, indeed, it was not known whether he was alive or dead) and her mother worn out with worrying, these very circumstances made it hardly an appropriate time for her to take a husband. Then, while they were considering these things, word reached Ōtsuka, at the beginning of the seventh month of this year, that Yūki Castle had fallen, that her father Shōsaku had been cut down at Tarui on the Mino road, and that her younger brother Bansaku had disappeared. Her mother, who was already wasting away with illness brought on by her constant concern, bewailed the news, saying, “What shall I do now?” From that day forth her head never rose from her pillow, and water never passed her throat. There was nothing to be done but await her death.

“I cannot nurse my mother alone. Let us employ milord Hikiroku—I have always considered him reliable, and now is when we need such a man,” said Kamezasa, and without further ado she took him in. They gave her mother medicine to her heart’s content, but only for the benefit of observers: privately Kamezasa ignored her, her sole thought being the unwarranted pleasure she took in eating and sleeping together with Hikiroku. And so it was that her mother passed away on the last day of the month, not living to see the next, which would have marked her fortieth year; yet none cried but the crows, and though they sent her off to some temple or other, and the moss grew on her gravestone, rare was the visitor who came to her there. In this way was Kamezasa’s desire realized, as she and Hikiroku became husband and wife.

A year passed, then another, and then, indeed, it was the third year of Kakitsu.⁶ Now, the former Overseer and Minister of the Court Mochiuji’s youngest son, Eijuō, had escaped the fall of Kamakura in the arms of his wetnurse, who carried him into the mountains of Shinano where her elder brother was the incumbent of the An’yō Temple in that district. This worthy there concealed the child with the greatest solemnity, in consultation with Ōi Sukemitsu, who was, like his fathers before him, a close retainer of those of Eijuō’s line; together they saw that Eijuō was cared for. When word of this reached Kamakura, Superintendent of the Guard Masakata of the Nagao, a senior retainer of the Overseer Noritada, took counsel with all the generals of the East Country, until at last they welcomed Eijuō back to Kamakura, where he was honored as Marshal over the Eight Provinces—this by way of celebrating his official assumption of a man’s dress, at which time he was named Nariuji,⁷ Director of the Left Guards. This being done, word was spread about that it had pleased Nariuji to summon all the descendants of those of his family’s retainers who had been killed in battle at Yūki.

Hearing this, Yayayama Hikiroku—he of previous mention—was greatly rejoiced, thinking, “My time has come.” He immediately took upon himself the Ōtsuka surname and went up to Kamakura, where he presented his suit that he be recognized as the son-in-law of Ōtsuka Shōsaku, who had been killed at Tarui in Mino in the service of the two princes, Nariuji’s elder brothers Shun’ō and Yasuō, and craved the reward due him. At length Masakata dispatched a man to Toshima, to Ōtsuka, to ascertain the truth or falsity of his claim. That Shōsaku’s daughter had cleaved unto him was readily verified, but there was that about Hikiroku’s person that ill suited him for a warrior, and so the order was issued that he be made a mere village headman, permitted the wearing of swords at his waist, with estates of some twenty-one acres made over to him, which office he was commanded to exercise under the direction of the Lieutenant over the area, Ōishi Hyōenojō. Henceforth Hikiroku rebuilt the house in more stately fashion, with tiled eaves and a heavy-linteled gate, and he hired some seven or eight servants. He harassed his peasants: as long as water came to his paddies, he cared not where it went thereafter. In this way he became a wealthy man.

We return our attention to Ōtsuka Bansaku Kazumori, whom we left on his way to Chikuma in Shinano, accompanied by Tatsuka. There he took the waters, which were curative to the extent of healing the wounds on his arms and legs, but the thews in his calf seemed to have shrunk, and he could no longer walk as freely as before. Therefore did they stay in Chikuma, spending over a year in that place, until they had completed the period of mourning for their fathers; they had not yet, however, inquired after Bansaku’s mother in Musashi. Bansaku was determined that this year he would go to Ōtsuka, even if he had to cling to a crutch the entire way, but his determination ended in nothing when, that summer, he was afflicted with fever and ague. He rose not from his sickbed until autumn had spent itself. Thus he passed the remaining months of the year in agony, and soon enough it was the third year of Kakitsu.

The world was a straitened place unto those such as Bansaku for whom it cared not, and he felt a certain trepidation about identifying himself as an Ōtsuka, so ever since he had stopped in his tracks here at Chikuma he had added a jot to the character for “Ō” in his surname, and called himself Inuzuka Bansaku instead⁸; furthermore, they had no fixed means of supporting themselves, and so Tatsuka did a little spinning and weaving, enabling them to send up from their hearth a trail of smoke more slender than the hemp thread she used in her craft. Thus did time dye their temporary refuge with the deeper hue of a three-year residency. Their stores depleted, Bansaku had begun to feel constrained indeed when some travelers, come to the Chikuma springs to take the cure, told of how Shun’ō’s and Yasuō’s younger brother Eijuō, now the Minister of the Court Nariuji, had been set up as the general of Kamakura’s armies through the plotting of Nagao Masakata, and of how Nariuji had summoned the sons of those of his family’s retainers who had died in battle, that they might come to him from their several hiding places.

Bansaku and his wife were overjoyed at this uncommonly good news. “Wherefore should I wait any longer? I cannot walk well, but nevertheless I shall go to Musashi and see my mother and elder sister, and then report directly to Kamakura, where I shall present to the Minister of the Court Nariuji the sword Rainmaker, as a keepsake of his brother Shun’ōmaru, while proclaiming unto him the loyalty displayed by my father Shōsaku, and indeed my father-in-law Naohide of the I, in death: I shall then leave it to His Lordship to decide whether I may be advanced or not. Yes, I shall do that,” he said, and so they busied themselves in preparations for their departure. They bade farewell to those village connections of Tatsuka’s from whom they had begged shelter these long years, and then set out for Ōtsuka in Musashi.

Bansaku, having one crippled leg, walked the road with the support of a crutch and his wife Tatsuka, who pulled him along; they were obliged to stop and rest every few hundred yards, and to halt for the night after only making eight or nine miles, and thus the journey took them many more days than they had anticipated. They left Shinano in the eighth month, and the tenth month was nearing its end when they finally reached the vicinity of Bansaku’s home village. Bansaku’s concern for his mother grew greater, and they stopped at a cot some distance outside the village, where he inquired, as if a stranger, whether “the wife and daughter of a man named Ōtsuka Shōsaku be safe from harm?”

The old man who seemed to be the master of the house turned to the couple, while continuing with the rice threshing he was engaged in, and said, “So ye know not what became of those folk? The mother sloughed off this mortal coil upwards of two—my word, three years ago. And the girl would not nurse her, but did such unfilial mischief as ’twould pain me to tell. The son-in-law, Yayayama Hikiroku, was such a ne’er-do-well that he had everyone flicking their fingers in disgust, but he claimed thus-and-such a connection, and was given estates of twenty-one acres—and even the wearing of swords—he was made village head, and now calls himself Ōtsuka Hikiroku. His mansion stands yonder, beyond the row of paulownias.” He gave them further directions. His whole speech was delivered in such earnest that Bansaku could not help but be astonished at its import; he listened to everything the man could tell him regarding his sister Kamezasa and the figure she now cut, and about the kind of man Hikiroku was. Then he and Tatsuka went back outside, where they stood, both of them unable to find words, as tears welled up in their eyes.

After a time, Bansaku planted his crutch, heaved a sigh, and spoke. “Alas, that I tarried those years in Chikuma, claiming infirmity, for they prevented my being with my mother as she met her end—on top of which, this Hikiroku has snatched up, as it were, my father’s loyal death for his own ends, and now tarnishes the Ōtsuka name. I could sue for redress, and I make no doubt I should win, as the sword Rainmaker is in my possession—but that would be to quarrel with my elder sister, all for the sake of gain—and ’tis not for me to erect a wall between myself and my own flesh and blood. With things standing as they do, I cannot very well deliver this sword to His Lordship at Kamakura. My sister is an unfilial creature, and her husband Hikiroku has become wealthy through unrighteous actions. Nay, they cannot be relied upon, and I do not contemplate speaking of this to them. Am I mistaken?” In response to his mutterings, Tatsuka merely wiped away her tears—unable to say whether his words were reasonable, and unable to offer him comfort, she simply met his gaze and joined her laments to his.

Because of this incident Bansaku did not go to where Hikiroku was, but rather paid visits to certain aged villagers he knew from of old. He proclaimed unto them his circumstances and those of his wife, leaving nothing out; he appealed to them on the basis of his aspirations, saying that he would fain live in this land, in order that he might keep watch over the grave mound of his mother. The village elders had pity for Bansaku’s ill fortune, and they received him quite pleasantly. They summoned people from all around, and made the matter known to them. When everyone had heard of it, they could not contain their anger.

One spoke thus: “Our village has always belonged to the Ōtsuka clan. That tradition might have been severed once, but now that this territory has once again been confirmed on them, it is a great unhappiness to us that the true son of that clan should wilt like a flower in the shade, while a ne’er-do-well like Hikiroku, son-in-law though he be, usurps all. To contest things now, though—vow to the heavens though we may, the world would say we had offered our evidence, as it were, too late, and our suit would be one that exacted great effort for little effect. However, to succor the weak and frustrate the strong has always been the way of the men of the East. This entire village shall undertake to support you, Lord Bansaku, come what may—and we shall rub Hikiroku’s face in it, for we hate him. Though your leg be lame and your arm weakened, let your heart be at ease, we pray you.” The rest agreed wholeheartedly, and with a stalwartness verging on the boisterous the villagers collectively resolved to accord Bansaku and his wife the treatment that had been mooted.

With this, the villagers set about establishing a place for Bansaku to live. It so happened that opposite Hikiroku’s mansion stood a house that was vacant and not too old. “Splendid,” said the villagers, and they purchased it and installed Bansaku and his wife in it. Then again a collection of coinage was taken up and a small area of paddy and field was bought, pronounced Bansaku’s Tillage, and dedicated to providing the couple with clothing and food. All of this the villagers did not only out of gratitude toward their old lord and pity for Bansaku’s ill fortune, but also out of the hatred they bore for Hikiroku and his wife, and a desire to give them something to ponder. Thus in them were fulfilled the holy words, “A stout heart and a slow tongue are the greater part of benevolence.”⁹

The accomplishment of all of this meant that, due to the goodwill of the villagers, Bansaku, while never wealthy, was spared poverty and its attendant sufferings. As his surname had been usurped by his brother-in-law, and there was nothing to be gained by resuming the use of it himself, Bansaku continued to call himself Inuzuka, under which name he taught the unshorn youth of the village the use of the writing brush, by way of repaying his debt of gratitude to their parents; for the same reason did Tatsuka teach the village girls how to draw floss and sew silken garments. The villagers were rejoiced, and many of them were moved to bring the couple the first-fruits of their vegetable produce, as gifts. [the time is now kakitsu 3: the previous year was that of princess fuse’s birth, while this is the year of yoshinari’s, events that may be found in the viiith chapter of the inaugural volume.]

As all this was happening, Hikiroku and Kamezasa were vexed beyond measure each time they saw or heard of Bansaku, whom they had thought dead, for they were jealous that, now that he had made his return (though as an invalid), leading a wife, the villagers all revered him, and they were irked that he and his wife had moved into a house diagonally across from their own. They were uneasy, thinking, “Will he come to us today? Shall we send someone tomorrow to make him say when?” But in spite of dwelling within a hundred paces of her, Bansaku never once called on his elder sister.

One day when she could no longer stomach this, Kamezasa conspired with Hikiroku and sent men to Bansaku to say thus: “I, though inhabiting the useless body of a woman, shirked not in watching over our mother. I could not ignore her final words, and this, as everyone knows, is why I invited Lord Hikiroku into the house—to revive it, when it had died out. Meanwhile you, sir, fled the battlefield like a coward and hid like a weasel, and never made a move to see our mother in her extremity. And now, counting yourself lucky to have survived, you come here, of all places in the wide world, bringing your woman with you, and you hoodwink the villagers into sheltering you. And, not content with the shamelessness of that, you make a great show of taking up residence so near to me, and yet never come to call. You make strangers your intimates while keeping at bay your own flesh and blood. Why this ill-mannered behavior? Setting aside myself as one who matters not, consider my husband: he is the head of the Ōtsuka house, and indeed of the whole village. You may keep your heart in an inhuman state if you like, and think to preserve a separation between us as great as that between the lands of the Huns and the Viets,¹⁰ but in this country we distinguish between noble and common, and the degree of deference due to each. We have no room in our village for one who is ignorant of even such things as these. May it please you to depart this place and make your home elsewhere.”

Bansaku heard the speaker out, then gave a scornful laugh. “Unworthy I may be, but I withstood the siege at our father’s side, and should not have stinted at giving my life for our lord: I only shunned death on the battlefield in order that I might watch o’er our father and lords to see what road they traveled. It was this alone that enabled me to take my revenge upon our father’s killer at Tarui, and to conceal our lords’ and father’s heads—in the act of hiding which I first came to know my wife Tatsuka, to whom, without my knowledge, our fathers had bound me. I convalesced at the Royal Springs in Chikuma, and found some little healing for my wounds, but was left lame, and unfit for any very lengthy journey. Then last year I was taken ill, with a sickness from which I was long in recovering—indeed, the rest of the year was wasted in that way. This year I once again recovered my old determination, and finally came this way—clinging to a crutch and leaning on my wife—only to learn, when I inquired hereabouts, of my mother’s end and my elder sister’s unfilial, lascivious conduct, of which all the people know. What merit has your husband, O my sister, that he should be given a high office and a great stipend? This is what I know not. As for myself, I have in my care, in accordance with our father’s last command, the sword Rainmaker, belonging to Lord Shun’ō: I have it here. ’Tis lucky for you and your husband that I do not yet present it to the Lord of Kamakura—and that I have no heart for a quarrel—but I, Bansaku, unworthy though I am, cannot bear the sight of my unfilial sister, and shall not toady to her unrighteous husband. And if you hound me from this place, you leave me with no other course than to present my case at Kamakura, and trust in the judgment of the court.”

Kamezasa’s and Hikiroku’s men returned and repeated what Bansaku had said to them. Kamezasa could find no response, and Hikiroku, too, was rendered speechless with a stomach-churning vexation. Finally he reflected that it might well be better to let this sleeping dog lie. No further words did he exchange with Bansaku. Once in a while, when Bansaku, leaning on his crutch, went to visit his mother’s grave, accident would bring him face to face with Hikiroku, but they never spoke to each other at these times.

In this way ten springs ran their courses into ten autumns, until came the twelfth month of Kyōtoku 3,¹¹ when the Minister of the Court Nariuji at Kamakura enticed the Overseer Noritada close, and then had him executed as a hated enemy of his late father. With this the East Country was again riven with upheaval. The following year, the first of Kōsei¹²[the year of yoshizane’s besiegement, and the death of anzai kagetsura], Nariuji was defeated in battle and driven from Kamakura by Noritada’s younger brother Fusaaki and his retainer Nagao Masakata, to take refuge in the castle of Koga in Shimōsa, where he was besieged; the fighting continued for several years.

During this period Bansaku often thought to himself thus: “’Tis the way of things, in a time of Warring States such as this, for a retainer to conquer his lord, for hat and shoes to switch places—to see the world in such a state is to know that my own misfortunes are nothing to lament. And yet to leave no issue is filial impiety, and in the fourteen or fifteen years since I took Tatsuka to wife, she has born me three boys, who all died in infancy. I have no son to raise. Tatsuka and I are the same age—she is already past thirty, then. We can hardly expect another child. This is my only regret.”

Though they sounded like mere grumblings, Tatsuka knew that these words expressed what was deep in her husband’s heart, and furthermore she shared his discontent; but this was not something that could be solved by a glimpse of the moon on the Mountain of Discarded Old Women,¹³ and she could offer him no comfort. Then, suddenly, she had an idea. “The shrine to the goddess Sarasvati¹⁴ on the River Taki is said to be one of the oldest chapels in these regions, one rich in mystical manifestations. Can prayer there go unrewarded?” At length she mentioned these thoughts to her husband, and beginning the very next morning she made daily visits to that chapel, rising early to go and pray single-mindedly for a child. These visits began in the autumn of the first year of Chōroku¹⁵[the year princess fuse accompanied yatsufusa into the deepest wilderness of mount to] and continued for three years: never a day did she miss.

Then one day around the twentieth of the ninth month of Chōroku 3¹⁶[the year after princess fuse’s suicide], Tatsuka misjudged the time: she mistook the moonlight lingering in the sky for a brightening in the east, and hurried to leave her house. She went and worshipped at the cave chapel on the River Taki, and had turned her steps homeward when she noticed that the dawn had not, in fact, come. “What a dullard I am,” said she to herself, brushing the dew from the rice leaves as she passed them on the paddy-paths.

Just then a puppy jumped out and entangled itself in her skirts. It had a black back and a white belly, and it seemed to have been abandoned, for it wagged its tail and looked up at her as if expecting someone. When she shooed it away it came back as eagerly as before—she could not make it leave—and she stood there at a loss for what to do. “What sort of person could abandon such an affectionate creature? It appears to be a male. Dogs have large litters, so they never fail to have children that grow to adulthood. This must be why we place papier-mâché dogs beside babies’ pillows.¹⁷ I hiked to the goddess’s place with a prayer in my heart for a child, and now I find this puppy: how can I not take him in? I will take him home with me,” said she to herself.

As Tatsuka bent to take the puppy in her arms, she suddenly saw streamers of lavender cloud, billowing out of the south, low to the ground, and then she saw on the cloud a maiden of the mountain,¹⁸ arrestingly beautiful. She bore in herself the image of the goddess whom Song Yu of Chu saw in his dream, the visage of the Goddess of Luo to whom Cao Zhi of Wei devoted his brush¹⁹—and she was seated upon an old hound, dappled black and white. In her left hand she held a host of beads or jewels, and with her right hand she beckoned to Tatsuka. Without a word, the woman threw her a bead. Tatsuka, who had been frozen in her tracks by this miraculous apparition, now hurriedly stretched out her hands to catch the bead, but it slipped through her fingers and bounced to the ground near where the puppy stood. She groped and searched, groped and searched, but could not find it anywhere. “This bodes ill,” she said, and turned her gaze again to the heavens, where the spirit cloud abruptly disappeared, and with it the divine lady.

“This was no ordinary happening,” Tatsuka thought, and taking the puppy once again in her arms she hastened homeward, where she told her husband Bansaku about the whole affair. “This divine lady of whom I was vouchsafed a vision appeared to be a maiden of the mountain—she did not look like Sarasvati. I fear that the bead she entrusted to me may have been the seed of a child, and I lost it, a sure sign—is it not?—that my desire will not be granted. O, it weighs on my heart!”

After considering the matter, Bansaku spoke: “No, no, you jump to conclusions. The divine lady rode upon an aged dog, dappled black and white, did she not? My clan is the Ōtsuka, but I have changed my name to Inuzuka—‘dog-barrow.’ Furthermore, I bear the name Kazumori, and the character I use for ‘mori’ is used to mean ‘dog’ when it appears in the zodiacal cycle.²⁰ The name names the thing: reassuring, indeed. For now, on top of this, you find, without seeking one, a puppy. This is a sign that your prayers and wishes will be fulfilled. Do not let this dog run away. Keep it and raise it.”

To this persuasion Tatsuka could only reply, “What you say is reasonable.” But as she turned it over in her mind, she could find nothing to call reassuring. However, Bansaku’s judgment proved correct, and before long Tatsuka was great with child. In the autumn of the first year of Kanshō,²¹ in the seventh month, on an earth-dog day, she bore—with nothing to disturb her peace—a baby boy. This child would bear well his name as one of the Eight Dog Warriors—yea, this was he who would be known as Inuzuka Shino. We shall explain more about Shino in the Books to come.

In the serial biography²² of Inuzuka Shino, as given above, I have discussed his father and grandfather in some detail, while eliding other matters. Henceforth, in the biographies of the other seven warriors, I shall abridge their family histories, and only go into detail about the men themselves. In composing prose as in speaking of righteousness, one’s heart may not always be single in purpose. Judge this matter well, O Reader.

End of Book III of Volume II of the Lives of the Eight Dogs of the Satomi

1. The luan (J. ran), like the phoenix (Ch. feng; J. hō), is a bird of Chinese mythology, and they are often paired, as here. Unlike the phoenix, no English equivalent has become standard (although some scholars use “simurgh,” from the Persian mythical bird).

2. A phrase from chapter 7 of Sima Qian’s classic Han-era history Shi ji (J. Shiki).

3. Buddhist clergy were expected to remain unmarried and celibate, but enough took secret wives or mistresses to give rise to the term bonsai, here translated “priestwife.”

4. The family surname, in other words, is “I” (pronounced so as to rhyme with “she”)—not to be confused with the English first-person pronoun.

5. His Imperial Highness of Kiyomihara was the Emperor Tenmu. Nihon shoki records this incident in the fourteenth year of Tenmu’s reign; there the place is named Tsukama, which is thought to correspond to the name Chikuma found elsewhere. Ashize is Bakin’s reading of characters that modern scholars gloss Taruse or Tarise.

6. 1443.

7. Ashikaga Shigeuji (1438–97). Bakin differs from most historians in reading his name as “Nariuji.”

8. The character “ō” means “great” or “large”; the addition of a short line in the right place transforms it into the character “inu,” or “dog.” The jot in question here is the same one that occurs in the name Chudai, formed by splitting the character for “dog” into its component parts (see Chapter XIV). “Ōtsuka” means “great barrow”; “Inuzuka” means “dog barrow.”

9. From chapter 13 of Lunyu (J. Rongo), traditionally known as the Analects of Confucius.

10. Hu and Yue, peoples on the far northern and southern frontiers of China; a byword for remoteness and separation.

11. 1454.

12. Also read “Kōshō,” 1455.

13. A reference to poem 878 in the tenth-century poetry anthology Kokin wakashū: “my heart / is inconsolable— / is this Sarashina / and am I seeing the moon / over Mount Ubasute?” Ubasute-yama, or the Mountain of Discarded Old Women, was a mountain of legend where, as the name indicates, children left their elders to die. The poem was inspired by a story found in the tenth-century tale collection Yamato monogatari, about a man who left his mother there, only to look back, see the full moon, and be inspired to change his mind.

14. A goddess known in Japanese as Benzaiten or Benten; Benten entered the Japanese pantheon from India by way of China.

15. 1457.

16. 1459.

17. Papier-mâché dogs appear on the cover to Volume II.

18. In the original, a yamahime, a figure mentioned in Heian-era poems and texts and thought to be a goddess presiding over mountains.

19. Song Yu was a third-century BCE poet. His “Ode on the Goddess” (Shennu fu; J. Shinjo fu) (preserved in the sixth-century anthology Wen xuan; J. Monzen) describes a goddess appearing to the Chu king Huai. Cao Zhi was a third-century CE poet. His “Ode on the Luo Goddess” (Luoshen fu; J. Rakushin fu), which refers to Song Yu’s poem, describes at great length the appearance of the goddess of the Luo River.

20. The character here read “mori,” though read “inu” in other contexts, is distinct from the more common character used in “Inuzuka.”

21. 1460.

22. For the concept of a “serial biography” and its significance, see Glynne Walley, “Translator’s Introduction,” in Eight Dogs, or “Hakkenden.” Part One—An Ill-Considered Jest, trans. Glynne Walley (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021), xiv.