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

Volume II, Book V

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

Chapter XIX

Kamezasa coaxes Nukasuke with a nefarious scheme;

Bansaku entrusts his orphan to a farsighted plan

Meanwhile the peasant Nukasuke, having rashly aided Shino and then seen their plans thwarted when they chased the dog through Hikiroku’s back gate, feared not only that they had lost the dog, but that some of the blame for it would attach to him. He ran home and told his wife of the matter. “If someone comes from the Estatesman,¹ say I am not at home.” No sooner had he spoken these words than he hid in the remotest part of the house, where he lay down and covered himself with robes.

But he was uneasy—he looked out, and got up, and thought, “What, oh what will become of me?” Finally one of Hikiroku’s menials did indeed come to call, saying, “Is this Master Nukasuke’s dwelling? Come quickly—my mistress is calling for you.”

This urging was met with the reply, “He is not at home.” For a time the deception held, but messengers came one after another like teeth on a comb—two or three of them at least—and there was no escape for Nukasuke. “They may say they are sent by their mistress, but they are not,” thought he, until, cajoled by his wife in his indecision and inability to emerge, he was finally rousted out by the menials sent as messengers, whom in the end he could not evade. Together with them he went to Hikiroku’s residence.

When he arrived Kamezasa called him into the small sitting room. Wearing an uncharacteristic smile, she beckoned him to sit beside her. She began by inquiring after his safety, which calmed him a bit; the blue of his panicked face lessened to a mild teal color. After a while, Kamezasa sent away her attendants, and then assumed a new expression as she lowered her voice and said, “You must have some notion as to why I have had you brought here so suddenly. How did it come to pass that you connived with that brat to chase Bansaku’s wolf into the Headman’s mansion, where he could devour us? You and Shino were seen by our menials running away from our rear gate carrying poles—you cannot deny it. Furthermore, look what happened when that dog ran in here.”

So saying, she produced a torn letter, which she spread out on the floor and pieced together. “See what a rare thing he accomplished. After the Minister of the Court Nariuji fled to Koga, His Lordship Ōishi, Lieutenant over this land, followed the two Overseers, and as he was in Kamakura himself, he commanded my husband to collect provisions and the like. All of this you know well enough that there is no need to rehearse it, but this very day a courier arrived from Kamakura bearing a rescript from the Overseers, to which was appended a note from the Lieutenant, urging a redoubling of efforts to provide supplies, as there is to be another attack on Koga Castle. My husband, therefore, had caused the dust to be swept from this parlor, and he had retired here to peruse the missive, when that dog ran in here and trampled on it with all four paws—rending it, snicker-snack, as you can see. He could not be allowed to escape after that, so we pointed our spears at him, and dealt him a number of wounds, but the dog was too ferocious to die—he broke through the bottom of a plank fence and ran out. We have not heard that he dropped dead in the road, so he must have returned to his master’s house.

“To destroy a rescript is tantamount to treason, and though a beast may be ignorant of the law, his master will find it hard to evade blame for the crime. Yea, and what of you and Shino, who chased the dog in here? Do you not realize that a hundred amnesties may be issued before your lives are spared? But perhaps you were prepared for that from the start? Bansaku has been on bad terms with us for years, and has instructed his son in ways to toy with us, but what grudge do you bear us, that you would ignore the certainty of your own destruction and assist these useless people in their attempts to ruin their village head? What a hateful man you are.”

Nukasuke quailed in fear and awe before her bitterness; a cold sweat washed over him, and he knew not what to say. After a time, however, he raised his head and spoke: “My life is forfeit because of this chance failing of mine, and I know I cannot change that. As for the matter of the dog, we did not chase him in here from an idea that the Headman was in the wrong. However, I know that I cannot hope for forgiveness based on my saying thus-and-such: all I can do is hope for mercy and compassion. I beg you, Mistress, intercede for me—save me. Help me!” His voice as he put forth his lonesome plea was as the insect’s cry in withered field.

Kamezasa sighed when she heard this. “There is nothing in this world as sad as the heart of a man made head over other men. Good and bad must be administered according to the way of public weal, the enemy of which is private interest; give a man mercy and you are thought lacking in diligence, exercise diligence and it appears as harshness. Were this thing to be pursued to its end, Bansaku and his son, not to mention you, must be rounded up like cattle and led to Kamakura, but I have a soft spot for Shino, who is after all my nephew, though his father’s stubborn prejudice prevents him saying a word to me. And, hateful though I may find him, Bansaku is my younger brother, bound to me with tendrils of kinship. To rejoice at seeing him fettered as a criminal for a morning’s mishap would be inhuman. In my sorrow and suffering I clung to my enraged husband’s sleeve, I wept and groveled and managed to keep him from ordering the arrest today. Notwithstanding which, Bansaku will not be able to escape having to atone for his crime. No one knows the pain in my breast as I wished for a way to save him, as I turned the matter over and over beneath the feeble light of a woman’s wisdom, but for all my concentration I could only find one thing on which to pin my hopes.

“I have heard that Bansaku keeps in hiding a sword named Rainmaker, which the Minister of the Court Mochiuji formerly wore at his side, and which he left to the prince Shun’ō, as an heirloom passed down through several generations of the Minamoto clan. And I have also heard that the Overseers know of this sword, and desire it. Were this treasured blade now to be presented to Kamakura, along with an apology for crimes committed, then would you be safe, and Bansaku and his son forgiven. To be sure, the submission of such a plea to Kamakura would require my younger brother to bend his will and place himself at Lord Hikiroku’s disposal. If he, in the crookedness of his heart, were to doubt my sincerity in preparing this course on his behalf, and instead choose a course of self-destruction, I should be powerless to prevent it. You must prepare yourself, I say. It was in order to tell you these things that I summoned you here in secret like this.”

So greatly did her speech resemble truthfulness that as Nukasuke listened his spirit returned to him, and he found himself heaving a great sigh. He said, “I humbly undertake to do what you say. There is a proverb in the world that says strangers gather when there is food and drink, but kin gathers when there is sorrow. There may have been friction between you all these years, but who else but a sister would seek to save her brother in such an extremity of peril? For my part, Nukasuke loves both his lord and his self, and as long as I have a tongue in my head I shall employ it with the eloquence of Purna,² I think his name was, in seeking to soften the heart of Master Inuzuka, that this affair might come off well. And when it does, I pray you, Mistress, first of all, forgive your servant. Make haste to do good, they say: I shall go now,” he said, standing up.

But Kamezasa detained him further, saying, “Wait one more moment. It hardly bears saying that this thing must be resolved today, whether it be brought off successfully or not. Do not give yourself cause for regret come dawn by wasting time in long deliberations.”

At this he nodded furiously, replying, “Of course I shall be a man about it. I understand.” As he spoke, he grasped the Chinese-paper door with an underhanded grip and hastily pulled it open, detaching it from its groove as he did so; but though it started to fall he paid it no mind, contorting himself as he struggled to get outside and flee the scene.

“My, my, what an impetuous man,” murmured Kamezasa, as she stood to catch the falling door. While she was replacing it, Hikiroku, who had been in the next room eavesdropping, opened the adjoining cedarwood door. The couple’s eyes met, and they smiled at each other. “Kamezasa!” “My husband, did you hear? It went even better than we had anticipated.”

Their voices awoke Gakuzō, who had dozed off next to the tea chest while grinding tea leaves; now the sound of mortar and pestle resumed, startling the master and his wife, who, like trav’lers caught in sudden evening storm, did hurry wordlessly to hide themselves within the shelter of a storage room.

Meanwhile, Nukasuke ran to the Inuzuka dwelling in such a flurry of haste that his feet barely touched the ground. Once there, he related to the master of the house everything that Kamezasa had said concerning the affair, leaving nothing out. “Well might she scold me for being dim enough to allow myself to be led by a child’s wisdom into causing this affair—no better than a boy myself am I—but for that I can apologize. What no apology can win forgiveness for is the destruction of the rescript. And yet, as the proverb says, even in hell you might find a friend, and this seems to be a case of that, because Her Ladyship your sister, whose heart we always thought was so filthy, has the heart of a bodhisattva. She truly adores her nephew, and I met her on a good day, for she is willing to gather in sorrow with her kin. There is a time and a place for hardheadedness, is there not, sir? You can trade a treasure for a life. There is no shame, not a bit, in submitting to the head of your village, and ’tis only in the order of things for you to subordinate yourself to your elder sister. You have not got many children, sir—think of your son, above all, and bend in this one thing, I pray you. Accept her offer.”

With palms pressed together in supplication did Nukasuke mouth these things, saying everything he could think of to persuade Bansaku, but Bansaku appeared unmoved. He listened carefully, then said, “If this you say about the rescript is true, then you had good reason to be startled. When she told you these things, did you, sir, recognize that letter for what she said it was?”

Nukasuke scratched his head. “Nay, milord, as you yourself well know, I never learned to read. But she told me it was a rescript.”

Bansaku gave a scornful laugh. “Well, then. People’s hearts are all different, and all are hard to fathom. To hide a blade behind a smile is the way of a world at war. Kin we may be, but if I trust her once then regret will gnaw at my innards ever after. I find it difficult to accept that this elder sister of mine and her husband, who have these many years thought of me only with enmity, should abruptly find themselves caring for her younger brother and loving their nephew. And even if it were true, if I bring out the sword Rainmaker in an effort to atone for my crime and am not forgiven, then what shall it profit me? Who, after all, has decreed that if I produce the longsword I shall be safe? Unless there has been word from the Overseers, then it is a case of the bottom planning the moves of the top: this, too, cannot be relied upon. And, in the event that I am to be forgiven according to plan, then it will not be too late to present the sword after I am hauled to Kamakura. I know it will be painful for you, sir, but it would be a blot on my honor as a warrior if I were to be taken unaware, having allowed myself to become, like some woman, discomposed on account of my child. I cannot follow your counsel.”

Hearing this, Nukasuke slapped his knee and said, “No, no, this is but stubbornness! If you see out this day in doubt, you will find it hard to stand tomorrow under the weight of regret. You and your son make three of us whose lives will be saved if you will only bring out that sword, and the sooner the better, sir. ’Twould be an injury to a warrior, too, to be saved only after much suffering, pointing of fingers from all directions, weeping of wives and children, and the shame of bonds. Reconsider, sir, I pray you, and undertake to do this. I cannot return home until I hear you say you will. Can you not see how I clasp my palms together and pray to you? Is your heart so hard?”

It seemed his wheedling would never end, and Bansaku was left utterly at a loss. “Were it only my son’s life at stake, then I would brook no objection to my course, though he be chopped into eighths. But as I cannot seem to wake you, sir, from this daze you are in and which you will not see your way clear of, I shall consider the matter, and then give you an answer. Come back at sundown.”

At this Nukasuke looked outside. “The sunlight comes sidewise through the willow by the back gate: it will not be long until dark. I shall take my evening meal, and then come back here. The discerning man who can plan for others often cannot plan for himself. Pray, do not be so suspicious that you kill poor Nukasuke. I leave you now.” He raised himself, with an effort, on one knee and, massaging his benumbed legs, scooted himself forward to the place where he had taken off his shoes. He slipped one foot into someone else’s sandal and left his other foot unshod. So, like a bareback horse whose burden of sadness might be loosed by evening like ground thaws in spring, he dragged his feet and limped his way away.

It was the third month, and the skies were clear and cold as night wind poured down Chichibu’s slopes; and Shino, in his room, thought of his sire. “A robe is what he wants,” thought he, and so he cleared his desk of paper, ink, and brush, and took and draped about his father’s shoulders a broadweave sleeveless coat of cerulean blue. The lantern in the sitting room, though lit, shed not its light to every corner, but the moon that night was bright upon the garden, and Shino gazed with blurry eye upon the form of Yoshirō, not yet dead. He then closed one rain shutter and, bringing the brazier closer to his father, he said, “The wind has changed—’tis suddenly very cold. Were the days longer the nights would pass quicker. You ate but little of the hotchpotch at the evening meal—does Your Lordship not want something now?”

But Bansaku shook his head and said, “Unable to move like this, what should I eat beyond my three daily meals? And yet a hotchpotch is useless if left overnight—if there is any left, you eat it. Warm it up—’tis no good cold.”

He pulled the brazier closer and stirred up the banked coals, but Shino said, “No, there is none left. I gave it to Yoshirō—but he is in no state to eat. Alas, though I meant to save him, I have brought this hardship upon him: it is all my doing. And yet regret is futile now. I heard everything Nukasuke said, and everything Your Eminence answered him, from where I was. If what he said about the rescript is true, then calamity cannot be far off. What happened was something Your Eminence knew nothing about from the start: I shall insist upon this as many times as I need to, and bear the burden of this crime myself, come what may. Of course I shall. I am fully prepared to—and yet who shall serve my ailing, crippled master from tomorrow? Day after day you will waste away, as pitiable and appalling as that is, until you succumb to illness. I think of this, and know that to leave you so would be to commit a sin of unfilial conduct, of a magnitude I could not atone for if I had nine lifetimes to do it in. How, oh how can this have come to pass? For generations three my fathers have excelled in loyalty and righteousness, and yet, like trees, complete with fruit and flow’rs, they have been buried, left to petrify, abandoned in the floating, mis’rable world, estranged from th’shining of the moon and sun. I would care nothing for my dewdrop life, but I think of you and precious does it seem.” His speech faltered here, and he blew his nose.

Bansaku had been stirring the ashes with a pair of tongs; now he stood them up in the brazier, sighed, and said: “Good fortune and ill are governed by time, by Heaven, by fate. You should not resent this; neither should you grieve for it. My word, Shino—did you not hear what I told Nukasuke? That rescript is a fabrication dreamt up by those people, and none too cunningly. They might be able to fool a child with a scheme of that sort, but how could they fool me? This is all a strategy imparted by Hikiroku to my sister, who then gulled Nukasuke into cooperating, that they might snatch that treasure, that sword. A rather transparent ploy, think you not?

“To begin with, over the course of the last twenty years they have tried I know not how many times to steal Rainmaker from me, pouring their hearts into every channel they could think of. They have talked people into trying to buy the blade from me, tempting me with gain, for its worth is very great; they have arranged for men to surmount the hedge and examine the locks, that they might steal it from me in the night. But if they have conceived a hundred schemes, I have employed a hundred defenses. That is why to this day they have been unable to carry out their evil intent: and how it must gall them! Then today, all unintended they maimed our dog, and as the gloom lifted from their breasts, in its place arose again this evil intent, and they devised this ruse of the rescript as a plot for seizing the sword: I can see it all as clearly as if in a mirror.

“In any event, I have for years suspected how much Hikiroku pins his hopes upon that precious weapon. Calling himself a remnant of my father’s line, he has become the Estatesman over this place, but he has neither genealogy nor ancient records passed down to him through generations. Were I, possessing that longsword, to contest the family headship with him, I should have no difficulty in claiming it, first of all. When the Minister of the Court Nariuji fell, these lands came under the disposition of the two Overseers in Kamakura. This made Hikiroku, in other words, the remnant of the house of a retainer of an enemy of the Overseers—this in a man with no former merit or service to strengthen his position. Unless he makes some trifling display of loyalty, he will not long remain in possession of his estate. This is the second thing he fears. Thus he would offer up the sword Rainmaker to Kamakura, in hopes of warding off demons of both a public and a private nature, that he might rest easy.

“I have already decided, for my elder sister’s sake, not to contest the estate. Why, then, should I begrudge them a longsword? Why, indeed, and yet that precious blade is a memento of my young lords, and my late father’s parting commands concerning it weigh heavy upon me. I would see the blade perish alongside me ere I give it to my sister’s husband. Then, too, it was not only out of consideration for my elder sister that I refrained from presenting Rainmaker to the Minister of the Court Nariuji in the beginning. Shun’ō, Yasuō, and Eijuō³—all three were sons of Mochiuji, but my father’s service was only to the princes Shun’ō and Yasuō. His parting admonition to me was that, should those two princes be cut down, I should keep the precious sword as a memento of my father and lords, and with it mourn the princes and pray that they might be advanced in the Buddha’s truth. This was all he said: he never bade me present the sword to Eijuō. It is because I cleave unto this principle that I have hidden the sword and protected it from thieves these many years, that when you became a man you might give it up to His Lordship the Director [meaning nariuji, the director of the left guards] and thus earn distinction for yourself. Tonight I shall yield it unto you. Behold!”

Whereupon he felt around in a box of writing implements until he found a dagger. With it he took aim at a large tube of bamboo that hung suspended from a roof beam, and with a single blow severed the cords from which it hung: the tube crashed to the floor and split open lengthwise to reveal the precious blade itself, Rainmaker. Bansaku hastily untied the brocade pouch in which it was encased. He then reverently pressed the sword to his forehead and concentrated for a few moments. Finally, he drew the blade.

Shino reseated himself closer to his father and stared, unblinking, at the sword, examining it from base to tip. Brilliant gleamed its pattern of the Seven Stars,⁴ coldly shone its three feet of icy steel. Dew formed, then frost, along its blade of such a perfect moon-crescent shape that in its power to banish bale and conquer the monstrous it appeared to be the equal of such eternal treasures as Great Arc or Dragon’s Spring in China, or Unsheather, Gold Lacquer Dove, Little Crow, or Demon in our own land.⁵

Top right: In the night, Bansaku delivers his final teaching to his son and gives him the longsword Rainmaker.
Top left: In roundel: Girded by rain in Chu in the South, birds / know ’tis spring and leave for Yan in the North.
In rectangle: Bright and sharp / as blade of sword, the moon / behind the clouds / suddenly cleft asunder: / and the sky makes rain—Gendō
Figure Labels: Shino [right]. Inuzuka Bansaku [left].
Note: Both poems are by Bakin; Gendō is one of his other pennames. Chu and Yan were lands on the southern and northern extremities of China.

After a time, Bansaku gently slid the blade back into its sheath. “Shino, do you know the miracle of this blade? When it is drawn with a mind to kill, drops of water like dew run along the blade from its tip, and when it is bloodied by slicing into an enemy, those drops become a gush of water, scattering in the wake of the blade’s strokes, even as the wind might shake raindrops from tree branches during a cloudburst. That is why it is named Rainmaker. I will give it you, but you are not yet worthy of it in your current state. You shall shorten your topknot and henceforth call yourself Inuzuka Shino Moritaka.⁶ I had intended to wait until the spring of your sixteenth year to make you a man, but my chronic ailments wrack me so that I know I am not long for this life. I shall die tomorrow, if not today, and even if I linger yet longer, I doubt I can weather the heat and cold of another year. My only regret is that you will be made an orphan at the tender age of eleven,” he said with a sigh.

Shino gazed into his father’s face. “What is this you say? Ill you may be, but you are not yet fifty, my sire. How could such a thing be? And to speak of it as happening today or tomorrow—such inauspicious words! such haste!—is it not your intent, beneath all this, to let them take you, and thus spare me, if the rescript is real and they come to arrest me? What a sad waste ’twould be!”

At this Bansaku merely cackled and said, “The rescript is a hoax: you have done nothing to merit arrest. Regardless of which, my elder sister did inquire earnestly about you through Nukasuke, even if it was in the service of a hoax, and that is a happy thing. Death is not far off for me—I shall slit my shriveled belly before you now, and entrust you to my sister.”

This left Shino nearly dumbfounded. “I can hardly recognize these as your words, sir. Close kin though we be, those people see us as bitter rivals—’tis hard to accept that you would die for no reason and send your child to the house of an enemy.”

His father nodded at these words of reproach. “Yours is a reasonable doubt, but I believe I am being farsighted in enlisting my sister’s help in raising you to manhood, while not allowing Rainmaker to be taken from us. Come what may, I shall not live much longer: can you not understand that your father’s suicide is his last resort, a plan to sacrifice his flesh that it might nourish his son? My elder sister and her husband are blind to all but gain—’tis not in their nature to know either gratitude or duty—but when the people of the village hear of how Bansaku killed himself, as I am about to do, they will hate their headman with such a hatred that Hikiroku must needs fear they will band together to petition his superiors regarding his failings. He will make a great show of sincerity in raising you up in his house, with all diligence, in order to assuage the villagers’ wrath.

“Now, no matter how my elder sister and her husband wheedle and coax you regarding this precious sword, I would have you firmly reject them, saying, ‘I am under a strict command, bequeathed to me by my father, that after I have attained adulthood I am to go up to Koga to present it to His Lordship the Director. What you charge me with is just that which I can least undertake to do.’ I would have you remain ever vigilant against the theft of this sword. Hikiroku will relax, thinking that even if the treasure-blade has not exactly passed into his hand, it has at least come within his house, where he can easily appropriate it. I doubt he will press the issue soon. It will take wisdom on your part to forestall him. Hide the sword carelessly, and he will never slacken in his efforts to take it, and protect it though you may, in the end he will have it.

“Lo, this may be a time to emulate Huang Shudu’s scheme, when he sounded his harp and put the massed brigands to flight.⁷ With his soldiers too few to defend for long, he sowed the seeds of doubt among the foemen, and from great peril obtained security, evaded nine certain deaths to snatch a single chance at survival, and this by virtue of his great wisdom in facing the moment and adapting to its changes⁸—how can that which is defended in such a manner fail to be protected? You must meditate upon this, and never forget it.

“And should my sister and her husband finally improve their aspirations and have true mercy upon you, then you must serve them in all sincerity of heart, and repay them with dutifulness for what they have done in raising you. If, however, they persist in nurturing harm for you in their hearts, and the day comes when you are no longer able to protect the sword, then you must leave quickly, holding fast to the treasure. Though they care for you for five years, or seven, it is you who are in the direct line of the Ōtsuka clan succession: the emoluments of office that Hikiroku enjoys are a gift, as it were, from your grandsire. Your aunt and her husband incur no debt of gratitude from you simply by raising you on that stipend, and so you cannot be called unrighteous if you leave without repaying it. Bear that principle in mind, and plan accordingly.

“If I now cling to my life, of which not much more remains, if I forgo this chance and end by drawing my last breath bedridden by illness, then your aunt will not care for you: then this precious blade will fall into the hands of another: then my plans will be as useless as a picture of a rice-cake is to a hungry man. This weapon is a memento of my lords and father, and I, Bansaku, who was unable to serve the two princes, at last borrow it, not to reap bracken on Mount Shouyang,⁹ but to show you this marvel!”

With this he again lifted high the precious blade Rainmaker, as if to draw it, but Shino quickly took hold of his hands and said, “Far be it from me to show such a lack of understanding of your great love as to stay your hand, my sire, from this harm you would do yourself, an act for which you have long prepared as part of a farsighted plan, and which is entirely motivated by thoughts of my welfare. And yet, stubborn though your ailment be, I have not yet applied efficacious medicines to my heart’s content, nor caused good physicians to exhaust their powers in treating you: had all this been done, and still to no avail, then could we wail in despair. But indeed, for you to slit your belly now, as if your fate were certain, when it is not—why, people would simply say you had gone mad! Is there any need to do this tonight?”

His father would not let him finish, but broke in with vehemence. “Hollow are your words! Shame worse than death awaits the man who fails to die when it is time. Long ago, in the Kakitsu era, I failed to die at Yūki due to my lord and father’s command; then, because my leg had withered, I dwelt as a traveler three years at Chikuma, and so failed to be present at the extremity of my mother’s life: a regret so bitter to me as to make life not worth living. In the more than twenty years since then, I have been helpless, reduced to being a thief of other men’s labors, even while I clung greedily to this dewdrop life. How much more, now, should I seek to prolong my days, without a thought for my progeny? A thousand men may succeed in pulling aside the stone that blocks the Yellow Spring, yet my heart shall not be moved. To prevent me would be unfilial conduct. That fellow Nukasuke might come at any moment, and then I might be forestalled! Will you not stand aside?”

Thus did Bansaku rage—he extended his left arm and tried to twist free. But Shino, though he tumbled so that his topknot tore loose and his hair fell in disarray over his face, held fast—his right fist would not yield in the slightest. “Scold me if you will,” he cried, “but in this one thing I shall oppose you—I would stop your hand! Forgive me!” He clutched, he struggled to take away the blade, but his little arms were unequal to his desperate energy.

“Unhand me, let me go!” Bansaku raised his voice in anger—his son still adhered to him as if his own life depended on it—Bansaku was forced to push his son roughly to the floor and sit on his back. Weakened though he was, his movements were those of a brave warrior.

“What are you doing? Oh, grieve me not so!” Shino writhed again and again, trying to overturn his father, but he was held fast by the pressure of duty and the rings and shackles of love, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Meanwhile, Bansaku grasped his own collar and pulled open his outer robe, pushing it down until he was naked above the waist. Then he wrapped a sleeve around the hilt of the sword and plunged its icy tip into his belly. With utter calm in his heart he dragged the blade laterally.

The ebbing tide of his father’s life in gouts washed o’er him—tears of blood did Shino shed—his father changed his grip upon the blade and now, as his right hand began to fail, he brought to its assistance his left fist, and sought to stab his windpipe—missed—but then, at last, he slit his throat and fell, face down. His fallen father as himself now Shino raised—and now he, too, was dyed from head to hip in Han crimson—he clutched his father’s corpse and sobbed and sobbed; in aspect he was as the ivy’s reddened leaves in autumn chill that, raked by gales, to dead trees faster cling.

Just then Nukasuke was approaching the garden gate, thinking, as the sky was darkening, to receive Bansaku’s answer. But as he entered he heard Shino wailing, and his step faltered as he thought to himself, “Something must have happened.” He decided to first peek in from without the fence, but then he saw, to his surprise, that the master had killed himself. He was stricken with shock and fear—his tongue curled, every hair stood on end, his teeth chattered, and his knees began to shake and would not stop. As he stood there bracing his knees he could not bring himself to enter further, and decided to leave, but found his legs heavier than he had ever known them, and though no one was there to detain him he felt as if he were rooted to the spot. After much struggle he succeeded in stepping outside the gate, where he caught his breath. “First let me tell the Headman of this,” he thought, and he tucked up his hem and ran away like a bird in flight.

Like threads of water in a waterfall fell Shino’s tears—he could not reel them in, he reeled so under them—he noticed not the presence of another as he howled and choked on tears—and yet this could not be, and so he endeavored to right his heart. At length he raised his head and spoke. “Ah, but it galls me to think how, were I but four or five years older, I should not have been laid prostrate beneath the blade—I should not have let my father die. And yet though I cry until my voice fails, though I exhaust the night with my pleadings, never a bit of good can it do my hapless father. My father’s parting words still ring in my ears—their import has sunk deep into my innards—not a whit could I disobey them. And yet I have no desire to be raised by my aunt and her husband, who are like a poison stone in a brocade bag. Nor is that all, for how could I explain my lack of vigilance to my father if they trick me and steal from me the treasure-sword? Many are the fathers and sons who die together on the battlefield, but I seek to make my way through the world to a future I cannot picture, with only my untrustworthy aunt for support—how can I avoid dragging down the names of my sires? Only because of my father was I able to endure my sorrow! From now on, who will enable me to bear the myriad fractures and abrasions that suffering will bring? No, though it means disregarding his dying words, let me follow His Eminence my honored father, with his weak legs, let me take his hand, let us walk together the paths over Death’s Mountain as we depart this life and go to meet my mother. Ah, let it be so,” he murmured.

He picked up the longsword Rainmaker, which had begun to slip from his father’s hands, and held it close to the lamp, turning it over and examining it. “What prodigy is this? No blood stains this product of the forge—it is as if washed clean by water. How grateful I am that I, Shino, so unlike my father, can yet kill myself with this same weapon.”

But as he raised the blade above his head, the dog, which all this time had lain under the eaves, covered by a straw mat, gave a long howl that told of the unbearable pain his wounds gave him. Shino snapped his head around to look.

“Oh—Yoshirō yet lives. In gaining that dog was I born, and now it is thanks to him that I have lost my father. Hearing of such a beginning, and considering such an ending, I should both love him and hate him. Be that as it may, I cannot simply abandon the beast—what a pitiable state he should be in then. Better he should die quickly by my hand than suffer through the night with those spear-wounds, from which he cannot hope to recover. ’Twould be a dreadful thing to stain this precious blade in sending a beast to his death, but this marvelous sword cannot be stained by any blood. Therefore, on whose account should I hesitate? Nay, I shall help him to find respite from his sufferings. Do you hear me? What think you?”

With this query, Shino leapt nimbly down from the porch, longsword in hand. He raised it, and Yoshirō evinced no fear of the blade. The hound lifted himself slightly on his forepaws and stretched out his neck, as if to say, “Cut here.” At this display of stoutheartedness, Shino’s grip on the sword weakened; he hesitated where he had not expected to.

“Locust husk though he be, how can I slay this dog, who is one year my senior, and who for so many years received my parents’ tender care and repaid it with affection and loyalty? And yet, while he may remain like this for a time, he will surely die by the hand of my aunt’s husband in the morning, if he does not breathe his last during the night. Shall I be weak-hearted? Even thus can a beast conceive a heart to know truth.”¹⁰

Reciting this last phrase silently to himself, he brought the blade flashing down—the dog’s head fell heavily to the earth—and from the body gushed a geyser of fresh blood, like the unfurling of a crimson cloth five feet in length, as a sudden, violent cry resounded through the air. Shino spied something gleaming in the midst of the high-climbing spurts, and he reached out with his left hand to catch it—then the tide of blood receded, until it flowed no more.

Water dripped from the blade: Shino dried it on his sleeve before hastily restoring the sword to its scabbard, which he slung from his waist; then, wiping away the viscous blood that covered it, he peered at the object that had sprung from the wound: it was, he saw, a white ball. It was roughly twice the size of a bean, and even had a hole through which a thread could be passed. It seemed to be a drawstring bead, or if not that, then certainly a counting bead. An unlooked-for thing it most definitely was, and one that aroused great suspicion and wonder within him. He held it up to the light of the moon, particularly bright that night, and examined it again. Then he saw that the bead bore a single character, the one read kō and meaning “filial piety.” This writing did not, indeed, appear to have been etched there by knife, nor written there in lacquer, but rather to have appeared there naturally, by the cunning workmanship of its Creator.

This led Shino to slap his knee and exclaim, “Ah, but what a prodigy is this white bead! What a wonder and a strangeness is this character upon it! I know not what it means—and yet, now as I think of it I recall how my mother, on returning from the River Taki where she had prayed for a child, saw this dog in the road, and was so charmed by it that she could not pass it by, but made as if to take it with her as she hurried on her way back home; and how she then, verily, set eyes upon a goddess, who vouchsafed her a ball, which my mother failed to catch, so that the ball bounced on the earth near the dog; and how when my mother searched for it to pick it up, it was nowhere to be found. From around that time came she to be with child, and she gave birth to me the following year, at the cusp of autumn: I know all this, for my mother told me so. Later came the long ailment of my honored mother—she worshiped the gods and buddhas, but received no sign from them—thought the illness that she had suffered from year after year, and that had now at last reached its crisis, had come of her losing that ball—I set my heart upon the hope that by somehow finding that ball, recovering it for her, I might bring her some respite. But, never having seen it, how could I draw a bead upon it? Where should I seek it? I knew not, and my honored mother sloughed off this mortal coil that winter. Three years have passed since then, and now, on this autumn night, when my sire commits suicide, and I raise my hand that I might make myself his companion in that darkling land, I dispose of our dog by cutting off its head, and from the wound, as from a jeweled comb box, mysteriously appears this bead. I have lost both of my parents, and have braced myself for my own end. Now I have this bead on which can be clearly seen a character representing my own name [shino had taken the name moritaka], but what of it? ’Tis as uselessly late as an iris on the sixth, a chrysanthemum on the tenth.¹¹ What shall I do with it?”

Ire arising in his breast, he flung the bead into the garden, discarding it, but it bounced right back and landed in the bosom of his robe. Passing strange, he thought, as he felt around for the bead. Again he tossed it away, and again it bounced back; when this had happened a third time, he folded his arms in dumb astonishment. He pondered for a while, and then nodded.

“Truly, it would seem this bead has a spirit. When my honored mother dropped it, the dog must have swallowed it, and this must be why after twelve years his teeth were still strong, his coat’s luster undimmed, the heat of his blood undiminished—he had this bead in his belly. It must be—must it not?—a great treasure, unique in all the world. But what treasure, though it be the Marquis of Sui’s pearl or the Zhao jade,¹² could stop me from dying now, when I value not even my own life? There have been cases where jewels have been placed in the corpses of certain noble persons, but this act only serves to bury treasure, and profits no one. This treasure-blade and this bead—once I am gone, let them be taken by him who will. And now, with that, I go to chase His Eminence my father. Time is passing,” he muttered.

He returned to his place by his father’s dead body and took his seat in readiness for his final act. He raised the precious blade thrice above his head, and then pushed his robe off his shoulders to expose his flesh. When he did so, he saw that a large mark had formed on the upper part of his left arm, in shape resembling a peony blossom.

“Now what is this?” He flexed his arm and examined the mark—he tried to wipe it away, as if it were perhaps a spot of calligraphy ink that had chanced to stain his skin, but black as it was, it remained, and he found himself slapping his arm.

“I never had such a mark yesterday, nor yet today. I remember feeling a twinge of pain when that bead rebounded into the bosom of my robe, for it hit my left arm, but it was hardly sufficient to leave a bruise. Weird things occur when a country is about to collapse, and so, too, may a man see strange things when he is about to die: so did my father teach me, and so have I read in Chinese tomes—this must be of what they spoke. All of this arises from my own confusion! What shall I care for bruise or mole when I am dead and turned to dust?” Thus spoke this rare, divine child, with courage undaunted, with wisdom and words of which the ancients would not have been ashamed. All the youthful enlightenment and talent of a Gan Luo or a Kong Rong¹³ were present in the boy—what a pity that he was so set on killing himself!

The night was short, as spring nights are, and soon the bells of temples all around rang out night’s coming, and all things’ evanescence. Shino brushed his disheveled hair back from his forehead and took a firm grip on the precious sword, saying, “Ah, I have tarried in spite of myself! I trust in being reborn on the same lotus blossom as the honored spirits of my father and mother, hail Amitabha Buddha!”

Chanting thus, he drew the blade with a flash and prepared to slice his belly open with it, when suddenly, from the shadows of a tree in the garden, came the cry, “Ho, there, Shino! Wait, wait, I pray you!” The cry came from three voices, male and female, and then the three speakers, still calling to him desperately, rushed up onto the veranda together and into the house.

1. This term translates shōkan, a title applied to Hikiroku beginning in this chapter. In the medieval system of land tenure, the village of Ōtsuka would have been all or part of an “estate” (shōen), a holding belonging to a warrior, noble, or powerful institution and owing a tribute of rice and labor thereunto. Shōkan was a general term for local officials who administered an estate, although in Bakin’s day it had come to mean simply a village headman.

2. Purna was one of the Buddha’s most prominent disciples, known for his eloquence in sermonizing.

3. Nariuji’s childhood name.

4. That is, the seven stars of the constellation known in Japan and China as the “Northern Ladle,” and in English as the Big Dipper or the Plough. As a visual motif on swords, this had a long history in Japan and China.

5. Great Arc (Tai’a) and Dragon’s Spring (Longquan) are famous swords of Chinese legend, sometimes said to have been made by the famed swordsmith Gan Jiang (a figure alluded to in Chapter XII); they are mentioned together in the circa first-century BCE Yuejue shu (J. Etsuzetsu sho). Unsheather (Nukemaru) was a famous sword possessed by the Taira family; it is mentioned in the Kamakura-era chronicle Heiji monogatari as having belonged to Taira no Tadamori, where it is said it got its name by unsheathing itself and killing a serpent that attacked its owner. Gold Lacquer Dove (Makihato) may refer to a sword better known as Hoemaru (Howler), presented by Minamoto no Yoshitomo to Go Shirakawa; the late-Kamakura–era history Azuma kagami uses the term in describing Hoemaru. Little Crow (Ogarasu or Kogarasu) may refer either to another famed Taira sword, said to have been passed down from Emperor Kanmu, who received it from the wing of a great crow; or to a Minamoto sword by that name said (in the Tsurugi no maki addendum to the circa thirteenth–century chronicle Heike monogatari) to have been forged as a replacement for the sword Hizamaru (Knee, curiously also known as Hoemaru) when the latter was given to a shrine. Demon (Onimaru) may refer either to the Minamoto sword better known as Higekiri (Beardcutter), Hizamaru’s twin, which gained the name (according to Tsurugi no maki) after Watanabe no Tsuna used it to cut the hand off a demon; or to a sword that belonged to Hōjō Tokimasa, which got its name (according to Taiheiki) when a demon appeared to Tokimasa in a dream and told him that, in order to cleanse the sword’s impurities, he must kill a demon with it—when he awoke and drew the sword, it attacked a demon-patterned decoration on a brazier.

6. The characters for Moritaka consist of the zodiacal character for dog, followed by the character for filial piety.

7. Huang Shudu (also known as Huang Xian) was a Later Han–era recluse; I cannot find this anecdote in connection with him. However, the anecdote matches an episode in chapter 95 of the late-Yuan or early Ming vernacular novel Sanguo yanyi (J. Sangoku engi, commonly known in English as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms), in which Zhuge Liang repulses Sima Yi by throwing open the gates of his city, then sitting atop the wall, and playing his harp nonchalantly. Sima Yi suspects a trap and withdraws.

8. A phrase from the Confucian treatise Okina mondō (1641) by Nakae Tōju.

9. A reference to Bo Yi and Shu Qi, who (as related in chapter 61 of Shi jing) withdrew in political protest to Mount Shouyang, where they lived on bracken and the like and eventually starved to death.

10. For the provenance and significance of this phrase, see Chapter X, in Part One.

11. Irises were associated with a festival held on the fifth day of the fifth month, chrysanthemums with one held on the ninth day of the ninth month. One day later, each would be considered superfluous.

12. The former was a reward given to the marquis by a serpent he had healed; accounts occur in many sources. The latter was a jade, belonging to the state of Zhao, in exchange for which the state of Qin once offered fifteen cities, as related in chapter 81 of Shi ji. The two items are frequently paired as examples of priceless treasures.

13. Gan Luo did great diplomatic service for the state of Qin at the age of twelve (Shi ji, chapter 71); Kong Rong was a late Han figure and descendant of Confucius who displayed precocity as a teenager.