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

Volume II, Book III

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

Chapter XV

Bansaku exacts vengeance at Kinren Temple; Tatsuka detains a traveler at Nenge Hermitage

In the eras of Kanshō and Bunmei—yea, during the reign of the Emperor Tsuchimikado the Latter, in the days when His Cloistered Lordship Jōtoku, Ashikaga Yoshihisa, was Shōgun⁵—there lived, on the edge of the village of Ōtsuka at Sugamo in the Toshima district of the province of Musashi, a masterless samurai, a warrior named Ōtsuka Bansaku Kazumori.

His father Shōsaku Mitsumori had been a close attendant of the Kamakura Overseer, Ashikaga Mochiuji.⁶ In Eikyō 11,⁷ when Mochiuji perished, Shōsaku schemed most solemnly with others of his master’s close and loyal retainers to protect Mochiuji’s sons, the young lords Shun’ō⁸ and Yasuō: they made their escape from Kamakura and traveled to the province of Shimotsuke, where they were received by Ujitomo of the Yūki. Masters and men, they shut themselves in the castle against the great army that massed against them, and though they spent years in this defensive posture, the officers and soldiers alike were united in their hearts, their determination never showing the slightest sign of slackening, until on the sixteenth day of the fourth month of the first year of Kakitsu,⁹ Gorō of Iwaki’s treachery led to a surprise defeat. The general Ujitomo and his son, not to mention the many commanders he counted as his allies, and their trusted officers and men, went out to face the enemy, and none refused to fight; long did the armies trade bitter blows and sudden charges, until finally, every one of the defenders was killed, and the two princes taken captive.

At this time Ōtsuka Shōsaku did summon before him his only son Bansaku Kazumori, sixteen this year, and say to him, breathlessly: “The waves of years on the sea of life and death batter this aged body of mine, and now, what I never expected, our defenses have failed. The luck of those two princes, whom I should have protected and defended for a hundred—nay, a thousand—years, is dwindling: all our commanders have been struck down, our fortress has fallen, and our lords are about to be dishonored. Now is the time for him who would call himself a retainer of theirs to die.

“But you, my son, have not yet come into your majority: you have not yet entered into their service: it is not for you to die a dog’s death here. When we made our retreat from Kamakura, I sent your mother and elder sister Kamezasa to Toshima in the province of Musashi, to the village of Ōtsuka, there to conceal themselves, as we have some little connection with that place. As you yourself know, that is the land of my ancestors, indeed the estate from which we take our surname, but now the name is all that is left to us, the place having passed entirely into the hands of others: I know not who might take care of them there, and it fills me with pity. You must preserve your life, and go to the village of Ōtsuka: tell them how your father met his end, and serve your mother in all filial piety.

“Nor shall I die a dog’s death. My lords may have been captured, but they are still relatives of him of the Willow Camp, jeweled leaves on his golden bough¹⁰: their lives, I venture to say, will be in no danger. I will hack my way through and then follow them in secret, staying as close as a lover, and with any luck I shall be able to steal the Princes away. However, as the proverb says, when a great hall topples, a single post can hardly arrest its fall.¹¹ Should the affair not go as I plan, I will die fighting and accompany them down to the Yellow Springs.¹²

“This sword is my lords’, and was carried at their side for many generations: its name is Rainmaker.¹³ Among the many marvelous properties of this sword is this: that when it is drawn with a mind to kill, dewdrops trickle down the center of the blade. This trickle becomes a stream when the sword cuts someone down, washing away the gouts of blood so that they stain not the blade, even as a rain shower cleanses the edges of the leaves—hence its name. This is a treasure of the House of the Minamoto, and all too soon my former lord [meaning mochiuji] relinquished it to Lord Shun’ō, that he might defend himself with it. My lord has been taken captive, and now the sword is in my hands. If I fail in my aim, and if I perish alongside my lords, this sword, too, would pass into the enemy’s hands, and I must carry my dismay over it to the grave. Therefore I entrust it to you. Should my lord escape his present desperate straits and reappear before the world, make it your first task to hasten to him and return to him his treasured sword. If, on the other hand, he be struck down, then this, truly, shall be a keepsake in which you may see your lord and father. Look on it as your master, and pray that we might enter into the Buddha’s truth after death. I beseech you, do not neglect this duty. Do you understand me?” With this explanation, he took the treasure, the sword Rainmaker, from where it hung at his waist and handed it, still wrapped in its brocade bag, to his son.

Bansaku, though still but a youth twice eight years of age, had a heart as stout as any man’s, and stood taller than most. Something seemed to weigh on his mind, yet he offered not a word, not a syllable, of objection, but knelt reverently and accepted that treasure, that sword, saying:

“Set your mind at ease: I shall take your lessons to heart with the utmost gratitude. Small though your stipend may be, Father, you are a retainer of the Kamakura lord [meaning mochiuji]. Utterly unworthy though I am, how can I be content to simply watch from afar as you, my sire, face your death—how can I run away? And yet if I cherish my name and heed men’s curses, and as a son follow my father to his death, though it may seem a thing to be spoken of with approval far and wide, it will profit you nothing. When you bid me live on and support my mother and elder sister, your mercy is not for me alone, but for the three of us, parent and children: how, then, can I refuse? That being said, we may never meet again, so at least let me go before you now, sir, before we part—at least let us together escape the tiger’s maw. Your armor’s lacing is rather flamboyant—it will, I fear, draw enemy eyes. Allow me to fetch you some foot soldier’s leathers and take off your spaulders for you. Here, change into these quickly, I pray you.”

With this attempt to comfort his father, Bansaku hastened to prepare for their solemn flight. Shōsaku did not bother to wipe away the still-wet tears at the corners of his eyes as he flashed his son a smile. “Exquisitely well said, Bansaku. I feared that your young blood would impel you to deny my wish, to fight and to die together with me, but you have done nothing of the kind: instead you display a sense of filial duty that puts your father to shame. I have steeled myself for this moment, so I will indeed mingle with the foot soldiers as I make good my escape from the tiger’s maw. And yet for you and I to run off together, father and son, would make it seem as if we had no plan. You go first—flee, and I shall go around behind the enemy, and accomplish my flight by a different path. Now hurry, hurry!”

His impassioned voice merged with the whine of flying arrows as the onrushing enemy met the desperate forces from the castle, and everywhere there were men striking and being struck at. Nameless warriors who had borne the brunt of the fighting now let their feet take them where they would, falling away like dead leaves flashing by on a stiff wind; surmounting stockades and fording moats they went, seeking paths where there were no paths to be found, scattering to the eight directions, melting away into nothingness. Blending into this chaos, father Ōtsuka and his son both, amidst much hardship, escaped the precincts of the castle, at which point the father looked around for his son, but saw no sign of him, and the son sought his father, but with no means of finding him again.

Now, the story narrated in this passage took place on the same day as that given at the outset of the first Book of the Inaugural Volume of our tale, the account of how when Yūki Castle fell in battle Satomi Suemoto left behind a moral for his son and heir Yoshizane, whom he preserved by causing him to retreat from the battlefield. That was a wise general and brave, acting out of righteousness, while this is a retainer, loyal and true as his fathers before him: but despite the difference in their offices, and the fact that their words touched upon private affairs, the actions of these men in sacrificing their lives for a just duty, and the teachings they left their sons, match each other like the two halves of a tally, evincing a sincerity of heart that arises naturally from the love of a parent for a child.

Back to our story. Ōtsuka Bansaku said to himself: “Little had I thought to live on, or to look on from afar while my father faces certain death, but the situation was too inflamed with urgency to admit of contesting his words. Nor will it do now to pursue my own aspirations and waste time in useless actions, out of a concern for my father’s present fate, for were we both to be taken captive, mere regret would not suffice. Who is to say an opportunity may not present itself later, though I yield to his will now?”

Once these thoughts had raced through his mind, he determined to flee the castle. He tore off his sleeve-insignia and threw it aside, untied his hair and shook it so that it hid his face, and then stepped in among the enemy troops, with whom he mingled, stealthily inquiring as to the whereabouts of the two princes.

Father’s and son’s hearts both, each without consulting the other, turned to their lord—Shōsaku, too, had blended with the enemy and entered their camp, where, inquiring into the situation, he heard that the brothers Shun’ō and Yasuō had been taken captive at the hands of Nagao Inabanosuke, a commander in the train of the Overseer Kiyokata,¹⁴ and that as the battle had dispersed, they had been taken to Kamakura. Shōsaku altered his appearance yet further, disguising himself that he might see what road they would take from there.

On the tenth day of the fifth month, or shortly thereafter, Kiyokata sent the Princes up to Kyōto in a prisoner-palanquin, a dubious conveyance, with Nagao Inabanosuke at the head of their guard and Shinanosuke Masayasu as his assistant. Accordingly, Ōtsuka Shōsaku passed himself off as one of the soldiers in Masayasu’s following, and was thus able to escort his two lords, though in the shadows. His plan all along had been to somehow seize the Princes during the journey, but a picked force of two hundred mounted men-at-arms surrounded them on every side. All night long watchfires were kept burning in the main camp, in the charge of men from several companies detailed to the task, who also took turns on patrol throughout the night. The guard around the Princes was never for a moment relaxed. Shōsaku had not expected this, and although it felt like his innards were being ground to dust, he could not find an opening.

In this way the journey progressed, and the Princes passed some five or six nights in this manner, until on the sixteenth day of that month they crossed Aono Moor, where they met a messenger from the Shogun in Kyoto. He bore brusque orders “not to bring the Princes into the Capital, but to execute them immediately, by the roadside, and send their heads on instead as tokens.” Nagao and the others acquiesced, and with a “Well, then” caused the palanquins to be carried to Kinren Temple, a Buddhist sanctum in Tarui, on the Mino road. That very night they made the temple’s incumbent the Princes’ preceptor, that the forms might be observed, while all around the rude stockade they lit watchfires. Hides were spread, and the princes Shun’ō and Yasuō were made to sit upon them while they were informed that this would be their final hour. Nagao and his men then retreated, sighing, while the incumbent, rubbing his prayer beads, came near the boys and led them earnestly in the Ten Invocations of Amitabha.

Prince Shun’ō comported himself like a grown man. He turned to Prince Yasuō and said: “I have known it would be thus ever since that day we were taken captive. Ujitomo and many other warriors died in battle defending us—the month-mark since their death approaches—it occurs to me that for us to die on that day may provide some small measure of absolution. You must not bewail it.”

His brother nodded at these words of comfort and said: “I have been taught that my lord father and Her Ladyship my mother are in a place known as the Pure Land or the Western Regions. If by dying I can see them once again, what reason have I for sorrow? The only thing that constricts me is that I know not the way to that darkling land. Do not be long!”

“I shall not be long!”

In this way did they exhort each other, excite each other’s courage, with never a shadow of panic crossing their faces. Each pressed together his frail palms in prayer: they closed their eyes and waited. Kakisaki Kojirō and Nishigori Tonji, senior vassals of Nagao, took up positions behind the Princes, short-hilted executioner’s swords at the ready. None—not Nagao himself, not to mention Masayasu and the others—could bear to see and hear these things without blowing their noses and muttering, “What a painful affair.” Even the foot soldiers found the sleeves of their armor wet with tears.

How much more then did the sight affect Ōtsuka Shōsaku, who watched the scene from behind them all? He bit his tongue as tears overflowed his eyes like water from a spring—his chest felt like it was being crushed, his guts like they were being wrenched within him—he would cry out his name, and say “I am here!” but he could not—he could only look on, helplessly, envying the rocks and the trees, as he took silently his last leave after three lifetimes of service¹⁵—in his wrath, he thought:

“I could not save the Princes from this pass even if I had three faces and six arms. It would be easy enough to follow them in death by slitting my own belly, but I would much rather avenge them here and now, killing Nagao, before dying. And yet—there is too much distance between myself and him—should I fail I will have been useless after all. Well, then: even the likes of Kakizaki and Nishigori are fit targets for my hatred if they harm my lords. I shall cut down somebody, even if it be only those two, and then! Yes, then shall I guide my lords down to the Yellow Spring.”

He steeled his resolve and licked the peg that fastened his blade to its hilt, to keep it in place. He circled around westward, and then faced east again; just as he had begun to draw closer, the two swordsmen let out a great war cry. Their blades flashed, and then—O pitiful sight!—the Princes’ heads fell to the ground with a thud.

With a shout, Shōsaku strode into the midst of the warriors guarding the enclosure and nimbly leapt the stockade. “Ōtsuka Shōsaku, the Princes’ servant, is here! Taste my blade’s hatred!” His anger lent volume to his voice as he proclaimed his name, and then he sharply drew that mighty piece of steel, nearly three feet in length, and with it cleft Nishigori Tonji from his shoulder to a point just below the breast. Snicker-snack went the blade, and down went the man.

Kakizaki Kojirō was astonished, and cried: “Let not the villain escape!” The bloody sword Kakizaki gripped gleamed as he swung it, busily and to no niggling effect: he lopped off Shōsaku’s right arm, and then, when his weakened opponent began to fold, he chopped off his head. Just then, however, a lone foot soldier, wearing the helmet of an infantryman, pushed through the milling throng of men-at-arms and made his way as if on wings into the enclosure. In his left hand he collected the two Princes’ heads, holding them by their topknots, and then he picked up Shōsaku’s head, too, clamping his teeth down on its topknot so that his other hand could, in a motion too quick and fluid for his opponent’s eyes, draw the sword that hung at his hip and bring it down on Kakizaki, splitting him like a stick of dry bamboo.

So unexpected was this event that the two hundred and some men-at-arms there assembled were thrown into a tumult, moving aimlessly and shouting, “What is this?” Those nearer the action were struck dumb and helpless, while those far away were equally at sea, prevented by those in front of them from drawing any closer. In the space of time afforded him by this confusion, the man cast aside his infantry helmet and cried:

“I am Bansaku Kazumori, sixteen, only son of Ōtsuka Shōsaku Mitsumori, a close and grateful retainer of the Court Minister Mochiuji! I could not ignore my father’s teachings, so I escaped the battlefield, but then, unbeknownst to him, I came unto this place to see my sire meet his fate—and well that I did, for now I have avenged him! Capture me, if any of you dare!”

Inabanosuke fixed him with a glare. “It seems some stragglers from Yūki have filtered in among us. But what strength can this lad possess with which to oppose us, and he not yet twenty? Take him alive!” came his order.

“Yes, sir!” came the response, as a multitude of officers and men began to flood the enclosure, seeking to lay a hand on the intruder. But they were met head-on by the gale of a well-wielded blade, employing the pear-splitter, the wheel-stroke, and many another secret technique: like grasses bowing or autumn leaves blowing, all who faced the tip of that sword came away with deep wounds.

And what was the reason? His blade bore well its name, Rainmaker: its reputation for marvels was not misgiven. With every swing, water streamed from its tip, producing as it were a mist that descended on every side, extinguishing the torches and watchfires that had burned all this time; the fifth-month rainclouds that had obscured the sky all day now increased, hiding the sixteen-day–old moon; verily, the darkness was that of deepest night. Nagao’s officers and men fell to striking each other in the confusion, leaving even more of them wounded. Bansaku, seeing this, took courage, thinking that he had Heaven’s aid—he brandished the sword and cut himself a path out of the enclosure, hurtling into the masses outside, then seized an opening and ducked into a thicket that grew in the graveyard. He leapt over a ditch and disappeared to none knew where.

Incaution is a mighty enemy, and though Nagao was a man steeped in experience, he had failed to capture the villain with his famous blade, his marvelous sword that had even quenched the watchfires; the man had gone so far as to steal the heads of Shun’ō and Yasuō, and when Nagao lost them, he lost face. What should never have happened had happened indeed. Nagao dispatched a messenger to Kyoto, to the Muromachi Shogun, to petition him with an account of the affair; he also, that very night, detailed parties to go in search of Bansaku, which they did day after day, in each of the eight directions, but without finding any recognizable sign of him. The days passed in vain, until the messenger sent to Kyoto returned, bearing what he announced as, “A rescript.” Inabanosuke received it reverently, and he and his men examined it together.

It read, in gist: “Allowing Shun’ō’s and Yasuō’s heads to be stolen was a failure of uncommon proportions, but as their execution had already been accomplished, the thief cannot hope to profit from his theft, nor is the State thereby damaged. Therefore Nagao Inabanosuke’s guilt is deemed to be ameliorated by his merit at arms in this recent action. He is now to go down to Kamakura and take word to Kiyokata that a search be made for all stragglers. We hereby convey this order to him on this eighteenth day of the fifth month of the first year of Kakitsu.” It was signed by, among others, Shiba Yoshiatsu. As they finished reading it, Nagao and his men wore faint smiles, and knew their first ease in quite some time. At length they gathered the bodies of the two princes together with the corpses of their own slain and buried them at Kinren Temple. On the following day they set off from Tarui on the return journey to Kamakura. We will say no more of Nagao henceforth.

We leave him to rejoin Ōtsuka Bansaku, who, while ready to die, had found, it seemed, darkling aid from gods and buddhas protecting him in the sincerity of his loyalty to master and father: he had managed to clear a bloody path of escape from Kinren Temple, from which point he headed eastward all through the night, taking paths through mountains whose names he knew not, narrow tracks trod only by wood-cutters, which he traced until the heavens began to brighten. The next day, too, he refused to rest, but ran on and on, until, at twilight on the seventeenth, he found himself in the foothills of Yonaga Peak, on the near side of Misaka in Kiso. This enabled him to calculate the distance he had traveled from Tarui as in excess of fifty miles, and perhaps as many as seventy. “No pursuer would come this far,” he thought to himself, and promptly relaxed.

His limbs pained him exceedingly. He took stock of himself and found that he bore wounds in five or six places. They were shallow, but his robe was as if it were dyed in blood. Nor was that all, for he had been on the run since the previous night with nothing to eat or drink—his mind and spirit were exhausted, and he found it hard to take another step. However, giving himself the courage of his aspirations, he refused to stand and rest by the roadside, but ignored his pain and pressed on in search of a suitable burying-place for his masters’ and sire’s heads.

The place he was in now, on the skirts of the mountain, was closer to the clouds than to any village—the slopes were an immaculate green, the waters a spotless white. He looked up to see verdant walls as sharply defined as if they had been cut by a sword; he looked down to see azure chasms as sheer as if they had been picked out by a chisel. The sights he saw were not without their splendors, but he had no leisure to dwell on them—the wind whistling through the pines sounded like the cries of his enemies giving chase; the chittering of the birds was the speech of no friend comforting him in his gloom. He went on in this way from one mountain trail to another until the day had ended, and the seventeenth-night moon had climbed above the edges of the mountains. Then he came to a cot, surrounded by a tall hedge. One side of the double gate that led into the garden had fallen away in decay, and the dwelling itself was in a corresponding state of desolation.

“Perhaps I can rest here for the night, and even beg a bowl of food,” he thought, advancing into the garden. He looked around, the moonlight his torch, and saw that this place was a rustic temple. A rounded plank of cypress hanging from the eaves of what he took to be the Buddha hall bore three characters that identified the spot as the Nenge Hermitage—they could hardly be read, though, so worn away were they by leaking rainwater. Between him and the hall lay a graveyard filled with egg-shaped gravestones on their pedestals. “This is an ideal spot to inter my lords’ heads,” reflected Bansaku, “but if I state forthrightly my intentions, I am bound to meet with a refusal born of fear. I shall bury the heads first, without notifying the master of the hermitage, and only then shall I beg for lodgings.”

With this thought in mind, he made his way stealthily, on tiptoe, through the yard, peering into corners until he spied, beneath the porch of the Buddha hall, a spade. “A nice find,” he thought, as he pulled it out. He shouldered it and then headed for the graveyard. Once there, he looked around for a suitable spot to bury the heads, and noticed what appeared to be a newly dug grave, a mound with no stone to mark it. The dirt next to it was soft and loose and easy to dig, and so he made a hole right next to the new grave, just as he pleased, placed the three heads deep within it, and replaced the soil, burying them. Then he knelt and pressed his palms together in prayer. When he had finished, he returned the spade to its place under the porch. There seemed to be no one within the hermitage—no voice accosted him with cries of “Who goes there?”

Thus it was that he stepped up to the kitchen and rapped on the door, saying, “Ho, there! A word with the master of this hermitage. I am a tired and hungry wayfarer whom dusk took on the mountain trails. I see that this place is a sanctum, one that from its founding has no doubt been ruled by charity. Let me pass the night here, I pray you.”

As he spoke, he slid open the door, but instead of any man he could surmise to be the master of the hermitage, he saw, to his surprise, a girl. She was alone. No more than sixteen, she seemed genteel, though rustic; her manner, lifting up her lonely lamp, was that of a dewy, fragrant meadow flow’r. She appeared to have been awaiting someone, and now that she saw it was Bansaku who had opened the door (for he had not announced himself at the gate), and that he was not the one for whom she waited, she was stricken with astonishment and fear, and could make no reply. Bansaku, too, was struck dumb: he simply stared at her, on his guard, until the girl, evidently unable to endure his gaze, jumped to her feet and moved toward the closet, as if to elude him there.

Bansaku hastily called to her to stay. “Maiden, do not be so frightened. I am no mountain thief come to burgle in the night. I am a man who avenged his father’s killing yesterday in such-and-such a place, and who killed his enemy’s henchmen as well, and lived to come here. All that was yesterday, and as I have neither eaten nor slept since, I can go no farther. If you would favor me with a bowl of rice and allow me to lodge here for the night, I should count it reason to be grateful not only for the rest of my life, but in the life to come as well. I have no designs—may it please you, then, to cast aside your doubts.” As he attempted to convince her, he placed his right hand on the sword at his waist and pushed it behind him, and then climbed up onto the porch.

The girl timidly turned the opening of her lamp toward Bansaku, and in its light she examined him, before sighing, “You, sir, who have exacted vengeance at such a young age, deserve better treatment than to be refused a bowl of food after the hardships of your journey, but this place does not belong to me. As you see, sir, it is a Buddhist sanctum, and being in such isolate country, this hermitage has no keeper but its master. I came here a short while ago to visit the graves of my parents, when the priest who is master here called me to him and said, ‘You have come in a good hour. I go to the village of Ōi to see to a certain matter. I shall return at twilight. Stay a while and watch over the place in my absence.’ Thus bidden, I could not refuse, but accepted his charge, since which time I have been anxiously awaiting his return, thinking it should be at any moment. But lo, the sun set—and I am left helpless, as I cannot simply abandon my watch. Thus, while there is food, I cannot do with it as I would.”

Hardly had she spoken when Bansaku replied, “There is reason in what you say, but if you wait for the hermit’s return to save this carp trapped in a wheel-rut,¹⁶ I shall soon enough be dried and ready for market. To save people is the renunciate’s original vow—how can you be blamed for doing so without asking his permission? If he returns and gets angry, if he misses what is gone and scolds you for it, I shall speak to him and assuage his wrath. Stretch a point, I pray you, and save me in my famine!”

Thus he begged her, and she could not refuse. She took up the serving-tray of alpine workmanship on which sat, covered with a hempen cloth, the hermit’s bowl, and she laid it down by Bansaku; she brought over the rice-pot of mountain cypress with its braided-wisteria hoop; she filled the bowl generously with rice; she gave him unhusked wheat mixed with dried vegetables, a delicacy for the time; the “gem bean paste”¹⁷ that she placed on his plate was, like the legendary tide-summoning gem,¹⁸ quite enough to whet his palate, and he ate happily until the pot was empty.

He expressed his joy to the girl as he pushed back the tray and dishes. She put them away, and then said: “Well, then, traveler: you have been saved from starvation. But for two young people to spend the night together in this hermitage alone would arouse people’s suspicions—what can be done? You must be on your way now.”

He would not listen to her harsh words, but rather rolled up his sleeve and showed her his elbow, saying, “Look at this, I pray you: see how I have been wounded, in several places, by sharp metal. Let me sleep in the bed-chamber—what can be done to us? Not everyone would suspect that. Stretch a point, I pray you, and give me lodgings until dawn. Now that my hunger has been assuaged, I find that I am fatigued beyond measure, and cannot walk another step. These summer nights are short, and this one is half o’er—the master of the hermitage will soon make his return, I have no doubt. Stretch a point, I pray you, and give me lodgings until dawn.”

These determined importunings, too, she could not refuse. She sighed and said, “Inconvenience me it may, but as I am not the master of this place, I cannot say any more than what I have already said. I leave it to your own heart to do as you would. However, this being a mountain temple, there are no guest quarters: you must find a pillow and spend the night in front of the effigy. As we are so deep in the mountains, perhaps you will not be bothered by fleas or mosquitos.”

Bansaku smiled at this. “I have begged of you lodgings, prevailing upon you beyond reason, and my joy at your acquiescence is such as cannot be expressed in few words. You have granted me a great boon, maiden. Please, forgive me.”

And with this, he finally got to his feet—the girl lit a lamp and offered it to him, saying, “take this”—he took it in his right hand with an expression of gratitude, and then with his left he opened the Chinese-paper door and went to make his bed in the Buddha hall.

1. 1457.

2. 1441.

3. Chōroku: 9/1457 to 12/1460. Kanshō: 12/1460 to 2/1466. Bunshō: 2/1466 to 3/1467. Ōnin: 3/1467 to 4/1469. Bunmei: 4/1469 to 7/1487.

4. Yamana Sōzen (1404–73) and Hosokawa Katsumoto (1430–73) headed two families close to the Muromachi shoguns; they opposed each other openly and by proxy through succession disputes in other military houses, including the Hatakeyama, the Shiba, and the Ashikaga shogunal house itself.

5. Go-Tsuchimikado (1442–1500; r. 1464–1500). Ashikaga Yoshihisa (1465–89; r. 1473–89).

6. Ashikaga Mochiuji (1398–1439). The shogun governed from the Muromachi district of Kyoto at this time, while Kantō affairs were overseen from Kamakura by a vice-shogun (fuku shōgun), an ad hoc position also known as the kubō (which I translate as overlord). Confusingly, the Kamakura kubō was also sometimes, as here, called the Kamakura kanrei. The kanrei (which I translate as overseer) functioned as an assistant to the shogun. There were kanrei in Kyoto (the post was held by the Hatakeyama, Shiba, and Hosokawa families) and in the Kantō (where it was held by the Uesugi family, which had two branches, the Yamanouchi and the Ōgigayatsu, both of which are important in Hakkenden). The Kantō kanrei seem to have answered to the Kamakura kubō in the same way that the Kyoto kanrei answered to the shogun, but at this time Mochiuji and Yoshihisa (i.e., Kamakura kubō and shogun) were at odds, and the Kamakura kanrei sided with the shogun. As the narration notes below, this is the conflict with which Hakkenden begins; for further information see Chapter I.

7. 1439.

8. In Chapter I this prince is referred to as “Haruō,” an alternate reading of the same characters.

9. 1441.

10. Willow Camp, once occupied by the Han general Zhou Yafu, was an elegant epithet for a military commander, particularly the shogun. “Jeweled leaves on a golden bough” was a Sinitic poetic term for relatives of a ruling family.

11. A phrase from the third section of the Tang-era miscellany Wen Zhongzi zhongshuo (J. Bun Chūshi chūsetsu).

12. An underground realm of the dead found in both ancient Japanese myth (as Yomi) and Chinese legend (as Huangquan; J. Kōsen, written with characters later applied to Yomi).

13. Murasame, of which a more literal translation might be “Cloudburst.”

14. Uesugi Kiyokata (d. 1446), of the Yamanouchi branch of the family.

15. The bond between parent and child was conventionally held to last for one lifetime, that between husband and wife for two, and that between master and servant for three.

16. An expression for dire straits, as a fish trapped in a puddle made by a cartwheel would have little room to swim, and no future as the water evaporates. It comes from chapter 26 of the Warring States–era Daoist classic Zhuangzi (J. Sōshi).

17. Bean paste mixed with egg, sugar, sake, and more.

18. The tide-summoning gem (shiomitsutama) figures in the legend of Hikohohodemi and Honosusori as found in chapter 2 of the Nara-era official history of Japan Nihon shoki (720) and elsewhere. In its broad outlines, the story involves two brothers: Hikohohodemi the hunter and Honosusori the fisherman. One day they exchange tools of the trade to see what they can catch. Hikohohodemi loses his brother’s fishhook, and when his brother will not be placated, Hikohohodemi stands on the beach and grieves. He encounters an old man who allows him to visit the undersea palace of the Sea God, where he marries the god’s daughter, Toyotamahime. Eventually Hikohohodemi feels he must return to the land; as parting gifts, the Sea God gives him his brother’s fishhook and jewels that summon and quell the tide, with instructions on how to use the latter to bring his brother into submission.