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

Volume III, Book IV

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

Chapter XXVII

Samojirō steals a new bride in the night;

The Jakumaku Adept immolates himself on Marutsuka in full view

Aboshi Samojirō must have felt the night breeze on the Kaniwa keenly that eventide, for the next morning he had chills and fever. That day he sent his pupils home early, and in the evening went to bed without eating. The following day he arose, refreshed, at the blowing of the noon conch; he put away his single bedding and then stepped outside, thinking to rinse out his mouth before doing anything else. When he did so, he heard a commotion in the direction of the Estatesman’s mansion, as of a year-end cleaning. His suspicion piqued, he at last stepped away from his gate that he might listen from a lesser remove.

When he did so he saw a lone peasant, a hoe in his right hand and five or six summer giant radishes in his left, approaching from the direction of the fields. This was none other than Hikiroku’s old servant Sesuke. He happened to look in Samojirō’s direction, and when the peasant nodded Samojirō raised a hand and beckoned him closer, saying, “Ho, there, Doctor. How come you to be so busy? Is it dog-days deverminizing? I hear the sound of brooms, more insistent than usual—what goes on?”

Sesuke obediently approached and replied, with a laugh, “Nay, ’tis no airing-out. There is to be a groom-taking this evening, and so we are all pulling out our hair, so busy are we with clearing the spiderwebs from the ceiling, beating the dust out of the floormats, repairing the door frames, repapering the screens—’tis worse than preparing for the tax inspector. Not to mention the ruckus in the kitchen! Behold, sir, these radishes, which I am bringing for a vinegar salad. Come and help out—you have been so intimate with the family these last months.”

Samojirō was astonished. “Is not Inuzuka Shino the Estatesman’s son-in-law? I had heard he was to depart yesterday in the morning—did he, then, postpone his leaving, that he might so suddenly be married?”

Hardly had he spoken when the answer came. “Nay, nay. Lord Shino did leave for Shimōsa yesterday at dawn. The groom who comes this evening is not Master Inuzuka.”

Samojirō could barely hear him out. His face colored and he snapped, “Who is this groom-to-be? Was she always promised to him?” His words were anxious, his inquiry peremptory.

Sesuke leaned on his hoe. “A reasonable question indeed, sir, and the answer will bowl you over. I am not clear on the details myself, but the groom is Master Hikami, the Lieutenant. The go-between is his subordinate, Lord Nurude. The dowry items, it appears, have already been sent—they are on display in the study right now. The marriage is to be secret at first, and so tonight at the hour of the boar,¹ his lordship the groom is to arrive personally and accompany the bride into her chamber, rumor has it. ’Tis Master Inuzuka who is to be pitied—to spend eight or nine years humoring that aunt and uncle of his, rotten to the core, and then to be chased away at the most important moment, so that the first-fruits meant for him get devoured by another—no extra seventy-five days for him²—what a fate, to miss such a delicacy! If even I, who was in no position to skim from his soup, am pained for him, think of his ire when he hears of it. Oh, he will have something to say about it. ’Tis the way of the world these days to cling to the mighty like an oily neck to a collar. Well, now, I am sure I shall be scolded for wasting time in unprofitable talk like this. Come by this evening, sir,” he said. Then he shouldered his hoe and ran off toward the back gate of the house.

Samojirō’s face grew redder, but he calmed his breast and affected nonchalance in answering, and yet this did not answer his mood. He stopped beside a fieldside well and drew some water, but it was his heart that uncontrollably boiled o’er. He lugged his buckets into the house, but with every intake of breath and every exhalation the fumes of his wrath grew more and more unbearable. And yet no ready means of action sprang to hand.

The thought assailed him: “I knew that Hamaji was betrothed to someone, and had been since childhood—if it were to him she were now married, there would be no help for it. But Kamezasa has already spoken to me concerning that. What of that now? She attaches herself to the Lieutenant in his ascendancy—she alters her promise—and she does it without a second thought of me, to whom she has yielded her confidences! Now I realize that when Kamezasa said those things to me, she was only using Hamaji as bait to get me to switch the swords! I shall reward her for this—tonight when the groom Hikami has come I shall step into their midst and expose the evil doings of Hikiroku and his wife—I shall have my way, I shall make them burn brightly with shame, I shall foil the marriage.

“No, wait—if I do that I will be held guilty for conspiring with them to switch the swords—I will be counted one of them. Besides, Shino’s blade is in my possession, hidden away—great will be my crime if this is discovered. No, this plan will not do at all. But if I conceal the matter of the sword, and speak only of the mother promising Hamaji to me, then there will be no proper proof. Furthermore, were I to bring suit against them because of this quarrel, who would judge it, if not the Lieutenant? Then all my effort will have been in vain, even if I have reason on my side; besides which Hikami is bound to despise me. If he despises me, he will twist reason until it is none, and I will be bound and imprisoned; if I am imprisoned, I will surely be killed. No, this is a wretched plan.

“That hag and her husband sized me up and said they would marry Hamaji to me, but only in order to involve me in their confidences. It would seem to have been foolishness in me to let myself be so thoroughly taken in; and yet, that night when I saw the marvelous properties of this sword I could not simply pass it on, and so I gave Hikiroku, damn him, my sword. I do not have the worst of the deal. They have said nothing about it to this day. They must think my blade is Shino’s, and have it secreted away under wraps. That is some consolation—but I am a man! Day after day, month after month, my heart has been set on Hamaji—and her mother said what she said, though it was all lies—if another marries her now I shall be unable to face the jeers of the village—unable to live here much longer. No—this evening when Kyūroku and his men come I shall visit, and there will be blood at the nuptial banquet—I shall kill them all, parents, child, and groom, and then run straight away to some other place!

“No—no, this plan will not do, either. There will be too many of them. I may fail in my aspirations and be captured, and then ’twould be too late for regrets. Rather than rush into danger, I shall abduct Hamaji in secret and abscond with her—what could be better than that? Hamaji’s former harshness toward me was due to Shino being right in front of her. Now Shino is far away, and it can hardly please her to be married to that hideous man. She may not accept me, but how can she not follow me when I offer to take her away from her home? And should she yet refuse me out of an insistence on remaining chaste for Shino, then I shall sell her as a pleasure girl in Kamakura or the Capital—’twill be easy enough to make money out of her.

“As for this sword, considering its marvelous properties, it must, absolutely must, be that Rainmaker, the Minister of the Court Mochiuji’s prized weapon, of which I have heard. If I present it to my former master Lord Ōgigayatsu it may help me return to his service; but I may be asked where I found it, and that is something of which I would rather not speak. Then again if I give it up to the Minister of the Court Nariuji, I will be had up on charges for Shino. On the other hand if I take it with me to the Capital—oh, glorious place!—and present it to the Shogun in Muromachi, then there can be no doubt of my being summoned into his service. Now, this is an impeccable plan—let there be no more debate! Ah, let it be so.”

Thus did he question himself and answer himself, sinking deep into contemplation as if to the bottom of a muddy cove, until his plan was finished—beyond finished—and he inwardly rejoiced. Living alone, he had fewer personal effects than most, but citing a sudden need for money he sold what little furniture and clothing he had for travel funds. Then stealthily assembled he his hat of sedge, his straw sandals, his gaiters—this was all he had to fit him for the journey, and though it seemed that all was readiness, yet it was not enough.

“Now, how shall I conduct tonight’s attack? Shall I attempt to lure the virgin out by the back gate? Just how am I to steal her away?” He pondered this as long as it was light, and that was long—’twas summer, and he gazed into the sky, at clouds afloat with undetermined destinies, and thought, “Why is the dusk so long in coming?” And yet he never rested from his plotting foul.

Meanwhile, Hamaji kept her desperate determination from revealing itself in her countenance. “As trivial as ever it may be, it would mean embarrassment to me should I be seen, even when I am gone, with hair disheveled from illness and the heat,” she thought, while putting her hair neatly up.

Although she had not left her bedroom yet, her parents saw her thus and told themselves, “She will not now refuse tonight’s union.” And so they relaxed, and in the feverish activity that came upon them with the gloaming they forgot to look in on her again.

And so the day at last came to a close, and in the night’s first darkness, Hamaji stealthily escaped her bedroom and crept along the veranda that led past the storeroom, her parents’ closet, before she saw that it would be difficult to get outside, as the back gate, too, was crowded with people coming and going. “Where, oh where, am I to go to die?” she wondered, as she hid herself behind the rough lattice that filled the space between the house and storehouse; as she circled round it and emerged, alas, she came to spiderwebs that swathed her face like Yoshino paper wrapped around the head of a girl doll.³

This was the storeroom’s back garden; it contained a manmade mound, now bare and crumbling. It was a deserted place, where the trees’ summer profusion of branches had been neither pruned nor cleared away; ’twas dark as ever night was dark, and she desired to hasten her departure for Death’s Mountain,⁴ and she deemed this place well fit.

She had, upon leaving her bedroom, darkened her lamp, set out her pillow, and spread a blanket, that it might appear she was asleep within the mosquito netting. Now, anxious to accomplish her deed before she was discovered, she unfolded the narrow, tasseled sash she had prepared and tossed it over the limb of a pine that stood near the garden wall. But in her haste to hang herself, and in the darkness of her heart that mirrored the crow’s-wing blackness of the evening sky, her fingers fumbled as she sought to grasp the sash’s ends that dangled from the tree.

“Alas, the evil karma that is mine, that I should know I have true parents, and a sibling, and yet never know their names! I am not unconscious of my guilt, my failure to return filial duty to those who, parents yet not parents, still nurtured me for lo, these many years. But shall I turn my back on all the books that teach a girl that chastity consists in never treading two divergent paths? And yet, ’tis my adoptive parents who are hard of heart! A person may well covet advantage, a glory and a wealth that only can be had through breaking promises, but find that life runs out—’tis not unlimited—and that the truly precious thing, and that which cannot easily be gained once lost, is one’s good name after death. But ’tis indeed a girl’s lot to know resenting this shall never do me good. The road from here to there is not so long, I hear, yet what is that to me, who am a wingless bird, banned from the sky fore’er? Yea, though we never shared a bed, e’en so, our parents gave us to each other once: we had an oath as lovers, man and wife: and now my body cannot stand the cries that wrack me like the waves from the deepest sea crashing on the roughest shore. This is the end for me. I cannot tell him; thus he will not know. If I had known what would become of me, I should that night have said more than I did—oh, how I did detest the crowing of the cock that parted us with words unspoken—harsher still the call of night’s first bell: it summons me to go to meet That that is,⁵ as it is, as the crow believes the moon and cries for day. And if, my lord, some night a single leaf of speech should reach your ears to say that I, willing to cling to this dewdrop life no more, have passed away like the fading of a dream, oh turn around and come home then and see this pine, in all its changeless constancy, as your wife’s gravestone, and I shall look on any anointing or cleansing by thy hand, the slightest drop of water in offering, as a sermon greater than any holy man could read from any sutra, and I shall become a buddha on that very day. But I must not think such thoughts in extremity.”

As she murmured this, she could not help but think of husband, parents, sibling, all that weighed upon her heart with sorrows and laments that no endurance ever could endure. Her whispered, solitary sobs; her tears, concealed amid the deep’ning dew; the damp that reached them from her saturated sleeves; all caused the summer grasses, as it seemed, to whisper of untimely autumn dusk.

Meanwhile Samojirō had judged the time right to sneak in through Hikiroku’s back gate, but he found it, too, full of people holding lanterns, going in or coming out. “This will not do,” he said, and stepped away. Again he looked around outside the house, poking about unobtrusively, until, loitering in the shadow of the main house, his gaze lit upon a spot in the garden wall that seemed to be collapsing, rotting away; at the base of the wall a space had even opened up large enough for a dog to pass through. “Perfect,” he said, rejoicing to himself. He softly leapt the little ditch and slipped himself into the gap at the foot of the wall, which widened as he passed, as is the way of rotting walls.

Once through, he straightened himself up beneath the trees of the garden, brushed the dirt from his arms and legs, and peered to see how things stood in the house. In the darkness, however, he could distinguish nothing: only the whitewashed wall on his left could he see, and that but dimly. “Now,” he thought, “I must be behind the storage room. If I circle behind that clay storehouse I will not be far from the little parlor in which I am always told Hamaji is ensconced. I am unfamiliar with those regions, but it cannot be difficult to sneak in.”

Relying on this assumption, he skirted the stand of trees until he could duck under them; he then reached the edge of a small mound. And there he heard the weeping of a girl. Surprised, he listened close and peered into the darkness. Then he knew her: Hamaji.

A heavenly gift, he thought exultantly, and though he would not thoughtlessly approach, from where he stood he heard her monologue and thought, “It seems that Hamaji does hate him who comes tonight, Hikami Kyūroku—so much that she would wring her own neck—is that not what goes on here? I cannot hear her well enough to be sure if her determination to remain chaste is on Shino’s behalf or mine—probably ’tis mine. But it matters not whose—a veritable jewel has fall’n into my hand, and shall I crush it? Now,” he told himself, and inched his way toward her on his toes.

The time was ripe: Hamaji at last had taken in her grip the sash that hung from the pine bough, and in between her silent sobs she ten times o’er the Buddha’s name intoned: and then, just as she was about to hang herself, without a sound someone came from behind and clenched her in a confining embrace, pulling her backward and placing a hand over her mouth when she would cry out, “Oh!”

“Be not alarmed—’tis I, Samo—’tis Samo. I see the temper of your heart—you are determined to die rather than accept this unexpected marriage tonight. I find this admirable, and am abashed with gratitude. Your parents’ heartlessness—I could not stomach it myself—I have been wondering how I might lead you away in flight. And my sincerity was not in vain, for here you are, though we never arranged it, and I can save you from your desperate straits—surely, ’tis fated by Heaven. What have you to bewail?”

She had no ears for his words of comfort. She jerked and strained and finally shook him loose. “Unmannerly blackguard of a man! If I were one to make myself companion to a man not my own, a lover illicit, then why would I my bedroom leave and in this spot my mayfly life abandon? Speak no more such useless things—leave now, oh will you not leave?”

With unabated wrath she grasped again the tasseled sash—he interposed himself and scoffed at her. “What you say makes me all the less willing to let you die. Day upon day, month upon month, my thoughts have ever been of you, and this, with what your mother said to me, her secret promise that you should marry me, had caused me to think you hated Hikami from constancy directed toward me. ’Tis not so: you think of Shino, who has gone and may or may not ever return—his future is unclear. Give him up, or it will mean destruction for you! I shall take you with me, will you or nil you. Now quickly, let us go.” He took her hand.

She shook him off. Her hair, disheveled like the jewel-like willows windswept, hung about her temples like the demonvine⁶ whose jade tendrils crept and clung to the trunk of the pine that now she made her shield, darting here, ducking under there, a pheasant on the hunting ground whose only thought is blending with the night to make her escape, and who, though separated from her mate in the shadows of the thickets, dare not raise a cry, nor yet return unto her lair. In these straits, suffering reproaches from within and without, pursued and cornered, Hamaji finally, heavily, collapsed in tears.

“Enough of that,” he said as he hauled her up by her collar. With a hand towel he gagged her as one would a monkey, then he tucked her firmly under his arm—so weak was Hamaji, her body so wasted by illness, that she was like a locust in the night, taken by an owl without a sound, a pitiful creature.

Now Samojirō, his arm around the girl, could not pass through the hole that he had entered by. He looked around—“Now how shall we escape?”—and as he did, the sash’s trailing ends did brush against his cheek. With his left hand he grabbed them—“Perfect!” said he, wrapping them around his hand, then climbing in a flash the ven’rable pine, along whose spreading limbs he inched until he gained the wall to which they led—he strained, he mounted it, and then, quickly, he low’red himself outside. He crossed the ditch in a single stride, as silent as a tree frog, and without losing a shoe; these he proceeded to exchange for the travel sandals he had prepared before. He led her away.

By this time, in the kitchen all was done. The ceremonial earthenware was out, and the knife and seasonings had done their work. Hikiroku was seeing to the alcove in the study, arranging flowers in a bamboo tube and hanging a scroll, when night’s first bell rang. “The time is near,” he reflected.

He summoned Kamezasa, and said to her, “In less than two hours his lordship the groom will be here. Summer nights can slip away, and we cannot avoid telling her forever. Let Hamaji know thus-and-such and see that she is dressed, I pray you.”

Kamezasa nodded. “Precisely what I was thinking. I have had so little time that I have not stopped by her bedroom since it became dark, but some of the women said that she ate a bit of rice in hot water. Since her hair has been put up it will be easy enough to make her change her clothes. How busy I am!” she said, and went away toward the bedroom in question.

Before long, however, she came running back, crying, “Something has happened! Something has happened!”

Hikiroku looked at her in surprise and asked, “What can be the cause of this great noise?”

But he hardly had time to finish the question before she continued, her eyes wide open with alarm, “Oh, ’tis unhappy, ’tis unhappy for us, and you should not be so calm! Hamaji has slipped away, escaped her mosquito net and gone somewhere and left no trace. I thought perhaps she might have gone to the outhouse, and so I searched it, examined every corner of the bathhouse, but she was not there. She has absconded, I fear!”

When Hikiroku heard this news he dropped and broke the flower vase he held. He stooped to mop up the spreading pool of water with the skirts of his trousers, but before he had even finished he stood up again and said, “This is a terrible thing. But we must not panic. Go, go,” he said.

He took up a lamp and went out into the garden, where he and Kamezasa together searched among the trees with no success before they passed into the space between the house and the storehouse and the little back garden tucked away there. It was apparent to them that she had left through here and had tied her sash to a limb of the spreading pine as a foothold by which she climbed onto the wall, where her muddy feet had left their telltale prints.

The tether of his hope was severed, and Hikiroku stood like a boat drifting in the offing, irrecoverably at sea, his countenance paler than water. Kamezasa looked at him and sighed. “I was taken in by the fact that she had done up her hair and failed to have her watched, even as the night approached, and now the firefly has escaped the net. It occurs to me that no doubt Hamaji and Shino must have planned this, that he must have lured her away, the bothersome boy.”

Hikiroku considered this, then said, “Shino is with Gakuzō, and between them there is no love. Even if such an understanding existed between Shino and Hamaji, he would not find it easy to turn back from the road he has taken and do anything about it. The one I despise is that Samoji. Come quickly.” Leading the way, he ran back to where he had stood before, and summoned a menial of quick understanding, saying, in great excitement, “Take a lantern and go see if Samojirō is in his dwelling—look carefully. Hurry, hurry!”

“Yes, master,” the menial responded, running off with winged speed even as he spoke. After a time he came running back, panting, and said, “I went to Master Samoji’s dwelling and called, but there was no answer. I opened the door and looked inside, but the master and all of his personal effects were gone—the house stood as if it was never occupied. Appearances lead me to conclude beyond any doubt that he has absconded.”

Hearing this the couple knew a towering, unsupportable hatred for Samojirō. Immediately they summoned their menservants, old and young, and told them what had happened. “The interloper is Samoji, the scoundrel. He cannot have gone far, I think: pursue him and drag him back to me. He may overmatch you—if he does, so be it—but above all, do not let Hamaji elude you. If you carry lights he is sure to take notice of you, and you will find it difficult to capture him—darkness is best for pursuit. Sesuke, you are old, and your legs are weak, but this one night, put your heart into it. Any who renders meritorious service in this will be rewarded beyond his station. You and you go east, you and you go west—do not let them slip by. Now go, quickly!”

Still, even after he had dispatched the servants in every direction in companies of two or three, and they had all gone in the blink of an eye, the couple remained uneasy. Kamezasa, stricken with a headache, was massaging her forehead as she looked up and said, with a hatred for both others and herself, “I never dreamed that this would happen when I invited Samojirō in as a means of banishing Shino. And yet it is my fault, for mistakenly assuming that Hamaji would remain true and never transfer her affections to another, and for neglecting to guard against any opening a thief might seize. How it vexes me!”

Hikiroku groaned. “’Tis done, and no amount of regret will undo it. Before that, we have a wedding tonight: ’tis upon us—the groom will arrive before long. If they do not bring Hamaji back by then, what shall we say to him?” Hikiroku’s head, too, began to hurt.

Meanwhile, Dotarō—he who had formerly been induced by Hikiroku to kill Shino at the River Kaniwa unbeknown to anyone, but who had found the latter’s abilities in the water to be superior to his own, thus preventing the realization of his scheme, and who having thus labored mightily but bootlessly could not satisfy Hikiroku, so that he got but little cash for his troubles—had been unlucky at dice the night before, and was left without a single iron coin. By nature an unrivaled villain, he thought to himself, “Perhaps I shall shake down the Estatesman for the price of a little sake,” and so as the evening grew cool he entered in by the rear gate, with an expression as of one come to visit.

Hikiroku, upon seeing him, immediately rejoiced in his heart. He stood up to meet him, saying, “Well met, Dotarō—welcome is the hour in which you come!”

“Perhaps not as welcome as you think—what you gave me for my troubles the other night was so far beneath market price as to be worthless. Give me a little more, at least the price of some sake,” Dotarō said.

But Hikiroku stopped him. “Now, now, is this any time to bring that up? I have a new request to make of you. We have been visited tonight by an unexpected hardship. It is on this wise,” he said, and hurriedly explained the circumstances. “This interloper who has run away with our daughter is known to you. He is Aboshi Samojirō, who shared a boat with you on the River Kaniwa. I have already sent every member of the household, old and young, in pursuit, but I have misgivings as to what they can do alone. How unsurpassed my happiness in obtaining the assistance of one such as yourself, who arrived with no summons! My luck, it seems, is not yet spent. Go quickly, chase them, detain them, and if you will drag them back here, you will be recompensed for your troubles, and we shall not niggle over the amount. Quite simply, I beg you to do this.”

Husband and wife both went so far as to bow down to him in hopes of persuading him. Dotarō, hearing their pleas, nodded and said, “Indeed, as I was on my way here just now, I saw two sedan-bearers of my acquaintance, Katarō and Itarō: they were haggling over price with a traveler, while a passenger had already entered their sedan, which nevertheless they had not yet hoisted. As it was dark as a crow’s feathers I could not see them well—I merely hailed Itarō and the others and passed them by without pausing to rest—but there can be no doubt that Samojirō was that traveler. Your Honor’s daughter will have been in that sedan. They were on the road leading to the Koishi River, and Hongō Hill. I shall go and catch them.”

He hitched up his hem and was about to leave when Hikiroku hastily called him back. “Samojirō is a drifter, a warrior, and it is difficult to know his attainments—it would be a mistake for you to chase him empty-handed. Take this,” Hikiroku said, proffering his spare sword.

Dotarō accepted it and girded it upon his waist, saying, “This gives me courage. I shall take them by the base of the wing, goose and gander, and bring them back in the blink of an eye. Warm some sake for me while you wait, pray.”

The couple hurried him on his way then—“Quickly, then! How reliable he seems!” He did not look back, but disappeared into darkness like a flash of lightning.

We now divide the thread of our story and introduce a queer ascetic known as Kenryū, the Jakumaku Adept. His country and lineage were both unknown. The previous summer he had made Mutsu and Dewa his haunts; this year he had migrated to Shimotsuke and Shimōsa; and finally he had planted his ringed staff in Musashi, where he was revered by the foolish folk thereabouts. His discipline consisted of building a fire and walking amid the flames with such self-possession that he emerged with unscorched limbs. Because of this it came to be said that he could divine the auspicious or inauspicious, the regrettable and embarrassing, in people’s futures, and that any prayers he offered up on behalf of people’s illnesses or misfortunes would be answered with manifestations. He had spent years journeying to famous spots and ascending sacred mountains—Yoshino, Mount Katsuragi, the three shrines of Kumano, Mount Fuji in Suruga, Mount Aso in Higo, Kirifuri in Satsuma, Mount Futare in Shimotsuke, Mount Haguro in Dewa—where he had consorted with men, gods, and other creatures, and it was said that he had learned how to never grow old. Indeed in appearance, with his raven tresses and flowing beard, he was indistinguishable from a man in the prime of his life. Yet one could ask him about century-old ruins and receive an explanation as clear as if the adept were beholding the answer at that very moment. Everyone revered and adulated him.

Now this Kenryū had a lump on his left shoulder, such that his form was lopsided. When asked about this, he replied, “Buddhas and bodhisattvas continually reside within my body. The left is the direction in which the heavens move, while the shoulder is the most elevated part of one’s limbs. Thus from the east Amaterasu the Great Imperial Goddess and from the west Sakyamuni Buddha have deigned to lodge here.”

Thus it was that this summer Kenryū had come to jangle his staff in the district of Toshima, where he made it known unto the foolish folk that: “The Three Realms are a house afire.⁷ We stand on defiled ground, ignorant of our defilement. We wallow in cupidity, unaware of our cupidity. Samsara stems from attachment: sufferings, in all their multitudes, come from loves and hatreds. Whence proceed the Four Great Elements?⁸ Consider this, that all is emptiness. Whence arise the Ten Evils?⁹ Reflect on this, that they are the same delusion. Thus: the buddhas manifest themselves in the realms of evil destinies, offering salvation unstintingly, but the hordes of the unenlightened are vast without number. Those with no buddha-fate are born into the Buddhaless realms, and those with no buddha-nature fall into the Way of Beasts. Fate is not universal in degree: therefore the World-Honored One entered the chamber of nirvana, teaching of peace through quietude unto extinction. Indeed all who live must surely die. None who take form may elude its destruction. When the circle is completed it is as the setting sun, or thick ice that melts. Can anything remain of any of us? Far better, then, to quickly return this body to the heavenly halls, and enter the gates of meditation on the far shore. Therefore, on the coming nineteenth day of the sixth month, at the end of the hour of the monkey when the sun begins to sink, I shall immolate myself in fire. I shall do this on the borders of Hongō in Toshima, on the skirts of Marutsuka Hill. All who have deep faith and a connection by fate with the Buddha’s truth are welcome, both clergy and layman, and need bring only a bundle of brushwood as alms.”

The villagers, who already revered him, exclaimed when they heard this. “We hear of ascetics immolating themselves in ancient times, but all they did was to enter into the earth while still alive. Self-immolation by fire must be the hardest of all. How can we not wish to worship a holy incarnation as he enters into his annihilation, no matter when he schedules it?”

They all looked forward to the day eagerly, and when the sixth-month moon was at its best for gazing at, they all, in accordance with Kenryū’s directions, cleared away the thatch on the skirts of Marutsuka Hill and made there an earthen dais surrounded by pillars of black wood. At the foot of the dais they dug a large hole, some ten or twelve yards wide and more than three yards deep, into which they tossed a large quantity of brushwood packed so closely that the smallest bug could not crawl through the pile.

Now, this Marutsuka Hill was on the west of Hongō, in Toshima. To the southeast stretched the vast and verdant sea, over which one could see as far as the frontiers of Awa and Kazusa; to the west were the jagged, serried mountains, Hakone, Ashigara, Fuji covered with snow, chilling to look at even in summer. It was not on the Kamakura Highway, but it was on a path that led to the Kiso Road, a shortcut taken by those bound for Kazusa or Shimōsa.

Thus it was that the day swiftly came. Kenryū, the Jakumaku Adept, bound a white cloth around his head and donned a spotless robe of the same stuff. He took a seat on the platform in the center of the dais. In one hand he held a golden bell, which he swung and sounded. On his chest he wore a bright mirror, a circular stole was draped down his back, and he intentionally forwent his usual head-dress. In this unusual attire, with his eyes closed in contemplation, he chanted sutras from morning until dark, and his voice, no matter which sutra he was intoning, was always clear and robust, while his gaze, when he glanced at someone, as he often did, was ever flashing and piercing.

Men and women, old and young, from everywhere roundabout crowded together beneath his dais, surrounding him so that even unto the feet of the hills and their paddies there was no place left unoccupied; the summer sun shone down upon the people’s heads unbearably, so that many cursed and sought the shade of trees, saying, “Are we here to immolate ourselves, too?”

Twilight was fast approaching, and some who had been previously instructed to do so now set fire to the brushwood, which leapt into flame, so that those at the foot of the dais were thrown into confusion by the raging heat and blaze, and began to mill about and back away.

At this point Kenryū stopped his sutra chanting. Still clattering his flat metal prayer beads, he gazed thoughtfully down from the dais for a time, then raised his voice in praise. “Long ago when the Tathagata’s cousin Ananda departed the country of Magadha for the fortress of Vaishali, the kings of those lands loved his virtue, and alternately rejoiced and grieved, the one king following him and encamping his army on the southern bank of the river, the other king coming out onto the northern bank to meet him. The honored Ananda, fearing that the two kings might quarrel, and in making war shed blood, ascended from his boat into the air, where forthwith he showed them that he had attained quiescence: flames emerged from within him, scorching his body and rending it in two. One half fell to the ground on the southern bank, and the other fell onto the northern bank, preventing with tremendous efficacy any clash of arms.

“The holy sutras contain other scintillating examples of burning oneself for morality’s sake, either as an offering to the myriad buddhas of the Three Realms or as an expedient means to save sentient beings. I have embarrassed myself in the way of poverty, I have served the Three Treasures,¹⁰ I have passed years in dedicated practice, but the benefice to myself and others has been far from all-encompassing. Now that I reflect upon my foolishness and faint virtue I feel a desire quickly to slough off this stinking corpse and reach the spotless Pure Land. Oh, that all, clergy and lay alike, whose fates connect them with the teachings, might, even if they cannot follow me into the destruction of the body, relinquish their treasures and plant the roots of good for the eternity that is to come. He who discards one or two sen shall for one eon be born on the vessel of the two Honored Ones’ compassion.¹¹ He who discards three or four sen shall gain for himself the Three Stores of the canon, and the Four Hardships shall go easy with him.¹² He who discards five or six sen shall find his five senses sharpened, and shall be cleansed of the Six Dusts.¹³ He who discards seven or eight sen shall be delivered from the Seven Hardships and the Eight Sufferings, and shall instantly be brought to know the Buddha’s truth.¹⁴ He who discards nine or ten sen shall be reincarnated into the nine grades of the Pure Land, and shall become a bodhisattva, a converter of those in the Ten Realms.¹⁵ In just this way, good men and women who in just this way abandon their treasures will find that, though they yet be in the sea of suffering, it will be as though their practice had brought them to perfect quietude. And how? By burning your property, the appurtenances of the Five Lusts,¹⁶ instead of your body, you will be sinking the roots of measureless virtue, which shall bring forth pure fruit. Err not in following your fates into promoting the dharma and I doubt not the equality of the benefice you shall receive.”

Even as his voice still sounded out his sermon, coins, flung by people of all ages in the crowd, began to flutter their way toward the pyre like blossoms taken by the wind or snow flurries sweeping by the window—how many hundreds were thrown, there was no telling. When all the coins had been thrown, Kenryū delivered his own funeral homily, in verse.

Thrice he intoned these lines. Then with a leap he threw himself into the gleaming, raging flames. The conflagration suddenly shot skyward as it boiled away his bodily fat and scorched his corpse—in an instant it had reduced him to ashes, and he was gone, leaving not even his bones behind.

Everyone who saw this was moved to uncontrollable tears: with one voice they chanted the Buddha’s name, a sound that went on uninterrupted for some time. Before long, however, some mountain temple’s vesper bells rang out, and all were impressed, though they needed no reminding, with the impermanence of all deeds. And then they all dispersed, to north and south, to east and west, each to his scattered home, and left the burning crematory pit behind, where only moths, drawn to the flames, and myriads of summer insects shone.

The first hour of the evening had passed, and though there was no moon, a little lantern slung by the side window of a travel palanquin showed someone hurrying beside it along the road. This was none other than Aboshi Samojirō, fresh from cruelly abducting Hamaji. Hiring a sedan on the road, he had hurtled along the byways with an eye toward taking the Kiso Road to the Capital; they had passed the village of Yumi, where the road bends like a bow, and were now passing by Marutsuka here. Now the two bearers carrying the palanquin, as if heartened by the still-flickering firelight from the immolation spot, lay down their burden and turned to face Samojirō, saying:

“Now, boss, this is where we are due to be relieved. Give us some coin and we will go away. Let us have it, pray,” they said, holding out their palms to him from left and right.

He looked back at them and scoffed. “How is it you come to be tipsy on sake you have not yet drunk? We agreed that you would go as far as Itabashi, beyond the stopping place at Komagomi. How can there be any question of you being relieved here? I did not approve of this, but if you so begrudge me your labors, then I shall hire you no longer. Help the girl out of the palanquin, take this, and begone,” he said, producing two strings of cash from his bosom and handing them over.

The two men would not accept this: as one they stamped and laughed. “We did not come all this way willy-nilly over dark roads only to receive a paltry two or three hundred for our pains. ’Tis a bewitching cargo we carry, all bound in fetters and gagged like a monkey—you may lie and call her a madwoman, you may keep us in the dark, but the lantern flames gave us a glimpse of her, and our eyes make no mistake. Those two swords you wear are only for show—you are nothing but a kidnapper dressed up like a warrior—you think to keep the good all for yourself, but one swing and a miss and away you go. A prop for my load, a cup for my belly, something to sink my teeth into at the next rest stop— Itabashi, Plank Bridge, yank the bridge from the plank and you have me, Itarō, and part of that is my partner here who gets a cut, Katarō—well-known spiders whose karma has spun them into porters,¹⁸ we never let down our guard, not on the hottest summer nights that lie like a web over all, and now that this jewel beetle is in our grasp, shall we let it slip away? Not only the girl will we have, but the purse at your waist, and the clothes on your back—take them off and be gone with you!”

They slurred as they shouted, and converged on him from either side, but Samojirō was unperturbed. “You buzz like mosquitoes in a thicket, whining in my ear—if anything you would take, first take your leave of this world—I give you leave!” He drew his blade and with it brought down flashes of lightning upon them.

Now Katarō, on his right, backward bent as Samo slashed his shoulder—Itarō, not to pass up an opening, attacked with his palanquin- prop, but Samojirō countered these blows easily. Twice, thrice they engaged, and then Katarō got to his feet again: from the left, from the right he tried to wedge himself in. By the light of the wildfire they advanced and retreated, trading powerful cries at the top of their lungs. Itarō and his companion had surrendered themselves to the blood-thirst, contesting the battle single-mindedly, but knowing nothing of swordsmanship, spearmanship, or the laws of hand-to-hand combat, they found themselves all too easily set about; staggering from their many wounds, they could neither aim their blows nor choose their footing, and the summer grass was soon enough stained red as autumn leaves.

Samojirō, for his part, was no great adept at the martial arts, but the blade he held was Rainmaker, and that treasured sword bore well its name: with every stroke it sent forth a mist of water that scattered in all directions, extinguishing the fire, which had spread to the thatch, and diminishing the light from the crematory pit, and in the darkness that now engulfed the ground beneath their feet, it sliced steel, split stone: dazzling was this marvelous blade. Katarō flinched, and it found an opening, and Katarō’s shoulder was cut open, the slash slanting across his back like the line of a priest’s stole: slippery with blood, he collapsed to the ground.

Meanwhile Itarō tottered up from behind and sought to close with Samojirō, but in a flash Samo had shaken him off—he leapt, he flew, he landed a powerful kick on Itarō, who keeled over—Itarō sought to rise, but Samojirō would not let him—he aimed a blow at Itarō’s puny neck and chopped off his head—but now, as Samojirō allowed his bloody sword to sag that he might catch his breath, Dotarō came running up—squinting in the dying light and raising no cry he aimed his sword at Samojirō’s back, but it glinted, and the light caught Samojirō’s eye. “Hullo!” he cried, as he wrenched himself out of the way, crouching and brushing back the onrushing blade.

Samojirō fixed Dotarō with a glare, saying, “I had thought there were but two bandits, but you seem to be a highwayman like the rest!”

But hardly had he said this when Dotarō brought his blade with a flash back to the ready and replied, “I recognize your face from the fishing boat on the Kaniwa River not many nights since, you ill-fed drifter—have you forgotten Dotarō of Dota, in such demand all along the Toda River? Curse you me for a highwayman? The pot calls the kettle black! But what profit is there in bandying words with a thief who will soon have no place to set his hat? His Lordship the Estatesman has asked me to recover his property, to which you have helped yourself, and I have come to do just that. As the proverb says, trust a viper to know a serpent’s ways, and these vagabonds you happened to hire last night at the foot of the hills are dice partners of mine. I glimpsed them, and knew they were hurrying some suspicious traveler along the byways—but I did not expect them to disappear like the dew before the crematory pit at Marutsuka Hill. Now I must avenge the two Tarōs, I and Ka. You are guilty of a great crime in abducting that girl—resign yourself that you are captured, that you are to be fettered in a prison you cannot escape—put your hands behind your back willingly, or else I shall have your head and take it back to His Lordship the Estatesman, though he might mistake it for one of the watermelons in the fields. Or will you run? Will you fight me?”

The spirit that shone in his countenance as he cursed and reviled Samojirō exceeded that of his two predecessors, but Samojirō, too, was a bold and dauntless villain: he raised his blade and kept his opponent at bay, saying, “You bray like an ass, yet you say you come to capture me? Well may you curse a man when a scull and three planks separate you from the borders of Hell, and you are yet atop the waves. You have not seen what I can do with this, though, have you? Already two bandits underestimated me for traveling at night with a woman in tow—they schemed to play the highwayman with me, and see how they ended! If you would board the boat on the River of Three Crossings¹⁹ and accompany them to that darkling land, then receive my blade!”

Dotarō took no notice of the sword’s flashing, the blade’s sharp gale: “Brave words, but empty, spoken in desperation—death drives all men mad. I shall pluck up the roots of your breath!”

They fell on each other, their swordguards ringing from the impact, a fearsome sound that echoed through the benighted summer hills, emptied of men, even the insects holding their breath as the duelers kicked down the tall grass, brawling and broiling, now one with the upper hand, now the other, as each called all his skill into play, but as yet neither had outmanned the other.

However, Samojirō began to tire somewhat, this being his second fight and he being already lightly wounded—did he begin to think this enemy too much for him? A plan formed in his mind—he ran away, dragging his blade behind—Dotarō, triumphant, rushed on, calling, “A dirty ploy! Come back!” Samojirō measured his pause—then dexterously scooped up a small stone. With a twist of his body he threw it, hard—his aim was true—the projectile hit Dotarō as he raged—it split open his forehead—blood spurted, and with a cry he fell face-up on the ground. Samojirō, as if struck by a spear, turned and ran back to him, stamped on his chest, ground him down, stabbed him through, and stitched Dotarō to the dirt—the name names the thing²⁰—Dotarō could only flail his arms and legs, pinned spread-eagle, and thus he died.

Now it so happened that these three, Dotarō, Katarō, and Itarō, were known as the Three Tarōs of Toshima, and were considered terrors on both water and land. For years they had assaulted persons and thieved property, frequented dens of wine, women, and gambling, and flouted authority both high and low—the laws of the land they feared not, and the local officials they esteemed as dross. When they had a bit of coin they would be like Deng Tong and eat pot after pot without ever knowing satiation,²¹ and when they had no money, they were like the dogs of a house in mourning, unabashed to be seen starving. That they, shunned as three scourges, should be found here by Heaven’s punishment, and that they should be killed by an equally venal and wicked villain, Aboshi Samojirō, is a case of one poison counteracting another—how sublime Heaven’s remedies!

But enough of digressions: Samojirō, having with great effort finally struck Dotarō down, now turned his attention to his blade, to wipe it clean of the tide of blood with which it had been stained, only to find that instead of sticky clots, it was covered with clear water, as of the purest dew. Stirred anew by the marvelousness of this sword, he exclaimed, “I failed to understand, standing as I was on the boundary of life and death, existence and nothingness, but lo, this damp on my clothing, and the dying of the wildfire, are due to the droplets from Rainmaker’s blade. This sword’s puissance, glimpsed again, shall be my bridge back into my lord’s service—I am abashed with gratitude.”

He lifted the sword in reverence before replacing it in its scabbard; then, tearing into strips a three-foot rag one of the ruffians had used as a sash, he bound the laceration on his arm. After this, since the fire in the pit was about to go out, he threw the remaining brushwood onto it, so that once again the flames leapt high—caught by the wind they danced hither and thither, spreading to the thatch in the meadow, which burned furiously, so that the night became as bright as day.

With this, Samojirō turned to the sedan, and to Hamaji, who was slumped down within it. He heaved her out, untied her bonds, and cast them aside, and then, as she was about to collapse again with weeping, he sat her down on a nearby tree stump. “Now, now, Hamaji, you and I are bound together by chains of fate, corroded though they be, and can crying dissolve them? For whose sake do you think I have brought you to this mountain pass, past the village of Yumi where the road bends like a bow,²² where these three great enemies launched themselves at me as at a target, aiming to take my life—for whose sake do you think I slaughtered them? Have I not done all of this for you? All is well as I am well, only wounded, and lightly at that, but had I died, then you, too, would have met with bitter suffering. Why, then, do you treat me so harshly, when I am so devoted to you?

“But since you do, I will clear your mind of such thoughts by telling you of your parents’ secret machinations. It was in order to harm Shino that they lured him out on that fishing expedition to the Kaniwa River that night. This means that when the Estatesman Hikiroku fell, accidentally, into the river, it was only an attempt to entice Shino into the water, that they might kill him beneath its surface. Shino, however, must be a skilled waterman, for he proved too much of a match even for Dotarō, and the Estatesman found himself scooped up, whimpering all the while, and hauled onto the bank: the plot failed.

“The previous day your mother had paid a secret visit to me at my dwelling and opened to me the secrets of her heart, how she would send Shino on a journey to Koga, and she said to me, ‘When we first betrothed Hamaji to Shino, with the villagers as go-betweens, we gave our prospective son-in-law a sword belonging to His Lordship the Estatesman, long treasured by him in secret, as a present. If we now told him openly to return it, he would no doubt refuse. Therefore we have hatched thus-and-such a plan. I would like for you to be on the boat then, and please to switch that blade of Shino’s for the Estatesman’s sword. If only we can recover that sword, then even if Shino escapes unscathed and goes to Koga, what can he accomplish? He will be drawn up on charges of disrespect, his head tied down with a rope and lopped off. Let yourself be persuaded to join us, and we shall marry Hamaji to you and even yield to you the Estatesman’s office and stipend.’

“I found it impossible to refuse, and so I was on board her conspiracy as on a passenger boat—but everything I did, even unto switching the swords, was in order to make you my wife. Why else would I have taken part in such vicious acts? Then, when I went to substitute each sword for the other, I suddenly found moisture dripping from the base of Shino’s sword—it glowed with a mystical light, that tempered blade, cold even in midsummer, and I prized it as a treasure the likes of which are not easy to come by—and as I gazed at it, I was struck by a thought. The Minister of the Court Mochiuji, the former Overseer, possessed a precious sword named Rainmaker. It is said that when freed from its sheath, that blade produced moisture, and when wielded with an intent to kill, water flew from its point, scattering like a fine mist—this must be that sword. It was exceedingly suspicious that the Estatesman Hikiroku should give it to Shino, as he said he did. No, since Shino’s father Bansaku, together with his father Shōsaku, served Shun’ō and An’ō, and since Bansaku and Shōsaku were besieged with the princes at Yūki, I have no doubt but that this sword was passed down from Mochiuji to the princes, and then when Shun’ō and An’ō so abruptly departed this life, Bansaku brought the sword with him in secret to Ōtsuka when he retired here. Then he died, and that is how Shino came to be in possession of it. To drop such a famous and elusive sword into the hands of the Estatesman and his lot would be like throwing, as the vulgar phrase has it, pearls before swine.

“So, rather than asking me to switch the swords because they loved me, did he and his wife pretend to love me only that they might bring the sword within their grasp? Honeyed words cannot be trusted! The rustics have a saying: if you are going to eat poison, you might as well lick the plate. A perfect fit, I thought that night, and so I slipped Shino’s sword into my own scabbard, and mine into the Estatesman’s, for a perfect three-way switch, only the blades, and then I watched. The Estatesman and his wife, their promises to me still wet on their lips, bound you in marriage to the Lieutenant Hikami Kyūroku, and before many days had passed they were welcoming in the groom—today, as I heard, and it angered me—I was jealous, I was vexed, I was nonplussed. I made up my mind to kill someone and then die myself, but I did not yet know your heart, and as nothing can make up for the loss of one’s life, I had no other recourse than to lead you away in flight, and thus not speak, but rather deliver bodily, my resentment to those I hate. Such were my aspirations.

“If you remain true to Shino, bound by puppy love, you shall be but a fallen blossom, swept downstream. How can he care for you? He will not return! The marvelous potency of this precious sword has been tested again now: the reason the wildfire went out when I smote Dotarō and his companions was because this longsword is Rainmaker, and it emitted mist! If I go up to the Capital and present this treasure to His Lordship at Muromachi, I shall beyond any doubt be made the master of many hundreds of strings of cash—I shall be raised up! And when that day comes, I shall see to it that you are called Mistress, and have many servants at your disposal. Now stop your wailing, and let us quickly cross this hill—what say you? Shall I carry you? Shall I lead you by the hand? What will you do?”

Thus did he speak, leaning close to her, stroking her back, taking her hands, and comforting her with cunning words.

1. Late night, the hour before midnight.

2. The amount of time supposedly added to one’s lifespan by eating the first produce of the year.

3. Yoshino paper was a kind of tissue paper made in Yoshino. The conceit is that it has been used to wrap the head of a female doll of the type used in a display depicting the Imperial court. From the Edo period on, such displays were set out on the day of the Doll Festival, and were associated with hopes that a girl would grow up to be happily married.

4. A steep mountain that souls in the underworld were required to cross.

5. That is, shinnyo (Skt. tathata), “essential reality.”

6.Onizuta, perhaps an alternate name for yabugarashi, a vine commonly known in English as bushkiller.

7. In Buddhist belief, the three realms of samsara, or the three existences into which a being may be reincarnated: the realm of desire, the realm of form, and the realm of formlessness. The “burning house” is a metaphor for attachment to existence found in Chapter 3 of the Lotus Sutra.

8. Earth, water, fire, and wind, the four basic elements of Buddhist cosmology.

9. In Buddhist belief, a list of ten types of evil deed: killing, stealing, etc.

10. The Buddha, the Law, and the priesthood.

11. The two Honored Ones can refer to either Sakyamuni Buddha and Amitabha Buddha or the bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and Mahasthamaprapta.

12. The Three Stores are the three traditional divisions of the Buddhist canon, metonymically the canon itself. The Four Hardships are obstacles that prevent one from hearing and believing the Buddha’s teachings.

13. The Six Dusts are worldly pollutions that give rise to attachments.

14. The Seven Hardships are seven types of calamities that can befall a person. The Eight Sufferings are the eight types of agonies that a person is subject to in life.

15. The Ten Realms include both realms of delusion and realms of enlightenment.

16. The Five Lusts are desires to gratify each of the five senses.

17. The monk Dōshō (629–700) was the first monk in Japan to be given a Buddhist cremation.

18.Kumosuke (“spider” or “cloud”, depending on how it was written, plus the common name element suke) was a slang term for highway drifters and laborers.

19. The river at the border to the underworld.

20. The “do” of Dotarō means “dirt.”

21. Deng Tong was a boatman who was elevated to high station by Emperor Wen of the Han. At the height of his power, Deng Tong was given a copper mine and allowed to mint his own coins.

22. The village’s name is homophonous with yumi, “bow.”