{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1210/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1210","id":"gutenberg_1210","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1210","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Ghost stories","Japan -- Social life and customs -- Fiction","Legends -- Japan","Paranormal fiction"],"text":"KWAIDAN:\nStories and Studies of Strange Things\n\nBy Lafcadio Hearn\n\n\n\n\nA Note from the Digitizer\n\n\nOn Japanese Pronunciation\n\nAlthough simplified, the following general rules will help the reader\nunfamiliar with Japanese to come close enough to Japanese\npronunciation.\n\nThere are five vowels: a (as in fAther), i (as in machIne), u (as in\nfOOl), e (as in fEllow), and o (as in mOle). Although certain vowels\nbecome nearly \u201csilent\u201d in some environments, this phenomenon can be\nsafely ignored for the purpose at hand.\n\nConsonants roughly approximate their corresponding sounds in English,\nexcept for r, which is actually somewhere between r and l (this is why\nthe Japanese have trouble distinguishing between English r and l), and\nf, which is much closer to h.\n\nThe spelling \u201cKWAIDAN\u201d is based on premodern Japanese pronunciation;\nwhen Hearn came to Japan, the orthography reflecting this pronunciation\nwas still in use. In modern Japanese the word is pronounced KAIDAN.\n\nThere are many ellipses in the text. Hearn often used them in this\nbook; they do not represent omissions by the digitizer.\n\nAuthor\u2019s original notes are in brackets, those by the digitizer are in\nparentheses.\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n INTRODUCTION\n\n KWAIDAN\n THE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-H\u014c\u00cfCHI\n OSHIDORI\n THE STORY OF O-TEI\n UBAZAKURA\n DIPLOMACY\n OF A MIRROR AND A BELL\n JIKININKI\n MUJINA\n ROKURO-KUBI\n A DEAD SECRET\n YUKI-ONNA\n THE STORY OF AOYAGI\n JIU-ROKU-ZAKURA\n THE DREAM OF AKINOSUK\u00c9\n RIKI-BAKA\n HI-MAWARI\n H\u014cRAI\n\n INSECT STUDIES\n BUTTERFLIES\n MOSQUITOES\n ANTS\n\n Notes\n\n\n\n\nIllustrations\n\n BLOWING HER BREATH UPON HIM\n BUTTERFLY DANCE\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe publication of a new volume of Lafcadio Hearn\u2019s exquisite studies\nof Japan happens, by a delicate irony, to fall in the very month when\nthe world is waiting with tense expectation for news of the latest\nexploits of Japanese battleships. Whatever the outcome of the present\nstruggle between Russia and Japan, its significance lies in the fact\nthat a nation of the East, equipped with Western weapons and girding\nitself with Western energy of will, is deliberately measuring strength\nagainst one of the great powers of the Occident. No one is wise enough\nto forecast the results of such a conflict upon the civilization of the\nworld. The best one can do is to estimate, as intelligently as\npossible, the national characteristics of the peoples engaged, basing\none\u2019s hopes and fears upon the psychology of the two races rather than\nupon purely political and statistical studies of the complicated\nquestions involved in the present war. The Russian people have had\nliterary spokesmen who for more than a generation have fascinated the\nEuropean audience. The Japanese, on the other hand, have possessed no\nsuch national and universally recognized figures as Turgenieff or\nTolstoy. They need an interpreter.\n\nIt may be doubted whether any oriental race has ever had an interpreter\ngifted with more perfect insight and sympathy than Lafcadio Hearn has\nbrought to the translation of Japan into our occidental speech. His\nlong residence in that country, his flexibility of mind, poetic\nimagination, and wonderfully pellucid style have fitted him for the\nmost delicate of literary tasks. He has seen marvels, and he has told\nof them in a marvelous way. There is scarcely an aspect of contemporary\nJapanese life, scarcely an element in the social, political, and\nmilitary questions involved in the present conflict with Russia which\nis not made clear in one or another of the books with which he has\ncharmed American readers.\n\nHe characterizes Kwaidan as \u201cstories and studies of strange things.\u201d A\nhundred thoughts suggested by the book might be written down, but most\nof them would begin and end with this fact of strangeness. To read the\nvery names in the table of contents is like listening to a Buddhist\nbell, struck somewhere far away. Some of his tales are of the long ago,\nand yet they seem to illumine the very souls and minds of the little\nmen who are at this hour crowding the decks of Japan\u2019s armored\ncruisers. But many of the stories are about women and children,\u2014the\nlovely materials from which the best fairy tales of the world have been\nwoven. They too are strange, these Japanese maidens and wives and\nkeen-eyed, dark-haired girls and boys; they are like us and yet not\nlike us; and the sky and the hills and the flowers are all different\nfrom ours. Yet by a magic of which Mr. Hearn, almost alone among\ncontemporary writers, is the master, in these delicate, transparent,\nghostly sketches of a world unreal to us, there is a haunting sense of\nspiritual reality.\n\nIn a penetrating and beautiful essay contributed to the \u201cAtlantic\nMonthly\u201d in February, 1903, by Paul Elmer More, the secret of Mr.\nHearn\u2019s magic is said to lie in the fact that in his art is found \u201cthe\nmeeting of three ways.\u201d \u201cTo the religious instinct of India\u2014Buddhism in\nparticular,\u2014which history has engrafted on the a\u00e6sthetic sense of\nJapan, Mr. Hearn brings the interpreting spirit of occidental science;\nand these three traditions are fused by the peculiar sympathies of his\nmind into one rich and novel compound,\u2014a compound so rare as to have\nintroduced into literature a psychological sensation unknown before.\u201d\nMr. More\u2019s essay received the high praise of Mr. Hearn\u2019s recognition\nand gratitude, and if it were possible to reprint it here, it would\nprovide a most suggestive introduction to these new stories of old\nJapan, whose substance is, as Mr. More has said, \u201cso strangely mingled\ntogether out of the austere dreams of India and the subtle beauty of\nJapan and the relentless science of Europe.\u201d\n\n_March_, 1904.\n\n\n\n\nMost of the following _Kwaidan_, or Weird Tales, have been taken from\nold Japanese books,\u2014such as the _Yas\u014d-Kidan_, _Bukky\u014d-Hyakkwa-Zensh\u014d_,\n_Kokon-Chomonsh\u016b_, _Tama-Sudar\u00e9_, and _Hyaku-Monogatari_. Some of the\nstories may have had a Chinese origin: the very remarkable \u201cDream of\nAkinosuk\u00e9,\u201d for example, is certainly from a Chinese source. But the\nstory-teller, in every case, has so recolored and reshaped his\nborrowing as to naturalize it... One queer tale, \u201cYuki-Onna,\u201d was told\nme by a farmer of Ch\u014dfu, Nishitama-g\u014dri, in Musashi province, as a\nlegend of his native village. Whether it has ever been written in\nJapanese I do not know; but the extraordinary belief which it records\nused certainly to exist in most parts of Japan, and in many curious\nforms... The incident of \u201cRiki-Baka\u201d was a personal experience; and I\nwrote it down almost exactly as it happened, changing only a\nfamily-name mentioned by the Japanese narrator.\n\nL. H.\n\nT\u014cKY\u014c, JAPAN, January 20th, 1904.\n\n\n\n\nKWAIDAN\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-H\u014c\u00cfCHI\n\n\nMore than seven hundred years ago, at Dan-no-ura, in the Straits of\nShimonos\u00e9ki, was fought the last battle of the long contest between the\nHeik\u00e9, or Taira clan, and the Genji, or Minamoto clan. There the Heik\u00e9\nperished utterly, with their women and children, and their infant\nemperor likewise\u2014now remembered as Antoku Tenn\u014d. And that sea and shore\nhave been haunted for seven hundred years... Elsewhere I told you about\nthe strange crabs found there, called Heik\u00e9 crabs, which have human\nfaces on their backs, and are said to be the spirits of the Heik\u00e9\nwarriors[1]. But there are many strange things to be seen and heard\nalong that coast. On dark nights thousands of ghostly fires hover about\nthe beach, or flit above the waves,\u2014pale lights which the fishermen\ncall _Oni-bi_, or demon-fires; and, whenever the winds are up, a sound\nof great shouting comes from that sea, like a clamor of battle.\n\nIn former years the Heik\u00e9 were much more restless than they now are.\nThey would rise about ships passing in the night, and try to sink them;\nand at all times they would watch for swimmers, to pull them down. It\nwas in order to appease those dead that the Buddhist temple, Amidaji,\nwas built at Akamagas\u00e9ki[2]. A cemetery also was made close by, near\nthe beach; and within it were set up monuments inscribed with the names\nof the drowned emperor and of his great vassals; and Buddhist services\nwere regularly performed there, on behalf of the spirits of them. After\nthe temple had been built, and the tombs erected, the Heik\u00e9 gave less\ntrouble than before; but they continued to do queer things at\nintervals,\u2014proving that they had not found the perfect peace.\n\nSome centuries ago there lived at Akamagas\u00e9ki a blind man named H\u014d\u00efchi,\nwho was famed for his skill in recitation and in playing upon the\n_biwa_[3]. From childhood he had been trained to recite and to play;\nand while yet a lad he had surpassed his teachers. As a professional\n_biwa-h\u014dshi_ he became famous chiefly by his recitations of the history\nof the Heik\u00e9 and the Genji; and it is said that when he sang the song\nof the battle of Dan-no-ura \u201ceven the goblins [_kijin_] could not\nrefrain from tears.\u201d\n\nAt the outset of his career, H\u014d\u00efchi was very poor; but he found a good\nfriend to help him. The priest of the Amidaji was fond of poetry and\nmusic; and he often invited H\u014d\u00efchi to the temple, to play and recite.\nAfterwards, being much impressed by the wonderful skill of the lad, the\npriest proposed that H\u014d\u00efchi should make the temple his home; and this\noffer was gratefully accepted. H\u014d\u00efchi was given a room in the\ntemple-building; and, in return for food and lodging, he was required\nonly to gratify the priest with a musical performance on certain\nevenings, when otherwise disengaged.\n\nOne summer night the priest was called away, to perform a Buddhist\nservice at the house of a dead parishioner; and he went there with his\nacolyte, leaving H\u014d\u00efchi alone in the temple. It was a hot night; and\nthe blind man sought to cool himself on the verandah before his\nsleeping-room. The verandah overlooked a small garden in the rear of\nthe Amidaji. There H\u014d\u00efchi waited for the priest\u2019s return, and tried to\nrelieve his solitude by practicing upon his biwa. Midnight passed; and\nthe priest did not appear. But the atmosphere was still too warm for\ncomfort within doors; and H\u014d\u00efchi remained outside. At last he heard\nsteps approaching from the back gate. Somebody crossed the garden,\nadvanced to the verandah, and halted directly in front of him\u2014but it\nwas not the priest. A deep voice called the blind man\u2019s name\u2014abruptly\nand unceremoniously, in the manner of a samurai summoning an inferior:\u2014\n\n\u201cH\u014d\u00efchi!\u201d\n\nH\u014d\u00efchi was too much startled, for the moment, to respond; and the voice\ncalled again, in a tone of harsh command,\u2014\n\n\u201cH\u014d\u00efchi!\u201d\n\n\u201c_Hai!_\u201d(1) answered the blind man, frightened by the menace in the\nvoice,\u2014\u201cI am blind!\u2014I cannot know who calls!\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is nothing to fear,\u201d the stranger exclaimed, speaking more\ngently. \u201cI am stopping near this temple, and have been sent to you with\na message. My present lord, a person of exceedingly high rank, is now\nstaying in Akamagas\u00e9ki, with many noble attendants. He wished to view\nthe scene of the battle of Dan-no-ura; and to-day he visited that\nplace. Having heard of your skill in reciting the story of the battle,\nhe now desires to hear your performance: so you will take your biwa and\ncome with me at once to the house where the august assembly is\nwaiting.\u201d\n\nIn those times, the order of a samurai was not to be lightly disobeyed.\nH\u014d\u00efchi donned his sandals, took his biwa, and went away with the\nstranger, who guided him deftly, but obliged him to walk very fast. The\nhand that guided was iron; and the clank of the warrior\u2019s stride proved\nhim fully armed,\u2014probably some palace-guard on duty. H\u014d\u00efchi\u2019s first\nalarm was over: he began to imagine himself in good luck;\u2014for,\nremembering the retainer\u2019s assurance about a \u201cperson of exceedingly\nhigh rank,\u201d he thought that the lord who wished to hear the recitation\ncould not be less than a daimy\u014d of the first class. Presently the\nsamurai halted; and H\u014d\u00efchi became aware that they had arrived at a\nlarge gateway;\u2014and he wondered, for he could not remember any large\ngate in that part of the town, except the main gate of the Amidaji.\n\u201c_Kaimon!_\u201d[4] the samurai called,\u2014and there was a sound of unbarring;\nand the twain passed on. They traversed a space of garden, and halted\nagain before some entrance; and the retainer cried in a loud voice,\n\u201cWithin there! I have brought H\u014d\u00efchi.\u201d Then came sounds of feet\nhurrying, and screens sliding, and rain-doors opening, and voices of\nwomen in converse. By the language of the women H\u014d\u00efchi knew them to be\ndomestics in some noble household; but he could not imagine to what\nplace he had been conducted. Little time was allowed him for\nconjecture. After he had been helped to mount several stone steps, upon\nthe last of which he was told to leave his sandals, a woman\u2019s hand\nguided him along interminable reaches of polished planking, and round\npillared angles too many to remember, and over widths amazing of matted\nfloor,\u2014into the middle of some vast apartment. There he thought that\nmany great people were assembled: the sound of the rustling of silk was\nlike the sound of leaves in a forest. He heard also a great humming of\nvoices,\u2014talking in undertones; and the speech was the speech of courts.\n\nH\u014d\u00efchi was told to put himself at ease, and he found a kneeling-cushion\nready for him. After having taken his place upon it, and tuned his\ninstrument, the voice of a woman\u2014whom he divined to be the _R\u014djo_, or\nmatron in charge of the female service\u2014addressed him, saying,\u2014\n\n\u201cIt is now required that the history of the Heik\u00e9 be recited, to the\naccompaniment of the biwa.\u201d\n\nNow the entire recital would have required a time of many nights:\ntherefore H\u014d\u00efchi ventured a question:\u2014\n\n\u201cAs the whole of the story is not soon told, what portion is it\naugustly desired that I now recite?\u201d\n\nThe woman\u2019s voice made answer:\u2014\n\n\u201cRecite the story of the battle at Dan-no-ura,\u2014for the pity of it is\nthe most deep.\u201d[5]\n\nThen H\u014d\u00efchi lifted up his voice, and chanted the chant of the fight on\nthe bitter sea,\u2014wonderfully making his biwa to sound like the straining\nof oars and the rushing of ships, the whirr and the hissing of arrows,\nthe shouting and trampling of men, the crashing of steel upon helmets,\nthe plunging of slain in the flood. And to left and right of him, in\nthe pauses of his playing, he could hear voices murmuring praise: \u201cHow\nmarvelous an artist!\u201d\u2014\u201cNever in our own province was playing heard like\nthis!\u201d\u2014\u201cNot in all the empire is there another singer like H\u014d\u00efchi!\u201d\nThen fresh courage came to him, and he played and sang yet better than\nbefore; and a hush of wonder deepened about him. But when at last he\ncame to tell the fate of the fair and helpless,\u2014the piteous perishing\nof the women and children,\u2014and the death-leap of Nii-no-Ama, with the\nimperial infant in her arms,\u2014then all the listeners uttered together\none long, long shuddering cry of anguish; and thereafter they wept and\nwailed so loudly and so wildly that the blind man was frightened by the\nviolence and grief that he had made. For much time the sobbing and the\nwailing continued. But gradually the sounds of lamentation died away;\nand again, in the great stillness that followed, H\u014d\u00efchi heard the voice\nof the woman whom he supposed to be the R\u014djo.\n\nShe said:\u2014\n\n\u201cAlthough we had been assured that you were a very skillful player upon\nthe biwa, and without an equal in recitative, we did not know that any\none could be so skillful as you have proved yourself to-night. Our lord\nhas been pleased to say that he intends to bestow upon you a fitting\nreward. But he desires that you shall perform before him once every\nnight for the next six nights\u2014after which time he will probably make\nhis august return-journey. To-morrow night, therefore, you are to come\nhere at the same hour. The retainer who to-night conducted you will be\nsent for you... There is another matter about which I have been ordered\nto inform you. It is required that you shall speak to no one of your\nvisits here, during the time of our lord\u2019s august sojourn at\nAkamagas\u00e9ki. As he is traveling incognito,[6] he commands that no\nmention of these things be made... You are now free to go back to your\ntemple.\u201d\n\nAfter H\u014d\u00efchi had duly expressed his thanks, a woman\u2019s hand conducted\nhim to the entrance of the house, where the same retainer, who had\nbefore guided him, was waiting to take him home. The retainer led him\nto the verandah at the rear of the temple, and there bade him farewell.\n\nIt was almost dawn when H\u014d\u00efchi returned; but his absence from the\ntemple had not been observed,\u2014as the priest, coming back at a very late\nhour, had supposed him asleep. During the day H\u014d\u00efchi was able to take\nsome rest; and he said nothing about his strange adventure. In the\nmiddle of the following night the samurai again came for him, and led\nhim to the august assembly, where he gave another recitation with the\nsame success that had attended his previous performance. But during\nthis second visit his absence from the temple was accidentally\ndiscovered; and after his return in the morning he was summoned to the\npresence of the priest, who said to him, in a tone of kindly reproach:\u2014\n\n\u201cWe have been very anxious about you, friend H\u014d\u00efchi. To go out, blind\nand alone, at so late an hour, is dangerous. Why did you go without\ntelling us? I could have ordered a servant to accompany you. And where\nhave you been?\u201d\n\nH\u014d\u00efchi answered, evasively,\u2014\n\n\u201cPardon me kind friend! I had to attend to some private business; and I\ncould not arrange the matter at any other hour.\u201d\n\nThe priest was surprised, rather than pained, by H\u014d\u00efchi\u2019s reticence: he\nfelt it to be unnatural, and suspected something wrong. He feared that\nthe blind lad had been bewitched or deluded by some evil spirits. He\ndid not ask any more questions; but he privately instructed the\nmen-servants of the temple to keep watch upon H\u014d\u00efchi\u2019s movements, and\nto follow him in case that he should again leave the temple after dark.\n\nOn the very next night, H\u014d\u00efchi was seen to leave the temple; and the\nservants immediately lighted their lanterns, and followed after him.\nBut it was a rainy night, and very dark; and before the temple-folks\ncould get to the roadway, H\u014d\u00efchi had disappeared. Evidently he had\nwalked very fast,\u2014a strange thing, considering his blindness; for the\nroad was in a bad condition. The men hurried through the streets,\nmaking inquiries at every house which H\u014d\u00efchi was accustomed to visit;\nbut nobody could give them any news of him. At last, as they were\nreturning to the temple by way of the shore, they were startled by the\nsound of a biwa, furiously played, in the cemetery of the Amidaji.\nExcept for some ghostly fires\u2014such as usually flitted there on dark\nnights\u2014all was blackness in that direction. But the men at once\nhastened to the cemetery; and there, by the help of their lanterns,\nthey discovered H\u014d\u00efchi,\u2014sitting alone in the rain before the memorial\ntomb of Antoku Tenn\u014d, making his biwa resound, and loudly chanting the\nchant of the battle of Dan-no-ura. And behind him, and about him, and\neverywhere above the tombs, the fires of the dead were burning, like\ncandles. Never before had so great a host of _Oni-bi_ appeared in the\nsight of mortal man...\n\n\u201cH\u014d\u00efchi San!\u2014H\u014d\u00efchi San!\u201d the servants cried,\u2014\u201cyou are bewitched!...\nH\u014d\u00efchi San!\u201d\n\nBut the blind man did not seem to hear. Strenuously he made his biwa to\nrattle and ring and clang;\u2014more and more wildly he chanted the chant of\nthe battle of Dan-no-ura. They caught hold of him;\u2014they shouted into\nhis ear,\u2014\n\n\u201cH\u014d\u00efchi San!\u2014H\u014d\u00efchi San!\u2014come home with us at once!\u201d\n\nReprovingly he spoke to them:\u2014\n\n\u201cTo interrupt me in such a manner, before this august assembly, will\nnot be tolerated.\u201d\n\nWhereat, in spite of the weirdness of the thing, the servants could not\nhelp laughing. Sure that he had been bewitched, they now seized him,\nand pulled him up on his feet, and by main force hurried him back to\nthe temple,\u2014where he was immediately relieved of his wet clothes, by\norder of the priest. Then the priest insisted upon a full explanation\nof his friend\u2019s astonishing behavior.\n\nH\u014d\u00efchi long hesitated to speak. But at last, finding that his conduct\nhad really alarmed and angered the good priest, he decided to abandon\nhis reserve; and he related everything that had happened from the time\nof first visit of the samurai.\n\nThe priest said:\u2014\n\n\u201cH\u014d\u00efchi, my poor friend, you are now in great danger! How unfortunate\nthat you did not tell me all this before! Your wonderful skill in music\nhas indeed brought you into strange trouble. By this time you must be\naware that you have not been visiting any house whatever, but have been\npassing your nights in the cemetery, among the tombs of the Heik\u00e9;\u2014and\nit was before the memorial-tomb of Antoku Tenn\u014d that our people\nto-night found you, sitting in the rain. All that you have been\nimagining was illusion\u2014except the calling of the dead. By once obeying\nthem, you have put yourself in their power. If you obey them again,\nafter what has already occurred, they will tear you in pieces. But they\nwould have destroyed you, sooner or later, in any event... Now I shall\nnot be able to remain with you to-night: I am called away to perform\nanother service. But, before I go, it will be necessary to protect your\nbody by writing holy texts upon it.\u201d\n\nBefore sundown the priest and his acolyte stripped H\u014d\u00efchi: then, with\ntheir writing-brushes, they traced upon his breast and back, head and\nface and neck, limbs and hands and feet,\u2014even upon the soles of his\nfeet, and upon all parts of his body,\u2014the text of the holy s\u00fbtra called\n_Hannya-Shin-Ky\u014d_.[7] When this had been done, the priest instructed\nH\u014d\u00efchi, saying:\u2014\n\n\u201cTo-night, as soon as I go away, you must seat yourself on the\nverandah, and wait. You will be called. But, whatever may happen, do\nnot answer, and do not move. Say nothing and sit still\u2014as if\nmeditating. If you stir, or make any noise, you will be torn asunder.\nDo not get frightened; and do not think of calling for help\u2014because no\nhelp could save you. If you do exactly as I tell you, the danger will\npass, and you will have nothing more to fear.\u201d\n\nAfter dark the priest and the acolyte went away; and H\u014d\u00efchi seated\nhimself on the verandah, according to the instructions given him. He\nlaid his biwa on the planking beside him, and, assuming the attitude of\nmeditation, remained quite still,\u2014taking care not to cough, or to\nbreathe audibly. For hours he stayed thus.\n\nThen, from the roadway, he heard the steps coming. They passed the\ngate, crossed the garden, approached the verandah, stopped\u2014directly in\nfront of him.\n\n\u201cH\u014d\u00efchi!\u201d the deep voice called. But the blind man held his breath, and\nsat motionless.\n\n\u201cH\u014d\u00efchi!\u201d grimly called the voice a second time. Then a third\ntime\u2014savagely:\u2014\n\n\u201cH\u014d\u00efchi!\u201d\n\nH\u014d\u00efchi remained as still as a stone,\u2014and the voice grumbled:\u2014\n\n\u201cNo answer!\u2014that won\u2019t do!... Must see where the fellow is.\u201d...\n\nThere was a noise of heavy feet mounting upon the verandah. The feet\napproached deliberately,\u2014halted beside him. Then, for long\nminutes,\u2014during which H\u014d\u00efchi felt his whole body shake to the beating\nof his heart,\u2014there was dead silence.\n\nAt last the gruff voice muttered close to him:\u2014\n\n\u201cHere is the biwa; but of the biwa-player I see\u2014only two ears!... So\nthat explains why he did not answer: he had no mouth to answer\nwith\u2014there is nothing left of him but his ears... Now to my lord those\nears I will take\u2014in proof that the august commands have been obeyed, so\nfar as was possible\u201d...\n\nAt that instant H\u014d\u00efchi felt his ears gripped by fingers of iron, and\ntorn off! Great as the pain was, he gave no cry. The heavy footfalls\nreceded along the verandah,\u2014descended into the garden,\u2014passed out to\nthe roadway,\u2014ceased. From either side of his head, the blind man felt a\nthick warm trickling; but he dared not lift his hands...\n\nBefore sunrise the priest came back. He hastened at once to the\nverandah in the rear, stepped and slipped upon something clammy, and\nuttered a cry of horror;\u2014for he saw, by the light of his lantern, that\nthe clamminess was blood. But he perceived H\u014d\u00efchi sitting there, in the\nattitude of meditation\u2014with the blood still oozing from his wounds.\n\n\u201cMy poor H\u014d\u00efchi!\u201d cried the startled priest,\u2014\u201cwhat is this?... You have\nbeen hurt?\u201d\n\nAt the sound of his friend\u2019s voice, the blind man felt safe. He burst\nout sobbing, and tearfully told his adventure of the night.\n\n\u201cPoor, poor H\u014d\u00efchi!\u201d the priest exclaimed,\u2014\u201call my fault!\u2014my very\ngrievous fault!... Everywhere upon your body the holy texts had been\nwritten\u2014except upon your ears! I trusted my acolyte to do that part of\nthe work; and it was very, very wrong of me not to have made sure that\nhe had done it!... Well, the matter cannot now be helped;\u2014we can only\ntry to heal your hurts as soon as possible... Cheer up, friend!\u2014the\ndanger is now well over. You will never again be troubled by those\nvisitors.\u201d\n\nWith the aid of a good doctor, H\u014d\u00efchi soon recovered from his injuries.\nThe story of his strange adventure spread far and wide, and soon made\nhim famous. Many noble persons went to Akamagas\u00e9ki to hear him recite;\nand large presents of money were given to him,\u2014so that he became a\nwealthy man... But from the time of his adventure, he was known only by\nthe appellation of _Mimi-nashi-H\u014d\u00efchi:_ \u201cH\u014d\u00efchi-the-Earless.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nOSHIDORI\n\n\nThere was a falconer and hunter, named Sonj\u014d, who lived in the district\ncalled Tamura-no-G\u014d, of the province of Mutsu. One day he went out\nhunting, and could not find any game. But on his way home, at a place\ncalled Akanuma, he perceived a pair of _oshidori_[1] (mandarin-ducks),\nswimming together in a river that he was about to cross. To kill\n_oshidori_ is not good; but Sonj\u014d happened to be very hungry, and he\nshot at the pair. His arrow pierced the male: the female escaped into\nthe rushes of the further shore, and disappeared. Sonj\u014d took the dead\nbird home, and cooked it.\n\nThat night he dreamed a dreary dream. It seemed to him that a beautiful\nwoman came into his room, and stood by his pillow, and began to weep.\nSo bitterly did she weep that Sonj\u014d felt as if his heart were being\ntorn out while he listened. And the woman cried to him: \u201cWhy,\u2014oh! why\ndid you kill him?\u2014of what wrong was he guilty?... At Akanuma we were so\nhappy together,\u2014and you killed him!... What harm did he ever do you? Do\nyou even know what you have done?\u2014oh! do you know what a cruel, what a\nwicked thing you have done?... Me too you have killed,\u2014for I will not\nlive without my husband!... Only to tell you this I came.\u201d... Then\nagain she wept aloud,\u2014so bitterly that the voice of her crying pierced\ninto the marrow of the listener\u2019s bones;\u2014and she sobbed out the words\nof this poem:\u2014\n\n    Hi kurur\u00e9ba\nSaso\u00ebshi mono wo\u2014\n    Akanuma no\nMakomo no kur\u00e9 no\nHitori-n\u00e9 zo uki!\n\n\n[_\u201cAt the coming of twilight I invited him to return with me\u2014! Now to\nsleep alone in the shadow of the rushes of Akanuma\u2014ah! what misery\nunspeakable!\u201d_][2]\n\nAnd after having uttered these verses she exclaimed:\u2014\u201cAh, you do not\nknow\u2014you cannot know what you have done! But to-morrow, when you go to\nAkanuma, you will see,\u2014you will see...\u201d So saying, and weeping very\npiteously, she went away.\n\nWhen Sonj\u014d awoke in the morning, this dream remained so vivid in his\nmind that he was greatly troubled. He remembered the words:\u2014\u201cBut\nto-morrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see,\u2014you will see.\u201d And he\nresolved to go there at once, that he might learn whether his dream was\nanything more than a dream.\n\nSo he went to Akanuma; and there, when he came to the river-bank, he\nsaw the female _oshidori_ swimming alone. In the same moment the bird\nperceived Sonj\u014d; but, instead of trying to escape, she swam straight\ntowards him, looking at him the while in a strange fixed way. Then,\nwith her beak, she suddenly tore open her own body, and died before the\nhunter\u2019s eyes...\n\nSonj\u014d shaved his head, and became a priest.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF O-TEI\n\n\nA long time ago, in the town of Niigata, in the province of Echizen,\nthere lived a man called Nagao Ch\u014dsei.\n\nNagao was the son of a physician, and was educated for his father\u2019s\nprofession. At an early age he had been betrothed to a girl called\nO-Tei, the daughter of one of his father\u2019s friends; and both families\nhad agreed that the wedding should take place as soon as Nagao had\nfinished his studies. But the health of O-Tei proved to be weak; and in\nher fifteenth year she was attacked by a fatal consumption. When she\nbecame aware that she must die, she sent for Nagao to bid him farewell.\n\nAs he knelt at her bedside, she said to him:\u2014\n\n\u201cNagao-Sama, (1) my betrothed, we were promised to each other from the\ntime of our childhood; and we were to have been married at the end of\nthis year. But now I am going to die;\u2014the gods know what is best for\nus. If I were able to live for some years longer, I could only continue\nto be a cause of trouble and grief for others. With this frail body, I\ncould not be a good wife; and therefore even to wish to live, for your\nsake, would be a very selfish wish. I am quite resigned to die; and I\nwant you to promise that you will not grieve... Besides, I want to tell\nyou that I think we shall meet again.\u201d...\n\n\u201cIndeed we shall meet again,\u201d Nagao answered earnestly. \u201cAnd in that\nPure Land (2) there will be no pain of separation.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, nay!\u201d she responded softly, \u201cI meant not the Pure Land. I believe\nthat we are destined to meet again in this world,\u2014although I shall be\nburied to-morrow.\u201d\n\nNagao looked at her wonderingly, and saw her smile at his wonder. She\ncontinued, in her gentle, dreamy voice,\u2014\n\n\u201cYes, I mean in this world,\u2014in your own present life, Nagao-Sama...\nProviding, indeed, that you wish it. Only, for this thing to happen, I\nmust again be born a girl, and grow up to womanhood. So you would have\nto wait. Fifteen\u2014sixteen years: that is a long time... But, my promised\nhusband, you are now only nineteen years old.\u201d...\n\nEager to soothe her dying moments, he answered tenderly:\u2014\n\n\u201cTo wait for you, my betrothed, were no less a joy than a duty. We are\npledged to each other for the time of seven existences.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you doubt?\u201d she questioned, watching his face.\n\n\u201cMy dear one,\u201d he answered, \u201cI doubt whether I should be able to know\nyou in another body, under another name,\u2014unless you can tell me of a\nsign or token.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat I cannot do,\u201d she said. \u201cOnly the Gods and the Buddhas know how\nand where we shall meet. But I am sure\u2014very, very sure\u2014that, if you be\nnot unwilling to receive me, I shall be able to come back to you...\nRemember these words of mine.\u201d...\n\nShe ceased to speak; and her eyes closed. She was dead.\n\n\nNagao had been sincerely attached to O-Tei; and his grief was deep. He\nhad a mortuary tablet made, inscribed with her _zokumy\u014d;_[1] and he\nplaced the tablet in his _butsudan_,[2] and every day set offerings\nbefore it. He thought a great deal about the strange things that O-Tei\nhad said to him just before her death; and, in the hope of pleasing her\nspirit, he wrote a solemn promise to wed her if she could ever return\nto him in another body. This written promise he sealed with his seal,\nand placed in the _butsudan_ beside the mortuary tablet of O-Tei.\n\nNevertheless, as Nagao was an only son, it was necessary that he should\nmarry. He soon found himself obliged to yield to the wishes of his\nfamily, and to accept a wife of his father\u2019s choosing. After his\nmarriage he continued to set offerings before the tablet of O-Tei; and\nhe never failed to remember her with affection. But by degrees her\nimage became dim in his memory,\u2014like a dream that is hard to recall.\nAnd the years went by.\n\nDuring those years many misfortunes came upon him. He lost his parents\nby death,\u2014then his wife and his only child. So that he found himself\nalone in the world. He abandoned his desolate home, and set out upon a\nlong journey in the hope of forgetting his sorrows.\n\nOne day, in the course of his travels, he arrived at Ikao,\u2014a\nmountain-village still famed for its thermal springs, and for the\nbeautiful scenery of its neighborhood. In the village-inn at which he\nstopped, a young girl came to wait upon him; and, at the first sight of\nher face, he felt his heart leap as it had never leaped before. So\nstrangely did she resemble O-Tei that he pinched himself to make sure\nthat he was not dreaming. As she went and came,\u2014bringing fire and food,\nor arranging the chamber of the guest,\u2014her every attitude and motion\nrevived in him some gracious memory of the girl to whom he had been\npledged in his youth. He spoke to her; and she responded in a soft,\nclear voice of which the sweetness saddened him with a sadness of other\ndays.\n\nThen, in great wonder, he questioned her, saying:\u2014\n\n\u201cElder Sister (3), so much do you look like a person whom I knew long\nago, that I was startled when you first entered this room. Pardon me,\ntherefore, for asking what is your native place, and what is your\nname?\u201d\n\nImmediately,\u2014and in the unforgotten voice of the dead,\u2014she thus made\nanswer:\u2014\n\n\u201cMy name is O-Tei; and you are Nagao Ch\u014dsei of Echigo, my promised\nhusband. Seventeen years ago, I died in Niigata: then you made in\nwriting a promise to marry me if ever I could come back to this world\nin the body of a woman;\u2014and you sealed that written promise with your\nseal, and put it in the _butsudan_, beside the tablet inscribed with my\nname. And therefore I came back.\u201d...\n\nAs she uttered these last words, she fell unconscious.\n\nNagao married her; and the marriage was a happy one. But at no time\nafterwards could she remember what she had told him in answer to his\nquestion at Ikao: neither could she remember anything of her previous\nexistence. The recollection of the former birth,\u2014mysteriously kindled\nin the moment of that meeting,\u2014had again become obscured, and so\nthereafter remained.\n\n\n\n\nUBAZAKURA\n\n\nThree hundred years ago, in the village called Asamimura, in the\ndistrict called Onseng\u014dri, in the province of Iy\u014d, there lived a good\nman named Tokubei. This Tokubei was the richest person in the district,\nand the _muraosa_, or headman, of the village. In most matters he was\nfortunate; but he reached the age of forty without knowing the\nhappiness of becoming a father. Therefore he and his wife, in the\naffliction of their childlessness, addressed many prayers to the\ndivinity Fud\u014d My\u014d \u014c, who had a famous temple, called Saih\u014dji, in\nAsamimura.\n\nAt last their prayers were heard: the wife of Tokubei gave birth to a\ndaughter. The child was very pretty; and she received the name of\nTsuyu. As the mother\u2019s milk was deficient, a milk-nurse, called O-Sod\u00e9,\nwas hired for the little one.\n\nO-Tsuyu grew up to be a very beautiful girl; but at the age of fifteen\nshe fell sick, and the doctors thought that she was going to die. In\nthat time the nurse O-Sod\u00e9, who loved O-Tsuyu with a real mother\u2019s\nlove, went to the temple Saih\u014dji, and fervently prayed to Fud\u014d-Sama on\nbehalf of the girl. Every day, for twenty-one days, she went to the\ntemple and prayed; and at the end of that time, O-Tsuyu suddenly and\ncompletely recovered.\n\nThen there was great rejoicing in the house of Tokubei; and he gave a\nfeast to all his friends in celebration of the happy event. But on the\nnight of the feast the nurse O-Sod\u00e9 was suddenly taken ill; and on the\nfollowing morning, the doctor, who had been summoned to attend her,\nannounced that she was dying.\n\nThen the family, in great sorrow, gathered about her bed, to bid her\nfarewell. But she said to them:\u2014\n\n\u201cIt is time that I should tell you something which you do not know. My\nprayer has been heard. I besought Fud\u014d-Sama that I might be permitted\nto die in the place of O-Tsuyu; and this great favor has been granted\nme. Therefore you must not grieve about my death... But I have one\nrequest to make. I promised Fud\u014d-Sama that I would have a cherry-tree\nplanted in the garden of Saih\u014dji, for a thank-offering and a\ncommemoration. Now I shall not be able myself to plant the tree there:\nso I must beg that you will fulfill that vow for me... Good-bye, dear\nfriends; and remember that I was happy to die for O-Tsuyu\u2019s sake.\u201d\n\nAfter the funeral of O-Sod\u00e9, a young cherry-tree,\u2014the finest that could\nbe found,\u2014was planted in the garden of Saih\u014dji by the parents of\nO-Tsuyu. The tree grew and flourished; and on the sixteenth day of the\nsecond month of the following year,\u2014the anniversary of O-Sod\u00e9\u2019s\ndeath,\u2014it blossomed in a wonderful way. So it continued to blossom for\ntwo hundred and fifty-four years,\u2014always upon the sixteenth day of the\nsecond month;\u2014and its flowers, pink and white, were like the nipples of\na woman\u2019s breasts, bedewed with milk. And the people called it\n_Ubazakura_, the Cherry-tree of the Milk-Nurse.\n\n\n\n\nDIPLOMACY\n\n\nIt had been ordered that the execution should take place in the garden\nof the _yashiki_ (1). So the man was taken there, and made to kneel\ndown in a wide sanded space crossed by a line of _tobi-ishi_, or\nstepping-stones, such as you may still see in Japanese\nlandscape-gardens. His arms were bound behind him. Retainers brought\nwater in buckets, and rice-bags filled with pebbles; and they packed\nthe rice-bags round the kneeling man,\u2014so wedging him in that he could\nnot move. The master came, and observed the arrangements. He found them\nsatisfactory, and made no remarks.\n\nSuddenly the condemned man cried out to him:\u2014\n\n\u201cHonored Sir, the fault for which I have been doomed I did not\nwittingly commit. It was only my very great stupidity which caused the\nfault. Having been born stupid, by reason of my Karma, I could not\nalways help making mistakes. But to kill a man for being stupid is\nwrong,\u2014and that wrong will be repaid. So surely as you kill me, so\nsurely shall I be avenged;\u2014out of the resentment that you provoke will\ncome the vengeance; and evil will be rendered for evil.\u201d...\n\nIf any person be killed while feeling strong resentment, the ghost of\nthat person will be able to take vengeance upon the killer. This the\nsamurai knew. He replied very gently,\u2014almost caressingly:\u2014\n\n\u201cWe shall allow you to frighten us as much as you please\u2014after you are\ndead. But it is difficult to believe that you mean what you say. Will\nyou try to give us some sign of your great resentment\u2014after your head\nhas been cut off?\u201d\n\n\u201cAssuredly I will,\u201d answered the man.\n\n\u201cVery well,\u201d said the samurai, drawing his long sword;\u2014\u201cI am now going\nto cut off your head. Directly in front of you there is a\nstepping-stone. After your head has been cut off, try to bite the\nstepping-stone. If your angry ghost can help you to do that, some of us\nmay be frightened... Will you try to bite the stone?\u201d\n\n\u201cI will bite it!\u201d cried the man, in great anger,\u2014\u201cI will bite it!\u2014I\nwill bite\u201d\u2014\n\nThere was a flash, a swish, a crunching thud: the bound body bowed over\nthe rice sacks,\u2014two long blood-jets pumping from the shorn neck;\u2014and\nthe head rolled upon the sand. Heavily toward the stepping-stone it\nrolled: then, suddenly bounding, it caught the upper edge of the stone\nbetween its teeth, clung desperately for a moment, and dropped inert.\n\nNone spoke; but the retainers stared in horror at their master. He\nseemed to be quite unconcerned. He merely held out his sword to the\nnearest attendant, who, with a wooden dipper, poured water over the\nblade from haft to point, and then carefully wiped the steel several\ntimes with sheets of soft paper... And thus ended the ceremonial part\nof the incident.\n\nFor months thereafter, the retainers and the domestics lived in\nceaseless fear of ghostly visitation. None of them doubted that the\npromised vengeance would come; and their constant terror caused them to\nhear and to see much that did not exist. They became afraid of the\nsound of the wind in the bamboos,\u2014afraid even of the stirring of\nshadows in the garden. At last, after taking counsel together, they\ndecided to petition their master to have a _S\u00e9gaki_-service (2)\nperformed on behalf of the vengeful spirit.\n\n\u201cQuite unnecessary,\u201d the samurai said, when his chief retainer had\nuttered the general wish... \u201cI understand that the desire of a dying\nman for revenge may be a cause for fear. But in this case there is\nnothing to fear.\u201d\n\nThe retainer looked at his master beseechingly, but hesitated to ask\nthe reason of the alarming confidence.\n\n\u201cOh, the reason is simple enough,\u201d declared the samurai, divining the\nunspoken doubt. \u201cOnly the very last intention of the fellow could have\nbeen dangerous; and when I challenged him to give me the sign, I\ndiverted his mind from the desire of revenge. He died with the set\npurpose of biting the stepping-stone; and that purpose he was able to\naccomplish, but nothing else. All the rest he must have forgotten... So\nyou need not feel any further anxiety about the matter.\u201d\n\n\u2014And indeed the dead man gave no more trouble. Nothing at all happened.\n\n\n\n\nOF A MIRROR AND A BELL\n\n\nEight centuries ago, the priests of Mugenyama, in the province of\nT\u014dt\u014dmi (1), wanted a big bell for their temple; and they asked the\nwomen of their parish to help them by contributing old bronze mirrors\nfor bell-metal.\n\n[Even to-day, in the courts of certain Japanese temples, you may see\nheaps of old bronze mirrors contributed for such a purpose. The largest\ncollection of this kind that I ever saw was in the court of a temple of\nthe J\u014ddo sect, at Hakata, in Ky\u016bsh\u016b: the mirrors had been given for the\nmaking of a bronze statue of Amida, thirty-three feet high.]\n\nThere was at that time a young woman, a farmer\u2019s wife, living at\nMugenyama, who presented her mirror to the temple, to be used for\nbell-metal. But afterwards she much regretted her mirror. She\nremembered things that her mother had told her about it; and she\nremembered that it had belonged, not only to her mother but to her\nmother\u2019s mother and grandmother; and she remembered some happy smiles\nwhich it had reflected. Of course, if she could have offered the\npriests a certain sum of money in place of the mirror, she could have\nasked them to give back her heirloom. But she had not the money\nnecessary. Whenever she went to the temple, she saw her mirror lying in\nthe court-yard, behind a railing, among hundreds of other mirrors\nheaped there together. She knew it by the _Sh\u014d-Chiku-Bai_ in relief on\nthe back of it,\u2014those three fortunate emblems of Pine, Bamboo, and\nPlumflower, which delighted her baby-eyes when her mother first showed\nher the mirror. She longed for some chance to steal the mirror, and\nhide it,\u2014that she might thereafter treasure it always. But the chance\ndid not come; and she became very unhappy,\u2014felt as if she had foolishly\ngiven away a part of her life. She thought about the old saying that a\nmirror is the Soul of a Woman\u2014(a saying mystically expressed, by the\nChinese character for Soul, upon the backs of many bronze mirrors),\u2014and\nshe feared that it was true in weirder ways than she had before\nimagined. But she could not dare to speak of her pain to anybody.\n\nNow, when all the mirrors contributed for the Mugenyama bell had been\nsent to the foundry, the bell-founders discovered that there was one\nmirror among them which would not melt. Again and again they tried to\nmelt it; but it resisted all their efforts. Evidently the woman who had\ngiven that mirror to the temple must have regretted the giving. She had\nnot presented her offering with all her heart; and therefore her\nselfish soul, remaining attached to the mirror, kept it hard and cold\nin the midst of the furnace.\n\nOf course everybody heard of the matter, and everybody soon knew whose\nmirror it was that would not melt. And because of this public exposure\nof her secret fault, the poor woman became very much ashamed and very\nangry. And as she could not bear the shame, she drowned herself, after\nhaving written a farewell letter containing these words:\u2014\n\n\u201cWhen I am dead, it will not be difficult to melt the mirror and to\ncast the bell. But, to the person who breaks that bell by ringing it,\ngreat wealth will be given by the ghost of me.\u201d\n\n\n\u2014You must know that the last wish or promise of anybody who dies in\nanger, or performs suicide in anger, is generally supposed to possess a\nsupernatural force. After the dead woman\u2019s mirror had been melted, and\nthe bell had been successfully cast, people remembered the words of\nthat letter. They felt sure that the spirit of the writer would give\nwealth to the breaker of the bell; and, as soon as the bell had been\nsuspended in the court of the temple, they went in multitude to ring\nit. With all their might and main they swung the ringing-beam; but the\nbell proved to be a good bell, and it bravely withstood their assaults.\nNevertheless, the people were not easily discouraged. Day after day, at\nall hours, they continued to ring the bell furiously,\u2014caring nothing\nwhatever for the protests of the priests. So the ringing became an\naffliction; and the priests could not endure it; and they got rid of\nthe bell by rolling it down the hill into a swamp. The swamp was deep,\nand swallowed it up,\u2014and that was the end of the bell. Only its legend\nremains; and in that legend it is called the _Mugen-Kan\u00e9_, or Bell of\nMugen.\n\n\nNow there are queer old Japanese beliefs in the magical efficacy of a\ncertain mental operation implied, though not described, by the verb\n_nazora\u00ebru_. The word itself cannot be adequately rendered by any\nEnglish word; for it is used in relation to many kinds of mimetic\nmagic, as well as in relation to the performance of many religious acts\nof faith. Common meanings of _nazora\u00ebru_, according to dictionaries,\nare \u201cto imitate,\u201d \u201cto compare,\u201d \u201cto liken;\u201d but the esoteric meaning is\n_to substitute, in imagination, one object or action for another, so as\nto bring about some magical or miraculous result_.\n\nFor example:\u2014you cannot afford to build a Buddhist temple; but you can\neasily lay a pebble before the image of the Buddha, with the same pious\nfeeling that would prompt you to build a temple if you were rich enough\nto build one. The merit of so offering the pebble becomes equal, or\nalmost equal, to the merit of erecting a temple... You cannot read the\nsix thousand seven hundred and seventy-one volumes of the Buddhist\ntexts; but you can make a revolving library, containing them, turn\nround, by pushing it like a windlass. And if you push with an earnest\nwish that you could read the six thousand seven hundred and seventy-one\nvolumes, you will acquire the same merit as the reading of them would\nenable you to gain... So much will perhaps suffice to explain the\nreligious meanings of _nazora\u00ebru_.\n\nThe magical meanings could not all be explained without a great variety\nof examples; but, for present purposes, the following will serve. If\nyou should make a little man of straw, for the same reason that Sister\nHelen made a little man of wax,\u2014and nail it, with nails not less than\nfive inches long, to some tree in a temple-grove at the Hour of the Ox\n(2),\u2014and if the person, imaginatively represented by that little straw\nman, should die thereafter in atrocious agony,\u2014that would illustrate\none signification of _nazora\u00ebru_... Or, let us suppose that a robber\nhas entered your house during the night, and carried away your\nvaluables. If you can discover the footprints of that robber in your\ngarden, and then promptly burn a very large moxa on each of them, the\nsoles of the feet of the robber will become inflamed, and will allow\nhim no rest until he returns, of his own accord, to put himself at your\nmercy. That is another kind of mimetic magic expressed by the term\n_nazora\u00ebru_. And a third kind is illustrated by various legends of the\nMugen-Kan\u00e9.\n\nAfter the bell had been rolled into the swamp, there was, of course, no\nmore chance of ringing it in such wise as to break it. But persons who\nregretted this loss of opportunity would strike and break objects\nimaginatively substituted for the bell,\u2014thus hoping to please the\nspirit of the owner of the mirror that had made so much trouble. One of\nthese persons was a woman called Um\u00e9ga\u00eb,\u2014famed in Japanese legend\nbecause of her relation to Kajiwara Kagesue, a warrior of the Heik\u00e9\nclan. While the pair were traveling together, Kajiwara one day found\nhimself in great straits for want of money; and Um\u00e9ga\u00eb, remembering the\ntradition of the Bell of Mugen, took a basin of bronze, and, mentally\nrepresenting it to be the bell, beat upon it until she broke it,\u2014crying\nout, at the same time, for three hundred pieces of gold. A guest of the\ninn where the pair were stopping made inquiry as to the cause of the\nbanging and the crying, and, on learning the story of the trouble,\nactually presented Um\u00e9ga\u00eb with three hundred _ry\u014d_ (3) in gold.\nAfterwards a song was made about Um\u00e9ga\u00eb\u2019s basin of bronze; and that\nsong is sung by dancing girls even to this day:\u2014\n\nUm\u00e9ga\u00eb no ch\u014dzubachi tata\u00eft\u00e9\nO-kan\u00e9 ga d\u00e9ru naraba\nMina San mi-uk\u00e9 wo\nS\u014dr\u00e9 tanomimasu\n\n\n[\u201c_If, by striking upon the wash-basin of Um\u00e9ga\u00eb, I could make\nhonorable money come to me, then would I negotiate for the freedom of\nall my girl-comrades._\u201d]\n\n\nAfter this happening, the fame of the Mugen-Kan\u00e9 became great; and many\npeople followed the example of Um\u00e9ga\u00eb,\u2014thereby hoping to emulate her\nluck. Among these folk was a dissolute farmer who lived near Mugenyama,\non the bank of the \u014c\u00efgawa. Having wasted his substance in riotous\nliving, this farmer made for himself, out of the mud in his garden, a\nclay-model of the Mugen-Kan\u00e9; and he beat the clay-bell, and broke\nit,\u2014crying out the while for great wealth.\n\nThen, out of the ground before him, rose up the figure of a white-robed\nwoman, with long loose-flowing hair, holding a covered jar. And the\nwoman said: \u201cI have come to answer your fervent prayer as it deserves\nto be answered. Take, therefore, this jar.\u201d So saying, she put the jar\ninto his hands, and disappeared.\n\nInto his house the happy man rushed, to tell his wife the good news. He\nset down in front of her the covered jar,\u2014which was heavy,\u2014and they\nopened it together. And they found that it was filled, up to the very\nbrim, with...\n\nBut no!\u2014I really cannot tell you with what it was filled.\n\n\n\n\nJIKININKI\n\n\nOnce, when Mus\u014d Kokushi, a priest of the Zen sect, was journeying alone\nthrough the province of Mino (1), he lost his way in a\nmountain-district where there was nobody to direct him. For a long time\nhe wandered about helplessly; and he was beginning to despair of\nfinding shelter for the night, when he perceived, on the top of a hill\nlighted by the last rays of the sun, one of those little hermitages,\ncalled _anjitsu_, which are built for solitary priests. It seemed to be\nin ruinous condition; but he hastened to it eagerly, and found that it\nwas inhabited by an aged priest, from whom he begged the favor of a\nnight\u2019s lodging. This the old man harshly refused; but he directed Mus\u014d\nto a certain hamlet, in the valley adjoining where lodging and food\ncould be obtained.\n\nMus\u014d found his way to the hamlet, which consisted of less than a dozen\nfarm-cottages; and he was kindly received at the dwelling of the\nheadman. Forty or fifty persons were assembled in the principal\napartment, at the moment of Mus\u014d\u2019s arrival; but he was shown into a\nsmall separate room, where he was promptly supplied with food and\nbedding. Being very tired, he lay down to rest at an early hour; but a\nlittle before midnight he was roused from sleep by a sound of loud\nweeping in the next apartment. Presently the sliding-screens were\ngently pushed apart; and a young man, carrying a lighted lantern,\nentered the room, respectfully saluted him, and said:\u2014\n\n\u201cReverend Sir, it is my painful duty to tell you that I am now the\nresponsible head of this house. Yesterday I was only the eldest son.\nBut when you came here, tired as you were, we did not wish that you\nshould feel embarrassed in any way: therefore we did not tell you that\nfather had died only a few hours before. The people whom you saw in the\nnext room are the inhabitants of this village: they all assembled here\nto pay their last respects to the dead; and now they are going to\nanother village, about three miles off,\u2014for by our custom, no one of us\nmay remain in this village during the night after a death has taken\nplace. We make the proper offerings and prayers;\u2014then we go away,\nleaving the corpse alone. Strange things always happen in the house\nwhere a corpse has thus been left: so we think that it will be better\nfor you to come away with us. We can find you good lodging in the other\nvillage. But perhaps, as you are a priest, you have no fear of demons\nor evil spirits; and, if you are not afraid of being left alone with\nthe body, you will be very welcome to the use of this poor house.\nHowever, I must tell you that nobody, except a priest, would dare to\nremain here tonight.\u201d\n\nMus\u014d made answer:\u2014\n\n\u201cFor your kind intention and your generous hospitality, I am deeply\ngrateful. But I am sorry that you did not tell me of your father\u2019s\ndeath when I came;\u2014for, though I was a little tired, I certainly was\nnot so tired that I should have found difficulty in doing my duty as a\npriest. Had you told me, I could have performed the service before your\ndeparture. As it is, I shall perform the service after you have gone\naway; and I shall stay by the body until morning. I do not know what\nyou mean by your words about the danger of staying here alone; but I am\nnot afraid of ghosts or demons: therefore please to feel no anxiety on\nmy account.\u201d\n\nThe young man appeared to be rejoiced by these assurances, and\nexpressed his gratitude in fitting words. Then the other members of the\nfamily, and the folk assembled in the adjoining room, having been told\nof the priest\u2019s kind promises, came to thank him,\u2014after which the\nmaster of the house said:\u2014\n\n\u201cNow, reverend Sir, much as we regret to leave you alone, we must bid\nyou farewell. By the rule of our village, none of us can stay here\nafter midnight. We beg, kind Sir, that you will take every care of your\nhonorable body, while we are unable to attend upon you. And if you\nhappen to hear or see anything strange during our absence, please tell\nus of the matter when we return in the morning.\u201d\n\nAll then left the house, except the priest, who went to the room where\nthe dead body was lying. The usual offerings had been set before the\ncorpse; and a small Buddhist lamp\u2014_t\u014dmy\u014d_\u2014was burning. The priest\nrecited the service, and performed the funeral ceremonies,\u2014after which\nhe entered into meditation. So meditating he remained through several\nsilent hours; and there was no sound in the deserted village. But, when\nthe hush of the night was at its deepest, there noiselessly entered a\nShape, vague and vast; and in the same moment Mus\u014d found himself\nwithout power to move or speak. He saw that Shape lift the corpse, as\nwith hands, devour it, more quickly than a cat devours a rat,\u2014beginning\nat the head, and eating everything: the hair and the bones and even the\nshroud. And the monstrous Thing, having thus consumed the body, turned\nto the offerings, and ate them also. Then it went away, as mysteriously\nas it had come.\n\nWhen the villagers returned next morning, they found the priest\nawaiting them at the door of the headman\u2019s dwelling. All in turn\nsaluted him; and when they had entered, and looked about the room, no\none expressed any surprise at the disappearance of the dead body and\nthe offerings. But the master of the house said to Mus\u014d:\u2014\n\n\u201cReverent Sir, you have probably seen unpleasant things during the\nnight: all of us were anxious about you. But now we are very happy to\nfind you alive and unharmed. Gladly we would have stayed with you, if\nit had been possible. But the law of our village, as I told you last\nevening, obliges us to quit our houses after a death has taken place,\nand to leave the corpse alone. Whenever this law has been broken,\nheretofore, some great misfortune has followed. Whenever it is obeyed,\nwe find that the corpse and the offerings disappear during our absence.\nPerhaps you have seen the cause.\u201d\n\nThen Mus\u014d told of the dim and awful Shape that had entered the\ndeath-chamber to devour the body and the offerings. No person seemed to\nbe surprised by his narration; and the master of the house observed:\u2014\n\n\u201cWhat you have told us, reverend Sir, agrees with what has been said\nabout this matter from ancient time.\u201d\n\nMus\u014d then inquired:\u2014\n\n\u201cDoes not the priest on the hill sometimes perform the funeral service\nfor your dead?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat priest?\u201d the young man asked.\n\n\u201cThe priest who yesterday evening directed me to this village,\u201d\nanswered Mus\u014d. \u201cI called at his _anjitsu_ on the hill yonder. He\nrefused me lodging, but told me the way here.\u201d\n\nThe listeners looked at each other, as in astonishment; and, after a\nmoment of silence, the master of the house said:\u2014\n\n\u201cReverend Sir, there is no priest and there is no _anjitsu_ on the\nhill. For the time of many generations there has not been any\nresident-priest in this neighborhood.\u201d\n\nMus\u014d said nothing more on the subject; for it was evident that his kind\nhosts supposed him to have been deluded by some goblin. But after\nhaving bidden them farewell, and obtained all necessary information as\nto his road, he determined to look again for the hermitage on the hill,\nand so to ascertain whether he had really been deceived. He found the\n_anjitsu_ without any difficulty; and, this time, its aged occupant\ninvited him to enter. When he had done so, the hermit humbly bowed down\nbefore him, exclaiming:\u2014\u201cAh! I am ashamed!\u2014I am very much ashamed!\u2014I am\nexceedingly ashamed!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou need not be ashamed for having refused me shelter,\u201d said Mus\u014d.\n\u201cYou directed me to the village yonder, where I was very kindly\ntreated; and I thank you for that favor.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can give no man shelter,\u201d the recluse made answer;\u2014\u201cand it is not\nfor the refusal that I am ashamed. I am ashamed only that you should\nhave seen me in my real shape,\u2014for it was I who devoured the corpse and\nthe offerings last night before your eyes... Know, reverend Sir, that I\nam a _jikininki_,[1]\u2014an eater of human flesh. Have pity upon me, and\nsuffer me to confess the secret fault by which I became reduced to this\ncondition.\n\n\u201cA long, long time ago, I was a priest in this desolate region. There\nwas no other priest for many leagues around. So, in that time, the\nbodies of the mountain-folk who died used to be brought here,\u2014sometimes\nfrom great distances,\u2014in order that I might repeat over them the holy\nservice. But I repeated the service and performed the rites only as a\nmatter of business;\u2014I thought only of the food and the clothes that my\nsacred profession enabled me to gain. And because of this selfish\nimpiety I was reborn, immediately after my death, into the state of a\n_jikininki_. Since then I have been obliged to feed upon the corpses of\nthe people who die in this district: every one of them I must devour in\nthe way that you saw last night... Now, reverend Sir, let me beseech\nyou to perform a S\u00e9gaki-service[2] for me: help me by your prayers, I\nentreat you, so that I may be soon able to escape from this horrible\nstate of existence\u201d...\n\nNo sooner had the hermit uttered this petition than he disappeared; and\nthe hermitage also disappeared at the same instant. And Mus\u014d Kokushi\nfound himself kneeling alone in the high grass, beside an ancient and\nmoss-grown tomb of the form called _go-rin-ishi_,[3] which seemed to be\nthe tomb of a priest.\n\n\n\n\nMUJINA\n\n\nOn the Akasaka Road, in T\u014dky\u014d, there is a slope called\nKii-no-kuni-zaka,\u2014which means the Slope of the Province of Kii. I do\nnot know why it is called the Slope of the Province of Kii. On one side\nof this slope you see an ancient moat, deep and very wide, with high\ngreen banks rising up to some place of gardens;\u2014and on the other side\nof the road extend the long and lofty walls of an imperial palace.\nBefore the era of street-lamps and jinrikishas, this neighborhood was\nvery lonesome after dark; and belated pedestrians would go miles out of\ntheir way rather than mount the Kii-no-kuni-zaka, alone, after sunset.\n\nAll because of a Mujina that used to walk there. (1)\n\nThe last man who saw the Mujina was an old merchant of the Ky\u014dbashi\nquarter, who died about thirty years ago. This is the story, as he told\nit:\u2014\n\nOne night, at a late hour, he was hurrying up the Kii-no-kuni-zaka,\nwhen he perceived a woman crouching by the moat, all alone, and weeping\nbitterly. Fearing that she intended to drown herself, he stopped to\noffer her any assistance or consolation in his power. She appeared to\nbe a slight and graceful person, handsomely dressed; and her hair was\narranged like that of a young girl of good family. \u201cO-joch\u016b,\u201d[1] he\nexclaimed, approaching her,\u2014\u201cO-joch\u016b, do not cry like that!... Tell me\nwhat the trouble is; and if there be any way to help you, I shall be\nglad to help you.\u201d (He really meant what he said; for he was a very\nkind man.) But she continued to weep,\u2014hiding her face from him with one\nof her long sleeves. \u201cO-joch\u016b,\u201d he said again, as gently as he\ncould,\u2014\u201cplease, please listen to me!... This is no place for a young\nlady at night! Do not cry, I implore you!\u2014only tell me how I may be of\nsome help to you!\u201d Slowly she rose up, but turned her back to him, and\ncontinued to moan and sob behind her sleeve. He laid his hand lightly\nupon her shoulder, and pleaded:\u2014\u201cO-joch\u016b!\u2014O-joch\u016b!\u2014O-joch\u016b!... Listen\nto me, just for one little moment!... O-joch\u016b!\u2014O-joch\u016b!\u201d... Then that\nO-joch\u016b turned around, and dropped her sleeve, and stroked her face\nwith her hand;\u2014and the man saw that she had no eyes or nose or\nmouth,\u2014and he screamed and ran away. (2)\n\nUp Kii-no-kuni-zaka he ran and ran; and all was black and empty before\nhim. On and on he ran, never daring to look back; and at last he saw a\nlantern, so far away that it looked like the gleam of a firefly; and he\nmade for it. It proved to be only the lantern of an itinerant\n_soba_-seller,[2] who had set down his stand by the road-side; but any\nlight and any human companionship was good after that experience; and\nhe flung himself down at the feet of the _soba_-seller, crying out,\n\u201cAh!\u2014aa!!\u2014_aa!!!_\u201d...\n\n\u201c_Kor\u00e9! kor\u00e9!_\u201d (3) roughly exclaimed the soba-man. \u201cHere! what is the\nmatter with you? Anybody hurt you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo\u2014nobody hurt me,\u201d panted the other,\u2014\u201conly... _Ah!\u2014aa!_\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2014Only scared you?\u201d queried the peddler, unsympathetically. \u201cRobbers?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot robbers,\u2014not robbers,\u201d gasped the terrified man... \u201cI saw... I saw\na woman\u2014by the moat;\u2014and she showed me... _Ah!_ I cannot tell you what\nshe showed me!\u201d...\n\n\u201c_H\u00e9!_ (4) Was it anything like THIS that she showed you?\u201d cried the\nsoba-man, stroking his own face\u2014which therewith became like unto an\nEgg... And, simultaneously, the light went out.\n\n\n\n\nROKURO-KUBI\n\n\nNearly five hundred years ago there was a samurai, named Isogai\nH\u00e9\u00efdaza\u00ebmon Tak\u00e9tsura, in the service of the Lord Kikuji, of Ky\u016bsh\u016b.\nThis Isogai had inherited, from many warlike ancestors, a natural\naptitude for military exercises, and extraordinary strength. While yet\na boy he had surpassed his teachers in the art of swordsmanship, in\narchery, and in the use of the spear, and had displayed all the\ncapacities of a daring and skillful soldier. Afterwards, in the time of\nthe Eiky\u014d[1] war, he so distinguished himself that high honors were\nbestowed upon him. But when the house of Kikuji came to ruin, Isogai\nfound himself without a master. He might then easily have obtained\nservice under another daimy\u014d; but as he had never sought distinction\nfor his own sake alone, and as his heart remained true to his former\nlord, he preferred to give up the world. So he cut off his hair, and\nbecame a traveling priest,\u2014taking the Buddhist name of Kwairy\u014d.\n\nBut always, under the _koromo_[2] of the priest, Kwairy\u014d kept warm\nwithin him the heart of the samurai. As in other years he had laughed\nat peril, so now also he scorned danger; and in all weathers and all\nseasons he journeyed to preach the good Law in places where no other\npriest would have dared to go. For that age was an age of violence and\ndisorder; and upon the highways there was no security for the solitary\ntraveler, even if he happened to be a priest.\n\nIn the course of his first long journey, Kwairy\u014d had occasion to visit\nthe province of Kai. (1) One evening, as he was traveling through the\nmountains of that province, darkness overcame him in a very lonesome\ndistrict, leagues away from any village. So he resigned himself to pass\nthe night under the stars; and having found a suitable grassy spot, by\nthe roadside, he lay down there, and prepared to sleep. He had always\nwelcomed discomfort; and even a bare rock was for him a good bed, when\nnothing better could be found, and the root of a pine-tree an excellent\npillow. His body was iron; and he never troubled himself about dews or\nrain or frost or snow.\n\nScarcely had he lain down when a man came along the road, carrying an\naxe and a great bundle of chopped wood. This woodcutter halted on\nseeing Kwairy\u014d lying down, and, after a moment of silent observation,\nsaid to him in a tone of great surprise:\u2014\n\n\u201cWhat kind of a man can you be, good Sir, that you dare to lie down\nalone in such a place as this?... There are haunters about here,\u2014many\nof them. Are you not afraid of Hairy Things?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy friend,\u201d cheerfully answered Kwairy\u014d, \u201cI am only a wandering\npriest,\u2014a \u2018Cloud-and-Water-Guest,\u2019 as folks call it:\n_Unsui-no-ryokaku_. (2) And I am not in the least afraid of Hairy\nThings,\u2014if you mean goblin-foxes, or goblin-badgers, or any creatures\nof that kind. As for lonesome places, I like them: they are suitable\nfor meditation. I am accustomed to sleeping in the open air: and I have\nlearned never to be anxious about my life.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou must be indeed a brave man, Sir Priest,\u201d the peasant responded,\n\u201cto lie down here! This place has a bad name,\u2014a very bad name. But, as\nthe proverb has it, _Kunshi ayayuki ni chikayorazu_ [\u2018The superior man\ndoes not needlessly expose himself to peril\u2019]; and I must assure you,\nSir, that it is very dangerous to sleep here. Therefore, although my\nhouse is only a wretched thatched hut, let me beg of you to come home\nwith me at once. In the way of food, I have nothing to offer you; but\nthere is a roof at least, and you can sleep under it without risk.\u201d\n\nHe spoke earnestly; and Kwairy\u014d, liking the kindly tone of the man,\naccepted this modest offer. The woodcutter guided him along a narrow\npath, leading up from the main road through mountain-forest. It was a\nrough and dangerous path,\u2014sometimes skirting precipices,\u2014sometimes\noffering nothing but a network of slippery roots for the foot to rest\nupon,\u2014sometimes winding over or between masses of jagged rock. But at\nlast Kwairy\u014d found himself upon a cleared space at the top of a hill,\nwith a full moon shining overhead; and he saw before him a small\nthatched cottage, cheerfully lighted from within. The woodcutter led\nhim to a shed at the back of the house, whither water had been\nconducted, through bamboo-pipes, from some neighboring stream; and the\ntwo men washed their feet. Beyond the shed was a vegetable garden, and\na grove of cedars and bamboos; and beyond the trees appeared the\nglimmer of a cascade, pouring from some loftier height, and swaying in\nthe moonshine like a long white robe.\n\nAs Kwairy\u014d entered the cottage with his guide, he perceived four\npersons\u2014men and women\u2014warming their hands at a little fire kindled in\nthe _ro_[3] of the principle apartment. They bowed low to the priest,\nand greeted him in the most respectful manner. Kwairy\u014d wondered that\npersons so poor, and dwelling in such a solitude, should be aware of\nthe polite forms of greeting. \u201cThese are good people,\u201d he thought to\nhimself; \u201cand they must have been taught by some one well acquainted\nwith the rules of propriety.\u201d Then turning to his host,\u2014the _aruji_, or\nhouse-master, as the others called him,\u2014Kwairy\u014d said:\u2014\n\n\u201cFrom the kindness of your speech, and from the very polite welcome\ngiven me by your household, I imagine that you have not always been a\nwoodcutter. Perhaps you formerly belonged to one of the upper classes?\u201d\n\nSmiling, the woodcutter answered:\u2014\n\n\u201cSir, you are not mistaken. Though now living as you find me, I was\nonce a person of some distinction. My story is the story of a ruined\nlife\u2014ruined by my own fault. I used to be in the service of a daimy\u014d;\nand my rank in that service was not inconsiderable. But I loved women\nand wine too well; and under the influence of passion I acted wickedly.\nMy selfishness brought about the ruin of our house, and caused the\ndeath of many persons. Retribution followed me; and I long remained a\nfugitive in the land. Now I often pray that I may be able to make some\natonement for the evil which I did, and to reestablish the ancestral\nhome. But I fear that I shall never find any way of so doing.\nNevertheless, I try to overcome the karma of my errors by sincere\nrepentance, and by helping, as far as I can, those who are\nunfortunate.\u201d\n\nKwairy\u014d was pleased by this announcement of good resolve; and he said\nto the _aruji:_\u2014\n\n\u201cMy friend, I have had occasion to observe that men, prone to folly in\ntheir youth, may in after years become very earnest in right living. In\nthe holy s\u00fbtras it is written that those strongest in wrong-doing can\nbecome, by power of good resolve, the strongest in right-doing. I do\nnot doubt that you have a good heart; and I hope that better fortune\nwill come to you. To-night I shall recite the s\u00fbtras for your sake, and\npray that you may obtain the force to overcome the karma of any past\nerrors.\u201d\n\nWith these assurances, Kwairy\u014d bade the _aruji_ good-night; and his\nhost showed him to a very small side-room, where a bed had been made\nready. Then all went to sleep except the priest, who began to read the\ns\u00fbtras by the light of a paper lantern. Until a late hour he continued\nto read and pray: then he opened a little window in his little\nsleeping-room, to take a last look at the landscape before lying down.\nThe night was beautiful: there was no cloud in the sky: there was no\nwind; and the strong moonlight threw down sharp black shadows of\nfoliage, and glittered on the dews of the garden. Shrillings of\ncrickets and bell-insects (3) made a musical tumult; and the sound of\nthe neighboring cascade deepened with the night. Kwairy\u014d felt thirsty\nas he listened to the noise of the water; and, remembering the bamboo\naqueduct at the rear of the house, he thought that he could go there\nand get a drink without disturbing the sleeping household. Very gently\nhe pushed apart the sliding-screens that separated his room from the\nmain apartment; and he saw, by the light of the lantern, five recumbent\nbodies\u2014without heads!\n\nFor one instant he stood bewildered,\u2014imagining a crime. But in another\nmoment he perceived that there was no blood, and that the headless\nnecks did not look as if they had been cut. Then he thought to\nhimself:\u2014\u201cEither this is an illusion made by goblins, or I have been\nlured into the dwelling of a Rokuro-Kubi... (4) In the book _S\u014dshinki_\n(5) it is written that if one find the body of a Rokuro-Kubi without\nits head, and remove the body to another place, the head will never be\nable to join itself again to the neck. And the book further says that\nwhen the head comes back and finds that its body has been moved, it\nwill strike itself upon the floor three times,\u2014bounding like a\nball,\u2014and will pant as in great fear, and presently die. Now, if these\nbe Rokuro-Kubi, they mean me no good;\u2014so I shall be justified in\nfollowing the instructions of the book.\u201d...\n\nHe seized the body of the aruji by the feet, pulled it to the window,\nand pushed it out. Then he went to the back-door, which he found\nbarred; and he surmised that the heads had made their exit through the\nsmoke-hole in the roof, which had been left open. Gently unbarring the\ndoor, he made his way to the garden, and proceeded with all possible\ncaution to the grove beyond it. He heard voices talking in the grove;\nand he went in the direction of the voices,\u2014stealing from shadow to\nshadow, until he reached a good hiding-place. Then, from behind a\ntrunk, he caught sight of the heads,\u2014all five of them,\u2014flitting about,\nand chatting as they flitted. They were eating worms and insects which\nthey found on the ground or among the trees. Presently the head of the\naruji stopped eating and said:\u2014\n\n\u201cAh, that traveling priest who came to-night!\u2014how fat all his body is!\nWhen we shall have eaten him, our bellies will be well filled... I was\nfoolish to talk to him as I did;\u2014it only set him to reciting the s\u00fbtras\non behalf of my soul! To go near him while he is reciting would be\ndifficult; and we cannot touch him so long as he is praying. But as it\nis now nearly morning, perhaps he has gone to sleep... Some one of you\ngo to the house and see what the fellow is doing.\u201d\n\nAnother head\u2014the head of a young woman\u2014immediately rose up and flitted\nto the house, lightly as a bat. After a few minutes it came back, and\ncried out huskily, in a tone of great alarm:\u2014\n\n\u201cThat traveling priest is not in the house;\u2014he is gone! But that is not\nthe worst of the matter. He has taken the body of our aruji; and I do\nnot know where he has put it.\u201d\n\nAt this announcement the head of the aruji\u2014distinctly visible in the\nmoonlight\u2014assumed a frightful aspect: its eyes opened monstrously; its\nhair stood up bristling; and its teeth gnashed. Then a cry burst from\nits lips; and\u2014weeping tears of rage\u2014it exclaimed:\u2014\n\n\u201cSince my body has been moved, to rejoin it is not possible! Then I\nmust die!... And all through the work of that priest! Before I die I\nwill get at that priest!\u2014I will tear him!\u2014I will devour him!... _And\nthere he is_\u2014behind that tree!\u2014hiding behind that tree! See him!\u2014the\nfat coward!\u201d...\n\nIn the same moment the head of the aruji, followed by the other four\nheads, sprang at Kwairy\u014d. But the strong priest had already armed\nhimself by plucking up a young tree; and with that tree he struck the\nheads as they came,\u2014knocking them from him with tremendous blows. Four\nof them fled away. But the head of the aruji, though battered again and\nagain, desperately continued to bound at the priest, and at last caught\nhim by the left sleeve of his robe. Kwairy\u014d, however, as quickly\ngripped the head by its topknot, and repeatedly struck it. It did not\nrelease its hold; but it uttered a long moan, and thereafter ceased to\nstruggle. It was dead. But its teeth still held the sleeve; and, for\nall his great strength, Kwairy\u014d could not force open the jaws.\n\nWith the head still hanging to his sleeve he went back to the house,\nand there caught sight of the other four Rokuro-Kubi squatting\ntogether, with their bruised and bleeding heads reunited to their\nbodies. But when they perceived him at the back-door all screamed, \u201cThe\npriest! the priest!\u201d\u2014and fled, through the other doorway, out into the\nwoods.\n\nEastward the sky was brightening; day was about to dawn; and Kwairy\u014d\nknew that the power of the goblins was limited to the hours of\ndarkness. He looked at the head clinging to his sleeve,\u2014its face all\nfouled with blood and foam and clay; and he laughed aloud as he thought\nto himself: \u201cWhat a _miyag\u00e9!_[4]\u2014the head of a goblin!\u201d After which he\ngathered together his few belongings, and leisurely descended the\nmountain to continue his journey.\n\nRight on he journeyed, until he came to Suwa in Shinano; (6) and into\nthe main street of Suwa he solemnly strode, with the head dangling at\nhis elbow. Then woman fainted, and children screamed and ran away; and\nthere was a great crowding and clamoring until the _torit\u00e9_ (as the\npolice in those days were called) seized the priest, and took him to\njail. For they supposed the head to be the head of a murdered man who,\nin the moment of being killed, had caught the murderer\u2019s sleeve in his\nteeth. As for Kwairy\u014d, he only smiled and said nothing when they\nquestioned him. So, after having passed a night in prison, he was\nbrought before the magistrates of the district. Then he was ordered to\nexplain how he, a priest, had been found with the head of a man\nfastened to his sleeve, and why he had dared thus shamelessly to parade\nhis crime in the sight of people.\n\nKwairy\u014d laughed long and loudly at these questions; and then he said:\u2014\n\n\u201cSirs, I did not fasten the head to my sleeve: it fastened itself\nthere\u2014much against my will. And I have not committed any crime. For\nthis is not the head of a man; it is the head of a goblin;\u2014and, if I\ncaused the death of the goblin, I did not do so by any shedding of\nblood, but simply by taking the precautions necessary to assure my own\nsafety.\u201d... And he proceeded to relate the whole of the\nadventure,\u2014bursting into another hearty laugh as he told of his\nencounter with the five heads.\n\nBut the magistrates did not laugh. They judged him to be a hardened\ncriminal, and his story an insult to their intelligence. Therefore,\nwithout further questioning, they decided to order his immediate\nexecution,\u2014all of them except one, a very old man. This aged officer\nhad made no remark during the trial; but, after having heard the\nopinion of his colleagues, he rose up, and said:\u2014\n\n\u201cLet us first examine the head carefully; for this, I think, has not\nyet been done. If the priest has spoken truth, the head itself should\nbear witness for him... Bring the head here!\u201d\n\nSo the head, still holding in its teeth the _koromo_ that had been\nstripped from Kwairy\u014d\u2019s shoulders, was put before the judges. The old\nman turned it round and round, carefully examined it, and discovered,\non the nape of its neck, several strange red characters. He called the\nattention of his colleagues to these, and also bade them observe that\nthe edges of the neck nowhere presented the appearance of having been\ncut by any weapon. On the contrary, the line of leverance was smooth as\nthe line at which a falling leaf detaches itself from the stem... Then\nsaid the elder:\u2014\n\n\u201cI am quite sure that the priest told us nothing but the truth. This is\nthe head of a Rokuro-Kubi. In the book _Nan-h\u014d-\u00ef-butsu-shi_ it is\nwritten that certain red characters can always be found upon the nape\nof the neck of a real Rokuro-Kubi. There are the characters: you can\nsee for yourselves that they have not been painted. Moreover, it is\nwell known that such goblins have been dwelling in the mountains of the\nprovince of Kai from very ancient time... But you, Sir,\u201d he exclaimed,\nturning to Kwairy\u014d,\u2014\u201cwhat sort of sturdy priest may you be? Certainly\nyou have given proof of a courage that few priests possess; and you\nhave the air of a soldier rather than a priest. Perhaps you once\nbelonged to the samurai-class?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have guessed rightly, Sir,\u201d Kwairy\u014d responded. \u201cBefore becoming a\npriest, I long followed the profession of arms; and in those days I\nnever feared man or devil. My name then was Isogai H\u00e9\u00efdaza\u00ebmon\nTak\u00e9tsura of Ky\u016bsh\u016b: there may be some among you who remember it.\u201d\n\nAt the mention of that name, a murmur of admiration filled the\ncourt-room; for there were many present who remembered it. And Kwairy\u014d\nimmediately found himself among friends instead of judges,\u2014friends\nanxious to prove their admiration by fraternal kindness. With honor\nthey escorted him to the residence of the daimy\u014d, who welcomed him, and\nfeasted him, and made him a handsome present before allowing him to\ndepart. When Kwairy\u014d left Suwa, he was as happy as any priest is\npermitted to be in this transitory world. As for the head, he took it\nwith him,\u2014jocosely insisting that he intended it for a _miyag\u00e9_.\n\nAnd now it only remains to tell what became of the head.\n\nA day or two after leaving Suwa, Kwairy\u014d met with a robber, who stopped\nhim in a lonesome place, and bade him strip. Kwairy\u014d at once removed\nhis _koromo_, and offered it to the robber, who then first perceived\nwhat was hanging to the sleeve. Though brave, the highwayman was\nstartled: he dropped the garment, and sprang back. Then he cried\nout:\u2014\u201cYou!\u2014what kind of a priest are you? Why, you are a worse man than\nI am! It is true that I have killed people; but I never walked about\nwith anybody\u2019s head fastened to my sleeve... Well, Sir priest, I\nsuppose we are of the same calling; and I must say that I admire\nyou!... Now that head would be of use to me: I could frighten people\nwith it. Will you sell it? You can have my robe in exchange for your\n_koromo;_ and I will give you five _ry\u014d_ for the head.\u201d\n\nKwairy\u014d answered:\u2014\n\n\u201cI shall let you have the head and the robe if you insist; but I must\ntell you that this is not the head of a man. It is a goblin\u2019s head. So,\nif you buy it, and have any trouble in consequence, please to remember\nthat you were not deceived by me.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a nice priest you are!\u201d exclaimed the robber. \u201cYou kill men, and\njest about it!... But I am really in earnest. Here is my robe; and here\nis the money;\u2014and let me have the head... What is the use of joking?\u201d\n\n\u201cTake the thing,\u201d said Kwairy\u014d. \u201cI was not joking. The only joke\u2014if\nthere be any joke at all\u2014is that you are fool enough to pay good money\nfor a goblin\u2019s head.\u201d And Kwairy\u014d, loudly laughing, went upon his way.\n\nThus the robber got the head and the _koromo;_ and for some time he\nplayed goblin-priest upon the highways. But, reaching the neighborhood\nof Suwa, he there leaned the true story of the head; and he then became\nafraid that the spirit of the Rokuro-Kubi might give him trouble. So he\nmade up his mind to take back the head to the place from which it had\ncome, and to bury it with its body. He found his way to the lonely\ncottage in the mountains of Kai; but nobody was there, and he could not\ndiscover the body. Therefore he buried the head by itself, in the grove\nbehind the cottage; and he had a tombstone set up over the grave; and\nhe caused a S\u00e9gaki-service to be performed on behalf of the spirit of\nthe Rokuro-Kubi. And that tombstone\u2014known as the Tombstone of the\nRokuro-Kubi\u2014may be seen (at least so the Japanese story-teller\ndeclares) even unto this day.\n\n\n\n\nA DEAD SECRET\n\n\nA long time ago, in the province of Tamba (1), there lived a rich\nmerchant named Inamuraya Gensuk\u00e9. He had a daughter called O-Sono. As\nshe was very clever and pretty, he thought it would be a pity to let\nher grow up with only such teaching as the country-teachers could give\nher: so he sent her, in care of some trusty attendants, to Ky\u014dto, that\nshe might be trained in the polite accomplishments taught to the ladies\nof the capital. After she had thus been educated, she was married to a\nfriend of her father\u2019s family\u2014a merchant named Nagaraya;\u2014and she lived\nhappily with him for nearly four years. They had one child,\u2014a boy. But\nO-Sono fell ill and died, in the fourth year after her marriage.\n\nOn the night after the funeral of O-Sono, her little son said that his\nmamma had come back, and was in the room upstairs. She had smiled at\nhim, but would not talk to him: so he became afraid, and ran away. Then\nsome of the family went upstairs to the room which had been O-Sono\u2019s;\nand they were startled to see, by the light of a small lamp which had\nbeen kindled before a shrine in that room, the figure of the dead\nmother. She appeared as if standing in front of a _tansu_, or chest of\ndrawers, that still contained her ornaments and her wearing-apparel.\nHer head and shoulders could be very distinctly seen; but from the\nwaist downwards the figure thinned into invisibility;\u2014it was like an\nimperfect reflection of her, and transparent as a shadow on water.\n\nThen the folk were afraid, and left the room. Below they consulted\ntogether; and the mother of O-Sono\u2019s husband said: \u201cA woman is fond of\nher small things; and O-Sono was much attached to her belongings.\nPerhaps she has come back to look at them. Many dead persons will do\nthat,\u2014unless the things be given to the parish-temple. If we present\nO-Sono\u2019s robes and girdles to the temple, her spirit will probably find\nrest.\u201d\n\nIt was agreed that this should be done as soon as possible. So on the\nfollowing morning the drawers were emptied; and all of O-Sono\u2019s\nornaments and dresses were taken to the temple. But she came back the\nnext night, and looked at the _tansu_ as before. And she came back also\non the night following, and the night after that, and every night;\u2014and\nthe house became a house of fear.\n\nThe mother of O-Sono\u2019s husband then went to the parish-temple, and told\nthe chief priest all that had happened, and asked for ghostly counsel.\nThe temple was a Zen temple; and the head-priest was a learned old man,\nknown as Daigen Osh\u014d. He said: \u201cThere must be something about which she\nis anxious, in or near that _tansu_.\u201d\u2014\u201cBut we emptied all the drawers,\u201d\nreplied the woman;\u2014\u201cthere is nothing in the _tansu_.\u201d\u2014\u201cWell,\u201d said\nDaigen Osh\u014d, \u201cto-night I shall go to your house, and keep watch in that\nroom, and see what can be done. You must give orders that no person\nshall enter the room while I am watching, unless I call.\u201d\n\nAfter sundown, Daigen Osh\u014d went to the house, and found the room made\nready for him. He remained there alone, reading the s\u00fbtras; and nothing\nappeared until after the Hour of the Rat.[1] Then the figure of O-Sono\nsuddenly outlined itself in front of the _tansu_. Her face had a\nwistful look; and she kept her eyes fixed upon the _tansu_.\n\nThe priest uttered the holy formula prescribed in such cases, and then,\naddressing the figure by the _kaimy\u014d_[2] of O-Sono, said:\u2014\u201cI have come\nhere in order to help you. Perhaps in that _tansu_ there is something\nabout which you have reason to feel anxious. Shall I try to find it for\nyou?\u201d The shadow appeared to give assent by a slight motion of the\nhead; and the priest, rising, opened the top drawer. It was empty.\nSuccessively he opened the second, the third, and the fourth drawer;\u2014he\nsearched carefully behind them and beneath them;\u2014he carefully examined\nthe interior of the chest. He found nothing. But the figure remained\ngazing as wistfully as before. \u201cWhat can she want?\u201d thought the priest.\nSuddenly it occurred to him that there might be something hidden under\nthe paper with which the drawers were lined. He removed the lining of\nthe first drawer:\u2014nothing! He removed the lining of the second and\nthird drawers:\u2014still nothing. But under the lining of the lowermost\ndrawer he found\u2014a letter. \u201cIs this the thing about which you have been\ntroubled?\u201d he asked. The shadow of the woman turned toward him,\u2014her\nfaint gaze fixed upon the letter. \u201cShall I burn it for you?\u201d he asked.\nShe bowed before him. \u201cIt shall be burned in the temple this very\nmorning,\u201d he promised;\u2014\u201cand no one shall read it, except myself.\u201d The\nfigure smiled and vanished.\n\nDawn was breaking as the priest descended the stairs, to find the\nfamily waiting anxiously below. \u201cDo not be anxious,\u201d he said to them:\n\u201cShe will not appear again.\u201d And she never did.\n\nThe letter was burned. It was a love-letter written to O-Sono in the\ntime of her studies at Ky\u014dto. But the priest alone knew what was in it;\nand the secret died with him.\n\n\n\n\nYUKI-ONNA\n\n\nIn a village of Musashi Province (1), there lived two woodcutters:\nMosaku and Minokichi. At the time of which I am speaking, Mosaku was an\nold man; and Minokichi, his apprentice, was a lad of eighteen years.\nEvery day they went together to a forest situated about five miles from\ntheir village. On the way to that forest there is a wide river to\ncross; and there is a ferry-boat. Several times a bridge was built\nwhere the ferry is; but the bridge was each time carried away by a\nflood. No common bridge can resist the current there when the river\nrises.\n\nMosaku and Minokichi were on their way home, one very cold evening,\nwhen a great snowstorm overtook them. They reached the ferry; and they\nfound that the boatman had gone away, leaving his boat on the other\nside of the river. It was no day for swimming; and the woodcutters took\nshelter in the ferryman\u2019s hut,\u2014thinking themselves lucky to find any\nshelter at all. There was no brazier in the hut, nor any place in which\nto make a fire: it was only a two-mat[1] hut, with a single door, but\nno window. Mosaku and Minokichi fastened the door, and lay down to\nrest, with their straw rain-coats over them. At first they did not feel\nvery cold; and they thought that the storm would soon be over.\n\nThe old man almost immediately fell asleep; but the boy, Minokichi, lay\nawake a long time, listening to the awful wind, and the continual\nslashing of the snow against the door. The river was roaring; and the\nhut swayed and creaked like a junk at sea. It was a terrible storm; and\nthe air was every moment becoming colder; and Minokichi shivered under\nhis rain-coat. But at last, in spite of the cold, he too fell asleep.\n\nHe was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The door of the hut\nhad been forced open; and, by the snow-light (_yuki-akari_), he saw a\nwoman in the room,\u2014a woman all in white. She was bending above Mosaku,\nand blowing her breath upon him;\u2014and her breath was like a bright white\nsmoke. Almost in the same moment she turned to Minokichi, and stooped\nover him. He tried to cry out, but found that he could not utter any\nsound. The white woman bent down over him, lower and lower, until her\nface almost touched him; and he saw that she was very beautiful,\u2014though\nher eyes made him afraid. For a little time she continued to look at\nhim;\u2014then she smiled, and she whispered:\u2014\u201cI intended to treat you like\nthe other man. But I cannot help feeling some pity for you,\u2014because you\nare so young... You are a pretty boy, Minokichi; and I will not hurt\nyou now. But, if you ever tell anybody\u2014even your own mother\u2014about what\nyou have seen this night, I shall know it; and then I will kill you...\nRemember what I say!\u201d\n\n\n[Illustration] BLOWING HER BREATH UPON HIM\n\n\nWith these words, she turned from him, and passed through the doorway.\nThen he found himself able to move; and he sprang up, and looked out.\nBut the woman was nowhere to be seen; and the snow was driving\nfuriously into the hut. Minokichi closed the door, and secured it by\nfixing several billets of wood against it. He wondered if the wind had\nblown it open;\u2014he thought that he might have been only dreaming, and\nmight have mistaken the gleam of the snow-light in the doorway for the\nfigure of a white woman: but he could not be sure. He called to Mosaku,\nand was frightened because the old man did not answer. He put out his\nhand in the dark, and touched Mosaku\u2019s face, and found that it was ice!\nMosaku was stark and dead...\n\nBy dawn the storm was over; and when the ferryman returned to his\nstation, a little after sunrise, he found Minokichi lying senseless\nbeside the frozen body of Mosaku. Minokichi was promptly cared for, and\nsoon came to himself; but he remained a long time ill from the effects\nof the cold of that terrible night. He had been greatly frightened also\nby the old man\u2019s death; but he said nothing about the vision of the\nwoman in white. As soon as he got well again, he returned to his\ncalling,\u2014going alone every morning to the forest, and coming back at\nnightfall with his bundles of wood, which his mother helped him to\nsell.\n\nOne evening, in the winter of the following year, as he was on his way\nhome, he overtook a girl who happened to be traveling by the same road.\nShe was a tall, slim girl, very good-looking; and she answered\nMinokichi\u2019s greeting in a voice as pleasant to the ear as the voice of\na song-bird. Then he walked beside her; and they began to talk. The\ngirl said that her name was O-Yuki;[2] that she had lately lost both of\nher parents; and that she was going to Yedo (2), where she happened to\nhave some poor relations, who might help her to find a situation as a\nservant. Minokichi soon felt charmed by this strange girl; and the more\nthat he looked at her, the handsomer she appeared to be. He asked her\nwhether she was yet betrothed; and she answered, laughingly, that she\nwas free. Then, in her turn, she asked Minokichi whether he was\nmarried, or pledged to marry; and he told her that, although he had\nonly a widowed mother to support, the question of an \u201chonorable\ndaughter-in-law\u201d had not yet been considered, as he was very young...\nAfter these confidences, they walked on for a long while without\nspeaking; but, as the proverb declares, _Ki ga ar\u00e9ba, m\u00e9 mo kuchi hodo\nni mono wo iu:_ \u201cWhen the wish is there, the eyes can say as much as\nthe mouth.\u201d By the time they reached the village, they had become very\nmuch pleased with each other; and then Minokichi asked O-Yuki to rest\nawhile at his house. After some shy hesitation, she went there with\nhim; and his mother made her welcome, and prepared a warm meal for her.\nO-Yuki behaved so nicely that Minokichi\u2019s mother took a sudden fancy to\nher, and persuaded her to delay her journey to Yedo. And the natural\nend of the matter was that Yuki never went to Yedo at all. She remained\nin the house, as an \u201chonorable daughter-in-law.\u201d\n\nO-Yuki proved a very good daughter-in-law. When Minokichi\u2019s mother came\nto die,\u2014some five years later,\u2014her last words were words of affection\nand praise for the wife of her son. And O-Yuki bore Minokichi ten\nchildren, boys and girls,\u2014handsome children all of them, and very fair\nof skin.\n\nThe country-folk thought O-Yuki a wonderful person, by nature different\nfrom themselves. Most of the peasant-women age early; but O-Yuki, even\nafter having become the mother of ten children, looked as young and\nfresh as on the day when she had first come to the village.\n\nOne night, after the children had gone to sleep, O-Yuki was sewing by\nthe light of a paper lamp; and Minokichi, watching her, said:\u2014\n\n\u201cTo see you sewing there, with the light on your face, makes me think\nof a strange thing that happened when I was a lad of eighteen. I then\nsaw somebody as beautiful and white as you are now\u2014indeed, she was very\nlike you.\u201d...\n\nWithout lifting her eyes from her work, O-Yuki responded:\u2014\n\n\u201cTell me about her... Where did you see her?\u201d\n\nThen Minokichi told her about the terrible night in the ferryman\u2019s\nhut,\u2014and about the White Woman that had stooped above him, smiling and\nwhispering,\u2014and about the silent death of old Mosaku. And he said:\u2014\n\n\u201cAsleep or awake, that was the only time that I saw a being as\nbeautiful as you. Of course, she was not a human being; and I was\nafraid of her,\u2014very much afraid,\u2014but she was so white!... Indeed, I\nhave never been sure whether it was a dream that I saw, or the Woman of\nthe Snow.\u201d...\n\nO-Yuki flung down her sewing, and arose, and bowed above Minokichi\nwhere he sat, and shrieked into his face:\u2014\n\n\u201cIt was I\u2014I\u2014I! Yuki it was! And I told you then that I would kill you\nif you ever said one word about it!... But for those children asleep\nthere, I would kill you this moment! And now you had better take very,\nvery good care of them; for if ever they have reason to complain of\nyou, I will treat you as you deserve!\u201d...\n\nEven as she screamed, her voice became thin, like a crying of\nwind;\u2014then she melted into a bright white mist that spired to the\nroof-beams, and shuddered away through the smoke-hole.... Never again\nwas she seen.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STORY OF AOYAGI\n\n\nIn the era of Bummei [1469-1486] there was a young samurai called\nTomotada in the service of Hatak\u00e9yama Yoshimun\u00e9, the Lord of Noto (1).\nTomotada was a native of Echizen (2); but at an early age he had been\ntaken, as page, into the palace of the daimy\u014d of Noto, and had been\neducated, under the supervision of that prince, for the profession of\narms. As he grew up, he proved himself both a good scholar and a good\nsoldier, and continued to enjoy the favor of his prince. Being gifted\nwith an amiable character, a winning address, and a very handsome\nperson, he was admired and much liked by his samurai-comrades.\n\nWhen Tomotada was about twenty years old, he was sent upon a private\nmission to Hosokawa Masamoto, the great daimy\u014d of Ky\u014dto, a kinsman of\nHatak\u00e9yama Yoshimun\u00e9. Having been ordered to journey through Echizen,\nthe youth requested and obtained permission to pay a visit, on the way,\nto his widowed mother.\n\nIt was the coldest period of the year when he started; and, though\nmounted upon a powerful horse, he found himself obliged to proceed\nslowly. The road which he followed passed through a mountain-district\nwhere the settlements were few and far between; and on the second day\nof his journey, after a weary ride of hours, he was dismayed to find\nthat he could not reach his intended halting-place until late in the\nnight. He had reason to be anxious;\u2014for a heavy snowstorm came on, with\nan intensely cold wind; and the horse showed signs of exhaustion. But\nin that trying moment, Tomotada unexpectedly perceived the thatched\nroom of a cottage on the summit of a near hill, where willow-trees were\ngrowing. With difficulty he urged his tired animal to the dwelling; and\nhe loudly knocked upon the storm-doors, which had been closed against\nthe wind. An old woman opened them, and cried out compassionately at\nthe sight of the handsome stranger: \u201cAh, how pitiful!\u2014a young gentleman\ntraveling alone in such weather!... Deign, young master, to enter.\u201d\n\nTomotada dismounted, and after leading his horse to a shed in the rear,\nentered the cottage, where he saw an old man and a girl warming\nthemselves by a fire of bamboo splints. They respectfully invited him\nto approach the fire; and the old folks then proceeded to warm some\nrice-wine, and to prepare food for the traveler, whom they ventured to\nquestion in regard to his journey. Meanwhile the young girl disappeared\nbehind a screen. Tomotada had observed, with astonishment, that she was\nextremely beautiful,\u2014though her attire was of the most wretched kind,\nand her long, loose hair in disorder. He wondered that so handsome a\ngirl should be living in such a miserable and lonesome place.\n\nThe old man said to him:\u2014\n\n\u201cHonored Sir, the next village is far; and the snow is falling thickly.\nThe wind is piercing; and the road is very bad. Therefore, to proceed\nfurther this night would probably be dangerous. Although this hovel is\nunworthy of your presence, and although we have not any comfort to\noffer, perhaps it were safer to remain to-night under this miserable\nroof... We would take good care of your horse.\u201d\n\nTomotada accepted this humble proposal,\u2014secretly glad of the chance\nthus afforded him to see more of the young girl. Presently a coarse but\nample meal was set before him; and the girl came from behind the\nscreen, to serve the wine. She was now reclad, in a rough but cleanly\nrobe of homespun; and her long, loose hair had been neatly combed and\nsmoothed. As she bent forward to fill his cup, Tomotada was amazed to\nperceive that she was incomparably more beautiful than any woman whom\nhe had ever before seen; and there was a grace about her every motion\nthat astonished him. But the elders began to apologize for her, saying:\n\u201cSir, our daughter, Aoyagi,[1] has been brought up here in the\nmountains, almost alone; and she knows nothing of gentle service. We\npray that you will pardon her stupidity and her ignorance.\u201d Tomotada\nprotested that he deemed himself lucky to be waited upon by so comely a\nmaiden. He could not turn his eyes away from her\u2014though he saw that his\nadmiring gaze made her blush;\u2014and he left the wine and food untasted\nbefore him. The mother said: \u201cKind Sir, we very much hope that you will\ntry to eat and to drink a little,\u2014though our peasant-fare is of the\nworst,\u2014as you must have been chilled by that piercing wind.\u201d Then, to\nplease the old folks, Tomotada ate and drank as he could; but the charm\nof the blushing girl still grew upon him. He talked with her, and found\nthat her speech was sweet as her face. Brought up in the mountains as\nshe might have been;\u2014but, in that case, her parents must at some time\nbeen persons of high degree; for she spoke and moved like a damsel of\nrank. Suddenly he addressed her with a poem\u2014which was also a\nquestion\u2014inspired by the delight in his heart:\u2014\n\n    \u201cTadzun\u00e9tsuru,\nHana ka tot\u00e9 koso,\n    Hi wo kuras\u00e9,\nAk\u00e9nu ni otoru\nAkan\u00e9 sasuran?\u201d\n\n\n[\u201c_Being on my way to pay a visit, I found that which I took to be a\nflower: therefore here I spend the day... Why, in the time before dawn,\nthe dawn-blush tint should glow\u2014that, indeed, I know not._\u201d][2]\n\n\nWithout a moment\u2019s hesitation, she answered him in these verses:\u2014\n\n    \u201cIzuru hi no\nHonom\u00e9ku iro wo\n    Waga sod\u00e9 ni\nTsutsumaba asu mo\nKimiya tomaran.\u201d\n\n\n[\u201c_If with my sleeve I hid the faint fair color of the dawning\nsun,\u2014then, perhaps, in the morning my lord will remain._\u201d][3]\n\n\nThen Tomotada knew that she accepted his admiration; and he was\nscarcely less surprised by the art with which she had uttered her\nfeelings in verse, than delighted by the assurance which the verses\nconveyed. He was now certain that in all this world he could not hope\nto meet, much less to win, a girl more beautiful and witty than this\nrustic maid before him; and a voice in his heart seemed to cry out\nurgently, \u201cTake the luck that the gods have put in your way!\u201d In short\nhe was bewitched\u2014bewitched to such a degree that, without further\npreliminary, he asked the old people to give him their daughter in\nmarriage,\u2014telling them, at the same time, his name and lineage, and his\nrank in the train of the Lord of Noto.\n\nThey bowed down before him, with many exclamations of grateful\nastonishment. But, after some moments of apparent hesitation, the\nfather replied:\u2014\n\n\u201cHonored master, you are a person of high position, and likely to rise\nto still higher things. Too great is the favor that you deign to offer\nus;\u2014indeed, the depth of our gratitude therefor is not to be spoken or\nmeasured. But this girl of ours, being a stupid country-girl of vulgar\nbirth, with no training or teaching of any sort, it would be improper\nto let her become the wife of a noble samurai. Even to speak of such a\nmatter is not right... But, since you find the girl to your liking, and\nhave condescended to pardon her peasant-manners and to overlook her\ngreat rudeness, we do gladly present her to you, for an humble\nhandmaid. Deign, therefore, to act hereafter in her regard according to\nyour august pleasure.\u201d\n\nEre morning the storm had passed; and day broke through a cloudless\neast. Even if the sleeve of Aoyagi hid from her lover\u2019s eyes the\nrose-blush of that dawn, he could no longer tarry. But neither could he\nresign himself to part with the girl; and, when everything had been\nprepared for his journey, he thus addressed her parents:\u2014\n\n\u201cThough it may seem thankless to ask for more than I have already\nreceived, I must again beg you to give me your daughter for wife. It\nwould be difficult for me to separate from her now; and as she is\nwilling to accompany me, if you permit, I can take her with me as she\nis. If you will give her to me, I shall ever cherish you as parents...\nAnd, in the meantime, please to accept this poor acknowledgment of your\nkindest hospitality.\u201d\n\nSo saying, he placed before his humble host a purse of gold _ry\u014d_. But\nthe old man, after many prostrations, gently pushed back the gift, and\nsaid:\u2014\n\n\u201cKind master, the gold would be of no use to us; and you will probably\nhave need of it during your long, cold journey. Here we buy nothing;\nand we could not spend so much money upon ourselves, even if we\nwished... As for the girl, we have already bestowed her as a free\ngift;\u2014she belongs to you: therefore it is not necessary to ask our\nleave to take her away. Already she has told us that she hopes to\naccompany you, and to remain your servant for as long as you may be\nwilling to endure her presence. We are only too happy to know that you\ndeign to accept her; and we pray that you will not trouble yourself on\nour account. In this place we could not provide her with proper\nclothing,\u2014much less with a dowry. Moreover, being old, we should in any\nevent have to separate from her before long. Therefore it is very\nfortunate that you should be willing to take her with you now.\u201d\n\nIt was in vain that Tomotada tried to persuade the old people to accept\na present: he found that they cared nothing for money. But he saw that\nthey were really anxious to trust their daughter\u2019s fate to his hands;\nand he therefore decided to take her with him. So he placed her upon\nhis horse, and bade the old folks farewell for the time being, with\nmany sincere expressions of gratitude.\n\n\u201cHonored Sir,\u201d the father made answer, \u201cit is we, and not you, who have\nreason for gratitude. We are sure that you will be kind to our girl;\nand we have no fears for her sake.\u201d...\n\n[_Here, in the Japanese original, there is a queer break in the natural\ncourse of the narration, which therefrom remains curiously\ninconsistent. Nothing further is said about the mother of Tomotada, or\nabout the parents of Aoyagi, or about the daimy\u014d of Noto. Evidently the\nwriter wearied of his work at this point, and hurried the story, very\ncarelessly, to its startling end. I am not able to supply his\nomissions, or to repair his faults of construction; but I must venture\nto put in a few explanatory details, without which the rest of the tale\nwould not hold together... It appears that Tomotada rashly took Aoyagi\nwith him to Ky\u014dto, and so got into trouble; but we are not informed as\nto where the couple lived afterwards._]\n\n...Now a samurai was not allowed to marry without the consent of his\nlord; and Tomotada could not expect to obtain this sanction before his\nmission had been accomplished. He had reason, under such circumstances,\nto fear that the beauty of Aoyagi might attract dangerous attention,\nand that means might be devised of taking her away from him. In Ky\u014dto\nhe therefore tried to keep her hidden from curious eyes. But a retainer\nof Lord Hosokawa one day caught sight of Aoyagi, discovered her\nrelation to Tomotada, and reported the matter to the daimy\u014d. Thereupon\nthe daimy\u014d\u2014a young prince, and fond of pretty faces\u2014gave orders that\nthe girl should be brought to the place; and she was taken thither at\nonce, without ceremony.\n\nTomotada sorrowed unspeakably; but he knew himself powerless. He was\nonly an humble messenger in the service of a far-off daimy\u014d; and for\nthe time being he was at the mercy of a much more powerful daimy\u014d,\nwhose wishes were not to be questioned. Moreover Tomotada knew that he\nhad acted foolishly,\u2014that he had brought about his own misfortune, by\nentering into a clandestine relation which the code of the military\nclass condemned. There was now but one hope for him,\u2014a desperate hope:\nthat Aoyagi might be able and willing to escape and to flee with him.\nAfter long reflection, he resolved to try to send her a letter. The\nattempt would be dangerous, of course: any writing sent to her might\nfind its way to the hands of the daimy\u014d; and to send a love-letter to\nany inmate of the place was an unpardonable offense. But he resolved to\ndare the risk; and, in the form of a Chinese poem, he composed a letter\nwhich he endeavored to have conveyed to her. The poem was written with\nonly twenty-eight characters. But with those twenty-eight characters he\nwas about to express all the depth of his passion, and to suggest all\nthe pain of his loss:\u2014[4]\n\n\nK\u014dshi \u014d-son gojin wo ou;\nRyokuju namida wo tar\u00e9t\u00e9 rakin wo hitataru;\nKomon hitotabi irit\u00e9 fukaki koto umi no gotoshi;\nKor\u00e9 yori shor\u014d kor\u00e9 rojin\n\n[_Closely, closely the youthful prince now follows after the gem-bright\nmaid;\u2014\nThe tears of the fair one, falling, have moistened all her robes.\nBut the august lord, having once become enamored of her\u2014the depth of\nhis longing is like the depth of the sea.\nTherefore it is only I that am left forlorn,\u2014only I that am left to\nwander along._]\n\nOn the evening of the day after this poem had been sent, Tomotada was\nsummoned to appear before the Lord Hosokawa. The youth at once\nsuspected that his confidence had been betrayed; and he could not hope,\nif his letter had been seen by the daimy\u014d, to escape the severest\npenalty. \u201cNow he will order my death,\u201d thought Tomotada;\u2014\u201cbut I do not\ncare to live unless Aoyagi be restored to me. Besides, if the\ndeath-sentence be passed, I can at least try to kill Hosokawa.\u201d He\nslipped his swords into his girdle, and hastened to the palace.\n\nOn entering the presence-room he saw the Lord Hosokawa seated upon the\ndais, surrounded by samurai of high rank, in caps and robes of\nceremony. All were silent as statues; and while Tomotada advanced to\nmake obeisance, the hush seemed to him sinister and heavy, like the\nstillness before a storm. But Hosokawa suddenly descended from the\ndais, and, while taking the youth by the arm, began to repeat the words\nof the poem:\u2014\u201c_K\u014dshi \u014d-son gojin wo ou_.\u201d... And Tomotada, looking up,\nsaw kindly tears in the prince\u2019s eyes.\n\nThen said Hosokawa:\u2014\n\n\u201cBecause you love each other so much, I have taken it upon myself to\nauthorize your marriage, in lieu of my kinsman, the Lord of Noto; and\nyour wedding shall now be celebrated before me. The guests are\nassembled;\u2014the gifts are ready.\u201d\n\nAt a signal from the lord, the sliding-screens concealing a further\napartment were pushed open; and Tomotada saw there many dignitaries of\nthe court, assembled for the ceremony, and Aoyagi awaiting him in\nbrides\u2019 apparel... Thus was she given back to him;\u2014and the wedding was\njoyous and splendid;\u2014and precious gifts were made to the young couple\nby the prince, and by the members of his household.\n\n\nFor five happy years, after that wedding, Tomotada and Aoyagi dwelt\ntogether. But one morning Aoyagi, while talking with her husband about\nsome household matter, suddenly uttered a great cry of pain, and then\nbecame very white and still. After a few moments she said, in a feeble\nvoice: \u201cPardon me for thus rudely crying out\u2014but the pain was so\nsudden!... My dear husband, our union must have been brought about\nthrough some Karma-relation in a former state of existence; and that\nhappy relation, I think, will bring us again together in more than one\nlife to come. But for this present existence of ours, the relation is\nnow ended;\u2014we are about to be separated. Repeat for me, I beseech you,\nthe _Nembutsu_-prayer,\u2014because I am dying.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! what strange wild fancies!\u201d cried the startled husband,\u2014\u201cyou are\nonly a little unwell, my dear one!... lie down for a while, and rest;\nand the sickness will pass.\u201d...\n\n\u201cNo, no!\u201d she responded\u2014\u201cI am dying!\u2014I do not imagine it;\u2014I know!...\nAnd it were needless now, my dear husband, to hide the truth from you\nany longer:\u2014I am not a human being. The soul of a tree is my soul;\u2014the\nheart of a tree is my heart;\u2014the sap of the willow is my life. And some\none, at this cruel moment, is cutting down my tree;\u2014that is why I must\ndie!... Even to weep were now beyond my strength!\u2014quickly, quickly\nrepeat the _Nembutsu_ for me... quickly!... Ah!...\u201d\n\nWith another cry of pain she turned aside her beautiful head, and tried\nto hide her face behind her sleeve. But almost in the same moment her\nwhole form appeared to collapse in the strangest way, and to sink down,\ndown, down\u2014level with the floor. Tomotada had sprung to support\nher;\u2014but there was nothing to support! There lay on the matting only\nthe empty robes of the fair creature and the ornaments that she had\nworn in her hair: the body had ceased to exist...\n\nTomotada shaved his head, took the Buddhist vows, and became an\nitinerant priest. He traveled through all the provinces of the empire;\nand, at holy places which he visited, he offered up prayers for the\nsoul of Aoyagi. Reaching Echizen, in the course of his pilgrimage, he\nsought the home of the parents of his beloved. But when he arrived at\nthe lonely place among the hills, where their dwelling had been, he\nfound that the cottage had disappeared. There was nothing to mark even\nthe spot where it had stood, except the stumps of three willows\u2014two old\ntrees and one young tree\u2014that had been cut down long before his\narrival.\n\nBeside the stumps of those willow-trees he erected a memorial tomb,\ninscribed with divers holy texts; and he there performed many Buddhist\nservices on behalf of the spirits of Aoyagi and of her parents.\n\n\n\n\nJIU-ROKU-ZAKURA\n\n\nUso no yona,\u2014\nJiu-roku-zakura\nSaki ni keri!\n\n\nIn Wak\u00e9g\u014dri, a district of the province of Iyo (1), there is a very\nancient and famous cherry-tree, called _Jiu-roku-zakura_, or \u201cthe\nCherry-tree of the Sixteenth Day,\u201d because it blooms every year upon\nthe sixteenth day of the first month (by the old lunar calendar),\u2014and\nonly upon that day. Thus the time of its flowering is the Period of\nGreat Cold,\u2014though the natural habit of a cherry-tree is to wait for\nthe spring season before venturing to blossom. But the\n_Jiu-roku-zakura_ blossoms with a life that is not\u2014or, at least, that\nwas not originally\u2014its own. There is the ghost of a man in that tree.\n\nHe was a samurai of Iyo; and the tree grew in his garden; and it used\nto flower at the usual time,\u2014that is to say, about the end of March or\nthe beginning of April. He had played under that tree when he was a\nchild; and his parents and grandparents and ancestors had hung to its\nblossoming branches, season after season for more than a hundred years,\nbright strips of colored paper inscribed with poems of praise. He\nhimself became very old,\u2014outliving all his children; and there was\nnothing in the world left for him to love except that tree. And lo! in\nthe summer of a certain year, the tree withered and died!\n\nExceedingly the old man sorrowed for his tree. Then kind neighbors\nfound for him a young and beautiful cherry-tree, and planted it in his\ngarden,\u2014hoping thus to comfort him. And he thanked them, and pretended\nto be glad. But really his heart was full of pain; for he had loved the\nold tree so well that nothing could have consoled him for the loss of\nit.\n\nAt last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which\nthe perishing tree might be saved. (It was the sixteenth day of the\nfirst month.) Along he went into his garden, and bowed down before the\nwithered tree, and spoke to it, saying: \u201cNow deign, I beseech you, once\nmore to bloom,\u2014because I am going to die in your stead.\u201d (For it is\nbelieved that one can really give away one\u2019s life to another person, or\nto a creature or even to a tree, by the favor of the gods;\u2014and thus to\ntransfer one\u2019s life is expressed by the term _migawari ni tatsu_, \u201cto\nact as a substitute.\u201d) Then under that tree he spread a white cloth,\nand divers coverings, and sat down upon the coverings, and performed\n_hara-kiri_ after the fashion of a samurai. And the ghost of him went\ninto the tree, and made it blossom in that same hour.\n\nAnd every year it still blooms on the sixteenth day of the first month,\nin the season of snow.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DREAM OF AKINOSUK\u00c9\n\n\nIn the district called To\u00efchi of Yamato Province, (1) there used to\nlive a g\u014dshi named Miyata Akinosuk\u00e9... [Here I must tell you that in\nJapanese feudal times there was a privileged class of\nsoldier-farmers,\u2014free-holders,\u2014corresponding to the class of yeomen in\nEngland; and these were called g\u014dshi.]\n\nIn Akinosuk\u00e9\u2019s garden there was a great and ancient cedar-tree, under\nwhich he was wont to rest on sultry days. One very warm afternoon he\nwas sitting under this tree with two of his friends, fellow-g\u014dshi,\nchatting and drinking wine, when he felt all of a sudden very\ndrowsy,\u2014so drowsy that he begged his friends to excuse him for taking a\nnap in their presence. Then he lay down at the foot of the tree, and\ndreamed this dream:\u2014\n\nHe thought that as he was lying there in his garden, he saw a\nprocession, like the train of some great daimy\u014d descending a hill near\nby, and that he got up to look at it. A very grand procession it proved\nto be,\u2014more imposing than anything of the kind which he had ever seen\nbefore; and it was advancing toward his dwelling. He observed in the\nvan of it a number of young men richly appareled, who were drawing a\ngreat lacquered palace-carriage, or _gosho-guruma_, hung with bright\nblue silk. When the procession arrived within a short distance of the\nhouse it halted; and a richly dressed man\u2014evidently a person of\nrank\u2014advanced from it, approached Akinosuk\u00e9, bowed to him profoundly,\nand then said:\u2014\n\n\u201cHonored Sir, you see before you a _k\u00e9rai_ [vassal] of the Koku\u014d of\nTokoyo.[1] My master, the King, commands me to greet you in his august\nname, and to place myself wholly at your disposal. He also bids me\ninform you that he augustly desires your presence at the palace. Be\ntherefore pleased immediately to enter this honorable carriage, which\nhe has sent for your conveyance.\u201d\n\nUpon hearing these words Akinosuk\u00e9 wanted to make some fitting reply;\nbut he was too much astonished and embarrassed for speech;\u2014and in the\nsame moment his will seemed to melt away from him, so that he could\nonly do as the _k\u00e9rai_ bade him. He entered the carriage; the _k\u00e9rai_\ntook a place beside him, and made a signal; the drawers, seizing the\nsilken ropes, turned the great vehicle southward;\u2014and the journey\nbegan.\n\nIn a very short time, to Akinosuk\u00e9\u2019s amazement, the carriage stopped in\nfront of a huge two-storied gateway (_r\u014dmon_), of a Chinese style,\nwhich he had never before seen. Here the _k\u00e9rai_ dismounted, saying, \u201cI\ngo to announce the honorable arrival,\u201d\u2014and he disappeared. After some\nlittle waiting, Akinosuk\u00e9 saw two noble-looking men, wearing robes of\npurple silk and high caps of the form indicating lofty rank, come from\nthe gateway. These, after having respectfully saluted him, helped him\nto descend from the carriage, and led him through the great gate and\nacross a vast garden, to the entrance of a palace whose front appeared\nto extend, west and east, to a distance of miles. Akinosuk\u00e9 was then\nshown into a reception-room of wonderful size and splendor. His guides\nconducted him to the place of honor, and respectfully seated themselves\napart; while serving-maids, in costume of ceremony, brought\nrefreshments. When Akinosuk\u00e9 had partaken of the refreshments, the two\npurple-robed attendants bowed low before him, and addressed him in the\nfollowing words,\u2014each speaking alternately, according to the etiquette\nof courts:\u2014\n\n\u201cIt is now our honorable duty to inform you... as to the reason of your\nhaving been summoned hither... Our master, the King, augustly desires\nthat you become his son-in-law;... and it is his wish and command that\nyou shall wed this very day... the August Princess, his\nmaiden-daughter... We shall soon conduct you to the presence-chamber...\nwhere His Augustness even now is waiting to receive you... But it will\nbe necessary that we first invest you... with the appropriate garments\nof ceremony.\u201d[2]\n\nHaving thus spoken, the attendants rose together, and proceeded to an\nalcove containing a great chest of gold lacquer. They opened the chest,\nand took from it various robes and girdles of rich material, and a\n_kamuri_, or regal headdress. With these they attired Akinosuk\u00e9 as\nbefitted a princely bridegroom; and he was then conducted to the\npresence-room, where he saw the Koku\u014d of Tokoyo seated upon the\n_daiza_,[3] wearing a high black cap of state, and robed in robes of\nyellow silk. Before the _daiza_, to left and right, a multitude of\ndignitaries sat in rank, motionless and splendid as images in a temple;\nand Akinosuk\u00e9, advancing into their midst, saluted the king with the\ntriple prostration of usage. The king greeted him with gracious words,\nand then said:\u2014\n\n\u201cYou have already been informed as to the reason of your having been\nsummoned to Our presence. We have decided that you shall become the\nadopted husband of Our only daughter;\u2014and the wedding ceremony shall\nnow be performed.\u201d\n\nAs the king finished speaking, a sound of joyful music was heard; and a\nlong train of beautiful court ladies advanced from behind a curtain to\nconduct Akinosuk\u00e9 to the room in which his bride awaited him.\n\nThe room was immense; but it could scarcely contain the multitude of\nguests assembled to witness the wedding ceremony. All bowed down before\nAkinosuk\u00e9 as he took his place, facing the King\u2019s daughter, on the\nkneeling-cushion prepared for him. As a maiden of heaven the bride\nappeared to be; and her robes were beautiful as a summer sky. And the\nmarriage was performed amid great rejoicing.\n\nAfterwards the pair were conducted to a suite of apartments that had\nbeen prepared for them in another portion of the palace; and there they\nreceived the congratulations of many noble persons, and wedding gifts\nbeyond counting.\n\nSome days later Akinosuk\u00e9 was again summoned to the throne-room. On\nthis occasion he was received even more graciously than before; and the\nKing said to him:\u2014\n\n\u201cIn the southwestern part of Our dominion there is an island called\nRaish\u016b. We have now appointed you Governor of that island. You will\nfind the people loyal and docile; but their laws have not yet been\nbrought into proper accord with the laws of Tokoyo; and their customs\nhave not been properly regulated. We entrust you with the duty of\nimproving their social condition as far as may be possible; and We\ndesire that you shall rule them with kindness and wisdom. All\npreparations necessary for your journey to Raish\u016b have already been\nmade.\u201d\n\nSo Akinosuk\u00e9 and his bride departed from the palace of Tokoyo,\naccompanied to the shore by a great escort of nobles and officials; and\nthey embarked upon a ship of state provided by the king. And with\nfavoring winds they safety sailed to Raish\u016b, and found the good people\nof that island assembled upon the beach to welcome them.\n\nAkinosuk\u00e9 entered at once upon his new duties; and they did not prove\nto be hard. During the first three years of his governorship he was\noccupied chiefly with the framing and the enactment of laws; but he had\nwise counselors to help him, and he never found the work unpleasant.\nWhen it was all finished, he had no active duties to perform, beyond\nattending the rites and ceremonies ordained by ancient custom. The\ncountry was so healthy and so fertile that sickness and want were\nunknown; and the people were so good that no laws were ever broken. And\nAkinosuk\u00e9 dwelt and ruled in Raish\u016b for twenty years more,\u2014making in\nall twenty-three years of sojourn, during which no shadow of sorrow\ntraversed his life.\n\nBut in the twenty-fourth year of his governorship, a great misfortune\ncame upon him; for his wife, who had borne him seven children,\u2014five\nboys and two girls,\u2014fell sick and died. She was buried, with high pomp,\non the summit of a beautiful hill in the district of Hanry\u014dk\u014d; and a\nmonument, exceedingly splendid, was placed upon her grave. But\nAkinosuk\u00e9 felt such grief at her death that he no longer cared to live.\n\nNow when the legal period of mourning was over, there came to Raish\u016b,\nfrom the Tokoyo palace, a _shisha_, or royal messenger. The _shisha_\ndelivered to Akinosuk\u00e9 a message of condolence, and then said to him:\u2014\n\n\u201cThese are the words which our august master, the King of Tokoyo,\ncommands that I repeat to you: \u2018We will now send you back to your own\npeople and country. As for the seven children, they are the grandsons\nand granddaughters of the King, and shall be fitly cared for. Do not,\ntherefore, allow your mind to be troubled concerning them.\u2019\u201d\n\nOn receiving this mandate, Akinosuk\u00e9 submissively prepared for his\ndeparture. When all his affairs had been settled, and the ceremony of\nbidding farewell to his counselors and trusted officials had been\nconcluded, he was escorted with much honor to the port. There he\nembarked upon the ship sent for him; and the ship sailed out into the\nblue sea, under the blue sky; and the shape of the island of Raish\u016b\nitself turned blue, and then turned grey, and then vanished forever...\nAnd Akinosuk\u00e9 suddenly awoke\u2014under the cedar-tree in his own garden!\n\nFor a moment he was stupefied and dazed. But he perceived his two\nfriends still seated near him,\u2014drinking and chatting merrily. He stared\nat them in a bewildered way, and cried aloud,\u2014\n\n\u201cHow strange!\u201d\n\n\u201cAkinosuk\u00e9 must have been dreaming,\u201d one of them exclaimed, with a\nlaugh. \u201cWhat did you see, Akinosuk\u00e9, that was strange?\u201d\n\nThen Akinosuk\u00e9 told his dream,\u2014that dream of three-and-twenty years\u2019\nsojourn in the realm of Tokoyo, in the island of Raish\u016b;\u2014and they were\nastonished, because he had really slept for no more than a few minutes.\n\nOne g\u014dshi said:\u2014\n\n\u201cIndeed, you saw strange things. We also saw something strange while\nyou were napping. A little yellow butterfly was fluttering over your\nface for a moment or two; and we watched it. Then it alighted on the\nground beside you, close to the tree; and almost as soon as it alighted\nthere, a big, big ant came out of a hole and seized it and pulled it\ndown into the hole. Just before you woke up, we saw that very butterfly\ncome out of the hole again, and flutter over your face as before. And\nthen it suddenly disappeared: we do not know where it went.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps it was Akinosuk\u00e9\u2019s soul,\u201d the other g\u014dshi said;\u2014\u201ccertainly I\nthought I saw it fly into his mouth... But, even if that butterfly\n_was_ Akinosuk\u00e9\u2019s soul, the fact would not explain his dream.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe ants might explain it,\u201d returned the first speaker. \u201cAnts are\nqueer beings\u2014possibly goblins... Anyhow, there is a big ant\u2019s nest\nunder that cedar-tree.\u201d...\n\n\u201cLet us look!\u201d cried Akinosuk\u00e9, greatly moved by this suggestion. And\nhe went for a spade.\n\nThe ground about and beneath the cedar-tree proved to have been\nexcavated, in a most surprising way, by a prodigious colony of ants.\nThe ants had furthermore built inside their excavations; and their tiny\nconstructions of straw, clay, and stems bore an odd resemblance to\nminiature towns. In the middle of a structure considerably larger than\nthe rest there was a marvelous swarming of small ants around the body\nof one very big ant, which had yellowish wings and a long black head.\n\n\u201cWhy, there is the King of my dream!\u201d cried Akinosuk\u00e9; \u201cand there is\nthe palace of Tokoyo!... How extraordinary!... Raish\u016b ought to lie\nsomewhere southwest of it\u2014to the left of that big root... Yes!\u2014here it\nis!... How very strange! Now I am sure that I can find the mountain of\nHanry\u014dk\u014d, and the grave of the princess.\u201d...\n\nIn the wreck of the nest he searched and searched, and at last\ndiscovered a tiny mound, on the top of which was fixed a water-worn\npebble, in shape resembling a Buddhist monument. Underneath it he\nfound\u2014embedded in clay\u2014the dead body of a female ant.\n\n\n\n\nRIKI-BAKA\n\n\nHis name was Riki, signifying Strength; but the people called him\nRiki-the-Simple, or Riki-the-Fool,\u2014\u201cRiki-Baka,\u201d\u2014because he had been\nborn into perpetual childhood. For the same reason they were kind to\nhim,\u2014even when he set a house on fire by putting a lighted match to a\nmosquito-curtain, and clapped his hands for joy to see the blaze. At\nsixteen years he was a tall, strong lad; but in mind he remained always\nat the happy age of two, and therefore continued to play with very\nsmall children. The bigger children of the neighborhood, from four to\nseven years old, did not care to play with him, because he could not\nlearn their songs and games. His favorite toy was a broomstick, which\nhe used as a hobby-horse; and for hours at a time he would ride on that\nbroomstick, up and down the slope in front of my house, with amazing\npeals of laughter. But at last he became troublesome by reason of his\nnoise; and I had to tell him that he must find another playground. He\nbowed submissively, and then went off,\u2014sorrowfully trailing his\nbroomstick behind him. Gentle at all times, and perfectly harmless if\nallowed no chance to play with fire, he seldom gave anybody cause for\ncomplaint. His relation to the life of our street was scarcely more\nthan that of a dog or a chicken; and when he finally disappeared, I did\nnot miss him. Months and months passed by before anything happened to\nremind me of Riki.\n\n\u201cWhat has become of Riki?\u201d I then asked the old woodcutter who supplies\nour neighborhood with fuel. I remembered that Riki had often helped him\nto carry his bundles.\n\n\u201cRiki-Baka?\u201d answered the old man. \u201cAh, Riki is dead\u2014poor fellow!...\nYes, he died nearly a year ago, very suddenly; the doctors said that he\nhad some disease of the brain. And there is a strange story now about\nthat poor Riki.\n\n\u201cWhen Riki died, his mother wrote his name, \u2018Riki-Baka,\u2019 in the palm of\nhis left hand,\u2014putting \u2018Riki\u2019 in the Chinese character, and \u2018Baka\u2019 in\n_kana_ (1). And she repeated many prayers for him,\u2014prayers that he\nmight be reborn into some more happy condition.\n\n\u201cNow, about three months ago, in the honorable residence of\nNanigashi-Sama (2), in Kojimachi (3), a boy was born with characters on\nthe palm of his left hand; and the characters were quite plain to\nread,\u2014\u2018_RIKI-BAKA_\u2019!\n\n\u201cSo the people of that house knew that the birth must have happened in\nanswer to somebody\u2019s prayer; and they caused inquiry to be made\neverywhere. At last a vegetable-seller brought word to them that there\nused to be a simple lad, called Riki-Baka, living in the Ushigom\u00e9\nquarter, and that he had died during the last autumn; and they sent two\nmen-servants to look for the mother of Riki.\n\n\u201cThose servants found the mother of Riki, and told her what had\nhappened; and she was glad exceedingly\u2014for that Nanigashi house is a\nvery rich and famous house. But the servants said that the family of\nNanigashi-Sama were very angry about the word \u2018Baka\u2019 on the child\u2019s\nhand. \u2018And where is your Riki buried?\u2019 the servants asked. \u2018He is\nburied in the cemetery of Zend\u014dji,\u2019 she told them. \u2018Please to give us\nsome of the clay of his grave,\u2019 they requested.\n\n\u201cSo she went with them to the temple Zend\u014dji, and showed them Riki\u2019s\ngrave; and they took some of the grave-clay away with them, wrapped up\nin a _furoshiki_[1]].... They gave Riki\u2019s mother some money,\u2014ten\nyen.\u201d... (4)\n\n\u201cBut what did they want with that clay?\u201d I inquired.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d the old man answered, \u201cyou know that it would not do to let the\nchild grow up with that name on his hand. And there is no other means\nof removing characters that come in that way upon the body of a child:\n_you must rub the skin with clay taken from the grave of the body of\nthe former birth_.\u201d...\n\n\n\n\nHI-MAWARI\n\n\nOn the wooded hill behind the house Robert and I are looking for\nfairy-rings. Robert is eight years old, comely, and very wise;\u2014I am a\nlittle more than seven,\u2014and I reverence Robert. It is a glowing\nglorious August day; and the warm air is filled with sharp sweet scents\nof resin.\n\nWe do not find any fairy-rings; but we find a great many pine-cones in\nthe high grass... I tell Robert the old Welsh story of the man who went\nto sleep, unawares, inside a fairy-ring, and so disappeared for seven\nyears, and would never eat or speak after his friends had delivered him\nfrom the enchantment.\n\n\u201cThey eat nothing but the points of needles, you know,\u201d says Robert.\n\n\u201cWho?\u201d I ask.\n\n\u201cGoblins,\u201d Robert answers.\n\nThis revelation leaves me dumb with astonishment and awe... But Robert\nsuddenly cries out:\u2014\n\n\u201cThere is a Harper!\u2014he is coming to the house!\u201d\n\nAnd down the hill we run to hear the harper... But what a harper! Not\nlike the hoary minstrels of the picture-books. A swarthy, sturdy,\nunkempt vagabond, with black bold eyes under scowling black brows. More\nlike a bricklayer than a bard,\u2014and his garments are corduroy!\n\n\u201cWonder if he is going to sing in Welsh?\u201d murmurs Robert.\n\nI feel too much disappointed to make any remarks. The harper poses his\nharp\u2014a huge instrument\u2014upon our doorstep, sets all the strong ringing\nwith a sweep of his grimy fingers, clears his throat with a sort of\nangry growl, and begins,\u2014\n\nBelieve me, if all those endearing young charms,\n    Which I gaze on so fondly to-day...\n\n\nThe accent, the attitude, the voice, all fill me with repulsion\nunutterable,\u2014shock me with a new sensation of formidable vulgarity. I\nwant to cry out loud, \u201cYou have no right to sing that song!\u201d For I have\nheard it sung by the lips of the dearest and fairest being in my little\nworld;\u2014and that this rude, coarse man should dare to sing it vexes me\nlike a mockery,\u2014angers me like an insolence. But only for a moment!...\nWith the utterance of the syllables \u201cto-day,\u201d that deep, grim voice\nsuddenly breaks into a quivering tenderness indescribable;\u2014then,\nmarvelously changing, it mellows into tones sonorous and rich as the\nbass of a great organ,\u2014while a sensation unlike anything ever felt\nbefore takes me by the throat... What witchcraft has he learned? what\nsecret has he found\u2014this scowling man of the road?... Oh! is there\nanybody else in the whole world who can sing like that?... And the form\nof the singer flickers and dims;\u2014and the house, and the lawn, and all\nvisible shapes of things tremble and swim before me. Yet instinctively\nI fear that man;\u2014I almost hate him; and I feel myself flushing with\nanger and shame because of his power to move me thus...\n\n\u201cHe made you cry,\u201d Robert compassionately observes, to my further\nconfusion,\u2014as the harper strides away, richer by a gift of sixpence\ntaken without thanks... \u201cBut I think he must be a gipsy. Gipsies are\nbad people\u2014and they are wizards... Let us go back to the wood.\u201d\n\nWe climb again to the pines, and there squat down upon the sun-flecked\ngrass, and look over town and sea. But we do not play as before: the\nspell of the wizard is strong upon us both... \u201cPerhaps he is a goblin,\u201d\nI venture at last, \u201cor a fairy?\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d says Robert,\u2014\u201conly a gipsy. But\nthat is nearly as bad. They steal children, you know.\u201d...\n\n\u201cWhat shall we do if he comes up here?\u201d I gasp, in sudden terror at the\nlonesomeness of our situation.\n\n\u201cOh, he wouldn\u2019t dare,\u201d answers Robert\u2014\u201cnot by daylight, you know.\u201d...\n\n[Only yesterday, near the village of Takata, I noticed a flower which\nthe Japanese call by nearly the same name as we do: _Himawari_, \u201cThe\nSunward-turning;\u201d\u2014and over the space of forty years there thrilled back\nto me the voice of that wandering harper,\u2014\n\nAs the Sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,\nThe same look that she turned when he rose.\n\n\nAgain I saw the sun-flecked shadows on that far Welsh hill; and Robert\nfor a moment again stood beside me, with his girl\u2019s face and his curls\nof gold. We were looking for fairy-rings... But all that existed of the\nreal Robert must long ago have suffered a sea-change into something\nrich and strange... _Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay\ndown his life for his friend_....]\n\n\n\n\nH\u014cRAI\n\n\nBlue vision of depth lost in height,\u2014sea and sky interblending through\nluminous haze. The day is of spring, and the hour morning.\n\nOnly sky and sea,\u2014one azure enormity... In the fore, ripples are\ncatching a silvery light, and threads of foam are swirling. But a\nlittle further off no motion is visible, nor anything save color: dim\nwarm blue of water widening away to melt into blue of air. Horizon\nthere is none: only distance soaring into space,\u2014infinite concavity\nhollowing before you, and hugely arching above you,\u2014the color deepening\nwith the height. But far in the midway-blue there hangs a faint, faint\nvision of palace towers, with high roofs horned and curved like\nmoons,\u2014some shadowing of splendor strange and old, illumined by a\nsunshine soft as memory.\n\n...What I have thus been trying to describe is a kak\u00e9mono,\u2014that is to\nsay, a Japanese painting on silk, suspended to the wall of my\nalcove;\u2014and the name of it is SHINKIR\u014c, which signifies \u201cMirage.\u201d But\nthe shapes of the mirage are unmistakable. Those are the glimmering\nportals of H\u014drai the blest; and those are the moony roofs of the Palace\nof the Dragon-King;\u2014and the fashion of them (though limned by a\nJapanese brush of to-day) is the fashion of things Chinese, twenty-one\nhundred years ago...\n\nThus much is told of the place in the Chinese books of that time:\u2014\n\nIn H\u014drai there is neither death nor pain; and there is no winter. The\nflowers in that place never fade, and the fruits never fail; and if a\nman taste of those fruits even but once, he can never again feel thirst\nor hunger. In H\u014drai grow the enchanted plants _So-rin-shi_, and\n_Riku-g\u014d-aoi_, and _Ban-kon-t\u014d_, which heal all manner of sickness;\u2014and\nthere grows also the magical grass _Y\u014d-shin-shi_, that quickens the\ndead; and the magical grass is watered by a fairy water of which a\nsingle drink confers perpetual youth. The people of H\u014drai eat their\nrice out of very, very small bowls; but the rice never diminishes\nwithin those bowls,\u2014however much of it be eaten,\u2014until the eater\ndesires no more. And the people of H\u014drai drink their wine out of very,\nvery small cups; but no man can empty one of those cups,\u2014however\nstoutly he may drink,\u2014until there comes upon him the pleasant\ndrowsiness of intoxication.\n\nAll this and more is told in the legends of the time of the Shin\ndynasty. But that the people who wrote down those legends ever saw\nH\u014drai, even in a mirage, is not believable. For really there are no\nenchanted fruits which leave the eater forever satisfied,\u2014nor any\nmagical grass which revives the dead,\u2014nor any fountain of fairy\nwater,\u2014nor any bowls which never lack rice,\u2014nor any cups which never\nlack wine. It is not true that sorrow and death never enter\nH\u014drai;\u2014neither is it true that there is not any winter. The winter in\nH\u014drai is cold;\u2014and winds then bite to the bone; and the heaping of snow\nis monstrous on the roofs of the Dragon-King.\n\nNevertheless there are wonderful things in H\u014drai; and the most\nwonderful of all has not been mentioned by any Chinese writer. I mean\nthe atmosphere of H\u014drai. It is an atmosphere peculiar to the place;\nand, because of it, the sunshine in H\u014drai is _whiter_ than any other\nsunshine,\u2014a milky light that never dazzles,\u2014astonishingly clear, but\nvery soft. This atmosphere is not of our human period: it is enormously\nold,\u2014so old that I feel afraid when I try to think how old it is;\u2014and\nit is not a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. It is not made of air at\nall, but of ghost,\u2014the substance of quintillions of quintillions of\ngenerations of souls blended into one immense translucency,\u2014souls of\npeople who thought in ways never resembling our ways. Whatever mortal\nman inhales that atmosphere, he takes into his blood the thrilling of\nthese spirits; and they change the sense within him,\u2014reshaping his\nnotions of Space and Time,\u2014so that he can see only as they used to see,\nand feel only as they used to feel, and think only as they used to\nthink. Soft as sleep are these changes of sense; and H\u014drai, discerned\nacross them, might thus be described:\u2014\n\n_\u2014Because in H\u014drai there is no knowledge of great evil, the hearts of\nthe people never grow old. And, by reason of being always young in\nheart, the people of H\u014drai smile from birth until death\u2014except when the\nGods send sorrow among them; and faces then are veiled until the sorrow\ngoes away. All folk in H\u014drai love and trust each other, as if all were\nmembers of a single household;\u2014and the speech of the women is like\nbirdsong, because the hearts of them are light as the souls of\nbirds;\u2014and the swaying of the sleeves of the maidens at play seems a\nflutter of wide, soft wings. In H\u014drai nothing is hidden but grief,\nbecause there is no reason for shame;\u2014and nothing is locked away,\nbecause there could not be any theft;\u2014and by night as well as by day\nall doors remain unbarred, because there is no reason for fear. And\nbecause the people are fairies\u2014though mortal\u2014all things in H\u014drai,\nexcept the Palace of the Dragon-King, are small and quaint and\nqueer;\u2014and these fairy-folk do really eat their rice out of very, very\nsmall bowls, and drink their wine out of very, very small cups...._\n\n\u2014Much of this seeming would be due to the inhalation of that ghostly\natmosphere\u2014but not all. For the spell wrought by the dead is only the\ncharm of an Ideal, the glamour of an ancient hope;\u2014and something of\nthat hope has found fulfillment in many hearts,\u2014in the simple beauty of\nunselfish lives,\u2014in the sweetness of Woman...\n\n\u2014Evil winds from the West are blowing over H\u014drai; and the magical\natmosphere, alas! is shrinking away before them. It lingers now in\npatches only, and bands,\u2014like those long bright bands of cloud that\ntrain across the landscapes of Japanese painters. Under these shreds of\nthe elfish vapor you still can find H\u014drai\u2014but not everywhere...\nRemember that H\u014drai is also called Shinkir\u014d, which signifies\nMirage,\u2014the Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading,\u2014never\nagain to appear save in pictures and poems and dreams...\n\n\n\n\nINSECT STUDIES\n\n\n\n\nBUTTERFLIES\n\n\nI\n\nWould that I could hope for the luck of that Chinese scholar known to\nJapanese literature as \u201cR\u014dsan\u201d! For he was beloved by two\nspirit-maidens, celestial sisters, who every ten days came to visit him\nand to tell him stories about butterflies. Now there are marvelous\nChinese stories about butterflies\u2014ghostly stories; and I want to know\nthem. But never shall I be able to read Chinese, nor even Japanese; and\nthe little Japanese poetry that I manage, with exceeding difficulty, to\ntranslate, contains so many allusions to Chinese stories of butterflies\nthat I am tormented with the torment of Tantalus... And, of course, no\nspirit-maidens will even deign to visit so skeptical a person as\nmyself.\n\nI want to know, for example, the whole story of that Chinese maiden\nwhom the butterflies took to be a flower, and followed in multitude,\u2014so\nfragrant and so fair was she. Also I should like to know something more\nconcerning the butterflies of the Emperor Gens\u014d, or Ming Hwang, who\nmade them choose his loves for him... He used to hold wine-parties in\nhis amazing garden; and ladies of exceeding beauty were in attendance;\nand caged butterflies, set free among them, would fly to the fairest;\nand then, upon that fairest the Imperial favor was bestowed. But after\nGens\u014d K\u014dtei had seen Y\u014dkihi (whom the Chinese call Yang-Kwei-Fei), he\nwould not suffer the butterflies to choose for him,\u2014which was unlucky,\nas Yokihi got him into serious trouble... Again, I should like to know\nmore about the experience of that Chinese scholar, celebrated in Japan\nunder the name S\u014dsh\u016b, who dreamed that he was a butterfly, and had all\nthe sensations of a butterfly in that dream. For his spirit had really\nbeen wandering about in the shape of a butterfly; and, when he awoke,\nthe memories and the feelings of butterfly existence remained so vivid\nin his mind that he could not act like a human being... Finally I\nshould like to know the text of a certain Chinese official recognition\nof sundry butterflies as the spirits of an Emperor and of his\nattendants...\n\nMost of the Japanese literature about butterflies, excepting some\npoetry, appears to be of Chinese origin; and even that old national\na\u00e6sthetic feeling on the subject, which found such delightful\nexpression in Japanese art and song and custom, may have been first\ndeveloped under Chinese teaching. Chinese precedent doubtless explains\nwhy Japanese poets and painters chose so often for their _geimy\u014d_, or\nprofessional appellations, such names as _Ch\u014dmu_ (\u201cButterfly-Dream),\u201d\n_Ich\u014d_ (\u201cSolitary Butterfly),\u201d etc. And even to this day such _geimy\u014d_\nas _Ch\u014dhana_ (\u201cButterfly-Blossom\u201d), _Ch\u014dkichi_ (\u201cButterfly-Luck\u201d), or\n_Ch\u014dnosuk\u00e9_ (\u201cButterfly-Help\u201d), are affected by dancing-girls. Besides\nartistic names having reference to butterflies, there are still in use\nreal personal names (_yobina_) of this kind,\u2014such as Koch\u014d, or Ch\u014d,\nmeaning \u201cButterfly.\u201d They are borne by women only, as a rule,\u2014though\nthere are some strange exceptions... And here I may mention that, in\nthe province of Mutsu, there still exists the curious old custom of\ncalling the youngest daughter in a family _Tekona_,\u2014which quaint word,\nobsolete elsewhere, signifies in Mutsu dialect a butterfly. In classic\ntime this word signified also a beautiful woman...\n\nIt is possible also that some weird Japanese beliefs about butterflies\nare of Chinese derivation; but these beliefs might be older than China\nherself. The most interesting one, I think, is that the soul of a\n_living_ person may wander about in the form of a butterfly. Some\npretty fancies have been evolved out of this belief,\u2014such as the notion\nthat if a butterfly enters your guest-room and perches behind the\nbamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. That\na butterfly may be the spirit of somebody is not a reason for being\nafraid of it. Nevertheless there are times when even butterflies can\ninspire fear by appearing in prodigious numbers; and Japanese history\nrecords such an event. When Ta\u00efra-no-Masakado was secretly preparing\nfor his famous revolt, there appeared in Ky\u014dto so vast a swarm of\nbutterflies that the people were frightened,\u2014thinking the apparition to\nbe a portent of coming evil... Perhaps those butterflies were supposed\nto be the spirits of the thousands doomed to perish in battle, and\nagitated on the eve of war by some mysterious premonition of death.\n\nHowever, in Japanese belief, a butterfly may be the soul of a dead\nperson as well as of a living person. Indeed it is a custom of souls to\ntake butterfly-shape in order to announce the fact of their final\ndeparture from the body; and for this reason any butterfly which enters\na house ought to be kindly treated.\n\nTo this belief, and to queer fancies connected with it, there are many\nallusions in popular drama. For example, there is a well-known play\ncalled _Tond\u00e9-d\u00e9ru-Koch\u014d-no-Kanzashi;_ or, \u201cThe Flying Hairpin of\nKoch\u014d.\u201d Koch\u014d is a beautiful person who kills herself because of false\naccusations and cruel treatment. Her would-be avenger long seeks in\nvain for the author of the wrong. But at last the dead woman\u2019s hairpin\nturns into a butterfly, and serves as a guide to vengeance by hovering\nabove the place where the villain is hiding.\n\n\u2014Of course those big paper butterflies (_o-ch\u014d_ and _m\u00e9-ch\u014d_) which\nfigure at weddings must not be thought of as having any ghostly\nsignification. As emblems they only express the joy of living union,\nand the hope that the newly married couple may pass through life\ntogether as a pair of butterflies flit lightly through some pleasant\ngarden,\u2014now hovering upward, now downward, but never widely separating.\n\nII\n\nA small selection of _hokku_ (1) on butterflies will help to illustrate\nJapanese interest in the a\u00e6sthetic side of the subject. Some are\npictures only,\u2014tiny color-sketches made with seventeen syllables; some\nare nothing more than pretty fancies, or graceful suggestions;\u2014but the\nreader will find variety. Probably he will not care much for the verses\nin themselves. The taste for Japanese poetry of the epigrammatic sort\nis a taste that must be slowly acquired; and it is only by degrees,\nafter patient study, that the possibilities of such composition can be\nfairly estimated. Hasty criticism has declared that to put forward any\nserious claim on behalf of seventeen-syllable poems \u201cwould be absurd.\u201d\nBut what, then, of Crashaw\u2019s famous line upon the miracle at the\nmarriage feast in Cana?\u2014\n\nNympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit.[1]\n\n\nOnly fourteen syllables\u2014and immortality. Now with seventeen Japanese\nsyllables things quite as wonderful\u2014indeed, much more wonderful\u2014have\nbeen done, not once or twice, but probably a thousand times... However,\nthere is nothing wonderful in the following _hokku_, which have been\nselected for more than literary reasons:\u2014\n\n    Nugi-kakuru[2]\nHaori sugata no\n    Koch\u014d kana!\n\n\n[_Like a_ haori _being taken off\u2014that is the shape of a butterfly!_]\n\n\n    Torisashi no\nSao no jama suru\n    Koch\u014d kana!\n\n\n[_Ah, the butterfly keeps getting in the way of the bird-catcher\u2019s\npole!_[3]]\n\n\n    Tsurigan\u00e9 ni\nTomarit\u00e9 nemuru\n    Koch\u014d kana!\n\n\n[_Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps:_]\n\n\n    N\u00e9ru-uchi mo\nAsobu-yum\u00e9 wo ya\u2014\n    Kusa no ch\u014d!\n\n\n[_Even while sleeping, its dream is of play\u2014ah, the butterfly of the\ngrass!_[4]\n\n\n    Oki, oki yo!\nWaga tomo ni sen,\n    N\u00e9ru-koch\u014d!\n\n\n[_Wake up! wake up!\u2014I will make thee my comrade, thou sleeping\nbutterfly._[5]]\n\n\n    Kago no tori\nCh\u014d wo urayamu\n    Metsuki kana!\n\n\n[_Ah, the sad expression in the eyes of that caged bird!\u2014envying the\nbutterfly!_]\n\n\n    Ch\u014d tond\u00e9\u2014\nKaz\u00e9 naki hi to mo\n    Mi\u00ebzari ki!\n\n\n[_Even though it did not appear to be a windy day_,[6] _the fluttering\nof the butterflies\u2014!_]\n\n\n    Rakkwa \u00e9da ni\nKa\u00ebru to mir\u00e9ba\u2014\n    Koch\u014d kana!\n\n\n[_When I saw the fallen flower return to the branch\u2014lo! it was only a\nbutterfly!_[7]]\n\n\n    Chiru-hana ni\u2014\nKarusa araso\u00fc\n    Koch\u014d kana!\n\n\n[_How the butterfly strives to compete in lightness with the falling\nflowers!_[8]]\n\n\n    Ch\u014dch\u014d ya!\nOnna no michi no\n    Ato ya saki!\n\n\n[_See that butterfly on the woman\u2019s path,\u2014now fluttering behind her,\nnow before!_]\n\n\n    Ch\u014dch\u014d ya!\nHana-nusubito wo\n    Tsuk\u00e9t\u00e9-yuku!\n\n\n[_Ha! the butterfly!\u2014it is following the person who stole the\nflowers!_]\n\n\n    Aki no ch\u014d\nTomo nak\u00e9r\u00e9ba ya;\n    Hito ni tsuku\n\n\n[_Poor autumn butterfly!\u2014when left without a comrade_ (of its own\nrace), _it follows after man_ (or \u201ca person\u201d)!]\n\n\n    Owar\u00e9t\u00e9 mo,\nIsoganu furi no\n    Ch\u014dcho kana!\n\n\n[_Ah, the butterfly! Even when chased, it never has the air of being in\na hurry._]\n\n\n    Ch\u014d wa mina\nJiu-shichi-hachi no\n    Sugata kana!\n\n\n[_As for butterflies, they all have the appearance of being about\nseventeen or eighteen years old._[9]]\n\n\n    Ch\u014d tobu ya\u2014\nKono yo no urami\n    Naki y\u014d ni!\n\n\n[_How the butterfly sports,\u2014just as if there were no enmity_ (or\n\u201cenvy\u201d) _in this world!_]\n\n\n    Ch\u014d tobu ya,\nKono yo ni nozomi\n    Nai y\u014d ni!\n\n\n[_Ah, the butterfly!\u2014it sports about as if it had nothing more to\ndesire in this present state of existence._]\n\n\n    Nami no hana ni\nTomari kan\u00e9taru,\n    Koch\u014d kana!\n\n\n[_Having found it difficult indeed to perch upon the_ (_foam_-)\n_blossoms of the waves,\u2014alas for the butterfly!_]\n\n\n    Mutsumashi ya!\u2014\nUmar\u00e9-kawareba\n    Nob\u00e9 no ch\u014d.[10]\n\n\n[_If_ (in our next existence) _we be born into the state of butterflies\nupon the moor, then perchance we may be happy together!_]\n\n\n    Nad\u00e9shiko ni\nCh\u014dch\u014d shiroshi\u2014\n    Tar\u00e9 no kon?[11]\n\n\n[_On the pink-flower there is a white butterfly: whose spirit, I\nwonder?_]\n\n\n    Ichi-nichi no\nTsuma to mi\u00ebk\u00e9ri\u2014\n    Ch\u014d futatsu.\n\n\n[_The one-day wife has at last appeared\u2014a pair of butterflies!_]\n\n\n    Kit\u00e9 wa ma\u00fc,\nFutari shidzuka no\n    Koch\u014d kana!\n\n\n[_Approaching they dance; but when the two meet at last they are very\nquiet, the butterflies!_]\n\n\n    Ch\u014d wo o\u00fc\nKokoro-mochitashi\n    Itsumad\u00e9mo!\n\n\n[_Would that I might always have the heart_ (desire) _of chasing\nbutterflies!_[12]]\n\n\nBesides these specimens of poetry about butterflies, I have one queer\nexample to offer of Japanese prose literature on the same topic. The\noriginal, of which I have attempted only a free translation, can be\nfound in the curious old book _Mushi-Isam\u00e9_ (\u201cInsect-Admonitions\u201d); and\nit assumes the form of a discourse to a butterfly. But it is really a\ndidactic allegory,\u2014suggesting the moral significance of a social rise\nand fall:\u2014\n\n\u201cNow, under the sun of spring, the winds are gentle, and flowers pinkly\nbloom, and grasses are soft, and the hearts of people are glad.\nButterflies everywhere flutter joyously: so many persons now compose\nChinese verses and Japanese verses about butterflies.\n\n\u201cAnd this season, O Butterfly, is indeed the season of your bright\nprosperity: so comely you now are that in the whole world there is\nnothing more comely. For that reason all other insects admire and envy\nyou;\u2014there is not among them even one that does not envy you. Nor do\ninsects alone regard you with envy: men also both envy and admire you.\nS\u014dsh\u016b of China, in a dream, assumed your shape;\u2014Sakoku of Japan, after\ndying, took your form, and therein made ghostly apparition. Nor is the\nenvy that you inspire shared only by insects and mankind: even things\nwithout soul change their form into yours;\u2014witness the barley-grass,\nwhich turns into a butterfly.[13]\n\n\u201cAnd therefore you are lifted up with pride, and think to yourself: \u2018In\nall this world there is nothing superior to me!\u2019 Ah! I can very well\nguess what is in your heart: you are too much satisfied with your own\nperson. That is why you let yourself be blown thus lightly about by\nevery wind;\u2014that is why you never remain still,\u2014always, always\nthinking, \u2018In the whole world there is no one so fortunate as I.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut now try to think a little about your own personal history. It is\nworth recalling; for there is a vulgar side to it. How a vulgar side?\nWell, for a considerable time after you were born, you had no such\nreason for rejoicing in your form. You were then a mere cabbage-insect,\na hairy worm; and you were so poor that you could not afford even one\nrobe to cover your nakedness; and your appearance was altogether\ndisgusting. Everybody in those days hated the sight of you. Indeed you\nhad good reason to be ashamed of yourself; and so ashamed you were that\nyou collected old twigs and rubbish to hide in, and you made a\nhiding-nest, and hung it to a branch,\u2014and then everybody cried out to\nyou, \u2018Raincoat Insect!\u2019 (_Mino-mushi_.)[14] And during that period of\nyour life, your sins were grievous. Among the tender green leaves of\nbeautiful cherry-trees you and your fellows assembled, and there made\nugliness extraordinary; and the expectant eyes of the people, who came\nfrom far away to admire the beauty of those cherry-trees, were hurt by\nthe sight of you. And of things even more hateful than this you were\nguilty. You knew that poor, poor men and women had been cultivating\n_daikon_ (2) in their fields,\u2014toiling under the hot sun till their\nhearts were filled with bitterness by reason of having to care for that\n_daikon;_ and you persuaded your companions to go with you, and to\ngather upon the leaves of that _daikon_, and on the leaves of other\nvegetables planted by those poor people. Out of your greediness you\nravaged those leaves, and gnawed them into all shapes of\nugliness,\u2014caring nothing for the trouble of those poor folk... Yes,\nsuch a creature you were, and such were your doings.\n\n\u201cAnd now that you have a comely form, you despise your old comrades,\nthe insects; and, whenever you happen to meet any of them, you pretend\nnot to know them [literally, \u2018You make an I-don\u2019t-know face\u2019]. Now you\nwant to have none but wealthy and exalted people for friends... Ah! You\nhave forgotten the old times, have you?\n\n\u201cIt is true that many people have forgotten your past, and are charmed\nby the sight of your present graceful shape and white wings, and write\nChinese verses and Japanese verses about you. The high-born damsel, who\ncould not bear even to look at you in your former shape, now gazes at\nyou with delight, and wants you to perch upon her hairpin, and holds\nout her dainty fan in the hope that you will light upon it. But this\nreminds me that there is an ancient Chinese story about you, which is\nnot pretty.\n\n\u201cIn the time of the Emperor Gens\u014d, the Imperial Palace contained\nhundreds and thousands of beautiful ladies,\u2014so many, indeed, that it\nwould have been difficult for any man to decide which among them was\nthe loveliest. So all of those beautiful persons were assembled\ntogether in one place; and you were set free to fly among them; and it\nwas decreed that the damsel upon whose hairpin you perched should be\naugustly summoned to the Imperial Chamber. In that time there could not\nbe more than one Empress\u2014which was a good law; but, because of you, the\nEmperor Gens\u014d did great mischief in the land. For your mind is light\nand frivolous; and although among so many beautiful women there must\nhave been some persons of pure heart, you would look for nothing but\nbeauty, and so betook yourself to the person most beautiful in outward\nappearance. Therefore many of the female attendants ceased altogether\nto think about the right way of women, and began to study how to make\nthemselves appear splendid in the eyes of men. And the end of it was\nthat the Emperor Gens\u014d died a pitiful and painful death\u2014all because of\nyour light and trifling mind. Indeed, your real character can easily be\nseen from your conduct in other matters. There are trees, for\nexample,\u2014such as the evergreen-oak and the pine,\u2014whose leaves do not\nfade and fall, but remain always green;\u2014these are trees of firm heart,\ntrees of solid character. But you say that they are stiff and formal;\nand you hate the sight of them, and never pay them a visit. Only to the\ncherry-tree, and the _kaido_[15], and the peony, and the yellow rose\nyou go: those you like because they have showy flowers, and you try\nonly to please them. Such conduct, let me assure you, is very\nunbecoming. Those trees certainly have handsome flowers; but\nhunger-satisfying fruits they have not; and they are grateful to those\nonly who are fond of luxury and show. And that is just the reason why\nthey are pleased by your fluttering wings and delicate shape;\u2014that is\nwhy they are kind to you.\n\n\u201cNow, in this spring season, while you sportively dance through the\ngardens of the wealthy, or hover among the beautiful alleys of\ncherry-trees in blossom, you say to yourself: \u2018Nobody in the world has\nsuch pleasure as I, or such excellent friends. And, in spite of all\nthat people may say, I most love the peony,\u2014and the golden yellow rose\nis my own darling, and I will obey her every least behest; for that is\nmy pride and my delight.\u2019... So you say. But the opulent and elegant\nseason of flowers is very short: soon they will fade and fall. Then, in\nthe time of summer heat, there will be green leaves only; and presently\nthe winds of autumn will blow, when even the leaves themselves will\nshower down like rain, _parari-parari_. And your fate will then be as\nthe fate of the unlucky in the proverb, _Tanomi ki no shita ni am\u00e9\nfuru_ [Even through the tree upon which I relied for shelter the rain\nleaks down]. For you will seek out your old friend, the root-cutting\ninsect, the grub, and beg him to let you return into your old-time\nhole;\u2014but now having wings, you will not be able to enter the hole\nbecause of them, and you will not be able to shelter your body anywhere\nbetween heaven and earth, and all the moor-grass will then have\nwithered, and you will not have even one drop of dew with which to\nmoisten your tongue,\u2014and there will be nothing left for you to do but\nto lie down and die. All because of your light and frivolous heart\u2014but,\nah! how lamentable an end!\u201d...\n\nIII\n\nMost of the Japanese stories about butterflies appear, as I have said,\nto be of Chinese origin. But I have one which is probably indigenous;\nand it seems to me worth telling for the benefit of persons who believe\nthere is no \u201cromantic love\u201d in the Far East.\n\nBehind the cemetery of the temple of S\u014dzanji, in the suburbs of the\ncapital, there long stood a solitary cottage, occupied by an old man\nnamed Takahama. He was liked in the neighborhood, by reason of his\namiable ways; but almost everybody supposed him to be a little mad.\nUnless a man take the Buddhist vows, he is expected to marry, and to\nbring up a family. But Takahama did not belong to the religious life;\nand he could not be persuaded to marry. Neither had he ever been known\nto enter into a love-relation with any woman. For more than fifty years\nhe had lived entirely alone.\n\nOne summer he fell sick, and knew that he had not long to live. He then\nsent for his sister-in-law, a widow, and for her only son,\u2014a lad of\nabout twenty years old, to whom he was much attached. Both promptly\ncame, and did whatever they could to soothe the old man\u2019s last hours.\n\nOne sultry afternoon, while the widow and her son were watching at his\nbedside, Takahama fell asleep. At the same moment a very large white\nbutterfly entered the room, and perched upon the sick man\u2019s pillow. The\nnephew drove it away with a fan; but it returned immediately to the\npillow, and was again driven away, only to come back a third time. Then\nthe nephew chased it into the garden, and across the garden, through an\nopen gate, into the cemetery of the neighboring temple. But it\ncontinued to flutter before him as if unwilling to be driven further,\nand acted so queerly that he began to wonder whether it was really a\nbutterfly, or a _ma_[16]. He again chased it, and followed it far into\nthe cemetery, until he saw it fly against a tomb,\u2014a woman\u2019s tomb. There\nit unaccountably disappeared; and he searched for it in vain. He then\nexamined the monument. It bore the personal name \u201cAkiko,\u201d (3) together\nwith an unfamiliar family name, and an inscription stating that Akiko\nhad died at the age of eighteen. Apparently the tomb had been erected\nabout fifty years previously: moss had begun to gather upon it. But it\nhad been well cared for: there were fresh flowers before it; and the\nwater-tank had recently been filled.\n\nOn returning to the sick room, the young man was shocked by the\nannouncement that his uncle had ceased to breathe. Death had come to\nthe sleeper painlessly; and the dead face smiled.\n\nThe young man told his mother of what he had seen in the cemetery.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d exclaimed the widow, \u201cthen it must have been Akiko!\u201d...\n\n\u201cBut who was Akiko, mother?\u201d the nephew asked.\n\nThe widow answered:\u2014\n\n\u201cWhen your good uncle was young he was betrothed to a charming girl\ncalled Akiko, the daughter of a neighbor. Akiko died of consumption,\nonly a little before the day appointed for the wedding; and her\npromised husband sorrowed greatly. After Akiko had been buried, he made\na vow never to marry; and he built this little house beside the\ncemetery, so that he might be always near her grave. All this happened\nmore than fifty years ago. And every day of those fifty years\u2014winter\nand summer alike\u2014your uncle went to the cemetery, and prayed at the\ngrave, and swept the tomb, and set offerings before it. But he did not\nlike to have any mention made of the matter; and he never spoke of\nit... So, at last, Akiko came for him: the white butterfly was her\nsoul.\u201d\n\nIV\n\nI had almost forgotten to mention an ancient Japanese dance, called the\nButterfly Dance (_Koch\u014d-Mai_), which used to be performed in the\nImperial Palace, by dancers costumed as butterflies. Whether it is\ndanced occasionally nowadays I do not know. It is said to be very\ndifficult to learn. Six dancers are required for the proper performance\nof it; and they must move in particular figures,\u2014obeying traditional\nrules for every step, pose, or gesture,\u2014and circling about each other\nvery slowly to the sound of hand-drums and great drums, small flutes\nand great flutes, and pandean pipes of a form unknown to Western Pan.\n\n\n[Illustration] BUTTERFLY DANCE\n\n\n\n\nMOSQUITOES\n\n\nWith a view to self-protection I have been reading Dr. Howard\u2019s book,\n\u201cMosquitoes.\u201d I am persecuted by mosquitoes. There are several species\nin my neighborhood; but only one of them is a serious torment,\u2014a tiny\nneedly thing, all silver-speckled and silver-streaked. The puncture of\nit is sharp as an electric burn; and the mere hum of it has a\nlancinating quality of tone which foretells the quality of the pain\nabout to come,\u2014much in the same way that a particular smell suggests a\nparticular taste. I find that this mosquito much resembles the creature\nwhich Dr. Howard calls _Stegomyia fasciata_, or _Culex fasciatus:_ and\nthat its habits are the same as those of the _Stegomyia_. For example,\nit is diurnal rather than nocturnal and becomes most troublesome in the\nafternoon. And I have discovered that it comes from the Buddhist\ncemetery,\u2014a very old cemetery,\u2014in the rear of my garden.\n\nDr. Howard\u2019s book declares that, in order to rid a neighborhood of\nmosquitoes, it is only necessary to pour a little petroleum, or\nkerosene oil, into the stagnant water where they breed. Once a week the\noil should be used, \u201cat the rate of once ounce for every fifteen square\nfeet of water-surface, and a proportionate quantity for any less\nsurface.\u201d ...But please to consider the conditions in _my_\nneighborhood!\n\nI have said that my tormentors come from the Buddhist cemetery. Before\nnearly every tomb in that old cemetery there is a water-receptacle, or\ncistern, called _mizutam\u00e9_. In the majority of cases this _mizutam\u00e9_ is\nsimply an oblong cavity chiseled in the broad pedestal supporting the\nmonument; but before tombs of a costly kind, having no pedestal-tank, a\nlarger separate tank is placed, cut out of a single block of stone, and\ndecorated with a family crest, or with symbolic carvings. In front of a\ntomb of the humblest class, having no _mizutam\u00e9_, water is placed in\ncups or other vessels,\u2014for the dead must have water. Flowers also must\nbe offered to them; and before every tomb you will find a pair of\nbamboo cups, or other flower-vessels; and these, of course, contain\nwater. There is a well in the cemetery to supply water for the graves.\nWhenever the tombs are visited by relatives and friends of the dead,\nfresh water is poured into the tanks and cups. But as an old cemetery\nof this kind contains thousands of _mizutam\u00e9_, and tens of thousands of\nflower-vessels the water in all of these cannot be renewed every day.\nIt becomes stagnant and populous. The deeper tanks seldom get dry;\u2014the\nrainfall at T\u014dky\u014d being heavy enough to keep them partly filled during\nnine months out of the twelve.\n\nWell, it is in these tanks and flower-vessels that mine enemies are\nborn: they rise by millions from the water of the dead;\u2014and, according\nto Buddhist doctrine, some of them may be reincarnations of those very\ndead, condemned by the error of former lives to the condition of\n_Jiki-ketsu-gaki_, or blood-drinking pretas.... Anyhow the malevolence\nof the _Culex fasciatus_ would justify the suspicion that some wicked\nhuman soul had been compressed into that wailing speck of a body....\n\nNow, to return to the subject of kerosene-oil, you can exterminate the\nmosquitoes of any locality by covering with a film of kerosene all\nstagnant water surfaces therein. The larvae die on rising to breathe;\nand the adult females perish when they approach the water to launch\ntheir rafts of eggs. And I read, in Dr. Howard\u2019s book, that the actual\ncost of freeing from mosquitoes one American town of fifty thousand\ninhabitants, does not exceed three hundred dollars!...\n\nI wonder what would be said if the city-government of T\u014dky\u014d\u2014which is\naggressively scientific and progressive\u2014were suddenly to command that\nall water-surfaces in the Buddhist cemeteries should be covered, at\nregular intervals, with a film of kerosene oil! How could the religion\nwhich prohibits the taking of any life\u2014even of invisible life\u2014yield to\nsuch a mandate? Would filial piety even dream of consenting to obey\nsuch an order? And then to think of the cost, in labor and time, of\nputting kerosene oil, every seven days, into the millions of\n_mizutam\u00e9_, and the tens of millions of bamboo flower-cups, in the\nT\u014dky\u014d graveyards!... Impossible! To free the city from mosquitoes it\nwould be necessary to demolish the ancient graveyards;\u2014and that would\nsignify the ruin of the Buddhist temples attached to them;\u2014and that\nwould mean the disparition of so many charming gardens, with their\nlotus-ponds and Sanscrit-lettered monuments and humpy bridges and holy\ngroves and weirdly-smiling Buddhas! So the extermination of the _Culex\nfasciatus_ would involve the destruction of the poetry of the ancestral\ncult,\u2014surely too great a price to pay!...\n\nBesides, I should like, when my time comes, to be laid away in some\nBuddhist graveyard of the ancient kind,\u2014so that my ghostly company\nshould be ancient, caring nothing for the fashions and the changes and\nthe disintegrations of Meiji (1). That old cemetery behind my garden\nwould be a suitable place. Everything there is beautiful with a beauty\nof exceeding and startling queerness; each tree and stone has been\nshaped by some old, old ideal which no longer exists in any living\nbrain; even the shadows are not of this time and sun, but of a world\nforgotten, that never knew steam or electricity or magnetism\nor\u2014kerosene oil! Also in the boom of the big bell there is a quaintness\nof tone which wakens feelings, so strangely far-away from all the\nnineteenth-century part of me, that the faint blind stirrings of them\nmake me afraid,\u2014deliciously afraid. Never do I hear that billowing peal\nbut I become aware of a striving and a fluttering in the abyssal part\nof my ghost,\u2014a sensation as of memories struggling to reach the light\nbeyond the obscurations of a million million deaths and births. I hope\nto remain within hearing of that bell... And, considering the\npossibility of being doomed to the state of a _Jiki-ketsu-gaki_, I want\nto have my chance of being reborn in some bamboo flower-cup, or\n_mizutam\u00e9_, whence I might issue softly, singing my thin and pungent\nsong, to bite some people that I know.\n\n\n\n\nANTS\n\n\nI\n\nThis morning sky, after the night\u2019s tempest, is a pure and dazzling\nblue. The air\u2014the delicious air!\u2014is full of sweet resinous odors, shed\nfrom the countless pine-boughs broken and strewn by the gale. In the\nneighboring bamboo-grove I hear the flute-call of the bird that praises\nthe S\u00fbtra of the Lotos; and the land is very still by reason of the\nsouth wind. Now the summer, long delayed, is truly with us: butterflies\nof queer Japanese colors are flickering about; semi (1) are wheezing;\nwasps are humming; gnats are dancing in the sun; and the ants are busy\nrepairing their damaged habitations... I bethink me of a Japanese\npoem:\u2014\n\n    Yuku \u00e9 naki:\nAri no sumai ya!\n    Go-getsu am\u00e9.\n\n\n[_Now the poor creature has nowhere to go!... Alas for the dwellings of\nthe ants in this rain of the fifth month!_]\n\n\nBut those big black ants in my garden do not seem to need any sympathy.\nThey have weathered the storm in some unimaginable way, while great\ntrees were being uprooted, and houses blown to fragments, and roads\nwashed out of existence. Yet, before the typhoon, they took no other\nvisible precaution than to block up the gates of their subterranean\ntown. And the spectacle of their triumphant toil to-day impels me to\nattempt an essay on Ants.\n\nI should have liked to preface my disquisitions with something from the\nold Japanese literature,\u2014something emotional or metaphysical. But all\nthat my Japanese friends were able to find for me on the\nsubject,\u2014excepting some verses of little worth,\u2014was Chinese. This\nChinese material consisted chiefly of strange stories; and one of them\nseems to me worth quoting,\u2014_faute de mieux_.\n\n\nIn the province of Taish\u016b, in China, there was a pious man who, every\nday, during many years, fervently worshiped a certain goddess. One\nmorning, while he was engaged in his devotions, a beautiful woman,\nwearing a yellow robe, came into his chamber and stood before him. He,\ngreatly surprised, asked her what she wanted, and why she had entered\nunannounced. She answered: \u201cI am not a woman: I am the goddess whom you\nhave so long and so faithfully worshiped; and I have now come to prove\nto you that your devotion has not been in vain... Are you acquainted\nwith the language of Ants?\u201d The worshiper replied: \u201cI am only a\nlow-born and ignorant person,\u2014not a scholar; and even of the language\nof superior men I know nothing.\u201d At these words the goddess smiled, and\ndrew from her bosom a little box, shaped like an incense box. She\nopened the box, dipped a finger into it, and took therefrom some kind\nof ointment with which she anointed the ears of the man. \u201cNow,\u201d she\nsaid to him, \u201ctry to find some Ants, and when you find any, stoop down,\nand listen carefully to their talk. You will be able to understand it;\nand you will hear of something to your advantage... Only remember that\nyou must not frighten or vex the Ants.\u201d Then the goddess vanished away.\n\nThe man immediately went out to look for some Ants. He had scarcely\ncrossed the threshold of his door when he perceived two Ants upon a\nstone supporting one of the house-pillars. He stooped over them, and\nlistened; and he was astonished to find that he could hear them\ntalking, and could understand what they said. \u201cLet us try to find a\nwarmer place,\u201d proposed one of the Ants. \u201cWhy a warmer place?\u201d asked\nthe other;\u2014\u201cwhat is the matter with this place?\u201d \u201cIt is too damp and\ncold below,\u201d said the first Ant; \u201cthere is a big treasure buried here;\nand the sunshine cannot warm the ground about it.\u201d Then the two Ants\nwent away together, and the listener ran for a spade.\n\nBy digging in the neighborhood of the pillar, he soon found a number of\nlarge jars full of gold coin. The discovery of this treasure made him a\nvery rich man.\n\nAfterwards he often tried to listen to the conversation of Ants. But he\nwas never again able to hear them speak. The ointment of the goddess\nhad opened his ears to their mysterious language for only a single day.\n\n\nNow I, like that Chinese devotee, must confess myself a very ignorant\nperson, and naturally unable to hear the conversation of Ants. But the\nFairy of Science sometimes touches my ears and eyes with her wand; and\nthen, for a little time, I am able to hear things inaudible, and to\nperceive things imperceptible.\n\nII\n\nFor the same reason that it is considered wicked, in sundry circles, to\nspeak of a non-Christian people having produced a civilization\nethically superior to our own, certain persons will not be pleased by\nwhat I am going to say about ants. But there are men, incomparably\nwiser than I can ever hope to be, who think about insects and\ncivilizations independently of the blessings of Christianity; and I\nfind encouragement in the new _Cambridge Natural History_, which\ncontains the following remarks by Professor David Sharp, concerning\nants:\u2014\n\n\u201cObservation has revealed the most remarkable phenomena in the lives of\nthese insects. Indeed we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that they\nhave acquired, in many respects, the art of living together in\nsocieties more perfectly than our own species has; and that they have\nanticipated us in the acquisition of some of the industries and arts\nthat greatly facilitate social life.\u201d\n\nI suppose that a few well-informed persons will dispute this plain\nstatement by a trained specialist. The contemporary man of science is\nnot apt to become sentimental about ants or bees; but he will not\nhesitate to acknowledge that, in regard to social evolution, these\ninsects appear to have advanced \u201cbeyond man.\u201d Mr. Herbert Spencer, whom\nnobody will charge with romantic tendencies, goes considerably further\nthan Professor Sharp; showing us that ants are, in a very real sense,\n_ethically_ as well as economically in advance of humanity,\u2014their lives\nbeing entirely devoted to altruistic ends. Indeed, Professor Sharp\nsomewhat needlessly qualifies his praise of the ant with this cautious\nobservation:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe competence of the ant is not like that of man. It is devoted to\nthe welfare of the species rather than to that of the individual, which\nis, as it were, sacrificed or specialized for the benefit of the\ncommunity.\u201d\n\n\u2014The obvious implication,\u2014that any social state, in which the\nimprovement of the individual is sacrificed to the common welfare,\nleaves much to be desired,\u2014is probably correct, from the actual human\nstandpoint. For man is yet imperfectly evolved; and human society has\nmuch to gain from his further individualization. But in regard to\nsocial insects the implied criticism is open to question. \u201cThe\nimprovement of the individual,\u201d says Herbert Spencer, \u201cconsists in the\nbetter fitting of him for social cooperation; and this, being conducive\nto social prosperity, is conducive to the maintenance of the race.\u201d In\nother words, the value of the individual can be _only_ in relation to\nthe society; and this granted, whether the sacrifice of the individual\nfor the sake of that society be good or evil must depend upon what the\nsociety might gain or lose through a further individualization of its\nmembers... But as we shall presently see, the conditions of ant-society\nthat most deserve our attention are the ethical conditions; and these\nare beyond human criticism, since they realize that ideal of moral\nevolution described by Mr. Spencer as \u201ca state in which egoism and\naltruism are so conciliated that the one merges into the other.\u201d That\nis to say, a state in which the only possible pleasure is the pleasure\nof unselfish action. Or, again to quote Mr. Spencer, the activities of\nthe insect-society are \u201cactivities which postpone individual well-being\nso completely to the well-being of the community that individual life\nappears to be attended to only just so far as is necessary to make\npossible due attention to social life,... the individual taking only\njust such food and just such rest as are needful to maintain its\nvigor.\u201d\n\nIII\n\nI hope my reader is aware that ants practise horticulture and\nagriculture; that they are skillful in the cultivation of mushrooms;\nthat they have domesticated (according to present knowledge) five\nhundred and eighty-four different kinds of animals; that they make\ntunnels through solid rock; that they know how to provide against\natmospheric changes which might endanger the health of their children;\nand that, for insects, their longevity is exceptional,\u2014members of the\nmore highly evolved species living for a considerable number of years.\n\nBut it is not especially of these matters that I wish to speak. What I\nwant to talk about is the awful propriety, the terrible morality, of\nthe ant[1]. Our most appalling ideals of conduct fall short of the\nethics of the ant,\u2014as progress is reckoned in time,\u2014by nothing less\nthan millions of years!... When I say \u201cthe ant,\u201d I mean the highest\ntype of ant,\u2014not, of course, the entire ant-family. About two thousand\nspecies of ants are already known; and these exhibit, in their social\norganizations, widely varying degrees of evolution. Certain social\nphenomena of the greatest biological importance, and of no less\nimportance in their strange relation to the subject of ethics, can be\nstudied to advantage only in the existence of the most highly evolved\nsocieties of ants.\n\nAfter all that has been written of late years about the probable value\nof relative experience in the long life of the ant, I suppose that few\npersons would venture to deny individual character to the ant. The\nintelligence of the little creature in meeting and overcoming\ndifficulties of a totally new kind, and in adapting itself to\nconditions entirely foreign to its experience, proves a considerable\npower of independent thinking. But this at least is certain: that the\nant has no individuality capable of being exercised in a purely selfish\ndirection;\u2014I am using the word \u201cselfish\u201d in its ordinary acceptation. A\ngreedy ant, a sensual ant, an ant capable of any one of the seven\ndeadly sins, or even of a small venial sin, is unimaginable. Equally\nunimaginable, of course, a romantic ant, an ideological ant, a poetical\nant, or an ant inclined to metaphysical speculations. No human mind\ncould attain to the absolute matter-of-fact quality of the ant-mind;\u2014no\nhuman being, as now constituted, could cultivate a mental habit so\nimpeccably practical as that of the ant. But this superlatively\npractical mind is incapable of moral error. It would be difficult,\nperhaps, to prove that the ant has no religious ideas. But it is\ncertain that such ideas could not be of any use to it. The being\nincapable of moral weakness is beyond the need of \u201cspiritual guidance.\u201d\n\nOnly in a vague way can we conceive the character of ant-society, and\nthe nature of ant-morality; and to do even this we must try to imagine\nsome yet impossible state of human society and human morals. Let us,\nthen, imagine a world full of people incessantly and furiously\nworking,\u2014all of whom seem to be women. No one of these women could be\npersuaded or deluded into taking a single atom of food more than is\nneedful to maintain her strength; and no one of them ever sleeps a\nsecond longer than is necessary to keep her nervous system in good\nworking-order. And all of them are so peculiarly constituted that the\nleast unnecessary indulgence would result in some derangement of\nfunction.\n\nThe work daily performed by these female laborers comprises\nroad-making, bridge-building, timber-cutting, architectural\nconstruction of numberless kinds, horticulture and agriculture, the\nfeeding and sheltering of a hundred varieties of domestic animals, the\nmanufacture of sundry chemical products, the storage and conservation\nof countless food-stuffs, and the care of the children of the race. All\nthis labor is done for the commonwealth\u2014no citizen of which is capable\neven of thinking about \u201cproperty,\u201d except as a _res publica;_\u2014and the\nsole object of the commonwealth is the nurture and training of its\nyoung,\u2014nearly all of whom are girls. The period of infancy is long: the\nchildren remain for a great while, not only helpless, but shapeless,\nand withal so delicate that they must be very carefully guarded against\nthe least change of temperature. Fortunately their nurses understand\nthe laws of health: each thoroughly knows all that she ought to know in\nregard to ventilation, disinfection, drainage, moisture, and the danger\nof germs,\u2014germs being as visible, perhaps, to her myopic sight as they\nbecome to our own eyes under the microscope. Indeed, all matters of\nhygiene are so well comprehended that no nurse ever makes a mistake\nabout the sanitary conditions of her neighborhood.\n\nIn spite of this perpetual labor no worker remains unkempt: each is\nscrupulously neat, making her toilet many times a day. But as every\nworker is born with the most beautiful of combs and brushes attached to\nher wrists, no time is wasted in the toilet-room. Besides keeping\nthemselves strictly clean, the workers must also keep their houses and\ngardens in faultless order, for the sake of the children. Nothing less\nthan an earthquake, an eruption, an inundation, or a desperate war, is\nallowed to interrupt the daily routine of dusting, sweeping, scrubbing,\nand disinfecting.\n\nIV\n\nNow for stranger facts:\u2014\n\nThis world of incessant toil is a more than Vestal world. It is true\nthat males can sometimes be perceived in it; but they appear only at\nparticular seasons, and they have nothing whatever to do with the\nworkers or with the work. None of them would presume to address a\nworker,\u2014except, perhaps, under extraordinary circumstances of common\nperil. And no worker would think of talking to a male;\u2014for males, in\nthis queer world, are inferior beings, equally incapable of fighting or\nworking, and tolerated only as necessary evils. One special class of\nfemales,\u2014the Mothers-Elect of the race,\u2014do condescend to consort with\nmales, during a very brief period, at particular seasons. But the\nMothers-Elect do not work; and they _must_ accept husbands. A worker\ncould not even dream of keeping company with a male,\u2014not merely because\nsuch association would signify the most frivolous waste of time, nor\nyet because the worker necessarily regards all males with unspeakable\ncontempt; but because the worker is incapable of wedlock. Some workers,\nindeed, are capable of parthenogenesis, and give birth to children who\nnever had fathers. As a general rule, however, the worker is truly\nfeminine by her moral instincts only: she has all the tenderness, the\npatience, and the foresight that we call \u201cmaternal;\u201d but her sex has\ndisappeared, like the sex of the Dragon-Maiden in the Buddhist legend.\n\nFor defense against creatures of prey, or enemies of the state, the\nworkers are provided with weapons; and they are furthermore protected\nby a large military force. The warriors are so much bigger than the\nworkers (in some communities, at least) that it is difficult, at first\nsight, to believe them of the same race. Soldiers one hundred times\nlarger than the workers whom they guard are not uncommon. But all these\nsoldiers are Amazons,\u2014or, more correctly speaking, semi-females. They\ncan work sturdily; but being built for fighting and for heavy pulling\nchiefly, their usefulness is restricted to those directions in which\nforce, rather than skill, is required.\n\n[Why females, rather than males, should have been evolutionally\nspecialized into soldiery and laborers may not be nearly so simple a\nquestion as it appears. I am very sure of not being able to answer it.\nBut natural economy may have decided the matter. In many forms of life,\nthe female greatly exceeds the male in bulk and in energy;\u2014perhaps, in\nthis case, the larger reserve of life-force possessed originally by the\ncomplete female could be more rapidly and effectively utilized for the\ndevelopment of a special fighting-caste. All energies which, in the\nfertile female, would be expended in the giving of life seem here to\nhave been diverted to the evolution of aggressive power, or\nworking-capacity.]\n\nOf the true females,\u2014the Mothers-Elect,\u2014there are very few indeed; and\nthese are treated like queens. So constantly and so reverentially are\nthey waited upon that they can seldom have any wishes to express. They\nare relieved from every care of existence,\u2014except the duty of bearing\noffspring. Night and day they are cared for in every possible manner.\nThey alone are superabundantly and richly fed:\u2014for the sake of the\noffspring they must eat and drink and repose right royally; and their\nphysiological specialization allows of such indulgence _ad libitum_.\nThey seldom go out, and never unless attended by a powerful escort; as\nthey cannot be permitted to incur unnecessary fatigue or danger.\nProbably they have no great desire to go out. Around them revolves the\nwhole activity of the race: all its intelligence and toil and thrift\nare directed solely toward the well-being of these Mothers and of their\nchildren.\n\nBut last and least of the race rank the husbands of these Mothers,\u2014the\nnecessary Evils,\u2014the males. They appear only at a particular season, as\nI have already observed; and their lives are very short. Some cannot\neven boast of noble descent, though destined to royal wedlock; for they\nare not royal offspring, but virgin-born,\u2014parthenogenetic\nchildren,\u2014and, for that reason especially, inferior beings, the chance\nresults of some mysterious atavism. But of any sort of males the\ncommonwealth tolerates but few,\u2014barely enough to serve as husbands for\nthe Mothers-Elect, and these few perish almost as soon as their duty\nhas been done. The meaning of Nature\u2019s law, in this extraordinary\nworld, is identical with Ruskin\u2019s teaching that life without effort is\ncrime; and since the males are useless as workers or fighters, their\nexistence is of only momentary importance. They are not, indeed,\nsacrificed,\u2014like the Aztec victim chosen for the festival of\nTezcatlipoca, and allowed a honeymoon of twenty days before his heart\nwas torn out. But they are scarcely less unfortunate in their high\nfortune. Imagine youths brought up in the knowledge that they are\ndestined to become royal bridegrooms for a single night,\u2014that after\ntheir bridal they will have no moral right to live,\u2014that marriage, for\neach and all of them, will signify certain death,\u2014and that they cannot\neven hope to be lamented by their young widows, who will survive them\nfor a time of many generations...!\n\nV\n\nBut all the foregoing is no more than a proem to the real \u201cRomance of\nthe Insect-World.\u201d\n\n\u2014By far the most startling discovery in relation to this astonishing\ncivilization is that of the suppression of sex. In certain advanced\nforms of ant-life sex totally disappears in the majority of\nindividuals;\u2014in nearly all the higher ant-societies sex-life appears to\nexist only to the extent absolutely needed for the continuance of the\nspecies. But the biological fact in itself is much less startling than\nthe ethical suggestion which it offers;\u2014_for this practical\nsuppression, or regulation, of sex-faculty appears to be voluntary!_\nVoluntary, at least, so far as the species is concerned. It is now\nbelieved that these wonderful creatures have learned how to develop, or\nto arrest the development, of sex in their young,\u2014by some particular\nmode of nutrition. They have succeeded in placing under perfect control\nwhat is commonly supposed to be the most powerful and unmanageable of\ninstincts. And this rigid restraint of sex-life to within the limits\nnecessary to provide against extinction is but one (though the most\namazing) of many vital economies effected by the race. Every capacity\nfor egoistic pleasure\u2014in the common meaning of the word \u201cegoistic\u201d\u2014has\nbeen equally repressed through physiological modification. No\nindulgence of any natural appetite is possible except to that degree in\nwhich such indulgence can directly or indirectly benefit the\nspecies;\u2014even the indispensable requirements of food and sleep being\nsatisfied only to the exact extent necessary for the maintenance of\nhealthy activity. The individual can exist, act, think, only for the\ncommunal good; and the commune triumphantly refuses, in so far as\ncosmic law permits, to let itself be ruled either by Love or Hunger.\n\nMost of us have been brought up in the belief that without some kind of\nreligious creed\u2014some hope of future reward or fear of future\npunishment\u2014no civilization could exist. We have been taught to think\nthat in the absence of laws based upon moral ideas, and in the absence\nof an effective police to enforce such laws, nearly everybody would\nseek only his or her personal advantage, to the disadvantage of\neverybody else. The strong would then destroy the weak; pity and\nsympathy would disappear; and the whole social fabric would fall to\npieces... These teachings confess the existing imperfection of human\nnature; and they contain obvious truth. But those who first proclaimed\nthat truth, thousands and thousands of years ago, never imagined a form\nof social existence in which selfishness would be _naturally_\nimpossible. It remained for irreligious Nature to furnish us with proof\npositive that there can exist a society in which the pleasure of active\nbeneficence makes needless the idea of duty,\u2014a society in which\ninstinctive morality can dispense with ethical codes of every sort,\u2014a\nsociety of which every member is born so absolutely unselfish, and so\nenergetically good, that moral training could signify, even for its\nyoungest, neither more nor less than waste of precious time.\n\nTo the Evolutionist such facts necessarily suggest that the value of\nour moral idealism is but temporary; and that something better than\nvirtue, better than kindness, better than self-denial,\u2014in the present\nhuman meaning of those terms,\u2014might, under certain conditions,\neventually replace them. He finds himself obliged to face the question\nwhether a world without moral notions might not be morally better than\na world in which conduct is regulated by such notions. He must even ask\nhimself whether the existence of religious commandments, moral laws,\nand ethical standards among ourselves does not prove us still in a very\nprimitive stage of social evolution. And these questions naturally lead\nup to another: Will humanity ever be able, on this planet, to reach an\nethical condition beyond all its ideals,\u2014a condition in which\neverything that we now call evil will have been atrophied out of\nexistence, and everything that we call virtue have been transmuted into\ninstinct;\u2014a state of altruism in which ethical concepts and codes will\nhave become as useless as they would be, even now, in the societies of\nthe higher ants.\n\nThe giants of modern thought have given some attention to this\nquestion; and the greatest among them has answered it\u2014partly in the\naffirmative. Herbert Spencer has expressed his belief that humanity\nwill arrive at some state of civilization ethically comparable with\nthat of the ant:\u2014\n\n\u201cIf we have, in lower orders of creatures, cases in which the nature is\nconstitutionally so modified that altruistic activities have become one\nwith egoistic activities, there is an irresistible implication that a\nparallel identification will, under parallel conditions, take place\namong human beings. Social insects furnish us with instances completely\nto the point,\u2014and instances showing us, indeed, to what a marvelous\ndegree the life of the individual may be absorbed in subserving the\nlives of other individuals... Neither the ant nor the bee can be\nsupposed to have a sense of duty, in the acceptation we give to that\nword; nor can it be supposed that it is continually undergoing\nself-sacrifice, in the ordinary acceptation of that word... [The facts]\nshow us that it is within the possibilities of organization to produce\na nature which shall be just as energetic in the pursuit of altruistic\nends, as is in other cases shown in the pursuit of egoistic ends;\u2014and\nthey show that, in such cases, these altruistic ends are pursued in\npursuing ends which, on their other face, are egoistic. For the\nsatisfaction of the needs of the organization, these actions, conducive\nto the welfare of others, _must_ be carried on...\n\n\n\u201cSo far from its being true that there must go on, throughout all the\nfuture, a condition in which self-regard is to be continually subjected\nby the regard for others, it will, contrari-wise, be the case that a\nregard for others will eventually become so large a source of pleasure\nas to overgrow the pleasure which is derivable from direct egoistic\ngratification... Eventually, then, there will come also a state in\nwhich egoism and altruism are so conciliated that the one merges in the\nother.\u201d\n\nVI\n\nOf course the foregoing prediction does not imply that human nature\nwill ever undergo such physiological change as would be represented by\nstructural specializations comparable to those by which the various\ncastes of insect societies are differentiated. We are not bidden to\nimagine a future state of humanity in which the active majority would\nconsist of semi-female workers and Amazons toiling for an inactive\nminority of selected Mothers. Even in his chapter, \u201cHuman Population in\nthe Future,\u201d Mr. Spencer has attempted no detailed statement of the\nphysical modifications inevitable to the production of higher moral\ntypes,\u2014though his general statement in regard to a perfected nervous\nsystem, and a great diminution of human fertility, suggests that such\nmoral evolution would signify a very considerable amount of physical\nchange. If it be legitimate to believe in a future humanity to which\nthe pleasure of mutual beneficence will represent the whole joy of\nlife, would it not also be legitimate to imagine other transformations,\nphysical and moral, which the facts of insect-biology have proved to be\nwithin the range of evolutional possibility?... I do not know. I most\nworshipfully reverence Herbert Spencer as the greatest philosopher who\nhas yet appeared in this world; and I should be very sorry to write\ndown anything contrary to his teaching, in such wise that the reader\ncould imagine it to have been inspired by Synthetic Philosophy. For the\nensuing reflections, I alone am responsible; and if I err, let the sin\nbe upon my own head.\n\nI suppose that the moral transformations predicted by Mr. Spencer,\ncould be effected only with the aid of physiological change, and at a\nterrible cost. Those ethical conditions manifested by insect-societies\ncan have been reached only through effort desperately sustained for\nmillions of years against the most atrocious necessities. Necessities\nequally merciless may have to be met and mastered eventually by the\nhuman race. Mr. Spencer has shown that the time of the greatest\npossible human suffering is yet to come, and that it will be\nconcomitant with the period of the greatest possible pressure of\npopulation. Among other results of that long stress, I understand that\nthere will be a vast increase in human intelligence and sympathy; and\nthat this increase of intelligence will be effected at the cost of\nhuman fertility. But this decline in reproductive power will not, we\nare told, be sufficient to assure the very highest of social\nconditions: it will only relieve that pressure of population which has\nbeen the main cause of human suffering. The state of perfect social\nequilibrium will be approached, but never quite reached, by mankind\u2014\n\n_Unless there be discovered some means of solving economic problems,\njust as social insects have solved them, by the suppression of\nsex-life_.\n\nSupposing that such a discovery were made, and that the human race\nshould decide to arrest the development of sex in the majority of its\nyoung,\u2014so as to effect a transferrence of those forces, now demanded by\nsex-life to the development of higher activities,\u2014might not the result\nbe an eventual state of polymorphism, like that of ants? And, in such\nevent, might not the Coming Race be indeed represented in its higher\ntypes,\u2014through feminine rather than masculine evolution,\u2014by a majority\nof beings of neither sex?\n\nConsidering how many persons, even now, through merely unselfish (not\nto speak of religious) motives, sentence themselves to celibacy, it\nshould not appear improbable that a more highly evolved humanity would\ncheerfully sacrifice a large proportion of its sex-life for the common\nweal, particularly in view of certain advantages to be gained. Not the\nleast of such advantages\u2014always supposing that mankind were able to\ncontrol sex-life after the natural manner of the ants\u2014would be a\nprodigious increase of longevity. The higher types of a humanity\nsuperior to sex might be able to realize the dream of life for a\nthousand years.\n\nAlready we find lives too short for the work we have to do; and with\nthe constantly accelerating progress of discovery, and the\nnever-ceasing expansion of knowledge, we shall certainly find more and\nmore reason to regret, as time goes on, the brevity of existence. That\nScience will ever discover the Elixir of the Alchemists\u2019 hope is\nextremely unlikely. The Cosmic Powers will not allow us to cheat them.\nFor every advantage which they yield us the full price must be paid:\nnothing for nothing is the everlasting law. Perhaps the price of long\nlife will prove to be the price that the ants have paid for it.\nPerhaps, upon some elder planet, that price has already been paid, and\nthe power to produce offspring restricted to a caste morphologically\ndifferentiated, in unimaginable ways, from the rest of the species...\n\nVII\n\nBut while the facts of insect-biology suggest so much in regard to the\nfuture course of human evolution, do they not also suggest something of\nlargest significance concerning the relation of ethics to cosmic law?\nApparently, the highest evolution will not be permitted to creatures\ncapable of what human moral experience has in all areas condemned.\nApparently, the highest possible strength is the strength of\nunselfishness; and power supreme never will be accorded to cruelty or\nto lust. There may be no gods; but the forces that shape and dissolve\nall forms of being would seem to be much more exacting than gods. To\nprove a \u201cdramatic tendency\u201d in the ways of the stars is not possible;\nbut the cosmic process seems nevertheless to affirm the worth of every\nhuman system of ethics fundamentally opposed to human egoism.\n\n\n\n\nNotes\n\n\nTHE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-H\u014c\u00cfCHI\n\n [1] See my _Kott\u014d_, for a description of these curious crabs.\n\n\n [2] Or, Shimonos\u00e9ki. The town is also known by the name of Bakkan.\n\n\n [3] The _biwa_, a kind of four-stringed lute, is chiefly used in\n musical recitative. Formerly the professional minstrels who recited\n the _Heik\u00e9-Monogatari_, and other tragical histories, were called\n _biwa-h\u014dshi_, or \u201clute-priests.\u201d The origin of this appellation is not\n clear; but it is possible that it may have been suggested by the fact\n that \u201clute-priests\u201d as well as blind shampooers, had their heads\n shaven, like Buddhist priests. The _biwa_ is played with a kind of\n plectrum, called _bachi_, usually made of horn.\n\n\n(1) A response to show that one has heard and is listening attentively.\n\n\n [4] A respectful term, signifying the opening of a gate. It was used\n by samurai when calling to the guards on duty at a lord\u2019s gate for\n admission.\n\n\n [5] Or the phrase might be rendered, \u201cfor the pity of that part is the\n deepest.\u201d The Japanese word for pity in the original text is\n \u201c_awar\u00e9_.\u201d\n\n\n [6] \u201cTraveling incognito\u201d is at least the meaning of the original\n phrase,\u2014\u201cmaking a disguised august-journey\u201d (_shinobi no go-ryok\u014d_).\n\n\n [7] The Smaller Prag\u00f1a-P\u00e2ramit\u00e2-Hridaya-S\u00fbtra is thus called in\n Japanese. Both the smaller and larger s\u00fbtras called Prag\u00f1a-P\u00e2ramit\u00e2\n (\u201cTranscendent Wisdom\u201d) have been translated by the late Professor Max\n M\u00fcller, and can be found in volume xlix. of the _Sacred Books of the\n East_ (\u201cBuddhist Mahayana S\u00fbtras\u201d).\u2014Apropos of the magical use of the\n text, as described in this story, it is worth remarking that the\n subject of the s\u00fbtra is the Doctrine of the Emptiness of Forms,\u2014that\n is to say, of the unreal character of all phenomena or noumena...\n \u201cForm is emptiness; and emptiness is form. Emptiness is not different\n from form; form is not different from emptiness. What is form\u2014that is\n emptiness. What is emptiness\u2014that is form... Perception, name,\n concept, and knowledge, are also emptiness... There is no eye, ear,\n nose, tongue, body, and mind... But when the envelopment of\n consciousness has been annihilated, then he [_the seeker_] becomes\n free from all fear, and beyond the reach of change, enjoying final\n Nirvana.\u201d\n\nOSHIDORI\n\n [1] From ancient time, in the Far East, these birds have been regarded\n as emblems of conjugal affection.\n\n\n [2] There is a pathetic double meaning in the third verse; for the\n syllables composing the proper name _Akanuma_ (\u201cRed Marsh\u201d) may also\n be read as _akanu-ma_, signifying \u201cthe time of our inseparable (or\n delightful) relation.\u201d So the poem can also be thus rendered:\u2014\u201cWhen\n the day began to fail, I had invited him to accompany me...! Now,\n after the time of that happy relation, what misery for the one who\n must slumber alone in the shadow of the rushes!\u201d\u2014The _makomo_ is a\n short of large rush, used for making baskets.\n\nTHE STORY OF O-TEI\n\n(1) \u201c-sama\u201d is a polite suffix attached to personal names.\n\n\n(2) A Buddhist term commonly used to signify a kind of heaven.\n\n\n [1] The Buddhist term _zokumy\u014d_ (\u201cprofane name\u201d) signifies the\n personal name, borne during life, in contradistinction to the _kaimy\u014d_\n (\u201csila-name\u201d) or _homy\u014d_ (\u201cLaw-name\u201d) given after death,\u2014religious\n posthumous appellations inscribed upon the tomb, and upon the mortuary\n tablet in the parish-temple.\u2014For some account of these, see my paper\n entitled, \u201cThe Literature of the Dead,\u201d in _Exotics and\n Retrospectives_.\n\n\n [2] Buddhist household shrine.\n\n\n(3) Direct translation of a Japanese form of address used toward young,\nunmarried women.\n\nDIPLOMACY\n\n(1) The spacious house and grounds of a wealthy person is thus called.\n\n\n(2) A Buddhist service for the dead.\n\nOF A MIRROR AND A BELL\n\n(1) Part of present-day Shizuoka Prefecture.\n\n\n(2) The two-hour period between 1 AM and 3 AM.\n\n\n(3) A monetary unit.\n\nJIKININKI\n\n(1) The southern part of present-day Gifu Prefecture.\n\n\n [1] Literally, a man-eating goblin. The Japanese narrator gives also\n the Sanscrit term, \u201cR\u00e2kshasa;\u201d but this word is quite as vague as\n _jikininki_, since there are many kinds of R\u00e2kshasas. Apparently the\n word _jikininki_ signifies here one of the\n _Baramon-Rasetsu-Gaki_,\u2014forming the twenty-sixth class of pretas\n enumerated in the old Buddhist books.\n\n\n [2] A _S\u00e9gaki_-service is a special Buddhist service performed on\n behalf of beings supposed to have entered into the condition of _gaki_\n (pretas), or hungry spirits. For a brief account of such a service,\n see my _Japanese Miscellany_.\n\n\n [3] Literally, \u201cfive-circle [or five-zone] stone.\u201d A funeral monument\n consisting of five parts superimposed,\u2014each of a different\n form,\u2014symbolizing the five mystic elements: Ether, Air, Fire, Water,\n Earth.\n\nMUJINA\n\n(1) A kind of badger. Certain animals were thought to be able to\ntransform themselves and cause mischief for humans.\n\n\n [1] O-joch\u016b (\u201chonorable damsel\u201d), a polite form of address used in\n speaking to a young lady whom one does not know.\n\n\n(2) An apparition with a smooth, totally featureless face, called a\n\u201cnopperabo,\u201d is a stock part of the Japanese pantheon of ghosts and\ndemons.\n\n\n [2] Soba is a preparation of buckwheat, somewhat resembling\n vermicelli.\n\n\n(3) An exclamation of annoyed alarm.\n\n\n(4) Well!\n\nROKURO-KUBI\n\n [1] The period of Eiky\u014d lasted from 1429 to 1441.\n\n\n [2] The upper robe of a Buddhist priest is thus called.\n\n\n(1) Present-day Yamanashi Prefecture.\n\n\n(2) A term for itinerant priests.\n\n\n [3] A sort of little fireplace, contrived in the floor of a room, is\n thus described. The _ro_ is usually a square shallow cavity, lined\n with metal and half-filled with ashes, in which charcoal is lighted.\n\n\n(3) Direct translation of \u201csuzumushi,\u201d a kind of cricket with a\ndistinctive chirp like a tiny bell, whence the name.\n\n\n(4) Now a rokuro-kubi is ordinarily conceived as a goblin whose neck\nstretches out to great lengths, but which nevertheless always remains\nattached to its body.\n\n\n(5) A Chinese collection of stories on the supernatural.\n\n\n [4] A present made to friends or to the household on returning from a\n journey is thus called. Ordinarily, of course, the _miyag\u00e9_ consists\n of something produced in the locality to which the journey has been\n made: this is the point of Kwairy\u014d\u2019s jest.\n\n\n(6) Present-day Nagano Prefecture.\n\nA DEAD SECRET\n\n(1) On the present-day map, Tamba corresponds roughly to the central\narea of Ky\u014dto Prefecture and part of Hyogo Prefecture.\n\n\n [1] The Hour of the Rat (_N\u00e9-no-Koku_), according to the old Japanese\n method of reckoning time, was the first hour. It corresponded to the\n time between our midnight and two o\u2019clock in the morning; for the\n ancient Japanese hours were each equal to two modern hours.\n\n\n [2] _Kaimy\u014d_, the posthumous Buddhist name, or religious name, given\n to the dead. Strictly speaking, the meaning of the word is sila-name.\n (See my paper entitled, \u201cThe Literature of the Dead\u201d in _Exotics and\n Retrospectives_.)\n\nYUKI-ONNA\n\n(1) An ancient province whose boundaries took in most of present-day\nT\u014dky\u014d, and parts of Saitama and Kanagawa prefectures.\n\n\n [1] That is to say, with a floor-surface of about six feet square.\n\n\n [2] This name, signifying \u201cSnow,\u201d is not uncommon. On the subject of\n Japanese female names, see my paper in the volume entitled\n _Shadowings_.\n\n\n(2) Also spelled Edo, the former name of T\u014dky\u014d.\n\nTHE STORY OF AOYAGI\n\n(1) An ancient province corresponding to the northern part of\npresent-day Ishikawa Prefecture.\n\n\n(2) An ancient province corresponding to the eastern part of\npresent-day Fukui Prefecture.\n\n\n [1] The name signifies \u201cGreen Willow;\u201d\u2014though rarely met with, it is\n still in use.\n\n\n [2] The poem may be read in two ways; several of the phrases having a\n double meaning. But the art of its construction would need\n considerable space to explain, and could scarcely interest the Western\n reader. The meaning which Tomotada desired to convey might be thus\n expressed:\u2014\u201cWhile journeying to visit my mother, I met with a being\n lovely as a flower; and for the sake of that lovely person, I am\n passing the day here... Fair one, wherefore that dawn-like blush\n before the hour of dawn?\u2014can it mean that you love me?\u201d\n\n\n [3] Another reading is possible; but this one gives the signification\n of the _answer_ intended.\n\n\n [4] So the Japanese story-teller would have us believe,\u2014although the\n verses seem commonplace in translation. I have tried to give only\n their general meaning: an effective literal translation would require\n some scholarship.\n\nJIU-ROKU-ZAKURA\n\n(1) Present-day Ehime Prefecture.\n\nTHE DREAM OF AKINOSUK\u00c9\n\n(1) Present-day Nara Prefecture.\n\n\n [1] This name \u201cTokoyo\u201d is indefinite. According to circumstances it\n may signify any unknown country,\u2014or that undiscovered country from\n whose bourn no traveler returns,\u2014or that Fairyland of far-eastern\n fable, the Realm of H\u014drai. The term \u201cKoku\u014d\u201d means the ruler of a\n country,\u2014therefore a king. The original phrase, _Tokoyo no Koku\u014d_,\n might be rendered here as \u201cthe Ruler of H\u014drai,\u201d or \u201cthe King of\n Fairyland.\u201d\n\n\n [2] The last phrase, according to old custom, had to be uttered by\n both attendants at the same time. All these ceremonial observances can\n still be studied on the Japanese stage.\n\n\n [3] This was the name given to the estrade, or dais, upon which a\n feudal prince or ruler sat in state. The term literally signifies\n \u201cgreat seat.\u201d\n\nRIKI-BAKA\n\n(1) Kana: the Japanese phonetic alphabet.\n\n\n(2) \u201cSo-and-so\u201d: appellation used by Hearn in place of the real name.\n\n\n(3) A section of T\u014dky\u014d.\n\n\n [1] A square piece of cotton-goods, or other woven material, used as a\n wrapper in which to carry small packages.\n\n\n(4) Ten yen is nothing now, but was a formidable sum then.\n\n INSECT STUDIES\n\nBUTTERFLIES\n\n(1) Haiku.\n\n\n [1] \u201cThe modest nymph beheld her God, and blushed.\u201d (Or, in a more\n familiar rendering: \u201cThe modest water saw its God, and blushed.\u201d) In\n this line the double value of the word _nympha_\u2014used by classical\n poets both in the meaning of fountain and in that of the divinity of a\n fountain, or spring\u2014reminds one of that graceful playing with words\n which Japanese poets practice.\n\n\n [2] More usually written _nugi-kak\u00e9ru_, which means either \u201cto take\n off and hang up,\u201d or \u201cto begin to take off,\u201d\u2014as in the above poem.\n More loosely, but more effectively, the verses might thus be rendered:\n \u201cLike a woman slipping off her haori\u2014that is the appearance of a\n butterfly.\u201d One must have seen the Japanese garment described, to\n appreciate the comparison. The haori is a silk upper-dress,\u2014a kind of\n sleeved cloak,\u2014worn by both sexes; but the poem suggests a woman\u2019s\n _haori_, which is usually of richer color or material. The sleeves are\n wide; and the lining is usually of brightly-colored silk, often\n beautifully variegated. In taking off the haori, the brilliant lining\n is displayed,\u2014and at such an instant the fluttering splendor might\n well be likened to the appearance of a butterfly in motion.\n\n\n [3] The bird-catcher\u2019s pole is smeared with bird-lime; and the verses\n suggest that the insect is preventing the man from using his pole, by\n persistently getting in the way of it,\u2014as the birds might take warning\n from seeing the butterfly limed. _Jama suru_ means \u201cto hinder\u201d or\n \u201cprevent.\u201d\n\n\n [4] Even while it is resting, the wings of the butterfly may be seen\n to quiver at moments,\u2014as if the creature were dreaming of flight.\n\n\n [5] A little poem by Bash\u014d, greatest of all Japanese composers of\n _hokku_. The verses are intended to suggest the joyous feeling of\n spring-time.\n\n\n [6] Literally, \u201ca windless day;\u201d but two negatives in Japanese poetry\n do not necessarily imply an affirmative, as in English. The meaning\n is, that although there is no wind, the fluttering motion of the\n butterflies suggests, to the eyes at least, that a strong breeze is\n playing.\n\n\n [7] Alluding to the Buddhist proverb: _Rakkwa \u00e9da ni ka\u00ebrazu; ha-ky\u014d\n futatabi terasazu_ (\u201cThe fallen flower returns not to the branch; the\n broken mirror never again reflects.\u201d) So says the proverb\u2014yet it\n seemed to me that I saw a fallen flower return to the branch... No: it\n was only a butterfly.\n\n\n [8] Alluding probably to the light fluttering motion of falling\n cherry-petals.\n\n\n [9] That is to say, the grace of their motion makes one think of the\n grace of young girls, daintily costumed, in robes with long fluttering\n sleeves... And old Japanese proverb declares that even a devil is\n pretty at eighteen: _Oni mo jiu-hachi azami no hana:_ \u201cEven a devil at\n eighteen, flower-of-the-thistle.\u201d\n\n\n [10] Or perhaps the verses might be more effectively rendered thus:\n \u201cHappy together, do you say? Yes\u2014if we should be reborn as\n field-butterflies in some future life: then we might accord!\u201d This\n poem was composed by the celebrated poet Issa, on the occasion of\n divorcing his wife.\n\n\n [11] Or, _Tar\u00e9 no tama?_\n\n\n [12] Literally, \u201cButterfly-pursuing heart I wish to have\n always;\u201d\u2014_i.e._, I would that I might always be able to find pleasure\n in simple things, like a happy child.\n\n\n [13] An old popular error,\u2014probably imported from China.\n\n\n [14] A name suggested by the resemblance of the larva\u2019s artificial\n covering to the _mino_, or straw-raincoat, worn by Japanese peasants.\n I am not sure whether the dictionary rendering, \u201cbasket-worm,\u201d is\n quite correct;\u2014but the larva commonly called _minomushi_ does really\n construct for itself something much like the covering of the\n basket-worm.\n\n\n(2) A very large, white radish. \u201cDaikon\u201d literally means \u201cbig root.\u201d\n\n\n [15] _Pyrus spectabilis_.\n\n\n [16] An evil spirit.\n\n\n(3) A common female name.\n\nMOSQUITOES\n\n(1) Meiji: The period in which Hearn wrote this book. It lasted from\n1868 to 1912, and was a time when Japan plunged head-first into\nWestern-style modernization. By the \u201cfashions and the changes and the\ndisintegrations of Meiji\u201d Hearn is lamenting that this process of\nmodernization was destroying some of the good things in traditional\nJapanese culture.\n\nANTS\n\n(1) Cicadas.\n\n\n [1] An interesting fact in this connection is that the Japanese word\n for ant, _ari_, is represented by an ideograph formed of the character\n for \u201cinsect\u201d combined with the character signifying \u201cmoral rectitude,\u201d\n \u201cpropriety\u201d (_giri_). So the Chinese character actually means \u201cThe\n Propriety-Insect.\u201d","title":"Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":36610}