The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales (Translations from the Asian Classics)

by Philip K. Dick

  Tōsuke, having remounted his horse, journeyed on to Mino. But when he reached the approach to the bridge at Morokoshi, he forgot all about what he was supposed to do there and failed to deliver the box. Only when he reached home did he remember. “Well, I’ll have to look for the woman another time and hand it over then,” he thought to himself as he put it away in what he thought was a safe place.

  Tōsuke’s wife was of a very jealous nature, and she happened to come across the box by accident. “He must have bought it and brought it from Kyoto, intending to give it to some woman!” she thought. “And he’s hidden it from me here!” When Tōsuke had gone out, his wife got out the box and opened it. In it, she found several human eyes that had been gouged out and a number of penises with a little of the hair attached.

  When the wife saw these things, she was greatly startled and frightened. As soon as Tōsuke returned, with much misgiving she called him to look at them. “She warned me not to open the box!” he exclaimed. “Now you’ve done it!”

  Quickly he wrapped the things up again the way they had been and, as the woman had told him, took the box to the foot of the bridge. There was a woman waiting there, as he had been told there would be. When Tōsuke gave her the box, she said, “This box has been opened, hasn’t it!” “Oh no, nothing of the sort!” protested Tōsuke. But the woman, looking extremely displeased, said, “You’ve done a terrible thing!” Then, with an air of profound regret, she took the box and Tōsuke went home.

  After that Tōsuke, complaining that he did not feel well, took to his bed. “She said not to look, but you had to open it!” he said to his wife, and shortly after, he died.

  Thus we see that when a wife has profound feelings of jealousy and acts on the basis of imaginings, she brings bad luck on the husband. Because of jealousy, Tōsuke died an unexpected and miserable death. Although they say that jealousy is just part of a woman’s constant nature, still all who heard of this incident blamed the wife—so the story goes.

  How a Group of Nuns Went into the Mountains, Ate Some Mushrooms, and Danced (28:28)

  Long ago, some woodcutters of the capital went into the mountains north of the city to gather fuel, but they took a wrong turn and found themselves completely lost. There they were, four or five in the party, sitting in the mountains and feeling downcast, when a number of people appeared from the depths of the mountain. “Who could these people be?” they wondered, when they saw that it was a group of four or five nuns dancing around wildly.

  The woodcutters, seeing them, reacted with fear and alarm. “These nuns dancing around like this—they’re surely not ordinary beings! Could they be tengu,”47 they wondered, “or some other sort of devilish spirits?”

  When the nuns caught sight of the woodcutters, they headed straight in their direction, which terrified the woodcutters even more. As the nuns drew nearer, the woodcutters spoke to them. “What kind of nuns are you, coming out of the deepest part of the mountain and dancing around in a wild manner like this?” they asked.

  “Probably it’s because we are dancing around like this that you find us frightening,” the nuns replied. “But we live nearby. We thought we would pick some flowers to offer to the Buddha—that’s why we went off in a company like this. But then we took a wrong path and found that we didn’t know the way home.

  “We came on some mushrooms, and we were hungry. We wondered if it would be all right to pick and eat them, or if perhaps they were harmful. We decided, though, that it was better to eat them than just to die of hunger. So we said, ‘Well, then, let’s eat them!’ And when we picked some and roasted them and ate them, they turned out to be very tasty. “They’ll do just fine!’ we thought, but after we’d eaten them, we found that, even though we didn’t want to, we just couldn’t help dancing. We knew at heart that it was a very peculiar thing to do—yes, it certainly was peculiar …”

  Hearing this, the woodcutters were even more astounded. The nuns had a lot of mushrooms left over from the ones they had eaten. Seeing these, the woodcutters thought, “Better than dying of hunger, why don’t we just eat some of those?” They asked the nuns to give them some, and after they had eaten them, they found that, in spite of themselves, they were dancing around, too. So both the nuns and the woodcutters danced together, laughing the whole while.

  After some time, however, like drunken people sobering up, they came to their senses, and each group somehow was able to find its way home. From this time on, these particular mushrooms came to be called maitake, or “dancing mushrooms.”

  Thinking it over, it seems like a very odd affair. Nowadays, we have things called maitake, but the people who eat them do not necessarily start dancing.48 So people say they find this whole story to be decidedly strange.

  How Fujiwara no Nobutada, Governor of Shinano, Took a Tumble at Misaka (28:38)

  Long ago, there was a man named Fujiwara no Nobutada,49 governor of Shinano Province. He had traveled to Shinano, fulfilled his term as governor there, and was on his way back to the capital. When he crossed over the pass at Misaka,50 the horses laden with the governor’s belongings and the riders in his party were too numerous to count. And among these many riders was the governor on his horse. As his horse passed over the logs at the outer edge of the trail, its hind hoof slipped and it lost its footing. The governor, horse and all, tumbled head over heels, plummeting from the path.

  His retainers pull Fujiwara no Nobutada from the ravine in a basket. (From an Edo-period wood-block edition of Konjaku monogatari shū, with the permission of Komine Kazuaki)

  How deep was the ravine the governor fell into no one could tell—it was unthinkable that he could have survived. Below could be seen the topmost branches of cedars and cypresses towering a hundred feet or more, but peer as one might, one could not possibly guess how far down the bottom was. No one could imagine that the governor could take such a plunge and come out alive.

  The governor’s numerous retainers got off their horses and, squatting along the edge of the log trail, stared down into the ravine. The situation seemed hopeless. “Nothing we can do now!” they said. “If there was some way we could get down there, we might see what’s become of the governor. Another day on the road, and we’d come to a place that’s not so deep—then we could work our way back and look for him. But there’s no way we can get to the bottom of the ravine from here. What’s to be done?” Just then, while they were one by one mulling over the possibilities, they heard the faint sound of someone calling from deep in the ravine.

  “It’s his Excellency the Governor!” they exclaimed. And when they gave an answering shout, they could just hear far in the distance the governor shouting something.

  “There—he’s saying something. Quiet! Listen to what he’s saying! He’s saying, ‘Tie a long rope to one of the travel baskets!’ So the governor’s alive—something must have broken his fall!”

  Tying together the reins from a number of horses, they fashioned a rope of sorts, fastened it to one of the travel baskets, and little by little lowered it. When they had paid it all out, they felt the rope go slack, so they knew that it had struck bottom.

  Then they heard a voice saying, “Now pull it up!” “He’s telling us to pull it up,” they said. But when they did so, they found that the basket was very light in weight. “The basket’s terribly light! If his Excellency were riding in it, it ought to be much heavier!” “Maybe it’s light because he’s grabbing hold of branches and pulling himself up,” someone suggested. So they went on pulling. But when they had pulled the basket up where they could get a good look, they found it piled high with nothing but hiratake mushrooms.51

  The men looked at one another in bafflement. “What in the world—?” they said. Then they heard the voice from the depths calling once more. “Lower it again!” it said.

  Hearing this, they replied, “Well, then, here it goes again,” and down went the basket. “Now pull it up!” said the voice. They pulled as the voice had instructed, but this time the basket wa
s unexpectedly heavy—it took several men hauling on the rope to get it up. And when they got it up and looked, there was the governor sitting in the basket. With one hand he held fast to the rope; in the other, he grasped three bunches of hiratake mushrooms.

  Once he had been hoisted up and was seated on the log roadway, his retainers, greatly relieved at how things had turned out, said, “Now tell us—why all these mushrooms?”

  “When I fell,” the governor replied, “the horse fell to the bottom faster then I did. I came tumbling down after. The branches were very thick and all twined together so they broke my fall. Grabbing hold of the branches as I was going down, I came to a branch of a big tree that gave me some footing. With the help of that, I got my arms around a branch in the fork of a tree where I came to a stop. This tree had a lot of hiratake mushrooms growing on it. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. So I picked the ones within reach and put them in the basket and had them hauled up. But there must be lots more—more than one can imagine. What a loss, what a terrible loss, I kept thinking!”

  “Truly a great loss indeed!” said his retainers, and they burst out laughing.

  “It’s no laughing matter, you fellows!” said the governor. “I felt like a man who goes into a mountain heaped with treasures and comes back empty-handed. But, as the saying goes, ‘A high official never stumbles without coming up with a handful of earth.’”52

  The chief assistant to the governor, an older man, though inwardly repelled by such an attitude, exclaimed, “How right you are! If there is anything at hand to be taken, how could you fail to take it? No one in such a situation would neglect to do so. But only a truly wise person like your Excellency would keep his wits about him in the kind of perilous situation you met with. Whatever the circumstances, you carry on as though you were dealing with everyday affairs. So, without becoming the least bit flustered, you proceeded to pick mushrooms. And you govern a province in the same way, raking in whatever good things there are to be had, taking whatever you have a mind to take. And the people of the province love and look up to you as they would their own father and mother. Therefore, may you continue in this manner for a thousand autumns, for ten thousand years!” As he spoke, the others in the group did what they could to hide their snickers.

  Even in a dire situation such as this, the governor took care to first send up a load of mushrooms, a distinctly odd way of doing things when you consider it. We can only imagine how he must have snatched at things when it was easier for him to do so. People who hear of this will doubtless laugh in derision, but such is the story that has been handed down.

  How a Thief Climbed to the Upper Story of Rashōmon Gate and Came on a Corpse (29:18)

  Long ago, a man left Settsu Province and went to the capital in hopes of stealing something. Arriving in the capital while it was still daylight, he stood in the shadows at the foot of Rashōmon Gate.53

  Because many people were going up and down along Shujaku Avenue, the thief decided to wait by the gate until things had quieted down. But when he heard sounds of a large number of people arriving from the area of Yamashiro to the south, he thought to himself, “Better if no one sees me!” Keeping out of sight, he managed little by little to climb up to the upper story of the gate. When he peered into the interior of the gate, he could see a faint light burning.

  The thief, wondering at this, looked more carefully through the window grating. Inside lay the corpse of a young woman, and by her head a torch was burning. An old, old woman with white hair sat by the dead woman’s head, yanking and pulling out handfuls of her hair.

  The thief could make no sense of what he saw. “Could it be the ogre?” he thought, terror coming over him.54 “But maybe it’s only a ghost. I’ll try giving it a scare!” Stealthily, he opened the door to the inner room, drew his sword, and, shouting “You—you there!” rushed in.

  The old woman, greatly flustered, wrung her hands in alarm. “Who are you, old woman?” the thief demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  “The lady who was my mistress has gone and left me!” said the old woman. “I’ve no way to bury her properly, so I’ve brought her here. But see her hair—how nice and long it is! I’m pulling it out so I can make a wig! Have pity on me!”

  The thief stripped off the clothing the corpse was wearing; seized the old woman’s clothes as well, along with the handful of hair she had pulled out; climbed down the gate as fast as he could; and ran away.

  There were lots of skeletons of people in the upper story of the gate. When it was impossible to give someone a proper burial, people would bring the body to the upper story of the gate and leave it there.

  The thief told someone about what had happened and so word of it got around. Such, then, is the story that has been handed down.

  How a Man Was Traveling with His Wife to Tanba and Got Tied Up at Ōeyama (29:23)

  Long ago, there was a man of the capital whose wife came from Tanba Province. This man set out with his wife to journey to Tanba. The wife rode their horse, while the husband, a bamboo quiver with some ten arrows slung over his shoulder and carrying a bow, walked along behind. When they reached the area of Ōeyama,55 they were joined on the road by a sturdily built young man carrying a long sword.

  As the two men went along, they began a conversation, “Where are you headed?” and such like, chatting in a friendly manner. Then the man with the sword said, “This sword I’m wearing was made in Michinoku Province.56 It’s a really fine specimen—here, have a look!” He took it off and showed it to the other man; it was indeed a very fine sword.

  Looking at it, the man from the capital was seized with an overwhelming desire to have it. Observing this, the young man said, “If this sword would be of any use to you, why don’t you take it? And in exchange, I’ll take that bow you’re carrying.”

  The man from the capital had no great attachment to the bow he was carrying, while he regarded the sword as a real prize. In view of his great longing for the sword and his thoughts of what a wonderful acquisition it would be, he readily agreed to the exchange.

  After they had walked on for a time, the young man said, “If I’m just carrying a bow, people may think it peculiar. While we’re going through the mountains, why don’t you let me carry a few arrows as well. That will help you out too. As long as we’re going together, it’s all the same thing anyway, isn’t it?”

  When the man from the capital heard this, he thought to himself, “Quite right!” And besides, he was so delighted at being able to carry a fine sword instead of the bow that he did as the other man suggested, taking two arrows from his quiver and handing them over. The young man, carrying the bow and with two arrows in his hand, walked behind, while the man from the capital, the quiver with the remaining arrows on his back and the sword at his waist, went ahead.

  Presently, since it was time for the noon meal, they stopped at a grove of trees. “Let’s not eat where people passing by can see us—let’s go a little farther in,” the young man said. So they went deeper into the grove. But while the man from the capital was helping his wife down from the horse, the young man suddenly fitted an arrow to the bow he was carrying, took aim at the other man, and pulled the bowstring far back. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot!” he said.

  Taken completely by surprise, the man from the capital had no idea what to expect. He just stood there staring at the other man.

  “Move along deeper into the mountains—go on!” the young man commanded in a threatening tone. Fearing for his life, the man from the capital, his wife accompanying him, went half a mile or so deeper into the mountains. “Throw me the sword and your knife!” the young man ordered, and the other man threw him both of them. The young man came forward, picked them up, and, easily overpowering the other man, tied him securely to a tree with the bridle from the horse.

  The young man then went to take a closer look at the wife. She was in her twenties, a woman of humble birth but extremely beautiful and appealing. Just looking at her, his desires were a
roused. Forgetting everything else, he ordered her to take off her clothes. The woman, realizing that she had no alternative, accordingly took them off. The man then took off his own clothes and forced her to submit to him. The woman had no choice—she had to do what he said. But when the man tied to the tree saw what was happening, what must he have thought?

  After that, the young man got up and put his clothes back on. He slung the quiver over his shoulder, fastened the sword at his waist, took the bow in hand, and, as he mounted the horse, said to her, “I’m very sorry to leave you, but that’s how things must be. I’m off now. As for that man, for your sake I’ll leave him there and not kill him. I’m taking the horse so I can make a quick getaway.” Then he galloped off as fast as he could, and no one knows where he went.

  The woman walked over to her husband and untied him. The husband looked dazed and shamefaced. “You’re completely worthless!” she said. “From now on, I’ll never be able to count on you for anything!” The husband had no answer for this, and so the two of them resumed their journey to Tanba.

  The young man had some sense of decency—at least he didn’t rob the woman of her clothes. But the man from the capital—what hopeless stupidity! Off somewhere in the mountains, to hand your bow and arrows over to a man you’ve never laid eyes on before—a real idiot!

  As for the other man, no one knows what became of him. This, then, is the story that’s been handed down.