by Royall Tyler
It was time to load the baskets back on the horses and get going, but the baskets were empty. The melons were gone! The drivers decided that the old man had somehow confused their vision and gotten all the melons out of the baskets without being seen. They were furious. All they could do was turn around, much to the onlookers’ amusement, and set off lamely back to Yamato.
3.
THE SPARROWS’ GIFTS
One warm spring day an old woman was sitting at home picking lice while a sparrow hopped about in her garden. Then a little boy threw a stone at the sparrow and broke its leg. As the sparrow fluttered helplessly along the ground, a crow came circling overhead. “The poor thing!” thought the old woman. “The crow’ll get it!” She picked the sparrow up, breathed on it, fed it, and put it in a little tub to keep it safe for the night.
In the morning she fed the sparrow rice mixed with powdered copper to make it better. Her children and grandchildren made fun of her. “Silly old thing,” they said, “now you’re babying sparrows!”
She tended the sparrow for a month or two till it could hop again, and the sparrow was as happy as could be. If she went out she made someone watch and feed it for her. The family kept teasing her unkindly. “What’s all this fuss over a sparrow?” they grumbled.
“It’s such a dear little thing, you see!” she answered.
At last the sparrow seemed mended. “The crows’ll never get you now!” she said, taking it outside and lifting it on her open palm. “Let’s see how you fly!” The sparrow wobbled into the air and flew away.
Having spent so long fussing over the sparrow, feeding it every day and putting it to bed, she missed it very much. Sometimes she talked about it and even wondered aloud whether it might come back. Mocking laughter was all she got in return.
Three weeks or so later she heard a sparrow cheeping loudly nearby. Sure enough, it was her sparrow back again. “How lovely!” she cried. “You haven’t forgotten me!” The sparrow cocked an eye at her, dropped something tiny from its beak, and flew off. It was a single gourd seed. She kept it because the sparrow had brought it to her.
Her children jeered at her for being so happy about a present from a silly sparrow, but she had to plant the seed to see how it would grow. By fall the vine was huge and laden with far more fruit than any ordinary gourd vine. The old woman was very pleased. Though she gave gourds away to all the neighbors there were always plenty more. The family who had mocked her now ate gourd for every meal. Finally, she shared out the gourds with the whole village, then hung seven or eight of the very biggest up inside to dry.
Months later, when the gourds were ready, she began taking them down. How heavy they were! She cut the top off one to make a storage container, and on finding the gourd was full she poured out a little of what was inside it. It was white rice! After she had emptied what seemed like a whole gourdful into a bucket, the gourd was still as full as before.
It was the sparrow she had to thank for this miracle! She was in rapture. The other gourds were just as full, and no matter how much she poured out there was always more left than she knew what to do with. Her family grew rich.
The neighbors could not believe their eyes and were terribly jealous. “What makes you and her so different?” they complained to their old woman. “She’s made them rich. We don’t see you doing that for us!”
The woman went to her succcessful neighbor to find out how she had done it. “I gather it had something to do with a sparrow,” she said, “but I don’t quite understand. Please tell me the whole story!” The first old woman admitted cautiously that it had all started with a seed a sparrow had brought her, but when pressed for details she thought it would be petty of her not to tell all. She explained how she had cared for the sparrow with the broken leg, and how she had planted the grateful sparrow’s seed. The neighbor begged for just one seed from the bountiful vine, but the first old woman said no, she really could not give out the seeds. She offered rice from the gourds instead.
The disappointed neighbor decided she would find her own injured sparrow and kept a sharp eye out for one, but in vain. Then she noticed the sparrows hopping about at her back door each morning, feeding on the rice grains scattered there, and she tried throwing stones at them. There were so many sparrows and she threw so many stones that she finally managed to stun one.
In glee she broke its leg properly, then fed it food and medicine. As far as she could see, if one would make her rich then more would make her richer, and she would get still more praise from her children than that neighbor woman had gotten from hers. So she scattered more rice and threw more stones at the sparrows till she had hit three. That seemed enough. She put them in a tub and looked after them for a few months till they were better, then merrily took them outside and watched them flutter away. She was ever so pleased with herself. The sparrows, on the other hand, were very unhappy to have had their legs broken and to have been shut up for months.
In ten days the three sparrows came back, and the woman peered eagerly at their beaks. Each dropped a gourd seed and flew off.
“There!” she chortled, and planted the seeds. The vines grew faster than normal and became very large, but they did not bear many gourds — seven or eight per vine, no more. The woman looked on with a big grin. “You told me I was useless,” she said to her children, “but I’m doing better than that woman next door!” How the children hoped she was right!
Since there were so few gourds they gave none away and did not even eat any themselves. They remembered, though, that the neighbor woman had shared her gourds with the whole village, and given them some as well. Perhaps they should offer some to other people, since they had three vines. The old woman agreed to give their nearest neighbors some gourds, and even sat down to a meal of gourd with her family. Everyone took a liberal portion, but the gourds turned out to be horribly bitter, and whoever ate any threw up.
The neighbors they had been so generous to besieged the house, shouting, “What kind of stuff was that you gave us? Everyone who’s even touched it is nearly dead from nausea and vomiting!” But the old woman and her children, writhing on the floor and retching helplessly, were in no condition to answer. Fortunately, the victims recovered in a few days.
What a disaster! The old woman decided she had been overeager and ought to have waited longer for the gourds to turn into rice, so she hung up the rest to dry. Months later, when she judged they were done, she got together enough containers to hold her harvest. Her toothless old mouth gaped wide in a shameless grin as she took down the gourds. Then she poured. Out came horseflies, wasps, centipedes, lizards, and snakes which battened onto her eyes, her ears, and every part of her body and stung her without pity. But she was so sure she was pouring out rice that she never felt a thing. She just kept muttering, “Just you wait, you little sparrows, I’ll get some from each of you!”
Swarms of venomous snakes from the gourds bit the children and stung the old woman herself to death. Those three sparrows had enlisted the help of every nasty creepy-crawly in the world and put them in the gourds.
Envy is something to avoid.
4.
THE MAIDEN FROM THE SKY
One day long ago an old man who made bamboo baskets went to the bamboo grove to cut some more bamboo and saw that one of the bamboo stems was shining. Inside the stem he found a baby girl only three inches long.
Never having come across anything like that before, he hurried home to his wife with the little girl in one hand and his bundle of bamboo in the other. He and his wife were very happy. They put the tiny baby in a basket and cared for her tenderly. In three months she was a normal size for a child, and the bigger she grew, the lovelier she became. Meanwhile the old man kept going for more bamboo, and each time he found gold in the stems he cut.
Soon he was rich. He built a palatial home peopled by flocks of servants and retainers, and his storehouse overflowed with treasures of all kinds. He and his wife, who now had their heart’s desire in everything, co
ntinued to lavish love on their daughter.
She was so dazzling that it was hard to believe she belonged to this world. Rumors about her beauty began to get around and soon many lords were courting her, but she would have nothing to do with them. When they showered her with love letters anyway, she tried to put them off by setting them hopeless tasks. “I’m yours,” she wrote to one, “if you’ll bring me the thunder from the sky.” She told others she wanted the flower that grows in paradise, or the drum that sounds without being beaten. But her beauty had so intoxicated the suitors that they did their best to obey. Off they went to ask people wise in old lore where they should look for such things. Some ended up roaming the beaches like vagabonds, while others wandered homeless through the mountains. Some died, others never returned.
Finally even the emperor heard she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and he decided to go and see her for himself. “If it’s true,” he thought, “I’ll make her my empress.” He set out with all his ministers and officials and was surprised to find, when he reached the house, that it was fit for a king. The girl came to him when he called her. No, there was no one like her in all the world. Why, she must have refused everyone just so as to keep herself for him!
“Fine!” he said happily. “We’ll go back to my palace and you’ll be my empress.”
“That would please me very much, Your Majesty,” she replied, “but you see, I’m not actually human.”
“Well, what are you then? A demon or a god?”
“Neither, Your Majesty. But they’ll soon be coming from the sky to take me away. You should go home now.”
The emperor hardly knew how to take this. “What’s she talking about?” he wondered. “Nobody’s coming down from the sky to get her! She’s just saying that to get rid of me!”
But a throng soon did descend from the heavens, and they carried the maiden away. They looked quite unlike the people of our world.
Well, it had been true. She had not been of this earth. The heartbroken emperor never forgot her, but not even he could follow her to her home.
What kind of being had she been, though? And why had she become the old couple’s daughter? It’s all a mystery.
5.
THE FLEA
A wife and her lover were once in bed when the husband came home. Since the lover had no time to run or hide, the woman rolled him up in a straw mat, marched out with the mat under her arm, and announced that she was going to knock the fleas out of it. As she jumped over the hearth, the naked lover slid out and fell thump into the ashes. The husband’s eyes widened. “Biggest flea I ever saw!” he exclaimed. He seemed to register nothing else.
The big flea fled on all fours.
6.
THE LITTLE SPIDER
A shō is a sort of bamboo mouth organ.
Once there was no one to play the shō for the emperor, and so Kanetoshi, the former governor of Chikuzen province, was granted special permission to audition at the palace. He put the priceless instrument they gave him right to his lips and began to blow. Unfortunately, the imperial shō had a little spider inside it. The next time he inhaled, the spider shot straight to the back of his throat. The coughing and choking fit that seized him then made the emperor and his officials almost split their sides laughing. Having made a terrible fool of himself, the poor man was never asked to the palace again. He should have realized that an imperial treasure like that is seldom played and tried it out cautiously first.
7.
A FLASH IN THE PALACE
Early in his career Lord Fujiwara no Norikuni was a chamberlain of the fifth rank. One day when he was on duty he had to go into the Palace Council Chamber to receive an imperial decree from Minister of the Right Sanesuke, together with some instructions on where to take it.
The room was open to the breezes. As Norikuni approached the minister, he glanced toward the next building (the Great Hall of State) and spotted Lord Minamoto no Akisada, a lieutenant in the Imperial Police, on the veranda of the hall. Akisada had just whipped out his tool. The minister was too far inside the room to see him, but Norikuni, who had a perfect view, could not help bursting out laughing.
“I take it you realize this is a proclamation from His Majesty,” said the minister sharply. “I fail to understand why you find it so amusing.” He reported Norikuni’s mirth to the emperor immediately. Though desperately frightened, poor Norikuni could not very well explain his laughter by revealing that Lord Akisada had exposed his penis at the palace. Akisada must have been very pleased with his joke.
8.
SALT FISH AND DOCTORED WINE
While governor of Echizen (though he actually lived in Kyoto), Lord Fujiwara no Tamemori failed to contribute his share of the rice stipend due the Palace Guards. The six contingents of the guards responded by rising up as one man and marching to Lord Tamemori’s residence where they lined up shoulder to shoulder, seated on camp stools, under awnings they had thoughtfully brought with them. They had the house blockaded, and refused to let anyone in or out.
It was the sixth moon, and the days were long and very hot. The guards had been there since early morning. By midday they were roasting, but they managed to hang on by reminding themselves that they could not leave without satisfaction. Then the gate opened a crack and a senior retainer stuck his head out.
“His Excellency the Governor has asked me to speak to you,” the retainer announced. “He says he would like to meet you immediately, but unfortunately that is impossible because your presence has terribly frightened all the women and children. He does realize, though, that in this heat you must all be thirsty, and he thinks he might discuss things with you inside, through a screen, as long as you don’t mind coming in in small parties. He suggests some refreshments. We might first have the Left and Right Inner Guards, if you have no objection. The other contingents can follow. His Excellency knows he ought to have you all come in at once, but unhappily his residence is too small and poor to allow that. So please be patient, the rest of you. Will the Inner Guards now be good enough to come in? His Excellency will receive you.”
The guards certainly were thirsty, and the thought of getting not only a drink but a chance to say their piece pleased them very much. “How kind of him!” they replied. “We’ll be happy to go in and explain to him why we’re here.”
“Fine!” said the retainer and opened the gate. The men of the Left and Right Inner Guards quickly gathered before it.
Long mats had been laid out in the gallery north of the middle gate, and on them stood several dozen individual tables arranged facing each other in two rows. The tables were piled high with sliced sea bream, dried and well salted; slices of very salty-looking salt salmon; salted horse mackerel; and sea bream pickled in miso. For fruit there were ten great lacquered bowls heaped with nicely ripened purple plums.
“This way, please!” cried the retainer. “Just the Inner Guards now, if you don’t mind!”
In they trooped: Kanetoki from Owari province and Atsuyuki from Shimōsa first, followed by all the oldest and most senior officers. “The other contingents will all have their turn!” called the retainer to those left outside, then locked the gate behind him and kept the key.
The retainer pressed the guards politely to step up into the gallery and take their seats, which they did. When they were all in place, in twin rows, the retainer called for wine. In fact, though, the wine was slow to appear, and in the meantime the hungry guards quickly picked up their chopsticks and helped themselves to the victuals.
“What can have happened to the wine?” the retainer kept muttering, but still it did not come. At last it was announced that although the governor did so much want to meet with the guards, he was just now suffering from a bout of some stomach ailment and could not be with them quite yet. He would be out when they had finished their refreshments.
Finally the wine came. Two young men brought in a pair of big cups on trays and set them down before Kanetoki and Atsuyuki, who were opposite each oth
er. With generous ladles they then filled the cups full. Kanetoki and Atsuyuki picked them up and drank greedily till wine dribbled down their chins. The wine was a bit cloudy and sour, but having broiled so long in the sun the men had a powerful thirst, and they kept pouring it down. In fact, their cups had to be refilled twice before they would pass them on to the next in line.
Turn by turn the men all drank their fill which, parched as they were, was for some as many as five cups. Next they had the plums. Soon the wine was back again and kept coming round (with plums in between) until everyone had wet his whistle half a dozen times.
Only now did the governor emerge and seat himself on the other side of the blinds which screened the gallery from the interior of the house.
“Ah, gentlemen,” he began, “I never imagined that any failure of generosity on my part would set you against me this way and hold me up to shame before all the world! There’s been a drought in my province ever since last year, you see, and we’ve taken in nothing, nothing at all! At least, the tiny amount we did harvest was claimed quite persuasively by Their Excellencies at court. They took everything, I’m afraid. There’s not a grain left. My own household is out of food, and the serving-girls are going hungry. Well, I suppose I deserved it. But, gentlemen, please understand that I can’t offer you a single miserable potful of rice. It’s this awful karma of mine that kept me for years from any official appointment, and that now has gotten me a hopeless province so poor that it yields me nothing but embarrassment. I certainly don’t blame you for anything, I assure you! No, I’m only getting what was coming to me!” The governor sobbed aloud.