Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  He was out of his depth. This woman was not of the same order as a common mortal. With awful certainty he saw that the very idea of bringing her round was absurd. He drew the box to his lips and sipped the golden water: it was redolent of cloves. He licked the tip of the round brown object he had speared: both bitter and sweet, it was endlessly fragrant.

  Heichū was clever too, and he could see perfectly what Jijū had done. For the urine she had simply boiled cloves and drawn off the water. For the other matter she had ground together yams, incense spices, and sweetvine, and molded the mixture in the cover of a large writing brush. Anyone could do that, of course. But for her to have divined that he would want to contemplate the contents of her chamber pot — that was beyond anything. A genius like Jijū was just not of this world.

  With these thoughts whirling deliriously through his head, Heichū sickened, suffered awhile, and died.

  58.

  BUT SHE COULDN’T HELP IT!

  Late one evening the future Major Counselor Tadaie was courting a coy and beautiful lady. She was sitting demurely in her room, behind her curtains, while he talked to her from the veranda. The moonlight was brighter than day. Finally Tadaie could no longer stand it. He crawled under the curtains, took her shoulders, and tried to draw her to him. “Oh, don’t!” she cried, hiding under her long hair and struggling to escape.

  In doing so she let out a loud fart. There was dead silence. She lay very still.

  “Oh no!” groaned Tadaie. “This is the end! How can I face the world again? I’ll have to enter religion!” Ducking back out under the curtains he sneaked off, fully intending to make himself into a monk. But in a moment he began to wonder why he should have to enter religion just because some woman had disgraced herself, and instead simply got out of there as fast as he could.

  No one knows what happened to the lady.

  59.

  THE GENIE

  Once the famous yin-yang diviner Seimei was watching the parade of gentlemen arriving at the palace in fashionably ostentatious style when he noticed a handsome and elegant young chamberlain alighting from his carriage. The chamberlain had hardly started toward the Great Hall when a passing crow dropped filth on him. “Oh dear,” thought Seimei, “he’s so young and handsome, and so well received by everyone! What a pity that genie got him — because that bird certainly was a genie. Something awful seems to be in store for him!”

  He felt so sorry for the young man that he went over to talk to him. “Are you on your way to His Majesty?” he asked. “It’s forward of me to speak, I know, but I wonder what your purpose is, because, you see, you mustn’t spend the night in the palace. That’s quite clear. No, come with me instead. I’ll help you as best as I can.”

  It was about four in the afternoon. The two went to the chamberlain’s house in his carriage, and all the way the chamberlain trembled and begged Seimei to save him. After sunset Seimei kept his arms tight around the chamberlain and laid protective spells. He spent the night in endless, unintelligible muttering.

  The fall night was long. At dawn there was a knock on the door, and Seimei had the chamberlain send someone to answer. It was a messenger from the enemy diviner. The chamberlain’s brother-in-law, who lived in another part of the house, was so jealous of the chamberlain that he had had this diviner set a genie on the chamberlain to kill him. Seimei had spotted the genie. “The gentleman was so strongly protected,” the messenger loudly announced, “that the genie came back and killed my master instead!”

  “You see?” said Seimei.

  The father-in-law drove the villain out of the house, and the grateful chamberlain gave Seimei a rich reward.

  60.

  ONE FROG LESS

  Seimei was visiting a great prelate he knew when a young monk in the prelate’s entourage said he had heard that Seimei kept genies, and asked Seimei whether he could kill a man easily. “Not easily, no,” Seimei replied. “It would take a big effort. I suppose I could kill a small creature readily enough, but I can’t see any point in doing so. Since I wouldn’t know how to bring it back to life, I’d just end up committing a sin.”

  Just then some frogs started jumping across the garden toward the pond. “Try killing one of those for us,” said the monk.

  “You’re wicked, aren’t you!” Seimei replied. “A challenge is a challenge, though.” He picked up a blade of grass, muttered something, and tossed the grass at a frog. The grass crushed the frog and killed it instantly. The monks looking on turned pale with fear.

  61.

  THE SPELLBOUND PIRATES

  Chitoku, a monk and a professional yin-yang diviner, lived in Harima province. He was an unusual man.

  One day a ship came sailing up the Harima coast toward the Capital, laden with a rich cargo. Just off Akashi it was boarded by pirates, who stole everything on board and killed most of the crew. The only survivors were the vessel’s owner and a couple of his servants, who plunged into the sea and managed to drag themselves, weeping, up on the shore. When Chitoku happened by, leaning on his staff, he asked them what the matter was. The owner told him how the day before they had been set upon by pirates.

  “Why, that’s terrible!” Chitoku explained. “I’ll bring them to justice and get your things back for you!”

  The owner did not take him seriously, but he humored Chitoku enough to say, through his tears, “I’d be very grateful if you would!”

  “What time yesterday did it happen?” Chitoku asked, and the owner told him.

  Chitoku took the owner out in a small boat to precisely where the attack had occurred, then wrote things on the water and read words aloud over the sea. Back on land he posted warrior guards just as though he meant to arrest someone who was actually present.

  On the seventh day after the attack, a ship came drifting in from nowhere, full of armed men. The guards rowed out to meet it, but the men, who looked as though they were dead drunk, made no attempt to get away. It was the pirate ship. Everything the pirates had stolen was still on board, and the cargo was now unloaded and returned to its rightful owner. The local people wanted to seize the pirates themselves, but Chitoku had them turned over to him instead. “Don’t you ever do that again!” he warned them. “By rights you should be executed, but that would just be another sin. Remember, there’s an old monk in this province that you’d better not cross!” And he sent them packing.

  Soon the shipowner was able to begin fitting out another ship.

  62.

  THE TEST

  Many years ago a doddering old monk showed up at Seimei’s house on Tsuchimikado Avenue in Kyoto in the company of two ten-year-old boys. Seimei asked him who he was. He answered that he was from Harima province and that he wanted to learn divination. He had come because Seimei was supposed to be a real expert.

  Seimei guessed that the old fellow knew more than he let on and had actually come to test him. On his mettle now, he decided to have a bit of fun himself. The two boys seemed to be genies. Seimei prayed silently that if they were, they should vanish; and he secretly cast a spell and made the appropriate passes under his sleeves. Then he promised the monk that he would teach him whatever he wanted if he came back on some other, more auspicious day. The monk thanked him, bowed, and left.

  He was nearly out the gate when he stopped and began poking about among the carriages parked there. Then he came back to Seimei. “Those two boys I had with me have disappeared, sir,” he said. “I’d appreciate your returning them before I go.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Seimei replied. “Why should I have taken your boys?”

  “I see what you mean, sir, but nonetheless, please accept my apology.”

  “Very well. You had me worried a moment, coming around with two genies to test me, but I advise you to do your testing elsewhere. You won’t catch me like that.” Then he murmured a spell, and shortly the two boys came running up to their master from somewhere outside.

  “It’s true, sir,” the monk said, “I
did mean to test you. It’s easy to keep genies, but I couldn’t possibly make someone else’s genies disappear. Please let me be your disciple.”

  Seimei accepted him on the spot.

  63.

  MAN’S BEST FRIEND

  A long time ago the Regent Fujiwara no Michinaga built Hōjōji in Kyoto, and after that made a habit of visiting the temple daily. He always brought with him a white dog he particularly liked. One day his carriage was about to pass through the gate as usual when the dog darted ahead, stood in the gateway, and stopped the carriage. Its behavior seemed very strange. Michinaga alighted and tried walking through, but the dog caught the hem of his robe in its teeth and held him back. Clearly the dog had a reason for acting this way. Instead of insisting, Michinaga sat down on a shaft of his carriage and called for Seimei, the diviner. Seimei soon arrived.

  Lord Michinaga asked him what he could make of all this. Seimei went through a divination procedure and announced that someone who wished Michinaga ill had buried under the path, in the temple grounds, an object designed to put a curse on His Excellency. “If you were to walk over it,” Seimei explained, “something terrible would happen. Your dog’s special powers enabled it to warn you.”

  “Where’s this thing buried?” Michinaga demanded to know. “Show it to me!”

  “Certainly, Your Excellency.” Seimei performed another divination. “Here it is,” he said, pointing to a precise spot.

  Something was buried there, five feet down. It consisted of two un-glazed cups bound together, lip to lip, with string made of twisted yellow paper. The string was tied in a cross. The object turned out to be empty except for the character “one” written in cinnabar on the bottom of each cup.

  “I’m the only one who knows this kind of magic,” said Seimei. “I wonder whether it could be that former student of mine, Dōma. Well, I’ll find out.” He took out a sheet of paper which he folded into the shape of a bird, pronounced a spell, and tossed the paper into the air. It turned into a white heron and flew off toward the south. Seimei ordered two underlings to mark where it came down, and they ran after it.

  The place was an old monk’s house. The monk was summarily arrested and brought before His Excellency. He confessed under interrogation that he had been commissioned to lay a curse on the regent by Lord Akimitsu, the Minister of the Left. Michinaga felt he really should send the fellow into distant exile, but instead he just packed him back to Harima province, where he was from, with a warning never to do it again.

  After Lord Akimitsu died, he became a vengeful ghost whose further attempts to curse Michinaga earned him the nickname “Ghoul of the Left.” As for the dog, Lord Michinaga loved it even more after that.

  64.

  GENJŌ

  In Emperor Murakami’s reign the biwa Genjō suddenly disappeared. Since the musical instrument was one of the imperial family’s greatest treasures, the emperor took its loss very hard. To think that Genjō had vanished during his reign! Perhaps it had been stolen, but if so, the thief would never be able to keep it. No, no one would have taken the instrument unless he had a special grudge against the emperor and wanted only to damage or destroy it.

  Hakuga no Sammi, the renowned musician, was still grieving over Genjō’s disappearance when, late one night at the palace after everyone had gone to bed, he heard it being played somewhere to the south. How extraordinary! He thought his ears must be playing tricks on him and listened again. No, it was certainly Genjō. Sammi could hardly believe it.

  Without a word to anyone, he set out with a single page, passed the Gate Guards’ headquarters, and left the palace grounds by the Suzaku Gate. Genjō was still somewhere in front of him. He started down Suzaku Avenue. It sounded as though the thief must be playing for his own pleasure in the lookout tower further on, but no, that was still not it. At last Sammi stopped under the Rashō Gate at the other end of the avenue.

  Someone was playing Genjō in the gate’s upper story. This was another mystery, because in a place like that the player could hardly be human. Why, it must be a demon! The music stopped, then began again.

  “Who’s that up there playing Genjō?” called Sammi. “His Majesty’s been looking for it ever since it was missed, and tonight I heard it all the way up at the palace. I’ve come to get it!”

  The playing stopped again, then with a start Sammi noticed something coming down from up there. It was Genjō, being lowered at the end of a rope. Sammi nervously caught it and took it back to the palace.

  The emperor was tremendously relieved, but he certainly found it alarming that Genjō should have been stolen by a demon. As for Sammi, everyone was very impressed with what he had done.

  Genjō is still an imperial treasure. It is like a living thing, for when badly played or allowed to gather dust it gets angry and refuses to sound. And once, when the palace burned down and nobody rescued it, Genjō got out into the garden away from the flames all by itself.

  65.

  THE RASHŌ GATE

  Once a man came up from Settsu province to the Capital in order to steal. Since it was still daylight when he arrived, he hid out under the Rashō Gate, the southern gate to the city. Northward, straight toward the palace compound, stretched Suzaku Avenue. At this hour it was still bustling with people, and the man waited patiently under the gate for the city to quiet down. Then he heard a large group approaching the gate from the south. To avoid being seen, he stole up to the gate’s top story, which formed a room.

  A dim light was burning in the gloom. Strange! He peered in through the latticework windows and saw stretched before him the corpse of a young woman. The light was by her head where an ancient crone was roughly picking out the corpse’s hair.

  For all the frightened thief knew, the crone could be a demon or a ghost, but he decided to try giving her a scare. He opened the door softly, drew his dagger, and charged in with a shout. The terrified crone wrung her hands in a frantic plea for mercy.

  “Who are you, old woman, and what are you doing here?” snarled the thief.

  “My mistress died, sir, and there was no one to do the needful for her, so I brought her up here. You see, sir, her hair is longer than she was tall, and I’m picking it out to make a wig. Please, sir, don’t kill me!”

  The thief took the corpse’s clothes and the old woman’s, picked up the pile of loose hair, dashed back down, and fled.

  Yes, the upper story of the Rashō Gate used to be full of human skeletons. If people couldn’t provide a proper funeral they would sometimes just leave the corpse up there instead.

  66.

  THE SELFLESS THIEF

  Having no settled place to live, a Lotus Sutra devotee named Shunchō wandered here and there as the spirit moved him. When he saw someone in pain, that pain became his own; and the same with another’s joy.

  The sight of the Capital’s two prisons, one in the east of the city and one in the west, caused Shunchō deep sorrow. He understood that the prisoners had been sentenced for their crimes, but he still wanted to help them by planting in them the seed of future buddhahood. Otherwise, if they died in prison, they would be reborn among the beasts or the starving ghosts, or even worse, squarely in hell. He would have to commit a crime to get himself arrested and sent to jail so that he could chant the Sutra for the prisoners.

  Shunchō broke into a mansion, stole a golden bowl, and went straight to a gambling den to show the bowl off. The gamblers were surprised to recognize it as one that had just been reported stolen, and the tip soon reached the authorities. Shunchō was arrested, interrogated, and thrown in jail. Of course this was just what he wanted. He started right in chanting Sutra for the inmates, who wept to hear him and reverently touched their foreheads to the ground.

  When word of his imprisonment reached the lords and ladies of the court, they informed the chief of the Imperial Police that Shunchō was a holy man and urged his release. The chief of police, for his part, had a dream. The Bodhisattva Fugen, shining and riding a white elephant, came
to the prison with a bowl of rice. He told the guards that he was bringing rice, as he did every day, to Shunchō who was imprisoned there. On awaking, the chief of police had Shunchō released immediately.

  Although he got himself into jail half a dozen times, Shunchō never managed to stay there long. Then one day the police caught him again, and this time had a meeting about him. They were sure by now that he was a hardened criminal and that thanks to repeated release he was simply enjoying free license to steal. He would have to be dealt with more severely. They decided to cut off his kneecaps and make sure he served a good long sentence. A corps of officers marched Shunchō off to one of the imperial riding grounds to execute the punishment, but Shunchō chanted the Lotus Sutra so movingly that they dissolved in tears and let him go.

  Again the chief of police had a dream. A beautiful boy in court dress told him that Shunchō stole only in order to get into jail and save the prisoners there. “This is his seventh arrest,” the boy reminded the dreamer. “He might as well be the Buddha himself!” The chief of police was even more deeply impressed than before.

  In time Shunchō died by the horse stalls on the same riding ground where he had once nearly come to grief. Since there was no one to look after him, his body lay there untended, but the neighborhood began to hear every night a voice chanting the Lotus Sutra. Nobody knew where it was coming from. Then another holy man took Shunchō’s skeleton away deep into the mountains, and the voice was never heard again.