by Ueda Akinari
23 See Hayashiya Tatsusaburō, ‘Nihon bunka no higashi to nishi,’ Sekai (Jan. 1971),p.339.
24 For the relations between the school of national learning and the Taoist teachings and for Akinari's indebtedness to this branch of Chinese philosophy, see Sakai Kōichi, Ueda Akinari (Kyoto: San'ichi Shobō, 1959), pp. 138-49; for the similar interest of one of Akinari's contemporaries, see Keene, The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720-1830, rev. ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969), p. 82.
25 Lionel Giles, trans., Taoist Teachings from the Book of Lieh-Tzu . . ., Wisdom of the East Series (1912; rpt. London: John Murray, 1947), pp. 49,108.
26 See Robert N. Bellah, Tokugawa Religion (Glencoe: Free Press, 1957); and Ronald Philip Dore, Education in Tokugawa fapan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), pp. 230-43.
27 See Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed., The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan, The Modern Library (New York: Random House, 1969), pp. 155-66; and Morris, The World of the Shining Prince (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 103, who refers to the same doctrine as ‘calm contemplation.’
28 Morris, ibid., p. 98.
29 ‘Paradise Lost,’ The Complete Poetical Works of john Milton . . ., ed., William Vaughn Moody (1899; rpt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924), p. 105; and ‘The Second Defence of The English People,’ Milton's Prose Writings, ed. K. M. Burton, Everyman's Library, No. 795 (1927; rpt. London: Dent, 1958), p. 345.
30 he monogatari ko-i; for Akinari's preface to it, see Akinari ibun, pp. 544-6; for complete English translations of this Heian classic, see Helen Craig McCullough, Tales of he: Lyric Episodes from Tenth-Century Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968); and H. Jay Harris, The Tales of he: Translated from the Classical Japanese (Tokyo: Chas. E. Tuttle Co., 1972).
31 See ‘Yoshiya ashiya,’ in Ueda Akinari zenshū, 11, 408.
32 The Tale of Genji, p. 501; NKBT, vol. 15, p. 432.
33 An important milestone in the history of Japanese literary criticism, by Ki no Tsurayuki (868?~945?), co-editor of the Kokinshū, comp. in AD 905, the first imperial anthology of waka poetry. See NKBT, vol. 8, pp. 93-104. See also Makoto Ueda, Literary and Art Theories in Japan (Cleveland: The Press of Western Reserve University, 1967).
34 Letter to Jen Shao-ch'ing, trans., Burton Watson, Ssu-ma Ch'ien: The Grand Historian of China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), pp. 65-6; found also in the early Chinese anthology, Wen hsiian, a text well known to educated people in Lady Murasaki's day and in Akinari's time. See the Japanese edition, Monzen bōkun taizen (Osaka: Ota Gon'uemon, 1699), 11,29a-34b.
35 ‘Tu Chung-i shui hu chuan chū’ (Japanese, ‘Doku chūgi suikoden jo’), in Ritakugo sensei hiten chūgi suikoden, 1, Ia-3b. See also, Chūgoku koten bungaku taikei, vol. 55 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1971).
36 Quoted in Ryūsaku Tsunoda, de Bary, Keene, et al., Sources of Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), p. 534.
37 Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 158.
38 NKBT,vol.9,p. 143.
39 Hito wa bakemono yo ni nai mono wa nashi. Preface, Saikaku shokoku-banashi, Saikaku-bon fukusei, in Koten bunko, vol. 17 (Tokyo: Koten Bunko, 1953). IV, 4.
40 Oni mo idete hito ni majiwari, hito mata oni ni majiwarite osorezu; and kami mo oni mo izuchi ni hai-kakururu, ato nashi. ‘Me hitotsu no kami,’ Harusame monogatari (Tales of Spring Rain), Sakurayama Bunko text, ed. Maruyama Sueo, Ueda Akinari-shū, in Koten bunko, vols 47-8 (Tokyo: Koten Bunko, 1951), 1, 108.
41 For a complete translation, see Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, 2 vols (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967).
42 See Keene, trans., Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. xviii, 163.
43 For a complete translation of the former, see Arthur Lindsay Sadler, ‘The Heike Monogatari,’ Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Ist ser., 46, part 2 (1918), i-xiv, 1-278; 49, part 1 (1921), 1-354, 1-11 (rpt. Tokyo: Yushodo, 1965). For a partial translation of the latter, see McCullough, Taiheiki (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958).
44 For a recent translation, see Donald Philippi, Kojiki (Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1968).
45 Also called the Nihongi. See note 12.
46 See ‘Kakaika,’ Ueda Akinari zenshū, 1, 423-64.
47 Recorded in ‘Tandai shōshin-roku,’ NKBT, vol. 56, p. 316. Ota Nampo was also known by his pen name, Shokusanjin.
48 See ‘Kiryo manroku,’ Nikki kikō-shū in Yūhodo bunko (Tokyo: Yuhōdō Shoten, 1913—15), p. 597.
49 I am indebted to Professor Hamada Keisuke of Kyoto University, for calling this to my attention.
50 Mentioned in my ‘Kusazōshi: Chapbooks of Japan,’ Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 3rd ser., 10 (1968), 126-7; and James T. Araki, ‘Sharebon: Books for Men of Mode,’ Monumenta Nipponica, 24 (1969), 39, 41-2.
51 For a summary of Kyōden's literary activities, see my Takizawa Bakin, Twayne's World Authors Series, 20 (New York: Twayne, 1967), N.B., pp. 56-99; and Araki, ‘Sharebon,’ passim.
52 See Chapter 3 of my Tarawa Bakin.
53 Most notably with Sutoku, in Chinsetsu yumihari-zuki; see NKBT, vol. 60, pp. 215-25.
54 As pointed out in Asō Isoji, Edo bungaku to Chūgoku bungaku (1946; rpt. Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1957), pp. 661-2.
55 Kanzen Tsuneyo no monogatari (Osaka: Kawachiya Tōbei, 1806).
56 See Kinsesetsu bishōnenroku, in Teikoku bunko, 2nd ser. (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1928-30), vol. 6, pp. 38-9.
57 See Nakamura, ed., Akinari, in Nihon koten kanshō kōza, vol. 24 (Tokyo: Kadokawa, 1956), p. 31.
58 First reprinted in Kinko bungei onchi sōsho, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1891), pp. 165-233; more recently, a different text of Kuse monogatari has appeared in Maruyama, ed., Ueda Akinari-shu, 11, 79-197.
59 Sekine Masanao, Shōsetsu shikō (Tokyo: Kinkōdo, 1890), N.B., part 2, pp. 29-31.
60 Matsumura Shintarō, ed., Ugetsu monogatari (Tokyo, 1893); and the popular series, Teikoku bunko, 50 vols (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1893-97), vol. 32.
61 All mentioned in Suzuki Toshinari, Shinchū ugetsu monogatari hyōshaku, 2nd ed. (Tokyo: Seibunkan, 1929), pp. 132-4.
62 See ‘A Promise Kept,’ and ‘The Story of Kogi,’ A Japanese Miscellany (1901), in The Writings of Lafcadio Hearn (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1922), X, 193-8, 230-7. In addition, readers may find similarities between ‘The Caldron of Kibitsu’ and Hearn's ‘Of a Promise Broken,’ pp. 199-207.
63 When the Ist ed. of his Ugetsu appeared (see note 61).
64 Ibid., frontispiece, and facing pp. 290, 300, 310.
65 Mentioned in Joseph L. Anderson and Donald Richie, The Japanese Film: Art and Industry (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1959), pp. 39-40.
66 Collected in his posthumous Ueda Akinari (Tokyo: Tōgensha, 1964).
67 In Dazai Osamu zenshu, I (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1967), 61-70, XII (1968), 383. See also Keene, Landscapes and Portraits: Appreciations of Japanese Culture (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1971), p. 188. Thomas J. Harper, trans., ‘Metamorphosis,’ Japan Quarterly, 7 (1970), 285-8.
68 Okamoto Kanoko, ‘Ueda Akinari no bannen,’ Bungakkai (Oct. 1935), pp. 351-369. This has been reprinted in Kuwabara Shigeo, ed., Ueda Akinari: Kaii yūkei no bungaku arui wa monogatari no hokkyoku (Tokyo: Shichōsha, 1972), pp. 300-11.
69 Mishima Yukio, ‘Ugetsu monogatari ni tsuite,’ Bungei ōrai (Sept. 1949), PP-48-51.
70 See Takada Mamoru, Ueda Akinari kenkyū josetsu (Tokyo: Nara Shobō, 1968), p. 8.
71 See note 14. His essays and other work may be found most notably in Edo bungaku kenkyū (Kyoto: Naigai Shuppan, 1922); Edo bungaku sōsetsu (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1931); and Kinsei shōsetsu kenkyū (Osaka: Akitaya, 1947).
72 For Yamaguchi's efforts, see Edo bungaku kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyōdō, 1933); and ‘Kaisetsu,’ Kaidan meisaku-shū, in Nihon meicho zenshū, vol. 10 (Tokyo: Nihon Meicho Kankōkai, 1927), pp. 1-100; Goto Tanji's work
, more than thirty essays in all, beginning in 1934 appeared in various scholarly journals and collections; these are cited in the detailed bibliography in Uzuki, Ugetsu, pp. 713-27, mentioned above (see note 2).
73 Ueda Akinari no shōgai (Tokyo: Yūksha, 1942).
74 See note 2.
75 ‘Ueda Akinari kankei shomoku gainen,’ Koten kenkyū, 4, no. 2 (1939), 76-86; no. 3, 95-104; no. 4, 180-93; and ‘Kaisetsu,’ in Ueda Akinari-shū, I,5-51; 11, 3-7.
76 In addition to editing Ueda Akinari-shū and Akinari (see notes 4, 57) and other works, he has published numerous essays, all of which are held in high regard.
77 See Moriyama's interpretive essays in various journals and collections; for Sakai, see note 24; for Ōba, see Akinari no tenkanshō to demon (Tokyo: Ashi Shobō, 1969); for Morita, see Ueda Akinari, Kinokuniya shinsho (Tokyo: Kinokuniya, 1970).
78 Ueda Akinari nempu kōsetsu (Tokyo: Meizendō, 1964); see also notes 70, 92.
79 Cited above, in note 2.
80 See note 7 and also his Kōchū harusame monogatari (Tokyo: Ōfūsha, 1971).
81 Alf. Hansey, trans., ‘The Blue Hood,’ The Young East, 2 (1927), 314-9.
82 ‘Ugetsu Monogatari: Tales of a Clouded Moon,’ Monumenta Nip-ponica, 1, no. 1 (1938), 242-51; no. 2, 257-75; 4, no. 1 (1941), 166-91.
83 ‘Essai sur la vie et l'oeuvre de Ueda Akinari,’ ibid., 3, no. 2 (1940), 98-119; 4, no. 1 (1941), 102-23; no- 2, 128-38 ; 5, no. 1 (1942), 52-85.
84 Contes de pluie et de lune {Ugetsu-Monogatari): Traduction et com-mentaires (Paris: Gallimard, 1956).
85 ‘The Dream Carp,’ in Selections from Japanese Literature {12th to 19th Centuries), ed. F. J. Daniels (London: Lund Humphries, 1959), pp. 91-103, 164-71.
86 ‘Ugetsu Monogatari, or Tales of Moonlight and Rain,’ Monumenta Nipponica, 21 (1966), 171-95.
87 ‘“The Chrysanthemum Vow,” from the Ugetsu Monogatari (1776) by Ueda Akinari,’ Durham University Journal (1967?), pp. 108-16. Mr Allen mentions having received a copy of the tales from a Japanese naval officer in Saigon in 1946.
88 ‘A Critical Approach to the Ugetsu Monogatari,’ Monumenta Nipponica, 22 (1967), 49-64.
89 Hani Kjoko and Maria Holti, trans., Eso es hold nesei (Budapest: Kulture Kiado, 1964) (not seen); Kazuya Sakai, Cuentos de lluviayde luna, Enciclopedia Era, 7 (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1969); and a translation by Wieslaw Kotanski, mentioned in Kyrystyna Okazaki, ‘Japanese Studies in Poland,’ Bulletin, International House of Japan, no. 27 (April 1971), p. 12
90 Libuse Bohavkova, ‘Ueda Akinari Ugecu monogatari: Rozbor sbirky a jednotlivych povidek a jejich motivických prvkû’ (The Ugetsu mono gatari of Ueda Akinari: An Analysis of the Collection, of the Individual Stories, and of Their Motifs), Diss. Charles University, Prague, 1966-67, mentioned in Frank J. Shulman, Japan and Korea: An Annotated Biblio graphy of Doctoral Dissertations in Western Languages, 1877-1969) (Chicago: The American Library Association, 1970), p. 190. Her translation is entitled Vyprávěniza měcice a děstě(Prague: Odeon, 1971), 204 pp.
91 See Anthony Chambers, ‘Hankai: A Translation from Harusame monogatari, by Ueda Akinari,’ Monumenta Nipponica, 25 (1970), 371-406; Blake Morgan Young, The Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 32 (1972), 150-207.
92 Complete except for the author's preface, Tales of Moonlight and Rain: Japanese Gothic Tales by Ueda Akinari (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1971). Takada Mamoru contributed an essay to this volume, ‘Ugetsu Monogatari: A Critical Interpretation.’ See pp. xxi-xxix.
NEW AND OLD
SUPERNATURAL
STORIES
Ugetsu monogatari
Complete in Five Volumes
Published at the Booksellers
Establishment of Yabaidō
From an envelope that originally wrapped the
five thin volumes of the first woodblock edition of
1776, in the National Diet Library, Tokyo
VOLUME ONE
PREFACE
Lo Kuan-chung wrote Water Margin, and for three generations he begot deaf mutes.1 For writing The Tale of Genji, Lady Murasaki was condemned to hell.2 Thus were these authors punished for what they had done. But consider their achievement. Each created a rare form, capable of expressing all degrees of truth with infinitely subtle variation and causing a deep note to echo in the reader's sensibility wherewith one can find mirrored realities of a thousand years ago.
By chance, I happened to have some idle tales with which to entertain you, and as they took shape and found expression, with crying pheasants and quarrelling dragons,3 the stories came to form a slipshod compilation. But you who pick up this book to read must by no means take the stories to be true. I hardly wish for my offspring to have hare lips or missing noses.
Having completed this work one night late in the spring of the Meiwa Era, under the zodiac of earth and the rat,4 when the rain cleared away and the moon shone faintly by my window, I thereupon gave it to the bookseller, entitling it Ugetsu monogatari.
Signed:Senshi Kijin5
Sealed by: Shikyo Kōjin6
Yūgi Sammai7
I WHITE PEAK
(Shiramine)
Once upon a time8 I got permission from the barrier guards of Osaka, and I began to journey. Each sight along the way left its imprint on my heart. Although the yellow leaves of the autumn peaks9 tempted me to linger, I visited Narumi bay,10 where the plovers leave their tracks on the beach, and later I saw the smoke curling from lofty Mt Fuji,11 and I passed the plain of Ukishima, the barrier at Kiyomi,12 and the many bays around Ōiso and Koiso.13 I saw the delicate purple grass of Musashino moors,14 the early morning calm of Shiogama,15 the rush-thatched huts of Kisagata16 fishermen, the boat bridge at Sano,17 and the hanging bridge at Kiso.18 As I have said, each sight left its imprint on my heart.
Still, I wanted to visit the places in the West made famous in poetry. In the fall of the Third Year of Nin'an,19 I passed through Naniwa, of the falling reeds,20 and shivered in the winds of Suma and Akashi21 bay. Finally, by Hayashi,22 in Miozaka, in Sanuki, I set aside my bamboo staff for a while -not so much owing to weariness from my long pilgrimage but rather because I desired a hut for spiritual comfort in which to practise ascetic meditation.
Nearby this hamlet,23 I heard, at a place called Shiramine stood the Emperor Sutoku's24 tomb mound, and I decided to go there and worship. Early in the Godless Month25 I climbed the mountain, which was so densely covered with oak and pine trees that even on a day26 when clouds trailed across the blue sky it felt as dreary as if a steady drizzle of rain were falling. The steep cliffs of Mt Chigogadake loomed above me, and from ravines hundreds of feet below billows of mist arose, making every step a precarious undertaking.
Then, in a small clearing among the trees I saw a high mound of earth atop which three stones had been piled. The entire place was covered with brambles and vines. Sad of heart, I wondered, ‘Is this where the emperor rests ?’
In the depth of my grief I found it hard to be certain whether I was dreaming or awake. Indeed, when I had seen27 him with my own eyes deciding on matters of state from his throne in the great halls of the palace,28 the hundred officials29 had addressed him as ‘Your Exalted Majesty,’ and accepted his every command with trembling and awe. After he abdicated in favour of the Emperor Konoe,30 he lived in retirement as if in the Grove of Jewels or on faraway Ku-she Mountain.31 Who could have guessed that here where one may see only the tracks of the wandering stag,32 among the thickets in a mountain recess where no worshippers come to pay their respects, a former emperor should lie entombed. Here was a lord who had commanded ten thousand chariots.33 Alas, how fearful the way one's deeds from a previous existence pursue the soul and never let it escape from transgression! How vain is the world! Pondering these matters, I could hardly hold back my tears.
‘I shall honour his soul throughout the night,’ I vowed, and kneeling on a flat rock in front of his grave, I began softly to intone a sutra. Then a verse in his honour occurred to me:
Matsuyama
no Though these pine-clad hills
nami no keshiki wa That overlook the breaking waves
kawaraji wo Stand here unchanging
katanaku kimi wa You, my lord, have disappeared,
narimasari keri34 And can not come back again.
With increased devotion I continued my prayers. How wet my sleeves became from the dew!
Soon after sunset an eerie darkness filled the recesses of the mountain. The cold rose from the stone where I sat and penetrated through the leaves that covered me. I felt cleansed in spirit,35 but a chill struck my bones. An uncanny terror gripped my heart. Although the moon arose, the trunks of the thick forest trees blocked its image as I grieved on through the pitch black night.
Almost in a trance I heard a voice call, ‘Saigyō, Saigyō.’36 I opened my eyes and peered37 through the darkness, where the strange form of a man loomed, tall of stature and thin as death. It was impossible to distinguish his features or the colour and cut of his garments as he stood before me. But being a priest seeking enlightenment,38 I replied without fear, ‘Who are you ?’
‘I have come,’ he answered, ‘to chant for you a response to your verse:
Matsuyama no At these pine-clad hills,
nami ni nagarete Buffeted by the breakers,
koshi fune no My skiff touched shore.
yagate munashiku But it was no use,
nari ni keru kana39 And my life soon expired.
I am very pleased that you have come.’
At once, I knew that I was confronted by the ghost of the Emperor Sutoku. I bowed, with tears in my eyes, and replied, ‘But why is your soul still wandering ? I came here because I envied the way you left the impure world. Although I worship here tonight for your salvation, I don't know whether to feel joy or sadness at seeing your ghost. Now that you have departed40 from this world and freed yourself from earthly entanglements, you ought to find repose in the soul of Buddha.’
In spite of my heartfelt remonstration, Sutoku merely gave a provocative laugh.41 ‘Surely, you didn't know,42 but it's I who've recently caused all the trouble in the world. While I was still living, I began to practise magic and brought about the disturbance of Heiji. Now that I have died, I will put a curse on the imperial family. Beware! Beware! Before long I will throw the whole nation into chaos.’