Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life Part 23

Then Terute, more and more astonished, invoked, with just cause, a malediction upon her father for his cruelty.

But she was not even allowed time to lament her fate; for Onio and his brother at once removed her garments, and put her naked body into a roll of rush matting.

When this piteous package was carried out of the house at night, the princess and her waiting-maids bade each other their last farewells, with sobs and cries of grief.

(1) Onio, "the king of devils," Oniji, "the next greatest devil."

The brothers Onio and Oniji then rowed far out to sea with their pitiful burden. But when they found themselves alone, then Oniji said to Onio that it were better they should try to save their young mistress.

To this the elder brother at once agreed without difficulty; and both began to think of some plan to save her.

Just at the same time an empty canoe came near them, drifting with the sea-current.

At once the lady was placed in it; and the brothers, exclaiming, "That indeed was a fortunate happening," bade their mistress farewell, and rowed back to their master.

VII. THE LADY YORIHIME

The canoe bearing poor Terute was tossed about by the waves for seven days and seven nights, during which time there was much wind and rain. And at last it was discovered by some fishermen who were fis.h.i.+ng near Nawoye.

But they thought that the beautiful woman was certainly the spirit that had caused the long storm of many days; and Terute might have been killed by their oars, had not one of the men of Nawoye taken her under his protection.

Now this man, whose name was Murakimi Dayu, resolved to adopt the princess as his daughter as he had no child of his own to be his heir.

So he took her to his home, and named her Yorihime, and treated her so kindly that his wife grew jealous of the adopted daughter, and therefore was often cruel to her when the husband was absent.

But being still more angered to find that Yorihime would not go away of her own accord, the evil-hearted woman began to devise some means of getting rid of her forever.

Just at that time the s.h.i.+p of a kidnapper happened to cast anchor in the harbor. Needless to say that Yorihime was secretly sold to this dealer in human flesh.

VIII. BECOMING A SERVANT

After this misfortune, the unhappy princess pa.s.sed from one master to another as many as seventy-five times. Her last purchaser was one Yorodzuya Chobei, well known as the keeper of a large joroya(1) in the province of Mino.

When Terute-Hime was first brought before this new master, she spoke meekly to him, and begged him to excuse her ignorance of all refinements and of deportment. And Chobei then asked her to tell him all about herself, her native place, and her family.

But Terute-Hime thought it would not be wise to mention even the name of her native province, lest she might possibly be forced to speak of the poisoning of her husband by her own father.

So she resolved to answer only that she was born in Hitachi; feeling a sad pleasure in saying that she belonged to the same province in which the lord Hangwan, her lover, used to live.

"I was born," she said, "in the province of Hitachi; but I am of too low birth to have a family name. Therefore may I beseech you to bestow some suitable name upon me?"

Then Terute-Hime was named Kohagi of Hitachi, and she was told that she would have to serve her master very faithfully in his business.

But this order she refused to obey, and said that she would perform with pleasure any work given her to do, however mean or hard, but that she would never follow the business of a joro.

"Then," cried Chobei in anger, "your daily tasks shall be these:--

"To feed all the horses, one hundred in number, that are kept in the stables, and to wait upon all other persons in the house when they take their meals.

"To dress the hair of the thirty-six joro belonging to this house, dressing the hair of each in the style that best becomes her; and also to fill seven boxes with threads of twisted hemp.

"Also to make the fire daily in seven furnaces, and to draw water from a spring in the mountains, half a mile from here."

Terute knew that neither she nor any other being alive could possibly fulfill all the tasks thus laid upon her by this cruel master; and she wept over her misfortune.

But she soon felt that to weep could avail her nothing. So wiping away her tears, she bravely resolved to try what she could do, and then putting on an ap.r.o.n, and tying back her sleeves, she set to work feeding the horses.

The great mercy of the G.o.ds cannot be understood; but it is certain that as she fed the first horse, all the others, through divine influence, were fully fed at the same time.

And the same wonderful thing happened when she waited upon the people of the house at mealtime, and when she dressed the hair of the girls, and when she twisted the threads of hemp, and when she went to kindle the fire in the furnaces.

But saddest of all it was to see Terute-Hime bearing the water-buckets upon her shoulders, taking her way to the distant spring to draw water.

And when she saw the reflection of her much-changed face in the water with which she filled her buckets, then indeed she wept very bitterly.

But the sudden remembrance of the cruel Chobei filled her with exceeding fear, and urged her back in haste to her terrible abode.

But soon the master of the joroya began to see that his new servant was no common woman, and to treat her with a great show of kindness.

(1)A house of prost.i.tution.

IX. DRAWING THE CART

And now we shall tell what became of Kane-uji.

The far-famed Yugyo Shonin, of the temple of Fujisawa in Kagami, who traveled constantly in j.a.pan to preach the law of Buddha in all the provinces, chanced to be pa.s.sing over the moor Uwanogahara.

There he saw many crows and kites flitting about a grave. Drawing nearer, he wondered much to see a nameless thing, seemingly without arms or legs, moving between the pieces of a broken tombstone.

Then he remembered the old tradition, that those who are put to death before having completed the number of years allotted to them in this world reappear or revive in the form called _gaki-ami_.

And he thought that the shape before him must be one of those unhappy spirits; and the desire arose in his kindly heart to have the monster taken to the hot springs belonging to the temple of k.u.mano, and thereby enable it to return to its former human state.

So he had a cart made for the _gaki-ami_, and he placed the nameless shape in it, and fastened to its breast a wooden tablet, inscribed with large characters.

And the words of the inscription were these: "Take pity upon this unfortunate being, and help it upon its journey to the hot springs of the temple of k.u.mano.

"Those who draw the cart even a little way, by pulling the rope attached to it, will be rewarded with very great good fortune.

"To draw the cart even one step shall be equal in merit to feeding one thousand priests, and to draw it two steps shall be equal in merit to feeding ten thousand priests;

"And to draw it three steps shall be equal in merit to causing any dead relation--father, mother, or husband--to enter upon the way of Buddhahood."

Thus very soon travelers who traveled that way took pity on the formless one: some drew the cart several miles, and, others were kind enough to draw it for many days together.