was resurrected (Hirota 159–60; Eishin 135–36). This story is followed by
a text that teaches readers the fundamental falseness and impermanence of
the human body.
Kuroda Hideo notes that there is some Buddhist imagery of medita-
tion, as seen, for example, in the Kusō shi emaki (Picture Scroll of Poems on
Nine Stages of a Corpse), behind the creation of a beautiful woman from
bones; that is, readers could vividly conjure up these nine stages (including
the swelling, oozing filth, and exposure of the corpse’s white bones) when
they learned the beautiful woman was made from corpses. Contemplations
on the nine stages of a body’s putrefaction after death are supposed to lead
one to relinquish the desire for a (beautiful) human body (Kuroda, Rekishi
to shite no otogi zōshi 212–13). It is interesting to consider that the beauty in
A Tale of Lord Haseo follows almost the reverse process of the nine stages
of a corpse, in that the beauty in this story starts from the eighth stage,
which features nothing but bare bones. Haseo is not released from sexual
desire, however, because the woman disappears while Haseo is making
love to her, and he is unaware of her origins as a corpse. on the contrary,
his desire increases with his intense regrets. He is arguably a victim of his
own desire.
A Tale of Lord Haseo
123
rOLe Of the BeautifuL wOman
Interestingly, the woman Haseo was infatuated with does not utter a word
throughout the tale. The oni described her as “a woman of unparalleled
beauty, gracefulness and character” (Komatsu and Murashige 117). Haseo
observed that she was “truly beautiful” and “doubted his own eyes that
a woman of this exquisiteness had ever existed in the world” (Komatsu
and Murashige 118). According to the narrator, Haseo “learned how gentle
and graceful she was,” and he “wanted her by his side all of the time; he
could not leave her side even for a moment” (Komatsu and Murashige
118). All of the descriptions are from the perspective of someone other
than the woman. Since the woman’s state of mind is never described, there
is little opportunity for the reader to feel empathy or sympathy for her
when she disappears. This recalls Michelle Li’s idea that “representations of
women as victims in tales tend to direct our attention to men. Female char-
acters are often constructed to make points about male characters and their
challenges” (Li, Ambiguous Bodies 128–29). Indeed, the reader’s attention is
focused on Haseo’s behavior. The oni’s beautiful woman may be perceived
as a victim of male desire, and her woman’s body without a soul is used
more like a conduit to shed light on the man’s character and actions. This
manmade beauty, like an art object, may remind one of Pygmalion’s ivory
statue, but unlike Pygmalion’s woman, Haseo’s beauty moves about with
grace and feeling; she is animate.28 If one sees her from Haseo’s position,
she represents living but untouchable sexual desire. one can sympathize
with Haseo when one considers how difficult it must have been for him to
control himself. It is hard for Haseo to be released from the cycle of rein-
carnations, but he may be called a victim of his own desire.29
Speaking of victims in the tale, the oni is perhaps the most pathetic
being in the scroll, as he lost a valuable object that was destroyed. In fact,
the narrator even says at the end of the story, “As Haseo very regrettably
broke his promise and made love to her, she completely melted away. How
much the oni must have regretted that (entrusting his creation to Haseo)!”
Furthermore, at the end the oni is chased away by Kitano Tenjin. This
pathetic oni is very much humanized; the descriptions of his actions and
his state of mind seem to mirror the medieval Japanese psyche. Komatsu
Kazuhiko writes that medieval tales even speak to contemporary humanity;
that is, to study oni is to study humankind (Komatsu, Yōkaigaku shinkō 12).
What is the cause of the oni’s regret? It is not only the loss of the beauti-
ful woman but also the loss at the game of sugoroku. In the scroll, much space
is spent on the oni gleefully taking Haseo to the Suzakumon to play sugoroku,
124
Part II: Scholars
and the scene of the two characters playing the game there is vividly illus-
trated. The risk associated with the game makes the oni emotional; during the
game the enthusiastic oni reveals his true form.30 If not for the excitement
of the sugoroku game, the oni would not have bet (and lost) his handiwork.
Haseo would not have known of the existence of the woman. Sugoroku was
enormously popular from the Heian period through the Kamakura period,
and the government often issued regulations to prohibit it (Yang, Oni no
iru kōkei 107, 117–24). In this sense, while this is a story of the miracle of
Kitano Tenjin, A Tale of Lord Haseo can also be taken as a cautionary story
regarding the dangers of desiring women’s bodies and of sugoroku gambling.
infLuenCe On mODern Literature anD meDia
A Tale of Lord Haseo reveals much about medieval Japanese attitudes regard-
ing scholarship, literature, and human frailty. Superior scholars were believed
to have special gifts that allowed them to encounter and interact with the
oni. While the medieval Japanese held those superior scholars in awe, they
were also amused by their blunders. The sudden appearance of Tenjin at
the end of the story mirrors the rising power of Kitano Tenjin at the time
of the story’s production, a time when there were also firm beliefs that oni
could create human beings from corpses. Such beliefs are not prevalent
in present society, but the story of A Tale of Lord Haseo, in its whole or in
parts, continues to impact various kinds of contemporary entertainment,
ranging from manga and anime to fiction. For example, in the manga and
anime titled Inuyasha (Dog-Demon),31 Kikyō, one of the main characters, is
the creation of an oni. According to Inuyasha, the original Kikyō dies, but
a female oni magically summons her back from the netherland fifty years
after Kikyō’s death, using her bones and the earth from her grave. The res-
urrected Kikyō is a beauty made from bones and earth, created by an oni.
There are further contemporary fictional works based on A Tale of Lord
Haseo. one is “Haseo no koi” (Haseo’s Love, 1993)32 by Umehara Takeshi
(1925–), a philosopher and writer. The oni, friendly in this tale, lives in
Rashōmon. The oni challenges Haseo to a sugoroku game because he wants to
save his family member “Demon” Tarō. Umehara gives ample background
information about Haseo and Sugawara no Michizane and has the oni say, “I
ended up a devil. That’s how I was able to learn the art of making a beautiful
woman from a pile of corpses” (Umehara, trans. McCarthy, “Haseo’s Love”
53). Further, Umehara’s oni compliments Haseo for resisting the beauty for
as long as eighty days (in other words, Haseo has extraordinary fortitude). As
Umehara’s oni does not attack Haseo, Kitano Tenjin does not appear. This
A Tale of Lord
Haseo
125
new version is no longer a miraculous story of Kitano Tenjin but is instead a
story of a medieval scholar’s friendship with a mysterious oni.
The other is an adaptation of a short piece of fiction titled “Ki no
Haseo Suzakumon ni te onna wo arasoi oni to sugoroku wo suru koto”
(Ki no Haseo Plays Sugoroku with an Oni at Suzaku Gate with a Bet of
a Woman, 2001), written by Yumemakura Baku33 (1951–), a popular fic-
tion writer.34 Yumemakura’s story, with illustrations by a popular illustrator,
Amano Yoshitaka, is tailored to a mass audience, with graphic depictions of
sexual encounters. Yumemakura describes the oni of Suzakumon as some-
one who appreciates Chinese poems and arts and is sympathetic to Haseo.
Interestingly, the beautiful woman has a name, and not only does she talk,
but she actively entices him to make love with her. The story ends with
Haseo’s lamentation on losing his woman, poetically expressed through
Haseo’s Chinese poem. The oni is more like Haseo’s companion and again,
Kitano Tenjin does not appear.
Perhaps both writers, despite borrowing the medieval story, thought the
moral of the tale—Tenjin’s voice and its religious message—was not relevant
in the present age. But even in the absence of the medieval belief system of
the supernatural, A Tale of Lord Haseo is still an entertaining story, telling the
reader what excites us regardless of the period: the perception of striking
beauty, the story of a famed scholar’s gaffe and weakness for women, and the
workings of the supernatural. In this age, one can easily make a virtual woman
of one’s liking using computer graphics, but in medieval Japan, one may have
entrusted the creation of one’s ideal woman to an oni. Be it Pygmalion or
Haseo, fiction’s focus on the desire for unparalleled beauty—and the folly
associated with gambling—does not seem to have greatly changed.
transLatiOn Of haseO zōshi
This translation is based on volume 11 of Nihon emaki taisei (see Komatsu
and Murashige 117–19).
A Tale of Lord Haseo
Middle Councilor Lord Ki no Haseo’s (845–912) erudition encompassed
nine schools of great scholarship, and he was renowned for his hundreds of
refined accomplishments. Indeed, people both high and low thought very
highly of him.
one evening as he was about to visit the imperial palace, an unusual
looking stranger with sharp eyes approached him. “I spend my idle time
126
Part II: Scholars
playing the game of sugoroku,” the stranger said, “I came here because I
believe that you, my lord, are perhaps my only worthy opponent.”
Although Lord Haseo thought this encounter rather odd, he could nei-
ther resist the flattering challenge nor suppress his desire to try his hand at
the game.
“Your challenge is very interesting,” said Lord Haseo to the stranger.
“Where shall we play?”
“You home here is rather . . . um . . . inconvenient,” the stranger replied.
“Would you be so kind as to come to my abode?”
“That would be fine,” replied Lord Haseo.
And out he went, without a carriage or an attendant. Alone, he followed
the strange man to the foot of Suzaku Gate.
“If you will please climb this gate, my lord,” the man said. “At the top
we will play.”
The climb looked impossible, but with the stranger’s help, Lord Haseo
easily ascended to the top of the gate. When they had seated themselves on
either side of the game board, they began to discuss stakes.
“If I lose,” said the stranger with some arrogance, “I will present to you
a woman of unparalleled beauty, gracefulness, and character. What will you
stake, my lord?”
“If I lose I will give to you all the treasures I possess,” replied Lord
Haseo.
“So be it,” said the man, and they began playing sugoroku.
Much to the stranger’s regret, Lord Haseo won game after game. With
each defeat the sharp-eyed stranger, who had looked quite human at first,
shook the dice all the more violently, groaned, and finally revealed his true
form—that of a frightening oni. But although the oni looked frightening
indeed, Lord Haseo prayed in his mind.
“If only I win,” thought the lord, “he will have to be as gentle as a mouse.”
And so they played on until Lord Haseo had won at last. Instantly, the
stranger regained his human form.
“What can I say now?” cried the man. “I was sure I was going to win,
my lord. Well, regrettably, I have lost. I will bring the woman as I have
promised on such and such date,” and so saying, he descended Suzaku Gate
with Lord Haseo.
Lord Haseo thought it rather unlikely that the stranger would keep his
promise, but nevertheless, as the agreed-upon date drew near, he had his
servants arrange a room in his house appropriately for the occasion and
anxiously awaited the stranger’s visit. Deep in the night, the sharp-eyed man
arrived as he had said, bringing with him a young woman of shining beauty.
A Tale of Lord Haseo
127
Figure 4.1. Haseo plays sugoroku with the oni. Courtesy of International Research Center for Japanese Studies.
“How remarkable!” cried the lord, enthralled by the woman. “Are you
really going to give her to me?” he asked.
“You have no worry here, my lord,” said the stranger quietly. “As I lost
the game, you need not return her to me. She belongs to you. But just one
thing—you can make love to her only after 100 days from tonight. If you
take her to your bed before 100 days have passed, you will never realize
your wish.”
“of course I will observe your words.” And so saying, Lord Haseo kept
the woman, and the man left. When dawn broke, Lord Haseo was aston-
ished to rediscover how truly beautiful the woman was. He doubted his own
eyes—that a woman of this exquisiteness had ever existed in the world. As
days passed and he learned how gentle and graceful she was, Haseo wanted
her by his side all the time; he could not leave her side even for a moment.
Thus 80 days passed at what seemed to Lord Haseo a snail’s pace.
“Many days have passed already,” Haseo thought. “Surely the man
didn’t mean exactly 100 days.” Haseo could bear it no more and surrendered
to his lust. No sooner had he embraced her, however, than she melted into
.
apanese Studies
h Center for J
esearc
national R
Inter
tesy of
. Cour
ater
oman melts into w
he w
Figure 4.2. T
A Tale of Lord Haseo
129
clear water and disappeared. Haseo regretted and bemoaned his foolish lust
a thousand times, but it was all in vain.
Three months had passed since the woman’s disappearance when
one night, on his way home from the palace, Lord Haseo saw the sharp-
eyed man coming toward the front of his carriage and calling out to him.
“You are insincere! How hateful you are!” the stranger
cried as he quickly
approached Lord Haseo’s carriage.
The oni’s countenance looked more frightening than it had on that
fateful night when they played sugoroku atop Suzaku Gate. Lord Haseo
closed his eyes and prayed for Kitano Tenjin’s divine help with all his
heart and soul, and no sooner had he done so than an angry voice roared
out from the night sky. “What a nuisance you are!” the voice bellowed to
the oni. “Be gone immediately!” At these words the demon vanished into
the thin air.
The man was an oni who lived in Suzaku Gate. The woman was com-
posed of the best parts collected from various dead bodies, and her soul
was to enter the body after 100 days. As Haseo very regrettably broke his
promise and made love to her, she completely melted away. How much the
oni must have regretted entrusting his creation to Haseo.
nOtes
1. See the introduction for a brief explanation of otogizōshi.
2. Wakimoto Jūkurō surmises it was at the end of the Kamakura period (1185–1333)
(Wakimoto 421), as does Kuwabara Hiroshi ( Otogizōshi 243). Umezu Jirō conjectures that it was at the turn of the fourteenth century (Umezo 18: 8), and Murashige Yasushi considers the date to be around 1310–20s (Murashige 11: 89). For the text of A Tale of Haseo, see Komatsu and Murashige 1–39, 117–19.
3. Umezu did not think the written text of A Tale of Lord Haseo came directly from the
Zoku kyōkunshō story, but he believed the latter is close to its prototype.
4. Translation by Rimer and Chaves 32. For the Japanese text of the Haseo’s verse, see
Sugano 19: 24–25.
5. The Suzakumon had been destroyed by the mid-thirteenth century, so it did not exist
by the time the story of Haseo was first written. Andō 184.
6. The stone monument for Rashōmon stands in Karahashi Saiji Park near Ninth Ave-
nue, south of Kyoto Station.
7. The Tenri version and the Kyōdai version take the Suzakumon as the backdrop, and
the Tōdai version and the Kokkai version take the Rashōmon as the backdrop. Kuroda,
Chūsei setsuwa 366.
8. Yoshika’s Chinese poem is, “The weather clears, breezes comb / the hair of young
willows; / the ice is melting, wavelets wash / the whiskers of old bog moss” ( Ki harete wa
kaze shinryū no kami o kezuru, kōri kiete wa nami kyūtai no hige o arau). Translation by Rimer and Chaves 31. For the original version, see Sugano 19: 24. This poem appears in the Early
Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan Page 20
