by VIKING ADULT
enshrined as Tenjin at Kitano,
suffered from Tokihira’s slander,
which sullied his name and exiled him
over the western sea to Kyushu;61
so, too, Takaakira, who,
slandered by Tada no Mitsunaka,
could only confide his bitterness
to the clouds over the westward road.62
The slander in both cases was false,
but neither man escaped banishment:
a fate ascribed ever since to error
on Emperors Daigo’s and Reizei’s part.
Such things did happen in the past—
imagine, then, in these latter days!
Now that you have him in custody,
what harm could it possibly do
to wait before executing him?
For, as we read in the classics,
‘When in doubt, lighten punishment
and increase the weight of reward.’
As you know, Narichika’s younger sister is my wife and Koremori his son-in-law.
You may imagine that I address you in this vein
because he is a close relative, but that is not so.
No, I do so only for the sake of the world at large, for our sovereign, and for our house.
Some years ago, during the Hgen era,
the late Shinzei stood at the height of his power when the death penalty,
lapsed since the execution of Fujiwara no Nakanari under Emperor Saga, [r. 809–23]
was imposed once more for the first time in twenty-five reigns,
and Haughty Left Minister Yorinaga was dug up again, to be verified.
In the way of government actions, these things struck me then as serious excesses.
This is why the men of old, too, used to say, ‘Executions multiply rebels.’
And so it was. Two years later, in Heiji, chaos resumed.
They dug Shinzei up from underground, cut off his head, and put it on public show.
What he had done in Hgen soon rebounded on him.
Now, that is a terrifying thought.
Narichika, on the other hand, poses no great threat as an enemy of the court.
On either side there is reason for fear.
For yourself, glory cannot last much longer, and you probably need not worry;
but undoubtedly you still wish your children and grandchildren good fortune.
The deeds of the fathers, good or bad,
clearly touch their descendants’ lives.
The house with a rich store of good
will thrive far into times to come;
the one long given to evil ways
faces only calamity—
so I have heard. No, believe me,
to execute Narichika tonight
would be a very grave mistake.”
Lord Kiyomori must have agreed,
for he renounced beheading him.
Next, Lord Shigemori went out to the middle gate, where he addressed the Taira housemen. “Do not under any circumstances let an order from Lord Kiyomori persuade you to put Lord Narichika to death,” he said. “He will regret it later if he lets rage get the better of him. Do not blame me if you err and then suffer for it.” The warriors shook with fear. “And another thing,” he went on. “Tsunet and Kaneyasu, I vigorously deplore your harshness toward Lord Narichika this morning. Why were you not afraid that I might hear of it? Ignorant louts, that is all you are.” The two men displayed intense contrition. Having spoken, Shigemori returned to his residence.
Meanwhile Narichika’s attendants had raced with the news
back to the Naka-no-mikado and Karasumaru crossing, where he lived.
His wife and their gentlewomen wailed loud and long.
“Warriors are on their way here at this moment,” they reported.
“Apparently they are to take Lord Naritsune and all the other children away.
Flee as fast as you can, please, never mind where.”
“What good could it possibly do me,
as I am now, to linger behind,”
Lord Narichika’s wife replied,
“clinging in safety to further life?
All I want is to vanish with him,
two dewdrops gone after one night.
Oh, but it is such agony
never to have for a moment guessed
that this morning would be my last!”
She collapsed in a storm of weeping.
Word arrived that the warriors
were already approaching fast.
No: After all, she could not bear it—
so to be taken, covered with shame.
She put her daughter, in her tenth year,
and her little son, in his eighth,
into her carriage and started off,
without a thought at first for where.
She did have to choose somewhere, though.
So she followed miya northward
into the hills, to Unrin-in.
Her attendants allowed her to alight
at a nearby monks’ lodge; then one and all,
anxious to look after themselves,
said good-bye and returned to their homes.
Now she was alone with her children.
Nobody came to see how they were.
Poor thing, her mood is easily guessed.
She watched the sun course down the sky
and pictured her husband’s fleeting life
extinguished that very evening.
She all but died herself at the thought.
Behind her, at the house she had left,
the many servants and gentlewomen
had done nothing to tidy things up.
They had not even secured the gate.
There stood the horses in their stable,
but no one saw to bringing them feed.
By dawn on those earlier mornings,
horses and carriages thronged the gate,
ranks of visitors sported and danced,
oblivious to all notion of tact,
and the neighbors, ever fearful,
dared not even raise their voices.
So it had been, until yesterday,
but in one night everything had changed.
There it was, all too plain to see:
the truth that the mighty must fall.
“Joy, once over, yields to sorrow”—
so wrote e no Asatsuna,
and indeed, how right he was!
5. The Plea for Naritsune
The Tanba lieutenant Naritsune had spent that night
at the cloistered emperor’s residence, in waiting on the sovereign.
He had not yet left when some of his father’s men arrived in great haste,
asked to speak to him, and reported what had happened.
“Why has no word of this yet come from Norimori?” he asked,
but the words were hardly out of his mouth when Norimori’s messenger arrived.
This Norimori, a consultant, was Lord Kiyomori’s younger brother.
Known as the “Gateside Consultant” because he lived just inside the Rokuhara main gate,
he was Naritsune’s father-in-law.
“For some reason,” his message said,
“Lord Kiyomori wants me to bring you straight to Nishi-Hachij.”
Naritsune understood what the matter was.
He called out the gentlewomen attending the cloistered sovereign.
“Last night there seems to have been
a commotion in the city,” he said.
“At first I thought the monks of Mount Hiei
must be on their way down again,
and it had nothing to do with me.
But no: My own life was at stake.
I gather that this very night
my father is to be executed,
and as for me, I have little doubt
that very soon I shall be, too.
I should like to go in to see His Cloistered Eminence
one last time,
yet I fear that it would be wrong for an all-but-condemned man to do so.”
The women went before their lord and told him everything.
Thunderstruck, he saw that he had been right about Kiyomori’s messenger that morning.
Alas, he reflected, knowledge of their secret plot had leaked out!
The thought was extremely distressing.
However, he let it be known that they were to admit Naritsune.
Naritsune entered. The cloistered emperor wept with him, in silence.
Too choked with tears to speak, Naritsune said nothing for some time.
At last, though, he knew that the moment had come.
Pressing his sleeves to his streaming eyes, he withdrew from the presence.
The cloistered emperor watched him go.
“How I hate this latter age!” he said to himself, shedding gracious tears.
“I suppose that I will never see this young man again.”
Everyone on his household staff
tugged at Naritsune’s sleeves,
clung in anguish to trailing folds,
and not one of them failed to weep.
Naritsune then made his way
to the house of his father-in-law,
where his wife, soon to give birth,
felt close to dying already
at this morning’s dreadful news.
Naritsune, his tears still flowing,
wept afresh at the sight of her.
He had a nurse named Rokuj. “The first time I came to give you suck,” she said, weeping, “I took you up in my arms straight from the blood of birth, and after that I never minded aging with the passing years, because my only joy was seeing you grow. It all seems such a little while ago, and yet twenty-one years have gone by, and in that whole time I have never been far from your side. I worried whenever you were slow to come home from the palace or from His Cloistered Eminence’s residence, wondering what could have happened to you.”
“Do not grieve,” Naritsune replied. “There is Lord Norimori: I am sure that he will plead successfully for my life.”
His nurse, however, wept and wailed without shame.
Messenger after messenger came,
sent out from Nishi-Hachij.
“The only thing to do is to go,”
Norimori declared. “Only then
can we know how this will turn out.”
So he set forth, with Naritsune
riding in the rear of his carriage.
Ever since Hgen and Heiji days,
the Heike had known only success;
no grief, no distress had touched them.
Alone, the unhappy Norimori,
thanks to his hopeless son-in-law,
had at last to deal with sorrow.
On approaching Nishi-Hachij, Norimori halted his carriage
and sent word ahead to request admission.
“Tanba Lieutenant Naritsune is not to be allowed in,” Kiyomori insisted,
so Naritsune was made to alight at the nearby house of a Taira houseman.
Norimori proceeded alone through the gate,
leaving his son-in-law surrounded by warrior guards.
Parted this way from his sole support, Naritsune felt forlorn indeed.
Norimori waited respectfully at the middle gate, but Kiyomori declined to come out to meet him. By Gendayū Suesada, Norimori then sent in this message to him: “I bitterly regret my close relationship with this very foolish man, but I can do nothing now to change it. My daughter, whom I allowed him to marry, has lately been indisposed, and her distress at this morning’s news has brought her close to death. There is surely no compelling reason now not to entrust her husband for some time to my care. Being who I am, I can guarantee that he would commit no further folly.”
Suesada took his words to Kiyomori, who replied,
“There you go again, Norimori. You never quite understand, do you?”
For some time that was all. Then Kiyomori answered more fully:
“The grand counselor Narichika has been planning to destroy the Taira house
and sow chaos throughout the realm. And Naritsune is his son and heir.
Your relationship to him, close or distant, can do nothing to sway me.
If their conspiracy had succeeded, tell me:
Do you suppose that you yourself would have come through it safely?”
Suesada returned to Norimori with this answer.
Bitterly disappointed, Norimori renewed his plea:
“Ever since Hgen and Heiji,
I have fought in repeated battles,
always ready to die for you,
and I would gladly shield you, too,
should some future storm threaten.
Yes, it is true, I am old now,
but I still have many young sons
who merit your full confidence.
If, nonetheless, you will not allow me to take Naritsune under my care,
then you must be convinced that I, Norimori, am a traitor.
Having so incurred your suspicion,
I have lost my place in the world.
I shall therefore bid you farewell,
enter upon the Buddha’s Way,
retire to some far mountain hamlet,
and devote myself solely to prayer
for release in the life to come.
There is nothing to gain from this one.
To live, after all, means to hope.
From lost hope springs bitterness.
Better, then, to renounce the world
and tread instead the true path.”
Suesada came again before Lord Kiyomori.
“Lord Norimori has made up his mind to take the great step,” he said.
“Please act for the best.”
“This is all very well,” the astonished Kiyomori answered,
“but for him to be thinking of leaving the world is just too much.
Tell him, then, that for the time being I leave Naritsune in his care.”
Suesada returned to Norimori and reported what he had heard.
“Alas!” Norimori exclaimed,
“how much better to have no children!
If no tie to my daughter bound me,
I would not suffer such agony!”
And with these words he took his leave.
Naritsune was waiting for him. “Well? How did it go?” he asked.
“Kiyomori was so angry that he refused to see me at all.
He kept rejecting my appeal, until I threatened to renounce the world.
That seemed to work. He said that he would let you stay at home with me.
I hardly expect this to end well, though.”
“I see,” Naritsune replied. “Your great kindness has won me at least a reprieve.
But what did he say about my father?”
“That is not a subject I could have raised.”
Naritsune burst into tears.
“It is a wonderful thing,” he said,
“that thanks to your intercession
I should live on a little longer,
but life itself is precious to me
only so that I can, one last time,
be together with my father.
If his fate is to be beheaded,
then what good could my living do?
I would rather have you instead
beg that we should die together.”
Norimori looked deeply distressed. “I did do my best for you, you know,
but I simply could not mention your father.
This morning Shigemori spoke at length to Kiyomori about him,
and I gather that for now he is out of danger.”
Naritsune pressed his palms together, weeping for joy.
“Who but a son could so quickly
set his own difficulties aside
and rejoice as does this young man?”—
so Norimori reflected.
“Yes, the true tie
binds parent to child.
Why, people are right to have children!”
The two shared the same carriage home,
just as when they had come that morning.
For the women there, Naritsune
might as well have returned from the dead.
They clustered around him and wept for joy.
6. The Remonstrance
Lord Kiyomori had arrested a great many men,
but perhaps, in his estimation, not yet enough;
for now, in black-laced armor and silver-inlaid breastplate over red brocade,
clasping under his arm the lance with a silver-wound shaft
that the Itsukushima Deity gave him long ago in a sacred dream
when he went on pilgrimage there as the governor of Aki—
the lance that he kept every night by his pillow—
he strode to the gallery of the middle gate with a face like thunder.
There he summoned Sadayoshi. Wearing scarlet-laced armor over a tan hitatare, Sadayoshi, the governor of Chikugo, respectfully presented himself before his lord. After a moment of silence, Kiyomori asked, “What do you think of this, Sadayoshi? During Hgen, Tadamasa and more than half the Heike supported Retired Emperor Sutoku, and Tadamori, my father, looked after his eldest son. That made it very difficult to choose otherwise, but I nonetheless respected the testament of Retired Emperor Toba, and I fought at the head of his troops. That was my first great service to Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa.
Then, in the first year of Heiji, in the twelfth month,
when Nobuyori and Yoshitomo seized both emperors, reigning and retired,
barricaded themselves in the palace, and shrouded the realm in darkness,
it was I who crushed the evildoers at the risk of my life,
who in due course arrested Tsunemune and Korekata,63
and who, in short, repeatedly faced death for the cloistered sovereign.
Whatever arguments anyone may have put to him,
I fail to understand how he could have turned against us
before seven generations were out. But he did.
That dismal troublemaker Narichika, that contemptible ruffian Saik—
he lent an ear to their blandishments and plotted our destruction.
I hold that bitterly against him.
Any more slander from anyone,
and I just know what he will do:
He will hand down a formal decree
demanding suppression of the Heike.
