Tales of Moonlight and Rain

by Ueda, Akinari

  “Also, a book called Mencius, I am told, says that at the beginning of Zhou, King Wu brought peace to the people in a fit of rage. One should not say that a vassal killed his lord. Rather, he executed a man named Zhou who had trampled on benevolence and righteousness.19 Although the Chinese classics, histories, and even poetry and prose collections have all been brought to Japan, this book called Mencius alone has not yet come. The reason is said to be that all the ships carrying this book have met with violent storms and sunk.20 Why? Since the great goddess Amaterasu established our country and ruled, there has never been a break in the succession of emperors; but if the sly, specious teachings of Mencius were transmitted to Japan, then some future villain might overthrow the divine progeny and say that he had done no wrong: realizing this, the gods all hated the book and raised divine winds to capsize the ships. Thus many of the teachings of the sages of another country are not suited to our land. Further, is it not said in the Songs that brothers might quarrel at home but must defend against insults from outside?21 You, however, not only forgot the love of your own flesh and blood when the Retired Emperor died, but unfurled banners and raised bows to fight over the succession before his body had grown cold in the funerary palace—surely there is no worse crime against filial devotion than this.22 The world is a sacred vessel.23 The truth is that one who greedily tries to seize it will fail: Prince Shigehito’s accession may have been the wish of the people, but when you resorted to wayward methods and brought chaos to the world instead of spreading virtue and harmony, even those who loved you until yesterday suddenly became wrathful enemies today, you were unable to attain your goal, you received an unprecedented punishment, and you turned to dust in this remote province. I beg you to forget your old resentments and return to the Pure Land.”

  The Retired Emperor heaved a long sigh and said, “You have clearly stated the rights and wrongs of the matter and rebuked me for my crimes. What you say is not without reason. But what can I do? Banished to this island, confined in the Takatō house at Matsuyama,24 I had no one to serve me but those who brought my three meals a day. Only the cries of the wild geese that cross the sky reached my pillow at night, and I longed for the capital, toward which they might be flying;25 and it broke my heart to hear the plovers at dawn,26 crying to each other at the tip of the sandbar. Crows’ heads would turn white before the time came for me to return to the capital: I would surely wander this shore as a ghost. For the sake of the future world, I devoted myself to copying five Mahāyāna sutras,27 but there was no place to keep them on this desolate strand, where no sound of conch or bell is ever heard. I sent the sutras with a poem to the prince at Ninwaji, asking that at least the traces of my brush be allowed to enter the capital.28

  A plover on the shore—his traces go to the capital

  but he himself only waits and cries at Matsuyama.29

  But Lesser Counselor Shinzei, taking charge of the matter, told the emperor that the sutras might be intended as a curse, and so they were returned unopened, causing me great bitterness. Since ancient times in both Japan and China, there have been many examples of brothers who became enemies competing for the realm; but no matter who interfered in his decision, for the emperor to ignore the law that requires consideration for members of the family30 and reject even the traces of my brush—the sutras I copied, aware of the depth of my guilt and repentant for my wrong-heartedness—is something I can never forgive. In the end, I decided to throw off my resentment by dedicating those sutras to the Tengu Way: biting my finger, I wrote a petition with the blood and sent it with the sutras to the bottom of the Shito Sea,31 after which I shut myself away, meeting no one, and fervently petitioned that I might become King of the Tengu—and then came the Heiji Insurrection. First I induced in Nobuyori the arrogance to wish for high rank, and caused Yoshitomo to become his ally. Yoshitomo was a hateful enemy. Everyone in his family, beginning with his father, Tameyoshi, gave his life for my sake, while Yoshitomo alone drew his bow against me.32 Victory was in sight, thanks to Tametomo’s valor and the strategy of Tameyoshi and Tadamasa,33 but attacked by a fire borne on a southwesterly wind, we fled the Shirakawa Palace,34 after which I tore my feet on the crags of Mount Nyoi35 and endured the rain and dew, my body covered with oak-cuttings from the mountain people, until finally I was arrested and banished to this island—and all of these torments arose from Yoshitomo’s perverse plot. In revenge, I cursed him by giving him the heart of a tiger or a wolf and had him conspire with Nobuyori, so that Nobuyori committed the crime of defying the earthly deity and was struck down by Kiyomori, who has no talent for military affairs.36 Retribution for killing his own father, Tameyoshi, came to Yoshitomo when he was deceived by one of his own retainers: this was heaven’s punishment!37 As for Lesser Counselor Shinzei: inciting his twisted heart, which had always led him to show off his erudition and block the advancement of others, I made him the enemy of Nobuyori and Yoshitomo, so that in the end he abandoned his home and hid in a hole at Uji, where he was finally discovered and captured, and his severed head was exposed on the riverbank at Rokujō.38 This brought to a close his crime of sycophancy in returning my sutras. Caught up with my anger, I took Bifukumon’in’s life in the summer of the Ōhō era and placed a curse on Tadamichi39 in the spring of the Chōkan era, and in the autumn of that year I left the world myself; but the flames of my resentment still blazed undiminished, and I became the Great King of Evil, the master of more than three hundred. When my followers see happiness in others, they turn it to calamity; seeing the realm at peace, they incite turmoil. Kiyomori’s karmic reward has been large in this life, so that all the members of his clan have achieved high position and rank, and he governs as he wishes; but since Shigemori assists him devotedly, their time has not yet come.40 You watch—the Taira clan will surely not last long. In the end, I shall take my revenge on Masahito to the same extent that he was cruel to me.” His voice had grown steadily more ominous. Saigyō said, “Tied so strongly to the evil karma of the Tengu World, Your Majesty is separated one trillion leagues from the Pure Land. I shall say nothing more.” He sat facing him silently.

  “He sat facing him silently.”

  Just then, the peaks and valleys shook; a wind seemed to knock over the forest and lifted sand and pebbles twisting into the sky. In the next instant, a goblin-fire burst from below the Retired Emperor’s knees, and the mountains and valleys grew as bright as at noontime. Staring at the royal figure in this light, Saigyō saw a face as red as though blood had been poured over it; a tangle of knee-length hair; angry, glaring eyes; and feverish, painful breathing. The robe was brown and hideously stained with soot; the nails on the hands and feet had grown as long as an animal’s claws: he had exactly the aspect of the King of Evil himself, appalling and dreadful. Looking to the sky, the Retired Emperor cried, “Sagami, Sagami.” In response, a goblin flew down in the form of a hawk-like bird, prostrated itself, and waited for its master to speak. The Retired Emperor said to the goblin-bird, “Why do you neither take Shigemori’s life quickly nor torment Masahito and Kiyomori?” The goblin-bird replied, “The Ex-Emperor’s luck has not yet run out, and Shigemori’s devotion keeps him beyond our reach. After one zodiac cycle, Shigemori’s life span will come to an end;41 if you wait for him die then, the luck of his clan will perish as well.” The Retired Emperor clapped his hands in delight: “I shall destroy all these enemies, here in the sea before me!“42 The horror of his voice, echoing in the valleys and peaks, was beyond description.

  Witnessing the baseness of the Tengu Way, Saigyō could not hold back his tears. Composing another poem, he urged the Retired Emperor again to embrace the Buddha’s Way:

  “Long ago you may have dwelt, my lord, in jeweled splendor, but what good is that to you now?43

  Royalty and peasants—they are the same,” he cried, pouring out his feelings.

  The Retired Emperor appeared to be moved by these words: his expression softened, the goblin-fire flickered and went out, and his figure faded from sight
; the goblin-bird, too, disappeared without a trace; the moon, nearly full, was hidden by the peak, and in the obscurity of the dark woods Saigyō felt as though he were wandering in a dream. Soon the dawn sky brightened and filled with the fresh chirping of morning birds, and so he chanted the Diamond Sutra as a final offering44 and then descended the mountain and returned to his hut, where he quietly reviewed the events of the night before. Realizing that there had been no discrepancies in the Retired Emperor’s account of the Heiji Insurrection, the fates of various people, or the dates, he was deeply awed and spoke to no one about it.

  Thirteen years later, in the autumn of the fourth year of Jishō, Taira no Shigemori fell ill and died, whereupon the Taira Lay-Priest Chancellor, angry at his lord, confined him in the Toba Detached Palace and then tormented him in the thatched palace at Fukuhara.45 When Yoritomo, contending with the eastern winds, and Yoshinaka, sweeping away the northern snows, emerged, the whole Taira clan drifted on the western sea, finally reaching Shido and Yashima in Sanuki, where many brave warriors ended up in the stomachs of turtles and fish, and, pursued to Dannoura at Akamagaseki, their young lord entered the sea and all their commanders perished. It was a strange, terrifying story, differing in no detail from the Retired Emperor’s prophesy. Later, a shrine was built for him, studded with jewels and brightly painted, where he is honored and revered. All who visit the province should put up offerings, purify themselves, and pay their respects to this deity.46

  NOTES

  1. Saigyō, Poems of a Mountain Home, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).

  2. Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, trans. Edward G. Seidensticker (New York: Knopf, 1976), p. 102, n. *.

  3. William R. Wilson, trans., Hōgen Monogatari: Tale of the Disorder in Hōgen, Cornell East Asia Series, no. 99 (Ithaca, N.Y.: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2001), p. 3.

  4. Uzuki Hiroshi, Ugetsu monogatari hyōshaku, Nihon koten hyōshaku zenchūshaku sōsho (Tokyo: Kadokawa, 1969), pp. 707–708.

  5. Mishima Yukio, “Ugetsu monogatari ni tsuite,” in Mishima Yukio zenshū (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1975), vol. 25, pp. 272–273.

  6. Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, Bunshō tokuhon, in Tanizaki Jun’ichirō zenshū (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1974), vol. 21, pp. 137–138.

  7. Tanizaki, Bunshō tokuhon, p. 175.

  8. Leon M. Zolbrod, trans. and ed., Ugetsu Monogatari: Tales of Moonlight and Rain: A Complete English Version of the Eighteenth-Century Japanese Collection of Tales of the Supernatural (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1974), pp. 98–108.

  9. “contemplation” (kannen): refers to contemplating and meditating on the truth of Buddhist teachings and the path to enlightenment.

  “self-discipline” (shugyō): refers to a monk’s maintaining the rules for proper conduct, as taught by the Buddha.

  10. The Shishinden (Hall of the Royal Seat) was the main ceremonial building of the emperor’s residential compound, and the Seiryōden (Hall of Cool and Refreshing Breezes) was the emperor’s private residence.

  “one hundred officials”: a formulaic expression for the many military and civil officials serving the court.

  11. This poem is identical, except for the last word, to one by Saigyō, which begins with a headnote: “I traveled to Sanuki and searched for the site of the Retired Emperor’s residence at a harbor called Matsuyama, but there was no trace / no tideland”:

  The view of the waves at Matsuyama may not have changed,

  but like the tidelands, my lord is gone without a trace. (Sankashū, no. 1354)

  Both “tidelands” and “trace” translate the word kata, which Saigyō used as a pun.

  12. Sankashū, no. 1353. Although this poem was written by Saigyō, there is a tradition that it was composed by the ghost of Emperor Sutoku when Saigyō visited his grave. Embedded in the poem is a second layer of meaning: “The exiled emperor who came, borne upon the waves of Matsuyama, died here before long.”

  13. It was the Confucian philosopher Mencius (372?–289? B.C.E.) who most clearly enunciated the concept that the people have the right to depose a ruler whose corruption has caused him to lose the Mandate of Heaven.

  14. King Wu of Zhou, a vassal of the notorious King Zhou of Shang, defeated his overlord around 1122 B.C.E. and established the Zhou dynasty, which lasted for eight hundred to nine hundred years, depending on which dates are accepted.

  15. “you … have not escaped from desire and contamination”: in short, “You have not achieved enlightenment.”

  “desire and contamination” (yokujin): in Buddhism, enlightenment is hindered by “five desires” and “six contaminants”—that is, five objects of desire (color, voice, smell, taste, and touch; alternatively, color, fame, food, fortune, and sleep) and the six “roots” of these desires (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and consciousness). Together, they refer to the passions and desires that impede one’s progress toward enlightenment.

  16. Prince Ōsasagi, the fourth son of Emperor Ōjin (late fourth-early fifth centuries; legendary r. 270–310), became Emperor Nintoku (early fifth century; legendary r. 313–399).

  17. “filial and fraternal devotion”: along with sincerity, were traditional Confucian virtues: “Filial piety and fraternal submission!—are they not the root of all benevolent actions?” (Confucius, Analects 1:2, in James Legge, trans., The Four Books: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, and The Works of Mencius [1879, 1923; reprint, New York: Paragon, 1966], p. 3).

  18. Around 400, the scholar Wani immigrated from Paekche (a state in the southwest of the Korean Peninsula) to Japan, where he introduced Confucian texts and tutored Prince Uji.

  19. King Wu “brought peace to the people of the Empire in one outburst of rage” (Mencius, Mencius, trans. D. C. Lau [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970], 1.B.3, p. 63). The reference is to Wu’s killing of the despotic King Zhou: “A man who mutilates benevolence is a mutilator, while one who cripples righteousness is a crippler. He who is both a mutilator and a crippler is an ‘outcast.’ I have indeed heard of the punishment of the ‘outcast Tchou [Zhou],’ but I have not heard of any regicide” (Mencius, Mencius 1.B.8, p. 68).

  20. This is reported in book 4 of Xie Zhaozhe, Five Miscellanies: “The Japanese prize Confucian texts and believe in Buddhist teachings. They pay high prices for all the Chinese classics. Only Mencius is lacking, it is said. If anyone tries to carry this book to Japan, his ship will capsize and sink. This is a very strange thing.”

  21. The Book of Songs, one of the five Confucian classics, was compiled between the eleventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. The reference is to a passage in song no. 164: “Brothers may quarrel within the walls, / But outside they defend one another from insult” (Arthur Waley, ed. and trans., The Book of Songs [1937; reprint, New York: Grove Press, 1960], no. 194, p. 203).

  22. Saigyō is referring to Sutoku’s rebellion against his brother Go-Shirakawa after the death of their father, Toba.

  “funerary palace” (mogari no miya): a temporary palace building or shrine where the body of a deceased emperor or empress was kept while preparations were being made for the funeral.

  23. Quoted from chapter 29 of Laozi, Classic of the Way: “Some want to control the world. I have seen that this is not possible. The world is a sacred vessel; one cannot control it.” Saigyō (perhaps speaking for Akinari) embraces Chinese classics selectively, linking the original Confucian virtues of benevolence, righteousness, and filial and fraternal devotion, as well as the Taoist concept of wu wei (inaction), to the Japanese imperial tradition, and rejecting Mencius’s theory of revolution.

  24. The Takatō were a prominent family in Matsuyama.

  25. In Chinese and Japanese legend, wild geese (kari) were often associated with messengers, partly because of their migratory habits. Kari is homophonous with a word meaning “temporary” or “transitory,” and so carries Buddhist connotations as well.

  26. Wild geese were associated with autumn; plovers, with winte
r. There is a progression from night (geese) to dawn (plovers) as well.

  27. Through performing good karma (copying sutras), Sutoku sought to be reborn in better circumstances, preferably in Amida’s Pure Land. Mahāyāna is the school of Buddhism prevalent in China, Korea, and Japan (in contrast to Theravāda, widespread in, for example, Thailand).

  28. Ninwaji, now called Ninnaji, is a Buddhist monastery in Kyoto. Sutoku’s younger brother Prince Motohito (Kakushō Hōshinnō) was the abbot of Ninnaji.

  29. In this poem, which appears in Hōgen monogatari, Sutoku likens himself to a plover.

  “traces” (ato): signifies both “footprints” and “writing.”

  matsu: both “pine tree” (in the place-name Matsuyama) and “to wait.”

  30. A provision in the Taihō Code, promulgated in 701, called for penalties to be reduced in the case of the emperor’s close relatives.

  31. The reference to Shito Sea (Shito no umi) is unclear. Shido no ura (Shido Bay), near the city of Takamatsu, and Shido no umi (Shido Sea), near the city of Sakade, have been suggested, but neither is written with the same characters as Akinari’s “Shito no umi.”