Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan by Richard Gordon Smith (best novels ever txt) 📕

Arrived at the first priest’s house, Ishidomaro espied an old man mumbling prayers.

‘Please, sir,’ said he, doffing his hat and bowing low, could you tell me if there is a priest here called Kato Sayemon? Greatly should I be obliged if you could direct me to him. He has only been a priest for five years. For all that time my dear mother and myself have been in search of him. He is my father, and we both love him much, and wish him to come back to us!’

‘Ah, my lad, I feel sorry for you,’ answered Sayemon (for it was indeed he). ‘I know of no man called Kato Sayemon in these temples.’ Delivering himself of this speech, Sayemon showed considerable emotion. He fully recognised that the boy he was addressing was his son, and he was under sore distress to deny him thus, and not to recognise and take him to his heart; but Sayemon had made up his mind that the rest of his life should be sacrificed for the sake of Buddha, and that all worldly things should be cast aside. Ishidomaro and his wife needed no money or food, but were well provided for; thus he need not trouble on those grounds. Sayemon determined to remain as he was, a poor monk, hidden in the monastery on Koya San. With a desperate effort he continued:

‘I don’t remember ever hearing of a Kato Sayemon’s having been here, though, of course, I have heard of the Kato Sayemon who was the great friend of the Shogun Ashikaga.’

Ishidomaro was not at all satisfied with this answer. He felt somehow or other that he was in the presence of his father. Moreover, the priest had a black mole over his left eye, and he, Ishidomaro, had one exactly the same.

‘Sir,’ said he, again addressing the priest, ‘my mother has always particularly drawn my attention to the mole over my left eye, saying, “My son, your father has such a mark over his left eye, the exact counterpart now, remember this, for when you go forth to seek him this will be a sure sign to you.” You, sir, have the exact mark that I have. I know and feel that you are my father!’

With that, tears came into the eyes of Ishidomaro, and, outstretching his arms, he cried, ‘Father, father, let me embrace you!’

Sayemon trembled all over with emotion; but haughtily held up his head and, recovering himself, said:

‘My lad, there are many men and many boys who have moles over their left eyebrows, and even over their right. I am not your father. You must go elsewhere to seek him.’

At this moment the chief priest came and called Sayemon to the evening services, which were held in the main temple. Thus it was that Sayemon preferred to devote his life to Buddha, and (as Mr. Matsuzaki tells me) to emulate Buddha, rather than return to the ways of the world or to his family, or even to recognise his one and only son!

My sympathies are with Ishidomaro, of whom, as of his poor mother, we are told nothing further. To end in Mr. Matsuzaki’s words:

‘What became of Ishidomaro and his mother is not known; but it is told to this day that Kato Sayemon passed the rest of his life in peace and purity, entirely sacrificing his body and soul to Buddha, and did these things without any person to mourn over him, but in perfect contentment.’

In the third book of Sir Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia are the following verses, which were addressed to Buddha, when he was a Prince, by the winds:—

We are the voices of the wandering wind;

Wander thou too, O Prince, thy rest to find;

Leave love for love of lovers, for woe’s sake

Quit state for sorrow, and deliverance make.

So sigh we, passing o’er the silver strings,

To thee who know’st not yet of earthly things;

So say we; mocking, as we pass away,

Those lovely shadows wherewith thou dost play.

No one, I feel sure, will fail to agree with me that Sayemon appears as a weak, selfish, and unheroic personage—not as a hero, much less as a Buddha.

Footnotes

75:1 Told to me by Mr. Matsuzaki. I cannot say that I think much of the story. Sayemon is made a hero; but he must appear to most as a rather cowardly and low creature. I remarked upon this to Mr. Matsuzaki, saying: ‘I do not see that the story is finished. You make Sayemon out a model person, whereas to me he appears the worst one in the story. Surely the wife and the son should have come out as the good people; but you laud and praise Sayemon for leaving his family, and refusing to recognise them when they had no sin against themselves.’ ‘I do not admit the difficulty,’ said Mr. Matsuzaki. ‘It is the same as the Lord Buddha. He also left his wife, and devoted his life to religious affairs just as Sayemon did.’ Well, I could not agree with this. Buddha was Buddha, a benefactor and helper to the whole of Asia. Sayemon was a poor miserable weakling who simply sought personal peace. As far as the story goes I defy anybody to find him a hero, or a person who in any way emulated Buddha—unless he did so from an entirely Japanese point of view. The story, however, is quite a celebrated one, referred to in many Japanese books: so Mr. Matsuzaki tells me.

XIII GREAT FIRE CAUSED BY A LADY’S DRESS

SOME 120 years ago, in the year of Temmei, a most terrible fire broke out in the western corner of Yedo,—the worst fire, probably, that is known to the world’s history, for it is said to have destroyed no fewer than 188,000 persons.

At that time there lived in Yedo, now Tokio, a very rich pawnbroker, Enshu Hikoyemon, the proud possessor of a beautiful daughter aged sixteen, whose name was O Same, which in this instance is probably derived from the word ‘sameru’ (to fade away), for in truth O Same San did fade away.

Enshu Hikoyemon loved his daughter dearly, and, he being a widower with no other child, his thoughts and affections were concentrated on her alone. He had long been rich enough to cast aside the mean thoughts and characteristics which had enabled him to reach his present position. From being a hard-hearted relentless money-grubber, Enshu Hikoyemon had become softhearted and generous—as far, at all events, as his daughter was concerned.

One day the beautiful O Same went to pray at her ancestors’ graves. She was accompanied by her maid, and, after saying her prayers, passed the Temple of Hommyoji, which is in the same grounds at Hongo Maru Yama, and there, as she repeated her prayers before the image of Buddha, she saw a young priest, with whom she fell instantly in love. Thitherto she had had no love-affair; nor, indeed, did she fully realise what had happened, beyond the fact that the youth’s face pleased her to gaze upon. It was a solemn and noble face. As O Same lit a joss-stick and handed it to the priest, to be placed before Buddha, their hands met, and she felt pass through her body a thrill the like of which she had never experienced. Poor O Same was what is known as madly in love at first sight,—in love so much that as she arose and left the temple all she could see was the face of the young priest; wherever she looked she saw nothing else. She spoke not a word to her maid on the way home, but went straight to her room.

Next morning she announced to the maid that she was indisposed. ‘Go,’ she said, ‘and tell my dear father that I shall remain in bed. I do not feel well this day.’

Next day was much the same, and so were the next and the next.

Hikoyemon, disconsolate, tried every means to enliven his daughter. He sought to get her away to the seaside. He offered to take her to the Holy Temple of Ise or to Kompira. She would not go. Doctors were called, and could find nothing wrong with O Same San. ‘She has something on her mind, and when you can get it off she will be well,’ was all that they could say.

At last O Same confessed to her father that she had lost her heart to a young priest in the Hommyoji Temple. ‘Nay,’ she said: ‘be not angry with me, father, for I do not know him, and have seen him only once. In that once I loved him, for he has a noble face, which haunts me night and day; and so it is that my heart is heavy, and my body sickens for the want of him. Oh, father, if you love me and wish to save my life, go and find him and tell him that I love him, and that without him I must die!’

Poor Hikoyemon! Here was a nice business—his daughter in love—dying of love for an unknown priest! What was he to do? First he humoured his daughter, and at last, after several days, persuaded her to accompany him to the temple. Unfortunately, they did not see the priest in question; nor did they on a second visit; and after this O Same became more disconsolate than ever, absolutely refusing to leave her room. Night and day her sobs were heard all over the house, and her father was utterly wretched, especially as he had now found out secretly that the priest with whom his daughter had fallen in love was one of the most strict of Buddha’s followers, and not likely to err from the disciplinarian rules of religion.

In spite of this, Hikoyemon determined to make an effort in behalf of his daughter. He ventured to the temple alone, saw the priest, told him of his daughter’s love, and asked if a union would be possible.

The priest spurned the idea, saying, ‘Is it not evident to you by my robes that I have devoted my love to Buddha? It is an insult that you should make such a proposition to me!’

Hikoyemon returned to his home deeply mortified at the rebuff; but felt it his duty to be candid with his daughter.

O Same wept herself into hysterics. She grew worse day by day. Hoping to distract her mind, her father had got made for her a magnificent dress which cost nearly yen 4000. He thought that O Same would be vain enough to wish to put it on, and to go out and show it.

This was no use. O Same was not like other women. She cared not for fine raiment or for creating sensations. She put the costume on in her room, to please her father; but then she took it off again, and went back to her bed, where, two days later, she died of a broken heart.

Hikoyemon felt the loss of his pretty daughter very much. At the funeral there must have been half a mile of flower-bearers.

The superb dress was presented to the temple. Such dresses are carefully kept; they remind the priests to say prayers for their late owners as, every two or three months, they are being dusted and cleaned.

The Vicar or Head Priest of this temple, however, was not a good man. He stole this particular dress of O Same’s, knowing the value, and sold it secretly to a second-hand dealer in such things.

Some twelve months later the dress was again donated to the same temple by another father whose daughter had died of a love-affair, he having bought the dress at the second-hand clothes-shop.