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—the rude billows of severance buried the jewel person. His palace had been called Choései, to denote that it was established as his long abode; and the gate inscribed Fur6, that is, the portal through which old age enters not. But ere ten years had passed he had become drift of the deep sea. In the case of such a virtuous monarch it would be wholly idle to talk of reward and retribution. It is the dragon of the region above the clouds descending and becoming a fish.” A comparison of the above with the corresponding MIDZU-KAGAMI 143 passage of the Gempei Seisuikt shows very clearly the different character of the two works. There is nothing in the latter about praying to Shinto deities or to Buddha, and no talk of a future Paradise. When the young monarch asks where his nurse is taking him, instead of the devout sentiments attributed to her by the Heike Monogatari, the Gempet Setsuiki tells us that she said, “The soldiers are shooting arrows at the august ship, and I have the honour to escort your Majesty to another one.” The honorifics characteristic of the Japanese lan- guage come in very oddly in some of these passages. Thus in the above the waves “respectfully” submerge the Mikado, the enemy’s soldiers “respectfully” direct their arrows against the august ship, and so forth. It would be tedious to follow these peculiarities in a translation. The authorship of the historical work called Midzu-K ag- amt (“ Water-Mirror”’) is really unknown. It has been as- cribed to Nakayama Tadachika, who was born 1131, and died 1195. Omitting the myths of the so-called “ Age of the Gods,” the writer begins his history with the legend of Jimmu Tenno, the first Mikado, and brings it down through fifty-four reigns to the death of Nimmio in 850. It is of course impossible to give anything but a meagre outline of the history of this long period in three volumes of no great bulk. Its value is small. In the earlier part it is little more than an epitome of the WVzhongz. The story is told in a plain, artless fashion, without rhetorical orna- ment, philosophical reflections, or the least attempt to trace the causes or connection of events. Whoever the author was, he was a devout Buddhist, to which fact is 144 JAPANESE LITERATURE no doubt to be attributed a certain miraculous element in the latter part of the history. ; The Midzu-Kagami is an obvious imitation of the O-Kagamt. The language is comparatively free from Chinese admixture, and from the point of view of sty'e the-work is to be classed with the literature of the Heian period. The authorship of the AHdgen Monogatari and Heit Monogatari is attributed to Hamuro Tokinaga, who lived towards the end of the twelfth century. The former contains an account of the civil disturbances in Kidto in the year 1157, arising out of a dispute respecting the succession to the throne; the latter is a record of the renewal of the conflict in 1159. The result of this fight- ing was the downfall for a time of the power of the great Minamoto (Gen) family, and the establishment of the Taira (Hei) family in power. CHAPTER III CHOMEI AND THE HOJOKI” KAMO CHOMEI, the author of the Hdjok7, was a guardian of the Shinto shrine of Kamo in Kioto. Having acquired some reputation as a musician and poet, he was appointed by the retired Mikado Go Toba to a post in ihe Depart- ment of Japanese Poetry. He subsequently petitioned to be allowed to succeed his father as superior guardian of Kamo, but his prayer was not granted. This he resented deeply, and shaving his head, retired to a hermitage on Oharayama, a few miles from Kidto. The ojokz, written in 1212, is a record of the author’s personal experiences, It is valued highly for its excel- lent style, which is not too close an imitation of the older classical manner, nor yet, on the other hand, overloaded with Chinese expressions. After giving an account of the great fire of Kidto in 1177, the famine of 1181, and the earthquake of 1185, the writer of these memoirs proceeds to tell us of the mountain hermitage to which he fled in order to escape from a world so rife with direful calamities. His hut and mode of life are minutely described, with many touches which not only give indications of his own tastes and character, but reveal something of the inner spirit of the Buddhist religion. It is a tiny book on which to rest so high a reputation, containing some thirty pages only, and it is therefore possible to transcribe all the more interest- 145 146 JAPANESE LITERATURE ing passages. //670, it may be premised, means “ten feet square,” the supposed dimensions of a hermit’s cell, and actually those of Chomei’s hut. A? means “notes” or “record.” “The current of a running stream flows on unceas- ingly, but the water is not the same: the foam floating on the pool where it lingers, now vanishes and now forms again, but is never lasting. Such are man- kind and their habitations. In a splendid capital where the dwellings of the exalted and of the lowly ‘join their roof-trees and with their tiles jostle one another, they may appear to go on without an interval from generation to generation. But we shall find, if we make inquiry, that there are in reality but few which are ancient. Some were destroyed last year to be rebuilt this year ; others, which were great houses, have been ruined, and replaced by smaller ones. The same is true of their inmates. If we have lived long in a place where we have numbers of acquaintances, we find that but one or two are left of twenty or thirty whom we knew formerly. In the morning some die, in the evening some are born. Such is life. It may be compared to foam upon the water. Whether they are born or whether they die, we know not whence they come nor whither they go. Nor in this temporary sojourning- place do we know who will benefit by the trouble we put ourselves to, or wherewithal to give pleasure to the eyes. Of a house and its master I know not which is the more subject to change. Both are like the dew on the convolvulus. The dew may fall, leaving the flower behind; but even so, the flower fades with the morning sun, Again, the flower may wither, while HOJOKI 147 the dew remains; but even so, it cannot last until evening. “During the forty springs and summers which have passed since I first knew the heart of things, many extraordinary events have happened. In the third year of Angen (1177), on the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, the night being unquiet by reason of a violent wind, a fire broke out in the south-eastern part of the capital, about eight o’clock, and spread in a north-westerly direction, gaining the southern gate of the Palace, the Hall of Audience, the University build- ings, and the Home Office. That same night all were reduced to ashes. It was said to have had its origin in a temporary building used as a hospital. Urged by the blasts of the devious wind, it spread this way and that until it widened out like an extended fan. The distant houses were immersed in smoke, while the nearer ground was completely covered with the sparks blown on to it. The ashes, driven aloft into the sky, and illumined by the flames, formed a ruddy back- ground against which the sparks might be seen, con- tinually detached by the gusts, and as it were flying over a space of several hundred yards to some new quarter. Imagine the distracted state of the inhabitants ! Some there were who fell down, stifled by the smoke ; others, involved in flames, met with a sudden death ; others, again, barely escaped with their lives, and were unable to save their property. Their seven rare things and their ten thousand treasures became mere ashes, How great were the losses! Sixteen houses of nobles were consumed, and others without number. One-third of all Kioto was destroyed. Several thousands of men and women lost their lives, and an immense number 148 JAPANESE LITERATURE of cattle. All the ways of man are full of vanity, but it may be deemed specially unprofitable to build our- selves dwellings in so dangerous a place as the capital, wasting our wealth, and giving ourselves much anxiety of mind. “ Again, on the 29th day of the fourth month of the fourth year of Jishd (1180), there was a great whirlwind which arose in the Kidgoku quarter, and blew with much violence as far as Rokujo. Three or four of the city wards received its full force. In these there was not a single house, great or small, which was not de- stroyed by its whirling blasts. Some were simply laid flat on the ground; in others nothing was left but the posts and cross-beams. The roofs of gates were blown off and deposited at a distance of several streets. Fences were swept away, removing all distinction between a neighbour’s ground and one’s own. It need hardly be said that all the contents of the houses without excep- tion rove to the sky, while the bark and shingles of the roofs were scattered abroad like autumnal leaves before the wind. The dust was blown up like smoke, so that nothing could be seen, and the din was so tremendous that one could not hear his neighbour speak. The blasts of the Buddhist Inferno of which we have been told must be something of this kind. Not only were houses destroyed, but countless numbers of people were injured, and became cripples [by exposure] while their homes were being repaired. This wind passed off in a south-westerly direction, having caused lamentation to many. Now a whirlwind is an ordinary phenomenon, but this was no mere natural occurrence; I strongly suspect that it was sent as a warning.” : [Here follows an account of the miseries attendant — eA HOJOKI ~ 149 upon the removal of the capital to Settsu in the same year (1180).