English
| “Tt is so long ago that I do not exactly remember, but I believe it was in the period Yowa (1181-2) that there was for two years a very wretched state of things caused by famine. Misfortunes succeeded one another. Either there was drought in spring and summer, or there were storms and floods in autumn and winter, so that no grain came to maturity. The spring ploughing was in vain, and the labour of summer planting [of the young rice] came to naught. There was no bustle of reaping in autumn, or of. ingathering in winter. In all the pro- vinces people left their lands and sought other parts, or, forgetting their homes, went to live among the hills. All kinds of prayers were begun, and even religious practices which were unusual in ordinary times revived, but to no purpose whatever. The capital, dependent as it is on the country for everything, could not remain unconcerned when nothing was produced. The inhabi- tants in their distress offered to sacrifice their valuables of all kinds one after another, but nobody cared to look at them. Even if buyers came forward, they made little account of gold, and much of grain. Beggars swarmed by the roadsides, and our ears were filled with the sound of their lamentations. Amid such misery we with difh- culty reached the close of the first year. With the new year, men’s hopes revived. But that nothing might be left to complete our misfortunes, a pestilence broke out and continued without ceasing. Everybody was dying of hunger, and as time went on, our condition became as desperate as that of the fish in the small pool of the story. At last even respectable-looking people wearing hats, and with their feet covered, might be seen begging importu- IF 150 JAPANESE LITERATURE nately from door to door. Sometimes while you won- dered how such utterly wretched creatures could walk at all, they fell down before your eyes. By garden walls or on the roadsides countless persons died of famine, and as their bodies were not removed, the world was filled with evil odours. As they changed, there were many sights which the eyes could not endure to see. It was worse on the river banks where there was not even room for horses and vehicles to pass back and forwards. Porters and woodcutters too became so feeble that firewood got scarcer and scarcer, and people who had no means pulled down their houses and sold the materials in the market. It was said that a load for one man was not enough to provide him with sustenance for a single day. It was strange to see among this firewood pieces adorned in places with vermilion, or silver or gold leaf. On inquiry, it appeared that people in their extremity went to old temples, stole the images of Buddha, and broke up the objects used in worship, of which these were the fragments. Such mournful spectacles it was my lot to witness, born into a polluted and wicked world. “ Another very pitiable thing was that when there were a man and woman who were strongly attached to each other, the one whose love was the greatest and whose devotion was the most profound always died first. The reason was that they put themselves last, and, whether man or woman, gave up to the dearly loved one anything which they might chance to have begged. As a matter of course, parents died before their children. Again, infants might be seen clinging to the breast of their mother, not knowing that she was already dead. A priest of the Temple of Jisonin, grieved in his secret heart at the numberless persons who were thus perish- HOJOKI ISI ing, consulted with a great many holy men, who by his advice, when they saw any one dead, wrote on his forehead the first of the Chinese characters for Amida [Buddha] and by this bond united him [to the Church]. The numbers of those who died in central Kidto during the fourth and fifth months alone were 42,300. To this must be added many who died before and after ; while if we also reckon those who perished in the various out- lying quarters, the number has no limit. And then the provinces! I have heard that in recent times there was a similar famine in the reign of Sutoku, in the period Chojo (1132-1135), but of this I do not know the circum- stances. What I have described is the most lamentable state of things that I have myself witnessed.” Chomei next describes the great earthquake at Kioto of the year 1185, in which, when at its worst, there were twenty or thirty shocks a day, such as would be called severe in ordinary times. After ten or twenty days the shocks in one day were two to five, then one every two or three days. It was not until the third month that the earth had quite recovered its quiet. The story of these disasters is introductory to an account of his own life, and is brought in to explain his resolve to abandon the city and to live the life of a recluse. He spent thirty years in a small cabin remote from Kidto, but finding even this seclusion not suffi- ciently restful— “Five springs and autumns,” he says, ‘came and went to me making my bed among the clouds of Mount Ohara. And now at sixty, when the dew does not easily evaporate,! I again built myself a last leaf of a dwelling, something like the shelter which a traveller 1 In other words, ‘sad thoughts are not easily shaken off.” 152 JAPANESE LITERATURE might erect for one night’s lodging, or the cocoon spun for itself by an aged silkworm. It is not a hundredth part so commodious as the habitation of my middle-time. As my age declined with every year, at each remove my dwelling became smaller. This last one is no ordinary house. It is barely ten feet square, and only seven feet high. As it was not meant for a fixed abode, the ground about it was trodden hard and left -uncultivated. The walls are of mud, and it is thatched with rushes. The joints are fastened with rings and staples, for the greater convenience of removal elsewhere if any subject of dis- satisfaction should arise. How little trouble it would take to rebuild it in another place! It would barely make two cart-loads, and there would be no expense whatever beyond the cartage. “Since I concealed my traces in the recesses of Mount Hino, I have put up a projecting roof of some three feet or more in width on the eastern side, as a place for breaking and burning brushwood. On the south I have set out a temporary shade and laid down a bamboo grating [by way of a mat]. On the west there is the domestic shrine. Within, against the north, and on the other side of a paper screen, I have installed a picture of Amida, and beside it have hung one of Fugen. Before them I have placed a copy of the Hokkekio.1 Close to the eastern wall I have spread a quantity of fern, which serves me asa bed. On the south-west there is provided a hanging shelf of bamboo, on which are three or four black leather cases containing Japanese poetry, music, a Buddhist pious book, and such-like manuscripts. Be- sides there are a harp and a lute of the kinds known as Origoto and Tsugibiwa. 1 Buddhist Scriptures, HOJOKI 153 “Such is my temporary dwelling. Now to describe its surroundings. On the south there is a water-pipe which leads to a reservoir, constructed by piling large stones one on another. A wood close by affords plenty of sticks for firewood. The Masaki creeper hides all that is beyond. The valley is thickly wooded, but is clear towards the west, which is not unfavourable to meditation} “Here in spring there may be seen the rippling blossoms of the wistaria, shedding a fragrance towards the west. In summer the Hototogisu? is heard, who by his reiterated cry invites to a tryst with him on that rugged path which leads to Hades. In autumn the song of the cicada fills the ears, sounding like a wail over the vanities of this earthly existence. In winter the snow excites in me a sympathetic emotion. As it grows deeper and deeper, and then by degrees melts away again, it is an apt symbol of the obstruction of sin. “When I am too sad for prayer, or cannot fix my mind on the pages of holy writ, there is no one to pre- vent me from resting and being as indolent as I please, nor is there any friend in whose presence I might feel ashamed. Though I have not specially adopted silence as my rule, living alone as I do, the faculty of speech has naturally been suspended. With no definite resolve to observe the commandments, my circumstances are such that there is no temptation to break them. When at morn I approach the white waves of the lake, I feel as if I had stolen the sentiments of the novice Mansei when he gazed on the boats passing to and from Okanoya [and compared human life to the ripples left 1 In the west is India, the native place of Buddhism, 2 A kind of cuckoo, 154 JAPANESE LITERATURE in their wake]; when at evening the cassia wind rustles the leaves, I think of the estuary of Junyo and imitate the style of Gen Totoku. When more cheerful than usual I extol the music of the autumn wind to the ac- companiment of its song among the firs, or to the sound of water join my praises of the music of the running stream. I do not pretend to anything great in music, and I sing or play all by myself, only for the comfort of my own heart, and not for the entertainment of others. “At the foot of the mountain there is another cabin, built of brushwood, where a forester lives. He has a son who sometimes comes to see me. When I am dull I take him for a walk, and although there is a great difference in our ages, he being sixteen and I sixty, we both enjoy the same pleasures. We pluck the great rush flowers or gather cranberries. We fill our baskets with wild potatoes or collect parsley. Sometimes we go down to the rice-fields in the belt of ground at the bottom of the mountain and glean the fallen ears.