English
This ‘Passage may serve as a specimen, as it was probably the model, of innumerable similar combats in Japanese literature :— “When Kaito saw this, ‘The enemy are few,’ he cried. ‘We must disperse them before the rear comes up. Follow me, my lads. With these words he drew his 3 feet 6 inch sword, and holding up his armed left sleeve as an arrow guard, rushed midmost into the whirl of the expectant foe. Three of them he laid low. Then retiring to the .beach of the lake, he rallied to him his followers. Now when Kwai- jitsu, a monk of Okamoto, descried him from afar, he kicked over—‘ Kappa /’—the shield which he had set up before him, and with his 2 feet 8 inch bill revolving like a water-wheel, sprang forward to attack him. Kaitd6 received the ‘stroke with his armed left sleeve, while with his right he aimed a blow at the skull-piece of his adversary’s helmet, meaning to split it fair in twain. But his sword glanced off obliquely to the shoulder-plate, and thence downwards to the cross- stitched rim of his ¢sauliere, doing no harm. In endeavouring to repeat the blow he used such force that his left stirrup-leather broke, and he was on the point of falling from his horse. He recovered his seat, but as he was doing so Kwaijitsu thrust forward 176 JAPANESE LITERATURE the shaft of his bill so that the point entered Kaito’s helmet from below two or three times in succession. Nor did he fail in his aim. Kaito, stabbed through the windpipe, fell headlong from his horse. Kwaijitsu presently placed his foot on the depending tassel of Kaito’s armour, and seizing him by the hair, drew it towards him, while he cut off his head, which he then fixed on the end of his bill. ‘A good beginning! I have slain a general of the military faction,’ he ex- claimed joyously, with a mocking laugh. Whilst he was standing thus, a boy of about fifteen or sixteen, with his hair still bound up in ‘Chinese-ring’ fashion, wearing a corselet of the colour of brewer’s grains, his trousers tucked up high at the side, came out from among the onlookers, and drawing a small gold-mounted sword, rushed at Kwatjitsu and smote him vigorously three or four times on the skull-piece of his helmet. Kwaijitsu turned sharply, but seeing a child of twice eight years, with painted eyebrows and blackened teeth, thought that to cut down a boy of this age would be a piece of cruelty unbecoming his priestly condition. To avoid killing him he made numerous dashes, re- peatedly flourishing his weapon over him. It then occurred to Kwaijitsu to knock the sword out of the boy’s hands with the shaft of his bill and seize him in his arms; but while he was trying to do so, some of the party of the Huyei cross-roads approached by a narrow path between the rice-fields, and an arrow shot by one of them transfixed the lad’s heart so that he fell dead upon the spot. Upon inquiry it was found that this was Kaito’s eldest son Karawakamaru. For- bidden by his father to take part in the fight, he was discontented, and mixing with the crowd of spectators, TAIHEIKI 177 had followed after. Though a child, he was a born soldier, and when he saw his father slain he too fell fighting on the same battlefield, leaving a name behind. Alas, the pity of it! “When Kaito’s retainers saw this, they felt that after having their chieftain and his son killed before their eyes, and, what was still worse, their heads taken by the enemy, none of them ought to return home alive. Thirty-six of them, bridle to bridle, made an onrush, each more eager than the other to fall fighting, and make a pillow of his lord’s dead body. Kwaijitsu, seeing this, laughed out, ‘Ha! ha! There is no understanding you fellows,’ he exclaimed. ‘ You ought to be thinking of taking the heads of enemies instead of guarding the heads of your own people. This 1s an omen of the ruin of the military power. If you want the head you can have it.’ So saying, he flung the head of Kaito into the midst of the foe, and with downward-sweeping blows in the Okamoto style, cleared a space in all directions.” The next specimen of Kojima’s style is from an account of the arrest of Toshimoto, one of the Mikado Go Daigo’s principal advisers, on a charge of conspiracy against the Shogunate. “On the r1th day of the seventh month he was arrested and taken to Rokuwara [the residence of the Shégun’s representative at Kioto], and was despatched thence to the eastern provinces. He set out on his journey, well knowing that the law allowed no pardon for a second offence of this kind, and that whatever he might , plead in his defence he would not be released. Either he would be done away with on the journey, or he would be executed at Kamakura. No other end was possible.” 178 JAPANESE LITERATURE (Then, without any warning of type or otherwise, there follows a passage which in metre, diction, and sentiment is essentially poetry. It is not very original, however, much of it consisting of scraps of verse supplied by the author’s memory from older writers.) “ But one night more and a strange lodging would be hits, Lar from Kadono, where in spring his steps had often wandered in the snow of the fallen cherry-flowers ,; Far from Arashiyama, whence on an autumn eve he was wont to return Clad tn the brocade of the red maple leaves— Despondent, his mind could think of nothing but his home, bound to him by the strongest ties of love, And of his wife and children, whose future was dark to him. ‘For the last time, he thought, as he looked back on the ninefold Imperial city, For many a year his wonted habitation. How sad his heart must have been within him As he set out on this unlooked-for journey / His sleeve wet tn the fountain of the barrter of Osaka No barrier, alas! to stay hts sorrow— ‘He sets jorth over the mountain track to Uchide! no hama, When from the shore he cast his glance afar over the wave.” Here the author becomes so involved in ingenious punning combinations of the names of places on the route with the thread of his story that it is impossible to follow him in a translation. The following is one of the extraneous chapters of the Tatherkt. \t Cescr:bes in a very imaginative fashion the famous Mongol invasion of Japan by Kublai Khan in the thirtcenth century of our era. ‘““Poring over the records of ancient times, in the lei- sure afforced me by the three superfluous things [night, * winter, and rain], I find that since the Creation there have been seven invasions of Japan by foreign countries. The | 1 Ochide means “‘ to set forth,” and sama, “shore.” TAIHEIKI 179 most notable of these attacks were in the periods Bunyei (1264-1275) and Koan (1278-1288). At this time the Great Yuan Emperor [Kublai Khan] had conquered by force of arms the four hundred provinces of China. Heaven and earth were oppressed by his power. Hard would it have been for a small country like our own to repel him, and that it was able easily and without effort to destroy the armies of Great Yuan was due to naught else but the divine blessing. “The plan of this expedition was as follows: General Wan, the leader of the Yuan force, having estimated the area of the five metropolitan provinces of Japan at 3700 ri square, calculated that to fill this space with soldiers so as to leave no part of it unoccupied would require an army of 3,700,000 men. So he set forth from the various ports and bays with his troops embarked in a fleet of more than 70,000 great ships. Our Government, having had previous information of this design, ordered pre- parations to be made. The forces of Shikoku and Kiushiu were directed to assemble in all haste at Hakata, _in-Tsukushi; those of the western provinces of the main island hurried to the capital; while the men of Tosando and of the northern provinces occupied the port of Tsu- ruga, in Echizen. “Thereupon the warships of Great Yuan, 70,000 in number, arrived together at the port of Hakata on the third day of the eighth month of the second year of Bunyei (1265). Their great vessels were lashed together, and gangways laid across from one to another. Every division was surrounded by screens of oilcloth; their weapons were set up in regular array. From the Goto Islands eastward as far as Hakata the sea was enclosed on all sides for 4oo ri, a of and sudden became dry land. 180 JAPANESE LITERATURE One wondered whether a sea-serpent vapour had not — been belched out and formed a mirage. “On the Japanese side a camp was constructed ex- tending for thirteen ri along the beach of Hakata. A high stone embankment formed its front, precipitous on the side of the enemy, but so arranged in the rear as to allow free movement for our troops. In the shelter of this, plastered walls were erected, and .barracks constructed, in which several tens of thousands of men were lodged in due order. It was thought that in this way the enemy would be unable to ascertain our numbers, But on the bows of the hostile ships, beams like those used for rais- — ing water from wells were set up to a height of several hundred feet, at the ends of which platforms were placed. Men seated on these were able to look down into the Japanese camp and count every hair’s end. Moreover, they chained together planks forty or fifty feet wide so as to form a sort of rafts, which, when laid on the surface of the water, provided a number of level roads over the waves, like the three great thoroughfares or the twelve main streets [of Kidto]. By these roads the enemy’s cavalry appeared in many tens of thousands, and fought so desperately that our troops relaxed their. ardour, and many of them had thoughts of retreat.