Matsya

“ And Dhananjaya who hath not a bowman equal unto him on earth in prowess, now passeth his days in singing, surrounded by women. Beholding that son of Pritha who in virtue, heroism and truth, was the most admired in the world, now living in the guise of a woman, my heart is afflicted with sorrow. When I behold, the godlike Partha in the music-hall like an elephant with rent temples surrounded by she-elephants in the midst of females, waiting before Virata the king of the Matsyas, then I lose all sense of directions. ”

“ We were met on our arrival by a crowd of Matsuo’s relatives, all in ceremonial dress, for we had brought the sacred ashes with us; and from then until the forty-nine days of ceremonies for the dead were over, I was treated as an honoured messenger-guest. After that my position was very humble, for a son’s widow is an unimportant person in Japan, and, virtually, that is what I was, Matsuo having been, until he decided to remain in America, the adopted son of Uncle Otani. ”

“ The following drama, one of the most popular in Japanese literature, tells the story of one heroic incident in the scattering of the Sugawara family, and of the rescue of Lady Sugawara, and the loyalty of Matsuo and O Chiyo, his wife, vassals of the Sugawara.
Matsuo, the better to serve his lord's cause, feigns to be unfaithful to him and to go over to the enemy—in fact, he acts the dangerous part of a spy. The Fujiwara Minister is completely deceived and, enlisting his aid, reveals to Matsuo his secret plans for the final overthrow of the exiled Sugawara and the murder of his son. ”

“ A deep male chant is heard, and the women respond. Many songs follow, until the night is waning. Then this seeming witchcraft ends, and with merry laughter and soft chatting all disperse.
Hearn spends a long happy day at Matsue, the chief city of the Province of the Gods, where he gathers legends and impressions. Of course it has its temples. The temple is the best place to see the life of the people. There it is that the children play all day long. In the summer evening, the young artisans and labourers prove their strength in wrestling-matches. ”

“ It would be foolish to forget our own child's welfare for the sake of exiles banished by the State. You may say it is against reason and righteousness, but I do it for the sake of my boy—there is no treasure more precious than a son."
"Oh! oh!" sobbed O Chiyo, "how heartless you are! If you think so much of your own boy, Lady Sugawara's feelings must be the same for her son. To attain your ambition at the expense of others, sorrow can bring you no good. Your life will end in sorrow and misery as the result of such a deed."
Matsuo became more incensed, and sternly bade his wife be silent. ”

“ And although a single spark and a high wind are sufficient in combination to obliterate a larger city in one day, great fires are unknown in Matsue, and small ones are of rare occurrence.
The charm is peculiar to the city; and of the Inari in question this tradition exists:
When Naomasu, the grandson of Iyeyasu, first came to Matsue to rule the province, there entered into his presence a beautiful boy, who said: 'I came hither from the home of your august father in Echizen, to protect you from all harm. But I have no dwelling-place, and am staying therefore at the Buddhist temple of Fu-mon-in. ”

“ However great your ambition for promotion may be, to betray the wife and child of our Lord Sugawara into the hands of Tokihira is impossible. Are you a devil or a dragon? The punishment for such baseness will fall not only on yourself, but on your child. Oh! purify your heart from this evil intention, and conduct the Lady Sugawara and her son safely to the ex-Prime Minister in Tsukushi, [4] I implore you!" and the distraught woman lifted her hands in an attitude of prayer to her husband, while the tears coursed down her cheeks.
But, unmoved by her appeal, Matsuo still laughed contemptuously. ”

“ Lady Sugawara and O Chiyo dared not look at him. Both began to sob, covering their faces with their sleeves.
"Do not give way to weakness," at last Matsuo forced himself to say, sternly. "If we spend our time thus, everything will be lost. Look, the dawn is beginning to break. Get ready to take Kotaro to Takebe's house immediately. Quick, quick!"
"Yes, yes," assented the mother, with a sinking heart, and she slowly rose to her feet, taking Kotaro by the hand. She knew that this was the end. Her boy's doom was at hand and his hours were numbered. ”

“ King M'tesa was himself not only a slave-trader but a slave-raider. He sent his fierce gangs of warriors out to raid a tribe away in the hills to the north. They would dash into a village, slay the men, and drag the boys and girls and women back to M'tesa as slaves. The bronze-skinned boy, Lugalama, was a young slave who had been captured on one of these bloodthirsty raids. And M'tesa, who often sent out his executioners to slay his own people by the hundred to please the dreaded and horrible god of small-pox, would also sell his people by the hundred to get guns for his soldiers. ”

“ For to see the sun sink from this sobaya is one of the delights of Matsue.
There are no such sunsets in Japan as in the tropics: the light is gentle as a light of dreams; there are no furies of colour; there are no chromatic violences in nature in this Orient. All in sea or sky is tint rather than colour, and tint vapour-toned. I think that the exquisite taste of the race in the matter of colours and of tints, as exemplified in the dyes of their wonderful textures, is largely attributable to the sober and delicate beauty of nature's tones in this all-temperate world where nothing is garish. ”

“ The spontaneous [Pg 9] growth of great movements and the mystery of the source of genius are illustrated in the career of Matahei. His environment fitted him to follow in the footsteps of his master, Mitsunori of Tosa. Yet the city of Kyoto, veiled in mystic sanctity, where religion and princely patronage held art in conventional shackles, gave birth to the leader of the Popular School. Still, was not Kyoto, the sacred heart of Japan, a fit cradle for Ukiyo-ye, the life and soul of the Japanese people? ”

“ At one time, for several evenings in succession, business detained Matsuo until a late hour. I was not well and Mother objected to my sitting up to await his return. This troubled me greatly; for in Japan it is considered lazy and disgraceful for a wife to sleep while her husband is working. Night after night I lay with wide-open eyes, wondering whom it was my duty to obey–my far-away mother who knew Japanese customs, or the honoured new mother, who was teaching me the ways of America. ”

“ He called to her sharply, commandingly, and yet with a world of pleading emotion. Matsuda, hovering near, turned and looked loweringly at the girl on the ground. Her face was humbly in the dust at the feet of the Lord Saito Gonji. It was a position unworthy of a geisha, and Matsuda moved furiously nearer to them. This was the work of the Okusama, inwardly he fumed. Now when the geisha was put to the greatest test she was found wanting. At the feet of the man when he should have knelt at hers. ”

“ I can use my eyes. Every one laments, every one complains, but why are they all so worthless? Why do they lie, and rob one another? Why are they so greedy for a scrap of bread? Ha! ha! First the sin is committed, then it's 'O Lord, have mercy!' I see through you, you liars, you devils! you lie to yourselves, and you lie to your God."
Matiza said nothing, but looked at him with her mouth open, and her neck outstretched, and an expression of dull-witted astonishment in her eyes. Ilya strode to the door, drew back the bolt with a jerk and went out slamming the door to behind him. ”

“ These recollections flooded my mind as I sat stitching on dainty, wee garments into every one of which I breathed a prayer that my baby might be a boy. I wanted a son, not only because every Japanese family believes it most desirable that the name should be carried on without adoption, but also for the selfish reason that both Matsuo’s family and my own would look upon me with more pride were I the mother of a son. Neither Matsuo nor I had, to any great extent, the feeling that woman is inferior to man, which has been so common a belief among all classes in Japan ”

“ But the Kamiya family endures; no longer wealthy, as in feudal times, but still highly honoured in their native city. And each high pontiff of Hinomisakei chooses always his bride from among the daughters of that valiant race.
NOTE.—The Kengyo of the above tradition was enshrined by Matsudaira in the temple of Shiyekei-jinja, at Oyama, near Matsue. This miya was built for an atonement; and the people still pray to the spirit of the Kengyo. Near this temple formerly stood a very popular theatre, also erected by the Daimyo in his earnest desire to appease the soul of his victim ”

“ O Chiyo followed, and kneeling, placed over Kotaro the white shroud and the sacred banner.
Matsuo and his wife then took off their outer robes, revealing the white garments of ceremonial mourning in readiness for the obsequies. Takebe and his wife made a gesture of surprise and deprecation.
"It is against custom that parents should attend the funeral of their own son. Let us spare you this trial—we will do everything in your place!" they cried.
"No, no," said Matsuo, loyal unto death, even the death of his only son for the sake of his lord, "this is not the body of my boy. ”

“ THE SHADOW OF A TO-MORROW Nikko's thin street, with its gigantic isle of cryptomeria, was a shimmer of gold, a flicker of crimson and mandarin-blue. All the town was out of doors, for it was the matsuri, the local festival of Ieyasu, the great shogun deity, when the ancient furniture and treasures of the temple are carried in priestly processional through the streets. The path of the pageant was lined with spectators: old country-women with shaven eyebrows and burnished, blackened teeth, and with hair tightly plastered in old-fashioned wheels and pinions ”

“ In answer, an ill-favoured, pock-marked boy ran out, his face covered with smudges of Indian ink.
Matsuo glanced at him.
"The difference is as great as between snow and charcoal. He may go!" In turn, all the rest of the pupils were searchingly inspected, but not one bore the slightest resemblance to the ill-fated Kanshusai. When the pacified villagers had carried away all their offspring in triumph, Gemba and Matsuo entered the schoolmaster's house.
"Genzo!" began Gemba, in tones of authority, "you promised to behead the young Sugawara—I will receive that head now!" ”

“ This made us realize what a little American we had in our Japanese nest, and brought directly before us one of the great problems of Japan.
“If our daughter were a boy,” Matsuo said that night, “we might have reason to look serious. I should not want to prepare my son to live in a country where, if capable, he would not be welcome to occupy the highest position his country has to offer its citizens.” ”

“ And hear my words,—Mitsha also is good; as good as her father is bad, as wise as her mother is foolish. Even if Okoya had found the feathers, and had told makatza of it, she would keep it to herself, and the secret would lie buried within her heart as deep as if it rested beneath the nethermost rock on which the Tetilla stands. And in the end let me tell you,"—she raised her head defiantly and her eyes flashed,—"if Okoya likes the girl and she wants him, they are sure to come together. You cannot prevent it; neither can Tyope, the tapop, the Hotshanyi,—not even the whole tribe! ”

“ When Matshaka left the mission for his home the rain had cleared off; the steep, green slopes of the Intsiza shone in the sunlight, and foaming cataracts shot down the gleaming crags. In his eyes was a new-born light, and his heart was the home of a virginal peace from whose gentle face the spirits of wrath had fled away—never to return.
Three Probably no more villainous and unmitigated fraud than the Kafir “isanuse” or witch-doctor cumbers the earth. Pretending to the faculty of divination, he trains his powers of observation and memory to an extraordinary extent. ”

“ When Matsue's parents died her loss only seemed to make her love Teoyo the more. The older they grew the more they loved each other. Every night, when the moon shone, they went hand in hand to the pine-tree, and with their little rakes they made a couch for the morrow.
One night the great silver face of the moon peered through the branches of the pine-tree and looked in vain for the old lovers sitting together on a couch of pine-needles. Their little rakes lay side by side, and still the moon waited for the slow and stumbling steps of the Pine-Tree Lovers. But that night they did not come. ”

“ Matsuo said that they had been designed by Americans, in shapes suitable for use in this country, then made to order in Japanese factories and shipped direct to America, without having been seen in Japan outside the factory. That troubled me, but Matsuo shrugged his shoulders.
“As long as Americans want them, design them, order them, and are satisfied, there will be merchants to supply,” he said.
“But they are not Japanese things.”
“No,” he replied. “But genuine things do not sell. People think they are too frail and not gay enough.” Then he added slowly, “The only remedy is in education ”

“ One day, while Matsue was sitting under the pine-tree, she sang the following song:
"No man so callous but he heaves a sigh
When o'er his head the withered cherry flowers
Come fluttering down. Who knows? the Spring's soft showers
May be but tears shed by the sorrowing sky."
While she thus sang Teoyo stood on the steep shore of Sumiyoshi watching the flight of a heron. Up, up [Pg 188] it went into the blue sky, and Teoyo saw it fly over the village where the fisherfolk and their daughter lived. ”