Momotarō

“ Often she listens, half asleep, while cuddling under the warm [33] quilted cover of the kotatsu, [6] in the cold winter evenings, to the drowsy voice of the old grandmother or nurse, who carries her away on the wings of imagination to the wonderful palace of the sea gods, or to the haunts of the terrible oni, monsters with red, distorted faces and fearful horns. Momotaro, the Peach Boy, with his wonderful feats in the conquest of the oni, is her hero, until he is supplanted by the more real ones of Japanese history. ”

“ The very babe just beginning to toddle is taught to lisp the adventures of Momotaro, the daring conqueror of ogre-land. Even girls are so imbued with the love of knightly deeds and virtues that, like Desdemona, they would seriously incline to devour with greedy ear the romance of the samurai. ”

“ You may go if you wish. Go to the island as soon as ever you like and destroy the demons and bring peace to the land.”
“Thank you, for all your kindness,” said Momotaro, who began to get ready to go that very day. He was full of courage and did not know what fear was.
The old man and woman at once set to work to pound rice in the kitchen mortar to make cakes for Momotaro to take with him on his journey.
At last the cakes were made and Momotaro was ready to start on his long journey.
Parting is always sad. ”

“ Momotaro, “the elder son of the peach”, as they called him, grew up to be a strong and valiant young man, who performed feats of strength that caused everyone to wonder at him.
There came a day when, to the sorrow of his foster-parents, he announced that he had resolved to leave home and go to the Isle of Demons, with purpose to secure a portion of their treasure. This seemed to be a perilous undertaking, and the old couple attempted to make him change his mind. Momotaro, however, laughed at their fears, and said: “Please make some millet dumplings for me. I shall need food for my journey.” ”

“ The pheasant cleverly evaded the missiles, and flew at the heads of many ogres.
In the meantime Momotaro had landed with his two companions. He had no sooner done so than he saw two beautiful damsels weeping by a stream, as they wrung out blood-soaked garments.
"Oh!" said they pitifully, "we are daughters of daimyos, and are now the captives of the Demon King of this dreadful island. Soon he will kill us, and alas! [294] there is no one to come to our aid." Having made these plaints the women wept anew.
"Ladies," said Momotaro, "I have come for the purpose of slaying your wicked enemies. ”

“ The [Pg 59] making of a great hero stirred in his veins, and it was a knightly heroism that desired to right the wrong.
Momotaro and the Pheasant.
One day Momotaro came to his foster-father and asked him if he would allow him to take a long journey to a certain island in the North-Eastern Sea where dwelt a number of devils, who had captured a great company of innocent people, many of whom they ate. Their wickedness was beyond description, and Momotaro desired to kill them, rescue the unfortunate captives, and bring back the plunder of the island that he might share it with his foster-parents. ”

“ When Taro and Ito went home that night with their kites, they were glad to sit down and rest, for they had been running about until they were quite tired. When they had eaten their suppers of rice from their little brown bowls of lacquer, they begged their grandmother to tell them a story, and she told them the famous old story of Momotaro, beloved of every child in Japan. And this is what she told them: Once upon a time an old man and an old woman lived near a river at the foot of a mountain. ”

“ He even laughed at the oni, who, were demons living in the clouds or on lonely islands in the sea. Momotarō was also very kind to birds and animals, so that they were very tame, and became his friends, knew him and called him by name.
Now there was an island far out in the ocean, inhabited by onis with horns in their heads, and big sharp tusks in their mouths, who ravaged the shores of Japan and ate [Pg 65] up the people. In the centre of the island was the giant Oni's castle, built inside a great cave which was full of all kinds of treasures such as every one wants. ”

“ Momotaro’s fight for the treasure, including the cloak of invisibility, bears a close resemblance to Siegfried’s fight for the treasure of the Nibelungs.29 In western European, as in Far Eastern lore, the treasure is guarded by dragons as well as by dwarfs and giants and other demons. When the dragon-slayer is not accompanied by friendly animals, he receives help and advice from birds whose language he acquires by eating a part of the dragon, or, as in the Egyptian tale, after getting possession of the book of spells, guarded by the “Deathless Snake”. ”

“ Here one day, whilst the sun shone on the little lake and the pink and copper maples, the tiny islands and bridges and pagodas, Campanula, weary of play, told, [pg 65] in a sing-song voice and broken manner, the story of Momotaro, otherwise called Peachboy, and his wonderful deeds. She told it standing before them, and striking attitudes suitable to the phases of the tale.
One day, it appears, an old woman found a huge peach, and she was just going to cut it in two with a knife when the peach broke open, and out tumbled a baby. ”

“ Motoöri's religion is frankly anthropomorphic, as indeed it could hardly fail to be if he attached any credence to the statements in the Kojiki. He says in so many words that the Shinto deities had hands and legs. When pressed with the obvious inconsistencies which are involved in this belief, Motoöri has nothing better to say than they are "a proof of the authenticity of the record, for who would have gone out of his way to invent a story so ridiculous and improbable, if it were not true. [Credo quia impossibile.] The acts of the gods are not to be explained by ordinary principles. ”

“ The main bent of the Japanese mind is in the same direction. But there is evidence in both countries of a contrary current of thought. Here, too, there are men born with a craving which refuses to be satisfied with abstractions in the place of a personal God (or gods) to whom they can look up as the Creator and Ruler of the universe, and as exercising a providential care over mankind. Motoöri was one of these. ”

“ Strictly, it should have been nothing to Miss Matilda that Motauri looked most distractingly like a young woodland god, with a skin the exact shade of new heather honey, the ringlets of a faun, the features of a Roman cameo and the build of a Greek athlete.
Being a chief in the flower valley of Wailoa meant that Motauri owned a stated number of cocoanut-trees and never had to do anything except to swim and to laugh, to chase the rainbow-fish a fathom deep and to play divinely on the nose-flute. ”

“ Other works of Motoöri's are his edition of the Kokinshiu already noticed; the Iso no Kami Shishukugen, a treatise on poetry; the Gio-jin Gai-gen, an attack on the Chinese philosophy; the Tama no Ogushi, a valuable critical and exegetical work on the Genji Monogatari; the Kenkiōjin ("The Madman Fettered") , a controversial work written in reply to hostile criticisms of the sacred Shinto books; the Kuzuhana, composed in answer to a similar attack by a scholar named Ichikawa Tatsumaro ”

“ Now this is my will, Mopo, my servant: that thou shouldst take with thee a few men only and go gently to this Bulalio, and say to him: ‘A greater Elephant stalks through the land than he who has gone to sleep, and it has come to his ears—that thou, Chief of the People of the Axe, dost pay no tribute, and hast said that, because of the death of a certain Mopo, thou wilt have nothing to do with him whose shadow lies upon the land. ”

“ There is food for reflection in the fact that it was possible for a man of high intelligence and vast learning like Motoöri, not unacquainted with the philosophy and religions of India and China, to accept these childish fables as the basis of his faith. ”

“ Motoöri defines oni as ashiki kami, or "evil deity." He condemns their identification by the Wamiôshô with the spirits of the dead. There is a story of a tenth-century hero who cut off the arm of an oni and brought it home with him, but was tricked out of it by the owner, who came to his house in the disguise of an old woman.
The oni have red faces, hairy persons, horns, and sometimes only one eye. They are said to devour men. The modern ideas respecting them are mostly borrowed from Buddhist sources. ”

“ I think that thy sorrows are avenged, O King, thy sorrows and mine also.”
“Not so, Mopo,” answered the king, “this is but the beginning; our mourning was merry to-day, it shall be merrier to-morrow.”
“To-morrow, O King, few will be left to mourn; for the land will be swept of men.”
“Why, Mopo, son of Makedama? But a few have perished of all the thousands who are gathered together. Number the people and they will not be missed.”
“But a few have died beneath the assegai and the kerrie, O King. Yet hunger and thirst shall finish the spear’s work. ”

“ But Momotari remained at the arsenal of Woharida, where he transported arms to Afumi. Now when the soldiery in camp heard Kuma's outcry, they every one dispersed and ran away, and Wofukehi, Ohotomo no Muraji, with some tens of mounted troops arrived in hot haste. Kumage and the Atahe fraternized with him, and the soldiers also followed. So, saying that it was by command of the Imperial Prince Takechi, they sent to the arsenal of Woharida and summoned Momotari, Hodzumi no Omi. Upon this Momotari mounted his horse and came in a leisurely way. ”

“ If the god dies, the Motombo dies. It is known from of old, and therefore the Motombo watches over the god as a mother over her child. Then, until a new god is found, the Mother of the Holy Flower rules, she who is merciful and will harm none, and I rule under her and will certainly put my enemies to death, especially that wizard Komba. ”

“ But whatever may be the case with philosophical notions, no man can evolve a God from his own inner consciousness. He must accept the God or gods which he finds already acknowledged, whether by his own or by other people's fathers. Motoöri's intensely patriotic temper compelled him to seek at home for the satisfaction of his inborn religious instincts. He turned naturally to Shinto. But in his time Shinto had fallen on evil days. ”

“ Also they would have got the consent of this Motombo beforehand. Clearly he is the master of the situation, not the Kalubi, who is only his tool; if business were meant he should have spoken first, always supposing that he exists and isn't a myth. However, if we live we shall learn, and if we don't, it doesn't matter, though personally I think we should be wise to leave Motombo alone and to clear out to Mazitu-land by the first canoe to-morrow morning."
"I intend to visit this Motombo," broke in Brother John with decision. ”

“ It began so long ago that only the Motombo knows of its beginning which he has from the gods. Once the Pongo people owned all this land and only had their sacred places beyond the water. Then your forefathers came and fell on them, killing many, enslaving many and taking their women to wife. Now, say the Motombo and the Kalubi, in the place of war let there be peace; where there is but barren sand, there let corn and flowers grow; let the darkness, wherein men lose their way and die, be changed to pleasant light in which they can sit in the sun holding each other's hands. ”

“ All foreign students have felt the charm of his lucid and flowing style. But it is marred by one terrible fault, prolixity. This is partly inseparable from Motoöri's purism, which leads him to reject many useful and thoroughly naturalised Chinese words in favour of Japanese forms of expression, however circuitous, and is partly owing to an inveterate habit which he has of repeating himself, especially when an opportunity offers of denouncing Chinese proclivities or of magnifying the merits of Shinto. ”

“ The king, however, did not share his pleasure at all, but called up a soldier to shoot the tiger, much to the relief of all the inmates of the serai except Moti. If the king, however, was before convinced that Moti was one of the wisest of men, he was now still more convinced that he was the bravest, and he increased his pay a hundredfold, so that our hero thought that he was the luckiest of men. ”

“ For though you are old you must die at last, Motombo.”
“It is true,” said the Motombo. “Did I not tell you that he was full of cunning? All the gods will be avenged upon those who kill ambassadors or their servants. That”—here he laughed again in his dreadful way—“is the rights of the gods alone. Let the gods of the Pongo settle it.”
I uttered a sigh of relief, and he went on in a new voice, a dull, business-like voice if I may so describe it:
“Say, O Kalubi, on what matter have you brought these white men to speak with me, the Mouth of the god? ”

“ He wrote a letter to the Princess Momo-zono (peach-gardens) . He had known her long. He admired her, too. She had been a spectator, with her father, on the day of the consecration of the Saiin, and was one of those to whom the appearance of Genji was most welcome. In his letter he stated that she might have a little sympathy with him in his sorrow, and he also sent with it the following:—
"Many an autumn have I past
In gloomy thought, but none I ween
Has been so mournful as the last,
Which rife with grief and change hath been." ”