The Tale of the Heike

By Helen Craig McCullough

The Tale of the Heike is one of the masterworks of Japanese literature, ranking with The Tal of Genji in quality and prestige. This new translation is not only far more readable than earlier ones, it is also much more faithful to the content and style of the original. Intended for the general audience as well as the specialist, this edition is highly annotated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 1990
• ISBN: 9781503620971

Book preview

Chapter 1

[

1] Gion Shōja

The sound of the Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the śāla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.

In a distant land, there are the examples set by Zhao Gao of Qin, Wang Mang of Han, Zhu Yi of Liang, and Lushan of Tang, all of them men who prospered after refusing to be governed by their former lords and sovereigns, but who met swift destruction because they disregarded admonitions, failed to recognize approaching turmoil, and ignored the nation’s distress. Closer to home, there have been Masakado of Shōhei, Sumitomo of Tengyō, Yoshichika of Kōwa, and Nobuyori of Heiji, every one of them proud and mighty. But closest of all, and utterly beyond the power of mind to comprehend or tongue to relate, is the tale of Taira no Ason Kiyomori, the Rokuhara Buddhist Novice and Former Chancellor.

Kiyomori was the oldest son and heir of Punishments Minister Tadamori. He was a grandson of the Sanuki Governor Masamori, who was a descendant in the ninth generation from Prince Kazurahara of First Rank, the Minister of Ceremonial and fifth son of Emperor Kanmu. Prince Kazurahara’s son, Prince Takami, died without office or rank. The clan received the Taira surname in the time of Prince Takami’s son, Prince Takamochi, who left the imperial clan to become a subject soon after he was named Vice-Governor of Kazusa Province. Prince Takamochi’s son was the Defense Garrison Commander Yoshimochi, who changed his name to Kunika in later life. During the six generations from Kunika to Masamori, members of the clan held provincial governorships but were not permitted to have their names on the duty-board in the Courtiers’ Hall.

[

2] The Night Attack at the Courtiers’ Hall

But Tadamori, during his term as Bizen Governor, built a Buddhist hall thirty-three bays long, enshrined therein a thousand and one holy images, and offered it in fulfillment of Retired Emperor Toba’s vow to found a temple, the Tokujōjuin. The dedication took place on the Thirteenth of the Third Month in the first year of Tenshō. Orders were issued to reward Tadamori with a province, and Tajima, which happened to be available, was given to him. The delighted Retired Emperor also granted him courtier privileges at the imperial palace. Tadamori set foot in the Courtiers’ Hall for the first time at the age of thirty-six.

Angered by those marks of favor, the courtiers and senior nobles conspired to attack Tadamori under cover of darkness on the night of the Gosechi Flushed Faces Banquet, which was to be held on the Twenty-Third of the Twelfth Month in that same year. But Tadamori made preparations of his own on hearing of the plot. I am not a civil functionary, he thought. I belong to a warrior house. It would be a grief to my family and to me if I let myself be humiliated through lack of foresight. Besides, the book says, ‘Take care of yourself so you can serve your master.’

When Tadamori entered the palace, he brought along a large dagger, thrust loosely under his court robes. Turning toward a spot where the lamplight was dim, he drew the weapon with deliberation and held it alongside his head, its blade gleaming like ice. None of those present failed to mark the act. Furthermore, his retainer Sahyōe-no-jō Iesada came and sat at attention in the small side garden, dressed in a green-laced corselet under a pale green hunting robe, with a sword and an attached bowstring bag under his arm. Iesada was a son of Shinnosaburō Dayū Suefusa and a grandson of Assistant Director of the Carpentry Bureau Sadamitsu, who had been a member of the Taira clan.

In great perturbation, the Head Chamberlain and his staff sent a Chamberlain of Sixth Rank to rebuke Iesada. Who is this person in an unfigured hunting robe waiting beyond the rainspout near the bell pull? You are misbehaving. Get out of there!

Iesada kept his seat. I have been told that my hereditary lord, the honorable Governor of Bizen, is to be cut down in the dark tonight. I am here to witness his fate; I cannot leave. Perhaps the conspirators lost heart, for there was no attack that night.

Later during the same occasion, when it was Tadamori’s turn to dance as part of the informal entertainment, the gentlemen put new words to a song, chanting, The Ise wine bottles are vinegar jars. Although the Taira were descended from the great Emperor Kanmu, they had not frequented the capital in the recent past, but had become jige with roots in Ise Province. Thus the singers chanted of Ise bottles, punning on a kind of vessel produced in that province. And because Tadamori suffered from a squint, they introduced the second pun.* Since Tadamori had no means of retaliation, he decided to slip away before the affair ended. He went to the north corner of the Shishinden, and there, within sight of the other courtiers, he called over a woman from the Bureau of Grounds and put the dagger in her charge. Then he left.

How did things go? Iesada asked. Tadamori wanted to tell him the truth, but Iesada was the kind of man who would leap into the Courtiers’ Hall itself, slashing and cutting, if he were to hear such a story, so he replied, Nothing much happened.

People are expected to confine themselves to amusing trifles like White tissue paper, deep-dyed paper, corded brushes, and lacquered brushes during the singing and dancing at Gosechi entertainments. In the relatively recent past, to be sure, there had been an incident involving the Dazaifu Provisional Governor-General Suenaka, whose swarthy complexion had caused him to be nicknamed the Black Governor. Suenaka had danced at a Gosechi party during his tenure as Head Chamberlain, and the singers had improvised, Ah, black, black, black is the head! Who applied the lacquer?* There had also been the case of the Kazan’in Former Chancellor Tadamasa. Orphaned at ten by the death of his father, Middle Counselor Tadamune, Tadamasa had been taken as a son-in-law and maintained in luxury by the late Naka-no-mikado Middle Counselor, Fujiwara no lenari, who was then Governor of Harima Province. When Tadamasa danced during the Gosechi festivities, the singers chanted, "Can the Harima rice be a scouring rush or a muku leaf? Ah, how it polishes up the wardrobe!"† Nothing had come of such affairs, people remarked now—but who could tell what might happen in these latter days of the Law?‡ It was a worrisome business.

As was to have been anticipated, all the courtiers presented complaints after the Gosechi ceremonies ended. Rules and regulations are supposed to determine who may wear a weapon to an official banquet, and who may go in and out of the palace accompanied by Escorts, they said. It has always been accepted that neither may be done without explicit imperial authorization. But Tadamori stationed a warrior wearing a hunting robe at the small garden outside the Courtiers’ Hall, on the pretext that the man was a hereditary retainer, and he also attended a formal banquet with a weapon at his waist. Both actions were unprecedented breaches of conduct. A person who commits a double offense must not escape punishment. Tadamori must have his name removed from the duty-board and lose his official position at once.

In great surprise, the Retired Emperor summoned Tadamori for questioning. To begin with, Tadamori explained, I had no idea that my retainer had posted himself in the small garden. But it has seemed recently that there has been some kind of plot against me. Iesada has been in my service for many years; he must have heard about it and gone there without my knowledge, in the hope of sparing me embarrassment. That is not something I could have done anything about. If Iesada deserves censure, shall I call him in and turn him over to you? Next, as regards the dagger, I gave it to one of the servants from the Bureau of Grounds to keep for me. Before judgment is rendered, would it not be well to summon the woman and see whether it is a real weapon?

The Retired Emperor found the suggestion reasonable; he called for the dagger and inspected it. The scabbard was of black lacquer, but the blade proved to be silver foil over wood.

He wanted to avoid humiliation, so he made a show of carrying a dagger, the Retired Emperor said. But he wore a wooden blade because he knew there would be complaints later. That is a sign of admirable resourcefulness—precisely what one would desire in a warrior. His retainer’s foray into the garden was the kind of thing warriors’ retainers do. Tadamori is not to blame for it. In view of his evident approval, there was no more talk of punishment.

[

3] The Sea Bass

Tadamori’s sons became Assistant Commanders in the guards divisions, and there was no longer any possibility of ostracism when they were granted courtier privileges.

In those days, Retired Emperor Toba once said to Tadamori, who had just come up from Bizen Province, Tell me about Akashi Beach. Tadamori replied with a poem:

The Retired Emperor was much impressed. That poem was included in the Collection of Golden Leaves.

Tadamori used to visit one of the Retired Emperor’s attendants, a lady whom he loved with all his heart. On a certain occasion, he inadvertently left her room without his fan, which bore on its edge a picture of a rising moon. Where has that moonlight come from? There is something odd about its source, the other ladies laughed. Tadamori’s mistress replied in verse:

Tadamori’s affection deepened after he heard about the incident. It was that lady who became the mother of the Satsuma Governor Tadanori. Like seeks like, as the saying goes. Tadamori had elegant tastes, and the lady-in-waiting was a woman of refinement.

Tadamori died at the age of fifty-eight, on the Fifteenth of the First Month in the third year of Ninpei, after having attained the office of Punishments Minister. His heir, Kiyomori, succeeded him.

Kiyomori was Governor of Aki until he was transferred to the governorship of Harima, a promotion granted in recognition of his services at the time of the disturbance instigated by the Uji Minister of the Left, during the Seventh Month of the first year of Hōgen. In the third year of Hōgen, he became Dazaifu Assistant Governor-General. Then, when Lord Nobuyori led a revolt in the Twelfth Month of the first year of Heiji, it was Kiyomori who subdued the rebels; and the authorities, concluding that his distinguished services deserved a commensurate reward, appointed him to Senior Third Rank in the First Month of the following year. He progressed through the offices of Consultant, Guards Commander, Police Superintendent, Middle Counselor, and Major Counselor, one after another, until he reached the eminence of Minister of State. He rose from Palace Minister to Chancellor of Junior First Rank without having served as Minister of the Left or Right. Although he was not a Major Captain, an imperial edict authorized him to employ Escorts; and he received imperial permission to ride in and out of the palace in ox-drawn and hand-drawn carriages, just like a Regent.

The statute says, The Chancellor acts as preceptor for the Emperor and as exemplar for the Four Seas. He keeps the state in order, inculcates moral principles, and holds sway over the yin and the yang. The post is to remain vacant if there is no qualified person to fill it. That is why the chancellorship is sometimes called the vacancy office: it is a position to be kept inviolate if there is no worthy candidate. But Kiyomori held the whole country in the palm of his hand, and objections were futile.

People said the Heike prosperity was due to the divine favor of the Kumano gods. Once long ago, it seems, while Kiyomori was still Governor of Aki Province, a huge sea bass leaped into his boat while he was making a pilgrimage from Ise Bay to Kumano. That is a sign of favor from our gods. Eat it at once, said the ascetic who was accompanying the party. I have heard that a white fish jumped into King Wu of Zhou’s boat in ancient days, Kiyomori said. This is an auspicious event. Although it was a time for dietary abstinence and strict observance of the Ten Prohibitions, he prepared the fish and fed parts of it to all his kinsmen and samurai. Perhaps that is why he was blessed by one stroke of luck after another, until he finally attained the lofty status of Chancellor. His sons and grandsons also rose in office faster than a dragon mounts the clouds. It was indeed cause for congratulation that he should have outstripped all of his kinsmen in the clan’s nine generations.

[

4] Page-Boy Cuts

Stricken by illness, Kiyomori suddenly took Buddhist vows to save his life on the Eleventh of the Eleventh Month in the third year of Nin’an, at the age of fifty-one. His religious name was Jōkai. Perhaps through divine response, the stubborn ailment disappeared overnight and he was spared. Other men obeyed his commands as grass bends before wind; people everywhere looked to him for aid as soil welcomes moistening rain. Not even a scion of a ministerial house could stand face to face or shoulder to shoulder with the gentleman from Rokuhara. All who do not belong to this clan must rank as less than men, said Kiyomori’s brother-in-law, the Taira Major Counselor Tokitada. And thus people of every description schemed to establish ties with the clan. To associate Rokuhara with any style—even the draping of a robe or the crease in a cap—was enough to ensure universal imitation.

Now it is always the case, no matter how wisely an Emperor may reign or a Regent may administer, that derelicts and good-for-nothings will go out of their way to utter covert slanders and criticisms. But there was no loose talk while Kiyomori was at the height of his power. And this was the way of it. Kiyomori had hit on the notion of recruiting three hundred messenger boys, from fourteen to sixteen years of age, whom he sent ranging over the city in page-boy haircuts and red hitatare. If anyone chanced to speak against the Heike, nothing happened if none of those youths heard him. Otherwise, the boy would alert his comrades, and a gang of them would burst into the person’s house, confiscate his belongings, and march him off under arrest to Rokuhara. So people did not discuss the Heike, regardless of what they might see or know. The very words the Rokuhara Lord’s page-boy cuts were enough to make horsemen and carriages swerve from their paths. There was no question of demanding a boy’s name if he went in and out of the imperial palace gates; the officials seemed to avert their eyes.

[

5] Kiyomori’s Flowering Fortunes

Not only did Kiyomori himself attain the pinnacle of worldly success, but his entire family shared his prosperity. His oldest son, Shigemori, was Palace Minister and Major Captain of the Left; his second son, Munemori, was a Middle Counselor and Major Captain of the Right; his third son, Tomomori, was a Middle Captain of Third Rank; and his grandson, Shigemori’s heir Koremori, was a Lesser Captain of Fourth Rank. Sixteen Taira ranked as senior nobles, more than thirty were courtiers, and more than sixty held appointments as provincial Governors, guards officers, or members of the central bureaucracy. It was as though there were no other people in the world.

There had been only three or four cases of brothers serving simultaneously as Major Captains in all the years since the establishment of the office in Emperor Shōmu’s reign, during the fifth year of Jinki. (The original title was Major Captain of the Middle Guards, but the name Middle Guards was changed to Bodyguards in the fourth year of Daidō.) Namely:

During the reign of Emperor Montoku, Yoshifusa was Minister of the Right-Major Captain of the Left and Yoshisuke was Major Counselor-Major Captain of the Right. They were sons of the Kan’in Minister of the Left Fuyutsugi.

During the reign of Emperor Suzaku, the Ononomiya Lord Saneyori was Major Captain of the Left and the Kujō Lord Morosuke was Major Captain of the Right. They were sons of Tadahira.

During the reign of Emperor Go-Reizei, the Senior Nijō Lord Norimichi was Major Captain of the Left and the Horikawa Lord Yorimune was Major Captain of the Right. They were sons of Michinaga.

During the reign of Emperor Nijō, the Matsudono Lord Motofusa was Major Captain of the Left and the Tsukiwadono Lord Kanezane was Major Captain of the Right. They were sons of Tadamichi.

All those men were scions of regental houses; there was no precedent for conferring such appointments on brothers from other families.

Even in these latter days of the Law, it could only be accounted bizarre that descendants of Tadamori, a man whose very presence in the Courtiers’ Hall had provoked resentment, should be granted permission to wear forbidden colors and informal attire, deck themselves out in damask, gauze, brocade, and embroidery, combine the offices of Minister of State and Major Captain—and, as brothers, hold major captaincies at the same time.

In addition to his sons, Kiyomori had eight daughters, all of whom made good marriages. It had been intended that one of them should become the principal wife of the Sakuramachi Middle Counselor Shigenori, but the engagement, contracted when the girl was eight, had been broken off after the Heiji Disturbance, and she became the principal wife of the Kazan’in Minister of the Left Kanemasa, and the mother of many children. Shigenori, incidentally, possessed a fine eye for beauty and took special delight in the Yoshino cherry blossoms—so much so that he planted rows of flowering cherry trees in his grounds, constructed a building in their midst, and went to live there. The people who viewed the flowers every spring called the place Sakuramachi [Cherry-Blossom Quarter], which is how he came to be known as the Sakuramachi Middle Counselor. Loath to see the flowers scatter after a mere seven days, he offered a petition to the Sun Goddess, and thereafter they stayed on the boughs for thrice seven days. The presence of a virtuous sovereign on the throne had inspired the goddess to display her powers; moreover, the flowers themselves possessed feelings. That is how they happened to last for twenty days.

Another daughter was an Empress. She bore a son who became Crown Prince and then Emperor, and thus she received the title Kenreimon’in. Since she was both Kiyomori’s daughter and the Emperor’s mother, nothing more need be said about her good fortune.

Another married the Rokujō Regent Motozane and, as surrogate mother to the sovereign during Emperor Takakura’s reign, received an edict granting her equality with the Three Empresses. She was a most influential lady, known as Shirakawadono.

Two others were the principal wives of the Fugenji Lord Motomichi and the Reizei Major Counselor Takafusa, and another married the Shichijō Master of the Palace Repairs Office Nobutaka. Still another, the offspring of a shrine attendant at Itsukushima in Aki Province, entered the palace of Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, where she enjoyed a status similar to a Junior Consort’s. And there was also a daughter—the child of Tokiwa, a maid in the Kujō Lady Teishi’s service—who became an upper-grade lady-in-waiting at Lord Kazan’in’s mansion. She was known as the Lady of the Gallery.

Since the Japanese islands contain only sixty-six provinces, the Heike controlled half of them with their more than thirty governorships. They also possessed innumerable private estates and agricultural fields. Their halls, thronged with damasks and gauzes, resembled flower gardens; their gates, congested with carriages and horses, were veritable marketplaces. They lacked none of the Seven Treasures or myriad precious things—Yangzhou gold, Jingzhou pearls, Wujun damask, Shujiang brocade. And as for the halls and pavilions where they danced and sang, and the trinkets with which they entertained themselves, it seemed there was no greater splendor to be found even in the palaces of the reigning sovereign and the Retired Emperor.

[

6] Giō

With the whole country in the palm of his hand, Kiyomori indulged in one freakish caprice after another, unabashed by the censure of society or the scorn of individuals. For example, in those days there lived in the capital two famous and accomplished shirabyōshi performers, sisters called Gio and Ginyo. They were the daughters of another shirabyōshi, Toji. Kiyomori took an extravagant fancy to the older one, Giō; and the younger, Ginyo, found herself a popular favorite as a result. He also built a fine house for the mother, Toji, installed her in it, and sent her five hundred bushels of rice and a hundred thousand coins every month. The family was thus exceedingly prosperous and fortunate.

(Now, the first shirabyōshi dances in our country were performed during the reign of Emperor Toba by two women called Shima-no-senzai and Waka-no-mai. In the beginning, the dancers dressed in men’s suikan overshirts and high caps and wore daggers with silver-decorated hilts and scabbards: their performances were thus called male dancing. In more recent times, they have worn only the overshirts, dispensing with the cap and dagger. The name shirabyōshi [white rhythm] comes from the color of the overshirts.)

News of Giō’s good fortune made some of the shirabyōshi in the capital envious and others spiteful. The envious ones said, Lucky Giō! What entertainer wouldn’t want to be exactly like her? It must be because she has used ‘Gi’ in her name; I’ll do that, too. One called herself Giichi, another Gini, another Gifuku, another Gitoku, and so forth. The many spiteful ones kept their own names. What difference could a name or part of a name make? they sniffed. Good fortune is something a person is born with from a previous existence.

After things had gone on in that way for three years, another renowned shirabyōshi appeared in the capital from Kaga Province. Her name was Hotoke, her age sixteen. High and low in the city praised her to the skies. "There have been many shirabyōshi from the old days on, but never have we witnessed such dancing," people said.

However well known I may be, it is disappointing that I have received no summons from the Taira Chancellor-Novice, the greatest man of the day, Hotoke thought. What is to keep me from offering my services according to the usual custom of entertainers? She went to Kiyomori’s Nishihachijō house one day.

Hotoke, the dancer the capital is talking about nowadays, has come here, one of the household reported.

"What is this? Entertainers like her are not supposed to present themselves without being summoned. What makes her think she can simply show up like this? Besides, god or Buddha,* she has no business coming to a place where Giō is staying. Throw her out at once," Kiyomori said.

As Hotoke was about to leave after that harsh dismissal, Giō spoke to Kiyomori. It is quite the usual thing for an entertainer to present herself without an invitation. Then, too, they say Hotoke is still very young. It would be cruel to send her home with that harsh dismissal, now that she has ventured to come here. As a dancer myself, I cannot help feeling involved: I would be uncomfortable and sad, too. You would be doing her a great kindness by at least receiving her before sending her away, even if you don’t watch her dance or listen to her sing. Won’t you please be a little lenient and call her back to be received?

Well, my dear, since you make a point of it, I’ll see her before she goes, Kiyomori said. He sent a messenger to summon Hotoke.

Hotoke had entered her carriage after that harsh dismissal and was just leaving, but she returned in obedience to the summons. Kiyomori came out to meet her. "I ought not to have received you today; I am doing it because Giō chose to make a point of it. But I may as well listen to you sing, as long as you are here. Give me an imayō," he said. Hotoke made respectful assent and sang an imayō:

She chanted the song three times, and the beauty of her voice astonished all who watched and listened. Kiyomori’s interest was piqued. "You sing imayō nicely, my dear; I suspect you are a good dancer, too, he said. I’ll watch you perform a number. Call the drummer." The drummer was set to his instrument and Hotoke danced.

Hotoke was a beautiful girl with magnificent hair, a sweet voice, and flawless intonation. How could she have been a clumsy dancer? Kiyomori was dazzled and swept off his feet by the brilliance of her performance, which revealed a skill quite beyond imagination.

Giō dances for Kiyomori and Hotoke.

What is this? Hotoke said. I came here on my own and was thrown out, but then I was recalled through Giō’s intercession. If I were to be kept here, it would embarrass me to know what Giō’s thoughts would be. Please let me go home right away.*

That is out of the question. Are you hanging back because of Giō? If so, I’ll dismiss her, Kiyomori said.

How could such a thing be? I would feel terribly distressed even if the two of us were kept here together, but it would shame me deeply before Giō if you sent her away and kept me alone. I will answer any summons if you should happen to remember me later; please let me go today.

What! What! That’s out of the question. Tell Giō to leave the house at once. He sent Giō three separate messengers.

Although Giō had long ago resigned herself to the possibility, she had not dreamed that it might happen so very soon as today.* But with Kiyomori insisting that she leave immediately, she resolved to go as soon as the room was swept and tidied.

Every parting brings sadness, even when two people have merely sheltered under the same tree or scooped water from the same stream. With what regret and grief did Giō prepare to bid farewell to her home of three years, her eyes brimming with futile tears! But she could not linger; the end had come. Weeping, she scribbled a poem on a sliding door as she set out—perhaps to serve as a reminder of one who had gone:

Giō entered her carriage, rode home, and fell prostrate inside the sliding doors, sobbing wildly.

What is it? What is it? her mother and sister asked.

She could not answer. They learned the truth only when they questioned the maid who had accompanied her.

The monthly rice and coin deliveries ceased thereafter, and it was the turn of Hotoke’s connections to prosper. Men of every class sent Giō letters and messengers. People say Kiyomori has dismissed her. Why not see her and have some fun? they thought. But she could not shrug off her experience, mingle with others, and lead a gay life. She refused to accept their letters, much less receive the messengers, and spent more and more time weeping, her melancholy deepened by their importunities.

So the year ended. In the following spring, Kiyomori sent a messenger to Giō’s house. "How have you been since we parted? Hotoke seems bored nowadays; come and amuse her with some imayō and dances." Giō made no response.

Why don’t you answer? Do you refuse to come? Say so, if you do. There are steps I can take, Kiyomori said.

Giō’s mother, Toji, was greatly distressed. Come, now, Giō, give him some kind of answer, she urged, weeping. That would be better than having him scold you like this.

Giō still refused to answer. I would say, ‘I’ll come at once,’ if I thought I might go, but I don’t intend to go, so I don’t know how to answer. He says he will take steps unless I obey him when he summons me, but he can do no more than banish me from the city or kill me. Banishment would be no cause for sorrow, nor would I mind dying. I can’t face him again after he has treated me with such contempt, she said.

The mother offered more advice. Anyone who lives in this country had better not disobey Kiyomori. The bonds linking a man and a woman are fashioned before this life begins. Sometimes a couple part early after having sworn to stay together forever; sometimes a relationship that had seemed temporary lasts a lifetime. A sexual liaison is the most uncertain thing in the world. That you enjoyed Kiyomori’s favor for three years was an unusual show of affection on his part. Of course he is not going to kill you if you refuse to answer his summons; he will simply expel you from the capital. You and your sister are young; you will probably survive very nicely, even among rocks and trees. But your weak old mother will be banished, too, and my heart sinks at the prospect of living in some strange country place. Won’t you please let me finish out my life in the capital? I will think of it as a filial act in this world and the next.

Giō told herself that she must obey her mother, hard though it was. How pitiful were her emotions as she set out in tears! Unable to bring herself to go alone, she traveled to Nishihachijō in a single carriage with her sister, Ginyo, and two other shirabyōshi.

Gio was not directed to her old place, but to a much inferior seat. What can this mean? she thought. It was misery enough to be discarded through no fault of my own; now I must even accept an inferior seat. What shall I do? She pressed her sleeve to her face to hide her tears, but they came trickling through.

Hotoke was overcome with pity. Ah, what is this? she said. It might be different if she were not accustomed to being called up here. Please have her come here, or else please excuse me. I would like to go and greet her.

That is entirely out of the question. Hotoke had to stay where she was.

After that, Kiyomori spoke up, quite insensitive to Giō’s feelings. "Well, how have you been since we parted? Hotoke seems bored; sing her an imayō,"

Now that she had come, she could not refuse, Giō thought. She restrained her tears and sang an imayō:

She repeated the words twice, weeping, and tears of sympathy flowed from the eyes of all the many Taira senior nobles, courtiers, Fifth-Rank gentlemen, and samurai who sat in rows looking on.

Kiyomori had found the performance diverting. An excellent entertainment for the occasion, he said. "I’d like to watch you dance, but some urgent business has come up today. Keep presenting yourself from now on, even if I don’t summon you; you must amuse Hotoke with your imayō and dances." Giō suppressed her tears and departed in silence.

Alas! I forced myself to go to that detestable place out of reluctance to disobey my mother, and now I have suffered another humiliation. The same thing will happen again if I remain in society. I am going to drown myself, Giō said.

If you do, I’ll drown with you, said her sister, Ginyo.

The mother, Toji, was greatly distressed. Weeping, she offered more advice. Your bitterness is all too natural. It grieves me that I urged you to go, with no suspicion of what might happen. But your sister says she will drown if you do. What would become of your weak old mother even if she managed to linger on after the deaths of her two daughters? I’ll drown with you. I suppose it must be accounted one of the Five Deadly Sins to make a parent drown before her time. The world is but a transient shelter. It matters not whether we suffer humiliation here; what is truly hard is the darkness of the long afterlife. This life is inconsequential; I am merely concerned about your facing the Evil Paths in the next one.

After listening to her mother’s tearful plea, Giō suppressed her tears and spoke. You are right. I would undoubtedly be committing one of the Five Deadly Sins if we all killed ourselves. I will abandon the idea of suicide. But it would mean additional suffering if I were to stay in the capital, so I will go elsewhere.

Thus Giō became a Buddhist nun at the age of twenty-one. She built a brush-thatched hermitage deep in the Saga mountains, and there she dwelt, murmuring Buddha-invocations.

I vowed to drown myself with my older sister, Ginyo said. Why would I hang behind when it came to renouncing the world? Most pitifully, that nineteen-year-old girl also altered her appearance and secluded herself with Giō to pray for rebirth in paradise.

Why should a weak old mother keep her gray hair in a world where even young girls alter their appearance? the mother, Toji, said. She shaved her head at the age of forty-five and, like her daughters, performed Buddha-invocations in earnest prayer for rebirth in paradise.

Spring passed, summer waned, and the first autumn winds blew. It was the season when human beings gaze at the star-meeting skies and write of love on leaves of the paper-mulberry, the tree reminiscent of an oar crossing the heavenly stream.* One afternoon, the mother and daughters watched the evening sun disappear behind the rim of the western hills. People say the Western Paradise is situated in the place where the sun sets. We will be born there some day, to live free of all trouble, they said. The thought evoked a succession of painful memories, and they shed floods of tears.

After the twilight hours had ended, they fastened their plaited bamboo door, lit the dim lamp, and settled down to intoning Buddha-invocations together. While they were thus employed, they heard a knocking at the door. They were terrified. It must be a malevolent spirit, come to interfere with our humble invocations. What mortal would wait until late at night to visit a brush-thatched mountain hermitage where nobody ever calls, even in the daytime? The door is mere plaited bamboo; it would be the easiest thing in the world to smash it if we refused to open it. We had better let him in. If he is a merciless creature bent on our destruction, we must rely firmly on the Original Vow of Amida, in whom we have always placed our trust; we must maintain a constant stream of invocations. Since the heavenly host comes to meet believers, led by the sound of their voices, it will assuredly take us to the Pure Land. We must simply be careful not to falter in our invocations. Reassuring one another in that manner, they opened the plaited bamboo door.

The visitor was not a malevolent spirit but Hotoke.

What is this? Giō said. Can it really be Hotoke? Am I awake or dreaming?

Hotoke tried to restrain her tears. "What I say will sound self-serving, but I would seem callous if I remained silent, so I want to go over the whole story from the beginning. I went to Kiyomori’s mansion on my own initiative and was turned away, but then I was called back, thanks entirely to Giō’s intervention. A woman is a poor, weak thing, incapable of controlling her destiny. I was miserable about being kept there. When you were summoned again to sing the imayō, it brought home my own position. I was not in the least happy, because I knew my turn would come some day. I also recognized the truth of the lines you left on the sliding door, ‘How may either be spared by autumn?’ Later, I did not know where you had gone, but I heard that the three of you were living together as nuns. I envied you after that. I kept asking for my freedom, but Kiyomori would not grant it.

When we stop to consider, flowering fortunes in this world are a dream within a dream; happiness and prosperity mean nothing. It is difficult to achieve birth in human form, difficult to gain access to the Buddha’s teachings. If I sink into hell this time, it will be hard to rise again, no matter how many eons may pass. We cannot count on our youth; the old may outlive the young in this world. Death refuses to wait for the space of a breath; life is more evanescent than a mayfly or a lightning flash. I could not bear to live preening myself on my temporary good fortune and ignoring the life to come, so I stole away this morning, assumed this guise, and made my way here. She removed the robe covering her head, and they saw that she had become a nun.

Now that I have come to you in this altered guise, please forgive my past offenses, Hotoke pleaded, with tears streaming from her eyes. If you say you forgive me, I want to recite Buddha-invocations with you and be reborn on the same lotus pedestal. But if you cannot bring yourself to agree, I will wander away from here—it matters not where—to fall prostrate on a bed of moss or on the roots of a pine tree, there to recite Buddha-invocations as long as my life endures, so that I may attain my goal of rebirth in the Pure Land.

Giō tried to restrain her tears. I never dreamed that you felt that way. I ought to have been able to accept my unhappiness here at Saga, for sorrow is the common lot in this world, but I was always jealous of you. I fear there would have been no rebirth in the Pure Land for me. I seemed stranded halfway between this world and the next. The change in your appearance has made my old resentment vanish like scattering dewdrops; there is no longer any doubt that I will be reborn in the Pure Land. That I may now attain my goal is the greatest of all possible joys. People have talked about our becoming nuns as though it were unprecedented, and I myself have had somewhat the same thoughts, but it was only natural for me to alter my appearance when I hated society and resented my fate. What I did is unworthy of mention in comparison with the vows you have just taken. You felt no resentment and knew no sorrow. Only true piety could instill such revulsion against the unclean world, such longing for the Pure Land, in the heart of one who has barely turned seventeen. I look on you as a great teacher. Let us seek salvation together.

Secluded in a single dwelling, the four women offered flowers and incense before the sacred images morning and evening; and their prayers never flagged. I have heard that all of those nuns achieved their goal of rebirth in the Pure Land, each in her turn. And so it was that the four names, the spirits of Giō, Ginyo, Hotoke, and Toji, were inscribed together on the memorial register at Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s Chōgōdō Temple. Theirs were touching histories.

[

7] Twice an Imperial Consort

From the remote past until our own day, the throne had maintained order in the realm by using both the Minamoto and the Taira to punish anyone who disobeyed the government or tried to flout the court’s authority. After Tameyoshi’s decapitation in Hōgen and Yoshitomo’s execution in Heiji, some of the Genji were exiled and others were dead; and the Heike flourished unrivaled, seemingly secure for ages to come. But the death of Retired Emperor Toba had been followed by repeated passages of arms, and by constant death sentences, banishments, and dismissals and suspensions of officials. The country was uneasy; society had not recovered its equilibrium.

From around the Eiryaku and Ōhō eras, in particular, men in high places and low trembled with apprehension as Emperor Nijō reprimanded Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s trusted officials and the Retired Emperor did the same with the Emperor’s. It was like standing on the brink of a chasm, like treading on thin ice. There ought to have been no distance between reigning sovereign and Retired Emperor, between father and son, yet unforeseen events took place. It could only have happened in the latter days of the Law, a time when evil governs men’s hearts.

Among the many matters in which the Emperor flouted the Retired Emperor’s will, there was one that astounded everybody and raised a storm of criticism.

The consort of the late Retired Emperor Konoe, a lady known as Her Highness the Senior Grand Empress, was a daughter of the Oi-no-mikado Minister of the Right Kin’yoshi. After having been predeceased by the Retired Emperor, she had moved from the imperial palace to a residence at Konoe Kawara, where she had led a quiet life as the relict of a former sovereign. Around Eiryaku, she was somewhat past her prime—twenty-two or twenty-three. But people said she was the greatest beauty in Japan, and thus she began to receive love letters from Emperor Nijō, a tireless gallant, who had ordered a private Gao Lishi to find women for him outside the palace.* When she rebuffed him, he promptly came out into the open and commanded Kin’yoshi to present her as an imperial consort. The affair was so extraordinary that a council of nobles was convened to consider it.

The expressed opinions of all proved to be identical. Upon investigation of foreign precedents, we find that the Chinese Empress Zetian, consort to Taizong of Tang and stepmother to Gaozong, became Gaozong’s Empress after Taizong’s death. However, that example from a foreign country is not applicable here. In Japan, no woman has ever been the Empress of two sovereigns in all the more than seventy human reigns since Emperor Jinmu.

Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa also tried to persuade Emperor Nijō that what he wanted was wrong. But the Emperor said, An Emperor has no father or mother. I reign because I obeyed the Ten Good Precepts in another life. Why shouldn’t I have my way in a small matter like this? He named the presentation date at once, and there was nothing the Retired Emperor could do about it.

The news reduced the Senior Grand Empress to tears. If only I, too, had vanished like a dewdrop in the same field during those early autumn days after the late Emperor’s death in the Kyūju era, she lamented, or if only I had taken Buddhist vows and become a recluse, I would not be hearing such dreadful tidings now.

Her father the Minister tried to soothe her. The book says, ‘Only a madman fights the world.’ Argument is out of the question, now that the edict has already been handed down; you must just go as soon as possible. Maybe this means you will bear a son and become an Emperor’s mother—and I an Emperor’s grandfather. Think of it as the most filial thing you can do for your father. She made no reply.

Around that time, the Senior Grand Empress composed these lines during calligraphy practice:

The poem came to light, and everyone found it moving.

When the presentation day arrived, the Senior Grand Empress’s father took great pains with the entourage of senior nobles and with all the formalities concerning the carriages of the ladies-in-waiting. The reluctant lady was slow to enter her carriage; it was very late at night—after midnight—before her people managed to help her inside.

The lady lived in the Reikeiden after the presentation. She made diligent efforts to encourage the Emperor to attend to affairs of state.

Now the Shishinden in the imperial palace contains screens decorated with pictures of Chinese sages (Yi Yin, Diwu Lun, Yu Shinan, Taigong Wang, Scholar Luli, Li Ji, Sima, and others), screens with pictures of horses and long-armed and long-legged men, and, in the Demon Room, a most life-like screen representation of General Li.* It was only natural that the Owari Governor Ono no Michikaze should have written, I rewrote the inscriptions on the Sages sliding doors seven times. People say, I believe, that there also survives a view of the dawn moon over distant hills, painted long ago on a partition in the Seiryōden by Kanaoka. When Emperor Konoe was still a child sovereign, he once blackened that moon with charcoal while at play. Possibly because she saw the picture still remaining just as he had left it, the Senior Grand Empress composed this poem, nostalgic for the days when he was alive:

It was inexpressibly moving to think of the love she and the late Emperor had shared.

[

8] The Quarrel Over the Tablets

Meanwhile, around the spring of the first year of Eiman, it became known that Emperor Nijō had fallen ill. His condition gave cause for alarm by early summer, and people said his two-year-old first son, the offspring of a daughter of Senior Assistant Treasury Minister Iki no Kanemori, was to be named Crown Prince. On the Twenty-Fifth of the Sixth Month, there came a sudden decree making Kanemori's grandson an Imperial Prince, and on that very night the Emperor disconcerted everybody by abdicating in the child's favor. All the learned men of the day said, Upon investigation of the precedents for the selection of a child Emperor at our court, we find that Emperor Seiwa received the succession from Emperor Montoku at the age of nine. That child Emperor’s maternal grandfather, Chūjinkō, assisted him in the manner of the Chinese Duke of Zhou, who dealt with affairs of state as sovereign in King Cheng’s place. Chūjinkō was our first Regent. Emperors Toba and Konoe ascended the throne at five and three years, and were both regarded as excessively young—but this child is only two years old. There is no precedent for the accession of an infant. It would be an understatement to call his elevation impetuous.

Retired Emperor Nijō finally breathed his last on the Twenty-Seventh of the Seventh Month. He was twenty-three, a blossom fallen in the bud. All his ladies wept inside their jeweled blinds and brocade hangings.

On that same night, they buried the Emperor’s remains at Funaokayama, behind Rendaino, northeast of the Kōryūji Temple, and the funeral became the occasion of a violent quarrel over tablet emplacements between monks from the Enryakuji and the Kōfukuji.

As part of the funeral ceremonies after an Emperor’s death, it is customary for monks from the southern and northern capitals to join the cortege in a group, and to erect their respective temples’ tablets around the grave. The Tōdaiji, preeminent because of its having been founded by Emperor Shōmu, is the first to place its tablet. The Kōfukuji comes next as Tankaikō’s vow-temple. Of the northern capital temples, the Enryakuji emplaces its tablet opposite that of the Kōfukuji. Then comes the Onjōji, established by vow of Emperor Tenmu and founded by Preceptor Kyōtai and the Great Teacher Chishō. But for some reason, the Enryakuji monks flouted precedent by placing their tablet after the Tōdaiji’s and before the Kōfukuji’s. The southern capital monks began to consider what to do.

Now there were two monks from the Saikondō Hall at the Kōfukuji, Kannonbō and Seishibō, who enjoyed a great reputation for valor. Kannonbō was wearing a black-laced corselet and carrying a spear with a plain wooden shaft, grasped near the blade; Seishibō wore a green-laced corselet and carried an oversized sword with a black hilt and scabbard. The two of them ran straight to the Enryakuji tablet, hacked it down, smashed it to bits, and reentered the southern capital ranks, chanting the words of a song:*

How splendid the waters!

The sound is the roar of the cascade’s waters.

Let the sun shine as it will,

The flow never ceases.

TOUTAE

[

9] The Burning of Kiyomizudera

Although the Enryakuji monks might have been expected to meet violence with violence, they seemed to have a deep-laid plan in mind, for they uttered not a word. Even insensate grasses and trees ought to bow down in grief after an imperial death, yet now men of high rank and low fled in every direction, appalled by the unseemly disturbance.

Around the Hour of the Horse on the Twenty-Ninth Day of the same month, word spread that the Enryakuji monks were heading toward the capital in huge numbers. Warriors and members of the Imperial Police hurried toward Nishisakamoto to offer resistance, but the monks swept them aside and stormed into the city. Unnamed persons said that Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa had commanded the temple to overthrow the Heike; and warriors went to the imperial palace to man the guard quarters. All the Taira hastened to Rokuhara, as did the Retired Emperor. Kiyomori, who was still a Major Counselor at the time, felt great alarm. Shigemori tried to calm the others’ fears by pointing out that there was no reason for such a thing to happen now, but everyone remained much agitated.

Instead of advancing against Rokuhara, the monks bore down on an innocent temple, Kiyomizudera, and burned every last one of its halls and cells to the ground. People said their aim was to avenge the insult to the Enryakuji on the night of the funeral. (Kiyomizudera was a subsidiary of the Kōfukuji.)

On the morning after the Kiyomizudera fire, someone put up a poster in front of the temple’s main gate: Ah, there, worshippers of Kannon! What about the fire pit that was supposed to turn into a pond? On the following day, a reply was posted: Inconceivable in its eons.*

After the soldier-monks had gone back up the mountain, the Retired Emperor left Rokuhara for his palace. Only Shigemori escorted him; Kiyomori did not go. (The gossips said Kiyomori was probably still on his guard.) When Shigemori returned, Kiyomori said to him, Of course, it was a great honor to receive His Majesty. But there would have been no such rumors if he had not already thought and talked about getting rid of us. Don’t be careless.

You must never show the slightest hint of any such attitude in your manner or speech, Shigemori said. It would be unfortunate if people were to notice that you felt that way. As long as you obey the Retired Emperor and treat others with consideration, you will enjoy the protection of the gods and Buddhas. And what is there to fear if you have that? He left the room. Shigemori is a remarkably phlegmatic man, Kiyomori said.

Back at his palace, the Retired Emperor addressed a large group of trusted gentlemen who had come to wait upon him. What very odd things people have been saying! Nothing could be further from my mind. One of the influential members of his court, a monk named Saikō, happened to be nearby. There is a saying, ‘Heaven, which lacks a mouth, must speak through men.’ Perhaps Heaven intends to punish the Taira for getting so far above themselves, he said. The others present all said to one another, What good can come of such talk? The walls have ears. It’s enough to frighten a person to death.

[

10] The Naming of the Crown Prince

The Purification and the Great Thanksgiving Service were canceled that year because the Emperor was in mourning for his father. On the Twenty-Fourth of the Twelfth Month, an imperial edict conferred the title of Imperial Prince on one of Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s sons, the offspring of Kenshunmon’in, who was then still known as the Lady of the East. In the following year, the era name was changed to Nin’an; and on the Eighth Day of the Tenth Month in that year, in a ceremony held at the Tōsanjō Palace, the child who had earlier been designated an Imperial Prince was made Crown Prince. The Crown Prince was a six-year-old uncle, and Emperor Rokujō a three-year-old nephew. But the situation was not without precedent, contrary though it may have been to the rules of seniority: Emperor Ichijō had ascended the throne at seven in the second year of Kanna, and the future Emperor Sanjō, aged eleven, had been named his Crown Prince.

After having assumed the imperial dignity at the age of two, Emperor Rokujō stepped down at the age of five, on the Nineteenth of the Second Month, in favor of the Crown Prince.* He became known as the New Retired Emperor. He received the formal designation Retired Emperor before performing the coming-of-age ceremony—apparently the first such instance either in China or in our country.

The new sovereign’s Accession Audience took place in the Great Hall of State on the Twentieth of the Third Month in the third year of Nin’an. His elevation to the throne seemed to presage still greater prosperity for the Taira family. His mother, Kenshunmon’in, was not only a Taira but a sister of Kiyomori’s principal wife. As the Emperor’s maternal relative, Kenshunmon’in’s brother, the Taira Major Counselor Tokitada, was able to exercise great influence both inside and outside the palace. Every rank granted and every appointment bestowed in those days conformed to his will. His power resembled that of Yang Guozhong during the period of Yang Guifei’s good fortune; his popularity and successes were splendid, indeed. Kiyomori consulted him about affairs of state great and small, and people called him the Taira Regent.

[

11] Horsemen Encounter the Regent

Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa became a monk on the Sixteenth of the Seventh Month in the first year of Kaō. He continued to conduct affairs of state after taking the tonsure: there was no way of distinguishing between him and the reigning sovereign. The senior nobles and courtiers closest to him, and even the warriors in his Upper and Lower North Guards, were showered beyond their deserts with offices, ranks, and emoluments, but some of them exchanged whispered complaints with their intimates, ever unsatisfied, as is the way of men. Ah! If only So-and-So would die, his province would be vacant, they said. If Thus-and-So were to die, I might get his office. The Retired Emperor expressed similar sentiments in private conversations. Since early times, many men have subdued the court’s enemies in one reign or another, but nothing like this has ever happened before, he said. When Sadamori and Hidesato put down Masakado, when Yoriyoshi crushed Sadatō and Munetō, when Yoshiie conquered Takehira and Iehira, they were merely given provincial appointments by way of reward. It is not right for Kiyomori to do whatever he pleases; it is because the court has lost its authority in these latter days of the Law. But the opportunity to administer a reprimand did not present itself.

Meanwhile, the Taira bore the court no particular ill will. But then, on the Sixteenth of the Tenth Month in the second year of Kaō, there occurred an incident that was to plunge the state into disorder.

Shigemori’s second son, the New Middle Captain of Third Rank Sukemori, was only a thirteen-year-old boy at the time, with the title Governor of Echizen. A light snowfall, which created charming effects in the withered fields, prompted him to make an excursion to Rendaino, Murasakino, and the riding grounds of the Bodyguards of the Right, accompanied by thirty young samurai on horseback. He took along many hawks, spent the whole day hunting quail and larks, and turned back toward Rokuhara as the twilight shadows gathered. Just then, the Imperial Regent, Lord Motofusa, happened to be on his way to the palace from his residence at Naka-no-mikado Higashi-no-tōin. He was traveling south along Higashi-no-tōin and west along Ōi-no-mikado, with the intention of entering through the Yūhōmon Gate, when Sukemori met his procession at the intersection of Ōi-no-mikado Avenue and Inokuma Street.

Who goes there? the Regent’s men demanded. You are committing a discourtesy. This is the Regent’s procession. Get off your horses! Dismount!

Sukemori was haughty, high-spirited, and contemptuous of others, and all his samurai were below the age of twenty. Not one of the party understood the niceties of social conduct. It meant nothing to them that the procession was the Regent’s, nor did it occur to them to pay him the courtesy of dismounting. Instead, they tried to gallop through.

Never dreaming in the darkness that they were dealing with Kiyomori’s grandson (or pretending ignorance if the thought crossed their minds), the Regent’s men pulled Sukemori and all his samurai off their horses, a dreadful humiliation.

Back at Rokuhara, the crestfallen Sukemori told his grandfather what had happened. Kiyomori flew into a rage. I don’t care whether he is the Regent or not; he ought to defer to my relatives, he said. It was a hateful act to insult a boy without a second thought. That kind of thing will make others treat us with contempt. I won’t rest until I teach him a lesson. I’ll get even with him!

The affair is not worth worrying about, Shigemori said. The family would suffer real disgrace if we were insulted by a Genji like Yorimasa or Mitsumoto. It was rude for a son of mine to refuse to dismount when he met a regental procession. He called in the samurai involved. Keep this in mind from now on, he told them. I am going to apologize to the Regent for your impropriety. Then he went home.

Later, without a word to Shigemori, Kiyomori summoned more than sixty rural warriors—Nanba, Senō, and other boorish fellows who feared nothing except his commands. "The Regent will be