Only a little while after the banishment of Kane-uji, a traveling
merchant, seeking to sell his wares, visited the house of the
exiled prince at Hitachi.
And being asked by the Hangwan where he lived, the merchant made
answer, saying:--"I live in Kyoto, in the street called
Muromachi, and my name is Goto Sayemon.
"My stock consists of goods of one thousand and eight different
kinds which I send to China, of one thousand and eight kinds
which I send to India, and yet another thousand and eight kinds
which I sell only in Japan.
"So that my whole stock consists of three thousand and
twenty-four different kinds of goods.
"Concerning the countries to which I have already been, I may
answer that I made three voyages to India and three to China and
this is my seventh journey to this part of Japan."
Having heard these things, Oguri-Hangwan asked the merchant
whether he knew of any young girl who would make a worthy wife,
since he, the prince, being still unmarried, desired to find such
a girl.
Then said Sayemon: "In the province of Sagami, to the west of us,
there lives a rich man called Tokoyama Choja, who has eight sons.
"Long he lamented that he had no daughter, and he long prayed for
a daughter to the August Sun.
"And a daughter was given him; and after her birth, her parents
thought it behoved them to give her a higher rank than their own,
because her birth had come to pass through the divine influence
of the August Heaven-Shining Deity; so they built for her a
separate dwelling.
"She is, in very truth, superior to all other Japanese women; nor
can I think of any other person in every manner worthy of you."
This story much pleased Kane-uji; and he at once asked Sayemon to
act the part of match-maker(1) for him; and Sayemon promised to
do everything in his power to fulfill the wish of the Hangwan.
Then Kane-uji called for inkstone and writing-brush, and wrote a
love-letter, and tied it up with such a knot as love-letters are
tied with.
And he gave it to the merchant to be delivered to the lady; and
he gave him also, in reward for his services, one hundred golden
ryo.
Sayemon again and again prostrated himself in thanks; and he put
the letter into the box which he always carried with him. And
then he lifted the box upon his back, and bade the prince
fare-well.
Now, although the journey from Hitachi to Sagami is commonly a
journey of seven days, the merchant arrived there at noon upon
the third day, having traveled in all haste, night and day
together, without stopping.
And he went to the building called Inui-no-Goshyo, which had been
built by the rich Yokoyama for the sake of his only daughter,
Terute-Hime, in the district of Soba, in the province of Sagami;
and he asked permission to enter therein.
But the stern gate-keepers bade him go away, announcing that the
dwelling was the dwelling of Terute-Hime, daughter of the famed
Choja Yokoyama, and that no person of the male sex whosoever
could be permitted to enter; and furthermore, that guards had
been appointed to guard the palace--ten by night and ten by
day--with extreme caution and severity.
But the merchant told the gate-keepers that he was Goto Sayemon,
of the street called Muromachi, in the city of Kyoto; that he was
a well-famed merchant there, and was by the people called
Sendanya; that he had thrice been to India and thrice to China,
and was now upon his seventh return journey to the great country
of the Rising Sun.
And he said also to them: "Into all the palaces of Nihon, save
this one only, I have been freely admitted; so I shall be deeply
grateful to you if you permit me to enter."
Thus saying, he produced many rolls of silk, and presented them
to the gate-keepers; and their cupidity made them blind; and the
merchant, without more difficulty, entered, rejoicing.
Through the great outer gate he passed, and over a bridge, and
then found himself in front of the chambers of the female
attendants of the superior class.
And he called out with a very loud voice: "O my ladies, all
things that you may require I have here with me!
"I have all _jorogata-no-meshi-dogu_; I have hair-combs and
needles and tweezers; I have _tategami_, and combs of silver, and
_kamoji_ from Nagasaki, and even all kinds of Chinese mirrors!"
Whereupon the ladies, delighted with the idea of seeing these
things, suffered the merchant to enter their apartment, which he
presently made to look like a shop for the sale of female toilet
articles.
(1) Nakodo. The profession of nakodo exists; but any person who
arranges marriages for a consideration is for the time being
called the nakodo.
But while making bargains and selling very quickly, Sayemon did
not lose the good chance offered him; and taking from his box the
love-letter which had been confided to him, he said to the
ladies:--
"This letter, if I remember rightly, I picked up in some town in
Hitachi, and I shall be very glad if you will accept it,--either
to use it for a model if it be written beautifully, or to laugh
at if it prove to have been written awkwardly."
Then the chief among the maids, receiving the letter, tried to
read the writing upon the envelope: _"Tsuki ni hoshi--ame ni
arare ga--kori kana,_"--
Which signified, "Moon and stars--rain and hail--make ice." But
she could not read the riddle of the mysterious words.
The other ladies, who were also unable to guess the meaning of
the words, could not but laugh; and they laughed so shrilly that
the Princess Terute heard, and came among them, fully robed, and
wearing a veil over her night-black hair.
And the bamboo-screen having been rolled up before her,
Terute-Hime asked: "What is the cause of all this laughing? If
there be anything amusing, I wish that you will let me share in
the amusement."
The maids then answered, saying: "We were laughing only at our
being unable to read a letter which this merchant from the
capital says that he picked up in some street. And here is the
letter: even the address upon it is a riddle to us."
And the letter, having been laid upon an open crimson fan, was
properly presented to the princess, who received it, and admired
the beauty of the writing, and said:--
"Never have I seen so beautiful a hand as this: it is like the
writing of Kobodaishi himself, or of Monju Bosatsu.
"Perhaps the writer is one of those princes of the Ichijo, or
Nijo, or Sanjo families, all famed for their skill in writing.
"Or, if this guess of mine be wrong, then I should say that these
characters have certainly been written by Oguri-Hangwan Kane-uji,
now so famed in the province of Hitachi.... I shall read the
letter for you."
Then the envelope was removed; and the first phrase she read was
_Fuji no yama_ (the Mountain of Fuji), which she interpreted as
signifying loftiness of rank. And then she met with such phrases
as these:--
_Kiyomidzu kosaka_ (the name of a place); _arare ni ozasa_ (hail
on the leaves of the bamboo-grass); _itaya ni arare_ (hail
following upon a wooden roof);
_Tamato ni kori_ (ice in the sleeve); _nonaka ni shimidzu_ (pure
water running through a moor); _koike ni makomo_ (rushes in a
little pond);
_Inoba ni tsuyu_ (dew on the leaves of the taro); _shakunaga obi_
(a very long girdle); _shika ni momiji_ (deer and maple-trees);
_Futamata-gawa_ (a forked river); _hoso tanigawa-ni marukibashi_
(a round log laid over a little stream for a bridge); _tsurunashi
yumi ni hanuki dori_ (a stringless bow, and a wingless bird).