"I may be very poor, but I've not fallen so low as to let my daughter
learn shampooing."
The learned man, smiling, replied, "I think you are making a mistake
when you put yourself in a rage. No matter whether her family be rich
or poor, when a woman is performing her duties in her husband's house,
she must look upon her husband's parents as her own. If her honoured
father-in-law or mother-in-law fall ill, her being able to plait
flowers and paint pictures and make tea will be of no use in the
sick-room. To shampoo her parents-in-law, and nurse them
affectionately, without employing either shampooer or servant-maid, is
the right path of a daughter-in-law. Do you mean to say that your
daughter has not yet learnt shampooing, an art which is essential to
her following the right path of a wife? That is what I meant to ask
just now. So useful a study is very important."
At this the master of the house was ashamed, and blushing made many
apologies, as I have heard. Certainly, the harp and guitar are very
good things in their way; but to attend to nursing their parents is
the right road of children. Lay this story to heart, and consider
attentively where the right road lies. People who live near haunts of
pleasure become at last so fond of pleasure, that they teach their
daughters nothing but how to play on the harp and guitar, and train
them up in the manners and ways of singing-girls, but teach them next
to nothing of their duties as daughters; and then very often they
escape from their parents' watchfulness, and elope. Nor is this the
fault of the girls themselves, but the fault of the education which
they have received from their parents. I do not mean to say that the
harp and guitar, and songs and dramas, are useless things. If you
consider them attentively, all our songs incite to virtue and condemn
vice. In the song called "The Four Sleeves," for instance, there is
the passage, "If people knew beforehand all the misery that it brings,
there would be less going out with young ladies, to look at the
flowers at night." Please give your attention to this piece of poetry.
This is the meaning of it:--When a young man and a young lady set up a
flirtation without the consent of their parents, they think that it
will all be very delightful, and find themselves very much deceived.
If they knew what a sad and cruel world this is, they would not act as
they do. The quotation is from a song of remorse. This sort of thing
but too often happens in the world.
When a man marries a wife, he thinks how happy he will be, and how
pleasant it will be keeping house on his own account; but, before the
bottom of the family kettle has been scorched black, he will be like a
man learning to swim in a field, with his ideas all turned
topsy-turvy, and, contrary to all his expectations, he will find the
pleasures of housekeeping to be all a delusion. Look at that woman
there. Haunted by her cares, she takes no heed of her hair, nor of her
personal appearance. With her head all untidy, her apron tied round
her as a girdle, with a baby twisted into the bosom of her dress, she
carries some wretched bean sauce which she has been out to buy. What
sort of creature is this? This all comes of not listening to the
warnings of parents, and of not waiting for the proper time, but
rushing suddenly into housekeeping. And who is to blame in the matter?
Passion, which does not pause to reflect. A child of five or six years
will never think of learning to play the guitar for its own pleasure.
What a ten-million times miserable thing it is, when parents, making
their little girls hug a great guitar, listen with pleasure to the
poor little things playing on instruments big enough for them to climb
upon, and squeaking out songs in their shrill treble voices! Now I
must beg you to listen to me carefully. If you get confused and don't
keep a sharp look-out, your children, brought up upon harp and guitar
playing, will be abandoning their parents, and running away secretly.
Depend upon it, from all that is licentious and meretricious something
monstrous will come forth. The poet who wrote the "Four Sleeves"
regarded it as the right path of instruction to convey a warning
against vice. But the theatre and dramas and fashionable songs, if the
moral that they convey is missed, are a very great mistake. Although
you may think it very right and proper that a young lady should
practise nothing but the harp and guitar until her marriage, I tell
you that it is not so; for if she misses the moral of her songs and
music, there is the danger of her falling in love with some man and
eloping. While on this subject, I have an amusing story to tell you.
Once upon a time, a frog, who lived at Kiôto, had long been desirous
of going to see Osaka. One spring, having made up his mind, he started
off to see Osaka and all its famous places. By a series of hops on
all-fours he reached a temple opposite Nishi-no-oka, and thence by the
western road he arrived at Yamazaki, and began to ascend the mountain
called Tenôzan. Now it so happened that a frog from Osaka had
determined to visit Kiôto, and had also ascended Tenôzan; and on the
summit the two frogs met, made acquaintance, and told one another
their intentions. So they began to complain about all the trouble they
had gone through, and had only arrived half-way after all: if they
went on to Osaka and Kiôto, their legs and loins would certainly not
hold out. Here was the famous mountain of Tenôzan, from the top of
which the whole of Kiôto and Osaka could be seen: if they stood on
tiptoe and stretched their backs, and looked at the view, they would
save themselves from stiff legs. Having come to this conclusion, they
both stood up on tiptoe, and looked about them; when the Kiôto frog
said--
"Really, looking at the famous places of Osaka, which I have heard so
much about, they don't seem to me to differ a bit from Kiôto. Instead
of giving myself any further trouble to go on, I shall just return
home."
The Osaka frog, blinking with his eyes, said, with a contemptuous
smile, "Well, I have heard a great deal of talk about this Kiôto being
as beautiful as the flowers, but it is just Osaka over again. We had
better go home."
And so the two frogs, politely bowing to one another, hopped off home
with an important swagger.
Now, although this is a very funny little story, you will not
understand the drift of it at once. The frogs thought that they were
looking in front of them; but as, when they stood up, their eyes were
in the back of their heads, each was looking at his native place, all
the while that he believed himself to be looking at the place he
wished to go to. The frogs stared to any amount, it is true; but then
they did not take care that the object looked at was the right object,
and so it was that they fell into error. Please, listen attentively. A
certain poet says--
"Wonderful are the frogs! Though they go on all-fours in an attitude
of humility, their eyes are always turned ambitiously upwards."
A delightful poem! Men, although they say with their mouths, "Yes,
yes, your wishes shall be obeyed,--certainly, certainly, you are
perfectly right," are like frogs, with their eyes turned upwards. Vain
fools! meddlers ready to undertake any job, however much above their
powers! This is what is called in the text, "casting away your heart,
and not knowing where to seek for it." Although these men profess to
undertake any earthly thing, when it comes to the point, leave them to
themselves, and they are unequal to the task; and if you tell them
this, they answer--
"By the labour of our own bodies we earn our money; and the food of
our mouths is of our own getting. We are under obligation to no man.
If we did not depend upon ourselves, how could we live in the world?"
There are plenty of people who use these words, _myself_ and _my own_,
thoughtlessly and at random. How false is this belief that they
profess! If there were no system of government by superiors, but an
anarchy, these people, who vaunt themselves and their own powers,
would not stand for a day. In the old days, at the time of the war at
Ichi-no-tani, Minamoto no Yoshitsuné[89] left Mikusa, in the province
of Tamba, and attacked Settsu. Overtaken by the night among the
mountains, he knew not what road to follow; so he sent for his
retainer, Benkei, of the Temple called Musashi, and told him to light
the big torches which they had agreed upon. Benkei received his orders
and transmitted them to the troops, who immediately dispersed through
all the valleys, and set fire to the houses of the inhabitants, so
that one and all blazed up, and, thanks to the light of this fire,
they reached Ichi-no-tani, as the story goes. If you think
attentively, you will see the allusion. Those who boast about _my_
warehouse, _my_ house, _my_ farm, _my_ daughter, _my_ wife, hawking
about this "_my_" of theirs like pedlers, let there once come trouble
and war in the world, and, for all their vain-gloriousness, they will
be as helpless as turtles. Let them be thankful that peace is
established throughout the world. The humane Government reaches to
every frontier: the officials of every department keep watch night
and day. When a man sleeps under his roof at night, how can he say
that it is thanks to himself that he stretches his limbs in slumber?
You go your rounds to see whether the shutters are closed and the
front door fast, and, having taken every precaution, you lay yourself
down to rest in peace: and what a precaution after all! A board,
four-tenths of an inch thick, planed down front and rear until it is
only two-tenths of an inch thick. A fine precaution, in very truth!--a
precaution which may be blown down with a breath. Do you suppose such
a thing as that would frighten a thief from breaking in? This is the
state of the case. Here are men who, by the benevolence and virtue of
their rulers, live in a delightful world, and yet, forgetting the
mysterious providence that watches over them, keep on singing their
own praises. Selfish egotists!
[Footnote 89: The younger brother of Minamoto no Yoritomo, who first
established the government of the Shoguns. The battle of Ichi-no-tani
took place in the year A.D. 1184.]
"My property amounts to five thousand ounces of silver. I may sleep
with my eyes turned up, and eat and take my pleasure, if I live for
five hundred or for seven hundred years. I have five warehouses and
twenty-five houses. I hold other people's bills for fifteen hundred
ounces of silver." So he dances a fling[90] for joy, and has no fear
lest poverty should come upon him for fifty or a hundred years. Minds
like frogs, with eyes in the middle of their backs! Foolhardy
thoughts! A trusty castle of defence indeed! How little can it be
depended upon! And when such men are sleeping quietly, how can they
tell that they may not be turned into those big torches we were
talking about just now, or that a great earthquake will not be
upheaved? These are the chances of this fitful world. With regard to
the danger of too great reliance, I have a little tale to tell you. Be
so good as to wake up from your drowsiness, and listen attentively.
[Footnote 90: Literally, "a dance of the Province of Tosa."]
There is a certain powerful shell-fish, called the Sazayé, with a very
strong operculum. Now this creature, if it hears that there is any
danger astir, shuts up its shell from within, with a loud noise, and
thinks itself perfectly safe. One day a Tai and another fish, lost in
envy at this, said--
"What a strong castle this is of yours, Mr. Sazayé! When you shut up
your lid from within, nobody can so much as point a finger at you. A
capital figure you make, sir."