was young, and as pretty as a picture. Her name was Tassel, just that,
or Fusa, as they say in her language.
After they had drunk down the "Three Times Three" together and so
became man and wife, they stood alone, the young man looking hard at the
girl. For the life of him he did not know what to say to her. He took a
bit of her sleeve and stroked it with his hand. Still he said nothing
and looked mighty foolish. The girl turned red, turned pale, turned red
again, and burst into tears.
"Honourable Tassel, don't do that, for the dear gods' sake," says the
young man.
"I suppose you don't like me," sobs the girl. "I suppose you don't think
I'm pretty."
"My dear," he says, "you're prettier than the bean-flower in the field;
you're prettier than the little bantam hen in the farm-yard; you're
prettier than the rose carp in the pond. I hope you'll be happy with my
father and me."
At this she laughed a little and dried her eyes. "Get on another pair of
_hakama_," she says, "and give me those you've got on you; there's a
great hole in them--I was noticing it all the time of the wedding!"
Well, this was not a bad beginning, and taking one thing with another
they got on pretty well, though of course things were not as they had
been in that blessed time when the young man and his father did not set
eyes upon a pair of long sleeves or an _obi_ from morning till night.
By and by, in the way of nature, the old man died. It is said he made a
very good end, and left that in his strong-box which made his son the
richest man in the country-side. But this was no comfort at all to the
poor young man, who mourned his father with all his heart. Day and night
he paid reverence to the tomb. Little sleep or rest he got, and little
heed he gave to his wife, Mistress Tassel, and her whimsies, or even to
the delicate dishes she set before him. He grew thin and pale, and she,
poor maid, was at her wits' end to know what to do with him. At last she
said, "My dear, and how would it be if you were to go to Kioto for a
little?"
"And what for should I do that?" he says.
It was on the tip of her tongue to answer, "To enjoy yourself," but she
saw it would never do to say that.
"Oh," she says, "as a kind of a duty. They say every man that loves his
country should see Kioto; and besides, you might give an eye to the
fashions, so as to tell me what like they are when you get home. My
things," she says, "are sadly behind the times! I'd like well enough to
know what people are wearing!"
"I've no heart to go to Kioto," says the young man, "and if I had, it's
the planting-out time of the rice, and the thing's not to be done, so
there's an end of it."
All the same, after two days he bids his wife get out his best _hakama_
and _haouri_, and to make up his _bento_ for a journey. "I'm thinking of
going to Kioto," he tells her.
"Well, I am surprised," says Mistress Tassel. "And what put such an idea
into your head, if I may ask?"
"I've been thinking it's a kind of duty," says the young man.
"Oh, indeed," says Mistress Tassel to this, and nothing more, for she
had some grains of sense. And the next morning as ever was she packs her
husband off bright and early for Kioto, and betakes herself to some
little matter of house cleaning she has on hand.
The young man stepped out along the road, feeling a little better in his
spirits, and before long he reached Kioto. It is likely he saw many
things to wonder at. Amongst temples and palaces he went. He saw castles
and gardens, and marched up and down fine streets of shops, gazing about
him with his eyes wide open, and his mouth too, very like, for he was a
simple soul.
At length, one fine day he came upon a shop full of metal mirrors that
glittered in the sunshine.
"Oh, the pretty silver moons!" says the simple soul to himself. And he
dared to come near and take up a mirror in his hand.
The next minute he turned as white as rice and sat him down on the seat
in the shop door, still holding the mirror in his hand and looking into
it.
"Why, father," he said, "how did you come here? You are not dead, then?
Now the dear gods be praised for that! Yet I could have sworn---- But no
matter, since you are here alive and well. You are something pale still,
but how young you look. You move your lips, father, and seem to speak,
but I do not hear you. You'll come home with me, dear, and live with us
just as you used to do? You smile, you smile, that is well."
"Fine mirrors, my young gentleman," said the shopman, "the best that can
be made, and that's one of the best of the lot you have there. I see you
are a judge."
The young man clutched his mirror tight and sat staring stupidly enough
no doubt. He trembled. "How much?" he whispered. "Is it for sale?" He
was in a taking lest his father should be snatched from him.
"For sale it is, indeed, most noble sir," said the shopman, "and the
price is a trifle, only two _bu_. It's almost giving it away I am, as
you'll understand."
"Two _bu_--only two _bu_! Now the gods be praised for this their mercy!"
cried the happy young man. He smiled from ear to ear, and he had the
purse out of his girdle, and the money out of his purse, in a twinkling.
Now it was the shopman who wished he had asked three _bu_ or even five.
All the same he put a good face upon it, and packed the mirror in a fine
white box and tied it up with green cords.
"Father," said the young man, when he had got away with it, "before we
set out for home we must buy some gauds for the young woman there, my
wife, you know."
Now, for the life of him, he could not have told why, but when he came
to his home the young man never said a word to Mistress Tassel about
buying his old father for two _bu_ in the Kioto shop. That was where he
made his mistake, as things turned out.
She was as pleased as you like with her coral hair-pins, and her fine
new _obi_ from Kioto. "And I'm glad to see him so well and so happy,"
she said to herself; "but I must say he's been mighty quick to get over
his sorrow after all. But men are just like children." As for her
husband, unbeknown to her he took a bit of green silk from her
treasure-box and spread it in the cupboard of the _toko no ma_. There he
placed the mirror in its box of white wood.
Every morning early and every evening late, he went to the cupboard of
the _toko no ma_ and spoke with his father. Many a jolly talk they had
and many a hearty laugh together, and the son was the happiest young man
of all that country-side, for he was a simple soul.
But Mistress Tassel had a quick eye and a sharp ear, and it was not long
before she marked her husband's new ways.
"What for does he go so often to the _toko no ma_," she asked herself,
"and what has he got there? I should be glad enough to know." Not being
one to suffer much in silence, she very soon asked her husband these
same things.
He told her the truth, the good young man. "And now I have my dear old
father home again, I'm as happy as the day is long," he says.
"H'm," she says.
"And wasn't two _bu_ cheap," he says, "and wasn't it a strange thing
altogether?"
"Cheap, indeed," says she, "and passing strange; and why, if I may ask,"
she says, "did you say nought of all this at the first?"
The young man grew red.
"Indeed, then, I cannot tell you, my dear," he says. "I'm sorry, but I
don't know," and with that he went out to his work.
Up jumped Mistress Tassel the minute his back was turned, and to the
_toko no ma_ she flew on the wings of the wind and flung open the doors
with a clang.
"My green silk for sleeve-linings!" she cried at once; "but I don't see
any old father here, only a white wooden box. What can he keep in it?"
She opened the box quickly enough.
"What an odd flat shining thing!" she said, and, taking up the mirror,
looked into it.
For a moment she said nothing at all, but the great tears of anger and
jealousy stood in her pretty eyes, and her face flushed from forehead to
chin.
"A woman!" she cried, "a woman! So that is his secret! He keeps a woman
in this cupboard. A woman, very young and very pretty--no, not pretty at
all, but she thinks herself so. A dancing-girl from Kioto, I'll be
bound; ill-tempered too--her face is scarlet; and oh, how she frowns,
nasty little spitfire. Ah, who could have thought it of him? Ah, it's a
miserable girl I am--and I've cooked his _daikon_ and mended his
_hakama_ a hundred times. Oh! oh! oh!"
With that, she threw the mirror into its case, and slammed-to the
cupboard door upon it. Herself she flung upon the mats, and cried and
sobbed as if her heart would break.
In comes her husband.
"I've broken the thong of my sandal," says he, "and I've come to---- But
what in the world?" and in an instant he was down on his knees beside
Mistress Tassel doing what he could to comfort her, and to get her face
up from the floor where she kept it.
"Why, what is it, my own darling?" says he.
"_Your_ own darling!" she answers very fierce through her sobs; and "I
want to go home," she cries.
"But, my sweet, you are at home, and with your own husband."
"Pretty husband!" she says, "and pretty goings-on, with a woman in the
cupboard! A hateful, ugly woman that thinks herself beautiful; and she
has _my_ green sleeve-linings there with her to boot."
"Now, what's all this about women and sleeve-linings? Sure you wouldn't
grudge poor old father that little green rag for his bed? Come, my dear,
I'll buy you twenty sleeve-linings."
At that she jumped to her feet and fairly danced with rage.
"Old father! old father! old father!" she screamed; "am I a fool or a
child? I saw the woman with my own eyes."
The poor young man didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels.
"Is it possible that my father is gone?" he said, and he took the mirror
from the _toko no ma_.
"That's well; still the same old father that I bought for two _bu_. You
seem worried, father; nay, then, smile as I do. There, that's well."
Mistress Tassel came like a little fury and snatched the mirror from his
hand. She gave but one look into it and hurled it to the other end of
the room. It made such a clang against the woodwork, that servants and
neighbours came rushing in to see what was the matter.
"It is my father," said the young man. "I bought him in Kioto for two
_bu_."
"He keeps a woman in the cupboard who has stolen my green
sleeve-linings," sobbed the wife.
After this there was a great to-do. Some of the neighbours took the
man's part and some the woman's, with such a clatter and chatter and
noise as never was; but settle the thing they could not, and none of
them would look into the mirror, because they said it was bewitched.
They might have gone on the way they were till doomsday, but that one of
them said, "Let us ask the Lady Abbess, for she is a wise woman." And
off they all went to do what they might have done sooner.
The Lady Abbess was a pious woman, the head of a convent of holy nuns.
She was the great one at prayers and meditations and at mortifyings of
the flesh, and she was the clever one, none the less, at human affairs.
They took her the mirror, and she held it in her hands and looked into
it for a long time. At last she spoke:
"This poor woman," she said, touching the mirror, "for it's as plain as
daylight that it is a woman--this poor woman was so troubled in her mind
at the disturbance that she caused in a quiet house, that she has taken
vows, shaved her head, and become a holy nun. Thus she is in her right
place here. I will keep her, and instruct her in prayers and
meditations. Go you home, my children; forgive and forget, be friends."
Then all the people said, "The Lady Abbess is the wise woman."
And she kept the mirror in her treasure.
Mistress Tassel and her husband went home hand in hand.
"So I was right, you see, after all," she said.
"Yes, yes, my dear," said the simple young man, "of course. But I was
wondering how my old father would get on at the holy convent. He was
never much of a one for religion."
XI
THE STORY OF SUSA, THE IMPETUOUS
When Izanagi, the Lord who Invites, turned his back upon the unclean
place, and bade farewell to Yomi, the World of the Dead, whither he had
journeyed upon a quest, he beheld once more the Land of Fresh Rice Ears,
and was glad. And he rested by the side of a clear river that he might
perform purification.
And Izanagi-no-Mikoto bathed in the upper reach. But he said, "The water
of the upper reach is too rapid." Then he bathed in the lower reach; but
he said, "The water of the lower reach is too sluggish." So he went down
for the third time and bathed in the middle reach of the river. And as
the water dropped from his beautiful countenance there were created
three sublime deities--Ama Terassu, the Glory of High Heaven;
Tsuki-Yomi-no-Kami, the Moon-Night-Possessor; and Susa, the Impetuous,
the Lord of the Sea.
Then Izanagi-no-Mikoto rejoiced, saying, "Behold the three august
children that are mine, who shall also be illustrious for ever." And,
taking the great string of jewels from his neck, he bestowed it upon
Ama Terassu, the Glorious, and said to her, "Do Thine Augustness rule
the Plain of High Heaven, shining in thy beauty by day." So she took the
august jewels and hid them in the storehouse of the gods.
And the Lord of Invitation commanded Tsuki-Yomi-no-Kami, saying, "Do
Thine Augustness rule the Dominion of the Night." Now this was a youth
of a fair and pleasant countenance.
And to the youngest of the deities, his Augustness the Lord Izanagi gave
the Sea Plain.
So Ama Terassu ruled the day, and Tsuki-Yomi-no-Kami softly ruled the
night. But Susa, the Impetuous, flung himself upon the ground and
violently wept, for he said, "Ah, miserable, to dwell for ever upon the
confines of the cold sea!" So he ceased not in his weeping, and took the
moisture of the valley for his tears, so that the green places were
withered and the rivers and streams were dried up. And evil deities
increased and flourished, and as they swarmed upon the earth their noise
was as the noise of flies in the fifth moon; and far and wide there
arose portents of woe.
Then his father, the Lord of Invitation, came and stood terribly by him
and said, "What is this that I do see and hear? Why dost thou not rule
the dominions with which I charged thee, but lie here, like a child,
with tears and wailings? Answer."
And Susa, the Impetuous, answered, "I wail because I am in misery and
love not this place, but would depart to my mother who rules the Nether
Distant Land, who is called the Queen of Yomi, the World of the Dead."
Then Izanagi was wroth and expelled him with a divine expulsion, and
charged him that he should depart and show his face no more.
And Susa, the Impetuous, answered, "So be it. But first I will ascend to
High Heaven to take leave of Her Augustness, my sister, who is the Glory
of Heaven, and then I will depart."
So he went up to Heaven with a noise and a great speed, and at his going
all the mountains shook and every land and country quaked. And Ama
Terassu, the Light of Heaven, she also trembled at his coming, and said,
"This coming of His Augustness, my brother, is of no good intent, but to
lay hold of mine inheritance, and to take it by force. For this alone
does he invade the fastness of High Heaven."
And forthwith she divided the hair that hung upon her shoulders and
rolled it in two august bunches to the left and to the right, and
adorned it with jewels. So she made her head like the head of a young
warrior. And she slung upon her back a great bow and a quiver of arrows,
one thousand and five hundred arrows, and she took in her hand a bamboo
staff and brandished it and stamped upon the ground with her armed feet,
so that the earth flew like powdered snow. So she came to the bank of
the Tranquil River of Heaven and stood valiantly, like unto a mighty
man, and waited.
And Susa, the Impetuous, spoke from the farther bank: "My lovely
sister, Thine Augustness, why comest thou thus armed against me?"
And she answered, "Nay, but wherefore ascendest thou hither?"
And Susa replied, "There is nothing evil in my mind. Because I desired
to dwell in the Land of Yomi, therefore has my father deigned to expel
me with a divine expulsion, and I thought to take leave of thee, and so
I have ascended hither. I have no evil intention."
And she, bending her great eyes on him, said "Swear."
And he swore, by the ten-grasp sword that was girded on him, and after
that he swore by the jewels in her hair. Then she suffered him to cross
over the Tranquil River of Heaven, and also to cross over the Floating
Bridge. So Susa, the Impetuous, entered the dominions of his sister, the
Sun Goddess.
But his wild spirit never ceased to chafe. And he pillaged the fair
lands of Ama Terassu and broke down the divisions of the rice-fields
which she had planted, and filled in the ditches. Still the Light of
Heaven upbraided him not, but said, "His Augustness, my brother,
believes that the land should not be wasted by ditches and divisions,
and that rice should be sown everywhere, without distinction." But
notwithstanding her soft words Susa, the Impetuous, continued in his
evil ways and became more and more violent.
Now, as the great Sun Goddess sat with her maidens in the awful Weaving
Hall of High Heaven, seeing to the weaving of the august garments of
the gods, her brother made a mighty chasm in the roof of the Weaving
Hall, and through the chasm he let down a heavenly piebald horse. And
the horse fled hither and thither in terror, and wrought great havoc
amongst the looms and amongst the weaving maidens. And Susa himself
followed like a rushing tempest and like a storm of waters flooding the
hall, and all was confusion and horror. And in the press the Sun Goddess
was wounded with her golden shuttle. So with a cry she fled from High
Heaven and hid herself in a cave; and she rolled a rock across the
cave's mouth.
Then dark was the Plain of High Heaven, and black dark the Central Land
of Reed Plains, and eternal night prevailed. Hereupon the voices of the
deities as they wandered over the face of the earth were like unto the
flies in the fifth moon, and from far and near there arose portents of
woe. Therefore did the Eight Hundred Myriad Deities assemble with a
divine assembly in the dry bed of the Tranquil River of Heaven, there to
hold parley, and to make decision what should be done. And His
Augustness the Lord of Deep Thoughts commanded them. So they called
together the Singing Birds of Eternal Night. And they charged
Ama-tsu-mara, the Divine Smith, to make them a mirror of shining white
metal. And they charged Tama-noya-no-mikoto to string together many
hundreds of curved jewels. And, having performed divination by the
shoulder-blade of a stag of Mount Kagu, they uprooted a sacred tree, a
_sakaki_, of five hundred branches. And they hung the jewels upon the
branches of the tree, and they hung the mirror upon its branches. And
all the lower branches they covered with offerings, streamers of white
and streamers of blue, and they bore the tree before the rock cavern
where the Sun Goddess was. And immediately the assembled birds sang.
Then a divine maiden of fair renown, who for grace and skill in dancing
had no sister, either in the Land of Rice Ears or upon the Plain of High
Heaven, stood before the cavern door. And there was hung about her for a
garland the club moss from Mount Kagu, and her head was bound with the
leaves of the spindle-tree and with flowers of gold and flowers of
silver, and a sheaf of green bamboo-grass was in her hands. And she
danced before the cavern door as one possessed, for heaven and earth
have not seen the like of her dancing. It was more lovely than the
pine-tops waving in the wind or the floating of sea foam, and the cloud
race upon the Plain of High Heaven is not to be compared with it. And
the earth quaked and High Heaven shook, and all the Eight Hundred Myriad
Deities laughed together.
Now Ama Terassu, the Glory of Heaven, lay in the rock cavern, and the
bright light streamed from her fair body in rays, so that she was as a
great jewel of price. And pools of water gleamed in the floor of the
cavern, and the slime upon the walls gleamed with many colours, and the
small rock-plants flourished in the unwonted heat, so that the heavenly
lady lay in a bower and slept. And she awoke because of the song of the
Eternal Singing Birds, and she raised herself and flung the hair back
over her shoulder, and said, "Alack, the poor birds that sing in the
long night!" And there came to her the sound of dancing and of high
revel and of the merriment of the gods, so she was still and listened.
And presently she felt the Plain of High Heaven shake, and heard the
Eight Hundred Myriad Deities as they laughed together. And she arose and
came to the door of the cavern, and rolled back the great stone a little
way. And a beam of light fell upon the dancing maiden where she stood,
panting, in all her array; but the other deities were yet in darkness,
and they looked at each other and were still. Then spoke the Fair Glory
of Heaven: "Methought that because I was hidden the Plain of High Heaven
should be dark, and black dark the Central Land of Reed Plains. How,
then, doth the Dancing Maiden go thus, adorned with garlands and her
head tired? And why do the Eight Hundred Myriad Deities laugh together?"
Then the Dancing Maiden made answer: "O Thine Augustness, that art the
sweet delight of all the deities, behold the divine maidens are decked
with flowers, and the gods assemble with shouts. We rejoice and are glad
because there is a goddess more illustrious than Thine Augustness."
And Ama Terassu heard and was wroth. And she covered her face with her
long sleeves, so that the deities should not see her tears; howbeit,
they fell like the falling stars. Then the youths of the Court of
Heaven stood by the _sakaki_ tree, where hung the mirror that was made
by Ama-tsu-Mara, the Divine Smith. And they cried, "Lady, look and
behold the new paragon of Heaven!"
And Ama Terassu said, "Indeed, I will not behold." Nevertheless, she
presently let slip the sleeves that covered her countenance and looked
in the mirror. And as she looked, and beheld, and was dazzled by her own
beauty, that was without peer, she came forth slowly from the rocks of
the cavern. And the light of her flooded High Heaven, and below the rice
ears waved and shook themselves, and the wild cherry rushed into flower.
And all the deities joined their hands in a ring about Ama Terassu, the
Goddess of the Sun, and the door of the rock cavern was shut. Then the
Dancing Maiden cried, "O Lady, Thine Augustness, how should any Deity be
born to compare with thee, the Glory of Heaven?"
So with joy they bore the goddess to her place.
But Susa, the Swift, the Brave, the Impetuous, the Long-Haired, the
Thrice Unhappy, the Lord of the Sea, him the deities arraigned to stand
trial in the dry bed of the Tranquil River of Heaven. And they took
counsel, and fined him with a great fine. And, having shorn him of his
hair, which was his beauty and his pride (for it was blue-black as an
iris, and hung below his knee), they banished him for ever from the
heavenly precincts.
So Susa descended to earth by the Floating Bridge with bitterness in his
heart, and for many days he wandered in despair, he knew not whither. By
fair rice-fields he came, and by barren moors, heeding nothing; and at
last he stayed to rest by the side of the river called Hi, which is in
the land of Izumo.
And as he sat, moody, his head on his hand, and looked down at the
water, he beheld a chopstick floating on the surface of the stream. So
Susa, the Impetuous, arose immediately, saying, "There are people at the
river head." And he pursued his way up the bank in quest of them. And
when he had gone not a great way, he found an old man weeping and
lamenting very grievously, among the reeds and willows by the
water-side. And there was with him a lady of great state and beauty,
like unto the daughter of a deity; but her fair eyes were marred with
many tears, and she moaned continually and wrung her hands. And these
twain had between them a young maid of very slender and delicate form;
but her face Susa could not see, for she covered it with a veil. And
ever and anon she moved and trembled with fear, or seemed to beseech the
old man earnestly, or plucked the lady by the sleeve; at which these
last but shook their heads sorrowfully, and returned to their
lamentations.
And Susa, full of wonder, drew near and asked the old man, "Who art
thou?"
And the old man answered, "I am an earthly deity of the mountains. This
is my wife, who weeps with me by the water-side, and the child is my
youngest daughter."