The Heike Story Read online

  The Heike Story

  EIJI YOSHIKAWA

  Translated from the Japanese by

  FUKI WOOYENAKA URAMATSU

  The sound of the Gion Shфja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sвla 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.

  THIS superb translation brings to the English-speaking world, with no loss of color or emotion, a spectacular and famous historical novel. It is a medieval epic on a heroic scale, full of splendor and pageantry and surging narrative power. Once we plunge into its exotic atmosphere, every page brims with excitement.

  The Heike Story tells of the wars, feuds, intrigues, scandals, and love affairs of the decadent Imperial Court in Kyoto in the twelfth century. It was a time of corruption, of the disintegration of the effete aristocracy, of brawling samurai. Those who have seen that extraordinary film Gate of Hell will instantly recognize the scene and some of the characters.

  Kyoto was then at its finest, a city of palaces, temples, pagodas, and shrines surrounded by thickly wooded hills. A number of imposing gates, including Rashomon, led to its parks and broad avenues lined by the shops of gifted artisans.

  But crime, disorder, and lust were rampant in this beautiful city. The people were abused by the nobility, and armed Buddhist monks terrorized court and commoner alike. In despair, the Emperor called upon the provincial warrior clans, the Heike and the Genji, to quell civil disturbances. Although they succeeded, the two clans quarreled over the spoils and plunged Japan into a century of feudal war.

  This novel tells of the rise to power of Kiyomori of the Heike in this lurid setting. We first meet him as a youth sunk in the poverty and obscurity to which the despised clans were still condemned. But when the Emperor's call came, his rise to power was spectacular, and he became the Emperor's Chief Councillor, to the consternation of his enemies, the Genji.

  In his wake he left a trail of blood and ruin, even though he was a gentle, enlightened man. Very attractive to women, he was helped in his intrigues by some of the most beautiful ones in the world, the court ladies of Kyoto, as well as by his own bravery and manliness. The strange twists of his fate are the core of this novel so impossible to summarize, so packed with action—and with poetry. For these times, bloody and terrible as they were, were also a time of great art and literature.

  The Heike Story is a modern version of a medieval classic first assembled by itinerant ballad-singers. It will enthrall Western readers; it will also offer them a delightful and diverting introduction to the source of Japanese culture.

  Eiji Yoshikawa was born in 1892, of an impoverished samurai or warrior family. With little more than a primary-school education, he became by turns a day laborer, a dockside painter, a toolmaker, and a dozen other unrelated things, until a Tokyo newspaper hired him as a reporter. After the great earthquake of 1923 destroyed the newspaper office, he decided to become a writer. Since then he has produced a succession of best-sellers, among which the Heike Story has topped a million copies.

  The title and author are presented on the cover in Japanese characters.

  THE JAPANESE, like the Chinese, write their family name first, their given name last. While they sometimes now reverse this order when dealing with the Western world, it is impossible to do so with historical characters.

  Originally an individual was designated as "of" a certain family or clan, such as the Heike. Thus the central character of this novel was known as Kiyomori of the Heike—Heike-no-Kiyomori, or, for brevity, Heike Kiyomori. In order to preserve the historical flavor associated with this famous name, it is written both as Kiyomori of the Heike and as Heike Kiyomori in this English translation but never in the Western order, Kiyomori Heike. The same method has been used for the other characters.

  It was customary among the ancient Japanese to use a pet or childhood name until the coming-of-age rites, which usually took place after a boy reached his fifteenth or sixteenth birthday. Therefore Kiyomori is sometimes called Heita in the opening pages of this novel.

  Consonants are pronounced approximately as in English, except that g is always hard, as in Gilbert. Vowels are pronounced as in Italian and always sounded separately, never as diphthongs. Thus Heike is pronounced Heh-ee-keh. There is no heavy penultimate accent as in English; it is safest to accent each syllable equally. The final e is always sounded, as in Italian.

  CONTENTS

  I The Market-Place

  II The Lady of Gion

  III The Horse-Race

  IV A Lady in the Moonlight

  V "The Trodden Weed"

  VI The Boy with a Gamecock

  VII A Warrior Takes His Farewell

  VIII Comet over the Capital

  IX Monk Soldiers of the Holy Mountain

  X The Heretic

  XI Foxes and a Lute

  XII The Dead Speak

  XIII The Willow-Spring Palace

  XIV The Red Banner of the Heike

  XV The White Banner of the Genji

  XVI Swords and Arrows

  XVII The River of Blood

  XVIII Song on a Flute

  XIX A Teahouse at Eguchi

  XX A Pilgrimage to Kumano

  XXI Red-Nose the Merchant

  XXII Oranges from the South

  XXIII The Emperor Kidnapped

  XXIV Drums Beat

  XXV Snowstorm

  XXVI Mercy

  XXVII A Chapel on the Hill

  XXVIII The Mother

  XXIX Exile

  XXX Cherry Blossoms

  XXXI The Crow

  XXXII The Street of the Ox-Dealers

  XXXIII A White Peony

  XXXIV A Silver Image

  XXXV Myriads of Candles

  XXXVI The Wandering Poet

  XXXVII A Merchant from the Northeast

  XXXVIII Three Dreams

  XXXIX Asatori the Physician

  XL The Jewel of the Inland Sea

  XLI An Emperor Dies

  XLII The Light of Truth

  XLIII Two Dancing-Girls

  XLIV A Fracas

  XLV The Building of a Harbor

  XLVI A Monk is Banished

  XLVII "The Genji Will Rise Again . . ."

  XLVIII The Demons of Kurama Mountain

  XLIX Ushiwaka Escapes

  L Journey to the East

  Historical Background

  CHAPTER I

  THE MARKET-PLACE

  And you, Heita, no more of that loitering and mooning along the Shiokoji on your way back!" Heita Kiyomori heard his father, Tadamori, shout after him as he set out on his errand. He felt that voice pursuing him every step of the way. He feared his father; his every word seemed to stick in the back of Kiyomori's mind. The year before last, in 1135, Kiyomori had accompanied his father and some men-at-arms for the first time from Kyoto to Shikoku and then to Kyushu on an expedition against the pirates of the Inland Sea. From April of that spring until August they had hunted their quarry and, with the pirate chief and more than thirty of his henchmen in chains, returned to the capital triumphant, in an unforgettable march of victory. Yes, undoubtedly his father was a hero—despite everything!

  Kiyomori's opinion of his father had changed after that. His fear of him, too. From boyhood Kiyomori had believed that indolence caused his father to shun people, that he lacked ambition, had no head for managing his worldly affairs, and clung to his poverty from pure obstinacy. This, however, was not the father he had observed for himself as a child, but the image impressed on Kiyomori's mind by his mother. As early as he could remember, their home at Imadegawa, in the purlieus of the capital, had been a miserable ruin; the leaking roofs had not been r
epaired for more than ten years; the untended gardens ran wild with weeds, and the decaying house been the scene of unending quarrels between his father and mother. And in spite of such disharmony, child after child was born to them—Heita Kiyomori, the eldest; Tsunemori, the second son; a third and even a fourth son. Tadamori, to whom the duties of a Palace official were distasteful, made no effort to put in an appearance at the Palace or the office of the Imperial Guards unless he was specially summoned. His sole revenues now were the crops from his manor in Isй, and except for occasional largess from the Palace, he received none of the emoluments of his rank.

  Kiyomori was beginning to understand the reasons for those endless parental bickerings. His mother was a talkative woman— in the words of his father, one who talked "like oiled paper set on fire"—whose habitual complaint was: "At every word I say, you turn on me with grim looks. When have I ever seen you behave like a proper husband? I never knew you to behave as though you were the respected master of this house. There are laggards enough in this world, yet there must be few in this capital as lazy as you! Were you a state councillor or a court official, I could understand. Have you never taken thought for our poverty? You country-bred Heike no doubt find this wretched penury suits you, but I, reared in this capital, and all my kinsmen come of the noble Fujiwara clan! Here, under this leaking roof, morning and night, yesterday and yet again today, I munch the same coarse fare. I shall not be at the moon-viewing and the imperial banquets when autumn comes, nor when spring returns shall I, in my festive robes, join the cherry-viewing at the Palace. I hardly know whether I am a woman or a badger as I go on like this day after day. . . . Ah, ill-starred woman that I am! Little did I dream that this was to be my fate!"

  This would be only the prelude to an unquenchable stream of reproaches and complaints, if Tadamori did not silence her. And once this "oiled paper" was set on fire, what did she most bewail, crying to the heavens and calling upon the earth as witness? Even her son Kiyomori wearied of her complaints. He knew them each one. First, her husband, a sluggard, had never troubled his head about a livelihood. For years he had done nothing but stay at home —a good-for-nothing! Second of her complaints: because of his poverty, she had been obliged to forgo all exchanges of hospitality with her relatives, the Fujiwara; no longer could she attend the imperial entertainments or accept invitations to the banquets at the Court. Alas, she who had been born to grandeur and luxury had married a mere Heike warrior and ruined her life. And she would end her laments with the cry: "Ah, had there only been no children! . . ." These words frightened Kiyomori as a child, harassed and saddened him unreasonably, so by the time he was sixteen or seventeen the grave look in his eyes often perplexed his mother.

  Kiyomori wondered what she would have done if there had been no children. But this he knew: she regretted above all things her marriage to his father; were it possible she would even now leave him, make up the lost years by returning to that life of extravagant splendor; like her patrician kinswomen drive about in an ox-carriage, bathed in moonlight and garlanded with blossoms; dally with this captain or that courtier; exchange love lyrics with gallants, leading the life of those ladies told in the Tales of Genji. She could not die without fulfilling her destiny as a woman.

  Over and over again the "oiled paper" thus took flame. And her young sons, hardly believing she could be their mother, watched her daily with mournful eyes.

  Kiyomori, now nearly twenty, was indignant; if her sons were such a hindrance to her, why did she not leave them? As for his father, how could he endure all this in silence? Was Kiyomori to shout back at this woman in his stead? The bitch! Who, indeed, were the Fujiwara, those Fujiwara of whom she bragged without regard for his father's feelings? A fool—his father, who only dared to shout at his sons! The coward! See how people jeered at the Squint-Eyed One who married a beauty only to find her a shrew!

  People seemed to think that children always sided with their mother, but in this house it was otherwise. The youngest, not yet weaned, and his third brother were still too young to take sides, but Tsunemori, old enough now to understand what went on, sometimes stared with hate in his eyes at their mother when she raved. At such times the brothers were ashamed of their father. He—a man—who seemed to live only to be abused by his wife, sat quietly listening to her tirades, his scarred eyelids drawn down over his crossed eyes, staring mutely at the clenched fists in his lap.

  Kiyomori had to admit that his father was ugly—that pockmarked face, those eyes which had got him a nickname, this man in his forties and the prime of his years. . . . On the other hand, there was his beautiful mother, looking as though she were still in her twenties. Little wonder that those who saw her refused to believe she was the mother of four sons. Though she was reduced to penury, her toilette remained irreproachable. She showed no sign that she knew or cared when the retainers, unable to endure the sight of their misery, stole out to barter furtively for food, or tore the bamboo from the rotting hedges and planks from the floor for the kitchen fires, or the wailing children made water in their grimy clothes. She would repair in the morning to her boudoir, where not even her husband was allowed to set foot, lay out her gold-lacquered comb-cases and mirrors, and in the evening retire to her bath to polish her skin. She often startled the household by appearing in her richest finery, announcing that she was off to pay her respects to her relatives, the Nakamikado, and with the languid airs of a court lady would stroll to the nearest stable to hire a carriage and drive away on her calls.

  "Fox-woman . . . bewitching fox-woman!" the retainers sneered when she was out of hearing. Even graying Mokunosukй, who had come as a boy to serve in the household, would stand with an inconsolable child weeping on his back and gaze with smoldering eyes after the departing mother. Later he could be heard walking the path round the stable in the dark, singing lullabies to his young charge. Tadamori, at such times, would usually be seen leaning against a post in the shadows, his eyes closed, silent, lost in thought.

  Tsunemori had a scholarly bent; indifferent to what went on about him, he spent his days at his books. He and Kiyomori had enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Chinese Classics at an early age, though the latter after a time ceased to go. In spite of his father's urgings, Kiyomori felt there was nothing to be gained from reading Confucius, whose teachings seemed unrelated to the world that he saw around him or the life in his own home. Kiyomori usually idled about as his father did. Often, lying sprawled by his brother's desk, Kiyomori would chat about the horse-races at Kamo or gossip of the women in the neighborhood; or when his brother Tsunemori was disinclined to listen, would continue to lie there, staring vacantly at the ceiling, picking his nose. At other times he would rush to the-archery range at the rear of the house to twang a bow, or abruptly dash off to the stable and later come home savagely whipping his mount, drenched with sweat. Seemingly, he acted only on impulses.

  Kiyomori often reflected that his mother was queer; his father no less so; only Tsunemori seemed to be like other people. Even he, Kiyomori, the eldest and heir, also was odd. All in all, they were a strange lot, an ill-assorted family. Yet the Heike of Isй were one of the few warrior families coming of a distinguished line. In the capital, where it was known that the Heike traditions had come down through several generations, people prophesied that the family tree would send forth more and yet more branches and bring renown to that name. Kiyomori, however, was indifferent to such talk, aware only that he was young and carefree and full of a sense of well-being.

  He knew the nature of the errand on which he was going, for he had read the letter entrusted to him. Kiyomori was on, his way to borrow money of a relative, his uncle. This had happened often enough, and he was to see his father's only brother, Tadamasa, a member of the Imperial Guards, to whom Tadamori constantly turned with pleas for help.

  At New Year's Kiyomori's mother had taken to bed with a cold; in her usual way she drove her husband to his wits' end by her vanity and reckless extravagance, demanding that the co
urt physician attend her, calling for costly drugs, complaining that the bedclothes were heavy, and scolding that the food was not fit for an invalid.

  The poverty that Tadamori was able to put out of mind blew on them overnight like an icy wind. Although his victory over the pirates two years ago had been rewarded with imperial gifts of gold and other favors, which relieved him of his money difficulties, this unforeseen good fortune had only led his wife to indulge in lavish spending. Tadamori believed there was enough to provide for his family for another year, until her illness exhausted what remained in less than three weeks and they were reduced to sipping thin rice gruel for their morning and evening meals.

  Painfully composing another of his begging letters to his brother, Tadamori turned to his son. "Heita, forgive me for sending you again to your uncle. . . ." This was the errand on which he was to go. Kiyomori raged with a sense of injury—to be told not to loiter and moon again on the Shiokoji! Even a child deserved to have some diversions. Was he not twenty this spring? Yet he, a mere youth, was sent to borrow money. Kiyomori was filled with self-pity, reflecting as he walked that there could be nothing wrong in coveting a few pleasures.