Anthology of Japanese Literature/Hizakurige

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Hizakurige

 

by Jippensha Ikku

 

Hizakurige is a humorous Japanese word meaning “a journey on foot.” It is an apt title for this book telling of the adventures of two happy-go-lucky travelers along the road, between Edo and Osaka. The book, issued serially beginning in 1802, was an immense success in its day, and the author, Jippensha Ikku (1766–1831), wrote numerous sequels. The two heroes, Yajirobei, or Yaji, and Kitahachi, or Kita, have been taken into the hearts of the Japanese, and their irrepressible earthy humor is considered typical of the real Edoite.

The following section occurs fairly early in their journey.

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They went down the hill till they reached Nissaka, the rain coming down harder and harder till it was impossible to go on, as everything was blotted out. Finally they took refuge under the eaves of an inn.

“How annoying!” said Yaji. “Such terrible rain!”

“Well, we’re not willow trees, to be planted by the roadside,” said Kita. “We can’t stand under the eaves of people’s houses forever. What do you think, Yaji? We’ve crossed the River Ōi. Don’t you think we might stop here for the night?”

“What?” said Yaji. “Don’t talk nonsense! It can’t be two o’clock yet. It would be absurd to stop now.”

Then the old landlady came out of the inn.

“You can’t go on in this rain,” she said. “Please stop here.”

“I think we ought to,” said Kita. “I say, Yaji, look! There are some women stopping in the back room there.”

“Eh?” said Yaji. “Where? That’s interesting.”

“Won’t your honors stop here?” repeated the old woman.

“Well, suppose we do,” said Yaji.

They went in and washed their feet, and were soon conducted to a room at the back next to the one where they had seen the women….

Then the supper trays were brought in and they set to work to eat, uttering all sorts of jokes.

“By the way,” said Yaji to the maid, “the guests in the back room are women, aren’t they? Who are they?”

“They’re witches,” said the maid.

“What, witches?” said Kita. “That’s interesting. Let’s call up somebody.”

“It’s too late, isn’t it?” said Yaji. “They won’t come after four o’clock.”

“It’s only a little past two,” said the maid.

“Well, just ask them,” said Yaji. “I’d like to have a talk with my wife.”

“Fancy wanting to do that!” said Kita.

“I’ll ask them afterward,” said the maid.

So when the meal was finished she went into the next room to ask the witches. They agreed, and Yaji and Kita were conducted into their room. There the witches produced the usual box and arranged it, while the maid, who knew what was wanted, drew some water and brought it.

Yaji, with his mind fixed on his departed wife, poured some water over the anise leaves and the younger witch began to invoke the gods.

“First of all,” she chanted, “I reverently call upon Bonten and Taishaku and the four gods of Heaven, and in the underworld the great Emma and the five attendants who wait on him. Of our country’s gods I invoke the seven gods of Heaven and the five gods of Earth, and of the gods of Ise, Amaterasu Ōmikami, and the forty descendants of the Outer Shrine and the eight descendants of the Inner Shrine. I invoke the God of Rain, the God of Wind, the God of the Moon and the God of the Sun, the God of the North Shrine of the Benku Mirror, and the spirit of the great Sun Goddess of Ama no iwato, and Kokuzō, the God of Ten Thousand Good Fortunes of Asama ga dake, and the others in the sixty provinces of Japan, and also in the country of the gods, at the Great Shrine of Izumo. By the ninety-eight thousand gods of the country and the thirteen thousand Buddhas of the holy places, through the fearful road of the underworld I come. Ah, horror! The spirits of his ancestors crowd upon me, each couple as inseparable as the bow and the arrow. The skies may change and the waters may change, but the bow is unchangeable. One shot from it sends an echo through all the holy places of the temples. Ah! Ah! Oh, joyful sight! Well have you summoned me. I had for a bedfellow a warrior famous with the bow, but alas! averse to a pure diet, in life he devoured fish even to the bones, and now, in punishment, is changed into a devil in the shape of an ox, his duty being to keep the gates of Hell, from which he has no release. Thus have I come alone.”

“Who are you?” asked Yaji. “I don’t understand what it’s all about!”

“I have come for the sake of him who offered me water, the mirror of my body, my child-treasure.”

“Mirror of the body?” said Kita. “I’ll tell you what, Yaji, it’s your mother.”

“My mother, eh?” said Yaji. “I don’t have anything to say to her.”

“Has the mirror of my body nothing to say to me?” continued the witch. “To me, your bedfellow, whom you have thus without shame summoned from the depths? Ah, what agony I went through when I was married to you—time and again suffering the pangs of hunger and shivering with cold in the winter. Ah, hateful! Hateful!”

“Forgive me,” said Yaji. “At that time my fortunes were low. How pitiful your lot that you should have been brought to the grave with care and hardships.”

“Halloa, Yaji,” said Kita. “Are you crying.? Ha, ha, ha! Even devils have tears.”

“I shall never forget it,” the witch went on. “When you were ill you gave your sickness to me. Our only child, who had to carry on our name, grew weak and thin because there was no rice to fill his empty stomach. Every day the bill collectors were knocking at the door and the rent remained unpaid. Yet I did not complain—not even when I slipped in the dogs’ dirt in the lane.”

“Don’t talk of it,” said Yaji. “You’ll break my heart.”

“And then, when through my labors I had saved enough money to buy a kimono, I had to pawn it for your sake and never saw it again. Never again did it come back to me from the pawnbroker’s.”

“At the same time you must remember what a pleasant place you are in now,” said Yaji, “while I have to worry along down here.”

“What? What is there pleasant about it? It is true that by the help of your friends you erected a stone over my grave, but you never go near it, and you never contribute to the temple to get the priests to say prayers for my soul. I am nothing to you. The stone over my grave has been taken away and put into the wall, where all the dogs come and make water against it. Not a drop of water is ever placed on my grave. Truly in death we suffer all sorts of troubles.”

“True, true,” said Yaji.

“But while you thus treat me with neglect,” the witch went on, “lying in my grave I think of nobody but you and long for the time when you will join me in the underworld. Shall I come to meet you?”

“No, no, don’t do that,” said Yaji. “It’s really too far for you.”

“Well then, I have one request to make.”

“Yes, yes. What is it?”

“Give this witch plenty of money.”

“Of course, of course.”

“How sad the parting!” cried the witch. “I have yet much to tell you, countless questions to ask you, but the messenger of Hell recalls me!”

Then, recovering from her trance, the witch twanged her bow.

“Thank you very much,” said Yaji. He took out some money and wrapped it in paper and gave it to her.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Kita. “Now all your hidden shames are revealed to the world. Ha, ha, ha! But I say, Yaji, you look very downcast. What do you say to a drink?”

Yaji agreed and clapping his hands ordered the maid to bring some saké.

“How far have you come today?” asked the witch.

“We came from Okabe,” answered Yaji.

“How quick you are,” said the witch.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Yaji. “We can walk as fast as Idaten.^[1] If we’re put to it we can walk thirty-five miles a day.”

“But then we shouldn’t be fit for anything for ten days after,” put in Kita.

While they were talking the saké was brought in.

“Won’t you have a little?” said Yaji to the young witch.

“I never touch a drop,” she answered.

“Will your companion have any?” asked Yaji.

“Mother, Mother! Come here,” called the young witch.

“Oh, it’s your mother, is it?” said Kita. “I must take care what I say in front of her. But come, do have some.”

Soon they began to drink and enjoy themselves, the cup passing from hand to hand very quickly. Yet strangely enough, the witches, however much they drank, never seemed to be any the worse for it, while Yaji and Kita got so drunk they could not speak plainly. After making all sorts of jokes which it would be too tedious to repeat, Kita at last in a drunken voice said, “I say, Mother, won’t you lend me your daughter for the night?”

“No, no, she’s going to lend her to me,” said Yaji.

“What an idea!” cried Kita. “You’d better try and be good tonight. Haven’t you any pity for your dead wife who spends her time in thinking of you and hoping you will join her quickly? Didn’t she say she’d come and meet you after a bit?”

“Here, don’t talk about that,” said Yaji. “What should I do if she did come to meet me?”

“Then you had better be good,” said Kita. “Now, old lady, what do you think?”

Kita here gave the young witch a loving caress, but she pushed him off and ran away, saying “Be quiet.”

“If my daughter doesn’t want to,” said the mother, “what about me?”

“Well, if it comes to that I don’t care who it is,” said Kita, who was lost in a drunken dream.

While they were talking the supper was brought in and there was a good deal of joking too tedious to repeat, and finally Yaji and Kita, the effects of the saké having already passed off, went back into their own room where, as soon as it was dark, they went to bed. In the next room also the witches were apparently going to bed, worn out by their travels.

“That young witch is sleeping on this side, I know,” said Kita in a low voice. “I’ll creep in to her after a bit. Yaji, you’d better go to sleep.”

“Get out,” said Yaji. “I’m going to be the one to get her.”

“Isn’t he bold?” said Kita. “It would make a cat laugh.”

Thus talking they crept into bed and fell asleep. It was already about nine o’clock, and the night watchman’s rattle, as he went round the inn, echoed through the pillows of the travelers. In the kitchen the sound of the preparations for the next morning’s meal had died away, and all that could be heard was the barking of the dogs. It was just when night was at its darkest and eeriest that Kitahachi decided the time was right to creep out of bed and peep into the next room. The night light had gone out, and he felt his way in very softly and crept into the bed where he thought the young witch was sleeping. To his surprise the witch, without saying anything, caught hold of his hand and pulled him in. Delighted with his reception, Kitahachi sank down under the coverlet with her arm for a pillow and soon realized his desire, after which they both fell asleep quite unconscious of their surroundings.

Yajirobei, who was thus left sleeping alone, soon opened his eyes. “I wonder what time it is,” he muttered. “I must go to the toilet. It’s so dark I can’t see the way.”

Thus pretending that he was going to the toilet he crept into the next room, quite unaware of the fact that Kitahachi was already in there. Feeling about, he came to the side of the bed where Kita was lying, and thinking in the darkness that it was the young witch’s lips from which moans were coming, he put his lips to those of Kitahachi and took a bite.

“Oh! Oh!” yelled Kitahachi.

“Halloa! Is that you, Kitahachi?” said Yaji.

“Oh, it’s Yaji, is it?” said Kita. “Ugh! Ugh! How beastly!” and he began spitting.

At the sound of their voices the witch into whose bed Kita had crept woke up.

“What are you doing?” she said. “Don’t make such a noise. You’ll wake my daughter up.”

This was another surprise for Kita, for it was the old witch’s voice. Cursing himself for his stupidity he got out of the bed and crept away softly into the next room. Yaji was going to do the same when the old witch caught hold of him.

“You mustn’t make a fool of an old woman by running away,” she said.

“No, no,” stuttered Yaji. “You’ve made a mistake. It wasn’t me.”

“You mustn’t try to deceive me,” said the old woman. “I don’t make a regular business of this, but when I meet a traveler on the road and sleep with him I like to get a little just to help me along. It’s a shame to make a fool of me by running away. There, just go to sleep in my bosom till dawn.”

“What a nuisance you are,” said Yaji. “Here, Kitahachi, Kitahachi.”

“Take care,” said the old woman. “You mustn’t call so loud.”

“But I don’t know anything about it,” said Yaji. “It’s that Kitahachi that’s got me into all this mess.”

Thus saying Yaji struggled out of her grasp, only to be caught again and thrown down. But at last, after a good deal of kicking, he managed to get away into the next room, where he repeated to himself

“By stealth I entered, witch’s love to earn,
But which was witch I could not well discern.”

Translated by Thomas Satchell

1. A Buddhist protecting god, known for his swiftness.