Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan/Volume 1/Araginu
Araginu
(A Short Story)
By
Naoya Shiga,
Translated by
Eiji Ukai & Eric S. Bell
Araginu
Long, long ago, on a mountain there lived a Goddess who was very beautiful. She was the Goddess of Beauty, of Love, and of Jealousy.
All the youths and maidens who lived in the vicinity of this mountain, which could be seen clearly in fair weather, prayed to the Goddess, when they had found a mate, for success in their love. As their love grew and gradually increased, they offered grateful thanks to the Goddess, but when their love affairs did not run smoothly they forgot everything but their own troubles. They even forgot the favours which the Goddess had bestowed upon them. When this happened, she at once changed herself into the Goddess of Jealousy and unexpected evils came suddenly upon them, and their love ended in tragedy.
Old people who had so many times witnessed these unhappy endings, shrugged their shoulders with pity, and sighed, for when a young couple was swept away in the ecstasy of a romance, the aged and more experienced could foresee a tragedy looming ahead. But the old people no longer had the power or influence to prevent the young ones from falling violently in love, and they had to stand by and watch a great many youths and maidens rushing into danger and could only shake their old heads sadly when they saw them falling headlong down the cliff of their doom.
At the foot of this mountain there lived a handsome shepherd boy named Adani. Every morning he went up the mountain driving several of his father’s cows. While they were grazing, he busied himself by cutting the green grass, and when the animals lay down in the shade to rest, he would lie beside them and fall asleep. Towards sunset the cows would low to one another, and the shepherd, awakened by their voices, would rise quickly from his slumbers, load each of the animals with grass, and make his way down the mountainside so as to reach home before dark.
On the mountain, in the sweet green grass, grew quantities of fragrant flowers, and trees and shrubs abounding in many-coloured blossoms. Adani would pluck great bunches of them, and after fashioning a beautiful bouquet, he would place it upon the altar of the Goddess as an offering to her beauty. The remainder of the flowers he would carry with him down the mountain to present to the girls of the village.
A few years passed. Adani grew more handsome. The Goddess of the mountain saw this, and secretly a great love sprang up in her heart for the shepherd lad. By this time the beautiful youth had already fallen in love with a girl of the village. Her name was Araginu, and she was noted for her great skill at weaving. She was a year or two older than her lover, and her beauty was so exquisite that it almost put the loveliness of the Goddess to shame.
Ever since the shepherd had fallen in love with Araginu, he would cut his grass in the morning only, and after gathering his bunch of flowers, could be seen hurrying down the mountain driving his cows as fast as he could make them go. Up till this time he had always made it a rule to offer his prettiest bouquet to the Goddess, but now he always set the most beautiful one aside, and placed the next best upon the altar of the Goddess.
The Goddess was naturally displeased. One day, a woodman, named Ganzu, told her all about Adani’s love for Araginu. This man was rather elderly, and was a bad character. He spent much of his time searching round the villages at the foot of the mountain for stray sheep and odd fowls, and he often stole wine and fish from the villagers too. He had been told that from the beginning Araginu’s love had been strictly hidden from the Goddess. He heard this story from the girl’s uncle, who was an old hermit. He also was told that Araginu was busy weaving a most beautiful tapestry. She was spending most of her time very earnestly upon this work in order that she might one day enwrap her lover in its folds, so that he should never be enticed away by any other beautiful woman he might see. When the Goddess heard of this, an intense jealousy burned within her heart against the girl.
Her only desire was to see this wonderful tapestry which Araginu had woven. So one night, when the moon had wrapped the world in its gentle, opalescent light, she secretly descended the mountain, with the woodcutter as her guide.
It was late at night, and in the woods the owls were hooting. The people in their huts in the villages had put out their lights and were sound asleep. She found only one house with a light still burning, and it was the home of Araginu.
Leaving her guide behind, the Goddess proceeded very quietly alone. On approaching the house, she heard the sounds of a beautiful song, and the rhythmic hum of the weaving shuttle made a most charming accompaniment to the song. Araginu was singing some enchanting melody, and all the pain of the deep love in her heart was in her music. The Goddess was so enchanted with the song, that she stopped still and listened for a while, but soon her soul blazed within her with a still fiercer flame of jealousy.
She approached the window, and standing on tiptoe peeped stealthily in the room through a chink in the window shutters. The first thing that met her eyes was a wondrous fabric of great width. It flowed out from the loom, spreading upon the floor, and the other end of it hung from the wall on the opposite side of the room. All the girl’s deepest feelings of love were expressed in the patterns woven into the fabric. Exquisite shades of colour stood out here and there in the forms of birds and rare flowers.
The Goddess watched the graceful figure of the girl, and noted how her eyes beamed with a dreamy ecstasy as she wove. Her rounded cheeks, her heaving breast, her white tapering fingers, which nimbly held the fabric, and her overflowing healthy youth seemed to rival even the great beauty of the Goddess herself.
Then the Goddess noticed that the floor of the room was strewn with mountain flowers of every hue. Doubly and trebly burnt the Goddess’s jealousy. She had never before beheld such a lovely maiden, and had never seen such a perfect fabric. What a wonderful love there must be between these two young people! If this beautiful tapestry should be completed, the Goddess feared there would be no possibility of separating the maiden from her shephed. So she at once made up her mind that at all costs she must prevent the tapestry from ever being finished.
But the beautiful Araginu, never dreaming for one moment of the Goddess’s jealousy, sat at her loom by night and by day, whenever the yearning for her lover was strong upon her, which was almost every moment of her waking life. Two thirds of her precious fabric had been completed, and only one-third remained to be done. When that was finished, her uncle, the hermit, was to marry her to her lover, and whenever she thought of it, untold joy filled her soul and set her heart throbbing.
Every day, when the shepherd returned from the mountain, he threw his loveliest bouquet in at her window. By the strict order of her uncle, the young couple were forbidden to speak even a word to each other until the tapestry had been completed. Adani had even been forbidden to peep into her room.
One night, when all the villagers were sound asleep, and when Araginu was alone weaving her cloth, a sad and terrible feeling of depression came over her. She stopped short, and closed her eyes. She thought she heard the sound of a man’s hoarse voice singing in the distance. It was so faint to her ears that she could not quite make out what it was, but there was something very repulsive in the voice.
From that time on, she heard the voice every night. It came nearer and nearer. Sometimes, when the wind or breeze was blowing in the direction of her house, she could even hear some of the words of the song, and then she knew that it was some unlucky curse that was enfolding her. She knew that, if she stopped weaving the tapestry, some evil would befall her.
The song of imprecation seemed to approach nearer and nearer every night. At last she could distinguish these words: “Know yourself, and cease weaving your tapestry, or you will become a spider!”
The maiden grew more and more afraid. She understood that the Goddess of Jealousy had put a curse upon her, but she did not like to speak of it to her uncle or to her lover. If she should reveal her secret to her uncle, he would certainly prohibit her from weaving. It would be no better if she told it to Adani, for she knew that he would request her to cease her weaving, and would insist on her marrying him immediately. But she entertained a strong fear that, if she married him without finishing the tapestry, the Goddess might deprive her altogether of her lover. So she made up her mind not to reveal her secret to anyone whomsoever, and to do her utmost to complete her work whatever might happen.
And so she stuffed her ears tightly with pieces of waste thread, to prevent herself from hearing anything. But still the terrible sound of the curse penetrated to her eardrums. Sometimes she found herself muttering the very words of the accursed song.
Gradually the maiden’s body began to grow weaker, and her soul began to pine away. Yet not for one single day did she cease weaving. And often now a great, fitful and impatient longing for the love of Adani came over her. But she bore it by summoning up all her strength of will, and even as her distress increased, she worked with greater haste. She was now weaving purple-coloured flowers into the fabric as a symbol of her great and burning passion for her lover.
But the cruel song of imprecation became louder and louder as the nights went by. The purple of the woven flowers gradually changed to a still darker shade, and the poor girl’s mind gradually became distraught. At last she wove nothing but black flowers every day. Even the little birds, that had formerly been woven in such bright and brilliant colours, were now worked in sombre black, and as she continued, the cloth began to take on a shabby appearance, as if the beautiful fabric had been dragged in the mud.
Her impatience became pitiable, and at last her great energy in weaving began to fail her. In the evening she was often seen standing beneath the eaves of her house, shuttle in hand, gazing absent-mindedly up into the sky. But Adani never beheld her in these moods of dejection. He still continued to visit her window after he had come from the mountain, and would throw his prettiest flowers into her room. He did this every day, but his bouquets piled themselves one upon another unheeded.
Two months passed by, and Adani began to wonder why Araginu was so slow in finishing her tapestry. He visited her uncle, the hermit, and asked him to make enquiries. The old man also wondered why she had not finished her work after weaving for more than half a year, and so he determined to go and see for himself what had happened.
But the astonishment of the hermit was still greater when he entered the maiden’s room. He found no Araginu. She was nowhere to be seen. Cobwebs hung across the ceiling, and the once beautiful tapestry lay across the floor. The colours were changed from purple to black, and where she had last been weaving, it looked as if it had been saturated with mud.
Through a chink in the window a fine thread led into the open air. The hermit, guided by it, went out of the cottage, and found that it was endless, and led towards the mountain. He followed it, and climbed the mountain. Arriving at the shrine of the Goddess, he found little torn pieces of the maiden’s dress lying here and there upon the ground.
The thin thread extended onwards to the back of the hill, which faced to the north. As the sunshine never shone there, the scene was a dreary one, for there were no flowers to be seen and no songs of birds to be heard.
The hermit, catching hold of rocks and roots of trees, carefully let himself down the face of the cliff. At the bottom he found a big cave, into the mouth of which the thread stretched. Peering into the darkest corner of the cave, he beheld, staring at him with terrible eyes, his poor niece, the once beautiful Araginu.
In front of her, huge cobwebs spread their nets about the cave. Poor Araginu! With an empty shuttle in one hand, she was extending both her arms, as if still trying to weave something. Alas! With those big eyes, wild and glaring, those thin and weirdly elongated limbs, and the dark, drab colour of her skin, she already had the appearance of a spider.
The End