likely to gain the victory, to aim them at the Hei. How true is it that heaven may be reckoned upon, earth may be reckoned upon; the only thing which we cannot reckon on is the heart of man."
Ultimately Shigeyoshi betrays to Yoshitsune the Hei plan of battle, with the result that the latter faction are completely overthrown.
The authorship and precise date of the Heike Monogatari are unknown. It was probably composed soon after the Gempei Seisuiki, of which it is little more than an adaptation, page after page being simply copied from the latter work. But as if its model and source had not already departed sufficiently from true history, the Heike Monogatari, which covers the same ground and relates the same events, adds a number of inventions of its own, under the inspiration of patriotic or pious motives, or for the sake of poetical or dramatic effect. It is said that a main object of the author was to produce a narrative which could be chanted to the accompaniment of the biwa, a kind of four-stringed lute. That it was so chanted by men with shaven heads called biwa-bōzu (biwa-bonzes) is a fact frequently referred to by later writers. In this form it became immensely popular, and even at the present day it is far better known than the Gempei Seisuiki, a work much superior to it in merit. Motoöri, reasoning from the premiss that everything which can be sung is poetry, classes the Heike accordingly. He says that even though the actual count of syllables will not come right, they can be slurred over in singing so as to make metre. The reader might expect from this to find that the Heike is an example of poetical prose somewhat in the style of Ossian. But there is really hardly
