uring the reign of Emperor Gofukakusa, in the first year of the Hoji Era, on the twentieth day of the third month, a mermaid washed ashore at Oura in Tsugaru Province. The creature had a full head of long green hair, like strands of seaweed; its face, which bore a sorrowful expression, was that of a beautiful young woman, except for a small crimson cockscomb that adorned the center of its forehead; its upper body was transparent, like crystal, with a slight bluish tinge; its breasts were like two red berries of the nandina bamboo; its lower body resembled that of a fish and was covered with tiny scales like golden flower petals; its tail fin was translucent yellow and in the shape of an enormous ginkgo leaf; and its voice was as clear and resonant as the song of a skylark. This story has been handed down to us as a reminder of the strange and mysterious things to be found in our world, but the fact is that any number of wondrous creatures inhabit the northern seas to this day.
Long ago, in the fiefdom of Matsumae, there lived a samurai named Chudo Konnai, a man of great courage and unquestionable integrity, who served as administrator of the coastal areas. One day in winter, while making the rounds of the beaches of Matsumae, Konnai came to the inlet of Sakegawa, and there at dusk he boarded a ferry with five or six other passengers in hopes of reaching the next port before dark. When they set out, the weather was fair and the waters smooth and placid, which was rare for winter in the north, but as the shore was receding behind them, the seas suddenly grew wild and angry, in spite of the fact that there was still no wind to speak of, and the boat was tossed about like a cork on the waves.
The passengers turned pale with fear and began raising a great commotion: One man cried out the name of the woman he loved, shouting “Farewell! Farewell!” while trembling like a frightened dog; another pulled from his basket a sutra to Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, raised it to his forehead, oblivious to the fact that he was holding it upside-down, then spread it out and read it aloud in a quavering voice; another grabbed his gourd of saké and guzzled down every last drop, saying that death was one thing but he couldn’t bear the thought of letting good wine go to waste, then dangling before the others the empty gourd, no larger than his hand, and solemnly declaring that, besides, it would make an excellent flotation device; another, for reasons of his own, no doubt, fervently licked the tip of his finger and rubbed the spittle on his forehead; another rummaged anxiously through his purse, counted his money, and, eyeing the other passengers suspiciously, growled that he was missing one ryo of gold; and yet another whiled away the moments before an almost certain death by trying to start an argument, claiming that someone had touched his knee. The waves, meanwhile, swelled to even greater size, and soon the boat began to bounce and shudder so violently that everyone fell silent, too terror-stricken even to scream. The captain was the first to succumb. “Have mercy upon us!” he groaned, plopping face down on the deck and lying there as still as a corpse while the others followed suit, collapsing in tears and finally fainting dead away.
Only Chudo Konnai maintained his composure. He sat with his back to the gunwale, his legs crossed and his arms folded, peering silently ahead. Now the sea before him turned a golden hue and began to boil and erupt in bubbles of five distinct colors; the water parted in two rolling, white-capped waves; and from between them there emerged a mermaid, similar in every detail to the ones Konnai had heard tell of in stories, who tossed back her emerald curls with a shake of the head and began to snake toward the boat with astonishing speed, cutting through the water with swift, powerful strokes of her crystalline arms and opening her small red mouth to let out a single, piercing, whistle-like cry.
“Damnable wretch,” Konnai muttered beneath his breath. “Obstruct the waterways, would you?” Furious, he took a small bow from his baggage, invoked the aid of Heaven, and launched an arrow. His aim was true; the arrow lodged in the mermaid’s shoulder, and without so much as a startled cry she sank beneath the waves. And no sooner had she vanished than the troubled waters grew calm again. The setting sun was shining serenely upon the deck and the glassy sea when the captain finally rose to his knees, blinked, rubbed his eyes, simpered moronically, and said: “Well, I’ll be damned. Must’ve been a dream.”
Konnai was not the frivolous sort
of samurai who would ever stoop to boasting of his own exploits. He said nothing, but sat back against the gunwale with folded arms and a quiet smile. One by one the other passengers lifted their pallid faces and looked about. One of them burst into a deafening cackle in hopes of hiding his own embarrassment, another shook his empty gourd and began grumbling about having wasted all that good saké without even getting drunk, and the eighty-year-old retired merchant, who moments ago had been trembling uncontrollably and shouting the name of his young mistress back home, was now calmly adjusting the collar of his kimono and instructing the others as to the nature of their ordeal: “Well, that was a frightful experience, what? Obviously we’ve just witnessed what is known as the ‘Dragon’s Ascent,’ a phenomenon often observed in the seas off Etchu and Echizen, particularly during the summer months. It begins with the sudden appearance of a legion of dark clouds that descend toward the water, while the water itself rises to meet the clouds, as if being sucked through a hole in the sky, creating an enormous, whirling, black pillar of water and clouds. And if you gaze intently into that fearsome pillar you will clearly discern the figure of a dragon ascending toward the heavens. So it is written in a book I once read. I am also reminded of another book, in which a man describes setting out from Edo by sea. He relates that as the ship was plying the seas off Okitsu, within sight of the Tokaido Road, a swarm of black clouds swept down upon them. Greatly perturbed, the captain of the ship declared that a dragon was trying to pluck his vessel out of the sea and ordered all those aboard to cut off their hair. The clipped locks were fed into a fire, causing a mighty stench to rise skyward, and, lo and behold, the black, swirling clouds above them scattered and vanished in a twinkling. Were I myself a bit younger, I would not have hesitated to cut off my own hair just now, but unfortunately...” And with that he fell silent and solemnly rubbed his hairless pate. “Oh, is that so?” the sutra-chanter said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, then turned away, muttering that any fool could see it was all the doing of Kannon-sama, piously closed his eyes, and began to chant: Namu kanze ondai bosatsu. “Ah! Here it is!” cried another ecstatically, digging the missing gold piece out from the folds of his kimono.
Not a man among them realized that they owed their very lives to Konnai, who merely sat with a half-smile on his face even as the ship at last came swaying gently into harbor and the passengers scrambled ashore, congratulating one another and celebrating with simple-minded whoops and cries.
It was not long after this incident that Chudo Konnai arrived back at Matsumae Castle. Once he’d given a full report on his coastal inspection tour to his superior, Noda Musashi, and the conversation had turned to matters of a more casual and private nature, Konnai offhandedly related, without embellishing the story in the least, all that had transpired in the seas off Sakegawa. Musashi, having long admired Konnai’s honesty of character, did not doubt for a moment that he had in fact encountered such a wondrous creature. “A rare occurrence, indeed, in this day and age!” he exclaimed, slapping his knee. “Let us lose no time in reporting this affair to His Lordship!” Konnai blushed and protested that it was hardly a matter of such importance, but Musashi interrupted him, saying: “Nonsense! It’s an extraordinary feat, the like of which has never been equaled in history. It is a tale that will serve as a great inspiration to the young men of our clan, and spur them on to greater efforts.” He spoke emphatically, leaving no room for argument, and, urging the embarrassed Konnai to hurry, ushered him into the daimyo’s presence.
It so happened that the other ranking retainers were also in attendance at the main hall that day, and when Noda Musashi, still in a state of considerable excitement, asked for their attention and began to recount in full detail the strange adventure that had befallen Konnai during his trip, prefacing his remarks by saying that he was about to describe a feat of unprecedented skill and courage, all present, including the daimyo himself, edged closer and hung on his every word. All, that is, but one—a man by the name of Aosaki Hyakuemon.
This Hyakuemon was the son of one Hyakunojo, who had devoted many years of loyal service to the daimyo as a chief retainer of the Matsumae clan. Upon his father’s death Hyakuemon had inherited the same rank and stipend, in spite of the fact that he had done—and continued to do—nothing whatsoever to earn them, but rather lived a life of idleness and debauchery. So puffed up with pride in his lineage was he, that he held his fellow retainers in contempt and had always refused to marry, declaring whenever the subject arose that he could scarcely permit the daughter of some parvenu to assume the Aosaki name. He was now forty-one, however, and not a samurai in the land would have relinquished his daughter to such a man, though he were to beg on bended knee. Disgruntled by this state of affairs, for which he alone was to blame, Hyakuemon never lost an opportunity to seek retaliation by heaping derision upon other members of the clan. He was universally disliked, not only for his unsavory character but for his physical appearance, which was the very image of a pale blue demon from hell. He stood nearly six feet tall and was extraordinarily thin and bony, with fingers as long and slender as writing-brushes, small and deep-set eyes that flickered with a perverse greenish glow, a great hooked nose, hollow, sunken cheeks, and a perpetual frown of distaste.
Before Musashi had got more than midway through the tale of Konnai’s adventure, this Hyakuemon laughed through his beaklike nose and turned to a young tea-server who sat hunched over timidly in the rear of the hall. ‘Well, Gensai,” he said, “what do you make of this? Is it not rather questionable conduct to impose such a preposterous tale upon His Lordship? There are no monsters in this world, no unexplainable mysteries; the monkey’s face is red, the dog has four feet: so it always has been and so it always will be. A mermaid, no less! Are we here to listen to fairy tales? A grown man, a man of supposed distinction, speaking of sea monsters with red coxcombs—well, I ask you!”
Hyakuemon’s voice grew ever louder and harsher.
“What say you, Gensai? Even supposing these freakish lady-fish, these so-called mermaids, did inhabit the northern seas, to shoot such a creature with a bow and arrow one would need virtually supernatural powers. Your average, mediocre archer would not stand a chance! Birds have wings; fish have fins. To bring down a small bird in flight, or shoot a goldfish as it swims, is not easily done; but to fell a monster with a—what was it, a crystal body?—why, one would need the skill of Raiko, Tsuna, Hachiro, Tawara Toda, and the God of Arms all rolled into one. I speak from experience. The goldfish in my fountain at home—you yourself have seen them, have you not? As you know, they enjoy but a shallow pool in which to flit about, and yet, just the other day, to while away the time, I unleashed some two hundred arrows at them with a child’s bow—two hundred arrows—and failed to score a single hit. Let us hope that our Konnai here, finding himself caught in a storm at sea, was not simply so frightened that he let fly his arrow at an old rotting log adrift on the waves!”
Thus Hyakuemon ranted on, ostensibly addressing the mortified young tea-server, who cringed and fidgeted as the man clutched at his sleeve, but speaking loudly enough to make certain the daimyo could hear his snide and calumnious remarks. Finally Noda Musashi, who had long harbored enmity toward Hyakuemon for his arrogant and brazen manner and could now no longer contain his wrath, spun about to face him.
“That is merely your lack of education speaking,” he growled through clenched teeth. “Only someone who possesses nothing but the most superficial knowledge would categorically state that there are no mysteries, no monsters in this world. Japan is a sacred land, the land of the gods; wonders which defy the limits of human understanding are everyday occurrences here. The occasional appearance of marvelous and fantastic beings is only to be expected in a land with more than a thousand leagues of mountains and seashores and three thousand years of history, a land which, I need scarcely add, is by no means to be compared with the piddling fountain in your garden. In ancient times, during the reign of Emperor Nintoku, there lived in Hida a man with two faces, one on either side of his head; during Emperor Temmu’s reign, a bull with twelve horns was raised at a mountain cottage in Tamba; and on the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the fourth year of Keiun, during the reign of Emperor Mommu, a demon with three heads who measured twenty-six feet in height and five feet across arrived on these shores from a foreign land. With precedents such as these, you have no cause to doubt the existence of this mermaid.”
As Musashi reeled off this rebuttal in the torrential, eloquent flow of words for which he was renowned, Hyakuemon’s pale face went even paler, and finally, with a scornful sneer, he replied: “Superficial knowledge? If anyone is guilty of that, it is you, sir. But I am not fond of debate. Debates are for ignoble souls such as yourself who are anxious to achieve distinction. We are not children; we might exchange empty theories until we’re out of breath and merely end up adhering all the more stubbornly to our respective views. Arguing is a foolish waste of time. I’m not saying that there cannot possibly be such things as mermaids in this world; I’m merely saying that I’ve never seen one, and that it’s a pity that, in addition to his amusing tale, Konnai didn’t bring this marvel along with him to present before His Lordship.”
Musashi, enraged no less by the loathsome and provoking disdain with which Hyakuemon spoke than by the words themselves, edged closer to him and said: “To a true samurai, trust is everything. He who will not believe without seeing is a pitiful excuse for a man. Without trust, how can one know what is real and what is not? Indeed, one may see and yet not believe—is this not the same as never seeing? Is not everything, then, no more than an immaterial dream? The recognition of any reality begins with trust. And the source of all trust is love for one’s fellow man. But you—you have not a speck of love in your miserable heart, nor of faith. Behold how honest Konnai, the blameless target of your venomous tongue, trembles with rage, wringing bitter tears from the depths of his faithful soul. Konnai is not, like yourself, sir, a man to whom it would ever occur to resort to prevarication. Surely not even you can claim to be unaware of his unwavering fidelity over the years.”
Thus Musashi pressed his case, but Hyakuemon merely ignored him and poin
ted toward the front of the hall. “Look there!” he barked. “His Lordship is taking his leave. He does not appear to be amused.” Hyakuemon prostrated himself before the daimyo as the latter retired to his inner chambers, but he could not resist having the final word. “Insufferable fools,” he muttered as he rose to his feet once the daimyo had gone. “You may wish to give the name ‘honesty’ to what others would call dimwittedness, but leave it to such ‘honest men’ as yourselves to deceive the world with your fabulous dreams and superstitions.” And with that, he left the hall, creeping off as silently as a cat.
As for the other retainers present, some despised Hyakuemon for his mean-spirited pettiness, while others considered Musashi’s eloquence sheer affectation and felt that neither was worth siding with, and still others, who’d been dozing throughout, merely climbed woozily to their feet, oblivious to all that had transpired. By ones and twos they left the hall until none but Musashi and Konnai remained. Musashi gnashed his teeth in vexation.
“How the wretch prattles on!” he growled. “Konnai, I can guess what is in your heart. As the true samurai that you are, you realize there is but one course of action; but know that whatever comes of this, I, Musashi, will take your side. In any case, such insolence must not go unpunished.”
These words of encouragement, stouthearted though they were, only left Konnai feeling all the more keenly the hopelessness of his situation, and for some moments, wracked with mournful sobs, he could make no reply at all. Such it is for those in the grips of misfortune: declarations of support and sympathy, rather than providing comfort, may serve only to increase the victim’s pain. Overwhelmed with despair, Konnai bowed his head and wept, even as he resigned himself to the fact that his life was all but over. At length, wiping the tears away with both fists, he looked up and spoke in a voice still punctuated with sobs:
“Thank you. The abuse which Hyakuemon has heaped upon me today is scarcely such as I can find it in me to ignore. I assure you that, though I may be his inferior in terms of rank, my only thought was: Knave! I shall slice you in two! Being in the presence of His Lordship, however, I had no choice but to endure the unendurable and choke back these tears of rage. But make no mistake—I am resolved to do what must be done. To chase the bastard Hyakuemon down at this very moment and dispense of his life with one stroke of my sword would be easy enough; but then the world would believe I’d shed his blood out of anger that he’d exposed my lie. My account of the mermaid would come to be regarded with even greater suspicion, which could not but reflect unfavorably upon yourself as well. Since, in any case, this life of mine is lost, I shall delay the end only long enough to return to the inlet at Sakegawa, where, if the God of Arms has not forsaken me, I will recover the carcass of that mermaid, bring it back to the castle for all to see, rebuke Hyakuemon with an easy mind, cut him down, and then gladly commit seppuku.”
Such was the pathos of this speech that Musashi too began to weep. “Would I had never meddled in your affairs!” he said. “Announcing your heroic feat before His Lordship was a grave error. To think that all for some meaningless debate over mermaids, a worthy man must die! Forgive me, Konnai. May you not be born a samurai in the next life!” Turning his tear-stained face away, Musashi rose to his feet. “I shall look after your household in your absence,” he said gruffly, and strode out of the hall.
Konnai’s wife had died of an illness some six years before, and he now shared his house with his only daughter and a maidservant. The daughter, Yaé, was a tall and sturdy girl of sixteen with fair skin and lovely features; the maidservant, whose name was Mari, was a petite and clever young woman some twenty-one years of age. Konnai returned home that day making every effort to appear carefree and cheerful. “I must leave immediately on another trip,” he said, “and I may be gone quite a while this time. Watch out for each other.” And without another word, he surreptitiously gathered up most of his savings, stuffed the money into his clothes, and dashed out of the house.
“Father’s acting awfully strange,” Yaé said, after seeing him off.
“Yes, he is,” Mari calmly agreed. Konnai was inept when it came to deceiving people, and his smiling, lighthearted pose had been of no avail; both his sixteen-year-old daughter and the maidservant had seen right through it.
“And why would he take all that gold?” wondered Yaé. They’d even seen him snatch up his savings.
Mari nodded pensively and muttered: “It must be something rather serious.”