Spring in a Snowy Country

第10話

"The Young Leaves in Haishiwa" and the diary entries for the years before and after show that the life of the monks in Oshu was very much of interest to this traveler. There was Bosama* in Maezawa Town named Shoho, and Masumi would sometimes attend his performances to talk to him. He had composed a set of waka poems, and before Bosama left for Matsumae, he had composed a farewell waka poem. They had a good memory for each other, so they probably often exchanged information in small talk. In Ou villages in the midst of winter holing up, Zatou used to be an indispensable and exciting organization. Especially a little later in the New Year, the youngsters and children waited for the Zatou's visit, unable to bear that the side of the hearth would once again begin to fall silent. And it just so happens that among the crowd of people was Sugae Masumi of Mikawa Province.

farewell......（名）告別、送別

indispensable......（形）不可欠な

youngster......（名）若者

The blind men brought his disciples and after singing one song, he had them tell them the so-called Haya-monogatari（quick-firing stories）**. The engaging Zatou sometimes told small talk they had made up themselves or time-honored tales.

disciple......（名）弟子

quick-firing......（形）早口の

time-honored......（形）昔からの、由緒ある

The article of the evening of February 21, 1788, says this. Two blind monks, X-ichi and Y-ichi, sat by the hearth of the Suzuki family in Muikairi, Isawa County, where they stayed for a night. When they took out their shamisen*** and tried to play it, the children interjected, "Give us a joruri****, stop that and tell us old stories," they said. "Which old story would you like to hear?" said the monks, "Can you tell us the Quern-stone with biwa*****?" said the housewife behind the hearth. "Then let's talk. Listen to me. Once upon a time there was one beautiful daughter in a family," they began to recount a tragicomedy about a monk's marriage. It was like a reworked version of the old story "The Groom of the Monkey". Because the man promised the monk that he would give the monk his daughter if he played the biwa all night, the monk tries to take her by the hand at dawn. He wrapped the quern-stone in a seat of weeds and told the monk it was a rice bale and let it go outside on his back. As they rested on the side of the road, the monk said this to her. The monk told her as they rested by the side of the road that she should jump into this river and die with him rather than become the wife of a blind man and suffer for the rest of her life. The daughter agreed and took out the millstone and threw it into the water with a plop, and as she hid by and watched, the blind man jumped into the abyss after her, crying. His body sank and his biwa and the millstone floated up and drifted away and caught on the fence. That's why biwa is sometimes compared to a quern-stone even today, the monk said.

interject......（動）言葉を差し挟む

recount......（動）物語る

tragicomedy......（名）悲喜劇

rework......（動）リメイクする

groom......（名）花婿

quern......（名）ひき臼

bale......（名）俵

millstone......（名）石臼

plop......（名）どぶん

abyss......（名）奈落の底

drift away......漂い流れていく

Two days later, Masumi left the Suzuki family's house and tried to go to the Murakami family in Tokuoka. One boy led the way for him. As they sat down to rest in the meadow, tired of walking on the slushy road, a rabbit jumped out and ran. When the boy saw this, he told the following story. A long time ago, a river snail who found a rabbit recited a waka to him.

A gnawer on a twig in the morning sunshine on Mt. Kouka have long-ears and is funny.

Hearing this, the rabbit replied with a waka.

The trash-covered in a trash-filled river beneath the bushes have twisted asses and is funny.

slushy......（形）雪解けの

river snail......タニシ

find......（動）偶然出会う

recite......（動）吟唱する

gnaw......（動）齧る

ass......（名）尻

Needless to say, it was because of the Bosama's education that the child remembered these songs. What is more funny is how he felt on the Higan Day as he huddled by the roadside in the shade of the back meadow, smiling and trying to listen to the story of the rabbit and the river snail. I can imagine Masumi was 35 years old at this time, wearing a long travel sword and a hood. The year 1788 was a time of new culture in both Edo and Kyoto, when various academic disciplines and highbrow, elegant interests were developing in competition with each other. But he had nothing to do with them; there was this lonely traveler walking alone along the bank of one side of the Kitakami River in distant Oshu.

huddle......（動）しゃがむ

highbrow......（形）知的な、高尚な

in competition with......と競争して

January 16, 1928.

*Bosama: Blind male performers who played the shamisen while touring the Tsugaru region.

**Haya-monogatari: A form of oral literature that tells a funny and satirical story in quick-firing succession.

***shamisen: A three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument. t is played with a plectrum called a bachi.

****joruri: a form of traditional Japanese narrative music in which a tayu sings to the accompaniment of a shamisen.

*****biwa: A Japanese short-necked fretted lute, often used in narrative storytelling.