OSHIDORI

There was a falconer and hunter, named Sonjō, who lived in the district

called Tamura-no-Gō, of the province of Mutsu. One day he went out

hunting, and could not find any game. But on his way home, at a place

called Akanuma, he perceived a pair of _oshidori_[1] (mandarin-ducks),

swimming together in a river that he was about to cross. To kill

_oshidori_ is not good; but Sonjō happened to be very hungry, and he

shot at the pair. His arrow pierced the male: the female escaped into

the rushes of the further shore, and disappeared. Sonjō took the dead

bird home, and cooked it.

That night he dreamed a dreary dream. It seemed to him that a beautiful

woman came into his room, and stood by his pillow, and began to weep.

So bitterly did she weep that Sonjō felt as if his heart were being

torn out while he listened. And the woman cried to him: “Why,—oh! why

did you kill him?—of what wrong was he guilty?... At Akanuma we were so

happy together,—and you killed him!... What harm did he ever do you? Do

you even know what you have done?—oh! do you know what a cruel, what a

wicked thing you have done?... Me too you have killed,—for I will not

live without my husband!... Only to tell you this I came.”... Then

again she wept aloud,—so bitterly that the voice of her crying pierced

into the marrow of the listener’s bones;—and she sobbed out the words

of this poem:—

Hi kururéba

Sasoëshi mono wo—

Akanuma no

Makomo no kuré no

Hitori-né zo uki!

[_“At the coming of twilight I invited him to return with me—! Now to

sleep alone in the shadow of the rushes of Akanuma—ah! what misery

unspeakable!”_][2]

And after having uttered these verses she exclaimed:—“Ah, you do not

know—you cannot know what you have done! But to-morrow, when you go to

Akanuma, you will see,—you will see...” So saying, and weeping very

piteously, she went away.

When Sonjō awoke in the morning, this dream remained so vivid in his

mind that he was greatly troubled. He remembered the words:—“But

to-morrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see,—you will see.” And he

resolved to go there at once, that he might learn whether his dream was

anything more than a dream.

So he went to Akanuma; and there, when he came to the river-bank, he

saw the female _oshidori_ swimming alone. In the same moment the bird

perceived Sonjō; but, instead of trying to escape, she swam straight

towards him, looking at him the while in a strange fixed way. Then,

with her beak, she suddenly tore open her own body, and died before the

hunter’s eyes...

Sonjō shaved his head, and became a priest.