Part 24

(7) Public announcements are usually written upon small wooden tablets attached to a post; and in the country such announcements are still set up just as suggested in the ballad.

Now three or four months after the stepmother of Shuntoku had thus invoked evil upon him he became very sick. Then that stepmother secretly rejoiced.

And she spoke cunningly to Nobuyoshi, her husband, saying: "Sir, my lord, this sickness of Shuntoku seems to be a very bad sickness; and it is difficult to keep one having such sickness in the house of a rich man."

Then Nobuyoshi was much surprised, and sorrowed greatly; but, thinking to himself that indeed it could not be helped, he called Shuntoku to him, and said:--

"Son, this sickness which you have seems to be leprosy; and one having such a sickness cannot continue to dwell in this house.

"It were best for you, therefore, to make a pilgrimage through all the provinces, in the hope that you may be healed by divine influence.

"And my storehouses and my granaries I will not give to Otowaka-maru, but only to you, Shuntoku; so you must come back to us."

Poor Shuntoku, not knowing how wicked his stepmother was, besought her in his sad condition, saying: "Dear mother, I have been told that I must go forth and wander as a pilgrim.

"But now I am blind, and I cannot travel without difficulty. I should be content with one meal a day in place of three, and glad for permission to live in a corner of some storeroom or outhouse; but I should like to remain somewhere near my home.

"Will you not please permit me to stay, if only for a little time? Honored mother, I beseech you, let me stay."

But she answered: "As this trouble which you now have is only the beginning of the bad disease, it is not possible for me to suffer you to stay. You must go away from the house at once."

Then Shuntoku was forced out of the house by the servants, and into the yard, sorrowing greatly.

And the wicked stepmother, following, cried out: "As your father has commanded, you must go away at once, Shuntoku."

Shuntoku answered: "See, I have not even a traveling-dress. A pilgrim's gown and leggings I ought to have, and a pilgrim's wallet for begging."

At hearing these words, the wicked stepmother was glad; and she at once gave him all that he required.

Shuntoku received the things, and thanked her, and made ready to depart, even in his piteous state.

He put on the gown and hung a wooden mamori (charm) upon his breast(1), and he suspended the wallet about his neck. He put on his straw sandals and fastened them tightly, and took a bamboo staff in his hand, and placed a hat of woven rushes upon his head.

And saying, "Farewell, father; farewell, mother," poor Shuntoku started on his journey.

Sorrowfully Nobuyoshi accompanied his son a part of the way, saying: "It cannot be helped, Shuntoku. But if, through the divine favor of those august deities to whom that charm is dedicated, your disease should become cured, then come back to us at once, my son."

Hearing from his father these kind words of farewell, Shuntoku felt much happier, and covering his face with the great rush hat, so as not to be known to the neighbors, he went on alone.

But in a little while, finding his limbs so weak that he was afraid he could not go far, and feeling his heart always drawn back toward his home, so that he could not help often stopping and turning his face thither, he became sad again.

(1) See Professor Chamberlain's "Notes on some Minor Japanese Religious Practices," for full details of pilgrimages and pilgrim costumes, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute (1898). The paper is excellently illustrated.

Since it would have been difficult for him to enter any dwelling, he had often to sleep under pine-trees or in the forests; but sometimes he was lucky enough to find shelter in some wayside shrine containing images of the Buddhas.

And once in the darkness of the morning, before the breaking of the day, in the hour when the crows first begin to fly abroad and cry, the dead mother of Shuntoku came to him in a dream.

And she said to him: "Son, your affliction has been caused by the witchcraft of your wicked stepmother. Go now to the divinity of Kiyomidzu, and beseech the goddess that you may be healed."

Shuntoku arose, wondering, and took his way toward the city of Kyoto, toward the temple of Kiyomidzu.

One day, as he traveled, he went to the gate of the house of a rich man named Hagiyama, crying out loudly: "Alms! alms!"

Then a maid servant of the house, hearing the cry, came out and gave him food, and laughed aloud, saying: "Who could help laughing at the idea of trying to give anything to so comical a pilgrim?"