Isozaki

Along with The Tale of the Handcart Priest, Isozaki is one of only two otogizōshi in this volume with an explicitly Zen Buddhist orientation. Named after the bigamous husband in the tale, Isozaki tells of a vicious murder and the religious awakenings that it inspires. Insofar as it relates how even the most heinous acts may lead to the best spiritual results, it demonstrates the principle of non-duality, according to which delusion and enlightenment, samsara and nirvana, and good and evil are all ultimately the same. In the frequently hyperbolic realm of medieval Buddhist discourse, women are known to be especially prone to hatred and jealousy, and it is against these tendencies, in particular, that the author of Isozaki warns. Nevertheless, the husband in the story does not escape censure, suggesting that men, too, may bear some of the blame for the resentments and animosities that can arise in the domestic sphere.

Although Isozaki is pungently didactic and more than a little misogynistic—its author takes an unusually heavy-handed approach to storytelling—it employs poetry, allusion, and metaphor in some interesting ways. For example, after the first wife murders her rival, her sudden inability to remove her demon disguise suggests the inner, psychological transformation that has occurred in her as a result of her crime. Likewise, her eventual ability to remove the demon mask—her re-attainment of humanity as a result of her son’s Buddhist preaching—suggests her internal spiritual redemption. The means of that redemption, as the author is so careful to point out, is not prayer to a bodhisattva, recitation of the nenbutsu or the Lotus Sutra, or any other popular devotional practice, but rather a concentrated session of seated meditation. In addition to being deeply moralistic, Isozaki is highly literary, invoking references to famous poets and anecdotes of the past, chapter titles from The Tale of Genji, and a range of traditional and spuriously attributed verse.

Isozaki seems to date from around the second half of the sixteenth century; it survives in numerous picture scrolls and nara ehon picture books, as well as in a woodblock-printed edition published in Kanbun 7 (1667).

A lifetime is but a dream within a dream. Who among us can live for a hundred years? All things are empty, yet why then do we believe that they abide unchanging? The pine may survive for a thousand years, but when it finally rots its glory is more fleeting than that of a rose of Sharon, blooming and withering in a single day. Cherry blossoms and autumn leaves last for only a little while, lingering in the hours when the wind does not blow. And although we are as short-lived as they, when our companions neglect us we may feel as bad as the wretched reeds at Naniwa Bay. At such times, we must remember that other people’s hardships are sorrows of our own, and that to engage in jealousy and hatred is despicable indeed.

At the foot of Mount Nikkō in Shimotsuke Province, there was a samurai by the name of Lord Isozaki. During the reign of Yoritomo,1 a year or two passed without his receiving an official confirmation of his lands. He therefore took up residence in Kamakura in order to seek legal redress. In his absence, his wife attended to everything. One time, she sold a mirror to provide clothes for her husband in the capital, and morning and evening she diligently prayed to the buddhas and deities of the house that their lands might be finally, officially confirmed. As a result, perhaps, her husband eventually received his confirmation and returned to Shimotsuke. But having a man’s vile heart, he brought back another wife. He built a house for her beyond the moat, and calling it the New Manor, he installed her there.

“Oh, how maddening!” the first wife thought. “I took care of everything while he was in Kamakura, and all for nothing! How heartless of him to go and do something like that!” She brooded and complained throughout the day and night.

Her husband spoke, saying, “It’s not just me. This kind of thing happens with the rich and poor alike. Even in the tales of old, the major captain Genji sought out his ‘Lavender’ link.2 With the fleeting evening smoke of the ‘Paulownia Pavilion,’ he was smitten by the dew on the ‘Evening Faces’ in the course of the ‘Broom Tree’ nighttime conversation. In the deeply fragrant ‘Festival of Autumn Leaves,’ he heard the chirp of the ‘Empty Cicada’ decrying the hollowness of the world. He slipped his love a leafy branch of the ‘Sacred Tree,’ and with no thought for the world to come, he set his heart on the ‘Village of Falling Flowers.’ Trapped at the bay of ‘Suma,’ wandering in the cycle of birth and death, he exhausted himself in untold heartache among the ‘Channel Buoys’ of ‘Akashi,’ bay of the four-fold bright and perfect wisdom.

“What’s more, I’ve heard that Ariwara no Narihira slept with as many as 3,734 women!3 Even if their ranks and looks were varied, their hearts were all second-to-none. So come now, give it up. Back in Kamakura, that woman showed me the deepest affection, and since I couldn’t very well abandon her, I brought her here with me. It’s not right for a man to take a woman’s love when he’s down on his luck and then to drop her when he’s back on his feet. There’s a saying that goes ‘Never forget your friends from when you were poor, and never turn out a wife who saw you through hard times.’ I’ve also heard it said that you should ‘never abandon a woman and her father from the days when you were broke.’

“You know, people say that the daughter of Ki no Aritsune pushed so much burning jealousy down inside her chest that when she put a pot of water on it, it boiled.4 She wrote a poem about it, and that, too, became a dream:

tsurenaku mo	For your cruelty,
hisage no mizu no	the water in the kettle
wakikaeri	seethes and boils.
mune no keburi wa	Does smoke rise from my breast
tatsu ya tatazu ya	or does it not?

In any case, please just let me be.” With that, her husband clasped his hands in earnest appeal. But having a woman’s fickle heart, the wife could not turn a blind eye. She brooded constantly, thinking to herself, “However that may be, I still want to have a peek at that woman from Kamakura, just to see what she looks like.”

One time, the husband traveled to Kamakura on business. While he was away, a sarugaku performer by the name of Kuraichi Taifu happened to arrive in the area,5 and he came by the house to pay his respects. The wife sent out a servant to tell him, “My husband is in Kamakura, but he should be back soon, so please stay around for a while.” She had him served saké and the like and then sent him on his way. Later, she sent a man to his lodging with a message. “There’s a child that I need to frighten a little bit,” she wrote. “Please lend me a horrible demon mask with a set of matching trouser-pants and a red demon wig.” Kuraichi thought that this was inappropriate for a lady, but because he could not very well refuse, he sent them to her anyway.

Night soon fell, whereupon the wife donned the wig and trouser-pants. She crept out of her house with a hammer-staff in hand.6 All alone, she made her way to the other woman’s house, where she stealthily opened the gate and slipped inside. She paused for a while, but as the night deepened and the house grew quiet, she peered in through a window. There she saw a young lady, seventeen or eighteen years old, with free-flowing hair as long and lustrous as the wings of a river cicada. The wife could barely make out a set of beautiful black-painted eyebrows amid the lady’s rich tresses. With her crimson outer robe cast off to the side, the young lady was perusing a written work in the dim light of an oil lamp. A faint scent of incense hovered in the air, highlighting the extraordinary beauty of her visage.

“She’s so beautiful,” the wife thought, “lovelier than Mount Mubasute and the Kiyomi Barrier combined, or a plum-scented willow branch with cherry blossoms abloom. Even in the past, how could the empress of Emperor Wu of Han or Yang Guifei or Li Furen have surpassed her?7 Is there any man at all, however unfeeling, who could look at her without losing his composure, without falling in love? Next to her, I’m middle-aged. My skin is dark, my hair is reddish, and I’ve got kids! Oh, how awful!” But then the wife reconsidered: “Still, however beautiful she might be, what right does she have to steal another woman’s husband? It’s so hateful, so heartless!”

In her demon disguise, the first wife peers through a window at the second wife and her maid. (From Isozaki, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

Just at that moment, the young lady summoned her maid, Kiritsubo. “Somehow or other,” she said, “I feel more alone tonight than usual. I can’t stop thinking about his Lordship. Oh, I wish he’d come back soon! Until he does, it’s just too lonely waking up by myself in the mornings.” Then she recited a poem:

yamadori no	Clouds above the ridge
o no e no kumo wo	like a mountain pheasant’s tail
hedatete mo	may hold us apart—
kokoro wa kimi ni	but there is never a time
sowanu ma zo naki	when my heart is not with yours.

“His Lordship will be back soon,” Kiritsubo replied. “And when he comes, he’s bound to show you even more consideration than usual.”

Hearing this, the first wife must have been all the more enraged. “How maddening!” she cried. “Well, I’ll take her life and go!” With that, she burst through a sliding paper door and rushed inside. The young lady screamed in terror. Staring at the intruder, she took her to be a demon. She had never actually seen one, but she had heard them described. As for the wife, to say that she was frightening could hardly do her justice; the young lady was scared out of her wits. The wife pummeled her with her hammer-staff, bludgeoning her to the point of death. “Help!” the woman cried, “I’m being beaten!” Her agony was horrific, and because she was still so very young, she quickly died.

The first wife murders the second wife as the maid, Kiritsubo, runs from the room. (From Isozaki, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

“Now I feel better!” the wife exclaimed. “Where’s Kiritsubo?”

“Help! A demon!” Kiritsubo cried, running from the room.

The Buddha explains about this. When he says that “women are bodhisattvas on the outside and demons within,” he means that although they may be beautiful on the surface, resembling even bodhisattvas, in their hearts they are more wicked than devils. There is a poem by the monk Saigyō that also tells of the perversion in the female heart:

yo no naka ni	If the hearts of
nyōshō no kokoro	the women of the world
sugu naraba	were righteous,
meushi no tsuno ya	then the horns of heifers
jōgi naramashi	would be as straight as rulers.8

There is truth in Saigyō’s verse.

The Buddha himself once lodged in an ordinary woman’s womb, and there are venerable learned monks and holy men who, though they themselves were born of women, yet remonstrate against women for their wickedness. Some people wonder how this could be, and they, too, seem to be right. This is why a certain sutra says that “people have the characteristics of buddhas, so they rank as buddhas.”9 On the other hand, the sutras also explain that “women are the servants of hell; they stamp out the seeds of the buddhas.”10 By tearing out her rival’s hair, stomping on her chest, and briskly beating her to death, the first wife was assuredly stamping out the seeds of the buddhas.

The wife returned home, but when she tried to remove her mask, she found that it was affixed more firmly than if it had been chained or nailed into place. Even if she twisted off her head, it was unlikely to budge. In addition, she could not let go of the hammer-staff in her hand. Truly, she had become the demon of her wicked, brooding heart. “Oh, how horrible!” she lamented. “What could have happened? And what will become of my poor, wretched self?” Ashamed at the prospect of being seen and feeling that she was neither dreaming nor awake, she passed the night in tears.

The day had dawned, and since it would not do for her to be seen, the wife crept out into the back mountains and sat at the base of a large tree. How frightening! Since she had become a demon in outward form, had her heart, too, turned demonic?

“Oh, I hope someone will come along,” she thought to herself. “I’d like a bite to eat to stop this hunger for a while.” Besides this, she could think of nothing else. She wanted to visit the town, but clearly it was impossible. She could only hide in the trees like the forest guard of Mount Ōuchi, neither scattering with the autumn leaves of Tatsuta and Hatsuse nor disappearing with the dew in the Miyagino and Musashino fields. With her worthless life dragging ever on, she soaked her sleeves in tears as miserably shallow as the mountain stream in which the forlorn buck, bugling restlessly in the night, could scarcely dip his hoofs.11 She was boundlessly chagrined.

The wife weeps as her son preaches to her about Buddhism. (From Isozaki, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

Now the wife had a son who was an acolyte. He was a student at the temple on Mount Nikkō,12 and he had an outstanding reputation. Hearing what had happened, he hurried down from the mountain. “Oh, how awful!” he thought. “What will become of my mother? I’d like to see her one time, even if she’s in a hopeless state.” He searched here and there until he heard some people carrying on about a terrifying creature in the back mountains. Intrigued, he went to take a look.

The son found a demon-like person hiding at the base of a large tree. “You there,” he called out, “who are you?” The demon wept and replied, “Oh, for shame! To be seen this way, not yet vanished like the dew on the grass!”

“Well, then, are you my mother?” And lamenting, he exclaimed, “Ah, what’s to become of you in such a condition? How horrible!” With that, the demon told him exactly what it had done.

“You may be my mother,” the boy said, “but who knew you had such an evil heart! Oh, how awful! Shall I try to pull off the mask somehow?”

“It won’t budge, even if you twist my head off.”

The son spoke: “This has happened because of your wickedness, and for that reason neither the gods nor the buddhas are likely to intercede. Whether or not the mask and hammer-staff will fall away depends on your heart alone. You must forget your hatred, be unaware of your own personal sorrow, forget yourself, be unaware of others, and simply sit in silence. When we hear of the multitude of conditioned phenomena,13 although they may be hard to tell from a vision or a dream, it is when we cannot tell them from phantasms that there is no self and there are no others.

“Even now, the Three Buddha Bodies—the so-called buddha-nature of the three ages—reside within your breast. When you do good, you are a buddha incarnate; and when you do bad, the Three Buddha Bodies become three demons and punish you. Judging from your appearance, there’s no doubt about it. The Buddhist Law isn’t far; it’s actually close, inside your heart. Universal Truth is none other than this. The buddhas despise it when we seek outside of ourselves.14

“Speaking of unconditioned existence,15 you should understand that there will certainly come a time when you will attain buddhahood as yourself. The eight schools, nine schools, twelve schools, Shingon, Tendai, Kusha, Hossō, and Sanron schools of Buddhism all appear within this realm. Incanting dharani, invoking the seven hundred–plus sages of the Kongōkai Mandala and the five hundred–plus sages of the Taizōkai Mandala, forming mudras, ringing handbells, clutching single-pointed vajras, and chanting: these are all practices of conditioned existence. To perform them is like setting your heart on a woman in a picture. Rather, it is the Way of Zen to abandon the single-pointed vajra and the handbell and to meditate on the character A.16 That is why there is a poem that says:

aji yori mo	Beginning with A,
aji ni tomonau	all those who proceed with
hito wa mina	the character A
mata tachikaeri	will return to the hometown
aji no furusato	of the character A.17

As the verse explains, returning to the hometown of A is meditation.

“In the practice of the nenbutsu,18 too, we abandon the bell and the mallet and face the wall, whereupon:

tonafureba	When we chant the name,
hotoke mo ware mo	both the Buddha and the self
nakarikeri	no longer exist.
namu Amida-bu no	There is only the voice saying
koe bakari shite	‘Hail Amida Buddha.’19

When this happens, there is no buddha and there is no self; there is only a voice. And whose voice is it? It is the manifested form of meditation.

“How sad that you have squandered this precious life, when human form is so difficult to attain! Women, in particular, suffer from the thick clouds of the Five Obstructions, never clearing.20 In this world of dreams and visions, you must forget your hatred!

“Long ago, there was someone like you. When the wife of Mibu no Tadayoshi in Awa Province became especially jealous, she sprouted scales on her back and a single horn from her brow. Her mouth split open from ear to ear, and she actually became a serpent in this very life. A venerable monk was passing by, and when he heard about her, he said, ‘Ah, how pitiful! I’ll teach her about the dharma and save her.’

“ ‘Oh, give it up,’ the snake-woman said. ‘I don’t need your instruction. Even just hearing about the Buddhist Law makes me sad. All I want is a way to take that hateful man and woman in each hand and drag them down into hell. It hurts me even just to hear about the Buddhist Law, so I’m hardly going to join you in it. Listen, priest, in all your time in the world, if you’ve ever learned a secret rite for killing people you despise, I want you to teach it to me now.’

“ ‘That’s easy enough,’ the monk replied. ‘I’ll show you a secret way of making those you hate disappear. Can you do as I say?’

“ ‘Certainly,’ the snake-woman said. ‘If it’ll finish off my enemies, then I’ll do just as you say, even if I fall into hell as a result.’

“ ‘In that case, I’ll teach you. First, you must sit in mindless contemplation for one or two weeks, being unaware of yourself and forgetting those you despise. Then, as you do, your enemies will vanish and you will be restored to your former self. But if any other thoughts arise in that time, you aren’t likely to succeed.’

“ ‘All right,’ the woman agreed, ‘if it will only rid me of those awful people,’ and for three weeks she sat single-mindedly facing a wall. People say that over the course of those three weeks of sitting without thought, she was restored to her former self.

“At times when we’ve been unaware of ourselves, where were the people we despised? When the wind calms, the waves become still, and in a cloudless sky the moon shines clear.

sakuragi wo	Split the cherry tree
kudakite mireba	and look inside—
hana mo nashi	there are no blossoms there.
haru koso hana no	It is the spring itself
tane wa mochikure	that brings the seeds of blossoms.21

As the poem explains, the seeds of the blossoms are not inside the tree.

“What we call ‘demons’ don’t exist apart, in some other place; depending on the inclination of our hearts, we ourselves are the demons of this world. So when it comes to engendering a single-minded desire for enlightenment, good and evil are one and the same. After all, what is delusion? And what is enlightenment? If you hate and envy others, then you’ll become a demon or a snake in this very life. Likewise, if you earnestly turn your heart toward enlightenment, then why wouldn’t you become a buddha? People say that a single session of seated meditation can erase the sins of countless ages. If you can become unaware of yourself as yourself, then those you despise will also disappear. And when that happens, the mask should fall away.” The son thus delivered his ardent instruction.

The wife must have been persuaded, because she withdrew to the base of the tree and sat in silence for a while. Then, in the dead of night, she was surprised to feel the biting chill of the dawn wind. She stood up and looked around, whereupon the mask and hammer-staff mysteriously fell from her face and hand. “Oh, how wonderful!” she cried. “And how marvelous that it happened just as my son explained! The moon reflects in the waters of a marsh, illuminating them to their depths, and my heart, too, is dispelled of darkness!” She composed a poem on this very thought:

shizuka naru	The clear moon
kokoro no uchi ni	that dwells
sumu tsuki wa	in a still heart
nami mo kudakete	is smashed by waves,
hikari to zo naru	becoming shards of light.

The wife’s demon disguise falls away. (From Isozaki, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

In comparison, how could even Prince Siddhārtha’s enlightenment, which he attained long ago upon glimpsing the morning star after six years of solitary meditation, have exceeded her own?

“Still, how horrible!” the wife thought. “Though I was born a phantasm in a world of dream, with my vile heart I murdered a lady who was beautiful beyond anything that anyone could ever paint. It was I, but it was heartless what I did.” She blamed herself, yet it was all for naught. She therefore cut off her hair, threw it away, and exchanged her clothes for the ink-dark robes of a nun. Then praying for the lady she had killed, she wandered the sixty-six provinces of Japan. Sometimes pursuing the path of enlightenment through seated meditation and sometimes composing poetry and reciting the nenbutsu, she constantly strove for her victim’s salvation.

Lord Isozaki later returned from Kamakura, only to discover that one of his wives had left him in death and the other one in life. And he realized that the hardship of that separation—both in death and in life—was due entirely to his own offense. There is a poem that warns,

The wife wanders the provinces as a Buddhist nun. (From Isozaki, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

sanaki dani	The covers are
omoki ga ue no	heavy enough already
sayogoromo	without piling more on.
waga tsuma naranu	Add no new blankets (no new wives)
tsuma na kasane so	that are not now your own.22

If we disregard this advice and behave as we will, then the teachings of the Buddha will do us no good. Lord Isozaki took inspiration from these events, and cutting off his topknot, he immediately abandoned his warrior household and set out to wander the provinces and pray for his dead wife. People say that he, too, became a buddha.

Three people attained buddhahood because of the one wife’s wicked deed. When we think about this, how can we have any doubt that delusion is itself enlightenment, that the cycle of birth and death is nirvana, and that good and evil are actually one? If we consider the forms of evil deeds, we cannot go so far as to say that they are the doings of originally enlightened beings. It is rather a matter of good atop of evil. Those who see or hear of such things should never be jealous of others. There is a poem by Gyōgetsu that says,

waga tsuma wo	Even if other men
hito no toru tote	sleep with my wife,
hitogoto ni	why should I care?
heranu mono yue	There’ll be just as much of her left
nani oshimuran	after they’ve all had their turn.23

It may be a funny example, but it is also true.

In addition, the Lotus Sutra speaks of women facing the Five Obstructions and the Three Obediences.24 Men around the world have all lost their positions and their homes because of women. First, there are examples from foreign lands. People say that King You of the Zhou dynasty met his end because of a consort, and that Emperor Xuanzong’s longing thoughts strayed as far as Japan because of Yang Guifei. Then, in this country, the holy man of Shiga Temple fell in love with an imperial consort, and because she kindly allowed him to touch her hand, his sixty-plus years of Buddhist practice were all wiped out and he cycled through the Three Worlds of Delusion after death. There was also the Fukakusa Lesser Captain, who fell in love with Ono no Komachi.25 His resentment at failing to meet with her after traveling to her abode for a hundred nights came to bear on her in the end. Her looks went to ruin, and she became the old woman of Seki Temple. People say that she suffered a horrible transformation in this very life.

The Blood Bowl Sutra is a savior of women,26 and as it, too, reveals, if at the time of her menstruation a woman spills blood on the ground, the deity of earth will mourn. Or if she releases blood in a river, the deity of water will suffer. As women’s menses and parturition blood accumulate, they become the Blood Pool Hell, eighty thousand yojanas deep and wide.27 Upon falling into this boiling lake of blood, women are tortured by demons who shout, “It’s blood from your own bodies, so drink it all up!” Although a woman may feel remorse, it will have no effect, and although she may have children, they will do her little good.

The wife of Lord Isozaki became a murderous demon because of her single-minded resentment. And in this, she was not alone. If you indulge in envy and hatred, then even if you do not kill anyone, those feelings will build up and eventually turn you into a demon or a snake. What doubt could there be? Simply put, there is nothing as frightening as the feelings in a person’s heart.

Once in the past, the daughter of a rich man of Komuma fell in love with a yamabushi mountain ascetic who was on a pilgrimage to Kumano. “I beg of you,” she said, “please allow me to fulfill my yearning for you.” The ascetic replied, “I have given up desire and entered the Buddhist path. It’s my whole-hearted wish to leave this world of delusion, and I value my reputation. I made a great vow to visit Kumano, and since I’m on my way there now, I can’t possibly consider your request.” With that, he set out on his way. The daughter chased after him longingly, nearly catching up. The ascetic ran inside Kanemaki Temple,28 shouting “Help me, please!” whereupon a priest hid him under a bell. The daughter made her way to the base of the bell, and suddenly transforming into a giant snake, she wrapped herself around it and sank into the earth.

Both the woman and the ascetic fell into hell because of the woman’s single-hearted desire, but people also say that it was because of the ascetic’s stupidity. Nothing like this would have happened if she had been allowed to achieve her small aspiration. It would have been like drinking water when you are thirsty. The Buddha, too, was once a layman. Water may be muddied, but it will become pure again.

Indeed, people say that because Ariwara no Narihira secretly appeared to married and unmarried women alike and fulfilled their desires, all 3,333 of them attained buddhahood.29 He was like the wind sweeping a bank of clouds away from the moon, allowing its original light to shine through again. The monk Saigyō, too, loved an imperial lady, and he awakened to a desire for the Way when she graciously showed him a little kindness.30 He wandered the provinces purifying his practice, after which he is said to have saved her and to have achieved buddhahood for himself, too.

In this world in which we somehow live out our lives, even good and evil exist within a dream. Udraka-Ramaputra once had eighty thousand years of life, but now he has none.31 Dongfang Shuo’s nine thousand years have also disappeared, and the man survives in name alone.32 Even the thousand years of Uttara-kuru will eventually come to an end.33 How much more uncertain is this world of ours, in which young and old may perish like the dew on the grasses of the Adashino Plain!34 We may survive the morning, but the evening we cannot. No one remains young for long, and since we all grow old in the end, can either children or the elderly endure? This is why we should never drink, view the blossoms, and harbor wicked thoughts when we are young.

kokoro ni wa	The youthful winds
waka no urakaze	of Waka Bay
otozurete	blow into my heart,
sugata ni yosuru	drawing to my visage
oi no shiranami	the white waves of age.

Will we ever again see the moon reflected in the water, or an image in a mirror? To be born in human form is as rare as a one-eyed turtle finding a floating log. We must treasure our lives. Using our best judgment, we must show compassion for others and always avoid jealousy. I have written this story for the sake of women.

kimi ga yo wa	The reign of our lord
matsu no uwaba ni	shall shine everlasting,
oku shimo no	till the frost that gathers
tsumorite yomo no	in the upper branches of the pines
kage zo hisashiki	fills the oceans all around.35

TRANSLATION AND INTRODUCTION BY KELLER KIMBROUGH

 

 

The translation and illustrations are from the Isozaki picture book (nara ehon) (seventeenth century) in the collection of the Keiō University Library, typeset and annotated in Ōshima Tatehiko and Watari Kōichi, eds., Muromachi monogatari sōshi shū, Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku taikei 63 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 2002), 328–53.

  1. Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–1199) reigned as shogun from 1192 to 1199.

  2. Genji is the amorous protagonist of The Tale of Genji (early eleventh century). In his speech, Lord Isozaki puns on several chapter titles from Genji, each of which I have indicated with single quotation marks. Some of the chapter titles are also the names of prominent female characters.

  3. Ariwara no Narihira (825–880) was a poet and the purported protagonist of The Tales of Ise (ca. tenth century), which was long believed to document his personal sexual exploits.

  4. This is according to a story in section 149 of Yamato monogatari (The Tales of Yamato, tenth century) and other sources. The daughter of Ki no Aritsune was married to Ariwara no Narihira. In the otogizōshi Koshikibu, she is said to have placed the pot of water on her chest in order to soothe her smoldering heart. See R. Keller Kimbrough, trans., Koshikibu, in Preachers, Poets, Women, and the Way: Izumi Shikibu and the Buddhist Literature of Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, 2008), 288.

  5. Sarugaku was a theatrical forerunner of noh, but here the term likely refers to noh.

  6. A hammer-staff (uchizue) is a kind of rod with a head shaped like a wooden bell hammer. It is typically carried by demons in noh.

  7. Yang Guifei (719–756) was a consort of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (685–762, r. 712–756). Li Furen (second century B.C.E.) was a consort of Emperor Wu of Han (156–87 B.C.E., r. 141–87 B.C.E.). They were legendary beauties of ancient China.

  8. Saigyō (1118–1190) was a poet. This verse is cited in several other late-medieval and Edo-period sources, including the poem-tale anthology Ochikochigusa (ca. 1580), in which it is attributed to the monk Gyōgetsu (Reizei Tamemori; 1265–1328).

  9. This quotation is obscure. According to an Isozaki manuscript in the Iwase Bunko archive, people rank as buddhas because they possess the buddha-nature. See Ōshima and Watari, eds., Muromachi monogatari sōshi shū, 337n.10.

10. This is another quotation of unknown origin, but is frequently misattributed to the Nirvana Sutra. It is also usually combined with the preceding passage about women being bodhisattvas on the outside and devils within.

11. This sentence contains puns on ukine (sad cry) and ukine (restless sleep), and on asashi (shallow) and asamashi (miserable). The forlorn buck is a staple figure in Japanese court poetry.

12. This is Rinnōji Temple, in the city of Nikkō in present-day Tochigi Prefecture.

13. The multitude of conditioned phenomena (issai uihō 一切有為法) includes all things that are constantly rising, changing, and disappearing according to the principle of karma.

14. I have translated this sentence from an Isozaki manuscript in the collection of Ishikawa Tōru, which in this case is clearer than the Keiō text. See Ōshima and Watari, eds., Muromachi monogatari sōshi shū, 342n.7.

15. Unconditioned existence (muihō 無為法) refers to a state of being free from the changes wrought by karmic causality, hence, nirvana.

16. A (a 阿) is the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet. In esoteric Buddhism, it is taken to signify the beginning and totality of all things.

17. Variants of this poem appear in the Lotus Sutra commentary Hokekyō jurin shūyōshō (Gathered Leaves of the Lotus Sutra from a Grove on Eagle Peak, 1512) and other sources.

18. The nenbutsu is the ritual invocation of the name of Amida (Skt. Amitābha) Buddha, the first character of whose name is also a 阿.

19. This poem is traditionally attributed to Priest Ippen (1234–1289), the founder of the Jishū sect of Pure Land Buddhism. According to Ippen Shōnin goroku (Record of Ippen) and other sources, Ippen composed it when he studied Zen under Hottō Kokushi.

20. According to the Lotus Sutra, the Five Obstructions are five forms of rebirth precluded to women because of their gender, including, most importantly, rebirth as a buddha. The clouds of the Five Obstructions obscure the light of the moon, which is a traditional symbol of Buddhist Truth.

21. Variants of this poem are in the Zen treatises Ikkyū gaikotsu (Ikkyū’s Skeletons, 1457) and Ikkyū mizukagami (Ikkyū’s Water Mirror, sixteenth century).

22. This is a slight variation on poem 1963 in Shinkokin wakashū (New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems, 1205), attributed to Jakuren Hōshi (d. 1182). It depends for its effect on a pun on tsuma 褄 (blanket-skirt) and tsuma 妻 (wife), as well as on the phrase tsuma na kasane so, which can mean both “add no [new] blankets” and “sleep with no [new] partner.” This poem also appears, in this volume, in The Palace of the Tengu.

23. According to an anecdote in Ochikochigusa, Gyōgetsu composed this verse after discovering his wife in flagrante with another man.

24. The Three Obediences are specific to women and hail from Confucian rather than Buddhist philosophy. Confucian tradition holds that a woman must obey her father as a girl, her husband after she has married, and her son after she has been widowed. Although the Lotus Sutra describes the Five Obstructions, it contains no mention of the Three Obediences.

25. Ono no Komachi (ca. 825–ca. 900) was a poet. The story of her unfortunate affair with the Fukakusa Lesser Captain is recounted in the noh plays Sotoba Komachi (Komachi on the Stupa) and Kayoi Komachi (The Courting of Komachi).

26. The Blood Bowl Sutra (Ketsubonkyō) is a spurious sutra imported from China to Japan around the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century.

27. One yojana equals approximately seven or nine miles, depending on the interpretation.

28. Kanemaki Temple is an alternative name for Dōjōji Temple in contemporary Wakayama Prefecture.

29. Previously in the tale, Lord Isozaki claims that Narihira slept with 3,734 women. The number 3,333 suggests the thirty-three manifestations of the bodhisattva Kannon (Skt. Avalokiteśvara), of which Narihira is sometimes said to have been a human incarnation.

30. According to an account in volume 8 of Genpei jōsuiki (The Rise and Fall of the Minamoto and Taira Clans, late fourteenth century), a consort of Retired Emperor Toba subtly admonished Saigyō for his love, whereupon he took Buddhist vows.

31. Udraka-Ramaputra (J. Utsutsura) was one of Shakyamuni’s early teachers. He is said to have attained a life span of eighty thousand eons in a later rebirth.

32. Dongfang Shuo (J. Tōbōsaku) was a literatus of the Western Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–9 C.E.). In the noh play Tōbōsaku, he appears as a nine-thousand-year-old man.

33. In traditional Buddhist cosmology, Uttara-kuru (J. Hokkurushū) is the great continent to the north of Mount Sumeru. Its inhabitants are said to have life spans of one thousand years.

34. Adashino was a famous charnel ground at the eastern edge of Kyoto, the capital of Japan.

35. This is a variant of poem 311 in Kinyō wakashū (Collection of Golden Leaves, 1127), which supplies the crucial last line: yomo no / umi to naru made (fills the oceans all around). The poem is attributed to Minamoto no Toshiyori (d. 1129). It is included in only two of the many extant Isozaki manuscripts, suggesting that it is a later addition to the narrative, according to Watari Kōichi, in Ōshima and Watari, eds., Muromachi monogatari sōshi shū, 353n.22.