Little Atsumori

In the second month of 1184, the ruling Taira clan suffered a crushing defeat at the battle of Ichi-no-tani in the Genpei War (1180–1185). Among the many casualties was a youth by the name of Atsumori, purportedly beheaded on the beach by the Minamoto warrior Kumagai no Jirō Naozane before he could make his escape. His story came to be included in The Tale of the Heike (thirteenth century), from which it was later singled out for re-telling in numerous works of medieval fiction, painting, and drama. Atsumori himself came to be celebrated as a kind of medieval cult figure, and his flute, which Kumagai is said to have taken from his corpse, was enshrined at Suma Temple from at least the early fifteenth century.

Little Atsumori (Ko-Atsumori) dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Although it was inspired by its related episode in The Tale of the Heike, it focuses less on the death of Atsumori than on the resulting havoc wrought in the lives of those he left behind. It explores the physical and psychological consequences of war, describing the ways in which three characters—Atsumori’s widow, the warrior Kumagai, and a posthumous son (Little Atsumori, from whom the work takes its name)—come to terms with the shared tragedies of their past. Although the war haunts each in a different way, all find solace in the healing powers of truth, fidelity, and Pure Land Buddhism. Even Little Atsumori, an unwitting victim of a conflict that was over before his birth, finds a way to make peace with a ghost from his past: the father he never knew. Marked by the miraculous revelations, fantastic coincidences, and didactic and emotive narrative style that are so characteristic of the otogizōshi genre, his story captures, in microcosm, the struggles of thirteenth-century Japanese society to overcome the crippling wounds of war.

Scholars have traced Little Atsumori’s roots to the oral proselytizing traditions of the wandering holy men of Mount Kōya (Kōya hijiri) and a variety of Tendai and Pure Land Buddhist preacher-entertainers; the earliest datable reference to the tale is contained in a diary entry from the fourth month of 1485.1The account of Atsumori’s death in Little Atsumori, which the work re-creates in its first part, is clearly based on one or more Heike manuscripts in the yomihon (readerly) textual line, rather than on the better known Kakuichi manuscript in the kataribon (recited) line of texts. As a result, it plays down the significance of music in the tale and instead emphasizes the importance of Atsumori’s revelation of his name to Kumagai in the moments before his death—a scene that is eerily reenacted at the climax of the story when Atsumori’s ghost demands that Little Atsumori, too, tell him his name.

In the face of their defeat at the battle of Ichi-no-tani, the young emperor, the Lady of Second Rank, and all the Taira forces dashed to their ships and fled.2 From among them, Atsumori was somehow left behind.3 He was riding toward the shore, chasing Lord Munemori’s boat, when a warrior by the name of Kumagae no Jirō Naozane appeared.4 Kumagae wore a dark-blue hitatare,5 a suit of armor with shaded-green lacing, and a three-plated helmet pulled down low on his head. Sporting a protective cape with a two-bar design, he rode a dark-chestnut steed and carried a bow in one hand, an arrow notched at the ready. “Just once I’d like to wrangle with some fine opponent,” he was brooding, when he spotted Atsumori, a lone warrior riding out from the direction of Ichi-no-tani.

Atsumori wore a hitatare embroidered with ferns and forget-me-nots, a suit of armor with shaded-purple lacing, and a helmet of the same design. On his back, he bore twenty-five dyed-feather arrows, and in his hand, he held a rattan-wrapped lacquer bow. His mount was a gray-dappled roan. The saddle was adorned with a circular crest of eulalia and mistletoe design and was inscribed, in metal, with the character for “wind.” His eyes were fixed on a noble’s ship in the offing, and he spurred his horse into the sea and pressed it to swim, plunging and bobbing in the surf. Kumagae watched.

“You there, adrift in the shallows,” Kumagae shouted, “you look to be a commander in chief. It’s a disgrace to show your back to an enemy! I am Kumagae no Jirō Naozane, a resident of Musashi Province and the fiercest warrior in Japan. Come back and fight!” Atsumori was not flustered in the least. Pulling his horse back by the reins, he headed for the shore.

Kumagae charges Atsumori on the beach at the battle of Ichi-no-tani. (From Ko-Atsumori, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

From the moment his horse found its footing, Atsumori brandished his weapon and lumbered to the beach. Kumagae observed his opponent. “Just the sort of adversary I was looking for,” he thought, and drawing his great sword, attacked. Atsumori raised his blade, and after exchanging two or three blows, grappled with Kumagae from atop his steed. They fell to the ground between their horses. Kumagae was a man of prodigious strength, and Atsumori, just a youth. After pinning him down, Kumagae cast away his long sword and drew the short one at his waist. Ripping off Atsumori’s helmet, he seized the boy’s disheveled hair and wrested back his head. He saw a young fighter, sixteen or seventeen years old, with a lightly powdered face, eyebrows plucked and painted high on his forehead, and blackened teeth.6 Kumagae was at a loss where to strike. He hesitated before cutting off his head. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Give me your name!”

“You call yourself the fiercest warrior in Japan,” Atsumori replied, “but you make a foolish request! What kind of man would give his name when he’s held down by a foe? When a warrior gives his name, he gives a trophy to his enemy—a battlefield honor for him to pass on to his heirs. That’s what it means to give your name! Now hurry up and take my head, and ask someone else whose it is.”

Kumagae spoke: “What you say is true, but this morning, at the Ichi-no-tani fortress gate, my son Kojirō Naoie died at the hand of the Noto Lord.7 You look to be about his age, and it makes me sorry. I’ll pray for you when you’re gone, so tell me your name.”

“I’d rather not,” Atsumori said. “But, then, to think there’s someone as sensitive as you among the Eastern warriors … and what have I got to hide? I am Atsumori, sixteen years old, holder of fifth court rank with no official post. I am the third son of New Middle Counselor Tomomori. My father is the son of Master of the Office of Palace Repairs Tsunemori, who was himself a younger brother of Chancellor Kiyomori, an eighth-generation descendant of Emperor Kanmu.8 This was my first battle. Please … if any of my family survive, give them this flute and hitatare.” He took from his waist a flute in a rosewood case and handed it to Kumagae. “Now get it over with—hurry up and take my head!”

Kumagae was bewildered, powerless to strike. “Alas!” he thought, “there’s nothing so wretched as the life of a warrior. I saw my son Kojirō take a grievous blow by the Ichi-no-tani fortress gate, but we were separated by fighting enemies and allies, and I lost track of him after that. It was the last time I saw him alive. Noble or humble, all parents love their children—it’s an unchanging rule. The Master of Palace Repairs Tsunemori must be waiting anxiously for his son on his ship in the offing. He’ll be devastated if he hears he was struck down on the beach. The boy’s the same age as Kojirō, and the poor man will suffer like me. If only I could help him get away …”

Brushing the dust off the boy’s armor, Kumagae set him on his feet. He had him put on his helmet while he himself looked around for a way to escape. He saw a group of thirty riders—what looked to be the Kodama League, flying a banner of a battle-fan design—assembled on the ridge above. To the west, he saw what looked like the Hirayama warriors lined up on their horses, bridles in a row. Others were there, too, countless as the mist. There was nowhere to run. The boy would be unable to make it west to Ogura Valley or Akashi, or east past the harbor at Suma. It was hopeless. Kumagae made up his mind: rather than let him die at someone else’s hand, he would kill Atsumori himself, take Buddhist vows, and then conduct rites for him and Kojirō.

Kumagae urged the boy to invoke the name of Amida Buddha for his last ten times. Atsumori turned to the west and recited the nenbutsu as he was told.9 “Do it now, quickly,” he said. Kumagae was overwhelmed. He closed his eyes. Then, through his tears, he cut off Atsumori’s head.

Stripping off Atsumori’s armor, Kumagae found a scroll wedged in a space between the plates. He took it out and saw that it was a collection of a hundred poems. He picked up Atsumori’s head, and when he took it to Lord Yoshitsune,10 he showed him the scroll. Yoshitsune examined the document. “What a pity to have killed a man as refined as this!” he declared, and weeping, he explained: “The poems are in the hand of the wife of the governor of Echizen. She composed a hundred of them to while away the hours.” Everyone wept when they saw or heard of their commander spilling tears on his armored sleeves.

Kumagae had lost his son, and since taking Atsumori’s head, he had come to understand the futile inconstancy of the world. “A man’s life is uncertain,” he reflected; “it can be gone before the evening sky. The darkness of the long night ahead is all that really matters.” The land was at peace, but Kumagae had no worldly ambition. Having set his heart on the Buddha, he ascended Mount Kōya and shaved his head in the manner of a priest. Later, he became a disciple of Priest Hōnen and took up the nenbutsu with single-minded, unwavering devotion—wonderful indeed!11

Now there was a lady by the name of Ben no Saishō, daughter of Tōin, the grandson of Lesser Counselor Novice Shinzei, and she was known as one of the most beautiful women in the capital.12 Atsumori had set his heart on her, and because her feelings had been the same, they had been wed. Atsumori soon had to flee the capital; his grief-stricken appearance at that time was desolate beyond compare. “If I should be killed in the coming battle,” he had teased, “you’ll probably take up with some Easterner and never think of me again.” Although the parting had been bitter, from amid their tears they had said farewell. As remembrances, Atsumori had left with her an Eleven-headed Kannon protective charm and a sword with a rosewood hilt.

From that day forward, Atsumori’s wife had been mired in sadness. She had worried constantly for her husband’s fate, until at last she heard people say that he had been struck down by Kumagae at the battle of Ichi-no-tani. “Is this a dream?” she cried. “If he had survived, we might have met again … at least that’s what I had hoped. But what’s to become of me now?” Pulling a robe over her head, she collapsed in a fit of grief. To see her like that was all the more affecting!

Their love had been brief, but as is the way with husbands and wives, the lady was with child. The months passed, and she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Although she wished to raise him in some deep mountain dwelling or cliffy crag—to keep him as a memento of her husband—the Genji were slaughtering all the Heike children, no matter how young, searching them out even in the womb. Fearing that she, too, would come to grief, she wrapped her baby in a white, lined robe; placed the sword with the rosewood hilt at his side; and left him, in great despair, at a place called Shimomatsu.

The monk Hōnen finds Little Atsumori while his mother watches from a distance. (From Ko-Atsumori, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

At that time, Hōnen had taken Kumagae and his other disciples on a pilgrimage to Kamo Shrine. He heard a baby crying at Shimomatsu, and bringing his palanquin near, he found a beautiful, abandoned little boy. The holy man spoke: “He’s surely not a commoner, left wrapped up in a robe like that with a sword at his side. Someone must want him saved. Either that, or he’s a gift of the Kamo Deity.” The holy man picked him up and took him home, gave him a wet nurse, and raised him as his own.

The months and years passed by, and the boy was soon eight. He was more mature than the other children at the temple, and far more intelligent. Once when Kumagae was stroking the boy’s hair, Kumagae remarked, “Of all people, this child looks just like that Atsumori I killed at the battle of Ichi-no-tani! It’s like he’s right here before me,” and time and again he wept.

The boy was playing bows-and-arrows with some other children, and he got into an argument over who had won. “You motherless, fatherless orphan,” another child railed, “how dare you talk to me like that! You act that way because the holy man took you in.” Dejected and chagrined, the boy threw away his bow and arrows and cried.

Little Atsumori cries when another child calls him a “motherless, fatherless orphan.” (From Ko-Atsumori, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

Although the boy wept for his parents, the other children continued to tease him. He became all the more depressed. Visiting the holy man, he said, “I don’t have a mother or father, do I? Oh, how I miss them!” He threw himself to the ground and wailed in sorrow. Hōnen was touched, and he shed tears on the sleeves of his priestly robes. “Poor boy,” he said. “You were an abandoned child, without a mother or a father. But I brought you up, so think of me as your mother and father instead.” The boy gave it some thought: “The other children sometimes receive visits and letters from their parents and siblings. Why don’t I have a mother and father, too?”

Morning and evening, he pined. He stopped eating, and he refused to drink water, hot or cold. After seven days, he appeared on the verge of losing his senses, as if his life was near an end. Hōnen and the others were alarmed. Summoning his disciples, the holy man spoke: “Look here, everyone. This poor child is dying from longing for his parents. If you’ve seen or heard anything relating to his family, please say so now.” Kumagae raised his voice: “Our poor boy! I do remember one thing. A very pretty lady, about twenty years old, comes to hear your sermons on the six abstinence days every month. She brushes the child’s hair when she thinks no one’s looking and then cries her heart out. If there happen to be many people around, she goes home like she doesn’t care, but she still acts suspicious.” “Well, then,” the holy man said, “we’ll hold sermons from today and see who comes!”

Hōnen soon began to preach. Toward the middle of his address, he pressed his sleeve to his face and wept. “Dear audience,” he said, “still your hearts and listen. One year when I went to visit Kamo Shrine, I found a baby by Shimomatsu. I’ve brought him up, and now he’s eight. Recently, he’s been yearning for his parents. He mourns and cries, he won’t eat or drink, and now his life is in danger. Does anyone here know his family? He won’t come to any harm, even if he’s a Taira. I’ve raised him myself, and I’ll make him a priest. I’ll go to Rokuhara and beg for a pardon if I have to. But if things go on like this, the poor boy is sure to die!” The holy man broke down in tears. Everyone wept, whether they knew the child or not.

An exceptionally beautiful woman stepped forward from the audience. She wore a trouser-skirt and a twelve-layered robe. Without a word, she set the boy on her knee and began to sob. The poor little child—his handsome features were stretched with sorrow! He looked up at the lady with his sunken, listless eyes, and together they cried. Seeing them, the holy man stumbled down from his seat; his own tears were moving to behold! All the people wet their sleeves with emotion.

After a while, the lady turned to Hōnen and spoke: “I am Ben no Naishi, a relative of the late Lesser Counselor Nobukiyo.13 From the time that Atsumori was thirteen and I, fourteen, we shared a fleeting love. Later, in the first year of Genryaku [1184], Atsumori fled the capital. He was sixteen then, and he spoke of many things. Since his son looked just like him, I thought to hide him away as a token of our bond. But then I heard that the Genji were hunting down the Heike heirs—cutting off their heads, even searching them out in the womb. I couldn’t stand the thought of suffering such misery again. I didn’t know what to do; although it broke my heart, I decided to abandon my baby. I watched you pick him up and take him to your temple, and then I went home.

“In the eight years since then, I have come to all your sermons on the six abstinence days of every month. I have watched the boy, and I’ve seen how he’s come to look more and more like his father. It makes me long for the old days, and I end up crying. I’ve suffered so much sometimes that I’ve been desperate to tell him who I am. But the world being what it is, I’ve always kept my secret to myself and gone home in tears.” The woman poured out her heart. All the people there were choked with pity. Hearing that this was his mother, the boy was neither happy nor sad—all he could do was cry.

In his free time, Kumagae had been in the habit of taking out Atsumori’s silk hitatare, with the ink design, and the flute in the rosewood case. He would chant the nenbutsu and cry. The holy man had seen him and asked what he was always grieving about. Kumagae had replied: “One year during the Heike disturbance, I took the head of Atsumori, the youngest child of the Kadowaki Lord, at Harima Beach in Settsu Province.14 He told me to pass these keepsakes on to his relatives, if any of them survived. But I haven’t heard of any family, so I’ve been carrying them around with me ever since.” The holy man had taken a look. “How sad!” he had exclaimed, shedding copious tears.

Hōnen now remembered their conversation. “Where’s brother Kumagae?” he asked, and summoned him at once. “You know those relatives of Atsumori’s you mentioned,” he said, “well, the boy who’s been with us all these years—he’s his son! And that lady over there is his mother! Those relics of Atsumori’s you said you wanted to give his family—you can surrender them now.” Kumagae was delighted. Producing the flute and hitatare, he explained in detail Atsumori’s final moments. Weeping, he presented the objects to the wife and son. The little boy and his mother passed them back and forth, entranced, and then dissolved into tears—most touching indeed!

After a while, the mother placed her hands on the keepsakes and spoke: “This hitatare—I made it for Atsumori when he left the capital. There are ferns on the left sleeve, forget-me-nots on the right, and on the skirt, there is an ink design of two ducks—a male and a female—drifting among the reeds of Naniwa Bay. There is also a poem here:

nagaraete	It wasn’t for us
chigirazarikeru	to live on together
mono yue ni	pledging tender vows—
awazu wa kaku wa	yet if we’d never met,
omowazaramashi	we’d never have known such love.

It was his without a doubt. ‘So hurtful now, these keepsakes—if not for them, sometimes I might forget.’15 The way he looked that time … I wonder if I’ll ever escape the memory!” The woman wept. The holy man and Kumagae were similarly overcome.

Kumagae spoke: “So that’s why whenever I looked at the child, it was like Atsumori was right in front of me! It makes sense now,” and he wept anew. The little boy stared at his father’s souvenirs and longed for him all the more. He made a petition to the buddhas, gods, and Three Holy Jewels, and constantly prayed: “Please let me see my father—either his bones or his ghost!”16 “It is all because of the Kamo Deity that the holy man took me in and brought me up like this,” the boy once thought. “He must be my patron deity. I’ll visit him and pray to see my father’s ghost.” The boy ensconced himself in Kamo Shrine for seven days. He paid obeisance 1,133 times a day, prostrating himself in supplication. The deity must have been moved, for on the final, seventh night, he appeared before the boy where he slept. “Among all the children of the world,” he said, “there are few who feel deeply for their parents, even when they are alive. How moving, then, that you, who have never seen or known your father, should pray with all your heart for his remains!” The deity recited a poem:

sugisarishi	For love of
sono tarachine no	a parent departed—
koishiku wa	the dew and the frost
Koyano Ikuta-no-	of Ikuta-no-ono
ono no tsuyu shimo	on Koyano Plain.

“What joy!” the boy thought upon receiving the dream-revelation. “My father’s bones must lie in Ikuta-no-ono field in Settsu Province!” Without a word to his mother or the holy man, he secretly set out. Although ignorant of the way to Settsu, he had heard that it was west. Rustling the dew from the grasses of an unfamiliar road, he wandered forth, pitiful to behold.

Tramping through fields of eulalia, pampas, and cogon grass; blind to the way ahead; pillowing his head some nights on frosty bunches of bamboo weed, he eventually came to what he thought was Ichi-no-tani. A thunderstorm was raging. The boy was endlessly forlorn. All he could hear was the lapping waves, the wind in the pines, seagulls in the offing, and beach plovers exchanging cries. Other than these, he was alone. As he drifted forward, lost, he noticed a glimmering light in the distance. Although it might belong to some goblin, he thought, he was so distressed that he did not care. Stumbling on, he soon observed the hulking frame of an old temple hall.

The boy approached, and in the dim light of a torch, he saw a stranger with painted eyebrows and a lightly powdered face. The man wore a soft pointed hat and paced the veranda in prayer.17 “Excuse me,” the boy called out.

“Who’s there?” the man replied. “No one comes around here. Identify yourself!”

The boy wept and explained: “I am from the capital, and I’m searching for my father. I’ve been walking for the last ten days. But the rain is so heavy and the darkness so dark that I’m at my wits’ end. Please give me lodging for the night.”

“Who is your father?” the man asked.

The boy thought: “The Genji rule the land now, so what will happen if I give my name? But I’ll tell him anyway, and if I lose my life, it will have been for my father, which won’t be so bad.” He spoke: “My father was a Taira by the name of Atsumori, third son of the Master of Palace Repairs. He was cut down at the battle of Ichi-no-tani. I wanted to find his bones, so I prayed to the Kamo Deity. I had a dream-revelation, and I’ve come here to search at the Bay of Suma.” Without saying a word, the stranger broke down in tears.

After a while, the man took the boy by the hand, pulled him up to the veranda, and brushed the dew from his rain-soaked clothes. “This way,” he said, beckoning him inside. “You must be exhausted, traveling at your young age. Rest here,” and he set the child’s head on his knee. Although no longer upset or tired, the boy drifted off to sleep. The man spoke, neither in this world nor in a dream: “How sad that you should yearn so for a parent you’ve never seen! It’s because of your profound filial devotion that I have come to you now as an apparition. When you were still in your mother’s womb, I was struck down by Kumagae here on the Harima shore. It was the spring of my sixteenth year. If you want to serve me in my grave, then study very, very hard; become a man of wisdom; and save sentient beings near and far. That will make me happy.” He wrote a poem on the boy’s sleeve:

koi koite	To the waking world
mare ni au yo mo	I cannot return—
yume nare ya	for love and longing,
utsutsu ni kaeru	a precious meeting this night
mi ni shi araneba	in a dream.

Little Atsumori speaks with his dead father. (From Ko-Atsumori, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

The boy was overjoyed at meeting his father. “Oh, Papa!” he cried, grasping at the man’s sleeves, and at that moment, awoke. His mind reeled when he looked around. Where he had seen the temple hall, there was only the wind in the pines; where his father had been, there was only a tangle of eulalia and cogon grass; where he had pillowed his head on his father’s knee, there was only a mossy white thigh bone in a clump of weeds. The boy was overcome. “How cruel!” he cried. “Father, where did you go? Please take me with you! Why did you leave me here alone in the deep grass at the foot of a pine?” He sank into a slough of tears—truly most affecting!

Because the boy could not stay on in this way, he strung his father’s bones around his neck and returned to the capital, where he interred each at a different temple or sacred site. Having thus come back to the city, he made his way to Hōnen’s temple. The holy man and others had been worried. “We haven’t seen our child for some time,” they had said, and searched high and low. They were overjoyed now to hear that he had returned. The boy told Hōnen and his mother about all that had happened to him on his trip to Settsu Province.

“The child’s still so young,” people said, “—and to think of the hardships he’s endured! His father, Atsumori, must have been moved by the filial piety in his heart, and appeared to him as a ghost in a dream.” Everyone wept at the thought. The months and years passed by, and the boy became a blessed priest.

Little Atsumori awakes in a field beside a pile of bones (right) and, with the bones around his neck, sets out for the capital (left). (From Ko-Atsumori, courtesy of the Keiō University Library)

The mother also became a nun at that time. She built a brushwood shack by the Kamo riverbed in the northern part of the capital, and planted morning glories for her fence. Watching her flowers wilt at the touch of the morning dew, she awoke to the fleeting nature of worldly affairs. At dusk, listening to the evening bell at Urin’in Temple, she would gaze at the sun as it set in the west and wonder that paradise was there. She chanted the nenbutsu day and night—so auspicious!—and plucking flowers and burning incense, she prayed for the enlightenment of the many Taira who met their doom at the western sea.18 In particular, she mourned for Atsumori, and recalling their vow to share a lotus-seat in the Pure Land, she prayed for her own rebirth in Paradise.

She composed poems in her spare time:

shiba no to no	My heart
shibashiba isogu	often hastens
kokoro ka na	at my brushwood door
nishi no mukae no	to see the western Pure Land welcome
yūgure no sora	in the sunset sky.

kokorozashi	As salvation
fukaki ni ukabu	comes to those most
narai zo to	deeply mourned,
itodo mukashi no	all the more I pray for him
ato wo koso toe	who died so long ago.

Many years passed after the boy became a priest. In the course of his studies, he plumbed the deepest truths and came to be known as Priest Zen’e of the Western Mountain.19 It was thanks to his profound sense of filial devotion that his sect of Buddhism flourishes in the present day. Those who read this tale should always be dutiful to their parents and teachers. It was a truly wonderful turn of events; we should all chant the nenbutsu for the sake of our departed.20 Amen!

TRANSLATION AND INTRODUCTION BY KELLER KIMBROUGH

 

 

The translation and illustrations are from the Ko-Atsumori picture scroll (sixteenth century), in the “old picture scroll” textual line, in the collection of the Keiō University Library, typeset and annotated in Matsumoto Ryūshin, ed., Otogizōshi shū, Shinchō Nihon koten shūsei (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1980), 305–27.

  1. The reference is in Shaken nichiroku, the diary of the Zen priest Kikō Daishuku (1421–1487), discussed in Minobe Shigekatsu, Chūsei denshō bungaku no shosō (Osaka: Izumi Shoin, 1988), 106–9.

  2. The young emperor was Antoku (1178–1185, r. 1180–1185), who later drowned at the battle of Dan-no-ura. The Lady of Second Rank (Taira no Tokiko; d. 1185) was his grandmother, the wife of Taira no Kiyomori (1118–1181), previous head of the Taira clan.

  3. Taira no Atsumori (1169–1184) was the third son of Kiyomori’s younger half-brother Tsunemori (1124–1185).

  4. Lord Munemori (Taira no Munemori; 1147–1185) was a son of Kiyomori and Tokiko. Kumagae (usually Kumagai) no Jirō Naozane (Taira no Naozane; 1141–1208) allied himself with Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–1199), the first shogun, after the battle of Mount Ishibashi in the eighth month of 1180.

  5. A hitatare (also yoroi hitatare) is a kind of loose-fitting shirt-and-pants set worn by warriors and courtiers in the medieval period both under armor and as everyday attire.

  6. Atsumori’s make-up suggests his gentility and refinement.

  7. Taira no Noritsune (1160?–1185?) was known as the Noto Lord because he was appointed governor of Noto Province when Kiyomori seized power in 1179.

  8. Atsumori was actually the son of Tsunemori, not Tomomori (1152–1185). Also, Kiyomori was a twelfth-generation descendant of Emperor Kanmu (737–806, r. 781–806), not an eighth.

  9. The nenbutsu is the ritual invocation of the name of Amida (Skt. Amitābha) Buddha.

10. Lord Yoshitsune is Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–1189), a hero of the Genpei War and the protagonist of two other stories in this book, The Palace of the Tengu and Yoshitsune’s Island-Hopping.

11. Hōnen (1133–1212) was the founder of the Pure Land sect of Japanese Buddhism, which advocates the sole practice of the nenbutsu to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land.

12. Lesser Counselor Novice Shinzei (Fujiwara no Michinori; 1106–1159) was a scholar and a close attendant of Emperor Go-Shirakawa (1127–1192, r. 1155–1158). His grandson Tōin is unknown, as is Ben no Saishō.

13. There is a discrepancy in the text. Previously in the tale, the lady is identified as Ben no Saishō, not Ben no Naishi. Also, Nobukiyo is problematic. Matsumoto suggests that it is a Japanese reading of a mistranscription of the Chinese characters for “Shinzei,” in Ko-Atsumori, in Otogizōshi shū, ed. Matsumoto, 317n.7.

14. The Kadowaki Lord (Taira no Norimori; 1128–1185) was a younger brother of Kiyomori. Atsumori was a son of Tsunemori, not Norimori.

15. The widow quotes the anonymous poem 746 in Kokin wakashū (Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems, ca. 905).

16. The Three Holy Jewels are the Three Jewels (or Treasures) of Buddhism: the Buddha, the dharma (teachings of the Buddha), and the sangha (monastic community).

17. The stranger’s hat was a nashiuchi eboshi, typically worn by a warrior under his helmet.

18. The western sea refers to the Inland Sea, to the west of the capital.

19. Zen’e Shōnin (Shōkū Shōnin; 1177–1247) was a disciple of Hōnen and the founder of the Seizan (Western Mountain) sect of Pure Land Buddhism. He was unrelated to Atsumori.

20. According to a Ko-Atsumori manuscript at Kōshōji Temple, we should all chant the nenbutsu for Atsumori’s sake. See Tokuda Kazuo, “Otogizōshi Ko-Atsumori no Kōshōji-bon wo megutte,” Gakushūin Joshi Daigaku kiyō 4 (2002): 50.