A SAMURAI OFF GUARD CAN FACE ignominy–this lesson is poignantly conveyed in a vignette about a man who was active around the year 1000. The episode in Konjaku Monogatari Shu (vol. 29, sec. 21) is also notable for the warrior’s clearly delineated status in his relation to the court aristocracy which he served directly or indirectly in the earlier periods.
About the warrior, Haruzumi, little else is known. But the governor mentioned here, Koretoki, appears in several records beginning in 988, when a diarist wrote that someone tried to murder him, to 1034. In 994 he is known to have joined a posse of distinguished warriors to hunt a group of bandits.
There was a man by the name of Sakanoue no Haruzumi in the county of Ito in Kii Province. He was never lax in the way of the warrior. He was one of the armed officers who worked for Governor Taira no Koretoki.
Once he came up to Kyoto on business. Because he had some enemies he never let himself be off guard. He went about armed with bow and arrow, and had his men do the same, so that no one could touch him.
Late one night he was on his way to a certain place with his men, when, in lower Kyoto, they came across a group of court nobles on horseback with their vanguard ostentatiously leading the way. The vanguard ran up, shouting, so Haruzumi dismounted. But they further ordered, “Men, lower your bows! Prostrate yourselves!” In some confusion Haruzumi and his men complied, setting aside their bows and arrows.
In the position of prostration, their faces right on the ground, they were wondering to themselves, “The nobles must have passed by now,” when they–Haruzumi and everyone in his retinue, his men and servants included – were roughly pushed down by the neck. In consternation Haruzumi twisted his face and looked up. What he had taken to be court nobles were in fact several toughs on horseback, armored and fully equipped. The terrifying men put arrows on their bows and, aiming at Haruzumi, said, “Make a single false move and you’ll be shot dead!”
“Dammit, these are bandits and they have played a trick on me!” When he realized this, Haruzumi’s sore regrets knew no bounds. But any move would have meant certain death, so he and his men had to leave themselves completely to the mercy of these bastards, allowing themselves to be trampled to the ground, pulled up to their feet, and robbed of everything – their clothes, bows, quivers, horses, saddles, swords, daggers, and even their shoes.
After the incident Haruzumi said, “If I hadn’t allowed myself to be off guard, the toughest of those robbers wouldn’t have had a chance to shame me like that, unless he had killed me first. I would have fought my best, and might even have captured him. But they sent their vanguard first and made me lie low on the ground to show my respect, and I lost the chance to do anything. All this shows I have no luck in the way of the warrior.”
He then stopped acting like a man of arms. Instead, he downgraded himself to the status of a “side-runner.”