Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/349

Rh, too, when the beclouded Mirror Mountain seemed to reflect a more somber mood in Osan. Love for these two was as dangerous a passage as Crocodile Strait, and their hearts sank when at Katada someone called the boat from shore; for a minute they feared that a courier had come after them from Kyoto.

Even though they survived this, it seemed as if their end might be told by the snows of Mt. Hiei, for they were twenty years old and it is said that the snow on this Fuji of the capital always melts before twenty days have passed. So they wept and wetted their sleeves, and at the ancient capital of Shiga, which is now just a memory of past glory, they felt sadder still, thinking of their own inevitable end. When the dragon lanterns were lit, they went to Shirahige Shrine and prayed to the gods, now even more aware of the precariousness of their fate.

“After all, we may find that longer life only brings greater grief,” Osan told him. “Let us throw ourselves into the lake and consecrate our lives to Buddha in the Eternal Land.” But Mōemon, though he valued his life hardly at all, was not so certain as to what would follow after death. “I think I have hit upon a way out,” he said. “Let us each send letters to the capital, saying that we shall drown ourselves in the lake. We can then steal away from here to anywhere you please and pass the rest of our years together.”

Osan was delighted. “When I left home, it was with that idea in mind. So I brought along five hundred pieces of gold in my suitcase.”

That, indeed, was something with which to start life anew. “We must be careful how we do this,” Mōemon cautioned, as they set about writing notes to various people: “Driven by evil desires, we have joined in a sinful love which cannot escape Heaven’s decree. Life has no place for us now; therefore today we depart forever from the Fleeting World.” Osan then removed a small image of the Buddha Sakyamuni which she had worn as a charm for bodily protection, and trimmed the edges of her black hair. Mōemon took off the dirk which he wore at his side, made by Seki Izumi no Kami with an iron guard embellished by twisting copper dragons. These things would be left behind so that people could identify them as belonging