Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/578

558 . But the monogatari, properly so called, is essentially a fiction, and the word "romance" is the closest English equivalent. The earliest of these is the Taketori Monogatari, the authorship of which is sometimes ascribed to Minamoto no Shitagau (911–'83), but some writers think it belongs to the first half of the 9th century. An old man finds a little girl only three inches high in a joint of bamboo, whom he adopts and educates. She grows up into a beautiful young woman, and is solicited in marriage by five noble suitors, upon whom she imposes various labors, in which they all fail to satisfy her. The mikado also falls in love with her, and offers to make her his concubine, but she refuses. Shortly afterward she makes known to her protector that she is an inhabitant of the moon, banished to earth for some offence, and that the period of her penance being about to expire, she must soon return thither. The old man's protestations are of no avail, and she is finally carried off by her father's messengers in a flying chariot, much against her own will, and in spite of 2,000 guards placed around the cottage and on its roof by the mikado. The parting is described in a most pathetic manner. She leaves behind her farewell letters to the old man and to the mikado, and the elixir of immortality. The mikado causes the elixir to be burnt on the top of a lofty mountain in Suruga, which thenceforward is called Fuji no Yama, "the immortal mountain." The Utsubo Monogatari is a collection of 14 stories which fill 20 volumes. It is also ascribed to the author of the previous work, and is evidently one of the earliest extant. In the Toshikage no Haki, one of these stories, are related the adventures of a young man who is shipwrecked in a strange country, where he falls in with animals who speak, giants, and the like, and he finally returns home with some magic harps. Two of these he bequeaths to his daughter when he dies. A young nobleman, attracted by the strange music which proceeds from her dwelling, passes a night there, and never returns. She bears a son who performs wonders of filial piety, and feeds her with roots which he digs in the mountains. On the approach of winter he removes her to a cave vacated for them by a family of bears, and the apes who inhabit the surrounding hills bring them food and water. At last she is rediscovered by the young nobleman, who is now grown up to ripe manhood, as he is hunting in the mikado's train, and they live together happily for ever after. The Hamamatsu Chiunagon Monogatari is the story of a nobleman who goes to China, has a child by the empress, and then returns to Japan. The Sumiyoshi Monogatari is the story of a young girl, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, who has two other daughters by his own wife. When the heroine is about eight years of age her mother dies, after earnestly praying her lover to send her child to the palace to become one of the mikado's waiting women. He takes her to live in his own house, in separate apartments, and the affection he displays for her excites the hatred of her stepmother. After a while the heroine's foster mother also dies, and she is left alone with her foster sister, a girl two years older than herself, through whom she enters into a secret correspondence with a young nobleman who has fallen in love with her from report of her beauty. The father constantly speaks of sending her to the palace, which excites the jealousy of the stepmother, and her ruin is determined on. With a hypocritical affectation of concern the stepmother tells her husband that she has seen a priest get out of his daughter's window at dawn; and when he refuses to believe this, she conspires with a wicked maid servant and bribes a priest to come to the house and play the part of detected lover. Upon this he is convinced, upbraids his daughter, and orders her to marry a man of rank whom she does not know; but rather than disobey, she is ready to consent. When the stepmother finds that she has been so far unsuccessful, she plots again to have the object of her hatred stolen away by a horrid old man, whose lust is inflamed by the promise of a beautiful girl for his mistress; but the plan being divulged to the young girl and her foster sister by a friendly female servant, they make up their minds to flee to Sumiyoshi, where the late nurse of the dead foster mother is living as a nun. This they accomplish successfully, and the author takes advantage of this opportunity to introduce some very effective description of seaside scenery. The lover is desperate, and resolves to become a hermit, but the hiding place of the young lady is revealed to him in a dream and he proceeds in search of her. Having found her out, he disguises her as a peasant girl and brings her back to Kioto, where they are secretly married and have two children. The father is disconsolate at the flight of his daughter, but after seven years is invited to a feast by the young noble, and discovers in his wife his long lost favorite. Upon this the wickedness of the stepmother is revealed, and she suffers the penalty of her misdeeds by dying in misery and want. All the partners of her guilt are duly punished by avenging fate, and the father retires from the world, while all the good people in the story have their reward. The Ise Monogatari is the history of the love adventures of a noble celebrated for his beauty, named Ariwara Narihira (825–'80), and contains a large number of verses written by himself and his numerous sweethearts. It is considered to be a model of good Japanese prose. The precise date of its composition and the name of its author are unknown, but Mabuchi thinks it belongs to the middle of the 10th century. A similar work is the Yamato Monogatari, in two books, the authorship of which is ascribed by some to Shigeharu, the son of Narihira, and by others to the mikado Kuazan-In (968–1008); but the