A Muramasa blade

by Louis Wertheimber

WOMAN SOWING RICE.

One of the surest signs of the trouble impending was the increased military activity displayed at the court of every daimio. The coming conflict cast its shadow before, not in boisterous speech or loud-mouthed denunciation, but in the training of body and limb to be duly prepared for action requiring physical strength and endurance. Horses were made to learn their paces, swords and lances were sharpened, buckler and shield were burnished, and every armorer’s workshop echoed the sounds of toil from early morning until late at night.

Kuwana, the capital of the province of Ise, could at this period boast of one of the gayest and yet most martial courts in the land. The character of the reigning Duke, who had ruled for more than thirty-six years, was such that although courage, daring, and manly accomplishments could well look for their due meed of reward at his hands, deeds of unjustifiable violence and ill-will found no opportunity to interfere with or check the progress and prosperity of the land.

He was now fifty-five years old, and had become stout and fleshy and—for he loved the wine-cup no less than the sword—gouty as well, and he was frequently obliged to be carried to his pavilion on the field to witness sports in which, not so very long before, he used to participate and shine in a way that few could equal. Traces of his former prowess were still evident in his face and bearing, despite his corpulence and bodily helplessness. There was about him a self-possession, or rather a self-assertion, of manner which appertains only to those who have learned to maintain themselves and their rights in positions of importance and difficulty; and to do this in those times required physical strength as well as qualities of the mind which go to make up leaders of men. His bright, fierce eye followed closely and with evident enjoyment every motion of those among the actors who showed more than ordinary skill; and when any unusually daring feat was performed, his hands and arms worked convulsively, and he swayed himself to and fro as if to assist with his body where only his eyes could take part.

Ono ga Sawa, as the Duke was called, was feared and held in awe by his neighbors, who in the desultory border warfare in which they had sometimes been engaged, had found that his dare-devil courage was equalled by his astuteness, his energy, and his extraordinary tenacity. By the people of his province, and more especially by his retainers, to whom he was a kind and considerate master, he was honored and respected. He loved boldness and valor, and even in speech he encouraged frankness and openness to a degree rare with those in his position. Of a jovial and good-natured disposition withal, he ever approved of mirth and frolic, and often at the dinner-table bandied jokes with his attendants, and would even bear from those he liked a return in kind.

MYTHOLOGICAL GODS OF JAPAN.

There was only one point upon which it would have been injudicious to speak with freedom in his presence. The old lord had a great veneration for family and gentle birth, for blue blood and for the superiority to which the possession of a long line of ancestors could justly lay claim. He was fond of displaying his genealogical tree, showing his descent from Nakatomi no Kamatari, the celebrated minister of Tenchi Tenno in the seventh century, who himself was a descendant of the royal house of Fujiwara. When excited by wine he did not stop there, but would count back to Jimmu Tenno, the first Emperor of Japan, two thousand years ago; and he was even known at such times to refer to Isanami no Mikoto and Isanagi no Mikoto, the primeval mythological gods of the country, in a way which seemed to show plainly that he considered himself as standing in some sort of relationship with them. Now there was not a scullion in the kitchen, nor a sandal-bearer in the courtyard, who did not indulge in jokes at this propensity; for they all knew that the old gentleman’s grandfather was a common peasant, who in the wars which followed the accession of the Minamoto family to the Shôgunate, when he was pressed as a soldier, had by personal bravery and native force of character raised himself to the position of a military general. His son, the father of the present lord, had in his early youth been apprentice to a dyer, and from thence had been called to the camp of his parent when the latter began to acquire military glory. But the bravest of the brave military retainers at the court would sooner have faced unarmed a wild boar than breathe a word of doubt or even show a look of incredulity when, as so often happened, the old genealogical tree was taken down and explained to them. Etiquette at that time was not what it became much later,—an element of such importance in the education of every samurai as to curb temporarily the fiercest temper and force the most headstrong passions to subordinate themselves to time and place. The long reign of peace had its softening influence; yet, although threatening talk and angry looks were not as likely as before to lead to immediate violence, they were strangers neither at the festive board nor in the council-hall. An utter disregard, however, for all rules of society as they existed even then, and a reckless fashion of indulging his passions when aroused, made Ono ga Sawa a man to be carefully humored by his attendants.

An incident which had happened ten years previously was still fresh in the memory of every one. An embassy had arrived from the province of Sendai to arrange a marriage between the son of the lord of that province and a daughter of Ono ga Sawa. All the preliminaries had been concluded, and a grand festival and banquet were being given in honor of the occasion. Toward the end of the carouse, when wine had loosened tongues and conversation had become general, the chief ambassador, perhaps in ignorance or inadvertence, but more probably from a desire to check the feeling of pride with which he had so often been received, essayed a joke about the silk which faced the dress of his host. “You must be a good judge of dyeing, and perhaps have a special receipt handed down to you, to give that ribbon such a rich, deep purple color,” he began; but if he had intended to say more, the general silence which followed this remark caused him to refrain. The sudden cessation of all mirth and conversation struck those present as with a chill, and the laughing faces of a moment before now showed only anxious looks furtively directed toward their lord.

Ono ga Sawa’s face, though flushed with wine, became overspread with a deadly pallor. The silence of his followers not only prevented him from overlooking a remark which in cooler moments he might perhaps have disregarded, but gave it undue prominence. Before the assembled guests had twice drawn breath he had unsheathed his small sword and aimed a desperate blow at the ambassador. The excess of his fury, rather than a natural shrinking away on the part of his intended victim, caused the weapon to miscarry, only slightly grazing the other’s skin and drawing a few drops of blood; but this was sufficient to enable him to regain his self-control. Those composing the ambassador’s suite had risen with muttered threats and placed themselves behind their chief; while the Kuwana men, who formed the large majority, also rose and surrounded their lord. The latter, however, now perfectly calm, with one glance caused his retainers to resume their stations. Slowly replacing his sword, to show he meant no further violence, but only half sheathing it, and keeping it firmly grasped, he said: “The only kind of dyeing I understand is dyeing with blood; those spots upon your doublet now show the same color as my ribbon,—the color of blood, the color I love to see whenever honor demands it.”