The Famine of Yōwa養和の飢饉
1The famine of Yōwa — the grain did not ripen
又養和のころかとよ、久しくなりてたしかにも覺えず、二年が間、世の中飢渴して、あさましきこと侍りき。或は春夏日でり、或は秋冬大風、大水などよからぬ事どもうちつゞきて、五糓ことごとくみのらず。むなしく春耕し、夏植うるいとなみありて、秋かり冬收むるぞめきはなし。これによりて、國々の民、或は地を捨てゝ堺を出で、或は家をわすれて山にすむ。さまざまの御祈はじまりて、なべてならぬ法ども行はるれども、さらにそのしるしなし。京のならひなに事につけても、みなもとは田舍をこそたのめるに、絕えてのぼるものなければ、さのみやはみさをも作りあへむ。念じわびつゝ、さまざまの寳もの、かたはしより捨つるがごとくすれども、さらに目みたつる人もなし。たまたま易ふるものは、金をかろくし、粟を重くす。乞食道の邊におほく、うれへ悲しむ聲耳にみてり。さきの年かくの如くからくして暮れぬ。
Again, it was about the Yōwa years, I think, though it is long ago and I do not remember exactly. For two years the world went hungry and thirsty, and dreadful things came to pass.
One year there was drought in spring and summer; another year there were great winds and floods in autumn and winter. One evil followed another, and the five grains did not ripen at all. There was only the vain labour of ploughing in spring and planting in summer, and none of the bustle of reaping in autumn and storing in winter. Because of this the people of the provinces left their land and went beyond the borders, or forgot their houses and went to live in the hills. Prayers of every kind were begun and rites beyond the ordinary were performed, but there was no sign of any effect at all.
The living of the capital depends in everything on the countryside for its foundation, and when nothing came up to it at all, how long could anyone keep up appearances? Unable to bear it, people threw out treasures of every kind, beginning with the smallest, as though casting them away, and not a soul would so much as look at them. If now and then someone did trade, he counted gold light and millet heavy. Beggars filled the roadsides, and the sound of grief and sorrow filled the ears. So the first of those years came bitterly to its close.
2The next year, with pestilence on top of it
明くる年は立ちなほるべきかと思ふに、あまさへえやみうちそひて、まさるやうにあとかたなし。世の人みな飢ゑ死にければ、日を經つゝきはまり行くさま、少水の魚のたとへに叶へり。はてには笠うちき、足ひきつゝみ、よろしき姿したるもの、ひたすら家ごとに乞ひありく。かくわびしれたるものどもありくかと見れば則ち斃れふしぬ。ついひぢのつら、路頭に飢ゑ死ぬるたぐひは數もしらず。取り捨つるわざもなければ、くさき香世界にみちみちて、かはり行くかたちありさま、目もあてられぬこと多かり。いはむや河原などには、馬車の行きちがふ道だにもなし。しづ、山がつも、力つきて、薪にさへともしくなりゆけば、たのむかたなき人は、みづから家をこぼちて市に出でゝこれを賣るに、一人がもち出でたるあたひ、猶一日が命をさゝふるにだに及ばずとぞ。あやしき事は、かゝる薪の中に、につき、しろがねこがねのはくなど所々につきて見ゆる木のわれあひまじれり。これを尋ぬればすべき方なきものゝ、古寺に至りて佛をぬすみ、堂の物の具をやぶりとりて、わりくだけるなりけり。濁惡の世にしも生れあひて、かゝる心うきわざをなむ見侍りし。
I thought the next year might set things right, but a pestilence came on top of it, and things only grew worse with no trace of recovery. All the people of the world were starving to death, and as the days went by they came to the last extremity, just as in the parable of the fish in a shrinking pool.
In the end, people in decent dress, wearing a sedge hat and their feet bound up, went begging from house to house, and nothing else. When you thought you saw these dazed creatures walking, they fell down at once. The dead who starved at the foot of the earthen walls and in the streets were beyond counting. There was no way to carry them off, and the stench of rot filled the whole world. The changing shapes of the bodies were more than the eye could bear. Along the riverbanks there was not even room for a horse or a cart to pass another.
The humble folk and the woodsmen of the hills were spent, and even firewood grew scarce. Those with nowhere to turn pulled down their own houses and carried the wood to the market to sell it, but the price one man brought out on his back, they say, was not enough even to hold up his life for a single day.
The strange thing was that among such firewood there were pieces of wood with red lacquer on them and flecks of gold and silver leaf still showing here and there. When I looked into this, it was that people at their wits' end had gone to the old temples, stolen the images of the Buddha, torn away the fittings of the halls, and split them up. Born into a foul and evil age, I saw such heartbreaking deeds as these.
3The one who dies first, and forty-two thousand heads
又あはれなること侍りき。さりがたき女男など持ちたるものは、その思ひまさりて、心ざし深きはかならずさきだちて死しぬ。そのゆゑは、我が身をば次になして、男にもあれ女にもあれ、いたはしく思ふかたに、たまたま乞ひ得たる物を、まづゆづるによりてなり。されば父子あるものはさだまれる事にて、親ぞさきだちて死にける。又母が命つきて臥せるをもしらずして、いとけなき子のその乳房に吸ひつきつゝ、ふせるなどもありけり。仁和寺に、慈尊院の大藏卿隆曉法印といふ人、かくしつゝ、かずしらず死ぬることをかなしみて、ひじりをあまたかたらひつゝ、その死首の見ゆるごとに、額に阿字を書きて、緣をむすばしむるわざをなむせられける。その人數を知らむとて、四五兩月がほどかぞへたりければ、京の中、一條より南、九條より北、京極より西、朱雀より東、道のほとりにある頭、すべて四萬二千三百あまりなむありける。いはむやその前後に死ぬるもの多く、河原、白河、にしの京、もろもろの邊地などをくはへていはゞ際限もあるべからず。いかにいはむや、諸國七道をや。近くは崇德院の御位のとき、長承のころかとよ、かゝるためしはありけると聞けど、その世のありさまは知らず。まのあたりいとめづらかに、かなしかりしことなり。
There was another pitiful thing. Among those who had a husband or a wife they could not bear to leave, the one whose love was the greater, whose heart was the deeper, always died first. The reason is that such a one put his own body second and gave whatever he had begged and obtained first to the one he held dear, whether man or woman. And so where there were parents and children it was a settled thing that the parent died first. There were also cases where a little child lay sucking at the breast, not knowing that its mother's life had already ended.
At Ninna-ji there was a man called Ryūgyō Hōin, Minister of the Treasury of the Jison-in, who grieved that the dead were beyond all number in this way. He called together many holy men, and whenever the head of a corpse came in sight he had them write the letter a (阿) on its brow, to make a bond with the Buddha. Wishing to know their number, they counted through the two months, the fourth and the fifth, and within the capital, south of Ichijō, north of Kujō, west of Kyōgoku and east of Suzaku, the heads lying by the roads came to more than forty-two thousand three hundred.
How many more died before and after that, and if one adds the riverbanks, Shirakawa, the western capital and all the outlying places, there could be no end to it. How much more so in all the provinces of the seven circuits.
Not long ago, in the reign of Sutoku-in, about the Chōshō years, I think, I have heard that there was such a case as this, but I do not know how things stood in that age. What I saw before my own eyes was a thing of rare and bitter sorrow.
Interlinear notes 1
父イ
In another copy "母", the mother, reads "父", the father.