“The Carp of My Dreams”—Ueda Akinari (1734-1809)

夢応の鯉魚 (“Muō no rigyo”) is, in my view, a standout in the influential collection of supernatural short stories 雨月物語 (Ugetsu monogatari, “Tales of Moonlight and Rain”). The collection is in a late and relatively pellucid form of Classical Japanese, and comprises reworkings of older Japanese, Chinese, and Indian material. Published in the midst of Japan’s isolationist Tokugawa period, the collection has occasional nationalist and nativist overtones, but, unlike certain later material, this has a tendency to enhance rather than sap its narrative and emotional strength. This story, which, following Anthony Chambers, I have translated “The Carp of My Dreams,” is a bit different from other stories in the collection for its relatively light tone; its story of a Buddhist monk who paints fish and his reward from a lake god has tensions and ambivalent points, but nothing like what appears in other Ugetsu offerings like “A Serpent’s Lust” or “The Kibitsu Cauldron.”

The Carp of My Dreams

Once upon a time, around the Enchō era, there lived a monk at Mii Temple named Kōgi. He was known far and wide for his skill as a painter, but he did not focus his efforts on typical subjects such as religious art, landscapes, or studies of flowers and birds. Rather, whenever he had a day off from his duties at the temple, he would go out on the lake in a little boat and pay the net-fishermen to return their catch to the water so that he could paint them as they disported themselves; over years of this, his paintings grew exquisitely beautiful and precise. One day, after pouring his whole heart into a particular painting and then drifting off to sleep, he dreamed of entering the water and disporting himself with the fish, great and small. When he woke up, he straightway painted what he had seen, put the painting up on the wall of his cell, and called it “The Carp of My Dreams.”

Moved by the beauty and skill of his paintings, people chomped at the bit to acquire them, but while he gave away his flower-and-bird studies and landscapes for a song, he held on to his carp paintings, fending off all comers.

“No way the fish that this monk has raised can be handed out to laypeople who kill living things and eat fresh meat.”

Word of the paintings, and of this jibe, spread all under heaven.

One year he fell ill and, after seven days, suddenly closed his eyes, stopped breathing, and passed out. His apprentices and friends gathered together to mourn, but, feeling a remaining warmth in his breast, they kept watch around him in the hopes that he might recover; after three days of this, his arms and legs seemed to stir, he suddenly let out a sigh, he opened his eyes, he got up as though merely waking up from sleep, and, facing the well-wishers, he said “I have long forgotten human affairs. How many days was I out?”

His brothers said, “Master, you haven’t breathed in three days. People in the temple first and foremost, but also all sorts of other people who knew you, came to make funeral arrangements, but seeing that your breast was still warm, we kept watch without putting you in your coffin; now that you’ve recovered, all we can say is ‘thank heavens we didn’t go through with the funeral.’ We’re very thankful.”

Kōgi nodded and said: “Someone go visit the mansion of the Taira lord, our lieutenant governor who supports the temple, and announce ‘Somehow that priest returned to life. Your Lordship, stop pouring sake and preparing sliced fish. Leave the banquet for a while and come visit the temple. You’ll hear a rare tale.’ Pay attention to what his people are doing. Tell him precisely what I just told you.”

A messenger went to the mansion, feeling a little fishy about it; he relayed the message and, looking inside, saw the Taira lieutenant governor, sitting in a circle with such people as his younger brother Jurō and his retainer Kamori, drinking sake. The messenger was shocked; everything was just as his teacher had said. When the people of the lieutenant governor’s household heard the message they were greatly alarmed; the lieutenant governor set down his chopsticks and made for the temple with Jurō and Kamori in tow.

Kōgi raised his head from his pillow and thanked his guests for visiting; the lieutenant governor congratulated him on his startling resuscitation. Then Kōgi said, “Listen, Your Lordship, to what I have to say. Have you ever bought fish from that fisherman Bunshi?”

Surprised, the lieutenant governor replied, “Yes, I certainly have. However did you know?”

Kōgi said, “He put a fish over three feet long in a basket and brought it in through your gate. You were in the south wing in the middle of a game of go with your younger brother. Kamori was seated to the side, eating a big peach as he watched you play. Rejoicing at the fisherman having stopped by with such a large fish, you offered him some peaches you’d put out on a plate, plus filling the cup and drinking three rounds of sake with him. The cook proudly took the fish and started cutting it up; everything this old priest has said so far is what happened, right?”

Such was Kōgi’s speech, and the lieutenant governor and his men, hearing it, felt suspicious, not to say troubled and confused; they pressed him on how he knew all this in such detail, and he explained.

 ❦

“Lately, my illness was causing me such unbearable suffering that I didn’t even realize I had died; hoping to cool my fever a bit, I made my way out the gate with my walking stick, and it was as if I had forgotten about my illness, feeling like a caged bird returning to the great open sky. I made my way through mountains and village until, like usual, I came to the edge of Lake Biwa. When I saw the beautiful blueness of the water, I felt like I was in a dream and, wanting to swim and disport myself, I stripped down right then and there, threw myself in, dove down deep, and swam all over; even though I’m not someone who’s been used to swimming since I was a child, I splashed around however I liked. Looking back now, it was an ill-considered dreamer’s fancy. Even so, it doesn’t feel as good to drift in the water as a human as it does for a fish. At that point I got more and more envious of the fish swimming all around me. Just then there was a large fish nearby; it said, “Your Worship’s wish is an easy one. Please wait.”

The fish disappeared for a while into the depths of the lake, but then a person in a crown and robes, riding that same big fish, with a retinue of all sorts of watery creatures veritably wafting around him; this person spoke to me.

“Hear the edict from the lake god Watatsumi. You, old monk, have accrued many merits for freeing living beings. Now you have entered the lake and long to disport yourself in it like a fish. We will clothe you in a golden carp for a while and allow you to enjoy the watery realm. Only do not let the smell of bait dazzle you, get caught on a line, and die.”

Having said this, the person vanished from my sight. I looked myself over in amazement, and before I knew it I had grown golden scales and become a carp. Without thinking of this as especially strange, I swished my tale and worked my fins and moved to my heart’s content. First I rode the waves whipped up by the wind from Mount Nagara, then, sportive along the edges of the Great Bay of Shiga, I got a start from the wet skirts of the people walking so close to the shore; I tried to dive in the deep places under high Mount Hira’s shadow, but it was hard to hide from the allure of the fishing fires of Katada at night. The moon sojourning on the waters in the lily-seed-black night blazed on the peak of the Mountain of Mirrors, and charmingly lit the eighty ports’ eighty corners. Oki Isle and Chikubu Isle, with their vermilion shrine fences floating in the waves, were wonders to behold. The winds swept down from Mount Ibuki and the Asazuma Boat put out, waking me from my dreams among the reeds; I ducked the skilled rowing of the Yabase ferryman and got driven off repeatedly by the bridge guards at Seta. When the sun shone I drifted in the shallows, and when the wind stiffened I disported myself in the many-fathomed depths.

Suddenly I felt hungry, downright greedy for something to eat, to the point where I thought I’d go mad if I didn’t find some, and just then, Bunshi was casting his line.

The food smelled so good. I recalled to mind the instructions of the lord of the waters.

“I am a disciple of the Buddha. I can’t be this desperate for food that I’m considering taking fish bait.”

So I reminded myself. But the hunger after a while grew worse, and again I thought, “I just can’t stand it now. Even if I take this bait, I can avoid getting caught. I understand well how this works; it won’t fool me.”

And so I took the beat. Bunshi immediately reeled in the line and caught me.

“How can you do this?” I cried out, but he did not hear me as he inspected my face, took a rope and pierced my chin, landed his boat at Ashima, heaved me into the basket, and went in through your gate. You were in the south wing at play with your younger brother. Kamori was sitting to the side, eating fruit. The huge fish that Bunshi brought in made a big impression on those present. At that time I raised my voice against those present.

“Has everyone here forgotten Kōgi? Have mercy on me. Let me go back to the temple!”

I was fairly screaming at them, but they treated me as a stranger, just clapping their hands happily. The cook grabbed me firmly with his left hand in both my eyes, while with his right he took up the knife; when he had me on the cutting board and was just about to start chopping me up, I cried out strenuously in a great voice, “I’ve never heard of such harm to a disciple of the Buddha! Help me, help me!”

I cried and screamed but nobody could hear me. Finally, just as I was about to be cut open, I woke up from my dream.”

 ❦

The people marveled at this. The lieutenant governor said, “Thinking on Your Worship’s story, it occurs to me that at one point I saw the fish keep opening and shutting its mouth, although there wasn’t any voice coming out of it. Such things are wondrous to see.” Saying this, he had a servant run back to his home and throw what was left of the fish back into the lake.

 ❦

Kōgi recovered fully from his illness and lived for another decade. When he was finally approaching his last moments, he took his various carp paintings and cast them off at the lake; the fish left their cocoons of paper to frolic in the water. Thus Kōgi did not leave any of his paintings to posterity. He did have a disciple named Narimitsu who had some fame as an inheritor of Kōgi’s miraculous skill. A rooster that he painted on a screen in the Kan’in Palace looked so lifelike that when a real rooster saw it he tried to kick it, as is related in an old tale.