5:9 Lord Moronao's Amorous Affairs
translated by Yoshiko Dysktra
Lord Moronao seizes the beautiful wife of his retainer while the lady confidante waits behind the door.
Lord Kô Moronao was notorious for his amorous nature and countless illicit affairs. Recently a samurai found an interesting book which listed all the lord's relationships and the women involved in his life. It contains many shameful affairs which are too embarrassing to be mentioned here, and only a score have come to be known publicly. Some persons involved in these affairs will be greatly inconvenienced if their names are published.
According to the book, the lord's most shameless conduct was selecting retainers who had pretty wives and using a fifty-year-old woman to inspect them. Pretending to be a confidante of the lord, she casually visited the samurais' private homes, and naturally the samurai and their well-dressed wives were obliged to entertain the lady confidante of their lord.
A few months after the lady submitted her detailed reports, Lord Moronao sent messengers to the samurai saying that their wives were required to present themselves at his mansion on a certain day. Having already received and entertained the lady confidante, the husbands had no hesitation about sending their wives to the mansion. The excited ladies competed with each other as regards their appearance and attire for their interview with the lord.
When the day arrived, the lord's mansion was full of the most beautiful wives, formally dressed and comparable to the imperial concubines and mistresses of ancient China, such as Lady Li of Emperor Wu and Lady Zhao-jun of Emperor Yuan of the Former Han Dynasty [202 B.C.-24 A.D.] . Their husbands were too dazzled to give a second look at their radiant wives.
Meanwhile at the lord's mansion, the lady confidante announced that the lord could not see all the wives at once, and would like to meet them one at a time. So the lady took one of the wives and led her to a room. Now Lord Moronao was hiding in a small room next to the inner part of the mansion and he suddenly appeared on hearing the wife's footsteps. He seized her, held her down, and forced her to submit to his lustful desires. The rest of the wives were likewise utterly helpless as regards the lord's outrageous conduct, which is too shameful to describe.
After returning home, the wives were unable to tell their husbands about the lord, and only said that he was just fine. Thereafter the wives were often summoned to the mansion. Everything was supposed to be kept quiet, but as a proverb says, "Heaven knows, Earth knows, you know, and I know," so eventually the husbands came to learn about the secret of their wives and the lord, and they gathered to discuss the matter.
One of them began, "Since olden times, the great Way of the Lord is to care for his subjects, while his retainers serve him with utmost sincerity. This relationship may vary, because some may serve him with less reward, while others work for greater returns even if it costs them their life. In any case, a subject should be ready to sacrifice his life for his lord even in a minor conflict to preserve his samurai honor. Now at this time constant wars and battles are causing the people great anxiety and fear, and our lord's behavior is most outrageous. We share with our wives the two lives of the present and the future, but they have been violated. Our samurai honor has been reduced to the level of beggars. What do you think of this situation? I believe we should all go to the mansion and make our lord commit suicide!"
In this way the excited samurai raised his voice, and his companions were in agreement and prepared to march to the lord's mansion.
Now among them was a brave and thoughtful samurai, and he began to express his opinion.
"Your anger and frustration are certainly understandable, but your decision lacks thought. Just put your personal problems into perspective. Despite the differences in our incomes, we all serve our lord and depend on him for everything, including the means to feed our wives, children, and servants. We are able to keep our prestige and honor only by depending on our lord. In such circumstances, our wives also depend on him. We maintain our wives with our lord's financial support. So if he needs them, then we should freely let our wives serve him. If you think about it in this way, you won't feel any grudge about anything. But if you consider your wife belongs to you alone, then your anger and frustration will be doubled. Our lord has often summoned even my ugly wife before your wives, but I have neither regrets nor hard feelings toward him."
His listeners calmed down and their anger subsided. "What an extraordinary idea! We should wait and reflect on our decision before taking action," they said.
And so, all the samurai ended their meeting with much laughter, and did not revolt against the lord. They concluded that the extraordinary idea was like that of an enlightened Buddha.
~~~ The End ~~~
©2007 by Yoshiko Dykstra