Kača pod kamnitim mostom

Besedilo

Kača pod kamnitim mostom

This must have happened not long ago. There was a woman who was making her way north along Ōmiya to attend the Bodhi Lecture at Unrin’in. As she drew near Saiin, she came to a stone bridge. A woman of twenty or thirty, with her robes hitched up at the waist, was walking beside the water. As she crossed, she stepped on one of the bridge stones and overturned it. Beneath the overturned stone lay a little mottled snake, tightly coiled. The woman behind was just thinking, “There was a snake under that stone,” when it began to glide along after the woman who had dislodged it. This struck her as strange. “What can it mean to do?” she wondered. “Does it resent being trodden upon and driven out, and intend to take revenge? I shall see what happens.” She followed behind. Now and then the woman ahead glanced back, but she seemed quite unaware that a snake was accompanying her. Other people were going the same way, yet no one noticed the snake following the woman or said anything about it. Since it was visible only to the woman who had first discovered it, she resolved to see what it would do and kept close behind. In time they reached Unrin’in. The woman went up onto the temple’s wooden floor and sat down. The snake, too, climbed up and lay coiled beside her, but no one noticed it or raised an alarm. “What an extraordinary thing,” thought the woman watching, and she never took her eyes from it. When the lecture ended and the woman rose to leave, the snake followed her out. Still determined to see what it would do, the other woman followed her back toward the capital. They went south until they came to a house. The woman entered, and the snake went in with her. “So this is where she lives,” thought the watcher. “It seems unable to do anything by day. Perhaps it will act at night. I should like to see what happens then.” But she had no way of watching, so she approached the house and said, “I have come up from the country and have nowhere to stay. Might you let me lodge here just for tonight?” She had supposed the woman followed by the snake to be the mistress of the house, but that woman called out, “There is someone here asking for lodging.” An old woman appeared and asked, “Who is it?” Realizing that this must be the mistress, the visitor said, “I am asking for a night’s lodging, just for tonight.” “Certainly. Come inside,” the old woman replied. Delighted, she entered and saw the woman sitting on a raised wooden floor. The snake lay coiled at the foot of a pillar below it. Looking closely, she saw that it was gazing up at the woman. The woman it had followed sat talking about life at the mansion where she served, and the visitor understood that she was in service in some noble household. Meanwhile the sun went down and darkness fell, so that the visitor could no longer see what the snake was doing. She said to the woman she took to be the mistress, “In return for your kindness in letting me stay, if you have any cord to be braided, I shall gladly do it for you. Please light a lamp.” “How kind of you to offer,” the old woman said. She lit a lamp, brought out some thread, and entrusted it to her. As the visitor braided the cord and watched, the woman seemed to have gone to bed. “Will it approach her now?” she wondered, but the snake came no closer. She considered telling the woman about it at once, yet feared that doing so might bring harm upon herself. Saying nothing, she kept watch to see what it would do. She watched until after midnight, but at last, when the lamp went out without her having seen it do anything, she too went to sleep. The next morning she rose, wondering what might have happened, and looked about her. The woman got up at an ordinary hour, apparently quite unharmed, and said to the mistress of the house, “I had a dream last night.” “What did you dream?” the old woman asked. “I thought someone was sitting beside my pillow as I slept. When I looked, I saw a beautiful woman, human from the waist upward but a snake below. She said, ‘Because I bore a grudge against someone, I was born into a snake’s body like this. For many years I lived beneath a stone bridge in misery. Yesterday you overturned the stone that weighed upon me and rescued me from the suffering it caused. I was so glad that I wished to see where you lived and offer you my thanks, and so I followed you. You went to attend the Bodhi Lecture, and because I accompanied you there, I was able to hear the precious teachings of the Law, so seldom encountered. Through hearing them, I was freed even of many of my sins, and their power has brought me close to gaining the merit needed to be born as a human being. Overwhelmed with gratitude, I have come to you in this form. To repay you, I shall see that you prosper and find a good husband.’ That is what I dreamed.” Hearing this, the woman who had asked for lodging was astonished. “The truth is,” she said, “I did not come up from the country at all. I live at such-and-such a place. Yesterday, on my way to the Bodhi Lecture, I happened to meet you and walked behind you. At a certain spot on Ōmiya, you overturned a stone in a bridge across a stream. A little mottled snake came out from under it and followed you. I thought of telling you, but I was afraid that if I did, some harm might come to me, and I could not bring myself to speak. The snake was indeed there at the lecture too, although no one else could see it. When you left afterward, it followed you again. I was so curious to learn how it would all end that, though I had never intended it, I spent last night here. Until after midnight, the snake was at the foot of that pillar. But when I looked this morning, it was no longer to be seen. And now, to hear you tell this dream that accords with everything I saw fills me with wonder and awe. That is why I have told you the truth. Let this be the beginning of our friendship, and from now on let us speak freely to one another.” They talked together in this way, and afterward she visited often, until the two became close acquaintances. The woman who had overturned the stone then grew very prosperous. These days, she is married to an exceedingly wealthy subordinate steward in the household of some great lord—though I do not know which—and has everything she could wish for. They say that anyone who inquired would have no trouble discovering who she is.