Prevod

Once, when Seimei was at the palace guard post, he saw a courtier arriving in splendid state, with attendants clearing the way before him. He was a young man known as the Chamberlain Captain, a dashing figure with a remarkably handsome face. As he stepped down from his carriage and entered the palace, a crow flew over him and dropped its filth upon him. Seimei noticed at once. “What a pity! He seems a man with everything to live for, so young and handsome. Has he been struck by a shikigami? That crow is no ordinary bird—it is a spirit servant.” Perhaps the captain had earned the good fortune of surviving this danger, for Seimei felt such pity for him that he walked over to his side. “Are you going into His Majesty’s presence? It may seem presumptuous of me to speak, but why trouble to go? I can see that you will not live through tonight. There must be a reason you have crossed my path. Come with me, and let me see what I can do.” At this, the captain trembled. “What a dreadful thing! Then please, save me!” They got into the same carriage and went out to the captain’s private residence. It had been about four in the afternoon, and by the time they reached the house and made their preparations, night had fallen. Seimei held the captain close and performed rites to protect him. All through the night he murmured incantations, never sleeping, his voice never once falling silent. He labored tirelessly through the long autumn night, until, toward dawn, someone began pounding at the door. “Have someone go and ask who it is,” Seimei said. Now, the captain had a fellow son-in-law, a chamberlain of the fifth rank, and the two men had been lodged in different parts of the same house. Their father-in-law prized the captain as a fine son-in-law and treated him with great care, while thinking very little of the other. Resentful of this, the other man had enlisted a diviner to send a shikigami against the captain. The captain had been on the point of death when Seimei discovered his plight and spent the night praying for him. The visitor at the door was a messenger from the diviner who had sent the spirit. In great agitation, he cried out loudly that his master, unwilling to disobey the command he had been given, had rashly sent a shikigami against a man whose spiritual protection was too strong. The spirit had now turned back upon the diviner and struck him dead. He had done what he should never have attempted. “Listen to that,” Seimei said to the captain. “Had I not noticed you yesterday, that is what would have happened to you.” He sent someone back with the messenger to learn more, and the report came that the diviner had indeed died on the spot. The father-in-law immediately drove out the son-in-law who had ordered the attack. They thanked Seimei with tears, and though they did all manner of things to reward him, nothing seemed enough to express their gratitude. I do not remember who the captain was, but they say he rose to become a Major Counselor.