The Buddhist priest Keinen (1534?–1611) was ordered in 1597 to accompany the local daimyo on Hideyoshi’s second campaign in Korea and spent seven months there. As a Buddhist, he did not revel in military feats but rather deplored the death and suffering that he observed. Adopting the time-honored form of the poetic diary, Keinen ends each day’s entry with a short poem. The excerpt quoted here begins about six weeks after he left home.

“Eighth month, 4th day. Every one is trying to be the first off the ship; no one wants to lag behind. They fall over each other in trying to get at the plunder, to kill people. It is a sight I cannot bear to see.

A hubbub rises

as from roiling clouds and mist

where they swarm about

in their rage for the plunder

of innocent people’s goods.

VIII.5.

They are burning the houses. As I watched them go up in smoke, I thought that my own existence was like this and was seized by sympathy.

The “Red Country” is

what they call it, but black is

the smoke that rises

from the burning houses

where you see flames flying high.

VIII.6.

The very fields and hillsides have been put to the fire, not to speak of the forts. People are put to the sword, or they are shackled with chains and bamboo tubes choking the neck. Parents sobbing for their children, children searching for their parents — never before have I seen such a pitiable sight.

The hills are ablaze

with the cries of soldiers

intoxicated

with their pyrolatry —

the battleground of demons.

VIII.7.

Looking at the various kinds of plunder amassed by them all, I formed a desire for such things. Could I really be like this, I thought, and felt ashamed. How can I attain salvation like this, I thought.

How ashamed I am!

For everything that I see

I form desires —

a creature of delusions,

my mind full of attachments.

On the same day, as I exerted myself in reflections on my spiritual state, I felt myself more and more ashamed. And yet the Buddha has vowed not to give weight to the weightiest of evil deeds, not to abandon the most abandoned and intemperate!

Unless it be through

reliance on the vow of

Amida Buddha,

who could obtain salvation

with such wicked thoughts as mine?

VIII.8.

They are carrying off Korean children and killing their parents. Never shall they see each other again. Their mutual cries — surely this is like the torture meted out by the fiends of hell.

It is piteous;

when the four fledglings parted,*

it must have been thus —

I see the parents’ lament

over their sobbing children.

VIII.11.

As night fell, I saw people’s houses go up in smoke. They have lost everything to the fire, all their grain and all their property.

How wretched it is!

Smoke lingers still where the grain

was burned and wasted;

so that is where I lay my

head tonight: on the scorched earth.

VIII.13.

His lordship has set up camp about five leagues this side of Namwon. Unless this fortress is taken, our prospects are dubious; so we are to close in and invest it this evening. The word is that fifty or sixty thousand soldiers from Great Ming are garrisoning the place.

We’ll solve the challenge

posed even by this fortress

of the Red Country! —

The troops rejoice to hear this,

and they rest their weary feet.

VIII.14.

Rain has been falling steadily since the evening. It comes down in sheets, like a waterfall. We have put up a makeshift tent covered with oil paper only, and it is frightening how the rain pours in. It is impossible to sleep. I had to think of the story “The Devil at One Gulp” in Tales of Ise.† The night described in that tale must have been just like this.

Inexorably,

fearsome torrents beating down

remind me of that

dreadful night when the devil

at one gulp ate his victim.

VIII.15.

The fortress is to be stormed before dawn tomorrow. Fascines of bamboo have been distributed to the assault troops. The sun was about to set as they worked their way close in, right up against the edge of the castle’s bulwarks, and gunfire opened up from the several siege detachments, accompanied by arrows shot from short-bows. Unthinkable numbers of men were killed. As I saw them dying:

From the fortress, too,

from their short-bows, too.

How many killed? Beyond count

is the number of the dead.

The castle fell to the assault in the course of the night. Lord Hishu’s troops were the first inside the walls. Needless to say, he is to get a vermilion-seal letter of commendation.

VIII.16.

All in the fortress were slaughtered, to the last man and woman. No prisoners were taken. To be sure, a few were kept alive for exchange purposes.

How cruel! This world

of sorrow and inconstancy

does have one constant —

men and women, young and old

die and vanish; are no more.

VIII.17.

Until yesterday they did not know that they would have to die; today, they are transformed into the smoke of impermanence, as is the way of this world of constant change. How can I be unaffected by this!

Look! Everyone, look!

Is this, then, to be called the human condition? —

a life with a deadline,

a life with a limit: today.”

Source: Sources of Japanese Tradition, by Wm. Theodore de Bary, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley. Reproduced with permission of COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS in the format Book via Copyright Clearance Center.

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