The Life of Shiobara Tasuke

On a misty mountainside in Kōzuke, a masterless samurai turned hunter shoots a robber to save a traveler, and finds he has killed his own loyal retainer. The farmer he saved bears his very name, and in return takes the samurai’s eight-year-old son Tasuke as his heir. Years later, mocked as “Weeping Tasuke,” betrayed by his adoptive mother and his wife and marked for murder, the young man says a tearful farewell to his horse Ao on the Numata moor and walks to Edo with six hundred coppers.

Saved from the river at Shōhei Bridge, he works for a charcoal merchant without wages, gathers what others throw away, unmasks a swindler, paves a road for strangers and invents “measured charcoal” sold by the strainerful to the poor, until a purveyor’s daughter chooses him for his heart and cuts off her own long sleeves on their wedding night. San’yūtei Enchō’s most famous tale of honesty, thrift and filial duty is presented here complete and unabridged, with the preface, all eighteen original chapters, Enchō’s own account of how he traced the real Tasuke, concise notes and a documented source record.

A New English Translation in the series Japanese Classics in English Translation.