藪の中Yabunonaka — Deep in the Thicket

Contents

1. The Woodcutter Finds a Body （検非違使に問われたる木樵りの物語）A woodcutter tells the magistrate how he found the body of a man in a lonely thicket off the Yamashina road that morning. The man lay on his back with a single stab wound to the chest, and nearby were only a length of rope and a comb. The trampled ground suggests a fierce struggle, but there was no sword and no horse.
2. The Monk Recalls the Traveling Couple （検非違使に問われたる旅法師の物語）A traveling Buddhist monk testifies to the police commissioner that he passed the dead man on the road from Sekiyama toward Yamashina at about noon the day before. The man was armed with a sword, a bow and a black quiver of arrows, and walked beside a woman on a pale horse whose face was hidden by a veil. The monk ends by sighing over how fleeting human life is.
3. The Constable Identifies the Bandit （検非違使に問われたる放免の物語）A constable tells the magistrate how he caught the notorious bandit Tajōmaru, whom he found groaning on a stone bridge at Awataguchi, apparently after falling from his horse. Tajōmaru was carrying the dead samurai's bow and arrows, and the horse was the dead man's, so the constable is sure the bandit is the killer. He adds that Tajōmaru is known as a womaniser and is said to have committed an earlier murder, and he asks that the missing wife's fate be investigated too.
4. A Mother Pleads for Her Daughter （検非違使に問われたる媼の物語）An old woman tells the magistrate that the dead man is her son-in-law, Kanazawa no Takehiro, a gentle samurai from Wakasa, and describes her strong-willed daughter Masago, who was travelling with him. She has given up hope for Takehiro but begs the authorities to find her missing daughter, then breaks down in tears cursing the bandit Tajōmaru.
5. The Bandit Confesses to Murder （多襄丸の白状）The bandit Tajōmaru admits that he killed the samurai but says he does not know where the woman went. He explains how a glimpse of her face made him decide to take her, and how he used a story of buried treasure to lure the couple off the road. Leaving the wife with the horse, he led the husband into a cedar grove, overpowered him and tied him to a tree.
6. The Duel Fought for Masago （多襄丸の白状（つづき））Tajōmaru lures Masago to her bound husband, disarms her when she attacks him with a dagger, and takes her by force. When she begs that one of the two men must die and says she will go with the survivor, he frees Takehiro and kills him in a fair sword fight at the twenty-third pass. Masago has vanished, so Tajōmaru takes the weapons, flees, and proudly demands the death penalty.
7. The Wife's Confession at Kiyomizu （清水寺に来れる女の懺悔）Masago says that after the bandit assaulted her and left, she saw only cold contempt and hatred in her bound husband's eyes. Overcome with shame, she resolved that they both must die, and she stabbed him with a small dagger when he silently mouthed 'Kill me.' She then tried several times to kill herself but failed, and she breaks down sobbing as she asks what she is to do now.
8. The Dead Husband's Testimony （巫女の口を借りたる死霊の物語）Speaking through a medium, the dead samurai says that after the assault the bandit persuaded his wife to leave with him, and that she begged the bandit to kill her husband. The bandit, shaken, kicked her down and asked the samurai whether he wanted her killed or spared. While the samurai hesitated, she fled. The bandit cut one of the samurai's ropes and left, and the samurai stabbed himself with his wife's small sword. As he died, someone unseen drew the blade out of his chest.

Before you read

• Read each part as a separate witness statement and note who is speaking and to whom. The first four witnesses address the magistrate (検非違使) in humble keigo, so learn でございます, 居ります, 参ります and 申します first. These forms recur on almost every line.
• Watch how speech style changes between speakers. Tajōmaru uses plain-polite です/ます with a defiant edge. Masago's polite speech is broken and emotional. The dead man uses blunt おれ narration with archaic, literary Buddhist vocabulary. The register tells you as much about each person as the content does.
• Expect expressions of certainty and concession, because every witness is arguing a case: 〜に違いない／違いございません, 〜筈はない, たとい〜ても and 〜とは申すものの all recur. Notice who claims certainty and about what. The contradictions between testimonies are the point of the story.
• Learn the key physical clues early, since each witness mentions them: 縄 (rope), 櫛 (comb), 太刀 (long sword), 弓矢 (bow and arrows), 小刀 (small dagger), 馬 (horse) and 杉 (cedar). Tracking these objects across the eight parts lets you compare the accounts directly.
• Part 8 is the hardest section. It is in literary plain form with constructions like 〜が早いか ('no sooner had…'), 〜たまま and 〜ぎり, plus Buddhist and classical vocabulary. Read it slowly and lean on the notes. The short parenthetical stage directions in other parts are terse but follow simple patterns.

Words to know

The most useful words from the notes across the story.

Plot summary

About the author

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927) was one of the most important writers of modern Japanese short fiction. Born in Tokyo, he studied English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, and his early story 鼻 (The Nose) won praise from Natsume Sōseki. Many of his works retell older Japanese and Chinese tales with modern psychological insight, including 羅生門 (Rashōmon) and 藪の中 (In a Grove), which later inspired Kurosawa Akira's film Rashomon. He died by suicide at the age of 35. The Akutagawa Prize was named in his honour by his friend Kikuchi Kan.

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