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Cover of 夢十夜 (Yumejūya)

Upper intermediate · JLPT N2

夢十夜Yumejūya — Ten Nights, Ten Dreams

by Natsume Sōseki (夏目漱石, 1867–1916)

  • JLPT N2
  • 15,837 characters
  • 10 parts
  • about 132 minutes

Ten Nights, Ten Dreams is a sequence of ten short, unconnected dream-stories. The first night opens with the phrase こんな夢を見た ("I had a dream like this"), and each dream is told in the first person by a narrator who calls himself 自分. A man keeps watch at a woman's grave for a hundred years. A samurai races a temple clock to reach enlightenment. A father carries a blind child who seems to know everything. A lonely passenger throws himself from a steamship bound he knows not where. The sculptor Unkei carves guardian statues in front of a Meiji crowd. The prose is quiet, concrete and slightly archaic, and it rarely explains itself. Images such as a fallen star, a white lily or a cock's crow simply appear and are left for the reader to feel. For a learner, each part is short enough to finish in one sitting, and the plain narration is manageable at an upper-intermediate level. The challenge lies in the Meiji-era vocabulary and in the dialogue, which ranges from gentle politeness to rough samurai speech and old-fashioned forms.

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Contents

  1. A Hundred Years by the Grave （第一夜）A dying woman asks the narrator to bury her, mark her grave with a fallen star and wait a hundred years for her to return. He buries her by moonlight and counts the red suns as they rise and set until he loses track and begins to fear she lied. Then a white lily grows from under the stone and opens before him, and he realises the hundred years have already passed.
  2. A Samurai Struggles to Grasp Mu （第二夜）The narrator dreams he is a samurai at a Zen temple. Insulted by the abbot for failing to reach enlightenment, he vows to attain it before the clock strikes the next hour and then take the abbot's head, or, if he fails, to die by the dagger that lies under his cushion. He sits in agonised meditation on the koan Mu, but it will not come, and the clock begins to strike.
  3. The Blind Child on My Back （第三夜）The narrator carries his blind six-year-old son through dark rice fields at night. The child speaks like an adult and seems to know everything, and the frightened father decides to abandon him in a nearby forest. At the foot of a cedar tree the child reveals that, exactly a hundred years earlier, the father murdered a blind man on that very spot. At that moment the child grows as heavy as a stone statue.
  4. The Old Man Who Walked into the River （第四夜）In a tavern with an earthen floor, a boy watches a strange, ageless old man drinking sake who gives riddling answers to the landlady's questions. Outside, the old man promises the children he will turn a twisted hand towel into a snake, but nothing happens, so he puts it in his box and walks away singing. The boy follows him to a river, where the old man wades straight in until he disappears, and the boy waits alone on the bank for a snake that never comes.
  5. The Captive and the False Cockcrow （第五夜）In an ancient age close to the time of the gods, the narrator is captured in battle and chooses death rather than surrender. He asks to see the woman he loves once before he dies, and the enemy general agrees to wait until the cock crows at dawn. The woman gallops toward the camp on a white horse, but a false cockcrow from the trickster Amanojaku makes her pull up, and she and the horse plunge into a deep abyss.
  6. Unkei Carves Guardian Kings in Meiji （第六夜）The narrator hears that the medieval sculptor Unkei is carving guardian-king statues at the gate of Gokokuji, and he joins a crowd of Meiji-era onlookers. A young man tells him that Unkei does not make the faces but simply digs out what is already buried in the wood. The narrator goes home to try it himself, but none of his logs holds a guardian king, and he concludes that Meiji wood has none inside it. This, he decides, is why Unkei is still alive.
  7. Adrift on an Endless Ship （第七夜）The narrator is aboard a huge steamship that seems to chase the setting sun day and night, bound he knows not where. Among passengers who are mostly foreigners, he feels forlorn and finds life so pointless that he throws himself into the sea. The moment his feet leave the deck he regrets it deeply, but it is too late, and he falls slowly toward the black waves.
  8. Reflections in the Barbershop Mirror （第八夜）The narrator sits down in a barbershop and sees the street reflected in its mirrors: Shōtarō passes with a woman, a tofu seller blows his horn, and a sleepy geisha bows to someone who never appears in the glass. While his hair is cut, a woman in the cashier's booth counts a pile of ten-yen notes that never gets smaller, but when he turns round she is gone. Outside, a goldfish seller sits perfectly still beside his tubs, unaffected by the busy street.
  9. A Mother's Night Prayers at the Shrine （第九夜）In troubled times, a samurai slips out of his house one moonless night and never returns. Every night his young wife carries their small child to a Hachiman shrine, ties him to the hall's railing, and walks the hundred rounds, praying for her husband's safety. The narrator learns in a dream that the father had long since been killed by masterless samurai.
  10. Shōtarō, the Woman and the Pigs （第十夜）Shōtarō, a handsome idler who likes to sit outside a fruit shop gazing at women, goes off with an elegant lady and vanishes for seven days. When he returns feverish, he says she led him to a cliff and told him to jump, threatening that pigs would lick him otherwise; he spent seven days and six nights beating back endless herds of pigs until he was licked and collapsed. Ken-san, who tells the story, warns against looking at women too much, but he also wants Shōtarō's Panama hat, and the narrator suspects Shōtarō will not recover.

Before you read

  • The narrator refers to himself as 自分, not 私 or 僕. Read 自分 as "I" throughout, not as "oneself".
  • Pay attention to who is speaking. The dying woman in Night 1 is gently polite, the samurai in Night 2 is harsh, and the blind child in Night 3 talks like an adult. The old man in Night 4 uses archaic forms such as 見ておろう, and the woman on the cliff in Night 10 uses the old polite ござんす. The level of politeness tells you a lot about each character.
  • Learn the readings of the proper names before you start, because several are unusual: 天探女 (あまのじゃく), 運慶 (うんけい), 護国寺 (ごこくじ), 趙州 (じょうしゅう), 雲右衛門 (くもえもん).
  • The notes return to a set of literary patterns: 〜や否や ("as soon as"), 〜に相違ない ("must surely be"), 〜と見えて ("apparently"), concessive Noun + ながら, 〜たまま and 〜ずに. It is worth reviewing these first.
  • Each night stands alone, so read one per session. The dreams do not follow cause and effect, so don't look for a logic that links events. Follow the concrete images and let the ending of each night settle before you move on.

Words to know

The most useful words from the notes across the story.

WordMeaningJLPT
悟れぬさとるto attain (Buddhist) enlightenment; to realisedictionary form: 悟る悟れぬ = 悟れない in literary style. The noun is 悟り.N1
勘定かんじょうcountingIn modern usage it most often means 'the bill' at a restaurant (お勘定).N3
忽然こつぜんsuddenly; all at onceLiterary adverb.—
頓着とんじゃくconcern, paying attention (usually with a negative)委細頓着なく means 'not caring in the least'. It is also read とんちゃく.—
往来おうらいthe street; comings and goingsOld-fashioned word for a road with traffic; literally 'going and coming'.—
遠慮えんりょrestraint, holding back out of considerationHere the old man moves cautiously as if not to disturb the towel.N4
床屋とこやbarbershop; barberEveryday word; more formal is 理髪店 (りはつてん).N4
相図あいずsignal, signdictionary form: 合図Older spelling of 合図.N3
評判ひょうばんrumour, talk; reputationHere it means 'word going around'. Later it means the crowd's comments.N3
得意とくいproud, pleased with oneselfAlso 'good at' (得意な科目); here it means smug or triumphant.N3
額がくframed tablet or plaque hung up for displayRead ひたい it means 'forehead'.N3
欺されただますto deceive, to trickdictionary form: 欺すToday it is usually written 騙す.N2
口惜しければくやしいgalling; frustrating; mortifyingdictionary form: 口惜しいOlder spelling of 悔しい.N2
潰れてつぶれるto be crushed; (of eyes) to go blinddictionary form: 潰れる目が潰れる is an older, blunt expression for losing one's sight.N2
手拭てぬぐいthin cotton hand toweldictionary form: 手拭いThe key object of the story: the towel meant to become a snake.N2

Plot summary

Show the full summary (contains spoilers)

Night 1: a dying woman asks the narrator to wait a hundred years at her grave. When a white lily blooms there, he realises the time has passed. Night 2: a samurai vows to reach enlightenment before the clock strikes or die, and the clock begins to strike. Night 3: a father about to abandon his blind son learns that he murdered a blind man on that spot a century ago, and the child grows heavy as stone. Night 4: an old man who promised a snake wades into a river and vanishes. Night 5: a captive's lover, fooled by Amanojaku's false cockcrow, plunges into an abyss. Night 6: Meiji wood holds no statues. Night 7: the narrator leaps overboard and regrets it as he falls. Night 8: barbershop mirrors show strange scenes. Night 9: a wife prays for a husband she does not know is dead. Night 10: Shōtarō fights pigs on a cliff until he collapses, and he may not recover.

About the author

Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) is one of the most important novelists of modern Japan. He studied English literature at Tokyo Imperial University and later spent time studying in London on a government scholarship. After teaching English, he became famous with 吾輩は猫である (I Am a Cat) and 坊っちゃん (Botchan). He then left academia to write fiction as a staff writer for the Asahi Shimbun, which serialised many of his works, including こころ (Kokoro). His portrait appeared on the Japanese 1000-yen note for many years.

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