Story of a Fly
About two hundred years ago, there lived in Kyoto a merchant named Kazariya Kyūbei. His shop was in the street called Teramachidōri, a little south of the Shimabara thoroughfare. He had a maid-servant named Tama,—a native of the province of Wakasa.
Tama was kindly treated by Kyūbei and his wife, and appeared to be sincerely attached to them. But she never cared to dress nicely, like other girls; and whenever she had a holiday she would go out in her working-dress, notwithstanding that she had been given several pretty robes. After she had been in the service of Kyūbei for about five years, he one day asked her why she never took any pains to look neat.
Tama blushed at the reproach implied by this question, and answered respectfully:—
“When my parents died, I was a very little girl; and, as they had no other child, it became my duty to have the Buddhist services performed on their behalf. At that time I could not obtain the means to do so; but I resolved to have their ihai [mortuary tablets] placed in the temple called Jōrakuji, and to have the rites performed, so soon as I could earn the money required. And in order to fulfil this resolve I have tried to be saving of my money and my clothes;—perhaps I have been too saving, as you have found me negligent of my person. But I have already been able to put by about one hundred mommé of silver for the purpose which I have mentioned; and hereafter I will try to appear before you looking neat. So I beg that you will kindly excuse my past negligence and rudeness.”
Kyūbei was touched by this simple confession; and he spoke to the girl kindly,—assuring her that she might consider herself at liberty thenceforth to dress as she pleased, and commending her filial piety.
Soon after this conversation, the maid Tama was able to have the tablets of her parents placed in the temple Jōrakuji, and to have the appropriate services performed. Of the money which she had saved she thus expended seventy mommé; and the remaining thirty mommé she asked her mistress to keep for her.
But early in the following winter Tama was suddenly taken ill; and after a brief sickness she died, on the eleventh day of the first month of the fifteenth year of Genroku [1702]. Kyūbei and his wife were much grieved by her death.
Now, about ten days later, a very large fly came into the house, and began to fly round and round the head of Kyūbei. This surprised Kyūbei, because no flies of any kind appear, as a rule, during the Period of Greatest Cold, and the larger kinds of flies are seldom seen except in the warm season. The fly annoyed Kyūbei so persistently that he took the trouble to catch it, and put it out of the house,—being careful the while to injure it in no way; for he was a devout Buddhist. It soon came back again, and was again caught and thrown out; but it entered a third time. Kyūbei’s wife thought this a strange thing. “I wonder,” she said, “if it is Tama.” [For the dead—particularly those who pass to the state of Gaki—sometimes return in the form of insects.] Kyūbei laughed, and made answer, “Perhaps we can find out by marking it.” He caught the fly, and slightly nicked the tips of its wings with a pair of scissors,—after which he carried it to a considerable distance from the house and let it go.
Next day it returned. Kyūbei still doubted whether its return had any ghostly significance. He caught it again, painted its wings and body with beni (rouge), carried it away from the house to a much greater distance than before, and set it free. But, two days later, it came back, all red; and Kyūbei ceased to doubt.
“I think it is Tama,” he said. “She wants something;—but what does she want?”
The wife responded:—
“I have still thirty mommé of her savings. Perhaps she wants us to pay that money to the temple, for a Buddhist service on behalf of her spirit. Tama was always very anxious about her next birth.”
As she spoke, the fly fell from the paper window on which it had been resting. Kyūbei picked it up, and found that it was dead.
Thereupon the husband and wife resolved to go to the temple at once, and to pay the girl’s money to the priests. They put the body of the fly into a little box, and took it along with them.
Jiku Shōnin, the chief priest of the temple, on hearing the story of the fly, decided that Kyūbei and his wife had acted rightly in the matter. Then Jiku Shōnin performed a Ségaki service on behalf of the spirit of Tama; and over the body of the fly were recited the eight rolls of the sûtra Myōten. And the box containing the body of the fly was buried in the grounds of the temple; and above the place a sotoba was set up, appropriately inscribed.