r led their troops in war, though they did so as
Imperial princes. But in other respects they lived the lives of
ordinary men--joining in the chase, taking part in banquets, and
mixing freely with the people. As illustrating this last fact a
strange incident may be cited. One day the Emperor Yuryaku visited
the place where some carpenters were at work and observed that one of
them, Mane, in shaping timber with an axe, used a stone for ruler but
never touched it with the axe. "Dost thou never make a mistake and
strike the stone?" asked the monarch. "I never make a mistake,"
replied the carpenter. Then, to disturb the man's sang-froid, Yuryaku
caused the ladies-in-waiting (uneme) to dance, wearing only
waist-cloths. Mane watched the spectacle for a while, and on resuming
his work, his accuracy of aim was momentarily at fault. The Emperor
rebuked him for having made an unwarranted boast and handed him over
to the monono-be for execution. After the unfortunate man had been
led away, one of his comrades chanted an impromptu couplet lamenting
his fate, whereat the Emperor, relenting, bade a messenger gallop off
on "a black horse of Kai" to stay the execution. The mandate of mercy
arrived just in time, and when Mane's bonds were loosed, he, too,
improvised a verse:

"Black as the night
"Was the horse of Kai.
"Had they waited to
"Saddle him, my life were lost
"O, horse of Kai!"

The whole incident is full of instruction. A sovereign concerning
himself about trivialities as petty as this pretext on which he sends
a man to death; the shameful indignity put upon the ladies-in-waiting
to minister to a momentary whim; the composition of poetry by common
carpenters, and the ride for life on a horse which there is not time
to saddle. It is an instructive picture of the ways of Yuryaku's
Court.

In truth, this couplet-composing proclivity is one of the strangest
features of the Yamato race as portrayed in the pages of the Records
and the Chronicles. From the time when the fierce Kami, Susanoo, put
his thoughts into verse as he sought for a place to celebrate his
marriage, great crises and little crises in the careers of men and
women respectively inspire couplets. We find an Emperor addressing an
ode to a dragon-fly which avenges him on a gad-fly; we find a prince
reciting impromptu stanzas while he lays siege to the place whither
his brother has fled for refuge; we find a heartbroken lady singing a
verselet as fo