The scattered jewels, e'en the moon, it harbours."[50]

"Is there but that to prove wit?"--"How then with this one?"

"Tree leaves on Yamakawa's flood:
The self, abandoned, does but drift--lo!"[51]

The priest threw up his hands. "Such stuff will never do! And this
fellow considers himself educated!"

"Rain seen, impeded not to flow away;
The snow breaks not the stem of willow green."[52]

"Various and many though the ways of teaching be,
There is but one true stroke of sword."[53]

Jubei gleamed most homicidally at his questioner. The priest only
said--"A child has such by heart." And Jubei knew 'twas so, and was
rebuked. Now he was in less haste:

"The heart, how judge it?
An ink sketch of the breeze amid the pines."[54]

A shrug of the shoulders was the reward of this effort.

"Though barrier mount, the leafy mount, the inner mount, be dense
with leafage;
What e'er one wills, naught hinders."[55]

The priest shook his head as with grave indulgence to childhood's
thoughts. Jubei burst into a rage. He turned to his sword-bearer, and
laid hand on the weapon. The lad knelt with bowed head, uncertain
whether the sword was to fall on himself or the visitor. Without paying
the slightest attention to the hostile attitude the priest cut matters
short. "Jubei Dono would question the priest's right to judge. Come now!
The cleric's foolish head against the wits of Nippon's great man. O
warrior, interpret!" A sign; and ink stone and poem paper (_tanzaku_)
were put before him. Jubei in turn took the scroll in hand. He read:

"_Tatazumuna, yukuna, modoruna, isuwaruna;
Neruna, okiruna, shiru mo shiranu mo._"

"It neither stands still, nor goes forward, nor goes backward,
nor remains as it is;
It sleeps not, rises not: known or unknown."

Jubei started with a bellow; and ended in a whisper. The retainers
looked in each other's faces. Who was the maddest--their lord or the
shabby _bo[u]zu_? A long silence followed. Jubei no longer stood in
grandiloquent pose. He squatted down before the ideographs. At last he
said--"The poem contains much matter. Deign to allow time for the
solution." His voice was gentle and courteous to this future victim of
his intelligence. The priest nodded a genial assent. Before he withdrew
Jubei gave emphatic orders as to ward and entertainment. The pleasures
of anticipation, of solution of