Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/445

By nature Snowflake was of a high-spirited, gallant disposition. She devoted little attention to business affairs, but studied instead calligraphy and painting with the Master of the Willow Stream Garden, and took lessons in swordsmanship and judo. She was pale, large, and portly, with great strength in her limbs. Two women attendants named Tortoise (Okame) and Mountain Peak (Oiwa)—both of whom were very strong and brave—constantly followed Snowflake about. At this time she had just turned sixteen, and her two companions were likewise in the bloom of their beauty. Young idlers and ruffians meeting them on the street would often tease the girls and challenge them to a battle. At such times Snowflake would glance meaningfully at her attendants, and they would thereupon knock the boys to the ground, often so hard that they could not get up again.

The place called Snake Hill in the southern suburbs was at this time very wild and deserted, and even in the daytime no one dared walk there. Snowflake once took a short cut through the spot when two robbers came upon her and tried to seize her sash, but she knocked them flat. In no time the story got around, and everyone stayed out of her way.

Snowflake, not having a husband, was ambitious to become a lady-in-waiting and to be admitted to the inner palace. Her excellent calligraphy won her a post as clerk in the palace for five years, where she was engaged in recording past events of the court. When she gave up this post, she shaved her head and became a nun, living in the Moon River Temple next door to the Temple of the Heavenly Kings. Snowflake always wore white clerical robes, but continued as before to go wandering about with her female companions.

Once when the temple was having an unveiling of the inner shrine and a great crowd of men and women had come to worship, it suddenly began to rain. Snowflake immediately bought over a thousand umbrellas which she distributed, one to a person. On the occasion of another great ceremony at the temple, she bade the priest in charge of music to have the ceremony performed with the utmost splendor. When someone asked her the reason, she replied, “Today is the two hundredth anniversary of the death of my ancestor, Prime Minister