Twice ToldShinmeikyō, the Tamamo passage (manuscript copied 1540)
- Language
- Japanese
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 24 September 2026
The Shinmeikyō (神明鏡) is a chronicle of Japan’s reigns, put together around the end of the fourteenth century and continued into the fifteenth. The Tamamo story sits in its entry for the reign of Toba, and it is the oldest written version known. This copy is a manuscript dated 1540, NDL call number 丑-26.
近衛院御時也。久壽元年ニ仙洞ニ一人化女出来リ。後ニハ玉藻ノ御方ト号ス。天下無双ノ美人也。天人ノ化現カ、又聖衆ノ影向カト疑計也。去程ニ叡慮不斜思食シケリ。仍又内外典、仏法世法不暗也。才人也。諸事問ニ一々ニ答。誠ニ権者也。
去程ニ玉躰不豫ノ御事坐ス。随日重セ玉ケリ。召典薬頭ニ御尋有ケルニ、御悩ハ御邪気ニテ渡セ玉フト申ス。去ハ召陰陽頭トテ安部泰成ニ被占ケルニ、急可有御祈祷ト申ス。其故ヲ[余?]公卿大臣等御尋有ケレハ、泰成申ス、玉藻御方ノ所為ト申ケリ。御寵愛也、争テカ去事可有ト人皆思ヘリ。重テ御尋有ケル。無憚所申ケレハ、是ハ下野国那須野ニ有狐也。彼狐ト云ハ仁王経ニ有[?]天羅国班足王千人ノ王ノ頸ヲ取テ祭ト云塚ノ神是也。大唐ニテ褒似ト成、周ノ幽王ノ后トシテ終ニ亡シ、幽王ヲ已下、今此国ニ来テ君ヲ悩シ候也ト具ニ申上ケレハ、サテ何カ可有ト勅旨。泰成太山府君ヲ奉祭。御幣ノ役不可叶由固申セシカトモ、勅命ナレハ出玉ケリ。泰成祭文ヲ読係ケレハ、御幣ヲ捨狐ト成テ逃失。御悩即時ニ御[感?]有。泰成名望前代未聞也。
其後三浦介・上総介、両介東国名将トテ、彼狐ヲ那須野ヘ行向テ可狩由院宣有リシカハ、勅命難背ニ依、両介那須野ニ行向テ狩之。天ニ翔地走事、[究?]神変也。雖然、弓箭ノ運可開故ニヤ、彼狐ヲ狩取テ上洛ス。是則王位也、弓箭徳也。両介名望誠比類ナシ。御感余ニ勅定成ルハ、那須野ヲ狩時ノ装束ニテ御前ニテ可翔トテ、赤犬ヲ一疋被出、随勅射之。御感不斜。是ヲハ一騎犬追物ト名付タリ。此狐腹内ニ金ノ壺有、其中ニ佛舎利アリ。是ヲハ院ヘ進上。額ニ白玉有、三浦介ニ給。尾ノ先ニ針二有。一ハ赤シ、上総介ニ給。狐ヲハ宇治宝蔵ニ被納ケリ。那須ノ殺生石ハ此霊也。
Translation
This was in the time of the Konoe emperor. In the first year of Kyūju, a woman who was not what she seemed appeared at the retired emperor’s palace. She came to be called Lady Tamamo. She was the most beautiful woman in the land, so beautiful that people wondered whether she was a heavenly being in human form or one of the Buddha’s host come down to earth. His Majesty’s affection for her had no bounds. She also knew the sacred books and the secular ones, the Buddha’s law and the world’s law; she was a woman of learning, and she answered every question put to her. She was surely a god in disguise.
Then His Majesty fell ill, and the illness grew worse day by day. The chief court physician was called and questioned, and said the illness came from an evil spirit. So Abe no Yasunari was called as head of divination and told to read the signs, and he said that prayers must be offered at once. When the lords and ministers asked him why, Yasunari said it was Lady Tamamo’s doing. She was the emperor’s favourite, and everyone thought such a thing impossible. He was asked again, and answered without holding back: this is a fox that lives on the moor of Nasu in Shimotsuke. It is the tomb god to whom King Hanzoku of Tenra offered the heads of a thousand kings, as the Sutra of the Benevolent Kings tells. In China it became Bao Si, consort of King You of Zhou, and in the end destroyed him, and now it has come to this country to torment our sovereign. When he had explained all this, the order came: what is to be done? Yasunari would perform the rite to Taizan Fukun. She insisted firmly that she could not hold the offering wand, but it was an imperial command, and she came out. As Yasunari began reading the invocation, she threw down the wand, turned into a fox and vanished. His Majesty’s illness [eased] at once. Yasunari’s fame was beyond anything heard before.
After that, an order came from the retired emperor that Miura-no-suke and Kazusa-no-suke, the two great warriors of the east, should go to the moor of Nasu and hunt the fox. Since an imperial command cannot be refused, the two went to Nasu and hunted it. It flew through the sky and ran across the ground with [wholly] supernatural powers. But perhaps because the way of the bow was destined to prosper, they caught it and brought it up to the capital. This was the power of the throne and the virtue of the bow. The fame of the two warriors was truly without equal. His Majesty was so delighted that he ordered them to ride before him in the clothes they had hunted in on Nasu moor; a red dog was let loose, and they shot it as commanded. His Majesty’s delight was boundless. This they named one-rider inuoumono. Inside the fox’s belly was a golden jar holding relics of the Buddha, which were presented to the retired emperor. On its forehead was a white jewel, given to Miura-no-suke. At the tip of its tail were two needles; one was red, and it was given to Kazusa-no-suke. The fox itself was placed in the treasure house at Uji. The killing stone of Nasu is its spirit.
Notes
- Transcription conventions: main-line characters as written, with the small katakana beside the line set in where they complete a word (ニ, ヲ, ケリ). Return marks are left out; the punctuation and paragraph breaks are ours. [?] marks a character we could not read with confidence, and [余?] a likely reading.
- 御[感?]有 after the fox flees: the character looks like 感 (“imperial delight”), which reads oddly after 御悩即時ニ. 減 (“the illness eased”) would make better sense; the translation follows the sense and brackets it.
- 久壽元年, the first year of Kyūju, is 1154.
- 褒似 is the manuscript’s spelling of 褒姒, Bao Si.
- The fox has no stated number of tails here. The printed tale of the seventeenth century gives it two.
- In this oldest version the fox is not turned into the stone. Its body goes to the treasure house at Uji, and the stone is its 霊, its spirit. The Kagakushū (1444) has the fox itself turn into stone.
- The story explains two things at once: the killing stone, and the name of a samurai exercise, inuoumono, in which riders shot at dogs.