“Hōichi, my poor friend, you are now in great danger! How unfortunate that you did not tell me all this before! Your wonderful skill in music has indeed brought you into strange trouble. By this time you must be aware that you have not been visiting any house whatever, but have been passing your nights in the cemetery, among the tombs of the Heiké—and it was before the memorial-tomb of Antoku Tennō that our people tonight found you, sitting in the rain. All that you have been imagining was illusion—except the calling of the dead. By once obeying them, you have put yourself in their power. If you obey them again, after what has already occurred, they will tear you in pieces. But they would have destroyed you, sooner or later, in any event. Now I shall not be able to remain with you tonight: I am called away to perform another service. But, before I go, it will be necessary to protect your body by writing holy texts upon it.”
This is from Lafcadio Hearn’s excellent adaption of the traditional Japanese ghost story Mimi-Nashi Hōichi, or Hōichi the Earless. I have reproduced his version along with some of my own annotations. If you look at the menu above, you will see I added a page called “The Library”. Follow that link to find Hōichi. (Or just click here).
