"It's not that I fear dying, but that dying would take me from you"

[larryhammer]

About two-thirds into The Tale of the Heike, while we have met badass samurai after samurai badass, their feats of martial badassery have been less superhuman than, say, those of knights from contemporaneous European chivalric romances. There's honor and gallantry and loyalty-unto-death to the max of course, except when betraying sides, but that's standard for the genre, and the string-pullings of the Powers Behind the Scenes are ordinary political backstabbings. Even what women we've met would not be out of place in Genji or the Pillow Book, assuming their authors deigned to notice the dancing girls, or certainly Torikaebaya Monogatari.

Which is why the start of section 9.4 is all the more startling:

Kiso no Yoshinaka had brought with him from Shinano two female attendants, Tomoe and Yamabuki. Yamabuki had fallen ill and stayed in the capital. Tomoe was especially beautiful, with white skin, long hair, and charming features. She was also a remarkably strong archer, and as a swordswoman she was a warrior worth a thousand, ready to confront a demon or a god, mounted or on foot. She handled unbroken horses with superb skill; she rode unscathed down perilous descents. Whenever a battle was imminent, Yoshinaka sent her out as his first captain, equipped with strong armor, an oversized sword, and a mighty bow; and she performed more deeds of valor than any of his other warriors. Thus she was now one of the seven who remained after all the others fled or perished.

Since no one has yet been asked to take on a god (there's been a couple demons), this is an outsized introduction. She's not actually called a samurai by the text for technical reasons, but on the next page she shows she's as badass as they come. This is after her master finds a remnant of his army and makes a final stand by way a series of hopeless assaults against overwhelming odds (when told his band of three hundred face six thousand enemies, he says, "Then we are well matched!") until only five remain, including Tomoe:

      "Quickly, now," Lord Kiso said to Tomoe. "You are a woman, so be off with you; go wherever you please. I intend to die in battle, or to kill myself if I am wounded. It would be unseemly to let people say, 'Lord Kiso kept a woman with him during his last battle.'"
      Reluctant to flee, Tomoe rode with the others until she could resist no longer. Then she pulled up. "Ah! If only I could find a worthy foe! I would fight a last battle for his lordship to watch," she thought.
      As she sat there, thirty riders came into view, led by Onda no Hachiro Moroshige, a man renowned in Musashi Province for his great strength. Tomoe galloped into their midst, rode up alongside Moroshige, seized him in a powerful grip, pulled him down against the pommel of her saddle, held him motionless, twisted off his head, and threw it away. Afterward, she discarded her armor and fled toward the eastern provinces.

Clearly, this is a character who does not need to be replaced by a ninja. She DISAPPEARS FROM THE STORY after that, thus proving SHE ALREADY IS ONE.

Per Wikipedia, Yamabuki's grave exists, partially corroborating Tomoe-gozen as a historical onna bugeisha, along with Hangaku-gozen and Nakano Takeko's much later Woman's Army.

---L.

Comments

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

AWESOME.

[(Anonymous)]

え～。違うの？
じゃあ、あえないじゃない。

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

TOMOE GOZEN. SO MUCH LOVE.

There are some great ukiyo-e of her, but I can't find any of the ones I really like on the internet.

[larryhammer]

I found a couple but wasn't as impressed as with the pen-and-ink painting on Wikipedia.

---L.

[branna.livejournal.com]

That's just seventeen different kinds of awesome. Thank you for posting this!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

twisted off his head, and threw it away

Now that's just all kinds of awesome.

[larryhammer]

More context for the kinds of awesome: heads are trophies, to be paraded and displayed by victors.

And she threw the head away.

Because she's too badass to care about that.

---L.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

That could be the most awesome thing I've seen in a long time. *g* There should be more stories about women twisting off an enemy's head and tossing it away.

Queen of the freakin ninjas.