Japanese Literature Summaries
日本語

Sanshō the Steward — Summary and Characters

Anju and Zushiō, a sister and brother

Author
Mori Ōgai
Published
January 1915
First appeared in
Chūō Kōron
Form
Novel
Genres
  • Historical
  • Family
Setting
  • Niigata
  • Kyoto
Length
22,156 characters
Reading time
About 44 min
Orthography
Modern script and kana

About this work

One of Mori Ōgai's major historical stories, published in the magazine Chūō Kōron in January 1915. It takes up the legend of Anju and Zushiō — a sister and brother travelling to find their missing father in the north, tricked by a slaver and torn apart — and carries it in dignified classical prose through the sister's sacrifice, the brother's rise and the reunion with their mother. The most widely loved of Ōgai's stories drawn from old tales.

Summary

On their way to Tsukushi in search of their father, who had been governor of Mutsu, a mother, her daughter Anju and son Zushiō, and the servant Ubatake are tricked by slavers into boarding a boat, and the mother and Ubatake are torn away from the children by force. Anju and Zushiō are sold as slaves to Sanshō the Steward, a manor lord of Tango, and pass their days under cruel labour. The sister and brother go on hoping to escape to the capital some day, and at last Anju makes herself the sacrifice that draws the pursuit, so that her brother alone gets away from Sanshō's estate. Reaching the capital, Zushiō is saved from his straits by the working of the protective image that proves his birth, and in time rises to become a provincial governor. As governor he abolishes slavery on Sanshō's manor and frees his old companions, and then crosses to Sado and finds his mother, who has gone blind and become a beggar. Reciting, like the sparrow-chasing song of the children, that she longs for Anju and longs for Zushiō, the mother opens her eyes at her son's call, and the two hold each other close.

Characters

Chapter-by-chapter synopsis

The app covers this work chapter by chapter (full text in the app).

  1. 1. About This Work
  2. 2. Main Characters
  3. 3. Major Supporting Characters
  4. 4. Under the Bridge in Echigo — Yamaoka Dayū
  5. 5. The Bay of Naoe, and Two Boats
  6. 6. Sanshō's Manor, and Two Names
  7. 7. The Dream of the Branding, and the Change in Anju
  8. 8. Cutting Her Hair — and the Parting on the Mountain
  9. 9. The Vinaya Master Donmō, and the Regent in the Capital
  10. 10. The Millet Field on Sado
  11. 11. Key Motifs and Foreshadowing

The opening (original text)

Along the road that goes by way of Kasuga in Echigo out to Imazu, an unusual party of travellers is walking. The mother is a woman just past thirty, and she has two children with her. The sister is fourteen, the brother twelve. With them is a maidservant of about forty, who tries to keep the two tired children going by telling them that they will reach their lodging very soon. Of the two, the elder girl walks as though she were dragging her feet; but she is high-spirited, and to keep her mother and brother from knowing how tired she is, she now and then remembers herself and makes a show of a springing step. If they were walking a short road to some shrine or temple the party might look suitable enough; but the hats and the staffs and the businesslike travelling dress strike anyone who sees them as unusual, and as pitiable too. The road runs between farmhouses that break off and begin again. There is much sand and gravel, but it has dried well in the autumn weather, and since there is clay mixed in it is well packed, so that it does not bury the ankles and torment the traveller as it does near the sea. They came by a place where a number of thatched houses stood together within one enclosure, surrounded by a wood of oak, with the evening sun blazing on it.

Sanshō the Steward by Mori Ōgai (Aozora Bunko)

The ending (original text)

The woman knew that it was not a sparrow but something large that had come to spoil the millet. And breaking off the words she always said, she looked steadily ahead with her sightless eyes. Then, as a dried shellfish swells in water, moisture came into both her eyes. The woman's eyes opened. The cry "Zushiō" came out of her mouth. The two of them held each other close.

Sanshō the Steward by Mori Ōgai (Aozora Bunko)

Famous passages

I long for Anju, hōyareho. I long for Zushō, hōyareho.

The song hummed by the mother, sold into Sado, chasing birds away with her blinded eyes. This repeated refrain gathers into itself all the pathos of a brother and sister torn apart.

Read the original

The original Japanese text is available at Aozora Bunko, and the app downloads the same text for its vertical-text reader.

Aozora Bunko library card

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