Tale of the Heike

Calligraphy by a contemporary artist, of the famous opening lines of the Tale of the Heike:
祇園精舎の鐘の聲、諸行無常の響あり。娑羅雙樹の花の色、盛者必衰のことわりをあらはす。おごれる人も久しからず、唯春の夜の夢のごとし。たけき者も遂にほろびぬ、偏に風の前の塵に同じ。

Gion shôja no kane no koe, shogyô mujô no hibiki ari. Shara sôju no hana no iro, shôsha hissui no koto wari wo arawasu. Ogoreru hito mo hisashikarazu, tada haru no yoru no yume no gotoshi. Takeki mono mo tsui ni horobinu, hitoe ni kaze no mae no akuta ni onaji.
The sound of the Gion Shôja temple bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall. The proud do not endure; the mighty fall at last, to be no more than dust before the wind.

• Japanese: 平家物語 (Heike monogatari)

The Tale of the Heike, or Heike monogatari, is among the most famous of the gunki monogatari epic "war tales." Developed out of oral traditions, and in particular the storytelling tradition of the traveling biwa hôshi, the Tale is extant today in a number of differing written versions, ranging in dates from the 13th century through today, many of them with variant titles and varying content. In general, however, the Tale relates a dramatized, fictionalized, account of the fall of the Taira clan in the late 12th century, with much of the text describing the events of the Genpei War. A version recorded by a biwa hôshi named Kakuichi in 1371 is often taken as the "standard" version; this version was memorized and recited by generations of storytellers in traditional times, and is the basis of a number of modern translations.

References

• Helen McCullough trans., The Tale of the Heike, Stanford University Press (1990), 6-7.