Tomoe : PhotoStory

A Buddhist monk from Kiso (in present-day Gifu Prefecture) meets a woman shedding tears while praying at a shrine in Awazugahara in Ohmi (present-day Shiga prefecture).

The woman tells the monk that Kiso Yoshinaka, a general from Kiso, is enshrined here. She asks the monk to hold a memorial service for him and then disappears.

It is evening. The woman appears before the monk dressed in armor. She was Lady Tomoe, a female warrior who served Yoshinaka.

Lady Tomoe recalls the times she and Yoshinaka went to battle together.

Fighting his final battle, Yoshinaka was severely wounded and pressed Lady Tomoe to escape. Tearfully, she tells of their parting and how she faced the battle.

She pretended to be weak to draw in the enemy, then drove them away in a stroke.

She returned to Yoshinaka.

Seeing he was already dead, she cried aloud.

There was no strength in the hand that held the kimono he left behind. Her sorrow is without end.

Bamboo hat in hand and weeping, a solitary figure flees towards the village of Kiso.