JAPAN
to break down the irksome barriers of caste, invited his debtors to a banquet. The great majority of them resented the invitation as a gross impertinence, but some few felt constrained to accept it. When these latter sat down to the magnificent repast prepared for them, they found their soup-bowls filled with gold coins, and the souvenirs handed to them when they took their leave were their own promissory notes. Danzayemon nevertheless remained an outcast. No payment could purchase his elevation from that grade. It need scarcely be said that alike for him, for his family, and for all members of the various professions and trades under his control, marriage with persons of the superior classes was strictly interdicted.
The extraordinary vicissitudes of men's fortunes during the Military epoch were reflected in the state of Kyōtō. At one time the very centre of luxury and magnificence, it became, at another, a scene of desolation and penury. Kiyomori, the Taira chief, had the wisdom to see that the strength of his soldiers and the integrity of his officials could not be preserved amid the turbulence, disorder, lawlessness, and debauchery of the Imperial city. He made Fukuhara, near Hyōgo, the seat of administration, and moved the Court thither, much against the will of the aristocratic families. Very soon Kyōtō's condition was such that a poet of the time described it as a town where "the streets had become grassy moors; the
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