Summary
Tajomaru's story begins three days prior, as he rests against a tree trunk, sleepily watching a samurai pass along the road with a veiled woman on horseback at his side. The samurai notices Tajomaru, but does not approach him. Tajomaru manages to catches a glimpse of the woman's face through her veil as she passes, and compares her likeness to a goddess. He reports that in that precise moment he resolved to capture her, ideally without having to kill the samurai.
Tajomaru chases the couple downhill, arousing the samurai's anger and suspicion. Tajomaru playfully draws his sword, and offers it to the samurai to inspect. Tajomaru tells the samurai he has dug up various swords and mirrors from a mound in some nearby ruins, hoping to sell them. Leaving the woman behind near a stream, Tajomaru leads the samurai away into the woods toward the grove where the "mound" is. When the samurai advances beyond Tajomaru, Tajomaru pounces on him, and the two wrestle before Tajomaru restrains him and escapes.
Tajomaru returns to spy on the woman, who is leaning over the stream and cleansing her hands. Running forth, he tells her that the samurai has fallen sick. Tajomaru remembers how her frozen, fearful look made him "hate" the samurai even more, and inflamed Tajomaru's desire to humiliate him in front of her. Tajomaru drags the woman back through the forest, and her hat drops along the way. She sees the samurai sitting with his hands tied behind his back, and responds by chasing Tajomaru through the grove with a dagger, who notes her exceptional "fierceness," before collapsing in tears. Tajomaru overpowers and kisses her, while the samurai bows his head in shame, until she appears to give in. Back in court, Tajomaru cackles arrogantly at the thought of being able to capture her without having to kill the samurai first.
After an implied rape, the woman trails tearfully after Tajomaru and begs that either he or the samurai die, because having her "shame known to two men" would be worse than death. She accepts that she will belong to whoever survives. Tajomaru frees and arms the samurai so the two can fight honorably, and an extended sword fight breaks out. Tajomaru taunts and yells at the samurai, until Tajomaru gets the upper hand. Finally, Tajomaru plunges his sword into the samurai, killing him.
Back in the courtroom, still sitting alongside the policeman and flanked by the woodcutter and the priest, Tajomaru testifies that he wanted to kill the samurai "honorably," and that it was impressive that they crossed swords 23 times, beating Tajomaru's previous record of 20 times. When asked about the woman, Tajomaru tells the court that she disappeared when the fight was happening. He claims that he sold the samurai's sword back in town for liquor, and that he made a mistake in forgetting to plunder the woman's pearl-inlay dagger as well.
Discussing the story back in the present day near a fire under the Rashomon, the commoner tells the woodcutter that Tajomaru is a notorious womanizer and an untrustworthy criminal, and that what actually happened to the woman may never be determined. The priest tells the commoner the woman in fact showed up at the courthouse and provided her story, after police found her hiding in a temple.
The woodcutter dismisses both Tajomaru and the woman's accounts as "lies" and the commoner remarks, "It's human to lie," as he rips a wooden plank from the wall. When the priest remarks that men lie because they are weak, the commoner scolds him for his sermonizing tone, and defends lies so long as they're "entertaining." The priest explains that the woman's story is much different than Tojumaru's and that her demeanor in her courtroom testimony was "docile" and "pitiful"—much different than the fiery woman Tajomaru described.
Analysis
Tajomaru's testimony supplies the first version of the samurai's death, as relayed to the commoner by the woodcutter, who was present at the courthouse (along with the priest). Thus, much like the overall narrative structure of Rashomon, Tajomaru's tale is not only a story, but a story-within-a-story. Tajomaru's unsavory reputation as a criminal already places his tale under considerable suspicion, which he tries to mitigate at the outset by confessing to the crime and claiming to accept his fate at the hands of the police.
In his account, Tajomaru lingers on prurient details, such as his rapacious lust for the samurai's wife, ignited initially by glimpsing her face through a veil, or his sadistic desire to humiliate her husband, ignited later by contemplating her fearful gaze. Throughout the story, Tajomaru's impulsive courtship and violent behavior seem to accord with his reputation as a profligate womanizer and vicious criminal, contributing to its plausibility. Tajomaru freely admits in court to looting the samurai's sword, and appears to tell the truth when he admits he forgot to plunder the wife's valuable-looking dagger.
However, Tajomaru's story strains credulity by flattering his own ego at every turn, causing the viewer to wonder at many points where reality ends and Tajomaru's exaggerated fantasies begin. Tajomaru depicts himself as a suave, cunning hero who is able to outwit the samurai and sweep his fierce, beautiful, "goddess"-like wife effortlessly into his arms. It becomes difficult to discern whether Tajomaru actually tricks the samurai with a ruse about buried treasure, then seduces his wife with a passionate, overpowering kiss, or whether Tajomaru's testimony merely sensationalizes the events in order to promote a certain kind of image of himself in front of the court audience.
Tajomaru calls further attention to his own heroism by applauding his ability to subdue the samurai's "fierce" wife, and insistence on fighting honorably when she demands a duel. Tajomaru imagines himself fighting like a confident, experienced warrior, eventually besting the samurai over the course of a fair and honorable battle, and killing him mercifully with one final blow. In court, Tajomaru notes that he crossed swords with the samurai 23 times, three more than his previous record of 20—another portentous intrusion of the number three into the narrative. Tajomaru's casual indifference at the end of the story as to what happened to the wife is another byproduct of his self-centered style of narration.
The shrewd commoner knows that Tajomaru's story should be treated with skepticism, unlike the priest, whose instinct is to trust all people as truth-tellers. The shot of the commoner remarking, "It's human to lie," while yanking a wooden plank from the wall underscores how the increasingly dilapidated city-gate serves as a metaphor for the way civilization has given way to social chaos and moral anarchy. The commoner and the priest engage in a debate about the moral value of "lies": for the truth-seeking priest, lying indicates weakness; for the commoner, lying is defensible when entertaining. Over the course of the film, their contrasting philosophies about truth, fiction, and entertainment determine how they interpret the reported events of the story.
