good as to tie for me the ribbon of my sock,” adding under his breath, “boor of the provinces”.
“Stop, my lord!” cried Asano Naganori Takumi-no-Kami, and, drawing his dirk, he flung it at the insolent nobleman’s head. Then a great tumult arose. His court cap had saved Kira from death, and he fled from the spot, whilst Asano was arrested, and to divert the disgrace of being beheaded, hastily performed seppuku; his goods and castle were confiscated and his retainers became Ronin (literally “Wave Men”), cast adrift to follow their fortunes, roving at will.
The vendetta, sworn to and carried out by these forty-seven faithful servants, is the sequel of the story. Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshio, the chief of the Ronin, planned the scheme of revenge. To put Kira off his guard, the band dispersed, many of them under the disguise of workmen taking service in the yashiki of their enemy in order to become familiar with the interior of the fortification.
Meanwhile Oishi, to further mislead his enemies, plunged into a life of wild dissipation, until Kira, hearing of his excesses, relaxed his own vigilance, only keeping half the guard he had at first appointed. The wife and friends of Oishi were greatly grieved at his loose conduct, for he took nobody into his confidence. Even a man from Satsuma, seeing him lying drunk in the open street, dared to kick his body, muttering, “Faithless beast, thou givest thyself up to women and wine, thou art unworthy of the name of a Samurai.”
But Oishi endured the arrogant remarks, biding his time, and at last, in the winter of the following year, when the ground was white with snow, the carefully planned assault was successfully attempted. The castle of Kira was taken, but what was the consternation of the brave Ronin, when, after a prolonged search, they failed to discover their victim! In despair, they were about to despatch themselves, in accordance with their severe code of honour, when Oishi, pushing aside a hanging picture, discovered a secret courtyard. There, hidden behind some sacks of charcoal, they found their enemy, and dragged him out, trembling with cold and terror, clad in his costly night robe of embroidered white satin. Then humbly kneeling, Oishi thus addressed him: “My lord, we beseech you to perform seppuku. I shall have the honour to act as your lordship’s second, and when, with all humility, I shall have received your lordship’s head, it is my intention to lay it as an offering upon the grave of our master, Asano Naganori Takumi-no-Kami.” Unfortunately, the carefully planned programme of the Ronin failed to recommend itself to Kira, and he declined their polite invitation to disembowel himself, whereupon Oishi at one stroke cut off the craven head, with the blade used by his master in taking his own life.
Katsushika Hokusai, Phantom of Kohada Koheiji, from the series One Hundred Ghost Stories, 1831.
Colour woodblock print, 25.8 × 18.5 cm.
Musée Guimet, Paris.
Katsushika Hokusai, Oiwa’s Spectre, from the series One Hundred Ghost Stories, 1831.
Hand-coloured woodblock print, 26.2 × 18.7 cm.
Musée Guimet, Paris.
So in solemn procession the forty-seven Ronin, bearing their enemy’s head, approached the Temple of Sengakuji, where they were met by the abbot of the monastery, who led them to their master’s tomb. There, after washing in water, they laid it, thus accomplishing the vendetta; then, praying for decent burial and for masses, they took their own lives.
Thus ended the tragic story, and visitors to the temple are still shown the receipt given by the retainers of the son of Kira for the head of their lord’s father, returned to them by the priest of Sengakuji. Surely it is one of the weirdest relics to take in one’s hand, this memorandum, its simple wording adding to its horror:
Item – One head.
Item – One paper parcel, and then the signatures of the two retainers beneath.
Another manuscript is also shown in which the Ronin addressed their departed lord, laying it upon his tomb. It is translated thus by Mitford:
“The fifteenth year of Genroku, the twelfth month, and fifteenth day. We have come this day to do homage here, forty-seven men in all, from Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshio, down to the foot soldier, Terasaka Kichiyemon, all cheerfully about to lay down our lives on your behalf. We reverently announce this to the honoured spirit of our dead master. On the fourteenth day of the third month of last year our honoured master was pleased to attack Kira Kozuke-no-Suke Yoshinaka, for what reason we know not. Our honoured master put an end to his own life, but Kira lived. Although we fear that after the decree issued by the Government, this plot of ours will be displeasing to our master, still we who have eaten of your food could not without blushing repeat the verse. ‘Thou shalt not live under the same heaven nor tread the same earth with the enemy of thy father or lord,’ nor could we have dared to leave hell and present ourselves before you in paradise, unless we had carried out the vengeance which you began. Every day that we waited seemed as three autumns to us. Verily we have trodden the snow for one day, nay for two days, and have tasted food but once. The old and decrepit, the sick and ailing, have come forth gladly to lay down their lives. Having taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my lord, Kira, hither to your tomb. This dirk by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you as a sign to take the dirk, and striking the head of your enemy with it a second time to dispel your hatred forever. This is the respectful statement of forty-seven men.”
There were forty-seven Ronin. Why, then, do forty-eight tomb-stones stand beneath the cedars at Sengakuji? Truly the answer has caused tears to fall from the eyes of many a visiting pilgrim, for the forty-eighth tomb holds the body of the Satsuma man, who in an agony of grief and remorse ended his life, and was buried beside the hero, whose body he had scornfully trampled upon in the streets of sacred Kyoto.
This history of the forty-seven Ronin is an epitome of Japanese ethics, for in it is exemplified their feudal devotion, their severe code of honour, their distorted vision of duty and fealty to a superior, justifying the most lawless acts. Thus the conduct of Oishi Kuranosuke during his wild year of reckless abandonment, in which he threw off all moral restraint in order to deceive his enemy, breaking the heart of his faithful and devoted wife, was considered by his countrymen meritorious and a proof of his devotion. The Ukiyo-e artists, who loved to take for models the beautiful denizens of the “Underworld,” chose this obsession of Oishi as the subject for many of their illustrations, so that at a first glance the series might almost be mistaken for scenes from the life of the Yoshiwara.
Here and there, however, we come across the Ronin engaged in terrific conflict with Kira Kozuke-no-Suke Yoshinaka’s retainers. Cruel and bloodthirsty are the blades of their relentless katanas, which once unsheathed must be slaked in human blood, and their garments, slashed into stiletto-like points of inky blackness, forming a cheveaux de frise round their fierce faces, seem to scintillate with the spirit of vendetta.
In examining the sets of impressions, illustrating the popular story, it is hard to give preference to any special artist: to choose between the Utamaro-like violets and greens of Yeisen; the rich dark tints and fine backgrounds of Kunisada; the delicately massed detail of Toyokuni, unlike the usual boldness of his style, and the varied sword-play of the versatile Hiroshige, set in a frosted, snowy landscape. Hokusai, who abjured theatrical subjects after breaking away from the tutelage of Shunshō, published a series of prints illustrating the famous vendetta, but as his great-grandfather had been a retainer of Kira Kozuke-no-Suke Yoshinaka, losing his life during the midnight attack, the story formed part of his ancestral history. The series is signed Kako, and the sweeping lines and contours of the female figures show the Kiyonaga influence. Yellow preponderates, outlining the buildings and long interior vistas, and the impressions
