2S8 



NATURE 



\^Jnly 29, iSSo 



for in a bold impatience than in the "Smooth diffused 

 tranquillity of heartless pains." 



M M. Pattison' Muir 



A JAPANESE ROMANCE 



CJdushingura, or the Loyal League j a Japanese Romance. 

 Translated by F. V. Dickins, B.Sc., of the Middle 

 Temple, Barrister-at-Law. (London : Allen and Co., 

 18S0.) 



THIS book is one of great value and interest, both 

 from a purely literary and from an anthropological 

 point of view, and further as yielding a most instructive 

 lesson in the meaning of Japanese pictorial art. Mr. 

 Dickins is well qualified for the task which he has per- 

 formed, being not only a practised Japanese and Chinese 

 scholar, but a man of very wide attainments in various 

 branches of natural science, and he has been able to 

 supply a series of most valuable explanatory notes in the 

 appendi.K of his work. It may be mentioned that he com- 

 menced his career by graduating in science and medicine 

 at the University of London, and that after having served 

 for some years as a surgeon in the navy he was called to 

 the bar, and practised his profession for many years at 

 Yokohama, where, by constant study, he became deeply 

 versed in all that pertains to Japanese life and customs. 



The present work is illustrated by the actual Japanese 

 woodcuts with which the Japanese edition of the historical 

 novel of which it is a translation is embellished. The 

 woodcuts were printed in Japan by native workmen, and 

 are now bound up with the English text. The reader is 

 therefore able to form an exact conception of the ideas 

 which the Japanese artist has intended to convey in the 

 twenty-nine pictures which the work contains. It is most 

 interesting to all who are in any way attracted by Japanese 

 art to realise the mode in which the emotions, such as 

 rage and despair, laughter and pain, are depicted, and to 

 join as it were in a Japanese game of blind-man's-buff. 

 The " Chiushingura, or Loyal League," is an historical 

 romance which embodies the history of the forty-seven 

 Ronin so well known from Mr. Mitford's account of it in 

 his fascinating "Tales of Old Japan." The present 

 romance is one of the most popular and best known in 

 Japan, or rather was so, for its main object is to glorify 

 " Chiushin," or loyal-heartedness, the supreme virtue of 

 the Bushi class under the old order of .things that passed 

 away with the year 1S68. Disloyalty was considered to 

 be the meanest of crimes, rendering the person guilty of 

 it unworthy of existence, and the Japanese self-despatch, 

 seppuku, which occurs abundantly in the romance, was a 

 self-inflicted atonement for this crime, and in no sense a 

 mere ignoble suicide. 



■ The action of the romance is laid in the fourteenth 

 century, although the events on which it is founded 

 really occurred at the beginning of the eighteenth, the 

 author having been compelled to disguise barely the 

 reality by diluting the history with a certain' amount of 

 fiction, and altering names and dates so as to evade the 

 law which, under the Shogunate, attached severe penalties 

 to the publication of recent or current events of a public 

 character. 



We cannot detail the plot of the story, but will give a 

 few. extracts. A highway robber after murdering an old 



man soliloquises thus as he kicks the body aside : 

 '■ Wretched piece of work. Well, I am sorry for it. I 

 did not do it out of any malice, but you see you had 

 money, that killed you. No money, and you' d be alive 

 now. Your money was your enemy. I can't help pitying 

 you. Which prayer are you for? Namu amida butsu, 

 or Namu miyoho renge-kiyo ? Choose one, and let all 

 end." The prayers are Buddhist, the words being 

 Sanskrit ones which have undergone much Japanese 

 alteration. 



The story closes with the account of the attack of the 

 forty-seven Ronin on the castle of Maronhao, the murderer 

 of their lord Yenya (by ''murderers" being meant the 

 persons who compelled Yenya to perform seppuku). 

 Their mode of proceeding is very quaint. In the very 

 heat of the attack, just as they burst into the dwelling 

 of their victim, the leader of the expedition, in true 

 style of a Japanese general, calmly seats himself on 

 a camp-stool and gives his orders. The neighbours on 

 either side are roused by the noise and send their re- 

 tainers to see what is going on. "Ya ya," they cry, 

 " what means all this uproar and confusion, clashing of 

 weapons and hurtling of arrows ? Are you attacked by 

 rioters or by robbers, or has a fire broken out somewhere ? 

 We have been commanded to find out what is going on, 

 and inform our masters of the cause of disturbance." 

 The Ronin answer, "We are liegemen of Yenya Han- 

 guwan ; some forty of us banded together to revenge our 

 lord's death upon his enemy, and are now struggling to 

 get at him. We are not rising against the Government, 

 still less have we any quarrel with your lords. As to Jire, 

 strict orders have been given to be very careful, and we 

 beg you not to be under any apprehension on that score. 

 We only ask you to leave us alone and not to interfere with 

 us. If as neighbours you should think yourselves bound 

 to assist our enemy, we shall be obliged, despite our 

 inclination, to turn our weapons against you." 



To these bold words the retainers of the noblemen 

 shout back approvingly, " Right' well done, right well 

 done ; in your place we should feel ourselves bound to 

 act as you are acting ; pray command our services." So 

 they desert the roofs and put out their lights. 



When Maronhao is at last caught he is treated with 

 ceremonious respect, and afforded the opportunity of 

 performing suicide in the usual manner. " We pray you 

 pardon our violence, and beg of you that you \\\\\ present 

 us luith your head according to the usage of our country." 

 But I\Iaronhao is a vile, ungentlemanly ruffian, and draw- 

 ing his sword under pretence of ripping himself up, he 

 makes a treacherous lunge at the leader of the Ronin 

 So he is at once despatched without 'more ado. The 

 head is cut off with the dagger with which Yenya com- 

 mitted "seppuku," and is struck at in frenzy, gnashed 

 at, and cried over in grief and fury by the Ronin. Then 

 it is washed, and presented on a small stand before the 

 " ihai " (a tablet inscribed with the posthumous name of 

 the deceased) of Yenya placed opposite to it on a similar 

 stand. Incense is burnt before the " ihai," and a prayer 

 is ofiered up to thedead Yenya "resting amid the shadows 

 of the tall grass" (in the grave), that he will look with 

 favour on the offering. Then all the Ronin betake 

 themselves to his grave and perform "seppuku" them- 

 selves. 



