Read Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories Online
Authors: Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (36 page)
1
.
Bateren
: From the Portuguese “Padre.”
2
.
Deus Come Thus
:
Deusu-Nyorai
, an amalgam of Japanized Latin and an honorific suffix for the Buddha. The combined term was used by Portuguese missionaries to give the foreign word “Deus” a familiar religious cachet. The Buddha is sometimes referred to as one who has “come thus” from the world of truth to save all sentient beings in the world of illusion.
3
.
the people of our village
:
Murakata
normally means the three peasant-class officials of a village (headman, assistant headman, and peasants' representative), but here and in the crowd scene below, Akutagawa seems to be using it to refer to villagers in general.
4
.
the hour of the hare
: 6:00 a.m.
5
.
pillow to the south
: In Buddhism, the dead before cremation are laid out with the head pointing north; the living try to avoid this inauspicious position.
6
.
cold damage disorder
:
Sh
Å
kan
, the equivalent in Chinese medicine of typhoid fever.
7
.
the hour of the dragon
: I.e. close to 9:00 a.m.
8
.
the red-hairs
: “Red-hair” (
k
Å
m
Å
jin
) originally meant Dutchman as opposed to a Portuguese, but came to designate all foreigners in Japan during the Edo Period.
9
.
iruman⦠kohisan
: Both from the Portuguese:
irm
ã
o
, a missionary next in rank to a Bateren, and
confiss
ã
o
, confession.
O-GIN (O-Gin)
The historical periods mentioned in the opening line, Genna (1615â24) and Kan'ei (1624â44), came near the beginning of the relatively peaceful Tokugawa Period, during which Christianity was suppressed as a destabilizing force (see headnote to “Dr. Ogata Ry
Å
sai”). The Catholic Church officially recognized 3,125 martyrdoms in Japan between 1597 and 1660(Edwin O. Reischauer and John K. Fairbank,
East Asia: The Great Tradition
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), p. 597), but the smashing of the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637â8 marked the virtual end of the “teachings of the Heavenly Lord” in Japan. The events in “O-Gin” take place shortly before the rebellion and are set some fifteen miles to the west of Shimabara, in Urakami, a district just north of the city of Nagasaki, where the secret practice was especially strong. (In modern times, after Urakami was absorbed by the city and Christianity ceased to be an outlaw religion, an impressive cathedral
was built there, only to be destroyed, along with hundreds of Japanese Catholics, by the atomic bomb. The community has survived in the area, however, and the cathedral was rebuilt in 1959.)
Akutagawa takes most of his doctrinal language from
Dochirina-Kirishitan
, a book of Christian dialogues published in Nagasaki in 1600 for the propagation of the faith. Having learned their Catholicism from Portuguese missionaries, the secret Christians of the Tokugawa Period frequently used religious terms that were accurate neither as Portuguese (or Latin or Hebrew) nor as Japanese, and this is reflected in the translation. “Amen,” for example, appears as “Ammei,” and “Inferno” as “Inherno.” The “g” of “O-Gin” is hard, as in “gingham.”
1
.
San Jo-an Batista⦠MiguelâYahei
: St. John the Baptist. Believers often took Christian names which they linked with their Japanese personal names.
2
.
Jean Crasset⦠Amida
: Jean Crasset (1618â92) wrote the two-volume
Histoire de l'église du Japon
in 1689. Akutagawa paraphrases the opening passage of the Japanese translation of Volume 1, an edition commissioned by the Japanese government in 1878 (an English translation appeared in 1705â7). Shakyamuni lived about a thousand years before Japan received Buddhism from China (see “The Spider Thread,” note 1). He never preached outside the Indian subcontinent, and the worship of Amida (Sanskrit: Amitabha), which was such a widespread hindrance to the spread of Christianity in Japan, was a much later elaboration of Buddhist doctrine.
LOYALTY (Ch
Å«
gi)
This story is based on an actual event that occurred in 1747 (the fourth year of the Enky
Å
Period), about a century and a half into the long rule of the Tokugawa family. From the time of family founder Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542â1616), the Tokugawa Sh
Å
gun was the
de facto
ruler of Japan. He received his title from the Emperor, who was little more than a ceremonial figurehead. The Tokugawas ruled from their huge castle (called simply “the Castle”) in the new capital, Edo (modern Tokyo), while the Emperor remained in Kyoto.
Under the Tokugawa system of “centralized feudalism,” a feudal lord's importance was indicated by the amount of rice produced in his domain, as measured in a unit called the
koku
(180.30 liters/4. 96
bushels). A “Great Lord” (
daimy
Å
) had lands that produced at least 10,000
koku
, while the most important of those had over 1,000,000 and the Tokugawa Sh
Å
gun himself had some 7,000,000. The House of Itakura had an income of 30,000
koku
, but Itakura Shuri (1725â 47), the central character of “Loyalty,” was head of a minor Itakura branch family earning only 7,000
koku
. As one of approximately 5,000 “bannermen” (
hatamoto
) of the Tokugawa, Shuri was permitted to come into the presence of the Sh
Å
gunon certain formal occasions. Although he is certainly a “lord and master” to those who serve him, his status is much lower than those normally associated with the title “lord.”
Readers might at first find daunting the large number of names in “Loyalty,” but to follow the action one need keep track of only four characters plus another who enters near the end of the story:
Shuri: The central character, 22-year-old head of his branch of the Itakura family; he is best known for the events recounted in this story.
Rin'emon: The “House Elder” assigned by the Itakura main family to watch over Shuri.
Sado-no-kami: Head of a more important branch of the Itakura family and currently serving as a “Junior Councilor” to the Sh
Å
gun.
Usaemon: Shuri's old tutor and second “House Elder” called to replace Rin'emon.
Etch
Å«
-no-kami (Munenori, Hosokawa Etch
Å«
): A “Great Lord” of the immensely wealthy Hosokawa family.
The names of other characters can be enjoyedâor at least toleratedâas a sort of background music. One of the best stylistic features of fiction about the samuraiâin the originalâis their wonderfully resonant names. The following information is provided for those who desire to know more about samurai names, but it is not necessary in order to follow the story.
Like Mori
Å
gai, that other great modern writer who created stirring fictional narratives about actual Tokugawa Period samurai, Akutagawa lards his prose with more of these evocative names than are necessary to the plot. At one point, for example, he gives the names of the lowly foot patrolmen who rush to the scene of the crime. For a Japanese reader, these names give the text a special sense of being anchored in reality: each such name is a string of Chinese characters that suggest imposing architectural structuresâcastle gates, guard housesâand the armed men who actually populated
them. The formality of the style reflects the formality of this privileged stratum of society when samurai were more bureaucrats than warriors, engaged more in documentation than swordplay.
A warrior usually has three names: a family name, a rank designation of some kind, and finally a personal name, each ringing with pride and traditionâand with the constraints on the individual that such tradition imposes. The full name of Shuri, for example, is Itakura Shuri Katsukane. This tells us that he is of the noble Itakura lineage; that he has been granted a modest title by the imperial court naming him a palace repairs officer (which of course he was not: “Shuri” was strictly ceremonial); and that he has a personal name, Katsukane, which echoes those of the many other Itakura men with
katsu
(“victory”) in their names, including the deified clan progenitor, Itakura Shir
Å
zaemon Katsushige (1545â1624).
Another important character, Itakura Sado-no-kami Katsukiyo, has a far more impressive “middle name” than Shuri's. It tells us that the imperial court has made him titular “Governor of Sado” in keeping with an income that is more than four times larger than his cousin Shuri's.
Likewise, Etch
Å«
-no-kami is the titular “Governor of Etch
Å«
,” and his income was nearly twenty times the size of Sado-no-kami's. Etch
Å«
no-kami is sometimes called by that title and sometimes by his personal name, Munenori; at one point he also uses his surname when he identifies himself as Hosokawa Etch
Å«
. Use of the rank name, when there is one, tends to be more respectful (one thinks of the lords in Macbeth referring to each other by their domain names), the personal name more intimate. The choice was often a matter of personal preference.
1
.
Maejima Rin'emon⦠Itakura Shikibu
: No dates are available for the character identified as Maejima Rin'emon in Akutagawa's immediate source but as Noguchi Bun'emon in earlier source material. See Takahashi Keiichi, “Itakura Shuri no ninj
Å
,” in
Kokugo to kokubungaku
73:5 (May 1996), pp. 73â84. At the age of nine, Itakura Shikibu Katsutsugu (1735â65) became the sixth-generation head of the Itakura family and fourth-generation lord of Fukushima Castle. Decisions in his name as a minor at the time of the story were actually made by a senior retainer.
2
.
Å
kubo Hikoza
: (Or Tadataka, or Hikozaemon) (1560â1639) served the first three Tokugawa Sh
Å
guns with legendary dedication.
3
.
HottaâInaba clash
: Even drawing a sword inside the Castle precincts could be punished with death. The killing of Hotta by Inaba in the Castle had occurred in 1684. Still closer to hand and even more sensational had been the events behind the famous tale of
The 47 Loyal Retainers
, which started in 1701 when a slighted lord drew his sword in the Castle and wounded his opponent. He was forced to commit
seppuku
(
hara-kiri
) and his domain was confiscated. See Donald Keene,
Ch
Å«
shingura
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1971).
4
.
Mencius
: The Chinese philosopher Mencius (372â289
BC
) was not a believer in unswerving loyalty but taught, rather, that a ruler should be replaced if he failed to heed proper advice.
5
.
Military Governor
: The
Shoshidai
kept an eye on the doings of the Imperial Household and the aristocratic families of Kyoto for the Sh
Å
gun to help ensure that they would remain politically harmless. He also wielded more general police and judicial powers. Matazaemon (1586â1656) held the post for more than thirty years. Mondo Shigemasa (1588â1638).
6
.
the nineteenth year of Keich
Å
: 1614â15. The Tokugawa forces failed to take the Castle then and concluded a peace treaty, but they attacked again, successfully, the following summer.
7
.
siege of Amakusa
: 1637â8. Amakusa was a Christian stronghold crushed as part of the Shimabara Rebellion (see headnote to “O-Gin”).
8
.
Junior Councilor
: Three to five Junior Councilors (
wakadoshiyori
) served on a monthly rotating basis below the Senior Councilors (
r
Å
j
Å«
) and overseeing “bannermen” such as Shuri. Itakura Katsukiyo (1706â80).
9
.
Usaemon
: No dates are available for this character, who is identified as Kat
Å
Usaemon in both Akutagawa's immediate source and earlier source material. See Takahashi, “Itakura Shuri no ninj
Å
.”
10
.
His Sequestered Lordship of the Western Enclosure
: The grandiloquent title (
Nishimaru no
Å
gosho-sama
) for the retired (but still powerful) eighth Tokugawa Sh
Å
gun, Yoshimune (1684â 1751; ruled 1716â45).
11
.
the fifth hour of the morning⦠Munenori
: 8a.m. One of Akutagawa's sources had the personal name of Shuri's victim wrong: it should be Munetaka (1716â1747), who had a huge domain of 540,000
koku
.
12
.
the General's Star
: In Chinese astrology, a reddish star in the Andromeda galaxy thought to be shaped like a general in battle gear.
13
.
Ky
Å
gen
: Short comic plays performed between the more somber works of the N
Å
theatre.
14
.
Tashiro Y
Å«
etsu
: A Buddhist attendant dressed like a priest and took a priestly personal name (“Y
Å«
etsu”) but did not actually take the tonsure and retained his “worldly” surname (“Tashiro”). Many of the great lords kept such low-ranking samurai on stipend as advisors in the tea ceremony and other aesthetic and religious matters. The Akutagawas were of such a lineage.
