Posted on 02/04/2021 1:05:57 PM PST by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1703, Japan’s most renowned epic of bushido vengeance reached its endgame with the condemned ronin who had avenged their executed master forced to commit seppuku.
So compelling an allegory of conflicting loyalties could hardly have been so skillfully constructed as outright fiction. The 47 Ronin owed personal fealty to a daimyo who drew his blade when provoked by the insolence of a shogunate official, and was condemned to death for the offense.
For the shogun, it was a just assertion of a central state’s prerogatives.
For the samurai made ronin by the death of their lord, it was a test of honor.
Knowing that the offending shogun retainer would be well-defended on the lookout against retribution, forty-seven of them (or possibly more at first; in any case, not the entirety of the samurai force) feigned dissipation and indifference for over a year … then raided his palace and slew him once he dropped his guard.
The ronin were condemned to death, but authorities “allowed” them the more honorable route of seppuku — which they committed to a man.*....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
I’m with ya’. You go first.
Lord Asano of the Ako clan if I’m remembering correctly.
Chushingura is the name given to the story/play.
The best version I’ve seen was made by a Japanese movie
company on it’s 50th anniversary.
The story was a big hit in the kabuki theater because of
the dissipated life the main character had to lead to
throw off the agents of the Shogun as at that time
revenge killings were being out lawed even though
they were in the highest Samurai tradition.
Wonderful story, always try to see it.
Did you ever read “Shogun” by James Clavel? There was quite a bit of sepuku going on there.
Now that is Duty and Honor above all else.
Shogun,
The best movie ever for white gajin.
I just finished re-watching “Shogun”, and it really was well done.
I did have to roll my eyes at the part where the Japanese were trying to offer him women to satisfy him sexually, and he turned them down, only to have them conclude he preferred little boys and routinely offered him a boy instead, prompting him to angrily shout: “What? Do I look like a God-cursed sodomite to you?”
Having Richard Chamberlain play that part made the line just a bit ironic.
I saw part of that a few years ago. It was dedicated to “the soldiers and sailors the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. Very much wartime propaganda.
If only democrats would commit seppuku as they are traitors.
This is about Asano Naganori
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asano_Naganori
Snip...”In 1694, he suffered from a serious illness. He had no children, thus no heir at that time. When a daimyo died without a determined heir, his house would be abolished by the shogunate, and his lands confiscated; his retainers became rōnin. To prevent this, he adopted his younger brother Asano Nagahiro, titled Daigaku, who was accepted as his heir by the shogunate.”
(...Snip...)
“On the day of his death, he drew his sword and attempted to kill Kira in the Corridor of the Pines at Edo Castle in what is now Tokyo. He was wounded and failed to kill Kira. On the same day, the fifth Tokugawa shōgun Tsunayoshi sentenced him to commit seppuku, which he did after writing his death poem:
「風さそう花よりも / なお我はまた / 春の名残を / いかにとやせん」
“kaze sasou hana yori mo / nao ware ha mata / haru no nagori wo / ika ni toyasen.”
“More than the cherry blossoms,
Inviting a wind to blow them away,
I am wondering what to do,
With the remaining springtime.”
He was buried in the graveyard of Sengaku-ji.”
Japan was under a strict military dictatorship at that time. Everything was as or more censored as under the Nazis in Germany. A distributor of mine was at that time an importer of American sporting goods and even carried the name of their US partner. The founder's widow was running the company during the war and whenever the military police came around and insisted she change the company name she played "poor old stupid woman ... yes, yes, of course. Right away". But she never did. The government even changed the name of baseball from the English derived "Beisaboro" to "Yak-kew" (Japanese for "stick ball").
Everything but two pieces of onion skin airmail stationery from the US partner was destroyed in the fire bombing of Tokyo. The company rebuilt after the war under the same American derived name. I helped them track down the history of the US parent company, which was bought out of receivership in the 30's and no longer existed, long forgotten in the industry. The Japanese branch? Still in business, 119 years since the founding in 1902. They're the oldest sporting goods company in Japan. And still incredibly proud of their US roots.
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