It is not, perhaps, extravagant to surmise that the publicity attending this sovereign's amours and the atmosphere of loose morality thus created were in part responsible for a crime committed by his elder son, the Crown Prince Karu. Marriage between children of the same father had always been permitted in Japan provided the mother was different, but marriage between children of the same mother was incest. Prince Karu was guilty of this offence with his sister, Oiratsume, and so severely did the nation judge him that he was driven into exile and finally obliged to commit suicide. With such records is the reign of Inkyo associated. It is perplexing that the posthumous name chosen for him by historians should signify "sincerely courteous." Incidentally, four facts present themselves—that men wore wristbands and garters to which grelots were attached; that a high value was set on pearls; that metal was used for the construction of great men's gates, and that the first earthquake is said to have been experienced in A.D. 416.
ANKO
The records of this sovereign's reign make a discreditable page of Japanese history. Anko, having ascended the throne after an armed contest with his elder brother, which ended in the latter's suicide, desired to arrange a marriage between his younger brother, Ohatsuse, and a sister of his uncle, Okusaka. He despatched Ne no Omi, a trusted envoy, to confer with the latter, who gladly consented, and, in token of approval, handed to Ne no Omi a richly jewelled coronet for conveyance to the Emperor. But Ne no Omi, covetous of the gems, secreted the coronet, and told the Emperor that Okusaka had rejected the proposal with scorn. Anko took no steps to investigate the truth of this statement. It has been already seen that such investigations were not customary in those days. Soldiers were at once sent to slaughter Okusaka; his wife, Nakashi, was taken to be the Emperor's consort, and his sister, Hatahi, was married to Prince Ohatsuse.
Now, at the time of his death, Okusaka had a son, Mayuwa, seven years old. One day, the Emperor, having drunk heavily, confessed to the Empress, Nakashi, that he entertained some apprehension lest this boy might one day seek to avenge his father's execution. The child overheard this remark, and creeping to the side of his step-father, who lay asleep with his head in Nakashi's lap, killed him with his own sword. Such is the tale narrated in the Chronicles and the Records. But its incredible features are salient. A deed of the kind would never have been conceived or committed by a child, and the Empress must have been a conniving party.
To what quarter, then, is the instigation to be traced? An answer seems to be furnished by the conduct of Prince Ohatsuse. Between this prince and the throne five lives intervened; those of the Emperor Anko, of the latter's two brothers, Yatsuri no Shiro and Sakai no Kuro, both older than Ohatsuse, and of two sons of the late Emperor Richu, Ichinobe no Oshiwa and Mima. Every one of these was removed from the scene in the space of a few days. Immediately after Anko's assassination, Ohatsuse, simulating suspicion of his two elder brothers, killed the o-omi, who refused to give them up. Ohatsuse then turned his attention to his grand-uncles, the two sons of Richu. He sent a military force to destroy one of them without any pretence of cause; the other he invited to a hunting expedition and treacherously shot. If Ohatsuse did not contrive the murder of Anko, as he contrived the deaths of all others standing between himself and the throne, a great injustice has been done to his memory.
LOYALTY
These shocking incidents are not without a relieving feature. They furnished opportunities for the display of fine devotion. When Prince Okusaka died for a crime of which he was wholly innocent, two of his retainers, Naniwa no Hikaga, father and son, committed suicide in vindication of his memory. When Prince Sakai no Kuro and Mayuwa took refuge in the house of the o-omi Tsubura, the latter deliberately chose death rather than surrender the fugitives. When Prince Kuro perished, Nie-no-Sukune took the corpse in his arms and was burned with it. When Prince Ichinobe no Oshiwa fell under the treacherous arrow of Prince Ohatsuse, one of the former's servants embraced the dead body and fell into such a paroxysm of grief that Ohatsuse ordered him to be despatched. And during this reign of Yuryaku, when Lord Otomo was killed in a fatal engagement with the Sinra troops, his henchman, Tsumaro, crying, "My master has fallen; what avails that I alone should remain unhurt?" threw himself into the ranks of the enemy and perished. Loyalty to the death characterized the Japanese in every age.
YURYAKU
This sovereign was the Ohatsuse of whose unscrupulous ambition so much has just been heard. Some historians have described him as an austere man, but few readers of his annals will be disposed to endorse such a lenient verdict. He ordered that a girl, whose only fault was misplaced affection, should have her four limbs stretched on a tree and be roasted to death; he slew one of his stewards at a hunt, because the man did not understand how to cut up the meat of an animal; he removed a high official—Tasa, omi of Kibi—to a distant post in order to possess himself of the man's wife (Waka), and he arbitrarily and capriciously killed so many men and women that the people called him the "Emperor of great wickedness." One act of justice stands to his credit. The slanderer, Ne no Omi, who for the sake of a jewelled coronet had caused the death of Prince Okusaka, as related above, had the temerity to wear the coronet, sixteen years subsequently, when he presided at a banquet given in honour of envoys from China; and the beauty of the bauble having thus been noised abroad, Ne no Omi was required to show it at the palace. It was immediately recognized by the Empress, sister of the ill-starred prince, and Ne no Omi, having confessed his crime, was put to death, all the members of his uji being reduced to the rank of serfs. One moiety of them was formed into a hereditary corporation which was organized under the name of Okusakabe, in memory of Prince Okusaka.