An Artist's Letters from Japan

by John La Farge

The letter was shown to Ii, who despatched two messengers, gentlemen of his own, one back to Yedo, to see to the safety of the castle there; the other one to Iyémitsŭ, but by a circuitous route, so that he might appear to have come the other way. The letter was to the effect that the young shogun's father was very ill and desired his son's immediate return. By the time that Iyémitsŭ could get into his litter, Ii had arrived and shown him the girl's letter. Then the occupants of the litters were changed, Matsudaira taking Iyémitsŭ's norimono and Iyémitsŭ Matsudaira's. This, of course, was to give another chance of escape in case of sudden attack by a larger force, for they were now in enemy's country and did not know what traps might be laid for them. The bearers of the palanquin pressed through the night, so that, leaving at midnight, they arrived at Yedo the following evening; but the strain had been so great that they could go no further. There was still the fear of attack, and among the retinue one very strong man, Matsudaira Ishikawa, carried the litter of the prince himself. But the gates were closed, and the guards refused to recognize the unknown litter as that of the shogun; nor would they, fearing treachery, open when told that Iyémitsŭ had returned. Delays ensued, but at last admission was obtained for Iyémitsŭ through a wicket gate—and he was safe. Later, after cautious delays, the guilty were punished, and I hope the family of the carpenter's love escaped. When I first read the story, years ago, the version was different, and there was some arrangement of it, more romantic—with some circumstances through which the young carpenter and his sweetheart escaped, and alone the father, innocent of harm, committed suicide. The story sounded sufficiently Japanese and upside down and was pretty, but I have forgotten its convolutions, so that I give you this one, which I think has a pleasant local color. It has local color, and that charm of action which belongs to such histories as those of the great Dumas—not to mention Mr. Froude.

Do not forget that these details are given for your amusement, and not for your instruction. I am quite uncertain as to the historical value of my information as soon as I come down to close particulars. What little I really know comes down from early reading of the missionaries and of the Dutch, and that is mostly outside impression, though thereby valuable, because not based on theory or principle.

I do not know that critical history has yet begun here. But in the historical place where we have spent our summer, talk about the past was but natural and all to be listened to without much chance for us to distinguish what was of record and what was of legend. What I have been writing about is legend, and I am warned of its complicated incorrectness. That has not prevented my setting it down. You would like the pretty murderous story whose details reflect a peculiar past. It would be nothing to you if it were not at all Iyémitsŭ, but his father Hidetada, for whose destruction the famous plot of the Hanging Ceiling was hatched. Nor would you care if the ceiling and bath-room had never existed. What is worth having is that many people thought that they saw themselves in the mirror of a period.

Now see how re-arranging the atoms of which the previous story is constituted will give you quite another picture that I would spare you, though it is a correct historical one, but it has the advantage of being quite as strange in certain ways, though not so fitted for the theater, and of giving you again a picture of feudal Japan.

As I said before, the story as I have just told it has been kept in memory, if not invented on purpose, through a book written in honor of a Japanese opposed to Honda, the master of the castle, the author of the plot of the Hanging Ceiling. There may have been such a story afloat at that time among people of low degree kept out from the many secrets of the court, but knowing that things were being done; at the same time, there is nothing that would account for a sufficient reason; and, worse than all, the date is impossible. Young Iyémitsŭ was not in any position at that possible date (eighth year of the Genwa) to represent the shogunate. His father Hidetada would have been the proposed victim, which is again impossible because of the devotion of Honda, the lord of the castle, to Hidetada. That there was such an accusation I believe is understood. It was met at the time and at once disproved to the satisfaction of the shogun. It was the Lady Kano who had denounced Honda, and apparently invented the plot. She was a daughter of Iyéyasŭ, and had, perhaps, some of the fierce strain said to have shown in her mother and sister. Her baby grandson had only just been deprived of this very fief for the advantage of Honda, so that she had at least this grievance. And she was united in intention with the wife of the shogun Hidetada. This was a beautiful and wilful woman,—known to us by her after-death name of Sogenin, whose preference for Iyémitsŭ's brother, her son also, had met Honda's resistance. You can realize that I am not capable of even discussing the question, and that I am only doing it to amuse you and to bring in more pictures.

As the shogun was to be received by the lord of Utsunomiya, new additions were ordered for his castle, the bridges and roads were repaired, which works required all the laborers, skilled or otherwise, of his domains, and even obliged him to draw upon his retainers and soldiers. Such enormous preparations were, of course, noised abroad. Now, it so happened that at one time Honda's father had been concerned in an insurrection, or levy of arms, of certain members of the Buddhist sect to which he belonged, and had fought the great Iyéyasŭ, whom afterwards he served so faithfully. Among the upholders of the faith were fighting monks, a variety of the militant church well known in the annals of Japan. At the close of this rebellion a band of these monks—something like a hundred—and a hundred other warriors were intrusted—Japanese-way—to the wardship of their former fellow partisan, and there they were handy for use. But they had retained something of both the clergyman and the warrior, keeping their priestly names and wearing their hair unshorn, and they refused to work, which in their eyes would have assimilated them to common soldiers and laborers. Thereupon,—and this was thought to be queer even in those days,—the lord of the castle invited them to go about the country and report upon certain matters in various places, at which places they were met by bodies of armed men, who put an end to them. I suppose that, according to strict views of the country and time, this was justifiable, though excessive, and this is one of the little pictures that I wish to frame. You see how the unpleasantness of the occasion might help the later stories of assassination.

And now, in correcting another error, I can give you another picture of feudal Japan, a Japan now broken up, against whose last rulers, the Tokugawa, I hear daily so much. That lady in the story just given you, where she is the mother of Iyémitsŭ and the concubine of his father, the shogun, was a very different person.

Little Iyémitsŭ was the legitimate son; moreover, the one who by date of birth was the probable heir, notwithstanding the preference shown by his father and his mother, Sogenin, for his younger brother. So that the succession was decided abruptly by the stern head of the family, Iyéyasŭ.

Great attention was paid by the grandfather, the great Iyéyasŭ, to the education of this grandson. As a Japanese friend remarked, he believed that the important place in the generation was that of the third man. So that three distinguished noblemen were appointed his governors: Sakai, to teach benevolence; Doi, to teach wisdom; Awoyama, to teach valor. Besides these great professors for the future, the little boy needed an immediate training by a governess good in every way. Kasuga, a married woman, the daughter of a well-known warrior of imperial descent who had lost his life in some conspiracy of the previous generation, was chosen by the government for the position. This was, perhaps, as great an honor as could be offered to any lady. Besides, there was an opportunity to clear the memory of her father. And she begged her husband to divorce her that she might be free to give all her life to this task. So devoted was she that the boy being at one time at the point of death, she offered herself to the gods for his recovery, vowing never to take any remedy. In her last illness she refused all medicine, and even when Iyémitsŭ—now ruler—begged her to take a commended draught from his hand, she merely, out of politeness, allowed it to moisten her lips, saying that her work was done, that she was ready to die, and that her life had long ago been offered for the master. Nor would she allow the master to indulge her with regard to her own son. He was in exile, deservedly, and the shogun asked her permission to pardon him, in the belief of possible amendment. She refused, bidding Iyémitsŭ to remember his lesson: that the law of the country was above all things, and that she had never expected such words from him. Moreover, that had he revoked the law for her, she could not die in peace. There is a Spartan politeness in all this, for which I think the stories worth saving to you.

And they will help to give Iyémitsŭ existence for you. He seems too vague in the temple dedicated to him at Nikko, even when we look at his bronze tomb and are told that he lies there packed in vermilion: our minds have become so far removed from the ways of thinking of Japan that a divinized mortal is an empty phrase for us.