The master's life is more than a thousand mountains.
Mine is insignificant
Even compared to the hair.
Oishi Kuranosuke is the chapter of 47 devoted samurai.
Translation: M. Uspensky
Many peoples have legends about heroes who honestly performed their duty. However, remember that the main duty of a samurai is to die for his master in case of need. That is, both courage and the same heroism for them, of course, were important and even very important, but loyalty was put much higher. And the story of 47 samurai, at least known to all Japanese, tells about what this sometimes led to in Japan. Moreover, who is right and who is not, and in what exactly, even the Japanese themselves cannot come to a common view of this event even after so many years.
47 loyal samurai crossing the Ryogoku bridge on the way to the Kira manor. Engraving by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
And it so happened that in the predawn twilight of the fifteenth day - the fifteenth year of Genroku (1702), a group of forty-seven samurai took by storm the house of a certain courtier Kira Yoshinaka in the capital of Edo. There, these people killed the owner of the house and some of the servants who protected him, while others were wounded by them. They immediately notified the authorities of the city and the shogun himself, provided a list of the participants in the attack and explained its reason: they killed Kira in order to fulfill their duty - to avenge the death of Asano Naganori, their overlord, who died through his fault. The cause of Asano's death was that exactly one year and eight months before that, being at a reception in the shogun's palace, he attacked Cyrus, hit him several times with a wikizashi sword (it was forbidden to carry a big sword in the shogun's quarters!), But only wounded him, not killed.
According to the law, Asano committed a very serious offense: he removed the weapon from its scabbard in the shogun's quarters, which was strictly forbidden. The authorities consulted and decided that Asano was worthy of death through seppuku, but Kira was ordered to praise for his restraint. However, even then, many pointed to the fact that there was a judicial rule of kenka reseibai or equal liability of participants in one crime. In addition, Kira was a greedy rogue and extortionist, and that, taking advantage of his position as a high-ranking courtier, he did not hesitate to receive money from all those who were supposed to appear before the shogun for familiarizing them with the rules of palace etiquette. Asano, a young and ardent man, attacked Cyrus because he insulted him, and, therefore, forced him to do so. Therefore, according to the rules, both had to be sentenced to death, but for some unknown reason only one was sentenced!
In the end, Asano had to commit seppuku, which he did by writing the following suicide verses:
Playing with the wind, flowers fall
I say goodbye to spring even easier
And yet - why? *
Many did not like this decision of the shogun. They said that the laws are the same for everyone and Kira himself is to blame here no less than Asano, since it was he who provoked him with his unworthy behavior. However, what was to be done when the injustice had already been committed ?! The Asano family had 300 vassals, and it is clear that, according to tradition, the death of their master meant death for them as well. It is clear that any samurai could then remain alive and live, turning into a ronin. But then they would be disgraced in front of everyone forever. And many of Asano's samurai did just that - that is, immediately after his suicide, they fled from the castle in all directions. But there were also those who decided to submit to the shogun for the sake of appearance, pretend that life is more precious to them than honor, and only after that, at any cost, kill Cyrus and carry out the revenge prescribed by the samurai code.
Having agreed on everything, forty-seven of Asano's most loyal samurai parted, and dispersed in all directions, pretending to have chosen the path of dishonor for themselves. Since they could be watched, some samurai indulged in drunkenness, others became regulars in cheerful houses, and one even began to pretend to be a madman. But when, after a year and exactly eight months, they stopped suspecting Asano's vassals of bad intentions and stopped following them, they all gathered together and decided to fulfill their plans. To do this, they disguised themselves as firefighters (only they could walk the streets of the capital at night and with weapons in their hands), went to Edo and attacked Cyrus's house, where they beheaded him, wounded his son and killed many servants. After that, they went to Shiba, where in the Sengaku temple they laid the head of Cyrus at the grave of their master. They also sent a letter to the provincial governor and said they would wait for the shogun's decision. The authorities were faced with a difficult task: on the one hand, their act exactly corresponded to bushido; but it was an example of disobeying the shogun's orders. They infiltrated Edo armed and killed a court official despite his order to kill him! While the shogun was pondering what to do, he received many petitions for them, but, as expected, sentenced them to death. But although the shogun decided that they were guilty of disrespect for his authority, they were allowed to commit suicide, as was the case for samurai, and, of course, they all immediately committed seppuku. And that was really a mercy, because otherwise they would all be executed as ordinary criminals.
Oishi Yuranosuke Yoshio - the head of forty-seven sits on a folding chair, holding a drum with a stick in his hands and supporting a spear with his shoulder. The first engraving in a series of works by Utagawa Kuniyoshi dedicated to this legendary event.
Interestingly, after Kira's revenge, only 46 people came to surrender to the authorities, while there is no exact information about the fate of the latter, Terasaka Kitiemono. Some say that he seemed to be scared and ran away as soon as his comrades entered Cyrus's house, others that their leader Oishi gave him special instructions and that he left Detachment 47 only later, when the act of revenge had already been completed, so that in case why restore the truth about your comrades.
That is, they committed their revenge, and despite this, people in Japan still argue about this act today! After all, the circumstances of the case are such that Asano attacked Cyrus while at the shogun's court and thereby broke the law. He stood behind Cyrus and stabbed him from behind, and so awkwardly that he only wounded him. Some therefore argue that this is a manifestation of cowardice and therefore the punishment that befell him was well deserved. As for Cyrus, he did not draw his sword, and although he remained conscious, with a white face fell to the floor. That is, the way he reacted to this attack is a shame, which for a real samurai is worse than death.
Uramatsu Kihei Hidenao is depicted in one of the rooms of the mansion, where women's kimonos are hung on a special stand.
As for how people assess this act of forty-seven, some consider them heroes. Others, on the contrary, believe that the duty of the samurai should be taken literally, they had to take revenge for the lord immediately, and not wait for this for many months, and then commit suicide without waiting for the shogun's verdict. Is it really not clear, say those who adhere to this point of view, that if the law is violated, then there is no need to wait for instructions from above, because these people are not children. So they did this on purpose, counting on mercy, since this Cyrus was an unworthy person, and then perhaps their actions would be considered justified. True, everyone is unanimous in the opinion that, since he caused so many deaths, and there was confusion in Edo, he truly deserves contempt and hatred. But, they continue, there is a Bushido code, and it clearly states that the master's servant must avenge him immediately. Therefore, both Oishi and other Asano samurai had to act immediately, not hesitate, and not look for clever methods, worthy of despicable traders, but not real samurai. And so it turns out that Asano's vassals, first of all, thought about how to prove their cunning and thereby achieve fame, and that this is very unceremonious on their part. Then, when they nevertheless killed Cyrus and fulfilled their duty, they probably thought this way: “If we are destined to die, then we will die according to the law. But suddenly, for the execution of such a difficult murder, they will decide to keep us alive, and why then should we die ahead of time? That is, the Japanese do not like the European approach to business in their act - “the end justifies the means”. This is not their principle, not their philosophy.
Katsuta Shinemon Taketaka, with a lantern in his hand, found a lap dog following him.
But these warriors nevertheless calmed the ashes of their master, and it is only for this that their actions are worthy of praise, others argue. By the way, Oishi's son and his wife also committed seppuku, believing that they should follow the example of their father and husband. And here is the story of the funerary epitaph of Yazama Motooki - a samurai who was honored to personally deal with Kira. On his grave, his wife brought a paper strip of tanzaku with the following verses written on it:
For the lord
You are a warrior without doubt -
Gave his life
But left
Good name.
And she also committed seppuku - that's how !. So a lot of blood was spilled because of Cyrus and Asano … Well, forty-six ronin themselves were buried in the same place where Asano was buried. Their graves are objects of worship, and clothes and weapons are still kept by the Sengaku monks as relics. Asano's good name was eventually restored, and even part of the former possessions were returned to his family.
Usioda Masanojo Takanori, chain mail cuff tightening.
Another thing is interesting - loyalty to duty and even death due to the inability to fulfill their duties to the lord were characteristic of the knighthood, and then the nobility of Europe, but few there, going out to mortal combat, composed farewell verses, whereas in this case they were left very many of those forty-seven. So one of the samurai, Ooshi Kanehide, on the night of the attack proved to be the most valiant warrior, and then went along with the others to the Sensei-ji temple, where they decided to celebrate the perfect. At the feast, he composed the following verses:
How joyful!
Sad thoughts go away:
Leaving my body, I will turn into a cloud
Floating in this ghostly world
Next to the moon.
Another samurai, Kiura Sadayuki, was completely distinguished by the fact that he wrote Chinese verses of his own composition on the sleeves, and it was noted that only a few knew how to add them:
My soul is moving in a cold cloud to the Eastern Sea.
In this world of corruption and vanity, life is justified only by devotion.
How many years trudged through life, contemplating flowers, tasting wine!
The time has come! - Wind, frost and snow at dawn.
I knew before:
Taking the path of a warrior
I will meet, according to the will of the Buddhas, With such a fate!
However, the weaknesses of these avengers were also not alien, at least to some of them. So, in his suicide note, written by the samurai Uramatsu Hidenao, it was said: “To give your life for the master is the duty of a samurai. And although in a hundred cases out of a thousand I would like to avoid this, but my duty tells me not to tremble over my life. For a 62-year-old man, and that is how much this samurai was at that moment, quite a reasonable idea, isn't it? However, then he was ashamed of these words of his, and composed such gloomy, pessimistic verses:
Fate cannot be changed!
Nothing to escape
Impossible!
The graves of forty-seven …
In a word, only the Japanese themselves can fully understand all these people, and even then not all of them. Such was the samurai's culture, which, in our opinion today, was strange to the highest degree!
* Translation of all the poems of 47 samurai cited in the text belongs to M. Uspensky.
