Bushido, Inazo Nitobe [top rated ebook readers .txt] 📗

foreign ears, it can not be so very foreign to

students of Shakespeare, who puts these words in Brutus’ mouth—“Thy

(Caesar’s) spirit walks abroad and turns our swords into our proper

entrails.” Listen to a modern English poet, who in his Light of Asia,

speaks of a sword piercing the bowels of a queen:—none blames him for

bad English or breach of modesty. Or, to take still another example,

look at Guercino’s painting of Cato’s death, in the Palazzo Rossa in

Genoa. Whoever has read the swan-song which Addison makes Cato sing,

will not jeer at the sword half-buried in his abdomen. In our minds this

mode of death is associated with instances of noblest deeds and of most

touching pathos, so that nothing repugnant, much less ludicrous, mars

our conception of it. So wonderful is the transforming power of virtue,

of greatness, of tenderness, that the vilest form of death assumes a

sublimity and becomes a symbol of new life, or else—the sign which

Constantine beheld would not conquer the world!

 

Not for extraneous associations only does seppuku lose in our mind any

taint of absurdity; for the choice of this particular part of the body

to operate upon, was based on an old anatomical belief as to the seat of

the soul and of the affections. When Moses wrote of Joseph’s “bowels

yearning upon his brother,” or David prayed the Lord not to forget his

bowels, or when Isaiah, Jeremiah and other inspired men of old spoke of

the “sounding” or the “troubling” of bowels, they all and each endorsed

the belief prevalent among the Japanese that in the abdomen was

enshrined the soul. The Semites habitually spoke of the liver and

kidneys and surrounding fat as the seat of emotion and of life. The term

hara was more comprehensive than the Greek phren or thumos and

the Japanese and Hellenese alike thought the spirit of man to dwell

somewhere in that region. Such a notion is by no means confined to the

peoples of antiquity. The French, in spite of the theory propounded by

one of their most distinguished philosophers, Descartes, that the soul

is located in the pineal gland, still insist in using the term ventre

in a sense, which, if anatomically too vague, is nevertheless

physiologically significant. Similarly entrailles stands in their

language for affection and compassion. Nor is such belief mere

superstition, being more scientific than the general idea of making the

heart the centre of the feelings. Without asking a friar, the Japanese

knew better than Romeo “in what vile part of this anatomy one’s name did

lodge.” Modern neurologists speak of the abdominal and pelvic brains,

denoting thereby sympathetic nerve-centres in those parts which are

strongly affected by any psychical action. This view of mental

physiology once admitted, the syllogism of seppuku is easy to

construct. “I will open the seat of my soul and show you how it fares

with it. See for yourself whether it is polluted or clean.”

 

I do not wish to be understood as asserting religious or even moral

justification of suicide, but the high estimate placed upon honor was

ample excuse with many for taking one’s own life. How many acquiesced in

the sentiment expressed by Garth,

 

“When honor’s lost, ‘tis a relief to die;

Death’s but a sure retreat from infamy,”

 

and have smilingly surrendered their souls to oblivion! Death when honor

was involved, was accepted in Bushido as a key to the solution of many

complex problems, so that to an ambitious samurai a natural departure

from life seemed a rather tame affair and a consummation not devoutly to

be wished for. I dare say that many good Christians, if only they are

honest enough, will confess the fascination of, if not positive

admiration for, the sublime composure with which Cato, Brutus, Petronius

and a host of other ancient worthies, terminated their own earthly

existence. Is it too bold to hint that the death of the first of the

philosophers was partly suicidal? When we are told so minutely by his

pupils how their master willingly submitted to the mandate of the

state—which he knew was morally mistaken—in spite of the possibilities

of escape, and how he took up the cup of hemlock in his own hand, even

offering libation from its deadly contents, do we not discern in his

whole proceeding and demeanor, an act of self-immolation? No physical

compulsion here, as in ordinary cases of execution. True the verdict of

the judges was compulsory: it said, “Thou shalt die,—and that by thy

own hand.” If suicide meant no more than dying by one’s own hand,

Socrates was a clear case of suicide. But nobody would charge him with

the crime; Plato, who was averse to it, would not call his master a

suicide.

 

Now my readers will understand that seppuku was not a mere suicidal

process. It was an institution, legal and ceremonial. An invention of

the middle ages, it was a process by which warriors could expiate their

crimes, apologize for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their

friends, or prove their sincerity. When enforced as a legal punishment,

it was practiced with due ceremony. It was a refinement of

self-destruction, and none could perform it without the utmost coolness

of temper and composure of demeanor, and for these reasons it was

particularly befitting the profession of bushi.

 

Antiquarian curiosity, if nothing else, would tempt me to give here a

description of this obsolete ceremonial; but seeing that such a

description was made by a far abler writer, whose book is not much read

now-a-days, I am tempted to make a somewhat lengthy quotation. Mitford,

in his “Tales of Old Japan,” after giving a translation of a treatise on

seppuku from a rare Japanese manuscript, goes on to describe an

instance of such an execution of which he was an eye-witness:—

 

“We (seven foreign representatives) were invited to follow the Japanese

witness into the hondo or main hall of the temple, where the ceremony

was to be performed. It was an imposing scene. A large hall with a high

roof supported by dark pillars of wood. From the ceiling hung a

profusion of those huge gilt lamps and ornaments peculiar to Buddhist

temples. In front of the high altar, where the floor, covered with

beautiful white mats, is raised some three or four inches from the

ground, was laid a rug of scarlet felt. Tall candles placed at regular

intervals gave out a dim mysterious light, just sufficient to let all

the proceedings be seen. The seven Japanese took their places on the

left of the raised floor, the seven foreigners on the right. No other

person was present.

 

“After the interval of a few minutes of anxious suspense, Taki

Zenzaburo, a stalwart man thirty-two years of age, with a noble air,

walked into the hall attired in his dress of ceremony, with the peculiar

hempen-cloth wings which are worn on great occasions. He was accompanied

by a kaishaku and three officers, who wore the jimbaori or war

surcoat with gold tissue facings. The word kaishaku it should be

observed, is one to which our word executioner is no equivalent term.

The office is that of a gentleman: in many cases it is performed by a

kinsman or friend of the condemned, and the relation between them is

rather that of principal and second than that of victim and executioner.

In this instance the kaishaku was a pupil of Taki Zenzaburo, and was

selected by friends of the latter from among their own number for his

skill in swordsmanship.

 

“With the kaishaku on his left hand, Taki Zenzaburo advanced slowly

towards the Japanese witnesses, and the two bowed before them, then

drawing near to the foreigners they saluted us in the same way, perhaps

even with more deference; in each case the salutation was ceremoniously

returned. Slowly and with great dignity the condemned man mounted on to

the raised floor, prostrated himself before the high altar twice, and

seated[19] himself on the felt carpet with his back to the high altar,

the kaishaku crouching on his left hand side. One of the three

attendant officers then came forward, bearing a stand of the kind used

in the temple for offerings, on which, wrapped in paper, lay the

wakizashi, the short sword or dirk of the Japanese, nine inches and a

half in length, with a point and an edge as sharp as a razor’s. This he

handed, prostrating himself, to the condemned man, who received it

reverently, raising it to his head with both hands, and placed it in

front of himself.

 

[Footnote 19: Seated himself—that is, in the Japanese fashion, his

knees and toes touching the ground and his body resting on his heels. In

this position, which is one of respect, he remained until his death.]

 

“After another profound obeisance, Taki Zenzaburo, in a voice which

betrayed just so much emotion and hesitation as might be expected from a

man who is making a painful confession, but with no sign of either in

his face or manner, spoke as follows:—

 

‘I, and I alone, unwarrantably gave the order to fire on the foreigners

at Kobe, and again as they tried to escape. For this crime I disembowel

myself, and I beg you who are present to do me the honor of witnessing

the act.’

 

“Bowing once more, the speaker allowed his upper garments to slip down

to his girdle, and remained naked to the waist. Carefully, according to

custom, he tucked his sleeves under his knees to prevent himself from

falling backward; for a noble Japanese gentleman should die falling

forwards. Deliberately, with a steady hand he took the dirk that lay

before him; he looked at it wistfully, almost affectionately; for a

moment he seemed to collect his thoughts for the last time, and then

stabbing himself deeply below the waist in the left-hand side, he drew

the dirk slowly across to his right side, and turning it in the wound,

gave a slight cut upwards. During this sickeningly painful operation he

never moved a muscle of his face. When he drew out the dirk, he leaned

forward and stretched out his neck; an expression of pain for the first

time crossed his face, but he uttered no sound. At that moment the

kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching

his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in

the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with

one blow the head had been severed from the body.

 

“A dead silence followed, broken only by the hideous noise of the blood

throbbing out of the inert head before us, which but a moment before had

been a brave and chivalrous man. It was horrible.

 

“The kaishaku made a low bow, wiped his sword with a piece of paper

which he had ready for the purpose, and retired from the raised floor;

and the stained dirk was solemnly borne away, a bloody proof of the

execution.

 

“The two representatives of the Mikado then left their places, and

crossing over to where the foreign witnesses sat, called to us to

witness that the sentence of death upon Taki Zenzaburo had been

faithfully carried out. The ceremony being at an end, we left the

temple.”

 

I might multiply any number of descriptions of seppuku from literature

or from the relation of eye-witnesses; but one more instance will

suffice.

 

Two brothers, Sakon and Naiki, respectively twenty-four and seventeen

years of age, made an effort to kill Iyéyasu in order to avenge their

father’s wrongs; but before they could enter the camp they were made

prisoners. The old general admired the