Talk:Final Statement of the 47 Ronin

Final Statement of The 47 Ronin of Ako—As Translated by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford (1837-1916), Lord Redesdale, member of the British legation to Japan

(Excerpt from the book “Tales of Old Japan” published in 1871) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13015/13015-h/13015-h.htm

(Lord Redesdale's home was within sight of Sengaku-ji temple where the ronin were buried. One day, while on a private tour of Sengakuji, he requested to examine the articles left behind by the ronin--some 160 years before.  Amongst the tattered relics, he found yellowed and fragile letters, folded up and made copies of them.  The letters turned out to be a receipt for the return of Kira's severed head provided by his relatives, the final statement placed by the ronin on Lord Asano's tomb before surrendering for court martial, and letter of explanation carried by each of the 47 men spelling out the reasons for their vendetta and their belief that their actions were justified.  Lord Redesdale was so  moved by the story, he published the letters in his book "Tales of Old Japan.")

Note: The author, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford (1837-1916), Lord Redesdale, was in the British Foreign Service as a young man. He was assigned to the legation in Japan for several years and acquired a life-long fascination with Japanese culture. This book has been a standard source of information about Japanese folklore and customs since its original publication in 1871 and has been in print ever since.

TALES OF OLD JAPAN

by

LORD REDESDALE, G.C.V.O., K.C.B. Formerly Second Secretary to the British Legation in Japan

With Illustrations Drawn and Cut on Wood by Japanese Artists

"......A terrible picture of fierce heroism which it is impossible not to admire. In the Japanese mind this feeling of admiration is unmixed, and hence it is that the forty-seven Ronins receive almost divine honours. Pious hands still deck their graves with green boughs and burn incense upon them; the clothes and arms which they wore are preserved carefully in a fire-proof store-house attached to the temple, and exhibited yearly to admiring crowds, who behold them probably with little less veneration than is accorded to the relics of Aix-la-Chapelle or Treves; and once in sixty years the monks of Sengakuji reap quite a harvest for the good of their temple by holding a commemorative fair or festival, to which the people flock during nearly two months.

A silver key once admitted me to a private inspection of the relics. We were ushered, my friend and myself, into a back apartment of the spacious temple, overlooking one of those marvellous miniature gardens, cunningly adorned with rockeries and dwarf trees, in which the Japanese delight. One by one, carefully labelled and indexed boxes containing the precious articles were brought out and opened by the chief priest. Such a curious medley of old rags and scraps of metal and wood! Home-made chain armour, composed of wads of leather secured together by pieces of iron, bear witness to the secrecy with which the Ronins made ready for the fight. To have bought armour would have attracted attention, so they made it with their own hands. Old moth-eaten surcoats, bits of helmets, three flutes, a writing-box that must have been any age at the time of the tragedy, and is now tumbling to pieces; tattered trousers of what once was rich silk brocade, now all unravelled and befringed; scraps of leather, part of an old gauntlet, crests and badges, bits of sword handles, spear-heads and dirks, the latter all red with rust, but with certain patches more deeply stained as if the fatal clots of blood were never to be blotted out: all these were reverently shown to us. Among the confusion and litter were a number of documents, Yellow with age and much worn at the folds. One was a plan of Kotsuke no Suke's house, which one of the Ronins obtained by marrying the daughter of the builder who designed it. Three of the manuscripts appeared to me so curious that I obtained leave to have copies taken of them.

The first is the receipt given by the retainers of Kotsuke no Suke's son in return for the head of their lord's father, which the priests restored to the family, and runs as follows:—