Читать книгу Chushingura; Or, The Treasury of Loyal Retainers - Shoraku Miyoshi - Страница 13

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We may now proceed to touch upon the custom of vendetta. Among the most marked social products of the Tokugawa period must be mentioned vendetta. It was the favourite subject for the novels, ballads, and plays of the period and was treated so frequently that it seemed to be the peculiar product of that period. But the vendetta was not peculiar to that age. It made its first appearance some fifteen centuries ago and was known in every period of our national history. The revenge of the Soga Brothers, for instance, who killed their enemy in 1193 seventeen years after their father’s murder, is the most famous of our vendettas and was sung in songs, played on the stage, and treated in novels, of the Tokugawa period. There were many vendettas before the Tokugawa age; and what made them appear peculiar to that age was the strong contrast they presented to the idle, luxurious life which was resulting from the long-continued peace under the Tokugawa rule; and for that reason they attracted the greatest attention of the nation.

A vendetta is the wreaking of vengeance upon a man’s murderer by his relations, friends, or retainers. It took place not only when the murderer killed his victim with his own hand, but also when he incited another to the act, or even when one struck and killed a man without intent to murder. Strictly-speaking, it was of course the duty of the state to punish a murder and not to leave it to private vengeance; a vendetta was, in fact, an act done in defiance of the punitive right of the state and subversive of the social order. In the Yedo period, society was, it is true, kept in strict order, and the relations between lord and retainer and between father and child were rigorously observed; but it was also a period in which an intimate connection subsisted between morality and law, and the vendetta was recognised as an unavoidable act originating in the intense feelings of loyalty and filial piety. It was permitted on moral grounds as the result of the teachings of Bushido and Confucianism. It may here be added that although the vendetta of the Ako retainers was a subject of discussion among contemporary and later scholars, the question turned upon whether the retainers were justified in looking upon Kira Yoshinaka as their true enemy; no doubt was ever expressed upon the legitimacy of vendetta itself.

The formal procedure for carrying out a vendetta in the Tokugawa period was first for the avenger to apply for permission, if he lived in Kyoto, to the deputy-governor, if in Yedo, to the city magistrate, and if in the provinces, to the local lord; and these reported it to the central government, which then entered it in the official register and gave the required permission. Now, the murderer seldom remained quietly in the locality where the act was committed, but almost invariably fled to other territories; and therefore it was probable that if the avenger killed him as he always did regardless of time or place immediately he discovered him, he would cause a disturbance there and might be brought to account for it. If, however, his vendetta was entered in the official register, he was permitted to kill his enemy anywhere. In such case, the local officials came as soon as they heard that a vendetta had taken place, and if they were satisfied that it had been officially registered, they took no further note of the matter. However, even when it had not been registered, they usually let the avenger go if it was shown that he had not been actuated by malice, but had done the deed from loyalty or filial piety.

If, after the official permission had been obtained, the enemy died before the revenge could be taken, it had to be reported with satisfactory proofs of his death. Such procedure was considered necessary, because after the official registration, the avenger took leave of his lord, who assisted him in every way and made him parting presents, and the avenger naturally set out full of hope; but it sometimes happened that when he was unable to find his enemy after a long search and at the same time his purse became lighter every day, he longed for home and with his first resolution now gone, he grew anxious to give up the fruitless search. In such cases he might come home, pretending that his enemy was dead. And it was to prevent such fraud that satisfactory proofs of the enemy’s death were required to free the avenger from the duty which he had voluntarily undertaken.

The avenger was usually the murdered man’s inferior, although sometimes he was his superior in position. He was in most cases his son, younger brother, relative, servant, pupil, or intimate friend.

The person upon whom vengeance was to be wreaked was not necessarily a bad man. In the early years of the Tokugawa régime, duels were of frequent occurrence among the samurai; they seldom discussed which were right and which wrong in a dispute. If there was a difference, one would exclaim, “Come, let us fight it out;” to which the other would as lightly express his willingness, and they drew their swords on the spot. Thus, a duel was an appeal to arms made by mutual agreement; and the vanquished had no cause of resentment against the victor. Yet his surviving family often took up his cause and revenged themselves upon his adversary. Sometimes justice was on the enemy’s side and the avenger was entirely in the wrong. Such cases were unavoidable when vendetta had the moral sanction of the nation and was practically a duty imposed upon the nearest relative of the murdered man.

Although the vendetta may be said to have been concluded when the avenger had killed his man, yet the avenger himself was sometimes looked upon as the enemy by his victim’s family, who, thereupon, commenced a vendetta against him. Next, the first avenger’s family would upon his death take revenge upon the second avenger, and so on, so that the feud would become as interminable as a Corsican vendetta. To put a stop to such endless vendettas, the Tokugawa Government strictly prohibited secondary vendettas.

Again, in a duel between the avenger and his enemy, the former was not unfrequently killed. Hence, the avenger sometimes was accompanied by his second. The second usually fought the enemy when the principal was in danger of being beaten; but in some cases he fought side by side with the principal. That was mostly the case when the avenger was a child or a woman, who had no chance against the adversary. It may be mentioned that when the government was reorganised upon the accession of the present Emperor, a law was issued in 1873 strictly prohibiting vendettas.