Honzo monologue (Act 17) — Chushingura; Or, The Treasury of Loyal Retainers

Great has been your anxiety to avenge your lord’s death, and putting the enemy off the scent by frequenting pleasure-quarters, you have gathered together all your confederates. As I think of it, it reminds me that your position should have been mine. Last spring, when the Shrine at Tsurugaoka was completed, my master Wakasanosuke was enraged beyond measure at the insults heaped upon him by Kono Moronao. He called me to him privately and told me all and declared that he would kill him at a stroke in the Palace on the following day. I saw from his determined look that the hot blood of youth could not be curbed. And as I was sure that Kono had insulted him because, being a man of moderate means, he did not give sufficient bribes to him, I went without my master’s knowledge to Moronao with gold and cloths in quantity beyond his station, and fawned upon him against my will, because I had my lord’s interests at heart. When Moronao had received the bribe, he begged pardon of my master, who was, then, unable to slay him, and his grudge against him completely vanished. Moronao’s anger, then, turned upon Lord Enya. That day I caught him from behind because I thought that if his enemy was not killed, he himself would escape the punishment of death; it was the greatest error of my life that I carried my thought too far. And finding that error would bring trouble upon my daughter, I desired to give this hoary head in atonement to my son-in-law. I sent my wife and daughter on before me, and I begged to be dismissed from my lord’s service on the ground of my flattery of Moronao, and taking a different route, I arrived in Kyoto two days before my wife and daughter. The flute-playing which I learnt in youth was useful to me, and in four days I saw clearly what were your intentions. If I fall by your hand, your grudge against me will be dispelled, and if you will, according to promise, let my daughter marry Rikiya, I will never, not through all our future lives, forget your goodness. See, I beg you with clasped hands. This life of mine that I thought not to give up except in my master’s cause I now yield for my daughter. Oh, have a feeling for the parent’s heart, Master Yura.