Okaru monologue (Act 13) — Chushingura; Or, The Treasury of Loyal Retainers

I thought I had no tidings from Kanpei because he had started on his journey by making use of the money, the price of my service, and I have been angry because I thought he might have come to bid me farewell. Though I am wrong to say it, our father, sad as was his death, was still of ripe age; but Kanpei—to die when he was hardly thirty years old, how sad, how mortified he must have been and how must he have longed to see me! Why was I not allowed to see him? Not to abstain from animal food in memory of my father and husband, it was my evil fortune. Why should I wish to live? If I die by your hand, our mother will be offended with you. I will kill myself; and afterwards if my head or body be of service to you, make what use you please of it. Now farewell, dear brother.