The policy of Iyemitsu, forbidding any Japanese to leave the
country under pain of death, had left the nation for two hundred
years ignorant of the outer world. About the colossal forces
gathering beyond seas nothing was known. The long existence of
the Dutch settlement at Nagasaki had in no wise enlightened Japan
as to her true position,--an Oriental feudalism of the sixteenth
century menaced by a Western world three centuries older.
Accounts of the real wonders of that world would have sounded to
Japanese ears like stories invented to please children, or have
been classed with ancient tales of the fabled palaces of Horai.
The advent of the American fleet, "the Black Ships," as they were
then called, first awakened the government to some knowledge of
its own weakness, and of danger from afar.
National excitement at the news of the second coming of the Black
Ships was followed by consternation at the discovery that the
Shogunate confessed its inability to cope with the foreign
powers. This could mean only a peril greater than that of the
Tartar invasion in the days of Hojo Tokimune, when the people had
prayed to the gods for help, and the Emperor himself, at Ise, had
besought the spirits of his fathers. Those prayers had been
answered by sudden darkness, a sea of thunder, and the coming of
that mighty wind still called Kami-kaze,--"the Wind of the Gods,"
by which the fleets of Kublai Khan were given to the abyss. Why
should not prayers now also be made? They were, in countless
homes and at thousands of shrines. But the Superior Ones gave
this time no answer; the Kami-kaze did not come. And the samurai
boy, praying vainly before the little shrine of Hachiman in his
father's garden, wondered if the gods had lost their power, or if
the people of the Black Ships were under the protection of
stronger gods.
(1) "Is that really the head of your father?" a prince once asked
of a samurai boy only seven years old. The child at once realized
the situation. The freshly-severed head set before him was not
his father's: the daimyo had been deceived, but further deception
was necessary. So the lad, after having saluted the head with
every sign of reverential grief, suddenly cut out his own bowels.
All the prince's doubts vanished before that bloody proof of
filial piety; the outlawed father was able to make good his
escape, and the memory of the child is still honored in Japanese
drama and poetry.
(2) Samurai women, in some province, at least, could go to the
public theatre. The men could not,--without committing a breach
of good manners. But in samurai homes, or within the grounds of
the yashiki, some private performances of a particular character
were given. Strolling players were the performers. I know several
charming old samurai who have never been to a public theatre in
their lives, and refuse all invitations to witness a performance.
They still obey the rules of their samurai education.