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• Introduction

• Who was Shuichiro Saito?

• Who was Edward Greey?

• Who was Shunsui Tamenaga?

• Analysis

• Reference Material 1: Contents of "Iroha Bunko"

• Reference Material 2: Contents of "The Loyal Ronins"

• Reference Material 3: Corresponding Chart of The Chapters between "The Loyal Ronins" and "Iroha Bunko"

• Introduction

"The Loyal Ronins," one of the English versions of Chushingura, was written and published by Shuichiro Saito and Edward Greey in 1880. As both of them explained, this book seemed to be the English version of "Iroha Bunko" written by Shunsui Tamenaga at the end of the Tokugawa period. However, the contents of both works were completely different with respect to the order, the description of character and length. Thus, "The Loyal Ronins" was not directly translated from "Iroha Bunko." The translation seemed to be a very complicated process. Why did Shuichiro Saito and Edward Greey need to take such a troublesome procedure? The reason seemed to be related to the modernization of Japan. Before discussing the reason, the profile of the authors should be reviewed.

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• Who was Shuichiro Saito?

He was born as the son of Sakujun Saito, the doctor for the lord of the Honda Clan in Takebu city in Fukui prefecture in Japan, in 1855. His birth house has been preserved by Takebu city as a cultural assets. Since he was the brightest student in his clan, he could enter Daigaku Nanko (University of the South), the national University of occidental studies. (This school was later called "Tokyo University" in 1877.) As soon as the government support system for study abroad was established in 1875, Saito was chosen as one of the first ten students to study abroad. Among them, the first best student was Kazuo Hatoyama, who entered Columbia University and later became the chairman of the lower house of the Diet. The second best student was Jutaro Komura, who entered Harvard University and later became the foreign minister of Japan. When Komura visited the USA after the Russo - Japanese War in order to negotiate with Russian ambassador Witte, he was entertained by Theodore Roosevelt and introduced to "The Loyal Ronins." The third best students were Takeo Kikuchi and Shuichiro Saito who entered Boston University. Later, Kikuchi became the first law doctor in Japan and the president of Chuo University. During the last year of his five years' study in the USA, Saito translated and published "The Loyal Ronins" with Edward Greey. After returning to Japan in 1880, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served Foreign Minister Kaoru Inoue as his secretary. Later he became a politician and finally was installed as a Deputy Agricultural Minister. After resigning this position on account of a bribery scandal, Saito spent the last years of his life quietly. However, his character as a human being and his ability as a politician were widely known and appreciated by Japanese people at that time. K�dan performer Chiyuu Ito made his political k�dan entitled "Ketsujin Saito Shuichiro" modeled after Saito. Throughout his career, we find that Saito was not just a Japanese student studying in the USA but one of the diplomats sent by the Japanese Government. Thus, his stay and study in the USA could be considered as the first step in becoming a bureaucrat. His mentality was not of a student but of a diplomat. So, it was easily assumed that this mentality heavily affected the translation of "Iroha Bunko" and the publication of "The Loyal Ronins."

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• Analysis

How Did Saito and Greey Translate "Iroha Bunko" into "The Loyal Ronins" ?

First, let us review the effect of the technical arrangement of Saito and Greey. Please look at the Contents of "Iroha Bunko" (Reference Material 1) In the original Japanese edition of "Iroha Bunko," each chapter was given only its number without any title. So, after reading them, I gave a short title to each chapter and divided all of them into 23 short and long stories according to its content. Apparently, they were completely disordered and dispersed not chronologically. Each story could be enjoyed as an independent allegory. Then, please look at Contents of "The Loyal Ronins." (Reference Material 2) They were ordered very chronologically. As a result, it became very close to the typical version of so called "Chushingura" that we are very familiar with. As the contents of "Iroha Bunko" were obviously long and disordered, it was too difficult for foreign readers to follow the plot of the whole story.  So, Saito and Greey rearranged the order through the time and completed the Contents of "The Loyal Ronins." 

The technical arrangement existed not only in the chronological orders but also in the names of each character. In "Iroha Bunko," Tamenaga fundamentally succeeded the setting of "Kanadehon Chushingura." Asano Takuminokami was called "Enya" and Kira Kouzukenosuke was called Kono Moronao. The capital city was Kamakura. On the other hand, the settings of "The Loyal Ronins" were a little complicated. Fundamentally, Saito and Greey ignored Tamenaga's original settings and used actual names. However, without using the actual name directly, they rearranged it by translating each name into English. For example, Lord Asano was translated into Lord Morning (ASA) Field (NO). In the same way Oishi was translated as Sir Big (OO)- Rock (ISHI). Sir Kamei became Sir Tortoise (KAME) Well (IDO). Sir Tatebayashi became Sir Straight (Tate) Grove (BAYASHI). More interestingly, Sir Fuwa became Sir Unconquerable . In his Notes in "The Loyal Ronins," Greey explained that this arrangement was made in order to avoid any stumbling of reading and breaking the romantic atmosphere since American readers were unfamiliar with Japanese names. On the other hand, they used directly Japanese words - Samurai, Ronins, Sake, Kira and Yedo since these were impossible to translate. ( The capital city was NOT Kamakura BUT Yedo.) Obviously, this seemed to Greey's idea. On account of this arrangement, the exotic and romantic atmosphere was widely increased. 

Nevertheless, this technical arrangement was not an essential matter in this translation. It was because there existed a serious shift of its subject from "Iroha Bunko" to "The Loyal Ronins." As we discussed before, the main theme of Ninjobon was "Ninjo" -- the affirmation of the weakness of a human being. Human beings were not perfect. They have not only strengths--loyalty, allegiance, and sincerity-- but also weaknesses--betrayal, indulgence, and temptation toward money or love. By recognizing and affirming these deficiencies, Tamenaga established his own literary world. So, in "Iroha Bunko," Tamenaga treated the episodes of peripheral individuals of Chushingura as more than half of its content. Most of them were commoners or corrupted samurais. Through their points of view, Tamenaga tried to examine the Chushingura incident from multiple viewpoints. The best example was the first story of Oyamada Shozaemon. By treating him first and describing meticulously the shift of his mind, Tamenaga affirmed and approved Oyamada's choice. Thus, Tamenaga recognized the disjoining of revenge as the one of the choices of a human being. This was a new value system that we could not find in any Chushingura works. In the past works, frustrated ronins were treated very negatively. Nevertheless, Saito intentionally ignored and discarded almost all of these side stories. Of course, he omitted Oyamada's episode. Please look at the Corresponding Chart of The Chapters between "The Loyal Ronins" and "Iroha Bunko" (Reference Material 3) Saito treated only the chapters related with the attack against Kira and insisted on the mannish mentality of bravery and allegiance. Obviously, he intentionally hid negative mentality -- weakness, betrayal, or indulgence from the sight of foreign people because showing such negative mentalities were completely against his purpose of translation. Thus, "The Loyal Ronins" was no longer the English translation of "Iroha Bunko." Rather, it was Saito's original literary creation based on "Iroha Bunko." This was the essence of his translation. 

What was Saito's purpose of the translation?

Now, we have to consider Saito's main motivation of translation. Saito confessed his purpose of his translation in the index of "The Loyal Ronins." According to his introduction of "The Loyal Ronins," Saito seemed to regret the fact that Japanese literary works were not as well known as the Japanese art works at the international exhibition in Philadelphia. Saito explained that he decided to translate "Iroha Bunko" since he felt Mitford 's Tales of Old Japan was not enough of a representation of Japanese literary work. Then he said as follows: " While I am the last person to defend lawless acts, I cannot avoid feeling a certain admiration for the much-despised institution, believing that it contained the germ of patriotism." Obviously, Saito connected and identified the attack of the Ako Ronins with the patriotism in the modern nation state. I strongly believe that this political and patriotic mentality was the main reason for his motivation. Thus, the direct reason for his translation was to introduce Japan to westerners as the modern centralized nation state by utilizing the Ako incident. The best evidence was "Chapter 40 The Return of The Exile" in "The Loyal Ronins." In this chapter, the episode of the sons of Oishi Kuranosuke after the attack was described. After returning from exile, they were consoled by the priest of Sengakuji temple as follows, "They (Ako ronins) were loyal men, therefore were patriots! They have set an example which will be followed forever and ever, and the day will surely come when their worth will be recognized in the highest place (by Mikado.)" Saito connected the loyalty of Ako ronins with Patriotism by utilizing the priest.  Moreover, Saito reported the fact that the Ako ronins were actually praised by Emperor Meiji after the Meiji restoration by using the footnotes. This chapter was not a translation of "Iroha Bunko" or other material but Saito's original literary creation. Saito concluded "The Loyal Ronins" with this chapter. Thus, it was no exaggeration to say that the purpose of his translation seemed to be concentrated on this chapter. Therefore, it could be concluded that the main purpose of Saito's translation was enhancing the impression of Japan as the modern nation state to western people by identifying feudalistic loyalty with modern nationalism. "The Loyal Ronins" seemed to have an aspect of political propaganda.

Why did Saito choose "Iroha Bunko" for translation?

As we discussed before, the process of translation seemed to be very complicated and troublesome. First they chose the appropriate chapters from "Iroha Bunko." Second, they arranged them chronologically. Third, they connected each chapter by referring to other Chushingura readings. Why did Saito and Greey have to take these difficult steps? Why did he need to be so persistent with "Iroha Bunko"? Saito described the reasons in the introduction of "The Loyal Ronins" as follows; " first, because he is one of the most popular of our writers; secondly, on account of the romance containing a wonderful description of Japanese life under the feudal system, and of institution, which, for more than seven hundred years, has exerted a most powerful influence over the nation." Thus, his reason seemed to be reduced to Tamenaga's popularity and the feudalistic romance. However, why did he not consider the direct translation of the more popular and chronological versions of Chushingura - "Kanadebon Chushingura," "Ako shijushichishi den," or "Seichugishi Meimeiden" ? "Kanadebon Chushingura," seemed to be translated by Dickens. However, Greey admitted that they used "Ako shijushichishi den," and "Seichu gishi Meimeiden" as the reference materials. Why did they not translate directly "Ako shijushichishi den," or "Seichu gishi Meimeiden"? It would have been a much easier process. What was the difference between "Iroha Bunko" and other major Chushingura works? What was the charm of "Iroha Bunko"? In order to pursue these questions, I tried to read all the pages of "Iroha Bunko" meticulously and discovered the great character in the style of "Iroha Bunko." Although the narration parts of "Iroha Bunko" were written in traditional pre-modern Japanese written form called "kinseigikobun," the conversation parts were extremely close to the actual conversational Japanese language. Thus, as for the conversation parts of "Iroha Bunko," there existed correspondence between the conversational language and the written language. It was believed that this correspondence had been confirmed by the novelist Shoyou Tsubouchi in the Meiji era. His novel was considered as the first modern Japanese novel. However, I discovered this correspondence in Tamenaga and investigated about it enthusiastically these two weeks. Finally, I found out the fact that the style of Tamenaga heavily influenced the literary styles of modern Japanese novelists including Shouyou Tsubouchi, Ogai Mori, and Ichiyou Higuchi. Thus, it could be said that pre-modern factors and modern factors were co-existing inside "Iroha Bunko." Different from other Chushigura works, "Iroha Bunko" depicted each character in the Chushingura episodes as modern individuals. I strongly believe that this was the greatest charm of "Iroha Bunko" and true reason why Saito chose "Iroha Bunko" as his main material.

We discussed that the main purpose of Saito's translation was enhancing the impression of Japan as a modern nation state to western people. Why did he have to do so? It would have been strongly related with the historical background of Japan at the time from 1875 to 1880. Although Japan completed the Meiji Restoration, it could not have been considered as the modern nation state and still operated under unequal treaties that had been negotiated between the Tokugawa regime and the world superpowers. (ex: Treaty of Peace and Amity between the US and Japan) The prime national purpose was to be considered as a modern nation state and to overturn the unequal treaties. I strongly assume that Saito shared this mentality. In order to be considered as a modern nation state, each character HAD TO BE A MODERN INDIVIDUAL comparable to a character in western modern novels. Therefore, Saito chose "Iroha Bunko" as his main material since each character was much closer to the modern character compared to the other Chushingura works. Thus, the modernity of "Iroha Bunko" was the greatest reason of Saito's choice.

Aftermath of "The Loyal Ronins"

Then, did "The Loyal Ronins" complete its role that Saito and Greey expected? The answer is "Yes." According to the essay of Takeshi Kimura entitled "Chushingura to Theodore Roosevelt," "The Loyal Ronins" was widely accepted around the world--especially in the modern western countries. This work was immediately translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish and widely praised. The most characteristic point of its reputation was that westerners identified "The Loyal Ronins" or Shunsui Tamenaga with the modern western novel or novelist. The best example was the praise by Stevenson. He identified Shunsui Tamenaga with Victor Hugo or Alexandre Dumas. This fact suggests that intentional arrangement by Saito and Greey had succeeded. When the second edition was issued, Greey was congratulated by Emperor Meiji. This meant that the positive effect was so large that the government had to admit. Finally, US president Theodore Roosevelt admired this work and decided to support Japan in the negotiation against Russia after the Russo-Japanese War on account of this work. This proved that the first intention of Saito Shuichiro had been successfully completed.

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• Reference Material 1:  Contents of "Iroha Bunko"

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