by Hiroaki Sato
42 Letter to Yasuoka Masahiro, May 26, 1968, Hokan, 238–39.
43 “Kaidai,” Zenshū 36, 691–92.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Constitution
1 The invitation, Zenshū 36, 671.
2 Date, Saiban kiroku, 237. Koga Masayoshi’s testimony during the Mishima trial.
3 “‘Tate no Kai’ no koto,” Zenshū 35, 720–27. It appeared in the British magazine Queen, in its January 7–20, 1970, issue in an English translation by Ivan and Nobuko Morris as “The Shield Society.”
4 Scott-Stokes, Life and Death of Yukio Mishima, 16–17.
5 “2.26 shōkō to Zengakuren gakusei no danzetsu,” Zenshū 40, 586, 591, 593.
6 The Sankei article is printed in full in Zenshū 35, 785–86. Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 534.
7 The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s report. Included in Date, Saiban kiroku, 58. Most of the court proceedings on the “Mishima Incident” are collected in the Date book. Unless noted, details on some of the actions and words of those involved in the following account come from it.
8 Shiine, Heibon Punch no Mishima Yukio, 98.
9 Yamamoto, Mishima Yukio: Yūmon no sokoku bōei fu, 209–12. Matsufuji Takejirō, the Mainichi reporter who describes himself as having frequently written about Mishima and the SDF, followed Yamamoto in saying it was a clear day when “the autumn sun poured down” in his mindlessly zealous book, Chitagiru Mishima Yukio “kenpō kaisei,” 202–3. Then twenty, he was not there.
10 Scott-Stokes, Life and Death of Yukio Mishima, 17.
11 Takemura Toshio, “Hengen jizai no omoshirosa,” Asahi Shinbun, November 22, 1969.
12 Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 536–37.
13 Andō, “Nichiroku,” 370. The quote comes from Orita Kōji, Mishima Yukio “Shibai nikki” (Chūō Kōron Sha, 1991).
14 “Tamasaburō-kun no koto,” Zenshū 36, 271–72.
15 “Stage-Left Is Right from Audience,” Zenshū 35, 740–43.
16 “Gendai ni okeru uyoku to sayoku,” Zenshū 40, 568.
17 “Ken ka hana ka,” Zenshū 40, 599–600. The Sato-Nixon talk on Japan’s textile exports to the US during the meeting that year produced a famous episode in the annals of translation/interpretation: the discrepancy between what Satō said—probably, Zensho shimasu—or, rather, his interpreter’s translation of it—probably, “I’ll do my best”—and what Nixon later claimed he had understood from what was conveyed by the interpreter—that Satō said something like “I’ll take care of it.”
18 Kojima, Kindai Nihon no Yōmeigaku, 190.
19 Hiraoka, Segare, 107–8.
20 “Dōshi no shinjō to hijō,” Zenshū 36, 22.
21 “70 nendai shinshun no yobikake,” Zenshū 36, 25–27.
22 Nagai Yōnosuke, Jū-kōzō shakai to bōryoku (Chūō Kōron Sha, 1971), 233–35.
23 “Joint Statement by President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, Washington, D.C., 21st November, 1969.” Online. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2334 (accessed July 11, 2012).
24 David Sanger, “Japanese Major Suggests a Cure for Scandals,” New York Times, October 16, 1992. Sanger, then Tokyo bureau chief of the Times, naturally called the SDF “the military,” the GSDF “the army.”
25 Later the name agreed upon was UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
26 “‘Henkaku no shisō’ to wa,” Zenshū 36, 30–38.
27 From the Hanover Historical Texts Project, scanned by Jonathan Dresner, Harvard University. The translation must be official—most likely the one Occupation lawyers wrote—for all the English texts available online, including the one put out by the Japanese government, show little variance save orthographic.
28 Seiron, ed., Kenpō no ronten (Sankei Shinbun News Service, 2004), 69–70.
29 Kenpō kaisei shian no chūkan hōkoku. www.hatoyama.gr.jp/tentative_plan/1-1.html (accessed July 11, 2012).
30 Kenpō no ronten, 95.
31 Date, Saiban kiroku, 223–25.
32 “Mondai teiki,” Zenshū 36, 118–36.
33 Date, Saiban kiroku, 225.
34 “Mondai teiki,” Zenshū 36, 127.
35 The Meiji Constitution (1889) was written by considering a number of constitutions of Europe and the United States. Prewar Japanese interpreters of the Constitution differed on whether the Tennō’s sanctity and inviolability referred to his legal, political, or ethical status or whether it derived from his status equal to state (e.g., Hozumi Yatsuka). Regardless, not long after Hirohito’s declaration on January 1, 1946, that he was not a deity but a human being, the philosopher Tanabe Hajime voiced regrets, from the viewpoint of political philosophy, that Hirohito did not express his “moral” responsibility more explicitly, whereas Nanbara Shigeru, president of the Imperial University of Tokyo, suggested, on Hirohito’s birthday, that Hirohito must be feeling “most deeply” his “moral and spiritual responsibility” to his ancestors. Ienaga Saburō, Nion kindai kenpō shisōshi kenkyū (Iwanami Shoten, 1967), 204. A statement expressing his “profound regrets under heaven” for having allowed “unprecedented calamities” to occur because of his “lack of virtue” was prepared sometime in late 1948, but it was not made public because of dissension among his top aides. It was discovered and published only in the summer of 2003. Katō Kyōko, “Chin no futoku naru,” etc., Bungei Shunjū (July 2003), 96–113.
36 Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 543, 547–48.
37 William K. Bunce, Religions in Japan: Buddhism, Shinto, Christianity (Tokyo and Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1955), 108.
38 Matsufuji, Chitagiru: Mishima Yukio “kenpō kaisei,” 127–29. The draft by Mishima and the Shield Society surfaced more than three decades after the trial, in November 2003.
39 Hiraoka, Segare, 199–200.
40 Yamamoto, Mishima Yukio: Yūmon no sokoku bōei fu, 223.
41 Actually, Yamamoto published his first essay explaining his relationship to Mishima in the weekly Playboy five years after Mishima’s death, but Yōko stopped him for copyright infringement. Yamamoto, Mishima Yukio: Yūmon no sokoku bōei fu, 33, 290.
42 Date, Saiban kiroku, 162.
43 Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 548–49, 550–51.
44 Hiraoka, Segare, 107.
45 Yamamoto, Mishima Yukio: Yūmon no sokoku bōei fu, 223–38.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Hailstones, Ghouls, Golden Death
1 Saeki Shōichi, “Kaisetsu,” Endō Shūsaku, Umi to dokuyaku (Shinchōsha, 2010), 204–8.
2 Michael Gallagher, Bakudan to ichō, trans. Ōta Hiroshi (Kōdansha, 1970). The three prefaces are unpaginated. Kamagasaki was renamed, for appearance’s sake, Airin Chiku “Love-pity District.” The original English version appears not to have seen print.
3 “Bakudan to ichō jobun,” Zenshū 36, 11–12.
4 “Hatano Sōha: hito to sakuhin,” Zenshū 35, 269–76. See also Hiroaki Sato, “Hatano Sōha: 1923–1991,” Roadrunner, November 2009, vol. 9, 4.
5 “Shishū Waga te ni kieshi arare jobun,” Zenshū 36, 44–48.
6 Odakane Jirō includes Itō’s letters to Tanaka in Shijin, sono shōgai to unmei, 670–73, 706–21. One commentator has suggested that in taking up Tanaka as his “disciple” or “student,” Itō may have felt as Rilke did in writing to Franz Kappus. One sees in any event that the “refracted, elegant, sensual, profoundly intimate refinement” of her poetry—Itō’s words in his letter to her of May 29, 1943—was the opposite of what he attempted to do in his poems.
7 “Hasuda Zenmei to sono shi jobun,” Zenshū 36, 60–63.
8 Yamamoto, Mishima Yukio: Yūmon no sokoku bōei fu, 238–39.
9 Kojima, Mishima Yukio to Dan Kazuo, 31–32.
10 Ninja bugei chō, from 1959 to 1962, with its subsidiary sequel, as it were, Sasuke, from 1961 to 1966. Shirato started Kamui den in 1965 and ended it in 1971.
11 “Waga manga,” Zenshū 29, 166–69.
12 Mizuki Shigeru, Musume ni kataru otōsan no senki (Kawade Shobō
Shinsha, 1995).
13 Translation of Sanmoto Gorōzaemon tadaima taisan tsukamatsuru.
14 “Shōsetsu to wa nani ka,” Zenshū 34, 693–704, 727–31. It is Mishima’s commentary here (the latter part of Part 4) that was used as an afterword in a recent edition of Shinshū Kōketsu-jō (Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2007), 449–54. For the original tale about the “tie-dye castle,” see Watanabe Tsunaya and Nishio Kōichi, eds., Uji Shūi Monogatari (Iwanami Shoten, 1980), 376–79. The tale is supposed to describe what Jikaku the Great Teacher (Ennin, 794–864) experienced in China, in 845, when Emperor Wu tried to destroy Buddhism. Jikaku was in China to study Buddhism, from 838 to 847. In the text Kunieda quotes (59–61), the tale number was 167; in the Iwanami edition, it is numbered 170.
15 “Gekiga ni miru wakamono-ron,” Zenshū 36, 53–56.
16 “Shōsetsu to wa nani ka.” Zenshū 34, 737–42.
17 Morikawa Tatsuya, “Kaisetsu,” Akatsuki no tera (Shinchōsha, 1977), 375–77.
18 “Hatashieteinai yakusoku—watashi no naka no 25 nen.” Zenshū 36, 213.
19 Letter to Keene, Zenshū 38, 453.
20 Ibid., 448.
21 Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 558–59. As far as is known, Keene was the only person who received the postmortem letter, as it were. Dated November 26, 1970, it was, like all his other letters to Keene, in Japanese. One of Mishima’s last letters was also to a foreign scholar-translator, Ivan Morris, but it was dated November 25. The letter to Morris, which was in English, was partially quoted and discussed in the December 12, 1970, issue of the New Yorker. Morris went on to write The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan, 1975, and dedicated the book to Mishima. Readers of the kind Mishima wanted to have surely appeared. For example, the New York Times on May 12, 1974, carried an article, “The Decay of the Angel,” Alan Friedman’s great appreciation of the tetralogy. Friedman took the occasion of reviewing the fourth volume, translated by Edward G. Seidensticker, to discuss the entire cycle, The Sea of Fertility.
22 “Tennin gosui sōsaku note,” Zenshū 14, 652.
23 Kawaguchi Hisao, ed. and annot., Wakan rōei shū (Iwanami Shoten, 1976), 254–55. Also, the first episode in the Konjaku monogatari (Tales Ancient and Modern), compiled in the early twelfth century. Mishima said Seidensticker suggested the title Tennin gosui. Scott-Stokes, Life and Death of Yukio Mishima, 21. Tokuoka Takao thought that the same Iwanami Wakan rōei shū he lent Mishima while in Bangkok in the fall of 1967 may have had something to do with the choice of the title, although he also did not fail to note of course that Mishima was thoroughly familiar with Japanese classics. Tokuoka, Gosui no hito, 143–47. For the first edition of Tennin gosui, Yōko designed the cover.
24 “Kaisetsu,” Zenshū 36, 164–78.
25 Shibusawa, Mishima Yukio: Oboegaki, 183.
26 Shimizu Yoshinori, “Tanizaki bungaku no jikken-bo,” Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, Konjiki no shi (Kōdansha, 2005), 242–43.
27 “Kaisetsu.” Zenshū 36, 80–96.
28 Shimizu Yoshinori, “Tanizaki bungaku no jikken-bo,” 245–48.
29 “Jo,” Zenshū 36, 208–10.
30 Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 559–60.
31 Ibid., 563–64. “Hatashieteinai yakusoku—watashi no naka no 25nen,” Zenshū 36, 214–15.
Chapter Thirty: Toward Ichigaya
1 As noted elsewhere, most of the court proceedings are collected in Date, Saiban kiroku.
2 Nosaka, Kakuyaku-taru gyakkō, 93–94, 108.
3 Hosaka, Mishima Yukio to Tate no Kai jiken, 277.
4 “Inagaki Taruho shō,” Zenshū 35, 667.
5 Blog: Jack no danwashitsu, http://jack4afric.exblog.jp/7244855 (accessed July 11, 2012). When Inagaki said it is not clear.
6 “Taruho no sekai,” Shibusawa, Mishima Yukio: Oboegaki, 184–85.
7 Inagaki Taruho zenshū, vol. 4 (Chikuma Shobō, 2000), 139, 169. Whether these passages were in the edition Mishima recommended for “the grand prize” cannot be readily ascertained. The version in Inagaki Taruho zenshū, vol. 4, is the one “expanded and corrected” twice after receiving the prize.
8 “Shidō ni tsuite—Ishihara Shintarō e no kōkaijō.” Zenshū 36, 179–82.
9 “‘Seishinteki dandyism desu yo’—gendaijin no rule.” Zenshū 36, 187–201.
10 “‘Koritsu’ no susume.” Zenshū 36, 183–91. “You seek power, I seek loyalty” is likely a brief restatement of a passage in Shōin’s letter dated 16th of First Month, 6th year of Ansei (1859), addressee unknown. Yoshida Tsunekichi et al., eds., Yoshida Shōin, vol. 61 of Nihon Shisō Taikei (Iwanami Shoten, 1978), 285. For Shōin and death, 315. The age thirty here is by lunar counting. It was also to Yajirō that he talked about the importance of transcending death. Tokutomi Sohō, Yoshida Shōin (Iwanami Shoten, 1981; originally 1883), 168. The relevant part of Shōin’s letter to Yajirō quoted reads: “The various friends of mine resident in Edo, such as Kusaka [Genzui: 1840–64], Nakatami [Shōsuke: 1828–62], and Takasugi [Shinsaku: 1839–67] all differ from me in our views. Where we differ, I intend to seek loyalty; my various friends intend to seek power. However, each person has a good point, and I am not saying my friends are no good. Practically all the people under heaven intend to seek power. Only I and several comrades intend to seek loyalty. We are deficient in power, while in excess of loyalty.” Yoshida Shōin, 285, 636, and (for Kyōfu no sho) 581–86.
11 Date, Saiban kiroku, 216–17.
12 Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 562–63.
13 Eight years later, Hori denied that the tapes, though he duly delivered them to Satō, were to be considered in a cabinet conference, or that Nakasone wrote a letter to block its considerations. Zenshū 36, 691.
14 Letter to Yamamoto, August 10, 1970, Zenshū 38, 946–47.
15 “Bushidō to gunkokushugi” and “Seikigun to fuseikigun,” Zenshū 36, 247–70.
16 Itasaka, Kyokusetsu: Mishima Yukio, 266–67.
17 Takahashi, Tomodachi no tsukurikata, 143–44.
18 Muramatsu, Mishima Yukio no sekai, 565–69.
19 Nakamura, Resshi to yobareru otoko, 187. Andō, “Nichiroku,” 404.
20 “Sensō eiga to yakuza eiga,” with Ishidō’s afterword, in Yamauchi., Mishima Yukio eiga-ron shūsei, 584–95.
21 “Jo,” Zenshū 36, 363–65.
22 Hiraoka, Segare, 26.
23 “Haretsu no tame ni shūchū suru,” Zenshū 40, 723.
24 “Mudai,” Zenshū 36, 371–72. For the Tokyo Shimnbun interview, 693–94.
25 “Petronius-saku ‘Satyricon,’” Zenshū 27, 668.
26 Hiraoka, Segare, 188.
27 Scott-Stokes, Life and Death of Yukio Mishima, 23–25. Mishima’s letter to Scott-Stokes, Zenshū 38, 650.
28 Imai, Taishō Democracy, 413–17.
29 Letter to Date, Zenshū 38, 674–75, and Date, Saiban kiroku, 13–15; letter to Tokuoka, in Tokuoka, Gosui no hito, 245–47.
30 Andō, “Nichiroku,” 406.
31 “Mudai,” Zenshū 36, 401.
32 Yoshida Tsuyuko, ed., “Gyokusai sōshireikan” no e-tegami (Shōgakukan, 2002), 158.
33 “Jo (Innami Kiyoshi cho Bajutsu tokuhon),” Zenshū 36, 381–87.
34 Letter to Shimizu, Zenshū 38, 628–29.
Chapter Thirty-One: The Seppuku
1 Nathan, Mishima, 267.
2 Nosaka, Kakuyaku-taru gyakkō, 58–59.
3 Saitō Kōichi, “Finder of naka no Mishima-san,” geppō, Zenshū 24, 4.
4 Dower, Embracing Defeat, 88–89 and elsewhere.
5 “Mishima Yukio: Saigo no kotoba,” Zenshū 40, 739–82. Nakajima Kenji’s recollections, 797.
6 Tokuoka, Gosui no hito, 271–76.
7 Letter to Bōjō, Zenshū 38, 875–76.
8 Quoted by Andō Takeshi in “Nichiroku.” Letters to Murakami are not included in Zenshū 38.
9 MIT Classics. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html (accessed July 11, 2012).
10 Shiine, Heibon Punch no Mishima Yukio, 260
–62.
11 Gotō Tanji and Kamada Kisaburō, eds., Taiheiki, vol. 2 (Iwanami Shoten, 1961), 159. Sato, Legends of the Samurai, 187.
12 Hiraoka, Segare, 250. For Lord Asano’s jisei, see Sato, Legends of the Samurai, 319.
13 The Man’yōshū poem is No. 61; it is attributed to a “servant’s daughter.” All that which precedes the place name Matokata, “Target Shape,” modifies it: “Target Shape (that a man gripping his arrows faces and shoots) is brilliant to behold.” The second poem is Shoku Senzai Wakashū, no. 1884.
14 Hiraoka, Segare, 242–43. Throughout his descriptions of these men’s actions and deeds, Azusa does not indicate the sources.
15 Kojima, Mishima Yukio to Dan Kazuo, 8–9.
16 Hiraoka, Segare, 12–13.
17 “Meireisho” and “Yōkyūsho,” Zenshū 36, 678–81.
18 Kojima, Mishima Yukio to Dan Kazuo, 9–12.
19 Tokuoka, Gosui no hito, 257–60.
Epilogue
1 Hiraoka, Segare, 22.
2 “Mishima Yukio sōgi aisatsu,” Kawabata Yasunari zenshū, vol. 34 (Shinchōsha, 1982), 76.
3 Hiraoka, Segare, 23.
4 Letters to Kuramochi and the Shield Society, Zenshū 38, 495–96, 672–73. Hosaka, Mishima Yukio to Tate no Kai jiken, 50–55, 304–5.
5 Yoshida Mitsuru, Chinkon senkan Yamato (Kōdansha, 1974), 325, 426. Yoshida Mitsuru, Teitoku Itō Seiichi no shōgai (Bungei Shunjū, 1977), 160–61. Sato, “Gyokusai.”
6 Looten’s poem quoted in full Japanese translation in Date, Saiban kiroku, 211–14. The original has not been ascertained. For Harriet Monroe’s poem “Nogi,” see Sato, Legends of the Samurai, 341–42.
7 For Ide Kentarō’s legal analysis of the case: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/cosmopolitanlife/29839181.html (accessed July 11, 2012).
8 Yashiro, Kishu-tachi no seishun, 213. The Shakespearean text: Alfred Harbage, ed., William Shakespeare: The Complete Works (New York: Viking), 1969, 1133. Kenneth Muir, ed., Macbeth (London: Routledge, 1992), 153.
9 Nosaka, Kakuyaku-taru gyakkō, 254.