A Riverside Tragedy三条河原の悲劇
The riverbank west of Sanjo-ohashi Bridge was once reserved for the execution of criminals and the exhibition of their severed heads. One particularly tragic execution that took place on this grim site was the mass killing of some forty women and children.
The incident arose from a dispute over who would succeed the supreme ruler of Japan. This ruler, who was entering old age without an heir, had decided to appoint his nephew as his successor. But as fortune should have it, a son was born to him soon after, and, driven by covetousness and ambition, this ruler turned against the nephew to whom he had bequeathed his power.
Many theories have been put forth on what really transpired. Suffice to say that this nephew was ordered to commit the ritual act of self-disembowelment, seppuku. Following this, all of the man's wives and children were taken to the riverside and beheaded.
It was a most ghastly scene, and one which sorely grieved the citizenry of the capital.
A young man achieves greatness, winning the admiration of all, then grows old without ever having known defeat. Before he realizes, he's become blind, thinking that all the world revolves around him.
How else to describe the sad affair that has shaken our city? First, that fool couldn't sire a son, so he appointed his nephew as his successor. But when, as luck should have it, a son was born to him in old age, he came to fear his nephew, labelling him a traitor and ordering him to slit his belly and tear out his guts. Why, the whole affair is pure and utter madness!
...My heart weeps for the boy, but what can you do? Such is the way of this cruel world.
Mm? What's going on? What's all that noise I hear?
皆から崇められるほどに偉くなって、 そのあと失敗しないまま年寄りになるとさ、 もう何もかもが自分を中心に回ってると錯覚しちまって 周りが見えなくなっちまうんだ。 今回の件なんかまさにそれを象徴するような出来事だろ。 どうしても子どもができねぇから 甥っ子を後継者にしたら、そのあとに子どもができて、 邪魔になったから謀叛の罪を着せて切腹…。 正気の沙汰じゃねぇよ。 …まあ、可哀そうだがこんな世の中だ。しょうがねぇか。 ん？ どうした？ この騒ぎは何なんだよ。
What, you mean you haven't heard? Well, you know how the old man ordered his successor to commit seppuku? Well, now he wants to kill the poor soul's entire family!
And when I say all of them, I mean it... All of his wives and children. The whole bloodline. What a terrifying hold power has over that old man!
Y-You must be joking! You mean, he'd go so far as to kill innocent children? And at the Kamo River execution ground? That's a little extreme!
Ah, even thinking about that grisly scene brings tears to my eyes. That nephew of mine may have been guilty. He certainly wasn't without his faults. But now I don't know what to believe!
What I do know is that the whole affair should have ended after my nephew agreed to take his own life. Indeed, there was no reason to murder an entire family for the sake of my newborn child, or for some imagined threat to his position.
In these hard times, the only true bonds are bonds of blood. Now those bonds have been severed, and all for my darling son. Ah, I fear I have made a grave mistake, one that will surely be repaid in kind...
- Where
- Shijo Street district
- Map
- Eastern Kyoto
- Region
- Eastern Kyoto
- Hand in to
- Lady Murasaki, Yasaka Shrine
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