m without any pretence
of cause; the other he invited to a hunting expedition and
treacherously shot. If Ohatsuse did not contrive the murder of Anko,
as he contrived the deaths of all others standing between himself and
the throne, a great injustice has been done to his memory.

LOYALTY

These shocking incidents are not without a relieving feature. They
furnished opportunities for the display of fine devotion. When Prince
Okusaka died for a crime of which he was wholly innocent, two of his
retainers, Naniwa no Hikaga, father and son, committed suicide in
vindication of his memory. When Prince Sakai no Kuro and Mayuwa took
refuge in the house of the o-omi Tsubura, the latter deliberately
chose death rather than surrender the fugitives. When Prince Kuro
perished, Nie-no-Sukune took the corpse in his arms and was burned
with it. When Prince Ichinobe no Oshiwa fell under the treacherous
arrow of Prince Ohatsuse, one of the former's servants embraced the
dead body and fell into such a paroxysm of grief that Ohatsuse
ordered him to be despatched. And during this reign of Yuryaku, when
Lord Otomo was killed in a fatal engagement with the Sinra troops, his
henchman, Tsumaro, crying, "My master has fallen; what avails that I
alone should remain unhurt?" threw himself into the ranks of the
enemy and perished. Loyalty to the death characterized the Japanese
in every age.

YURYAKU

This sovereign was the Ohatsuse of whose unscrupulous ambition so
much has just been heard. Some historians have described him as an
austere man, but few readers of his annals will be disposed to
endorse such a lenient verdict. He ordered that a girl, whose only
fault was misplaced affection, should have her four limbs stretched
on a tree and be roasted to death; he slew one of his stewards at a
hunt, because the man did not understand how to cut up the meat of an
animal; he removed a high official--Tasa, omi of Kibi--to a distant
post in order to possess himself of the man's wife (Waka), and he
arbitrarily and capriciously killed so many men and women that the
people called him the "Emperor of great wickedness." One act of
justice stands to his credit. The slanderer, Ne no Omi, who for the
sake of a jewelled coronet had caused the death of Prince Okusaka, as
related above, had the temerity to wear the coronet, sixteen years
subsequently, when he presided at a banquet given in honour of envoys
from China; and the beauty of the bauble having thus b