The Abe Family — Summary and Characters

About this work

One of Mori Ōgai's major historical stories, published in the magazine Chūō Kōron in January 1913. When Hosokawa Tadatoshi, lord of Kumamoto in Higo, dies, his retainers follow him in death one after another — all but the old retainer Abe Yaichiemon, who alone is refused permission, and whose family is destroyed between the demands of samurai honour and the order of the domain. Written in the spare manner of a historical record, with feeling kept out, it shows coldly how a feudal code closes in on individuals.

Summary

Characters

• Abe Yaichiemon　An old retainer of the Hosokawa, who takes it as a disgrace not to be allowed to follow his lord in death, and cuts himself open
• Hosokawa Tadatoshi　Lord of Higo Kumamoto, who dies without granting Yaichiemon leave to follow him
• Hosokawa Mitsunao　Tadatoshi's successor, who holds the Abe in disfavor and later orders their destruction
• Abe Gonbei　Yaichiemon's eldest son, whose protest at his father's dishonor sets off the destruction of the family

Chapter-by-chapter synopsis

The app covers this work chapter by chapter (full text in the app).

1. 1. About This Work
2. 2. Main Characters
3. 3. Major Supporting Characters
4. 4. The Lord's Death and the Rules of Following Him
5. 5. The Death of the Eighteen — Chōjūrō and Gosuke the Dog Handler
6. 6. The Petition Refused — Yaichiemon and Tadatoshi
7. 7. “Grease a Gourd and Cut It” — The Suicide Without Permission
8. 8. The Division of the Inheritance — Hayashi Geki's Proposal
9. 9. The Topknot and the Strangling — Incense at the First Anniversary
10. 10. The Barricade — Emoto Matashichirō Next Door
11. 11. The Attack — The Twenty-First of the Fourth Month, Kan'ei 19
12. 12. Aftermath — Rewards and Punishments
13. 13. Key Motifs and Foreshadowing

The opening (original text)

Hosokawa Tadatoshi, Junior Fourth Rank Lower, Lesser Captain of the Left Guards and Governor of Etchū, in the spring of the eighteenth year of Kan'ei, the year of the metal snake, was about to leave behind the blossoms of his fief of Higo, which open earlier there than elsewhere, and set out for Edo on his attendance journey, moving north with the spring, front and rear enclosed by the splendid procession of a lord of five hundred and forty thousand koku, when he unexpectedly fell ill; and as the prescriptions of his physicians took no effect and he grew heavier day by day, couriers were sent to postpone the departure for Edo. The Tokugawa shogun was the third, Iemitsu, who bore a high name as a wise ruler; and being concerned for Tadatoshi, who had rendered great service at the Shimabara rising by cutting down the rebel general Amakusa Shirō Tokisada, he had a message drawn up on the twentieth of the third month over the joint names of Matsudaira Izu-no-kami, Abe Bungo-no-kami and Abe Tsushima-no-kami, and sent down from Kyoto an acupuncturist named Isaku. On the twenty-second he sent as his envoy a samurai named Soga Matazaemon, bearing another message signed by the same three councillors. As the treatment of a great lord by the shogun's house it was courtesy carried to its limit. Since the pacification of Shimabara in the spring of the fifteenth year of Kan'ei, three years before, the shogun's house had granted him additional ground for his Edo residence and sent him cranes from the hawking, and had shown him every attention; so it was natural enough that on hearing of this grave illness it should offer every sympathy that precedent allowed.

The Abe Family by Mori Ōgai (Aozora Bunko)

The ending (original text)

Hata Jūdayū was banished. Takeuchi Kazuma's elder brother Hachibei, who had joined the attacking party on his own account but was not present at the place where his brother fell, was ordered confined to his house. And a certain man, the son of a mounted guard and serving as an attendant, lived near the Abe house, and had been excused from duty with the words "see to the fires"; he had gone up on the roof with his father and put out the flying sparks. Realizing later that he had gone against the intention behind his being excused, he asked to be dismissed; but Mitsunao said, "That is not cowardice; be a little more careful hereafter," and kept him in service. This attendant followed Mitsunao in death when Mitsunao died. The bodies of the Abe family were brought out to Ide-no-kuchi and examined. When each man's wounds were washed in the Shirakawa, the wound of Yagobei, whose breastplate had been run through by Emoto Matashichirō's spear, was finer than any other wound there; and so Matashichirō's honor was greater than ever.

The Abe Family by Mori Ōgai (Aozora Bunko)

Famous passages

Hosokawa Tadatoshi, Junior Fourth Rank, Lower Grade, Minor Captain of the Left Palace Guards and Governor of Ecchū, left behind, in the spring of the eighteenth year of Kan'ei, the flowers of his domain of Higo, which bloomed earlier than anywhere else, and set out flanked before and behind by the resplendent procession befitting a lord of five hundred and forty thousand koku

An opening that begins with a weighty sentence stringing together court ranks and titles. It is a representative historical work of Ōgai's, moving toward the destruction of the Abe family, who were denied permission to follow their lord in death.

Read the original

The original Japanese text is available at Aozora Bunko, and the app downloads the same text for its vertical-text reader.

Aozora Bunko library card

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