Songs of the Righteous Spirit: “Men of High Purpose” and Their ...

150 MATTHEW FRALEIGHlife-like vividness in my mind’s eye. By nature, I am prone to sickness. Lastyear, when it was time for me to follow my lord [Nariaki]’s carriage andcome [to Edo], I happened to be suffering from a cold, but I toughed it outand departed. When my lord ran afoul of the authorities, I too was orderedinto confinement. Drafty windows and a leaky room leave me assailed bydank and malevolent airs. Thin robes and sparse food make my hunger andcold extreme. The bitter toils and harsh difficulties I face are not those thatthe average man could endure. And yet, I have suddenly recovered from mylong-standing illness, and my physical stamina is superb. That I am able tohold my head up and cast my gaze around the world, recklessly arraying myselfalongside the ancients, I think is in large part due to Wen Tianxiang’ssong.Fujita Tōko’s decision to write a substantial preface itself emphasizeshis indebtedness to Wen Tianxiang, and the textually mediated salvationhe finds toward the end of this first section echoes the statement inWen Tianxiang’s preface about how the poet overcomes the fetid vaporsof his confinement through reliance on cultivating the Righteous Spiritthat he identifies with the Mencian “flood-like qi.” Like Wen Tianxiang,Tōko writes that he has been able to achieve some degree of psychologicalrelease from his trying circumstances through his faith in a “righteousspirit.” In writing the poem, Tōko had another agenda, however:to insist upon the particularity, and indeed the superiority, of the Japanese“righteous spirit.” His preface continues:When Tianxiang met with the toppling of the Song state, he was taken prisonerby the Mongols. Truly this was a great crisis in the life of a vassal. Myconfinement, on the other hand, is no more than a temporary and aberrantmisfortune. And so both our circumstances and accomplishments aregreatly dissimilar. But as someone of old once said, “Life and death are greataffairs.”81 Now, my travails have come to this point. But it seems that peopleare still unsatisfied with this and say “Why is he not given leave to commitsuicide?” or “Why does he not hurry up and take his own life?” This is whyI can say that I spend my days now on the border between life and death.Moreover, in my stubborn refusal to change, in my self-confidence thatgrows ever stronger, there is no dissimilarity between me and Tian xiang.81In Zhuangzi V, these words are attributed to Confucius; see Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings,trans. Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 64.