“The Abe Family” first saw print in the Fall-Winter 1977 issue of St. Andrews Review. I wish to thank Ron Bayes, founder and editor of SAR, a gallant magazine which fulfilled its mission and folded in late 1991.
Part of the Introduction and the section on Oda Nobunaga were originally a speech entitled “The Samurai and Poetry,” given on February 19,1992, at Cornell University.
For the English translations of official titles I generally followed Ivan Morris in The Pillow Book of Sei Sh
nagon, vol. 2. But where I found his equivalent unacceptable, as in calling the second-ranking officer in the Imperial Police “assistant
director,” I devised my own. For different translations of certain titles, see Karl Friday’s book on the early samurai, Hired Swords.
Of many such titles that appear in the accounts, “governor” (kami) must be viewed with the most caution. At first designating someone appointed to head a province, governorship was a position of substantial revenues and prestige perhaps until the early twelfth century. Thereafter the title gradually lost substance and became nominal until, with sporadic exceptions, it all but lost the original sense of governance. The reader should not be surprised to see “governor” attached to some of the men working for warlords.
Many of the stories, accounts, and arguments cited in this book are accompanied by running commentary, as well as notes. Some historical facts and other background information, such as the birth and death dates of the people concerned, are repeated so as to make each context easy to understand.
In most instances brackets indicate that the information given in them–be it date, name, or note–is supplied by me.
In giving dates before the mid-nineteenth century I have followed the custom of rendering the lunar calendar in English-for example, “the first month” rather than “January” as in the solar calendar. I have given Japanese and Chinese names as they are given in Japan and China, family name first.
In the old days Japanese of rank and status usually had more than one name. At times any of the personal names and the family name were used interchangeably, without gaining or losing respectability, as in the case of Kusunoki Masashige, who is sometimes called by the family name, Kusunoki, sometimes by his personal name, Masashige.
I wish to thank Kinoshita Tetsuo, Hirata Takako, Fujii Sadakazu, and Fujii Misako for acquiring necessary texts and books, and Deborah Baker and Jessika Hegewisch, my earlier editors on this book at The Overlook Press, for reading initial sections of the manuscript. Nancy Rossiter read the manuscript as it was completed chapter by chapter. She also prepared the maps on the basis of one of the maps in Hired Swords, with permission of Stanford University Press. Kyoko Selden read the finished manuscript and gave me helpful comments; so did my meticulous editor friend, Eleanor Wolff.
I thank Murakami Tamotsu for preparing the picture depicting Kusunoki Masashige for the cover and six illustrations.
Above all, Robert Fagan spent many days and nights on the manuscript for a period stretching over eight years. I am grateful that he never gave up.