RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN IN
“SHOGUN”
© 2003. Okihei Enterprise, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Tribute to Richard Chamberlain

 

 
He unfolds the letter and starts to read.
'Thou. I love thee. If this is read by thee then I am dead in Osaka and perhaps, because of me, thy ship is dead too.
I may sacrifice this most prized part of thy life because of my Faith, to safeguard my Church, but more to save thy life which is more precious to me than everything -even the interest of my Lord Toranaga. It may come to a choice my love -- thee or thy ship. I am sorry, but I choose life for thee. Thy ship is doomed anyway -- with or without thee. I will concede thy ship to thine enemy so that thou may live. This ship is nothing. Build another. This thou canst do -- were you not taught to be a builder of ships as well as a navigator of ships? I believe Lord Toranaga will give thee all the craftsmen, carpenters and metal craftsmen necessary -- he needs you and your ships -- and from my personal estate I have bequeathed thee all the money necessary. Build another ship and build another life, my love. Take next year's Black Ship, and live forever. Listen, my dear one, my Christian sould prays to see thee again in a Christian heaven -- my Japanese hara prays that in the next life I will be whatever is necessary to bring thee joy and to be with thee wherever thou art.
Forgive me -- but thy life is all important. I love thee.'

 

 

 
Toranaga sits on his horse, dressed for battle.
Below, at the shore, there is the hull of a boat in the process od being built - - Blackthorne working and directing the two hundred craftsmen. Toranaga smiles.

Narrator:
Yoshi Toranaga, Lord of the Kwanto, told himself: 'Yes, build your ship, Anjin-san, and I shall destroy her as I destroyed the other one. And when the time is right, I shall tell you why. It was your ship or your life. I, too, choose your life. You have much to teach me, Anjin-san, once I have won, if I win, when I win -- when the real prize will be won.' 'Mariko, it was your karma to die gloriously and live forever. Anjin-san, my friend, it is your karma never to leave this land. And my karma -which I did not choose -- my karma is to be Shogun.'

Toranaga wheels his horse around and starts riding down the hill.

Blackthorne is working joyously, everything about
him vibrant and alive.

 

 

 

 
Narrator:
That year, at dawn on the twenty-first day of the month, the Month without Gods, the main armies clashed. It was in the mountains near Sekigahara, astride the North Road, the weather foul -- fog, then sleet. By late afternoon Toranaga had won the battle and the slaughter began. Forty thousand heads were taken. Three days later Ishida was captured alive and Toranaga sent him in chains to Osaka
for public viewing, ordering him planted in the earth with only his head showing.
Passersby were invited to saw at the most famous neck in the realm with a bamboo saw. Ishida lingered three days and died very old.
 

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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