"Dwarf Trees" from Izaak Titsingh's Book


       Izaak Titsingh (1744-1812) was director of the Dutch East India Company Deshima Island factory (trading post) at Nagasaki for three periods between 1779 and his retirement to Europe in 1784.  He was the first director of Deshima to interest himself deeply in Japanese science and letters, or at least, to pass on any information by publication in Europe or by bringing important collections.  He had planned extensive publication of the Japanese art, maps, prints, and books which he had collected, accompanied in part by free translations into Dutch.  These he wrote from the dictation of five Japanese translators at Deshima.  Titsingh died in Paris, however, with most of his designs unaccomplished.  The spendthrift European son who inherited his books and manuscripts dispersed them widely, but some did end up in the possession of appreciative owners.  1
       Illustrations of Japan (1822):

       One of Titsingh's specimens, a short poem upon the murder of Yamasiro, a councillor of state, is rather more poetical, containing allusions to old stories or legends, and exemplifying the play upon words said to be characteristic of Japanese poetry.  The President, or, rather his French translator, has added to his Dutch a Latin version, professedly literal, and no longer than the original, for which reason we shall give our English version from the latter.  It should be premised, that the constituent parts of the murdered person's name being yama, "mountain," and siro, "castle," afford a happy opportunity for punning.
       "That the young councillor is cut off at the castle on the hill by a new guard, exciting a tumult, I have just heard.
       "Yamasiro's white robe being dyed with blood, all behold in him the reddening councillor.
       "Along the eastern way, through the village Sanno, the rushing waters poured, burst the dike of the swamp, and the mountain-castle fell.
       "The precious trees planted in vases, the plum-trees and cherry-trees beautiful with their blossoms, who threw them into the fire? 
       "Twas Sanno cut them down. (This alludes to an old story [Hachi-no-ki] of one Sanno's unbounded hospitality, though reduced to extreme indigence.)
       "Cut down is the insane councillor.  We might say, had such things been heard of, that this was the chastisement of Heaven."  2 

NOTES

1     Bartlett, Harley Harris and Hide Shohara   Japanese Botany During the Period of Wood-block Printing (Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop; 1961. Reprinted from ASA GRAY BULLETIN, N.S. 3: 289-561, Spring, 1961), pp. 7.  Other directors of Deshima around this time who have also left writings  -- which have not yet been examined for this present history -- include Hendrich Doeff (1777-1835), director from 1803-1817, with Reflections of Japan in 1833 and Germain Felix Meylan (1785-1831, also spelled "Meijlan"), director from 1825-1831, with Japan, presented in sketches... in 1830.

2      Siebold, Dr. Philipp Franz von   Manners and Customs of the Japanese [in the Nineteenth Century from the accounts of Dutch residents in Japan and from the German work of] (Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company; 1973.  Second printing 1977.  First edition, 1841 by Harper & Brothers, New York), pp. 215-216.  There is a Sanno Pass which lies northwest of Mt. Nantai, west of Nikko.  (Same as Sano no Watari, a ford in Yamato?)  A village named Sano is southeast of Mt. Fuji between Mt. Ashidaka and Mt. Hakone near the Kisegawa river.

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