The Poetry of the Grave

meifumadō aka "The Road to Hell"

"I have decided to escape, to defy the shogun. Today I will begin walking the road to hell. But you will choose your own path. So, soon you may be seeing heaven. Choose the sword, and you will join me. Choose the ball and you join your mother, in death. You don’t understand my words, but you must choose. So… come boy, choose life or death!"
- Ogami Ittō

Epilogue - The Lone Wolf and Cub
It's not yet winter, and not yet dawn. Black, dead branches rattle like dried bones, slapped by an icy wind. Curled, crumbling leaves whisper down a narrow mountain path. A pebble pops beneath a wooden wheel. Grey as the sky behind him, a man approaches, pushing a rough-hewn cart. The path is steep, but his step is steady. Somewhere in the darkness, something breathes. The man pauses, his black eyes fixed on the sound. Hidden until now by the filthy folds of his robes, his right hand rests lightly on his belt, thumb poised just below his sword's hilt. He almost smiles. In the cart a boy, a baby, sleeps, silent and unafraid.

Bushidō, The Warrior's Way
In Japan, centuries before the atom bomb, a weapon came into use that changed every aspect of Japanese life, from the shape of it's social structure to the nature of Japanese moral, philosophical, and religious thought. It was made by pounding, flattening, and folding a piece of red-hot steel so many times that each layer was many times thinner than a human hair, creating a blade sharper than any the world has seen, before or since. Those trained in its use were the power in the land, the warrior class, the samurai.
For dozens of generations, war was a constant in Japan, and the samurai ruled, and the sword was worshipped. A system of samurai ethics and philosophy formed, called bushido, or the warrior's way. Bushido gave to each kind of sword stroke a particular mystical context, and demanded that a samurai's soul be as sharp and perfect and merciless as the blade of his katana.
Bushido persisted, in fact flourished and was greatly embroidered, after the warlord Tokugawa united the provinces of Japan under a military dictatorship, bringing an end to the wars, casting samurai by the thousands into the shameful state of unemployment. They were ronin, the masterless samurai. They became beggars, drunks, and assassins, shunned and feared. Many committed ritual suicide. Many others threatened to do so at the houses of wealthy lords, embarrassing the lords into giving them money or food. More than ever, their swords were all that they had.

Seppuku, The Ritual Suicide
Their code of ethics and philosophy demanded that the samurai seek death before shame, and to feel no pain; suicide through this method of self-torture appealed greatly to the same fatalism that made the samurai so nearly invincible in combat.
It became wrapped in layers of etiquette and piled high in ceremony. By the time the Shogun institutionalized seppuku as the predominant form of samurai execution, it had become a solemn spectacle, witnessed by hundreds, with its every intricate detail a piece of precious tradition. Snow-white tatami mats were protected by red velvet. The samurai tucked his sleeves under his knees to prevent him from falling backward and disemboweled himself with a beautiful dagger, crafted for a single use. Another samurai, an executioner with the skill of a surgeon, would cleave the samurai's head from his shoulders, preferably leaving a flap of skin at his throat uncut so that the head would not roll across the floor.