Hildreth's "Japan as It Was and Is": A Handbook of Old Japan, Volume 1 (of 2)Hildreth, Richard
History
Hildreth's "Japan as It Was and Is": A Handbook of Old Japan, Volume 1 (of 2)
Hildreth, Richard
Japan -- History
[48] The Letters, Briefs, and the Discourse on Obedience, above
quoted, may be found at length in Latin, in the very valuable and rich
collection, _De Rebus Japonicis Indicis_ and _Peruvianis Epistolæ
Recentiores_, edited by John Hay, of Dalgetty, a Scotch Jesuit, and a
sharp controversialist, published in 1605; in Spanish, in Father Luys
de Gusman’s _Historia de los Missiones, que han hecho los Religioses
de la Compania de Jesus, etc._, published in 1601, of which the
larger part is devoted to the Japanese mission; in Italian, in Father
Daniel Batoli’s “Historia de la Compagnia de Gesu”; and in French, in
Charlevoix’s “Histoire du Japon.” An Italian history of the mission
was printed at Rome, 1585,—the same, I suppose, of which a Latin
translation is given in Hay’s collection; and still rarer and more
valuable one at Macao, in 1590, of which a further account will be
found in a note at the end of the next chapter.
[49] The princes and nobles of Japan, and indeed most private
individuals, have certain devices embroidered on their gowns, etc.,
which the Portuguese and the missionaries compared to the armorial
bearings of Europe. [See paper on “Japanese Heraldry” in vol. v of the
Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.—EDR.]
[50] During this residence at Macao the Japanese ambassadors were
not idle. They were engaged upon a very remarkable work, printed at
Macao in 1590 in Japanese and Latin, purporting to be composed by the
ambassadors, and giving, by way of dialogue, an account not only of the
embassy, but of Japan and of all the countries, European and Oriental,
which they had visited. The Latin title is _De Missione Legatorum
Japonensium ad Romanam curiam, rebusque in Europa ac toto in itinere
animadversis, Dialogus, etc._—“A Dialogue concerning the Japanese
Embassy to the Court of Rome, and the things observed in Europe and on
the whole journey, collected from the journal of the ambassadors, and
rendered into Latin by Ed. de Laude, priest of the Society of Jesus.”
It is from this work, though he does not give the title of it, that
Hackluyt extracted the “Excellent Treatise of the Kingdom of China and
of the Estate and Government thereof,” contained in his second volume,
and of which he speaks in his epistle dedicatory to that volume, first
published in 1599, as “the most exact account of those parts that is
yet come to light.” “It was printed,” he tells us, “in Latin, in Makoa,
a city of China, in China paper, in the year 1590, and was intercepted
in the great carac Madre de Dios, two years after, enclosed in a case
of sweet cedar wood, and lapped up almost a hundred fold in fine
Calicut cloth, as though it had been some incomparable jewel.”
[51] This letter, with the reply in the next chapter, is given by
Froez, from whom Gusman has copied them.
[52] Letters from the ambassadors to Sixtus V, written at Nagasaki
after their arrival there, and giving an account of their voyage home,
may be found in Hay’s collection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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