A book a day: Osamu Dazai: Run, Melos!

Original Language: JNumon

Títutulus original: Hashire Meros

Translation: Isami Romero

Year of publication: 1940

Valoración: Advisable

It is surprising that the author of “unworthy human being” has written such a moving story about the power of love, loyalty and determination. Dazai probably conceived it at a time of lucidity within his perennial depressive state: the reading of Friedrich Schiller’s poems (one of which directly inspires this story) can contribute clarity even to the most bleak spirit.

More than a simple inspiration, Dazai’s version is a prose adaptation of Schiller’s poem “Die Bürgschaft” (“The Promise”), which in turn takes up the legend of Damon and Pitias. In the three versions, the basic plot remains almost identical.

In the version of Dazai, when Melos is sentenced to death by a tyrant, three days of grace are granted to order his affairs. To do this, you must leave your friend as a guarantee, promising to return after those three days to comply with the sentence. His friend, without hesitation, occupies his place and is arrested. Meanwhile, Melos returns to his town to marry his sister and ensure his future. Now he has to return in time to save his friend from the crucifixion. But he will not have it so easy, fate will put obstacles on his way. Run, me!

Dazai’s adaptation is very well achieved: it maintains the feeling of urgency and suspense over the fate of both protagonists. Although the story has a clearly didactic and moralizing character, it is accepted more as a stimulant pat in the back than like a sermon. Although I have to say that of the existing versions, I continue to tilting on Schiller’s poem.

I don’t know the real motivations that led Dazai to write this story; It could well be a simple chamba to earn some yen. Be that as it may, he did an excellent job. A few years after publication, and even today, it is included in the primary and secondary textbooks with the triple purpose of teaching to read, promote moral and sentimental education, and promote the appreciation of the Japanese classics (this children’s version also recommends it to those who study Japanese as a foreign language).

The story has been published in various anthologies of Dazai stories. In addition, it has been adapted to manga, television series and animated films, of which I recommend watching the 1992 version (Link below). In Spanish, you can read in the anthology of Japanese stories “a great discovery”, by Editorial Quaterni.

I take the opportunity to also urge them to read Schiller’s poem.

Friedrich Schiller, Die Bürgschaft (1798)

Sol launches beasts without clemency,

Faced with the endless adversity

His legs falter of weakness

«From the criminal ruin, your consent fought me,

You went to atrocious flow my providence

And is it now where I have to rot

leaving my probo friend to die? »

Other works by Osamu Dazai in Ulad: unworthy of human being