The Martyred Mother i.m. Hashimoto Tecla and her children, Kyoto, 1619 AD   I speak not of the other four children who were condemned with her, nor even of the newest child in her womb, but only of the smallest one bound to her bosom.   One might have imagined the rope would burn through fast so the baby’s body would fall away from hers—slump free from the torso to which it was tied as if to a stake.   And yet it seems the persecutors’ cord bore the flames better than the martyrs’ flesh. Perhaps they had soaked that…