Bushido - Inazo Nitobe (color ebook reader TXT) 📗
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symbol of what he carries in his mind and heart—Loyalty and Honor. The
two swords, the longer and the shorter—called respectively daito and
shoto or katana and wakizashi—never leave his side. When at home,
they grace the most conspicuous place in study or parlor; by night they
guard his pillow within easy reach of his hand. Constant companions,
they are beloved, and proper names of endearment given them. Being
venerated, they are well-nigh worshiped. The Father of History has
recorded as a curious piece of information that the Scythians sacrificed
to an iron scimitar. Many a temple and many a family in Japan hoards a
sword as an object of adoration. Even the commonest dirk has due respect
paid to it. Any insult to it is tantamount to personal affront. Woe to
him who carelessly steps over a weapon lying on the floor!
[Footnote 23: The game of go is sometimes called Japanese checkers,
but is much more intricate than the English game. The go-board
contains 361 squares and is supposed to represent a battle-field—the
object of the game being to occupy as much space as possible.]
So precious an object cannot long escape the notice and the skill of
artists nor the vanity of its owner, especially in times of peace, when
it is worn with no more use than a crosier by a bishop or a sceptre by a
king. Shark-skin and finest silk for hilt, silver and gold for guard,
lacquer of varied hues for scabbard, robbed the deadliest weapon of half
its terror; but these appurtenances are playthings compared with the
blade itself.
The swordsmith was not a mere artisan but an inspired artist and his
workshop a sanctuary. Daily he commenced his craft with prayer and
purification, or, as the phrase was, “he committed his soul and spirit
into the forging and tempering of the steel.” Every swing of the sledge,
every plunge into water, every friction on the grindstone, was a
religious act of no slight import. Was it the spirit of the master or of
his tutelary god that cast a formidable spell over our sword? Perfect as
a work of art, setting at defiance its Toledo and Damascus rivals, there
is more than art could impart. Its cold blade, collecting on its surface
the moment it is drawn the vapors of the atmosphere; its immaculate
texture, flashing light of bluish hue; its matchless edge, upon which
histories and possibilities hang; the curve of its back, uniting
exquisite grace with utmost strength;—all these thrill us with mixed
feelings of power and beauty, of awe and terror. Harmless were its
mission, if it only remained a thing of beauty and joy! But, ever within
reach of the hand, it presented no small temptation for abuse. Too often
did the blade flash forth from its peaceful sheath. The abuse sometimes
went so far as to try the acquired steel on some harmless creature’s
neck.
The question that concerns us most is, however,—Did Bushido justify
the promiscuous use of the weapon? The answer is unequivocally, no! As
it laid great stress on its proper use, so did it denounce and abhor its
misuse. A dastard or a braggart was he who brandished his weapon on
undeserved occasions. A self-possessed man knows the right time to use
it, and such times come but rarely. Let us listen to the late Count
Katsu, who passed through one of the most turbulent times of our
history, when assassinations, suicides, and other sanguinary practices
were the order of the day. Endowed as he once was with almost
dictatorial powers, repeatedly marked out as an object for
assassination, he never tarnished his sword with blood. In relating some
of his reminiscences to a friend he says, in a quaint, plebeian way
peculiar to him:—“I have a great dislike for killing people and so I
haven’t killed one single man. I have released those whose heads should
have been chopped off. A friend said to me one day, ‘You don’t kill
enough. Don’t you eat pepper and egg-plants?’ Well, some people are no
better! But you see that fellow was slain himself. My escape may be due
to my dislike of killing. I had the hilt of my sword so tightly fastened
to the scabbard that it was hard to draw the blade. I made up my mind
that though they cut me, I will not cut. Yes, yes! some people are truly
like fleas and mosquitoes and they bite—but what does their biting
amount to? It itches a little, that’s all; it won’t endanger life.”
These are the words of one whose Bushido training was tried in the fiery
furnace of adversity and triumph. The popular apothegm—“To be beaten is
to conquer,” meaning true conquest consists in not opposing a riotous
foe; and “The best won victory is that obtained without shedding of
blood,” and others of similar import—will show that after all the
ultimate ideal of knighthood was Peace.
It was a great pity that this high ideal was left exclusively to priests
and moralists to preach, while the samurai went on practicing and
extolling martial traits. In this they went so far as to tinge the
ideals of womanhood with Amazonian character. Here we may profitably
devote a few paragraphs to the subject of
THE TRAINING AND POSITION OFWOMAN.
The female half of our species has sometimes been called the paragon of
paradoxes, because the intuitive working of its mind is beyond the
comprehension of men’s “arithmetical understanding.” The Chinese
ideogram denoting “the mysterious,” “the unknowable,” consists of two
parts, one meaning “young” and the other “woman,” because the physical
charms and delicate thoughts of the fair sex are above the coarse mental
calibre of our sex to explain.
In the Bushido ideal of woman, however, there is little mystery and only
a seeming paradox. I have said that it was Amazonian, but that is only
half the truth. Ideographically the Chinese represent wife by a woman
holding a broom—certainly not to brandish it offensively or defensively
against her conjugal ally, neither for witchcraft, but for the more
harmless uses for which the besom was first invented—the idea involved
being thus not less homely than the etymological derivation of the
English wife (weaver) and daughter (_duhitar_, milkmaid). Without
confining the sphere of woman’s activity to Küche, Kirche, Kinder, as
the present German Kaiser is said to do, the Bushido ideal of womanhood
was preeminently domestic. These seeming contradictions—Domesticity and
Amazonian traits—are not inconsistent with the Precepts of Knighthood,
as we shall see.
Bushido being a teaching primarily intended for the masculine sex, the
virtues it prized in woman were naturally far from being distinctly
feminine. Winckelmann remarks that “the supreme beauty of Greek art is
rather male than female,” and Lecky adds that it was true in the moral
conception of the Greeks as in their art. Bushido similarly praised
those women most “who emancipated themselves from the frailty of their
sex and displayed an heroic fortitude worthy of the strongest and the
bravest of men.”[24] Young girls therefore, were trained to repress
their feelings, to indurate their nerves, to manipulate
weapons,—especially the long-handled sword called nagi-nata, so as to
be able to hold their own against unexpected odds. Yet the primary
motive for exercises of this martial character was not for use in the
field; it was twofold—personal and domestic. Woman owning no suzerain
of her own, formed her own bodyguard. With her weapon she guarded her
personal sanctity with as much zeal as her husband did his master’s. The
domestic utility of her warlike training was in the education of her
sons, as we shall see later.
[Footnote 24: Lecky, History of European Morals II, p. 383.]
Fencing and similar exercises, if rarely of practical use, were a
wholesome counterbalance to the otherwise sedentary habits of woman. But
these exercises were not followed only for hygienic purposes. They could
be turned into use in times of need. Girls, when they reached womanhood,
were presented with dirks (_kai-ken_, pocket poniards), which might be
directed to the bosom of their assailants, or, if advisable, to their
own. The latter was very often the case: and yet I will not judge them
severely. Even the Christian conscience with its horror of
self-immolation, will not be harsh with them, seeing Pelagia and
Domnina, two suicides, were canonized for their purity and piety. When a
Japanese Virginia saw her chastity menaced, she did not wait for her
father’s dagger. Her own weapon lay always in her bosom. It was a
disgrace to her not to know the proper way in which she had to
perpetrate self-destruction. For example, little as she was taught in
anatomy, she must know the exact spot to cut in her throat: she must
know how to tie her lower limbs together with a belt so that, whatever
the agonies of death might be, her corpse be found in utmost modesty
with the limbs properly composed. Is not a caution like this worthy of
the Christian Perpetua or the Vestal Cornelia? I would not put such an
abrupt interrogation, were it not for a misconception, based on our
bathing customs and other trifles, that chastity is unknown among
us.[25] On the contrary, chastity was a preeminent virtue of the
samurai woman, held above life itself. A young woman, taken prisoner,
seeing herself in danger of violence at the hands of the rough soldiery,
says she will obey their pleasure, provided she be first allowed to
write a line to her sisters, whom war has dispersed in every direction.
When the epistle is finished, off she runs to the nearest well and saves
her honor by drowning. The letter she leaves behind ends with these
verses;—
“For fear lest clouds may dim her light,
Should she but graze this nether sphere,
The young moon poised above the height
Doth hastily betake to flight.”
[Footnote 25: For a very sensible explanation of nudity and bathing see
Finck’s Lotos Time in Japan, pp. 286-297.]
It would be unfair to give my readers an idea that masculinity alone was
our highest ideal for woman. Far from it! Accomplishments and the
gentler graces of life were required of them. Music, dancing and
literature were not neglected. Some of the finest verses in our
literature were expressions of feminine sentiments; in fact, women
played an important role in the history of Japanese belles lettres.
Dancing was taught (I am speaking of samurai girls and not of geisha)
only to smooth the angularity of their movements. Music was to regale
the weary hours of their fathers and husbands; hence it was not for the
technique, the art as such, that music was learned; for the ultimate
object was purification of heart, since it was said that no harmony of
sound is attainable without the player’s heart being in harmony with
herself. Here again we see the same idea prevailing which we notice in
the training of youths—that accomplishments were ever kept subservient
to moral worth. Just enough of music and dancing to add grace and
brightness to life, but never to foster vanity and extravagance. I
sympathize with the Persian prince, who, when taken into a ball-room in
London and asked to take part in the merriment, bluntly remarked that in
his country they provided a particular set of girls to do that kind of
business for them.
The accomplishments of our women were not acquired for show or social
ascendency. They were a home diversion; and if they shone in social
parties, it was as the attributes of a hostess,—in other words, as a
part of the household contrivance for hospitality. Domesticity guided
their education. It may be said that the accomplishments of the women
of Old
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