Bushido, Inazo Nitobe [top rated ebook readers .txt] 📗

vain.” What he carries in his belt is a

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 OF

WOMAN.

 

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