Samurai fihic
Modern Japan
YUKIO MISHIMA
on HAGAKURE
translated from the Japanese by
Kathryn Sparling
Charles E. Tuttle Company
Tokyo,Japan
Hagakure
Is Alive Today
"The ultimate love I believe to be secret love.
Once shared, love shrinks in stature. T o pine away
for love all one's years, to die of love without
uttering the beloved's name, this is the true meaning
of love." (Book T w o )
(bntemporary Youth Infatuated with the Cardin Look
During the twenty years immediately following the war, Japan
began to transform herself into exactly the condition that
Hagakure had foreseen. There were no longer any samurai in
Japan, there was no war, the economy was reviving, all was
overflowing with a mood of peace; youth was bored. Hagakure,
It) repeat, is basically a paradoxical book. When Hagakure says,
"The flower is red," public opinion says, "The flower is white."
When Hagakure says, "One must not follow this course,"
15
M Y HAGAKURE
this course is exactly what the world at large is eagerly pursuing.
Everything considered, behind that austere book Hagakure
there lie social conditions and public opinions contrary
to its contents'. These conditions are the response that in any
age the Japanese people have made to peacetime existence.
Here is one familiar example of this phenomenon. Certainly^today
is not the first time that men's fashions have
flourished as though to outshine women's fashions. The sight
of today's young men infatuated with the Cardin look is no
novelty in Japanese history. I n the Genroku Period (Jocho
abandoned his worldly life to live in seclusion during the
thirteenth year of Genroku, 1700), not only in clothing but
extending even to the design of the swords they carried, their
sword guards, and the dagger attached to the scabbard, a fashion
for ornateness and dazzling splendor captivated the hearts
of men. One look at the showy appurtenances and splendid
16
Hagakure Is Alive Today
pastimes depicted in the genre scrolls of Moronobu Hishikawa
{ukiyoe artist of the early Edo Period) is enough to imagine
I he- luxury of that age, influenced by the sumptuous culture
1 >f the merchants and townsmen.
Today, i f you go to a jazz coffeehouse and speak with teen.ij^ers
or young people i n their twenties, you will find that
lliey talk of absolutely nothing but how to dress smartly and
Kit a stylish figure. I once had the following experience. Having
walked into a modern jazz cafe, I had no sooner seated
myself at a table than a youth at the next table began to crossexamine
me: " D i d you have those shoes made? Where did you
have them made? And your cuflSinks, where did you buy
lliem? Where did you get the material for that suit? Who is
your tailor?" He asked me one question after another in quick
succession. Another youth, who was with the first, began giving
him a hard time: ""Hey, cut it put. You sound like a beggar,
.isking questions like that. Why don't you just observe quietly
.md then steal his ideas?" A n d the first youth returned, "Don't
you think it's more honest to ask questions and learn from him
openly?"
To learn, for them, meant to learn how to show themselves
to their best advantage, to be initiated into the secrets of men's
fashion. The following passage from Hagakure is clearly evidence
of a similar attitude.
Times have changed in the last thirty years. When young
samurai get together they talk of money, of profit and loss, how
to run a household efficiently, how to judge the value of clothing,
and they exchange stories about sex. I f any other topic is
mentioned, the atmosphere is spoiled and everyone present feels
vaguely uncomfortable. What a distressing pass things have come
to! (Book One)
17
M Y HAGAKURE
The Feminization of the Male
Moreover, we are constantly being told of the feminization
of Japanese males today—it is inevitably seen as the result of
the influence of American democracy, "ladies first," and so
forth—but this phenomenon, too, is not unknown in our
past. When, breaking away from the rough-and-tumble masculinity
of a nation at war, the Tokugawa bakufu had securely
established its hegemony as a peaceful regime, the feminization
of Japanese males immediately began. One can see evidence
of, this trend in ukiyo prints of the eighteenth-century
master Harunobu Suzuki: The couples snuggling together as
they sit on the edge of the veranda gazing at plum blossoms
so resemble each other in their tiair styles, the cut and pattern
of their clothes, the very exp^ssion on their faces that no
matter how you exaipine them, no matter from what angle,
it is impossible to tell which is the man and which is the
woman. During the age in which Hagakure was written, this
trend had already begun. Look at this scathing passage, called
"Female Pulse":
I heard this from an acquaintance of mine. Apparently a
Doctor Kyoan once made the following statement: "In, medicine
we distinguish between men and women by attributing to them
the principles of yin and yang, and medical treatment originally
differed accordingly. The pulse is also different. Over the past
fifty years, however, the pulse of men has gradually become the
same as that of women. Since noticing this phenomenon, I have
considered it proper to treat eye diseases of male patients with
the method normally appropriate to the pulse of women patients.
When I try applying to my male patients the cures appropriate to
men, they produce no effect whatever. The world is indeed enter-
i8
Hagakure Is Alive Today
ing a degenerate stage; men are losing their virility and are becoming
just like women. This is an unshakable truth I have
learned from firsthand experience. I have decided to keep it a
secret from the wodd at large." When with this story in mind I
look around me at the men of today, I often think to myself,
"Aha. There goes an example of a female pulse." Almost never
do I see what I call a true man. . . . (Book One)
Expense Account Aristocrats
The same thing can fairly be said of the rise of the expense
account aristocrat, for which the modern lax system is at least
partly responsible. I n J6ch5's day the expense account samurai
who had dififtculty telling the difference between his own money
and that of his lord had already become conspicuous. Within
what was not a company but a daimyo domain, the young
samurai, forgetting his objective of participating in the ideal
(if a cooperative community, had come to wish only for his
own preservation. The idealistic gleam in the eyes of youth
faded to a mere glimmer, and their attention was completely
absorbed with trivialities. Yoimg samurai with "the furtive
glance of pickpockets," who thought only of their own per.sonal
interest, had become increasingly numerous.
Looking at young samiuai in sei;vice these days, it seems to me
they set their sights pitifully low. They have the furtive glance
of pickpockets. Most of them are out for their own interests, or
to display their cleverness, and even those who seem calm of heart
are simply putting up a good front. That attitude will never do.
Unless a samurai sets his sights on no less than offering up his
life for his ruler, dying swiftly and becoming a spirit, unless he
19
M Y HAGAKURE
is constantly anxious aBout the welfare of his daimyo and reports
to him immediately whenever he has disposed of a problem, his
concern being always to strengthen the foundations of the realm,
he cannot be called a true samurai in the service of his lord.
(Book One)
Lionized Baseball Players and Television Stars
While Jocho condemns at great lepgth people who distinguish
themselves in a certain skill or art, he relates how his age. is
becoming imbued with a new tendency to idolize people who
excel at such arts as the greatest stars of the day.
Today, baseball players and television stars are lionized.
Those who specialize in skills that will fascinate an audience
20
Hagakure Is Alive Today
rrikl to abandon their existence as total human personalities
fiii.1 be reduced to a kind of skilled puppet. This tendency
irllects the ideals of our time. On this point there is no dif(rrcnce
between performers and technicians.
Tlic present is the age of technocracy (under the leadership
111 technicians); differently expressed, it is the age of performing
artists. One who excels at an art can win by means of that
ttii tlie enthusiastic applause of society. A t the same time, such
people are lowering their life goals, aiming only at appearing as
•la'.hing and as important as possible. They forget the ideals
loi a total human being;" to degenerate into a single cog, a
•single function, becomes their greatest ambition. I n the light
>il this phenomenon, Jocho's disdain for technicians and artists
irireshes the soul:
Ihat an art or skill will help one earn a living is true only of
^•unurai from other domains. For samurai of this nding house,
•1 skill or art leads to debasement of status. Anyone who is espeually
skilled in a particular art is a technician, not a samurai.
(Book One)
The Compromise Climate o f Today, W h e n One May
Nnther Live Beautifully N o r Die Horribly
'll your name means nothing to the world whether you live
or die, it is better to live." (Book One) This way of thinking
d i l l exist in the time of Hagakure, of course. The human instinct
fiM survival, faced with a decision between life and death, noririally
forces us to choose life. But we must recognize, that
w h e n a human being tries to live beautifully and die beauti-
21
M Y HAGAKURE
fully, strong attachment to life undermines that beauty. It is
difficult to live and to die beautifully, but it is eqq^Uy difficult
both to live and to die in a thoroughly horrible way. This is the
lot of mankind.
The compromise climate of the times arises from the fact
that thos? who try to live beautifully and die beautifully are
actually choosing an unsightly de4th, whereas those who wish
to live horribly and die horribly are choosing a beautiful way
of life. Hagakure pronounces a delightful verdict on this question
of life and death. Here again is the most famous line in
Hagakure: "I found that the Way of the Samurai is death."
Jocho goes on to say, " I n a life or death crisis, simply settle
it by deciding on immediate death. There is nothing complicated
about it. Just brace yourself and proceed." (Book One)
The Ideal Love Is Undeclared
Hagakure also discusses romantic love—in fact, as Bunso Hashi'
kawa has pointed out, it is probably the only work in classical
Japanese literature to develop a logical theory of romantic love.*
The ideal presented in Hagakure may be summed up in one
expression, "secret love," and Hagakure maintains flatly that
once love has been confessed, it shrinks in stature; true love
attains its highest and noblest form when one carries its secret
to the grave.
The art of romantic love as practiced in America involves
declaring oneself, pressing one's suit, and making the catch.
The energy generated by love is never allowed to build up
22
Hagakure Is Alive Today
wiillin but is constantly radiated outward. But paradoxically,
t l i f voltage of love is dissipated the instant it is transmitted.
(iiritemporary youth are richly blessed with opportunities for
loniantic and sexual adventure that former generations would
IK vcr have dreamed of. But at the same time, what lurks in
Iht hearts of modern youth is the demise of what we know as
i.iinantic love. When romantic love generated in the heart pro.it<is
along a straight path and repeats over and over again
l l i c process of achieving its goal and in that instant ceasing to
I K i s t , then the inability to love and the death of passions (a
' iiomenon peculiar to the modern age) is within sight. It is
I,(If to say that this is the main reason that young people today
lie tormented by contradictions concerning the problem of
iDinantic love.
Until the war, youth were able to distinguish neatly between
romantic love and sexual desire, and they lived quite
trasonably with both. When they entered the university, their
uppcrclassmen took them to the brothels and taught them how
III satisfy their desire, but they dared not lay a hand on the
women they truly loved.
I'hus love in prewar Japan, while it was based on a sacrifice
III (he form of prostitution, on the other hand preserved the
iilil "puritanical" [ i n English] tradition. Once we accept the
rxistence of romantic love, we must also accept the fact that
m m must have in a separate place the sacrificial object with
which to satisfy their carnal desires. Without such an outlet,
irue love cannot exist. Such is the tragic physiology of the
human male.
Komantic love as seen by Jocho is not strategy designed
I t i r I lie preservation of this half-modernized, role-differenti«|ed,
pragmatic, and flexible arrangement. It is always rein-
23
M Y HAGAKURE
forced by death. One must die for love, and death heightens
love's tension and purity. This is the ideal Ic^e for Hagakure.
Hagakure: Potent Medicine T o Soothe the Suffering Soul
As can be surmised from what I have already said, Hagakure
is an attempt to cure the peaceful character of modern society
by the potent medicine of death. This medicine, during the
hundred years of war preceding the Tokugawa Period, had
been all too liberally resorted to in the daily lives of the people,
but with the coming of peace, it was feared as the most drastic
medicine and avoided. Jocho Yamamoto's discovery is that
this most drastic medicine contains an effective treatment for
soothing the suffering spirit of man. The author, in his abundant
understanding of human life, knows t|iat man does- not
live by his life alone. He knows just how paradoxical is human
freedom. And he knows that the instant man is given freedom
he grows weary of it, and the instant he is given life he becomes
unable to bear it.
Ours is an age in which everything is based on the premise
that it is best to live as long as possible. The average life span
has become the longest in history, and a monotonous plan for
humanity unrolls before us. The youth's enthusiasm for "myhome-ism"
lasts as long as he is struggling to find his own
little nest. As soon as he has found it, the future, holds nothing
for him. A l l there is is the retirement money clicked up in rows
on the abacus, and the peaceful, boring life of impotent old
age. This image is constantly in the shadow of the welfare
/State, threatening the hearts of rhankind. I n the Scandinavian
24
Hagakure Is Alive Today
countries, the need to work has by now disappeared, and there
is no more worry over support in old age; in their boredom
and disillusionment at being ordered by society simply to "rest,"
an extraordinary number of old people commit suicide. And
in England, which after the war reached the ideal standard of a
welfare nation, the desire to work has been lost, and what
follows is the crippling and decline of industry.
Suppressed, the Death Impulse Must Eventually Explode
In discussing the direction modern society should take, some
people propose the ideal of socialism and others the ideal of
the welfare state, but these two are actually one and the same.
At the extremity of freedom is the fatigue and boredom of a
welfare state; needless to say, at the extremity of a socialist
state there is suppression of freedom. W i t h one part of his
heart man supports grand social "visions" [ i n English], but
I hen while he proceeds one step at a time, as soon as the jdeal
seems attainable he becomes bored with it. Each and every one
of us hides within his subconscious mind deep, blind impulses.
These are the dynamic expression of the contradictions filling
one's life from moihent to moment, a manifestation that has
essentially nothing to do with social ideals for the future. I n
youth these are manifested in their boldest, sharpest form.
Moreover, such blind impulses appear in dramatic opposition,
even in confrontation with one another. Youth possesses the
impulse to resist and the impulse to surrender, in equal mea•iiiie.
One might redefine these as the impulse to be free and
(he impulse to die. The manifestation of these impulses, no
25
M Y HAGAKURE ^
matter how political the form it assumes, is like an ele<^tric current
that results from a difference in electrical charge—in other
words, from the fundamental contradictions of human existence.
During the war, the death impulse was too percent liberated,
but the impulse for resistance and freedom, for life, was completely
suppressed. In the postwar age, this condition is exactly
reversed, and whereas the impulse for resistance and freeddm
and life is loo percent fulfilled, the impulse for surrender and
death is never fulfilled at all. About ten years ago in a conversation
with a certain conservative politician, I said that perhaps
the postwar Japanese government, in bringing about economic
prosperity, had at least managed to fulfill the drive of
modern youth for life, but I did not have the chance to talk
about the drive for death. On another occasion, however, I
have explained that we are constantly exposed to the danger
that the death drive suppressed within modern youth will someday
explode. *
I believe that the battle over the renewal of the American
Security Treaty is one instance of extreme difference in electrical
charge. The Security Treaty struggle was politically complex,
and the young people who participated in it were simply
seeking a cause for which they would be willing to lay down
their lives. They were not necessarily governed by ideology,
and their conduct was not founded on their own reading of the
text of the Security Treaty. They were trying to satisfy both
their inner drives, the drives for resistance and death.
The frustration that followed the failure of the anti-Security
Treaty demonstrations was even worse, however. Those who
had participated were made to realize that the political movement
to which they had devoted themselves was a sort of fiction,
that death does not transcend reality, that political achievements
26
Hagakure Is Alive Today
provide no satisfaction, that the energy of all their actions had
been in vain. Once again the youth in modern Japan received
(lie crushing sentence, "The cause for which you died was not
worthwhile."
As Toynbee says, the reason Christianity gathered so many
.ivid converts so suddenly is because these people had fervently
wished for a goal worth dying for. In the age of the Pax
Homana, the lands under Roman domination, including all of
I'll rope and extending even to Asia, enjoyed interminaWe peac^
1 luwever, the only people who were able to avoid the boredom
and fatigue that seep into an age of peace were the frontier
I'liards. The frontier guards had found a goal worth dying
lor.
1
limes Have Changed
Hagakure is based on the principles of the samurai. The oc(upation
of the samurai is death. N o matter how peaceful the
age, death is the samurai's supreme motivation, and i f a samurai
'.hould fear or shun death, in that instant he would cease to be
a .samurai. It is for this reason that Jocho Yamamoto puts
'inch emphasis on death as his fundamental motivation to action.
However, in present-day Japan under a constitution that
outlaws war, people who consider death to be their occupational
objective—and this includes the National Defense Force
cannot exist, on principle. The premise of the democratic age
IS I hat it is best to live as long as possible.
Thus in evaluating the impact of Hagakure, it becomes an
important question whether or not the readers are samurai. I f
27
M Y HAGAKURE I
one is able to read Hagakure transcending the fundamental
difference in premise between Jocho's era and our own, one will
find there an astonishing understanding of human nature, a wisdom
applicable to human relations even in the present day.
One reads lightly and quickly through its pages (stimulating,
vigorous, passionate, but extremely sharp and penetrating,
paradoxical pages), letting one's body be refreshed as by a
spring rain. But in the end one is forced to confront again the
fundamental diflference in premise.
The reader, temporarily surmounting this difference in premise,
comes to resonate with the text; then at the conclusion he
must give way once more before the unresolvable difference.
That is what is interesting about Hagakure.
The Significance of Hagakure for the Present Day
But what exactly is this difference? Here we transcend occupation,
class discrimination, and the conditions ascribed to any
individual in a specific era, and we are brought back to the
basic problem of life and death, a problem we too must face
in this day and age. I n modern society the meaning of death
is constantly being forgotten. No, it is not forgotten; rather,
the subject is avoided. Rainer Maria Rilke (poet, born in
Prague, 1875-1926), has said that the death of man has become
smaller. The death of a man is now nothing more than an
individual dying grandly in a hard hospital bed, an item to
be disposed of as quickly as possible. And all around us is the
feaseless "traffic war," which is reputed to have claimed more
victims than the Sino-Japanese War, and the fragility of human
life is now as it has ever been. W e simply do not like to speak
2&
Hagakure Is Alive Today
.il)Out death. We do not like to extract from death its beneln
ial elements and try to put them to work for us. We always
I ry to direct our gaze toward the bright landmark, the forwardfacing
landmark, the landmark of life. And we try our best
not to refer to the power by which death gradually eats away
our lives. This outlook indicates a process by which our rational
humanism, while constantly performing the function
of turning the eyes of modern man toward the brightness of
t r e e d o m and progress, wipes the problem of death from the
level of consciousness, pushing it deeper and deeper into the
subconscious, turning the death impulse by this repression to
an ever more dangerous, explosive, ever more concentrated,
umer-directed impulse. We are ignoring the fact that bringing
.leath to the level of consciousness is an important element of
mental health.
But death alone exists unchanged and regulates our lives
now as in the era of Hagakure. I n this sense, the death that
Jocho is talking about is nothing extraordinary. Hagakure insists
that to ponder death daily is to concentrate daily on life.
When we do our work thinking that we may die today, we
cannot help feeling that our job suddenly becomes radiant with
life and meaning.
It seems to me that Hagakure offers us a chance to reevaluate
our views of life and death, after twenty years of peace since
the Second World War.
N O T E S
I . Bunso Hashikawa ( 1 9 2 2 - ) . Critic at large and scholar of
modern Japanese intellectual history.
29