The Bushido Code: The Eight Virtues of the Samurai

artofmanliness.com ^ | September 14, 2008 | Brett & Kate McKay

[Publius804]

The Bushido Code: The Eight Virtues of the Samurai

Posted By Brett & Kate McKay On September 14, 2008 @ 8:03 pm

“So, boy. You wish to serve me?”

Silhouetted against the blue-black sky, the horse-mounted samurai with the horned helmet towered over me like a demon as I knelt in the dirt before him. I could not see his face but there was no mistaking the authority in his growling tone, nor the hint of mockery in his question.

I tried to speak and managed only a faint croak. My mouth had gone dry, as parched as a man dying of thirst. But I had to respond. My fate-and though I didn’t know it then, the fate of all of Japan-rested on my answer.

Raising my head just enough to brave a glance at the demonic figure, I saw him staring at me, like a hawk poised to seize a mouse in its talons.

When I managed to speak, my voice was clear and steady, and I drew courage with each syllable.

“That’s correct, Lord Nobunaga,” I said. “I do.”

It was a time of carnage and darkness: the Age of Wars, when the land was torn by bloodshed and the only law was the law of the sword. A peasant wandered the countryside alone, seeking his fortune, without a coin in his pocket. He longed to become the epitome of refined manhood-a samurai-but nothing in the demeanor of this five-foot tall, one-hundred-ten-pound boy could possibly have foretold the astounding destiny awaiting him.

His name was Hideyoshi, and on that fateful spring evening in the year 1553, the brash young warlord Nobunaga hired him as a sandal-bearer.

[flowerplough]

Everything I needed to know about Islam, I learned on September 11th, 2001, and everything important to know about Bushido samurais, the world learned in Nanking, in December, 1937.

[Niuhuru]

Yes they did.