The Influence of Bushido（1）（2/2）
作者：（日）新渡户稻造
Write in place of Sidney and Scott, Chikamatsu and Bakin, and you have in a nutshell the main features of the literary history of Japan.
The innumerable avenues of popular amusement and instruction —the theatres, the story-teller’s booths, the preacher’s dais, the musical recitations, the novels—have taken for their chief theme the stories of the samurai. The peasants round the open fire in their huts never tire of repeating the achievements of Yo**sune and his faithful retainer Benkei, or of the two brave Soga brothers; the dusky urchins listen with gaping mouths until the last stick burns out and the fire dies in its embers, still leaving their hearts aglow with tale that is told. The clerks and the shop-boys, after their day’s work is over and the amado[1] of the store are closed, gather together to relate the story of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi far into the night, until slumber overtakes their weary eyes and transports them from the drudgery of the counter to the exploits of the field. The very babe just beginning to toddle is taught to lisp the adventures of Momotaro, the daring conqueror of ogre-land. Even girls are so imbued with the love of knightly deeds and virtues that, like Desdemona, they would seriously incline to devour with greedy ear the romance of the samurai.
The samurai grew to be the beau ideal of the whole race. “As among flowers the cherry is queen, so among men the samurai is lord,” so sang the populace. Debarred from commercial pursuits, the military class itself did not aid commerce; but there was no channel of human activity, no avenue of thought, which did not receive in some measure an impetus from Bushido. Intellectual and moral Japan was directly or indirectly the work of Knighthood.
Mr. Mallock, in his exceedingly suggestive book,“Aristocracy and Evolution,” has eloquently told us that “social evolution, in so far as it is other than biological, may be defined as the unintended result of the intentions of great men;” further, that historical progress is produced by a struggle “not among the community generally, to live, but a struggle amongst a small section of the community to lead, to direct, to employ, the majority in the best way.” Whatever may be said about the soundness of his argument, these statements are amply verified in the part played by bushi in the social progress, as far as it went, of our Empire.
The innumerable avenues of popular amusement and instruction —the theatres, the story-teller’s booths, the preacher’s dais, the musical recitations, the novels—have taken for their chief theme the stories of the samurai. The peasants round the open fire in their huts never tire of repeating the achievements of Yo**sune and his faithful retainer Benkei, or of the two brave Soga brothers; the dusky urchins listen with gaping mouths until the last stick burns out and the fire dies in its embers, still leaving their hearts aglow with tale that is told. The clerks and the shop-boys, after their day’s work is over and the amado[1] of the store are closed, gather together to relate the story of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi far into the night, until slumber overtakes their weary eyes and transports them from the drudgery of the counter to the exploits of the field. The very babe just beginning to toddle is taught to lisp the adventures of Momotaro, the daring conqueror of ogre-land. Even girls are so imbued with the love of knightly deeds and virtues that, like Desdemona, they would seriously incline to devour with greedy ear the romance of the samurai.
The samurai grew to be the beau ideal of the whole race. “As among flowers the cherry is queen, so among men the samurai is lord,” so sang the populace. Debarred from commercial pursuits, the military class itself did not aid commerce; but there was no channel of human activity, no avenue of thought, which did not receive in some measure an impetus from Bushido. Intellectual and moral Japan was directly or indirectly the work of Knighthood.
Mr. Mallock, in his exceedingly suggestive book,“Aristocracy and Evolution,” has eloquently told us that “social evolution, in so far as it is other than biological, may be defined as the unintended result of the intentions of great men;” further, that historical progress is produced by a struggle “not among the community generally, to live, but a struggle amongst a small section of the community to lead, to direct, to employ, the majority in the best way.” Whatever may be said about the soundness of his argument, these statements are amply verified in the part played by bushi in the social progress, as far as it went, of our Empire.