for youths to forget in the heat of action what they had learned in
Mencius in their calmer moments. Said this sage, "'Tis in every man's
mind to love honor: but little doth he dream that what is truly
honorable lies within himself and not anywhere else. The honor which men
confer is not good honor. Those whom Châo the Great ennobles, he can
make mean again."

For the most part, an insult was quickly resented and repaid by death,
as we shall see later, while Honor--too often nothing higher than vain
glory or worldly approbation--was prized as the _summum bonum_ of
earthly existence. Fame, and not wealth or knowledge, was the goal
toward which youths had to strive. Many a lad swore within himself as he
crossed the threshold of his paternal home, that he would not recross it
until he had made a name in the world: and many an ambitious mother
refused to see her sons again unless they could "return home," as the
expression is, "caparisoned in brocade." To shun shame or win a name,
samurai boys would submit to any privations and undergo severest ordeals
of bodily or mental suffering. They knew that honor won in youth grows
with age. In the memorable siege of Osaka, a young son of Iyéyasu, in
spite of his earnest entreaties to be put in the vanguard, was placed at
the rear of the army. When the castle fell, he was so chagrined and wept
so bitterly that an old councillor tried to console him with all the
resources at his command. "Take comfort, Sire," said he, "at thought of
the long future before you. In the many years that you may live, there
will come divers occasions to distinguish yourself." The boy fixed his
indignant gaze upon the man and said--"How foolishly you talk! Can ever
my fourteenth year come round again?"

Life itself was thought cheap if honor and fame could be attained
therewith: hence, whenever a cause presented itself which was considered