On Inazō Nitobe's "Bushido: The Soul of Japan"
New Books in East Asian Studies
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Nitobe's Awakenings - A Novel Review
There's a very famous story from the mediaeval war tale, the tale of the hake. He relates in which a middle aged warrior and his opponent are facing off on the field of battle. The older man has vanquished the younger one, but has no blood have been shed yet. And so he feels really bad, because his duty at this point is to cut off the boy's head and take it back as a kind of trophy. But the trophy aspect of it makes sense only if the opponent is somebody of higher rank or of noted valor as a warrior. So there isn't much for him to gain by killing some one who's much younger and much weaker than he is.
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