Beyond their skills in military and political matters, samurai were expected to master the arts of peace as well as those of war. According to a leading samurai of the sixteenth century, such a person is “renowned for his elegant pursuits, he is a complete man combining arts [bun] and arms [bu]. A man of nobility . . . he was a ruler endowed with awesome dignity and inspiring decorum. . . . He discussed Chinese poetic styles and recited by heart the secret teachings of Japanese poetry.”4 Such cultural attainments added to the authority of the samurai and allowed them to mix with nobility in settings where the arts were of great importance. Thus many samurai took up poetry, painting, classical noh theater, Zen Buddhist meditation, and the tea ceremony.

This woodblock print shows a loyal and probably mythical fourteenth-century samurai warrior, Kojima Takanori, who had just failed to rescue his captured emperor. But Kojima stripped some bark from a nearby cherry tree and wrote a Chinese poem comparing the emperor to an ancient Chinese ruler, declaring himself a loyal subject, and promising eventual victory. Kojima expected that his emperor would see the message as he was being led into exile and know that help was on the way.

Questions to consider as you examine the source:

Samurai and the “Arts of Peace”

Notes