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Bushido, The Code Of Honor

Bushido (武士道, Bushidō?), meaning "way of the warrior," is a Japanese code of conduct and a way of life, analogous to the European concept of chivalry. Bushido developed between the 11th to 14th centuries. The ethical and moral foundations of Bushido were formalized into Japanese Feudal Law during the opening years of the Tokugawa shogunate for the members of the Samurai class. According to the Japanese dictionary Shogakukan Kokugo Daijiten: "Bushido is defined as a unique philosophy (ronri) that spread through the warrior class from the Muromachi (chusei) period."

Inazo Nitobe (1862 - 1933), author of Bushido: The Soul of Japan describes Bushido as an unwritten code: "...Bushido, then, is the code of moral principles which the samurai were required or instructed to observe. It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant. More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, possessing all the more the powerful sanction of veritable deed, and of a law written on the fleshly tablets of the heart. It was founded not on the creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single personage, however renowned. It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career."

Early history
The Kojiki is Japan's oldest extant book. Written in 712 AD, it contains passages about Yamato Takeru, the son of the emperor Keiko. It includes references to the use and admiration of the sword by Japanese warriors:

The many-clouds-rising
Izumo Takeru
Wears a Sword
With many vines wrapped around it,
But no blade inside, alas.''''
or this:

Next to the maiden's
Sleeping place
I left
The sabre, the sword—
Alas, that sword.'
Yamato Takeru may be considered the rough ideal of the Japanese warrior to come. He is sincere and loyal, slicing up his father's enemies "like melons," unbending and yet not unfeeling, as can...