THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR
did he regard the call of duty until a faithful vassal committed suicide to emphasise a remonstrance against such weakness. Nitta Yoshisada, the type of a loyal soldier in his time, lost the opportunity of his life and sacrificed the cause of his sovereign through his passion for a Court beauty whom the Emperor had bestowed on him. When the Ashikaga leader, Takauji, his forces shattered in battle, fled westward, Yoshisada might have consummated his final overthrow by immediate pursuit. He repaired, instead, to the arms of his mistress. Kono Moronao, Takauji's principal captain, by endeavouring to compass a man's death in order to enjoy his wife, drove them both to commit suicide, and subsequently abducted an ex-Regent's sister who had been destined for service at Court. The lady Yodo, most beloved of the Taikō's concubines, had been entrusted to his protection by the noble soldier Shibata Katsuiye when the latter was on the eve of perishing by his own hand in his beleaguered castle. Matsu, who occupied the next place in the Taikō's affections, was obtained by a political ruse; and, most shameful of all, he invented a paltry pretext to order the suicide of his old friend, the gentle dilettante Sen-no-Rikiu, because the latter declined to urge his daughter to break a vow of fidelity to her deceased husband by receiving the Taikō's addresses.[1] Iyeyasu, the great Tokugawa chief,
- ↑ See Appendix, note 38.
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