bushido did not require us to make our conscience the slave of any lord or king. thomas mowbray was a veritable spokesman for us when he said:“myself i throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.
“my life thou shalt command, but not my shame.
the one my duty owes; but my fair name,
despite of death, that lives upon my grave,
to dark dishonor’s use, thou shalt not have.”
a man who sacrificed his own conscience to the capricious will or freak or fancy of a sovereign was accorded a low place in the estimate of the precepts. such an one was despised as nei-shin, a cringeling, who makes court by unscrupulous fawning or as cho-shin, a favorite who steals his master’s affections by means of servile compliance; these two species of subjects corresponding exactly to those which iago describes,—the one, a duteous and knee-crooking knave, doting on his own obsequious bondage, wearing out his ti