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力と名誉 chikara to meiyo Strength and Honor

力と名誉 (chikara to meiyo), strength and honor, is Maximus's salute in the film Gladiator of 2000. The National Diet Library's full-text index finds the two nouns together in Japanese translations from 1898, but never as a fixed phrase. This study follows them from Solomon's proverb into Japanese writers' own sentences by 1912.

Japanese Scroll of Strength and Honor (chikara to meiyo) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Strength and Honor力と名誉chikara to meiyo

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

力と名誉, strength and honor, is a pairing that came into Japanese in translation and never became a fixed phrase. The National Diet Library's full-text index, item by item to 1946, finds it first in translations of Western texts, from Wesley's notes on Luke in 1898, and there its 力 is most often power: Athens distributed power and honor in accordance with worth, and Emerson's hero goes on adding new powers and honors to his domain. Japanese writers used the two nouns together in their own sentences by 1912, when 大隈重信 spoke of a nation's 名譽と力, and in the order brushed here by 1930, when the ethicist 西晋一郎 put 力と名譽と富 among what politics and war pursue; no dictionary carries the pairing. In English it is older than the film that made it a salute: Strength and honour are her clothing, Proverbs 31:25 in the King James Version, and Maximus's Strength and honor in Gladiator (2000), which two viewers report the Japanese subtitle renders 力と名誉を.

Overview

The sense. A soldier's salute, two abstract nouns set side by side: the strength to do a thing and the honor in which it is done.

The words. 力 chikara, strength, in the 古事記 for the body and the 万葉集 for the spirit [1]; 名誉 meiyo, a Heian word for renown of any kind (a strong thief is 名誉の大剛の者 in the 平治物語), whose sense as a person's honor, the sense carried here, the 日本国語大辞典 first finds in 久米邦武's account of the Iwakura mission, 1877 [2]. と joins them, and.

The text in English. Strength and honor is the English the Japanese renders. The pairing came into Japanese from English and other Western languages, and in the Meiji translations its 力 more often renders power than strength.

The historical record

1898 to 1912. The pairing in translation. The Diet Library's full-text index returns 694 items for 力と名譽 to 1946 [3]. Of these, 587 carry the string only inside another word (權力と名譽 313 times, 勢力と名譽 130, then 努力, 實力, 金力 and others, and 名譽心 after a 力), and 7 show no text. Of the 100 where the bare pairing stands, 78 are translations or quotations of a foreign text, 6 are Japanese writers expounding a named Western work, 6 are Japanese writers in their own words (below), and 10 cannot be told from the text the index shows. The first witnesses are translations. Wesley's note on Luke 22:30, 1898: 而してそが靈の力と名譽と樂みとは, the power and honor and joy of the spirit [4]. A Japanese book on Aristotle of 1902, which follows Thomas Davidson's Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals (1892) sentence for sentence at this point: アゼンスは智德の値打に從つて力と名譽とを配置せり, for Davidson's so long as she distributed power and honor in accordance with worth [5][6]. Locke, through Paul Monroe's history of education, 1910: 自己の力と名譽と快樂とを擧げて之に捧ぐる, for the tutor who should never cease till the young man had a true Relish of it, and placed his Strength, his Glory, and his Pleasure in it; here 名譽 is glory [7][8]. Emerson's essay on character, 1912: その領土に新たなる力と名譽とを加へ, for adding new powers and honors to his domain [9][10].

1912. 大隈重信, in the reverse order. In a speech on a strong army, 強兵論: 國の名譽と、力とを愈々發揮して、繼續的に益々盛んにしようと努めるのである, we strive to show the nation's honor and strength ever more, and to make them ever greater. It is in his 經世論 of 1912 and in its 1921 reprint [11]. The index has 65 items for 名譽と力 to 1946: 45 translations (Eucken, Bernhardi, Homer, Milton, Dumas among them), and 12 Japanese writers' own sentences, 大隈's five printings among them, from 1912 to 1942 [12].

1926. Proverbs 31:25 in these words. 上山英三's 中京雑記 has 力と名譽は彼の女の衣服であり, strength and honor are her clothing: the verse the Japanese Bible gives as 力と尊貴とを衣とし, in the two words the scroll carries. The quotation is the index's text; the leaf is not open outside Japan [13].

1930 to 1939. Japanese writers' own sentences. 西晋一郎, 教の由つて生ずる所, 1930: 政治軍事は人を相手とするから其欲する所は多くは力と名譽と富と並に其等によつて得られる物質欲の滿足であるが, since politics and war deal with people, what they seek is mostly power, honor and wealth, and the material satisfactions these bring [14]. By the index's text: the 1932 report of the Meiji Shrine games, 靑年の意氣と力と名譽とを充分に盛る, to fill it with the spirit, strength and honor of youth [15]; 清水真澄's 神道倫理学, 1934, 富と力と名譽との旗を振つて, waving the banners of wealth, power and honor [16]; a political monthly of 1936, wishing Japan to become 力と名譽と道德の國, a nation of strength, honor and morality [17]; 宮崎秀春 on the morality of ancient Japan, 1939, of the shade, which before and after the body's death keeps 自己の生活と生命と力と名譽と, its own life, vitality, strength and honor [18]. In every one the two nouns stand in a list, beside wealth or morality or life; none sets them alone as a phrase.

What is not a source. The Bible and the film are the English sources, not Japanese ones; the Japanese Bible renders Proverbs 31:25 as 力と尊貴とを衣とし, not 力と名誉 [19]. Neither kotobank's dictionaries nor Weblio carries the pairing as a headword.

The phrase in English

Today. Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come, Proverbs 31:25 in the King James Version, is the old English pairing [19]. In the Google Books ngram (corpus en-2019), strength and honour is at its height around 1806 and falls for nearly two centuries. Strength and honor doubles in the 2000s against the 1990s and runs at more than three times its 1990s rate in the 2010s, and the capitalized Strength and Honor, a salute or a title, rises from almost nothing before 2000, the year Maximus in Gladiator salutes his men with it [20]. Two viewers report that the Japanese subtitle renders the salute 力と名誉を: one in 2012, who counted it about three times, and one who notes that the gladiators around Maximus say it as his soldiers once had. The subtitle itself has not been seen [21][22].

A reading

A translator's pairing, in Japanese as in English on the wall of a Roman general: two abstract nouns, the second of them Meiji in this sense. It came in as power and honor, the goods of rulers and states, and the Japanese writers who took it up used it that way too, of nations, of public life, of youth on parade, and always inside a list. The strength on this scroll is the salute's, a soldier's own, and it arrived with the film. No dictionary gives the pairing as a phrase, so it is not a proverb and does not pretend to be one. The fuller truth is that it is Solomon's before it is Maximus's.

Notes

名誉 is 名譽 in every prewar witness. The index folds the two forms (力と名譽 and 力と名誉 return the same 2,607 items; 名譽と力 and 名誉と力 the same 345) and reads ト as と.

References

  1. 「力」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/力
  2. 「名誉」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/名誉
  3. NDL Digital Collections, full text, 力と名譽, oldest first, to 1946. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=力と名譽&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  4. ジョン・ウェスレー, 新約筌蹄, 上 (tr.), 1898, p. 580, scan 300. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825548/1/300
  5. 長谷川天渓, アリストートル 一名・希臘教育史, 同文館, 1902, p. 38, scan 40. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/809437/1/40
  6. Thomas Davidson, Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals, 1892, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bwb_Y0-AIE-753
  7. ポール・モンロー, 世界教育史要 (tr. 石田新太郎), 1910, p. 399, scan 212. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/809527/1/212
  8. Paul Monroe, A Text-Book in the History of Education, Macmillan, 1905, the chapter on Locke, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/textbookinhistor00monruoft
  9. エマーソン論文集, 下巻 (tr. 戸川秋骨), 玄黄社, 1912, scan 86. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/896700/1/86
  10. Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Character", Essays: Second Series, Houghton Mifflin, 1894 printing, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/essayssecondseri1894emer
  11. 大隈重信, 働け働け飽迄働け, 1921, 強兵論, p. 67, scan 45; first printed in 經世論, 1912. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/961796/1/45
  12. NDL Digital Collections, full text, 名譽と力, oldest first, to 1946. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=名譽と力&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  13. 上山英三, 中京雑記, 1926 (the index's text; the leaf is not open outside Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1016734
  14. 西晋一郎, 教の由つて生ずる所, 目黒書店, 1930, p. 57, scan 35. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1443572/1/35
  15. 明治神宮体育会 編, 明治神宮体育大会報告書, 1932 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1172887
  16. 清水真澄, 神道倫理学, 1934 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1211677
  17. 政界往来, 1936 (the index's text; open at the Diet Library only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3420130
  18. 宮崎秀春, 日本古代道徳の研究, 1939 (the index's text; open in Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1256940
  19. Proverbs 31:25, King James Version, at Wikisource; 箴言 31:25, 文語訳, at Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Proverbs · https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/箴言(文語訳)
  20. Google Books Ngram Viewer, corpus en-2019, "strength and honor", "strength and honour", "Strength and Honor", 1800–2019. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=strength+and+honor%2Cstrength+and+honour%2CStrength+and+Honor&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
  21. Yahoo!知恵袋, question detail q1484658174, 31 March 2012 (the Gladiator subtitle, reported). https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1484658174
  22. 板坂耀子, 「グラディエーター論」, 映画「グラディエーター」論文編, on her own site (the subtitle, reported). https://itasaka-yoko.com/小説-映画/映画「グラディエーター」論文編/グラディエーター論

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations — every claim tested at its address; most verbatim; one gloss neither the body nor the record took from the dictionary, corrected to the 日国's; the rest not openable, all opened by hand

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 力と名誉 (chikara to meiyo)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/chikara-to-meiyo.