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 Gladiator (2000), and it is older than the film: Strength and honour are her clothing, Proverbs 31:25 in the King James Bible. In Japanese the two nouns stand together from 1898, and only where a Western text is being translated.
Abstract
力と名誉, strength and honor, is a translator's pairing with no Japanese life of its own: of the books the National Diet Library's full-text index returns for it, the bare pairing appears only in translations of Western texts, from Wesley's notes on Luke in 1898. In English it is older than the film that made it a salute: Proverbs 31:25 in the King James Version pairs the two nouns, and Maximus in Gladiator (2000) turned them into a soldier's word; the film's Japanese subtitle, by a 2012 viewer's report, renders the salute with these four characters.
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 comes into Japanese from English, not the other way.
The historical record
1898. 力と名誉, a translator's pairing. It has no Japanese life of its own. Of 192 books the Diet Library's index returns, 186 are other words ending in 力 (勢力と名譽, 權力と名譽, 金力と名譽, 實力と名譽), and the bare pairing appears only where a Western text is being translated: Wesley's notes on Luke in 1898, そが靈の力と名譽と樂みとは, the power and honor and joy of the spirit [3]; Aristotle on Athens in 1902, 智德の値打に從つて力と名譽とを配置せり, distributed power and honor according to the worth of wisdom and virtue [4]; Locke in 1910 [5]. The reverse 名誉と力 is Eucken, Homer and Milton in translation.
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.
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 [6]; the ngram has strength and honour at its height around 1806 and falling for two centuries, and the American spelling tripling only in the 2000s, when Maximus in Gladiator (2000) salutes his men with Strength and honor [7]. The Japanese subtitle renders it 力と名誉を, by a 2012 viewer's report, which is these four characters word for word [8].
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, and no Japanese reader will take it for a proverb. The fuller truth is that it is Solomon's before it is Maximus's.
Notes
名誉 is 名譽 in every prewar witness.
References
- 「力」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/力
- 「名誉」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/名誉
- ジョン・ウェスレー, 新約筌蹄, 上 (tr.), 1898, scan 300. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825548/1/300
- 長谷川天渓, アリストートル, 1902, scan 40. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/809437/1/40
- ポール・モンロー, 世界教育史要 (tr. 石田新太郎), 1910, scan 212. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/809527/1/212
- 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)
- Google Books Ngram Viewer, search on "strength and honor", "strength and honour", "Strength and Honor". https://books.google.com/ngrams/
- Yahoo!知恵袋, question detail q1484658174, 31 March 2012 (the Gladiator subtitle, reported). https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1484658174