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不名誉より死 fumeiyo yori shi Death Before Dishonor

Japanese Scroll of Death Before Dishonor (fumeiyo yori shi) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
不名誉より死 Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

不名誉より死, death before dishonor, renders an English phrase in print by 1625, the heading of a piece on four soldiers shot in 1797 that a report of 1798 prints with a handbill; beside it stands the ermine's Latin, Malo mori quam foedari, in print by 1591, a vow of purity; in 1826 an Irish family's motto is given in English as Death before dishonor, a family whose Latin, in heraldic dictionaries of 1828 and 1830, is the ermine's; in 1878 a catechism glosses the Latin itself that is, Death before dishonour; and an English translation of 1849 renders so a Breton device which the French says was written in Latin. The Japanese words are known from 1898 in the National Diet Library's full-text index, and the early witnesses read are books and a magazine of English; and a dictionary of 1906 already gives 日本人は不名譽よりは寧ろ死を望む, A Japanese prefers death to dishonour. By 1932 a Japanese writer on industry wrote, in the passage the index shows, that to choose death before dishonor is more beautiful than to live, and in 1933 the foreign ministry's digest of the foreign press gave it as Lord Lytton's words on the Japanese. The noun 不名誉 is in print by 1880.

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Overview

The sense. Death before dishonor: a person would rather die than lose their honor. The English says it as a choice between two nouns, death named first; the Japanese keeps the two nouns and names first the one set aside, marked by より, and last the one taken.

The words. 不名誉 fumeiyo, dishonor: 名誉を傷つけること, the damaging of one's honor [1]. The great Japanese dictionary's first citation is Futabatei's novel 浮雲 of 1887–89 [1], but the word is in print seven years earlier, in the lectures on the draft civil code that Boissonade gave in 1880: 又名譽ナキ人ハ不名譽ノ人ナル乎然ラス, and is a man without honor therefore a man of dishonor? He is not [2]. In the full-text index, read to 1886, its earliest dated witnesses, of 1880 and 1881, are in the Japanese of Meiji law, political writing and translation; the minutes of the Genrōin (元老院), a series running from 1877, carry it too, the volume's date not read. より yori, rather than; 死 shi, death: rather than dishonor, death. The prewar witnesses write the old form 譽; the words here write the modern 誉, the same word.

The text in English. In the books of English read, the Japanese stands as the rendering of the English: Eastlake's dictionary of 1908 gives it under preferable, and a book of idioms of 1912 calls 不名譽よりは死を擇ぶ a literal translation (直譯), in a note the full-text index shows only in part, so that what it translates is not shown. Where the English says before, a preference and not a time, the Japanese says より, rather than. The schoolbooks keep a verb after 死 (を選ぶ, choose; の方が増しだ, is better; を望む, wish for); the words here leave it off, as the English motto does, a noun set against a noun.

The historical record

The English. The phrase is in print by 1625. The second edition of Peter Heylyn's A Little Description of the Great World, augmented and revised, printed at Oxford in 1625, tells of Curzola in 1571, when the Venetian governor, for fear of the Turkish fleet, abandoned the town with its men and soldiers: The silly women thus forsaken, and preferring death before dishonour, defended the walls, read at the page image [3]. The first edition, Microcosmus, of 1621, gives Curzola only as the most populous of all, being 90 miles round, without the story; the third, of 1627, keeps it. The 1625 margin names Knolles, and Richard Knolles's Generall Historie of the Turkes, of 1603, tells the same night without the phrase: some eighty women came to the walls as wishing rather there to die, than to fall into the … enemie, and beat the Turks off with such weapons as they had; the words death before dishonour are not in Knolles's first edition [3]. The honor there is the women's, against an enemy fleet. In 1798 the Irish House of Commons' report on the United Irishmen, in its London printing, introduces in an appendix a handbill which it says was distributed in Cork exciting the Soldiers to Mutiny, and prints under that introduction TO MILITIA MEN and then, under the heading DEATH BEFORE DISHONOUR: OR, THE FOUR IRISH SOLDIERS. A TRUE STORY, the story of four men of the Monaghan militia, sentenced as United Irishmen and shot at Blaris camp on 16 May 1797, who chose death before dishonour [4]. The report names no author and does not say where the handbill ends. Burke's peerage of 1826, which gives its mottoes in English, gives the Barnewall barons of Trimlestown Death before dishonor and the Barnewall viscounts of Kingsland Death before disgrace [5]; it prints no Latin for either, both read at the page image. The heraldic dictionaries of 1828 and 1830 give the Barnewall motto in Latin, Malo mori quam foedari, with the English Death rather than disgrace, Berry's of 1828 under Trimlestown as under Kingsland [6]. Thomas Connelly's Spanish dictionary of 1797 gives Death before dishonour as the English of two sayings, the second labeled (Prov.): ANTES MORIR QUE PECAR, rather die than sin, under Antes, and COMER ARENA ANTES QUE HACER VILEZA, eat sand rather than do a vile thing, under Arena, p. 192, both read at the page image [7].

The ermine's Latin. Beside the English stands a Latin vow. Antonio Ricciardi's book of symbols of 1591 gives the ermine with mud laid before the door of its den, cum verbis malo mori, quàm fœdari, with the words "I would rather die than be soiled", for a man who would suffer anything rather than do something unseemly, read at the page image [8]. In Naples it was the motto of the order of King Ferrante, whom the book calls Fernando: a Neapolitan book of 1624 tells of the gold collar with the ermine hanging from it and the motto Malo mori quàm fœdari, read at the page image [9], and Wikipedia dates the order to 1464 [10]. Stevenson's book of proverbs calls the words a Latin proverb [11]. The Latin's verb is foedari, to be soiled; Ricciardi shows the ermine with mud laid before its den, and in d'Engenio it would rather die than stain its white coat, while the heraldic dictionaries and Stevenson render the word disgrace or disgraced, and Wikipedia dishonored [10]. In the sources read the Latin stands beside an English Death before dishonor by way of one branch of a family, the Barnewall barons of Trimlestown, whose motto Burke gives in English in 1826, Death before dishonor, and Berry in 1828 in Latin, with the English Death rather than disgrace [5][6], and as a gloss: Joseph Faà di Bruno's catechism Catholic Belief (1878), of the martyrs set before the faithful so that they may learn to endure death rather than stain their conscience with sin, writes Malo mori quam foedari, that is, Death before dishonour, read at the page image [12]; its editions from 1880, in the Internet Archive's full-text windows, introduce the Latin as The Christian motto. Chateaubriand's memoirs tell of the Breton nobles, on the eve of the Revolution, wearing buttons sown with ermine and, the French says, lettered in Latin, and give the device in French only, « Plutôt mourir que de se déshonorer »; their English translation of 1849 reads Death before dishonour and does not print the Latin either, read at the page image [13]. No source read says the English came from the Latin.

1852. The vow set on Japan. A writer in English set the vow on Japanese soldiers in 1852. Charles MacFarlane's Japan, with a footnote naming Golownin, writes: It is said that the common men have such a keen sense of the point of honor, that they frequently resent affronts by fighting duels with one another, or by ripping themselves up, in order to show that they prefer death to dishonor, and goes on, If they really retain this mettle, they are troops that will assuredly stand and fight [14]. Golownin's Recollections of Japan (1819) has the duels and not the vow: The Japanese soldiers have such a sense of honour, that they frequently fight duels with each other in consequence of being affronted, read at the page image [15]. The words prefer death to dishonor are not in that book (its text layer searched whole); in the sources read they are MacFarlane's.

1898 to 1915. The Japanese of the English lesson. The Japanese words, searched in the National Diet Library's full-text index as 不名譽 with より, よりは or よりも and 死, are known first from 1898, and the early witnesses read are books and a magazine of English. A magazine of the 英語青年社 in August 1898 has 不名譽ヨリ死ヲ撰 amid English text, followed by 聯隊, regiment, in an excerpt the full-text index shows; the page past the excerpt was not read [16]. A Japanese-English dictionary for students of 1906, under 望む, gives 日本人は不名譽よりは寧ろ死を望む, A Japanese prefers death to dishonour, read at the page image [17]. F. W. Eastlake's dictionary of English idioms of 1908, under preferable, gives Death is preferable to dishonour as 不名譽よりも死の方が增しだ, read at the page image [18]. A book of idioms of 1912 has a note, 【註】『不名譽よりは死を擇ぶ』が直譯, is the literal translation, going on 本題は又 Death is preferable to di…, where the full-text index's excerpt ends [19]. Saitō Hidesaburō's idiom dictionary of 1915 gives Death before dishonour! and, among its examples, A Japanese should choose death before dishonour [20]. In the books read, Japanese books of English set the vow on the Japanese themselves from 1906. The index shows the rendering in grammar books of English into the 1950s; the same words also render French and Russian, in translations of Leblanc from 1918 and of Turgenev in 1922.

1919 to 1933. The vow said of the Japanese. An English book for army cadets of 1919, in a lesson on any and some, gives one sentence in five lettered examples. The first is Any Japanese soldier prefers death to dishonour, given in Japanese as どの日本兵でも(苟も日本兵なら)不名譽なことよりも死を欲する, any Japanese soldier (if he is a Japanese soldier at all) wants death rather than anything dishonorable; then All, Every and A Japanese soldier, in English only; and over the page If he were a Japanese soldier, he would prefer death to dishonour, 日本兵なら不名譽よりも死ぬところだが, were he a Japanese soldier, he would die rather than be dishonored, read at the page images [21]. In 1932 宇原義豊, writing on Japanese industry, holds that whoever can stand on the belief that 不名譽よりも死を選ぶは生くるよりも美しき事, to choose death before dishonor is more beautiful than to live, can be a great man in any age [22]. In 1933 the foreign ministry's digest of the foreign press summarized in Japanese an interview of Lord Lytton by Shepherd (「シエフアード」), a writer for Collier's, in its issue of 14 January (一月十四日發行雜誌「コリアー」), a mass magazine, the digest says, of over two million copies, second only to the Saturday Evening Post. 「リツトン」卿ノ言ニ依レハ, by Lord Lytton's words, it reads, the Japanese love of emperor and country is like a religion, and 不名譽ヨリモ死ヲ選フハ日本人ノ道德ナリ, to choose death before dishonour is the morality of the Japanese, read at the page image [23]. Lytton's English was not read, so the Japanese wording is the digest's. A navy reader of the same year, with Lytton named, and a magazine of March 1933 carry the same Japanese sentence in their own spelling, as the full-text index shows them [24]; they are not counted here as witnesses beside the digest.

1966. Blyth. R. H. Blyth, commenting on the verse of the fourth case of the 無門関, where ordinary life is an alloy of the absolute and the relative, asks: Which are we to believe, "Death before dishonour," or "Safety first"? [25].

What is not a source. The Japanese words have no known author. The witnesses read from 1898 to 1915 are books and a magazine of English, and one calls the words a literal translation; the index cannot show who first wrote them. The vow has an old Chinese form of its own, which no source read ties to this sentence: the 禮記 says of the scholar 可殺而不可辱也, he may be killed, but not disgraced [26].

A reading

A crest in good Japanese, made from a schoolbook's sentence. For its first decades 不名誉より死 was the Japanese of an English lesson, and there it carried a verb; set without one, it speaks as the English motto does, a noun against a noun, with より for before. Books of English set the vow on the Japanese by 1906, so when a translator in 1933 needed Japanese for what Lytton said of the Japanese, the sentence was ready: the English lesson's example had become a description of the Japanese before a foreigner was quoted saying it. The Latin beside it is older in print and means something else, a white coat kept clean, and in the sources read the two meet as renderings, a family's motto given in English in 1826 and in Latin in 1828, and a catechism's gloss in 1878; the Breton device of 1849 is rendered without its Latin.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Death Before Dishonor (fumeiyo yori shi) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
不名誉より死VB3CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Death Before Dishonor (fumeiyo yori shi) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
不名誉より死VC3BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Death Before Dishonor (fumeiyo yori shi) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
不名誉より死VD5CEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Death Before Dishonor (fumeiyo yori shi) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
不名誉より死VS4CSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「不名誉」, at kotobank (デジタル大辞泉; 精選版日本国語大辞典). https://kotobank.jp/word/不名誉-620397
  2. 『ボアソナード氏起稿 民法草案財産編講義』, 1880, p. 712. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1367360/1/361
  3. Peter Heylyn, A Little Description of the Great World, augmented and revised, Oxford, 1625, p. 440; the first edition, Microcosmus, Oxford, 1621, p. 231; the third edition, revised, Oxford, 1627, p. 437; and Heylyn's marginal source, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, London, 1603 (title page), the siege of Curzola. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_-a-little-des_heylyn-peter_1625/page/n449 · https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_microcosmus-a-little-de_heylyn-peter_1621/page/n252 · https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_a-little-description-_heylyn-p_1627/page/n462 · https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_the-generall-historie-of_knolles-richard_1602/page/n898
  4. Report from the Committee of Secrecy, of the House of Commons in Ireland, London: Debrett, 1798, Appendix No. XXX, p. cclxix. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/reportfromcommit00irel/page/n300
  5. John Burke, A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage, London, 1826, p. 328, Trimlestown, and p. 184, Kingsland. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/ageneralandhera03burkgoog/page/n348 · https://archive.org/details/ageneralandhera03burkgoog/page/n204
  6. William Berry, Encyclopaedia heraldica, London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1828, s.v. Barnewall, Viscount Kingsland, and s.v. Trimlestown, Baron, (Barnewall,), text layer. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/b28745243_0001 · Robson, The British Herald, 1830, the list of mottoes, Barnewell, text layer. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/britishheraldor00robsgoog
  7. Thomas Connelly and Thomas Higgins, Diccionario nuevo de las dos lenguas española é inglesa, Madrid, 1797, vol. 1, s.v. Antes, and p. 192, s.v. Arena. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_diccionario-nuevo-de-las_connelly-thomas_1797_1_0/page/n167 · https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_diccionario-nuevo-de-las_connelly-thomas_1797_1_0/page/n206
  8. Antonio Ricciardi, Commentaria symbolica, apud Franciscum de Franciscis, 1591, s.v. Mus, no. 15. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Aci36dfX8I0C/page/n298
  9. Cesare d'Engenio Caracciolo, Napoli sacra, Naples: Ottavio Beltrano, 1624. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_W8-cmhDMkysC/page/n665
  10. "Order of the Ermine (Naples)", English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Ermine_(Naples)
  11. Burton Stevenson, The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases, Macmillan, 1948, p. 587, Disgrace, no. 15.
  12. Joseph Faà di Bruno, Catholic Belief: or, A Short and Simple Exposition of Catholic Doctrine, Burns and Oates, 1878, p. 136. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/CatholicBelief1878/page/n161
  13. Memoirs of Chateaubriand, from His Birth in 1768, till His Return to France in 1800, London: Henry Colburn, 1849. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/memoirschateaub01chatgoog/page/n211 · the French, Mémoires d'outre-tombe, ed. Edmond Biré, Garnier, 1910, vol. 1, Livre V, at Wikisource. https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Chateaubriand_-_Mémoires_d’outre-tombe_t1.djvu/317
  14. Charles MacFarlane, Japan: An Account, Geographical and Historical, New York, 1852, p. 215. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/japanaccountgeog00macfuoft/page/n236
  15. V. M. Golownin, Recollections of Japan, London: Henry Colburn, 1819, p. 89. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/recollectionsofj00goloiala/page/n190
  16. 『青年』 1(5), 英語青年社, August 1898, scan 12, excerpt only. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2266746/1/12
  17. T. Hirose and N. Sakuma, An Intermediate Japanese-English Dictionary for Assisting Students in Conversation & Composition, Tokyo: Ikubunsha, 1906, p. 782. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/anintermediatej00sakugoog/page/n796
  18. F. W. Eastlake, 『英和熟語慣用句辞典』, 三省堂, 1908, p. 956. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/870072/1/481
  19. 佐川春水, Studies in Idioms: Japanese-English and English-Japanese 『研究イデオム』, 隆文堂, 1912, scan 33, excerpt only. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1678920/1/33
  20. Saitō Hidesaburō, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, S.E.G. Publishing Department, 1915, pp. 89 and 165, text layer of the page images.
  21. 加藤玄智 編著, 『実用士官候補生の英語』, 陸軍士官学校将校集会所, 1919, pp. 103–104, scans 117–118. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/943091/1/117
  22. 宇原義豊, 『日本産業革命論』, 1932, scan 175, excerpt only. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1213202/1/175
  23. 外務省情報部, 『日支事変ニ関スル各国新聞論調』 169–184, 1933, pp. 6–7. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1906862/1/84
  24. 有馬成甫, 『非常時海軍国防読本』, 大日本海防協会, 1933, scan 50, excerpt only. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1026049/1/50 · 『内外調査資料』 第5年(3), 調査資料協会, March 1933, scan 145, excerpt only. National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1574135/1/145
  25. R. H. Blyth, Zen and Zen Classics, vol. 4, Mumonkan, Hokuseido, 1966, p. 66.
  26. 『禮記』 儒行, at Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/禮記/儒行

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-27, citations — every reference with a web address opened and the quoted words looked for at each, with controls that must fail and did; every address answered as the history states, the one dictionary page checked again by hand, and the Neapolitan book of 1624, whose text layer does not carry the word for the ermine, confirmed at its page image · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-27, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 failed from both readers, one wrong fact each, conceded (the 1798 report does not make the handbill the United Irishmen's; the Japanese words were not shown to be made in books of English from 1898); round 2 failed from one reader on one wrong fact, conceded (the white coat is the 1624 book's, not the 1591 one's), and the catechism of 1878 was added at its page; round 3 passed from both with no wrong fact, with wordings corrected in the pass, among them the 1849 translation's Latin not printed, the 1898 witness a magazine, the 1912 note's referent not shown, and the earliest finds scoped to the forms searched · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations of the grouped history this one was split from — checked at their addresses with web search on; none contradicted. Witnesses read after that check have not been re-checked by another model (the grouped history as it stood on that date; later corrections have not been through an outside check)

Research depth: step 5 of our 10-step ladder, libraries searched · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 不名誉より死 (fumeiyo yori shi)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/fumeiyo-yori-shi.