不名誉より死 fumeiyo yori shi Death Before Dishonor
不名誉より死 (fumeiyo yori shi), rather than dishonor, death, renders death before dishonor as a crest speaks, a noun phrase with no verb. Its Latin ancestor is the motto of a Neapolitan order of 1464; the Japanese sentence is in no prewar book, and its noun for dishonor entered the language in 1887.
Abstract
不名誉より死, death before dishonor, renders a Western motto of war with no Japanese life of its own: the sentence is in no prewar Japanese book, and its noun, 不名誉, entered Japanese in 1887. The English motto's own first use is not known; its Latin ancestor is the badge of the Order of the Ermine, founded at Naples in 1464, Malo mori quam foedari, I would rather die than be dishonored.
Overview
The sense. Death before dishonor is a Latin sentiment of the Renaissance and an American tattoo, a soldier's choice set down as a crest. The Japanese is a rendering of it, not a saying with a history of its own.
The words. 不名誉 fumeiyo, dishonor: 名誉を傷つけること, the damaging of one's honor; the word's first citation is Futabatei's 浮雲 of 1887–89, the first modern novel, so it is a Meiji noun [1]. より yori, rather than; 死 shi, death: rather than dishonor, death, a noun phrase with no verb, which is what a crest says.
The text in English. The Japanese keeps the crest's verblessness, and the English does too; before in the English is rather than, which is exactly what より says.
The historical record
1464. The Latin behind death before dishonor. The English motto has no article of its own in the encyclopedia, only a page of albums, a band and a regiment's crest. Its Latin ancestor is the badge of the Order of the Ermine, founded in 1464 by Ferdinand I of Naples: Malo mori quam foedari, I would rather die than be dishonored [2]. The English motto's own first use is not known, and the Japanese sentence is in no prewar book; the noun 不名誉 entered Japanese in 1887.
What is not a source. The Japanese sentence renders its motto in no book known; it is a rendering, not a Japanese saying, and it has no author.
A reading
A crest in good Japanese: the verb left off on both sides, and より doing exactly what before does in the English. It says in Japanese what an order said in Latin five centuries ago, and it owes nothing to any Japanese tradition of its own.
References
- 「不名誉」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/不名誉-620397
- "Order of the Ermine (Naples)", English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Ermine_(Naples)