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肉を切らせて骨を断つ niku o kirasete hone o tatsu Let Them Cut Your Flesh, and Cut Their Bone

肉を切らせて骨を断つ, let them cut your flesh and cut their bone: the swordsman's mutual strike, from 1701 through the Pacific War into English.

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Japanese Scroll of Let Them Cut Your Flesh, and Cut Their Bone (niku o kirasete hone o tatsu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Let Them Cut Your Flesh, and Cut Their Bone肉を切らせて骨を断つniku o kirasete hone o tatsu

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

肉を切らせて骨を断つ niku o kirasete hone o tatsu, let them cut your flesh, and cut their bone, is a fighter's saying: take a lesser wound in order to deal a mortal one [1][2]. Its shape is older than its earliest known words: a manual of the martial arts printed in 1701 under the name of Yamamoto Kansuke 山本勘介 teaches the mutual strike as let them cut my hand, cut the enemy's head [3], and the eleventh book of the Hagakure 葉隠 (1710s) teaches swordsmen to be cut in the skin and cut the bone [4][5]. In print, a sword manual of February 1893 gives the skin and the bone as a 理話, and a storyteller's tale of December 1893 is the earliest known witness of the words with flesh and bone (known, that is, in the witnesses read: the National Diet Library's full-text index searched oldest first, our own library and the dictionaries reached; the 日本国語大辞典 is not seen) [6][7]; the verb 断つ, in its older form 斷つ, is known from 1900 [8]. In the war years, from 1941 to 1945, the saying was the services' and the state's figure for the war itself, spoken in the Diet, by the Prime Minister and by the War Minister, and taught in the schools' ethics textbook as the teaching of our country from of old [9][10][11][12].

Overview

The sense. デジタル大辞泉 enters the saying under 骨を切る, with 骨を断つ as its other form: 自分も痛手を受ける代わりに、相手にそれ以上の打撃を与える。捨て身で敵に勝つ。肉を切らせて骨を断つ, to take damage oneself in exchange for dealing the opponent a greater blow; to defeat an enemy at the risk of oneself (捨て身) [1]. JMdict gives both endings the same gloss, three English phrases in this order: to lose a battle to win the war; to incur damage so as to inflict greater damage on a foe; to allow one's flesh to be cut in order to sever another's bone [2][13]. The sources read hold two senses side by side. Several sword texts tie the figure to closing in, going in on the enemy at the cost of a wound so as to strike home [6][14]. The dictionaries, and the war, read it as an exchange: accept a loss so as to inflict a greater one [15][16][9].

The words. 肉 niku is flesh, 骨 hone bone. 切らせて kirasete is the causative of 切る, to cut: letting (them) cut, the wound taken on purpose. デジタル大辞泉 enters 切る and 斬る as one verb, き・る【切る／斬る】, whose second sense is 刃物などで人を傷つけ、または、殺す, to wound or kill a person with a blade [17]. 断つ tatsu is to cut through: the same dictionary enters it with 絶つ, and its first sense, written 断つ, is つながっているものを切り離す。切断する, to cut apart what is joined; to sever [18]; JMdict's gloss of the saying has sever [2]. The witnesses write the verbs four ways: 切る and 斬る (the cut with a blade) for both cuts, and 断つ, or its older form 斷つ, for the cut to the bone; and some older witnesses write a passive, 切られて, being cut, where the saying now has the causative. The fuller form runs in steps, skin, flesh, bone and at last the enemy's life: let them cut your skin and cut their flesh; let them cut your flesh and cut their bone [15][16][10]. The reading is にくをきらせてほねをたつ [2].

The text in English. The earliest English known is a newspaper's of 1943: to let the opponent cut your flesh while you cut his bone [19]. The karate and aikido books since have cut his meat while cutting your skin, let your opponent cut your skin so that you can cut through his flesh, and allow the skin to be cut in order to cut the flesh; let the flesh be cut in order to cut to the bone [20][21][22]. The English-Japanese dictionaries set it beside throw out a minnow to catch a whale [23], and JMdict leads with to lose a battle to win the war [2].

The historical record

Before the words: the mutual strike

1701, the Heihō hidensho 兵法秘伝書, a manual of the martial arts. It was printed in the first month of 1701 by a bookseller of 坂陽 (坂陽書肆), and its colophon reads 山本勘介記, written by Yamamoto Kansuke [3]. The National Institute of Japanese Literature gives the authorship as 伝, attributed, and records printings of 1701 and 1804 [24]; the dictionaries say that Kansuke served Takeda Shingen as his strategist and was killed at Kawanakajima, as the Kōyō gunkan 甲陽軍鑑 tells it, and give his dates as unknown [25]. Its twenty-first article, 相擊勝負之事, on the match of the mutual strike, opens: 夫相擊の勝と云ハ、我は手を切らせ　敵の首を斬, what is called winning by the mutual strike: I let them cut my hand, and cut the enemy's head [3]. It goes on in the same shape, the outside for the inside, the left hand for the left foot, and the rest by this rule; the editors of its 1934 typeset say the book sets out the secrets of the art of war for the fist, the sword, the staff, the spear, the bow, the gun and the like, 拳法・劍法・棍法・鎗・弓・鐵炮等に關する兵法の奧義 [26]. This is the saying's figure, the causative 切らせ and the cut 斬, without its words: a hand for a head, not flesh for bone. The 相打ち, two fighters striking at once, is in a puppet play of 1694, the 精選版 日本国語大辞典's first instance of that sense [27].

The skin and the bone: the Hagakure

The 1710s, the Hagakure 葉隠, book eleven. The Hagakure, the teaching of the Saga retainer Yamamoto Tsunetomo 山本常朝 (1659–1719) as taken down by Tashiro Tsuramoto 田代陣基, was compiled from 1710; several dictionaries date its completion to 1716, and one encyclopedia calls its compiler and its date uncertain, says some manuscripts give 1716, and calls the eleventh of its eleven books a supplement [28]. In the print of 1906: 劒術の要は、種々あれども、心に銘すべきは己れは皮を切られて骨を切ることなり、無分別の樣なれど元來無分別にならざれば勝利は覺束なきものなり, there is much to the heart of swordsmanship, but what must be engraved on the mind is this: be cut in the skin yourself, and cut the bone. It looks reckless, but unless one becomes reckless, victory is uncertain [4]. The Saga prefectural education society's reader of 1941 prints the same line and marks it (卷十一), book eleven [5]. Two steps, skin and bone, and the passive: being cut, not letting them cut. No 肉.

The words in print, 1893 to 1922

February 1893, Kumamoto Sanemichi's sword manual. Budō kyōhan 武道教範, part one, by Kumamoto Sanemichi 隈元實道 (d. 1905), a former samurai of Kagoshima who, Nagao Susumu 長尾進 writes, fought for the government in the drawn-sword unit of 1877 and taught swordsmanship and jūjutsu to soldiers and soldiers' sons at a hall he founded [6][29]. Its colophon is dated 3 February 1893, and the National Diet Library's record gives its publisher as that hall, the 振気館 Shinkikan, in Tokyo [6]. Under the sword poem 切り結ぶ太刀の下こそ地獄なれ至極はかゝれ先は極樂, after a gloss that if one steps in deep even one step, beyond it is paradise: 敵ニ皮ヲ切ラレテ我レハ骨ヲ切ルト云フ理話亦決心激發ヲ云フモノナリ, the 理話 that the enemy cuts my skin and I cut his bone likewise speaks of resolve roused to the full [6]. The Hagakure's two steps, skin and bone, and its passive. In the edition of 1895 the line reads 敵に皮を切られて我れは骨を切ると云ふ、術語は決心激發を云ふものなり, and the 理話 is now a 術語, a term of the art [30]. The word saying, 言葉, is first known on it in 1900 [8].

December 1893, a gambler's way of fighting. A kōdan, a storyteller's tale taken down in shorthand, licensed in May and printed on 20 December 1893 [7]. A gambler says the teachers with their diplomas put their own bodies first, and so cannot brawl; his kind have nothing but a blade and a life, and throw the body in: 敵に皮を切らして肉を切れ、又た肉を切らして骨を切れ、腕を落さして首を落せといふのは博奕打の喧嘩の流儀です, let the enemy cut your skin and cut his flesh, then let him cut your flesh and cut his bone, let him take your arm and take his head: that is the gamblers' way of brawling [7]. In the witnesses read (the full-text index searched oldest first; the 日本国語大辞典 not seen), this is the earliest witness of the words with flesh and bone, and it is set against the sword teachers.

1900, called a saying, with 斷つ. In a kōdan of 1900 a young man faces his parent's killer with his sword teacher at his back and takes heart, the storyteller says, 皮を切らして肉を切り肉を切らして骨を斷つといふ言葉があるから, since there is a saying, let them cut your skin and cut their flesh, let them cut your flesh and cut through their bone [8]. The earliest known witness of 斷つ, the older form of 断つ, on the bone.

1903, the secret of swordsmanship. In a kōdan of 1903 on Yagyū Jūbei, a follower of his, 爲助, shouts in a fight: 抑も劔道の極意と云ふものは、皮を斬らして肉を斬れ、肉を斬らせて骨を斬れと云ふんだ, the secret of swordsmanship is this: let them cut your skin and cut their flesh, let them cut your flesh and cut their bone [31].

1906 and 1910, the proverb dictionaries. The proverb dictionary of Kumashiro Hikotarō 熊代彦太郎 (1872–1920), 1906, enters 皮を切らせて肉を斬れ肉を斬らせて骨を斬れ: 敵を倒すにはおのれも苦痛を忍ばざるべからざるの義, meaning that to bring down an enemy one must also bear pain oneself [15]. Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男's Gengo daijiten 諺語大辞典 of 1910 enters 皮ヲ切ラセテ肉ヲ切レ、肉ヲ切ラセテ骨ヲ切レ: 人を害せんとせば、おのれも多少の損傷を忍ぶべきをいふ, to harm another, one must bear some injury oneself [16]. Neither entry names a source; on the 1910 page the proverbs around it carry theirs.

1907, the swordsmen's stock phrase. A book of 1907 on Zen and action, by a writer who signs himself 破魔禅: 皮を切らせて肉を斬れ、肉を斬らせて骨を斬れとは、劔法者の常套語であるが、これも生死一如と觀じた上で、應用すべきことである, let them cut your skin and cut their flesh, let them cut your flesh and cut their bone: this is the swordsmen's stock phrase, but it too is to be applied only once one has seen life and death as one [32].

1917, going in expecting to be struck. In a kōdan of 1917 a sword teacher gives the saying to his follower as the secret of all swordsmanship, and says what it means: 總て劒術の極意といふものは、皮は斬らせて肉を切れ、肉を切らせて骨を斷と云つて、木劍の先で先方を打うとすると決して打てるものでは無い、己れが打れるつもりで飛び込んで、持てる木劍の鍔を持て先方の頭を打つ了見で遣らなければ決して相手の者は打てぬ, the secret of all swordsmanship, they say, is let them cut your skin and cut their flesh, let them cut your flesh and cut through their bone. Try to strike your opponent with the tip of the wooden sword and you will never strike him; unless you leap in expecting to be struck yourself, meaning to strike his head with the guard of your sword, you will never strike him [14]. The ruby on 斷 reads たて, an imperative.

1920, Takano Sasaburō's kendō manual. In his Nihon kendō kyōhan 日本剣道教範, Takano Sasaburō 高野佐三郎 (1862–1950) writes under the heading 相擊の勝, winning by the mutual strike: 故に時としては相擊の勝を得ん覺悟あること肝要なり。肉を切らせて骨を斬るの勇氣なるべからず。否な身を捨てゝこそ始めて萬全なるを得るなれ。こゝに相擊の勝といふは譬へば手を斬らせて敵の首を斬り、わが左の手を切らせて敵の右の手を切るの類なり, so at times one must be resolved to win by the mutual strike. It must not be the courage to let them cut the flesh and cut the bone. No: only by throwing oneself away is one made whole. Winning by the mutual strike here means, for example, letting them cut your hand and cutting the enemy's head, letting them cut your left hand and cutting the enemy's right [33]. Takano sets the saying beside the example the 1701 manual gives, a hand for a head, under one heading (on なるべからず, Notes).

1922, Araki Mataemon and the Yagyū school's secret. Nakabayashi Fūsui 中林楓水 (1891–1953), writing on the vendetta of 1634 at Iga-goe, says of Araki Mataemon's charge to his companion before the fight: 荒木が戰の前刻に當つて敵に皮を斬らせて肉を切り肉を斬らせて骨を斷てと言ひ含めた柳生流の極意の一端が此處に顯はされて居る, here is shown a part of the Yagyū school's secret, which Araki impressed on him just before the fight: let the enemy cut your skin and cut his flesh, let him cut your flesh and cut through his bone [34]. This is the earliest known telling that gives the saying to Araki, nearly three centuries after the event; it is a legend.

The war

20 November 1941, the Diet. Eighteen days before the attack on Pearl Harbor (8 December, Japan time), Major General Satō Kenryō 佐藤賢了, speaking for the army to a committee of the House of Representatives on a bill amending the air-defense law: 古來我ガ國ノ眞劍勝負ノ敎訓トシテ、皮ヲ切ラレテ肉ヲ斷ツ、肉ヲ斷タレテ骨ヲ切ルト云フ意味ノ敎訓ガアルヤウニ存ジマス、戰爭ニ於キマシテモ亦是レデアリマス, I believe there is, as a teaching of our country's real-sword fights from of old, a teaching to the effect: having the skin cut, cut through the flesh; having the flesh cut through, cut the bone. In war it is the same [9]. He applies it to the home front: an air raid taken as the skin cut [9].

5 June 1943, the Nippon Times. On the day of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku's state funeral, the paper's profile of him says that as a schoolboy he fenced with the short stick only: Instead of waiting for an opportunity to strike at the opponent, he would rush right into the opponent's inner defense and deal a powerful thrust with his short weapon, thereby generally succeeding in defeating his opponent. His method of fighting, he said, was to let the opponent cut your flesh while you cut his bone. Out of such a courageous spirit must have come his swift attacks on the enemy at the outbreak of the Greater East Asia War [19]. The words are the paper's report of what Yamamoto said about fencing; the reading into the war is the paper's own.

1943, a scholar on the saying. Watari Shōzaburō 亘理章三郎 (1873–1946), in a book of 1943 on the sword, kendō and the Japanese spirit, calls the saying 相討の意義の說明, an explanation of what the mutual strike means, and says the newspapers that print 皮を斬られて肉を斬り, with the passive, are 武者詞に通じない者の誤り, the error of people who do not know warriors' speech: かゝる場合に武者詞では斬らせといひ、決して斬られとはいはない, in such a case warriors' speech says 斬らせ, and never 斬られ [35]. He quotes the 1701 manual's 相擊勝負之事 and judges that これを「皮を斬らせて肉を斬り云々」と巧みに言ひ習はすやうになつたものとみえる, it appears that this came to be said, neatly, as "let them cut the skin and cut the flesh" [35].

December 1943, the Prime Minister. Tōjō Hideki 東條英機, to an extraordinary general meeting of the 日本經濟聯盟會 at the start of the war's third year: 所謂肉を斬らせて敵の骨を斬り、我が骨を斬らせて敵の生命を斷つと云ふ、所謂鍔ぜり合ひを行ひ乍らも、最後の勝利へと戰ひ續けなければならぬのであります, we must fight on to final victory even while locked guard against guard, as they say, letting them cut our flesh to cut the enemy's bone, letting them cut our bone to cut off the enemy's life [10]. His form has 斬 on the bone and adds a third step, with 斷つ on the enemy's life.

1944, the schools' ethics textbook. The Ministry of Education's ethics textbook for boys of the upper elementary course, lesson fifteen, 皇國の使命, the mission of the imperial nation: 敵に皮を切らせてその肉を刺し、肉を切らせてその骨を斷つとは、わが國古來の教へである, let the enemy cut your skin and pierce his flesh, let him cut your flesh and cut through his bone: this is the teaching of our country from of old [11]. 斷つ on the bone.

9 June 1945, the War Minister. Anami Korechika 阿南惟幾, reporting on the war to the House of Peers two months before the surrender: 而シテ始メテ肉ヲ切ラセテ敵ノ骨ヲ斷チ、骨ヲ切ラシテ敵ノ生命ヲ斷チ、以テ光輝アル、戰勝ヲ獲得シ得ルノデアル, and only then, letting them cut our flesh and cutting through the enemy's bone, letting them cut our bone and cutting off the enemy's life, can we win a glorious victory [12]. He said it again to the House of Representatives that day, with 切ラシテ for 切ラセテ on the flesh [36].

After the war

Kenkyusha's English-Japanese dictionary of 1980 glosses throw out a minnow to catch a whale as 大利のために小利を捨てる, 「肉を切らせて骨を切る」 [23]. In the books and magazines the National Diet Library has digitized, counted as items by decade, 肉を切らせて骨を断つ outnumbers 肉を切らせて骨を切る from the 1990s; summing the eight forms counted (the first halves 切らせて, 斬らせて and 切らして), 骨を断つ is the commonest of the three endings, 断つ, 切る and 斬る, from the 1980s [37].

What is not a source

The Yagyū school. The 1903 kōdan calls the saying the secret of swordsmanship and the 1922 book the secret of the Yagyū school [31][34]; neither names a source in a school's own writing, and the manual of 1701 that carries the figure is credited to Yamamoto Kansuke [3]. The 1910 dictionary gives the saying no source [16].

Araki Mataemon. The telling that puts the saying in Araki's mouth at Iga-goe is first known in 1922 [34], and is a legend.

The war. The saying was in print by 1893 and called a saying by 1900 [6][7][8]; the war used it and did not make it. Tōjō did not coin it, and the form he spoke has 斬 on the bone, not 斷 [10].

The passive as an error. Watari's 斬られ is never said [35] is answered by the Hagakure and by Kumamoto's manual, which both write the passive 切られて [4][6].

The saying in English

1943, the Nippon Times. His method of fighting, he said, was to let the opponent cut your flesh while you cut his bone [19]. The earliest English known, and itself a wartime use. Two steps, flesh and bone.

1973 and 2005, Funakoshi's Karate-dō kyōhan. Funakoshi Gichin 船越義珍's karate manual of 1935 uses the first step only, in a note on the kata Bassai. Tsutomu Ohshima's translation of the revised edition of 1958 (1973): This is an example of the tactic, "Cut his meat while cutting your skin" (i.e., take a cut skin to inflict a cut muscle) [20]. Harumi Suzuki-Johnston's translation of the 1935 edition: This is a strategy referred to as "let your opponent cut your skin so that you can cut through his flesh." [21]

1984, Oyama. Masutatsu Oyama's This Is Karate, in Richard L. Gage's translation, in a printing of 1984: To cut to the opponent's flesh, one must have his own skin cut, to smash the opponent's bones, one must be cut to the flesh, to take the opponent's life, one must have his own bones broken [38]. The three-step chain, with the life at its end, as Tōjō and Anami spoke it.

1999, Ōmori Sōgen. Ōmori Sōgen 大森曹玄's essay Zen and Budo, which the book's note dates to 1968, in Dogen Hosokawa's book, where the chapter is an edited version of the more formal translation by Tanouye Tenshin, turns the saying on the Cold War: let our opponents cut the flesh that embraces nuclear weapons and we in turn will cut their bones. The book's note gives the saying as a famous saying from swordsmanship: My opponent cuts my skin, I cut his flesh. He cuts my flesh, I cut his bone. He cuts my bone, I kill him [39].

2007, Ueshiba. Ueshiba Morihei 植芝盛平, in John Stevens's translation: In old-time swordsmanship it was said, "Allow the skin to be cut in order to cut the flesh; let the flesh be cut in order to cut to the bone." That is, sacrifice a cut to your skin or even to your flesh to get close enough to cut to your enemy's bone. However, in today's world we do not want the skin to even get scratched [22].

Today. JMdict: to lose a battle to win the war; to incur damage so as to inflict greater damage on a foe; to allow one's flesh to be cut in order to sever another's bone [2]. The title above, Let them cut your flesh, and cut their bone, renders it closely, supplying the persons (them, your, their) and giving cut for both 切る and 断つ, where JMdict's gloss has sever for the second; JMdict's first phrase, lose a battle to win the war, is the sense of exchange, where the sword writing read here ties it to going in.

A reading

As I read the witnesses, the saying is about entering. Kumamoto's manual sets it under a poem that says beyond the crossed blades is paradise, and glosses the poem as stepping in deep; the 1917 teacher says to leap in expecting to be struck; the Nippon Times has the schoolboy Yamamoto rushing into the inner defense; Ueshiba's translator has to get close enough [6][14][19][22]. The flesh is the price of the distance closed, and the bone is what one can reach only from there. That is the sense I sign.

The other sense, the arithmetic of losing less to win more, is in the witnesses too, and it is old: the 1906 and 1910 dictionaries gloss the saying as bearing injury to bring an enemy down [15][16], and Satō turns it into a ratio, a loss of one repaid five or ten times [9]. It is the sense the war made national and the sense JMdict leads with today [11][12][2]. Both are the saying's. A reader who takes it as lose a battle to win the war reads it as the dictionaries do; the swordsmen's texts read it as going in.

On the origin, Watari's judgment of 1943 seems to me right in its shape and wrong in its particular. The figure of letting them cut and cutting back is the teaching of the mutual strike, and Takano had already set the saying beside the 1701 manual's example of a hand for a head in 1920 [33][35]. But the passive he calls an error is the older form in the witnesses known: the Hagakure and Kumamoto both write it [4][6]. The causative of the 1701 manual and the skin and bone of the Hagakure meet, in the witnesses known, only in Meiji print.

Notes

The 1701 print's third line, 我左の手切らせ　敵?左の足を斬, has after 敵 a kana that is not the の of the lines above it, and may be は; the 1934 typeset prints 敵の左の足 [3][26]. The history quotes the first line only.

The National Diet Library reads 隈元實道's given name ジツドウ; Nagao reads it さねみち [6][29]. Nagao dates the Budō kyōhan by its edition of 1895; the first part was published on 3 February 1893 [29][6].

理話 is not entered in the dictionaries opened (kotobank, searched), and the history leaves it untranslated; the edition of 1895 has 術語 in its place [30].

Takano's 勇氣なるべからず is rendered as printed, must not be the courage, and the 否な, no, that follows reads with it: throwing oneself away goes beyond the flesh and the bone. If なるべからず is a misprint for なかるべからず, must not lack, the sentence asks for that courage and 否な reads nay, more. The page does not settle it [33].

The 1906 print's title page writes 田代陳基; the dictionaries at kotobank write both 陣基 and 陳基 [28][4].

The Hagakure line is placed in book eleven by the 1941 Saga reader, a printed anthology that marks each line with its book [5], not by a manuscript.

The copy of Oyama's This Is Karate is a 1984 printing of the 1980 second revised edition; the first edition was 1965. The passage is dated here to the printing read [38].

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Let Them Cut Your Flesh, and Cut Their Bone (niku o kirasete hone o tatsu) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
肉を切らせて骨を断つVB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Let Them Cut Your Flesh, and Cut Their Bone (niku o kirasete hone o tatsu) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
肉を切らせて骨を断つVC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Let Them Cut Your Flesh, and Cut Their Bone (niku o kirasete hone o tatsu) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
肉を切らせて骨を断つVD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Let Them Cut Your Flesh, and Cut Their Bone (niku o kirasete hone o tatsu) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
肉を切らせて骨を断つVS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

『日本国語大辞典』 第二版, 小学館, the entries 肉を切らせて骨を切る and 肉を切らせて骨を断つ, served online by JapanKnowledge (japanknowledge.com). Its first citation could set a date earlier than 1893 for the words.

大森曹玄, 「禅と武道」, in 鈴木大拙・西谷啓治 編, 『講座禅』 第5巻, 筑摩書房, 1968. It would give Ōmori's own Japanese for the line the translation renders.

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

References

  1. 「肉を切らせて骨を切る」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%82%89%E3%82%92%E5%88%87%E3%82%89%E3%81%9B%E3%81%A6%E9%AA%A8%E3%82%92%E5%88%87%E3%82%8B-591227
  2. JMdict 2834542, 肉を切らせて骨を断つ, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/word/%E8%82%89%E3%82%92%E5%88%87%E3%82%89%E3%81%9B%E3%81%A6%E9%AA%A8%E3%82%92%E6%96%AD%E3%81%A4
  3. 山本勘介 記 (伝), 『兵法秘伝書』, 坂陽書肆, 元禄14 (1701), 立教大学 江戸川乱歩旧蔵 copy, imaged by the National Institute of Japanese Literature, canvas 53 (第廿一 相擊勝負之事) and canvas 69 (colophon). https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100297517/53
  4. 山本常朝 述, 田代陳基 記, 中村郁一 編, 『葉隠』, 丁酉社, 1906, p. 17 (scan 19), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758897/1/19
  5. 佐賀県教育会 編, 『葉隠読本』, 1941, p. 110 (scan 63), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1034293/1/63
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  7. 邑井吉瓶 講演, 今村次郎 速記, 『桧山麒麟一声』, 九皐館, 1893, p. 252 (scan 5) and the colophon (scan 64), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/890799/1/5
  8. 一流斎文雅 口演, 高畠夢香 速記, 『元和三勇士』, 文事堂, 1900, p. 231 (scan 117), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/889943/1/117
  9. 第77回帝国議会 衆議院 防空法中改正法律案委員会 第3号, 20 November 1941, speech 13 (佐藤賢了), printed p. 28, at the Imperial Diet minutes, National Diet Library. https://teikokugikai-i.ndl.go.jp/txt/007713175X00319411120/13
  10. 日本經濟聯盟會 編, 『戦時生産の増強促進に関する東条内閣総理大臣閣下の演説』, 1943, the cover (scan 1) and pp. 1 and 3 (scans 8–9), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1270821/1/9
  11. 文部省 編, 『高等科修身』 第1 男子用, 1944, p. 112 (scan 71), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1460841/1/71
  12. 第87回帝国議会 貴族院 本会議 第1号, 9 June 1945, speech 36 (阿南惟幾), 官報號外 p. 5, at the Imperial Diet minutes, National Diet Library. https://teikokugikai-i.ndl.go.jp/txt/008703242X00119450609/36
  13. JMdict 2834545, 肉を切らせて骨を切る, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/word/%E8%82%89%E3%82%92%E5%88%87%E3%82%89%E3%81%9B%E3%81%A6%E9%AA%A8%E3%82%92%E5%88%87%E3%82%8B
  14. 宝井琴窓 講演, 『宮本父子二刀の誉』, 1917, the second part, p. 180 (scan 230), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/912054/1/230
  15. 熊代彦太郎 編, 『俚諺辞典』, 1906, p. 128 (scan 81), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991942/1/81
  16. 藤井乙男 編, 『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, p. 262 (scan 147), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/147
  17. 「切る」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%88%87%E3%82%8B-480486
  18. 「絶つ」 (た・つ【絶つ／断つ】), デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B5%B6%E3%81%A4-561161
  19. Nippon Times, evening edition, 5 June 1943, p. 3, "Eventful Career of Admiral Yamamoto Traced", the section "Cut Flesh, Cut Bone". https://archive.org/details/sim_japan-times_nippon-times-evening_1943-06-05_15873/page/n2
  20. Gichin Funakoshi, Karate-dō Kyōhan: The Master Text, tr. Tsutomu Ohshima, Kodansha International, 1973, p. 100.
  21. Gichin Funakoshi, Karate Do Kyohan, tr. Harumi Suzuki-Johnston, Neptune Publications, 2005 (second edition 2012), p. 78.
  22. Morihei Ueshiba, The Secret Teachings of Aikido, tr. John Stevens, Kodansha International, 2007, p. 50.
  23. 小稲義男 編, Kenkyusha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, fifth edition, 研究社, 1980, p. 1141, s.v. minnow.
  24. 「兵法秘伝書」, the work record (山本勘介 伝; printings of 元禄14 and 文化1; the 国書総目録 entry), National Institute of Japanese Literature. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/3944545
  25. 「山本勘助」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B1%B1%E6%9C%AC%E5%8B%98%E5%8A%A9-144333
  26. 『甲斐叢書』 第9巻, 甲斐叢書刊行会, 1934, the editors' note (scans 5–6) and 『兵法秘傳書』 p. 358 (scan 187), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1209128/1/187
  27. 「相打ち」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and others, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%9B%B8%E6%89%93%E3%81%A1-420941
  28. 「葉隠」, デジタル大辞泉, 世界大百科事典, ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 and others, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%91%89%E9%9A%A0-113466
  29. 長尾進, 「隈元實道『武道教範』再考」, 『武道学研究』 49 Supplement, 2016, p. S_29. https://doi.org/10.11214/budo.49.s_29
  30. 隈元実道, 『武道教範』, 1895 (明治28年4月), p. 105 (scan 64), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/860496/1/64
  31. 神田伯竜 講演, 『伊賀水月柳生三厳漫遊記』, 1903, p. 22 (scan 12), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/891008/1/12
  32. 破魔禅 著, 『禅と活動』, 東亜堂書房, 1907, p. 136 (scan 76), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823240/1/76
  33. 高野佐三郎, 『日本剣道教範』, 朝野書店, 1920, p. 119 (scan 72), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964519/1/72
  34. 中林楓水, 『伊賀越敵討研究』, 1922, p. 108 (scan 68), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/941502/1/68
  35. 亘理章三郎, 『刀及剣道と日本魂』, 1943, pp. 244–245 (scan 137), National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1125975/1/137
  36. 第87回帝国議会 衆議院 本会議 第1号, 9 June 1945, speech 29 (阿南惟幾), at the Imperial Diet minutes, National Diet Library. https://teikokugikai-i.ndl.go.jp/txt/008713242X00119450609/29
  37. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search, all access levels, 肉を切らせて骨を断つ and its other forms (the first halves 切らせて, 斬らせて and 切らして, the endings 骨を断つ, 骨を切る and 骨を斬る; eight forms in all), items by decade. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=%E8%82%89%E3%82%92%E5%88%87%E3%82%89%E3%81%9B%E3%81%A6%E9%AA%A8%E3%82%92%E6%96%AD%E3%81%A4
  38. Masutatsu Oyama, This Is Karate, tr. Richard L. Gage, Japan Publications, second revised edition 1980, fourth printing 1984 (first edition 1965), p. 319.
  39. Dogen Hosokawa, Omori Sogen: The Art of a Zen Master, Routledge, 1999, chapter 4, "Zen and Budo", and its notes 2 and 7.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude 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), 2026-10-28, 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 dictionary pages were checked live, the commonest ending dated from the 1990s by the decade counts, the War Minister's second speech given its own 切ラシテ, and Yamamoto Kansuke's career reported as the Kōyō gunkan tells it · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-28, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 passed from both with no wrong fact, with wordings corrected in the pass, among them the earliest finds scoped to the sources read, Kumamoto's 理話 no longer called a saying, Takano's negative rendered as printed, the 1701 print's place given as its colophon gives it, the 1934 editors' list of six arts, and the gloss line called close rather than word for word

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 肉を切らせて骨を断つ (niku o kirasete hone o tatsu)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/niku-o-kirasete-hone-o-tatsu.