己に忠実なれ onore ni chūjitsu nare To Thine Own Self Be True
This is a philological study of 己に忠実なれ (onore ni chūjitsu nare), Polonius's line in Hamlet in 久米正雄's 1922 Japanese. It traces two careers that fuse into one: Shakespeare's precept in English since about 1600, and a Japanese naturalist watchword for faithfulness to the self, independent of Shakespeare, from a 1908 essay — and finds that a Japanese reader of the 1920s heard both at once, which is why the six characters sound like a proverb.
Abstract
己に忠実なれ, to thine own self be true, is Polonius's precept to his son in Hamlet, act one, scene three, in Kume Masao 久米正雄's 1922 Japanese. This study follows two careers that meet in that translation: Shakespeare's line in English since about 1600, and, independently, a Japanese naturalist watchword for faithfulness to the self that a 1908 essay already used without any thought of Denmark. It finds that when 久米 gave Polonius the maxim his readers already knew, the two careers fused, and a Japanese reader of the 1920s heard both Shakespeare and the watchword at once.
Overview
The sense. One sense, two careers. In English the line is a father's precept that became a proverb: be true to yourself and you cannot be false to others. In Japanese the words arrived first as 自己に忠實なれ, the watchword of naturalism and of Ibsen's readers in the 1900s, a maxim about the self against rules, models and society, and the books of 1908 to 1933 use it that way without a thought of Denmark. The two careers meet in the 1910s, when two writers quote Polonius in the maxim's own words, and they fuse in 1922, when Kume Masao makes the maxim Polonius's own line. A reader of the six characters today hears Shakespeare; a reader of 1920 heard both, and the second is why they sound like a proverb.
The words. Six characters. 己, oneself, the literary reflexive, read onore. に, to. 忠実, read chūjitsu, is the word the phrase turns on: the dictionaries give まごころをこめてよくつとめること, serving with a whole heart, and the sense faithful to an original, of a copy or a translation; it carries loyal before it carries true, and Polonius's true meant loyal too. なれ is the classical imperative, be, which is what makes the line a maxim rather than a sentence. The modern form 忠実 is used here; the 1922 book writes 忠實; one word. Two forms of the phrase share the books: the one-character 己に忠実なれ, and 自己に忠実なれ with the two-character self, and the second is the older and far commoner one in Japanese.
The text in English. The English is the original: Shakespeare's line is the standard, and every Japanese rendering below is measured against it.
The historical record
About 1600. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act one, scene three. Polonius is sending Laertes to France with a string of precepts, and this is the last: This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man. [1] The line before it is Neither a borrower, nor a lender be. The Japanese phrase carries the first half of the couplet and drops the then that makes it an argument.
1919. The quotation books, page 130. The line as the quotation books carry it, Polonius to Laertes, Hamlet I.3: This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man [2].
1908. Hasegawa Tenkei 長谷川天渓, Naturalism (自然主義). The oldest Japanese witness here, and it is not Shakespeare. Arguing that art has no standard but the artist's own sense, the critic writes 種々の習慣、證典、法則、模型等は、之れを顧慮するの必要なし。たゞそれ自己に忠實なれ, habits, scriptures, rules and models need no regard; only be faithful to yourself [3]. The maxim is already a principle with a name, 自己發展主義, the doctrine of self-development.
1909. 坪内逍遥, Hamlet (ハムレット), the first complete Japanese translation. The column that carries the clause is under an ink blot on the National Diet Library's copy. What survives is the couplet's tail: すれば夜の晝に繼ぐが如く、他人に對しても忠實ならん, …then, as day follows night, you will be faithful to others too [4]. 逍遥 used 忠實 for true; how he rendered to thine own self is not known from this copy.
1912. 高山樗牛, collected works (樗牛全集). An essay on prose style, collected here after the critic's death and dated March 1901 at its foot (三十四年三月), ends its demands on the writer with the same words: 詮ずるところ忠實の二字に歸看すべし。文を作るもの、自己に忠實なれ (so the print, 歸看 with emphasis dots, where 歸着 is the expected word), in the end it comes down to two characters, 忠實: writer, be faithful to yourself [5].
1917. 中島半次郎, translating John Adams, The Evolution of Educational Theory (教育学説の進化). The first witness here that names Polonius. The translator gives the line as ボローニヤスの『汝自身の自己に忠實なれ』 and his author calls it 舞臺で屢〓用ゐられて古臭い言葉, a stage line worn old with use; the argument is that a teacher cannot afford it [6].
1919. Hoashi Riichirō 帆足理一郎, The Remaking of National Life (国民生活の改造). A book on individualism quotes the couplet whole, without naming its translator, 『お前自身に忠實なれ、然らば、お前は决して他人に不忠實であることは出來ぬ』, be faithful to yourself, and then you can never be unfaithful to others, and glosses it at once with the maxim: 自己に忠實なれとは單に個人主義の道德のみではない, "be faithful to yourself" is not merely the morality of individualism [7]. Shakespeare's line and the Japanese watchword are the same thought to him.
1922. Kume Masao, Hamlet (ハムレツト), 新潮社. The source of these six characters, character for character. Polonius: 最後にこれが最も大切なる事だ。曰く「己に忠實なれ、然らば夜に日のつゞくが如く、自ら他人にも虚僞あらざるべし」だ, and last, this most of all: "be faithful to yourself, and then, as day follows night, you will be false to no one" [8]. Kume gave Polonius the maxim his readers already knew, with the one-character 己 for 自己, and these six characters are his.
1930. 田所輝明, A Small Dictionary of Social Science (社會科學小辭典). The maxim filed under its owner. The entry for Ibsenism ends: 『主觀に從へ! 自己に忠實なれ』とはイブセン主義のアフォリズムである, "follow your own judgment; be faithful to yourself" is the aphorism of Ibsenism [9].
1934. 新渡戸稲造, Western Conditions and Thought (西洋の事情と思想). The second and last book here to write these six characters. Explaining the English word honest as faithfulness to one's self, 新渡戸 writes 己に忠實なれ······といふこと廣くいはれる言葉であるけれども、實際にはいろ〓〓な障りがある, "be faithful to yourself" is a widely said phrase, but in practice it meets all sorts of obstacles [10]. He treats it as a common saying, not as a quotation.
What is not a source. The Ibsenist maxim is not derived from Hamlet in any source here; the 1930 dictionary gives it to Ibsen, and the naturalists of 1908 and 1912 give it to nobody. It is a parallel that became a translation, not an origin. The popular English pairing of the line with Emerson's self-reliance is outside this record.
Today. Shakespeare's line is the standard the Japanese is measured against, and the house title, To Thine Own Self Be True, is that line in its own words. What a rendering must keep is the imperative and the self; what the six characters alone drop is the second half, the then by which faithfulness to oneself becomes honesty to everyone else.
A reading
This is a Shakespeare line in the words of a Japanese maxim, and it is both, because that is what Kume made and what a Japanese reader has heard since. Calling the phrase Shakespeare in Japanese and nothing more misses that, for the writers who first used these words, faithfulness to the self was the whole of a modern ethic, and Polonius was the old man who happened to have said it first. On the form, 忠実 for 忠實 is one word; the modern characters are a legitimate spelling of it.
References
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act one, scene three, the 1917 Yale edition, at Wikisource, p. 21, line 78. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hamlet_(1917)_Yale_Edition/Act_I
- John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, 10th ed., Little, Brown, 1919, p. 130.
- 長谷川天渓, 『自然主義』, 1908. National Diet Library pid 871651, scan 157. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871651/1/157
- 坪内逍遥, translator, 『ハムレット』, 1909. National Diet Library pid 873484, scan 27. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873484/1/27
- 高山樗牛, 『樗牛全集』, 1912. National Diet Library pid 930959, scan 459. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/930959/1/459
- 中島半次郎, translator, John Adams, 『教育学説の進化』, 1917. National Diet Library pid 980219, scan 45. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/980219/1/45
- 帆足理一郎, 『国民生活の改造』, 1919. National Diet Library pid 961703, scan 93. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/961703/1/93
- 久米正雄, translator, 『ハムレツト』, 新潮社, 1922. National Diet Library pid 968980, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968980/1/19
- 田所輝明, 『社會科學小辭典』, 1930. National Diet Library pid 1086078, scan 67. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1086078/1/67
- 新渡戸稲造, 『西洋の事情と思想』, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1272080, scan 109. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1272080/1/109