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己に忠実なれ onore ni chūjitsu nare To Thine Own Self Be True

己に忠実なれ (onore ni chūjitsu nare), to thine own self be true, is Polonius's precept in Hamlet, in Kume Masao 久米正雄's Japanese of 1915. The longer form 自己に忠實なれ was in print as Shakespeare's by 1904. This study follows the words as Shakespeare's and as a maxim of the modern self, and finds them called a widely said phrase by 1934.

Japanese Scroll of To Thine Own Self Be True (onore ni chūjitsu nare) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
To Thine Own Self Be True己に忠実なれonore ni chūjitsu nare

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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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 the Japanese of Kume Masao 久米正雄's translation of 1915. This study follows the words into Japanese. The longer form 自己に忠實なれ, with the two-character self, is in print as Shakespeare's by 1904 and, in the same years, the first rule of the writer and the artist for critics who name no source at all; the six characters are Polonius's in Kume's translation, spoken on the stage of the Imperial Theatre in 1918 in nearly the same sentence, and called a widely said phrase by 1934. It finds that by the 1910s a Japanese reader met the words both as Shakespeare and as a maxim of the modern self, and that the second is why they read as a proverb.

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. An American proverb dictionary collects it from the United States and Canada, with Hamlet as its first citation [1]. In Japanese the words arrived first as 自己に忠實なれ. A column of Western sayings gives them to Shakespeare in 1904; an essay dated 1901 and the naturalist critics of 1908 use them with no source, as a maxim about the self against rules, models and society; by 1930 a dictionary files them under Ibsen. The six characters, with the one-character 己, are Polonius's in Kume Masao's translation of 1915. No page read shows which way the words travelled. A reader of the six characters today hears Shakespeare; a reader of 1920 heard Shakespeare and the watchword at once, 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, as in 原文に忠実な翻訳, a translation true to its original [2]. It carries loyal before it carries true; faithful is one of the senses of Shakespeare's true, which takes to in that sense [3]. 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 old books write 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. [4] 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.

1901. 高山樗牛, an essay on writing (作文論). The essay is dated March 1901 at its foot (三十四年三月) and was in the critic's collected works by 1907; the copy read is the collected works of 1912. It ends its demands on the writer with these 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]. It names no source.

1904. 兵事雑誌, a column of Western sayings (泰西名言). The oldest dated page in the National Diet Library's full text for these words, and it gives them to Shakespeare: 英國大劇詩家シエキスピイア曰く唯只自己に忠實なれ、自己に忠實なる者の他人に不忠實なる能はざるは、猶晝の夜に繼ぐが如き者あればなり, the great English dramatist Shakespeare says: only be faithful to yourself; for one faithful to himself cannot be unfaithful to others, as day follows night [6]. The page is open only inside Japan, and the words here are the library's own text of it, not read at the leaf.

1905. 戸沢姑射 and 浅野和三郎, Hamlet, the first volume of their complete Shakespeare (沙翁全集). A complete translation of the play, dated 明治三十八年九月八日發行, September 1905, in its colophon. Polonius: さて又何よりも大切なは、己れ自身に信實なれ、さすれば恰も、日あれば必ず夜ある如く、他人に不信なるヿあるを得じ (ヿ, the type's ligature for こと), and above all, be true to your own self, and then, as surely as night follows day, you cannot be untrue to others [7]. The word for true is 信實, not 忠實.

1908. Hasegawa Tenkei 長谷川天渓, Naturalism (自然主義). 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 [8]. The maxim is already a principle with a name, 自己發展主義, the doctrine of self-development, and it is not Shakespeare's here.

1909. 坪内逍遥, Hamlet (ハムレット). 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 [9]. 逍遥 used 忠實 for true. His revised text of 1938 reads 最後に、最も大切なる訓····己れに對して忠實なれ、さすれば夜の晝に繼ぐが如く、他人に對しても忠實ならん, and its tail is the 1909 tail word for word [10]; whether the 1909 clause read the same is not shown by the copy opened.

1910. Orison Swett Marden, in 竹村修's translation (立志論). A book of self-help prints the couplet as a motto signed シエークスピーア: 先づ汝自身に忠實なれ、晝に夜の從ふが如く、自我に忠ならば、何人にも不信なる能はざる也, first be faithful to yourself; as night follows day, if you are faithful to yourself you cannot be untrue to anyone [11].

1915. Kume Masao, Hamlet, 新潮社. The source of these six characters, character for character. The translation first came out in June 1915 [12]; the copy read is a printing of 1922, whose preface is signed 大正四年五月, May 1915. 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" [13]. Kume gave Polonius a maxim his readers already knew, with the one-character 己 for 自己.

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 outside a translation of the play 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 舞臺で屢〻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 [14].

1918. 坪内士行, the Imperial Theatre's Hamlet (ハムレット及びハムレットの研究 : 帝国劇場上演台本). The acting text of the Imperial Theatre production gives Polonius nearly Kume's sentence: 最も大切な訓戒だ。卽ち『己に忠實なれ。然らば夜に日の續くが如く、自ら他人にも虛僞あらざるべし。』, the most important precept: "be faithful to yourself, and then, as day follows night, you will be false to no one" [15]. The page is open only inside Japan, and the words here are the library's own text of it, not read at the leaf.

1919. John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, page 130. The line as the quotation books carry it, under 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 [16].

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 [17]. Shakespeare's line and the Japanese watchword are the same thought to him.

1930. 田所輝明, A Small Dictionary of Social Science (社會科學小辭典). The maxim filed under Ibsen. 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 [18].

1934. 新渡戸稲造, Western Conditions and Thought (西洋の事情と思想). Explaining the English word honest as faithfulness to one's self, 新渡戸 writes these six characters: 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〳〵な障りがある, "be faithful to yourself" is a widely said phrase, but in practice it meets all sorts of obstacles [19]. He treats it as a common saying, not as a quotation.

What is not a source. The writers of 1901 and 1908 give the maxim to nobody, and the 1930 dictionary gives it to Ibsen; the column of 1904 gives the same words to Shakespeare. No page read shows whether the watchword began as Polonius's line or met it later. 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 by the time Kume put the six characters in Polonius's mouth the words already belonged to both, and a Japanese reader has heard both since. Calling the phrase Shakespeare in Japanese and nothing more misses that, for the writers who used these words without a source, 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

  1. Wolfgang Mieder, editor, A Dictionary of American Proverbs, Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 613–614, s.v. true, no. 3.
  2. デジタル大辞泉, 忠実, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/忠実-567477
  3. Alexander Schmidt, Shakespeare-Lexicon, vol. 2, 1886, p. 1262, s.v. True, sense 4, faithful, with to. https://archive.org/details/shakespearelexic02schmuoft/page/n591
  4. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act one, scene three, the 1917 Yale edition, at Wikisource, p. 21, line 78. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Hamlet_(1917)_Yale.djvu/33
  5. 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
  6. 『兵事雑誌』, March 1904, 泰西名言. National Diet Library pid 1523357 (open inside Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1523357
  7. 戸沢姑射 and 浅野和三郎, translators, 『沙翁全集』 第1巻 ハムレット, 大日本図書, 1905. National Diet Library pid 896879, scan 51. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/896879/1/51
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 坪内逍遥, translator, 『ハムレット』, annotated by 日高只一, 1938. National Diet Library pid 1149642, scan 24. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1149642/1/24
  11. マーデン, 竹村修 translator, 『立志論』, 1910. National Diet Library pid 758505, scan 201. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758505/1/201
  12. 久米正雄, translator, 『ハムレット』, 新潮社 (新潮文庫 第38編), June 1915, CiNii record. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1971712334806295315
  13. 久米正雄, translator, 『ハムレツト』, 新潮社, 1922 printing, preface at scan 4. National Diet Library pid 968980, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968980/1/19
  14. 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
  15. 坪内士行, 『ハムレット及びハムレットの研究 : 帝国劇場上演台本』, 1918. National Diet Library pid 933013 (open inside Japan only). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/933013
  16. John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, 10th ed., Little, Brown, 1919, p. 130.
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. 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

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations — every claim tested at its address; about half resolve; one resolves but differs — a misquoted character in the phrase itself, corrected; a couple do not resolve — a date on the same leaf the account had called unread, and its own character count, undercounted by one; all three findings right, and all three the account's own; the print re-read by eye. The 2026-09-30 corrections (the 1904, 1905, 1910, 1915, 1918 and 1938 witnesses) came after this check and have not been checked by an outside model

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 己に忠実なれ (onore ni chūjitsu nare)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/onore-ni-chujitsu-nare.