Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

Home › Library › Philology › Semper Fi

常に忠誠を tsune ni chūsei o Semper Fi

常に忠誠を (tsune ni chūsei o), always, loyalty, renders semper fidelis, the motto of the United States Marine Corps since 1883. Japanese writing on the Marines gives the motto as a command, 常に忠誠をつくせ, by 1978, and the scroll's words read as that command without its verb. This study follows the words in both lives, as the motto's Japanese and as ordinary Japanese with a history of their own.

Know someone who may be interested in this? Send them its story.

X Facebook
Japanese Scroll of Semper Fi (tsune ni chūsei o) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Semper Fi常に忠誠をtsune ni chūsei o

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

All Fonts ›

Abstract

常に忠誠を, always, loyalty, renders semper fidelis, the motto of the United States Marine Corps since 1883, and it is close to what Japanese print has made of the Latin: English-Japanese dictionaries list semper fidelis among Latin phrases from the 1880s and gloss it 常ニ忠實ナル, always faithful, by 1913; a Sousa march titled 忠誠行進曲, the march of loyalty, is in a Japanese list of band records in 1941, the title NHK gives Semper fidelis march in 1952; a dictionary names the phrase the Marines' motto by 1960; and Japanese writing on the Marines gives the motto as a command, 常に忠誠をつくせ, always give your loyalty, from 1978 in the National Diet Library's full-text index. The scroll's words read as that command without its verb. They are also ordinary Japanese with a life of their own: the same index finds 常に忠誠を in 134 items, books and some periodicals, from 1895 to 1944, and the most telling of them is a 1943 field code for the citizen, titled after the army's, where the words stand in the article on reverence that heads its creed. The army's own code of 1941 has a sentence on the same frame, in another order, with other verbs and another ending, and 忠孝 where the 1943 book has 忠誠, so of the two articles the exact words are the 1943 book's, and they were once the words of the other side.

Overview

The sense. Semper fidelis is the United States Marine Corps' motto since 1883. The Latin phrase comes into Japanese print in the dictionaries, as one foreign phrase among many (the oldest the National Diet Library's full-text index finds is a dictionary of 1885–86), glossed 信心常ニ厚ク in 1887 and 常ニ忠實ナル, always faithful, by 1913; Sousa's march brings it in as music, as 忠誓行進曲 in 1940 and 忠誠行進曲 in 1941 and in NHK's 1952 guide; and in the sources read it is named in Japanese as the motto of the Marines in 1960, and turned into Japanese as 常に忠誠をつくせ by 1978. The scroll's words have an older Japanese home as well, in the wartime creed literature, where a 1943 citizens' field code sets them in the article on reverence that heads its creed.

The words. 忠誠 chūsei: 忠実で正直な心。また、忠義を尽くすこと, a faithful and honest heart; also, to give loyal service, with the dictionary's examples 国家に忠誠を尽くす and 忠誠を誓う; 精選版 日本国語大辞典's first citation is a 1530 commentary on Zhuangzi [1]. 常に tsune ni, always. 常に忠誠を, always, loyalty, ends on the particle を and leaves its verb unsaid; the dictionary's examples pair 忠誠を with 尽くす and 誓う, and the Japanese writing on the Marines that the index finds from 1978 supplies it as a command, 常に忠誠をつくせ [2].

The text in English. Semper fidelis is an adjective, always faithful, and the dictionaries render it that way, 常ニ忠實ナル in 1913 and 常に忠実 in 1960 [3][4]. The scroll says the noun instead, loyalty, always, with the verb withheld, and the noun is in the title NHK's 1952 guide gives Sousa's march, 忠誠行進曲, the march of loyalty [5].

The historical record

1883. Semper fidelis. The Marine Corps adopted the motto in 1883 on the initiative of Colonel Charles McCawley, its eighth commandant, after three earlier mottos; the phrase has older European lives on family crests and city arms, which are not this motto's, and Sousa's march of 1889 bears the motto as its title [6]. デジタル大辞泉プラス enters the march under the headword 忠誠, 原題《Semper Fidelis》, and dates it 1887 [1].

1887 to 1940. The Latin in the dictionaries. Semper fidelis comes into Japanese print in roman letters, as one of the Latin phrases that English-Japanese dictionaries list, from the 1880s; the oldest the National Diet Library's full-text index finds is a dictionary of 1885–86 [7]. 島田豊's lexicon of 1887, in its appendix of Latin, French and Italian phrases, gives Semper fidelis. (羅) 信心常ニ厚ク, always strong in faith [8]; 増田藤之助's dictionary of 1913, semper fidelis … Always faithful. 常ニ忠實ナル, the Latin marked as Latin [3]; Kenkyusha's 新英和大辞典 in 1929, and its edition printed in 1940, 常に忠實な, 常に貞節な, always faithful, with 貞節, marital fidelity, beside it [9]. The lexicon of 1887 and the dictionary of 1913 set it in their lists of foreign phrases, Kenkyusha's in its main alphabet, and none of them names the Marines.

1940 to 1959. Sousa's march, 忠誠. Sousa's march brings the Latin in as music. Victor's record notes for January 1940 call it, in the index's excerpt, 「忠誓行進曲」 (“Semper Fidelis March”) も亦「マーチ王」スーザの傑作の一つ, the march of the loyal oath, “Semper Fidelis March”, is another of the March King Sousa's masterpieces [10]. A yearbook of band music for 1941 lists a record of スーザ作 忠誠行進曲, Sousa's march of loyalty [11]. After the war the national bibliography for 1951, published in 1952, lists a disc of the センパー・フィデリス・マーチ, Sousa's, under 音盤 [12], and NHK's 1952 guide to the names of foreign music gives Semper fidelis march as 忠誠行進曲 [5], the title the 1941 yearbook gives Sousa's march without naming the Latin; the index's 忠誠行進曲 of 1933 to 1937 is another piece, Wagner's Huldigungsmarsch. A music monthly of April 1959 says, in the index's excerpt, that the march takes its title from the motto, which it gives as the navy's: 「忠誠」は海軍のモットー (Semper Fidelis 常に忠実なれ) を題名として作られたもの, “loyalty” was made with the navy's motto, Semper Fidelis, “be always faithful”, as its title [13].

1960 to 1996. The motto in Japanese. Kenkyusha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, in its edition of 1960, glosses the Latin 常に忠実, always faithful, with 貞節, marital fidelity, beside it, and adds 米国海兵隊 (Marine Corps) のモットー, the motto of the United States Marine Corps [4]. Japanese writing on the Marines gives the motto as a command. The monthly 世界 in April 1978: 海兵隊のモットーは「センパー・フィデリス」(常に忠誠をつくせ)である, the Marines' motto is semper fidelis, always give your loyalty [2]. The index finds 常に忠誠をつくせ or 常に忠誠を尽くせ again in 世界 in 1982 and in books on Okinawa and its bases from 1984 to 1996, a 1987 book of photographs reading 海兵隊のモットーは「センパーフィデリス」(常に忠誠を尽くせ) [14]. The index shows an excerpt for some of these and none for others; no page was read.

1941 and 1943. 常に忠誠を, and where a Japanese reader has met it. 常に忠誠を is ordinary Japanese: the National Diet Library's full-text index finds it in 134 items, books and some periodicals, from 1895 to 1944, of retainers, subjects, officials and a wife, 常に忠誠を盡す, 常に忠誠を以て, 常に忠誠を誓ひ [15]. The oldest it finds is a history of the fighting in Taiwan published in October 1895, where, as an English-language newspaper reported from a telegram sent from Tamsui, the representatives of the island's gentry and people, 臺灣の紳民總代, asked its governor, 唐景崧, why Taiwan was left out of the armistice when its people had 常に忠誠を表し, always shown loyalty, to the Qing government [16]. The one that matters is a 1943 book by Nakashiba Suezumi 中柴末純 titled 『国民戦陣訓』, a Field Service Code for the citizen, titled after the army's 戦陣訓, issued by the War Minister Tōjō Hideki on 8 January 1941, the code that told soldiers 生きて虜囚の辱を受けず, do not live to suffer the shame of capture [17][18]. Nakashiba's preface, dated 3 October 1943, presents the code as his own and, in the Lab text of the preface (scans 4 to 8), does not name the army's [19]; the title and the likeness of the creed's first article point to the army's code. That article, on reverence, opens 神靈は遍く照覽し給ふ, the spirits of the gods look on all things, and goes on: 身を修め、心を正しうし、篤く敬神の「まこと」を致し、常に忠誠を心に念じ、誓て神明の心に通ふべし, cultivate the self, set the heart right, earnestly render the sincerity of reverence, hold loyalty always in mind, and vow to reach the heart of the gods [19]. The army's own 1941 article has a sentence on the same frame, in another order, with other verbs and another ending, and 忠孝 where the creed has 忠誠: 心を正し身を修め篤く敬神の誠を捧げ、常に忠孝を心に念じ, hold loyalty and filial piety always in mind; the army's next article has the word 忠誠 itself, 忠誠の士は又必ず純情の孝子なり, the loyal man is always a true-hearted son [18]. So of the two articles, these exact words, 常に忠誠を, are the 1943 book's and not the army's. Either way, the creed is one wartime home of the phrase: the words are honest Japanese for the Marine's virtue, and they were once the words of the other side.

What is not a source. The 1943 creed is not the army's 1941 code, and is named here so it is not later taken for it; in that sentence the army wrote 忠孝. Neither is the Marines' motto in Japanese: in the three dictionaries read at the page, of 1887, 1913 and 1929, the Latin is glossed and not named as the Marines' [8][3][9]; the march is 忠誓行進曲 in Victor's notes of 1940 and 忠誠行進曲 in a 1941 yearbook [10][11]; and in the index the motto is named as the Marines' beside Japanese words only after the war, as the dictionary's 常に忠実 (the index lists its 1954 and 1957 printings; the 1960 edition read [4]), as つねに忠誠な, always loyal, in the index's excerpt from a 1962 volume of war nonfiction, four of its five works in translation [20], and as the command 常に忠誠をつくせ from 1978 [2]. No translator of the motto into these words is named in the sources read.

A reading

常に忠誠を is the Japanese that writers on the Marines gave their motto, less its verb, and it is also in the opening article of a 1943 citizens' creed titled after the army's field code. Both are true at once, and a reader of the Japanese may hear either.

Know someone who may be interested in this? Send them its story.

X Facebook

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Semper Fi (tsune ni chūsei o) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
常に忠誠をVB4CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Semper Fi (tsune ni chūsei o) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
常に忠誠をVB5CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Semper Fi (tsune ni chūsei o) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
常に忠誠をVC4BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Semper Fi (tsune ni chūsei o) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
常に忠誠をVS4CSemi-Cursive

References

  1. 「忠誠」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/忠誠-97330
  2. 世界, no. 389, 岩波書店, April 1978, scan 90, the index's excerpt. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3366945/1/90
  3. 増田藤之助, 新撰英和辞典, A New English-Japanese Dictionary, 丸善, October 1913, the list of foreign phrases, p. 78, scan 692. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1681540/1/692
  4. 岩崎民平 and 河村重治郎, eds., Kenkyusha's New English-Japanese Dictionary on Bilingual Principles, new edition, 研究社, 1960, p. 1639, semper fidelis. The Internet Archive's copy, catalogued there as the 1980 fifth edition. https://archive.org/details/kenkyushasnewjap0000yosh
  5. 日本放送協会放送文化研究所 ed., 外国楽曲の呼び方 未定稿, 日本放送協会, 1952, p. 148, scan 79. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2464258/1/79
  6. "Semper fidelis", English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semper_fidelis
  7. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on Semper Fidelis, all access levels, oldest first, to 1960. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=Semper+Fidelis&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  8. 島田豊 and 曲直瀬愛, 附音挿図和訳英字彙, An English and Japanese Lexicon, new edition, 大倉, 1887, appendix Latin, French and Italian Languages, p. 44, scan 505. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1699966/1/505
  9. 岡倉由三郎 ed., 新英和大辞典, 研究社, 1929, p. 1520, scan 770; and its edition printed in April 1940 (pid 1900817), p. 1829, scan 926. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126810/1/770
  10. 洋楽解説集 ビクターレコード, 日本ビクター蓄音器, the notes for January 1940, scan 153, the index's excerpt. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1885770/1/153
  11. 管楽研究会 ed., 吹奏楽年鑑 紀元2601年版, 管楽研究会, 1941, p. 405, scan 214. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1125366/1/214
  12. 全日本出版物総目録 昭和26年度, 国立国会図書館, 1952, p. 613, under 音盤 (其の他), scan 319. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3047927/1/319
  13. 音楽の友 17 (4), 音楽之友社, April 1959, scan 85, the index's excerpt; the same sentence in 秋山紀夫, スクールバンドの指導と運営, 音楽之友社, 1959, scan 87. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10296354/1/85
  14. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 常に忠誠をつくせ and on 常に忠誠を尽くせ; 国吉和夫, 写真集・基地沖縄, ニライ社, 1987, scan 70, the index's excerpt. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12729975/1/70
  15. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search on 常に忠誠を, oldest first, counted to 1946. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=常に忠誠を&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  16. 斎藤謙蔵 編, 台湾戦史, 中村鍾美堂, 1895 (October), scan 37, p. 63. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/773774/1/37
  17. 「戦陣訓」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/戦陣訓
  18. 新体制問題資料 附録:戦陣訓, 北陸昭徳会, 1941, scans 29–30, pp. 46–48 (this reprint prints 生きて虜囚を辱を受けず, a misprint for の). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1266774/1/29
  19. 中柴末純, 国民戦陣訓, 二見書房, 1943, the preface at scans 4–8, dated at scan 8, and the creed's first article at scan 17, p. 27. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1039440/1/17
  20. 世界ノンフィクション全集 第31, 中野好夫, 吉川幸次郎 and 桑原武夫, eds., 筑摩書房, 1962 (the index's date; the volume's colophon not read), five works, four of them translations, among them R.シャーロッド著 中野五郎訳『恐怖の島タラワ』 (the item record's contents note), scan 143, the index's excerpt. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2938874/1/143

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 · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-31, citations, run again on the amended text the same day: every cited address the script could open was checked against the quotation it carries and none differed; one rendering was changed from constant to fidelity in the first run; the new dictionary and music pages read by eye, the excerpts known from the index, and dictionary and encyclopedia pages, the books served only in Japan and known from their excerpts, and the pages read by eye could not be opened by the check; nothing cited was missing · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-31, two rounds and a third on the amendment, every claim in the page's summary traced to its source: on the amendment, the march's Japanese title is given as the 1941 yearbook and the 1952 broadcaster's guide print it, with Victor's 1940 variant beside it, and the dictionaries are scoped to the ones read at the page; the 1943 creed's sentence and the army's are now shown as two sentences on one frame, not one sentence, the 1960 dictionary is the edition read and not the earliest, the oldest use is shown as a newspaper's report, the motto's Japanese in the index is listed in date order with a 1962 rendering added, the book of 1943 is called titled after the army's code rather than named for it, and each earliest find and each absence names its search · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations — the bracketed paragraphs checked at their addresses with web search on; none contradicted; the NDL Lab counts are beyond the checker; the rest confirmed. The account's own search of the machine-read text before the run passed; the one sense correction in this history (the 1941 code reads 忠孝, not 忠誠) was the account's own, from the reading of the original page image, before the run. Later additions (the motto in Japanese, refs 6–10) were not checked by the model

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

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 常に忠誠を (tsune ni chūsei o)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/tsune-ni-chusei-o.