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 are 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.

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 motto: an English-Japanese dictionary of 1960 glosses the Latin 常に忠実, always faithful, 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. The scroll's words are that command without its verb. They are also ordinary Japanese with a life of their own: the National Diet Library's full-text index finds 常に忠誠を in 134 books from 1895 to 1944, and the most telling of them is a 1943 field code for the citizen, named for the army's, where the words stand in the article on reverence that heads its creed. The army's own code of 1941 has the same sentence with a different noun, 忠孝, so 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. In Japanese print the Latin arrives first as the name of Sousa's march, and later as the motto of the Marines, turned into Japanese as 常に忠誠をつくせ. 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; devotion to one's lord, with the dictionary's examples 国家に忠誠を尽くす and 忠誠を誓う; first cited from 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 the verb, 尽くす or 誓う, unsaid; 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 dictionary renders it that way, 常に忠実 ^[3]. The scroll says the noun instead, loyalty, always, with the verb withheld.

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 took the motto for its title ^[4].

1951 to 1996. The motto in Japanese. The Latin reaches Japanese print as the name of Sousa's march: the national bibliography for 1951, published in 1952, lists a record of the センパー・フィデリス・マーチ ^[5]. Kenkyusha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, in its edition of 1960, glosses the Latin 常に忠実, with 貞節 beside it, always faithful or constant, and adds 米国海兵隊 (Marine Corps) のモットー, the motto of the United States Marine Corps ^[3]. 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) ^[6]. These are the index's excerpts of books it does not show whole; their pages were not 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 books from 1895 to 1944, of retainers, subjects, officials and wives, 常に忠誠を盡す, 常に忠誠を以て, 常に忠誠を誓ひ ^[7]. 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, named for 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 ^[8][9]. Nakashiba's preface, dated 3 October 1943, presents the code as his own and does not name the army's ^[10]; the model shows in the title and in the first article of the creed. 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, render the sincerity of reverence, hold loyalty always in mind, and vow to reach the heart of the gods ^[10]. The army's own 1941 article has the same sentence with a different noun: 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 ^[9]. So these exact words, 常に忠誠を, are the 1943 book's and not the army's. Either way, the phrase's Japanese home in wartime is the creed: 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; the army wrote 忠孝. Neither has anything to do with the Marines' motto: in the index, the motto first stands beside Japanese words after the war, as a march in 1952 and as 常に忠誠をつくせ in 1978 ^[5][2].

A reading

Of the mottos of service rendered into Japanese, this one carries the most. 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 creed that carried the army's field code to the citizen. Both are true at once, and a reader of the Japanese may hear either.

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. 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
4. "Semper fidelis", English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semper_fidelis
5. 全日本出版物総目録 昭和26年度, 国立国会図書館, 1952, scan 319. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3047927/1/319
6. 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
7. 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
8. 「戦陣訓」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/戦陣訓
9. 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
10. 中柴末純, 国民戦陣訓, 二見書房, 1943, the preface at scan 8 and the creed's first article at scan 17, p. 27. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1039440/1/17

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 · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations — the bracketed paragraphs checked at their addresses with web search on; none contradicted; the Lab corpus counts are beyond the checker; the rest confirmed. The account's own search of the OCR 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 leaf by eye, before the run. The s303 gate's additions (the motto in Japanese, refs 6–10) were not checked by the model

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.