能柔能剛
其國彌光
yoku jū ni yoku gō nareba, sono kuni iyoiyo hikaru
Able to Be Soft and to Be Hard, the State Shines Ever Brighter
Abstract
能柔能剛、其國彌光, read in Japanese, in the reading signed below, 能く柔に能く剛なれば、其の国いよいよ光る, if it can be soft and can be hard, the state shines ever brighter, is a line of the 三略, the Three Strategies, a Chinese military book under the name of Huang Shigong 黄石公, which quotes it from a book it calls the 軍讖, with two paragraphs between it and the line 柔能制剛, the soft can master the hard, in the Wikisource text, and goes on to say that a state purely soft and purely weak is pared away and one purely hard and purely strong perishes [1][2]. The Song encyclopedia 太平御覽, completed in 983 (984 in two encyclopedias), quotes the line and the sentence paired with it, without the two warnings, under the title 黃石公記 and in other words, 柔而能剛, soft and yet able to be hard [3][4][5]. In Japan a print of 1604 marks 光 to be read てる, to shine, the prints of 1885, 1911, 1913 and 1942 read it with the verb ひかる, and a 揮毫, brush-writing, dictionary, in its second edition of 1942, has the passage on p. 312, facing a page labeled 軍事, military affairs [6][7][8][9][10]. I read it as the balance that 柔能制剛, taken alone, leaves out.
A reading
The sentence names no one who is soft or hard; the one subject it names is the state, 其國, and what the state does is shine [2]. The commentators differ: the Ming commentary 三畧直解 supplies a subject, the commander, 為主將者, and gives as its example King Wen 文王, soft when his ministers offered fine women and good horses to Zhou to free him from prison, hard when he took up arms [11]; the Japanese print of 1885 (適宜これを用ふる時は) and the calligraphy dictionary of 1942 (剛柔宜シキヲ得レバ) name no one, and give as the condition the right measure of hard and soft [7][10]. I read the line as the book's answer to its own sentence 柔能制剛. 柔能制剛 says the soft can master the hard, and its own paragraph ends by combining soft, hard, weak and strong; this line, with two paragraphs between, says that the soft alone is not enough, and the two warnings after its paired sentence say what happens to a state that is only soft and to one that is only hard [2]. Whoever holds both, the 直解's commander or another, I read the shining as the state's. The reading of 光 divides: the 1604 print marks テル, and the prints of 1885, 1911, 1913 and 1942 read it with the verb ひかる (ヒカリ, 光り, 光る, 光ル) [6][7][8][9][10]. I sign ひかる, the reading of the prints from 1885 on, and the reading 能く柔に能く剛なれば, with the に the prints of 1885, 1911 and 1913 mark after 柔 [7][9][8]. Signed, 典.
Overview
The sense. Searched as a headword on 6 November 2026, 能柔能剛 and 其國彌光 have no entry at kotobank or at Weblio, where 剛柔 has one in each; the 揮毫辞典 of 1942, a brush-writing dictionary, heads an entry with it (1942). The 1885 Japanese print glosses it 柔も柔に過ぎず剛も剛に過ぎず適宜これを用ふる時は國彌輝き家益榮えるなり, when the soft is not too soft, nor the hard too hard, and each is used as fits, the state shines ever more and the house flourishes more and more [7]. The calligraphy dictionary of 1942 notes beside it 剛柔宜シキヲ得レバソノ國ハイヨイヨ光リヲ増ス, if hard and soft each have their right measure, the state's light grows more and more [10]. The デジタル大辞泉 gives 剛柔 as かたいこととやわらかいこと。強いこととやさしいこと, the hard and the soft; the strong and the gentle [12].
The words. 能 is read よく, can, in its ordinary sense. 柔 and 剛 are the soft and the hard; the デジタル大辞泉 gives 柔 as やわらかい。しなやかで弱い, soft; supple and weak, and 剛 as 強くて堅い, strong and hard, and 気性や意志が強い, strong of spirit or will [12]. 軍讖, the book the 三略 quotes [2][11], is in the 字通 軍の予言, a military prophecy [13]. 其國 is its state, that state, in their ordinary senses. 彌, today written 弥, is read いよいよ; the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 (日国) gives いよいよ as 物事が加層的に進展するさま … ますます。前よりもなおいっそう, more and more; still more than before, and the 字通 gives 彌 as 弥's older form [14]. 光 is read ひかる in the prints from 1885 on and てる in the print of 1604; the 日国 gives ひかる as 光を放つ, to give off light, and てる as 日や月などが光輝を発する。ひかる, the sun or moon gives off its light; to shine [6][15][16][7].
The text in English. Ralph Sawyer, 1993: If one can be soft and hard, his state will be increasingly glorious! If one can be weak and strong, his state will be increasingly illustrious! [17]. Thomas Cleary, 2012: If it can be soft and can be hard, that country will increasingly flourish. If it can be weak and can be strong, that country will increasingly thrive [18]. The house's English full-text collection of 6,636 items from the Internet Archive was searched for the line in English and for the book's names, and has no rendering of it (the research record's § Sitting 2).
The historical record
The 三略 and its 軍讖. The 三略 is a Chinese book of war in three sections; the デジタル大辞泉 gives it as said to have been given to Zhang Liang 張良 of the Han by Huang Shigong, an old recluse of the end of the Qin, and as a work of the Later Han or later, 後漢以後, and the 日国 as a later forgery [1][19]. Ralph Sawyer, following the view of the scholar Hsu Pao-lin, dates it to about the year 0, and in setting out that view reports that it was originally titled The Records of Huang Shih-kung 黃石公記 and only acquired its present name during the Sui dynasty [17]. Its first section quotes the 軍讖 several times: first 柔能制剛, the soft can master the hard, and next, with two paragraphs between in the Wikisource text, this line, the sentence paired with it, and the two warnings after them [2]:
《軍讖》曰：「能柔能剛，其國彌光；能弱能強，其國彌彰。純柔純弱，其國必削；純剛純強，其國必亡。」
The 軍讖 says: "If it can be soft and can be hard, the state grows ever brighter; if it can be weak and can be strong, the state grows ever more illustrious. Purely soft and purely weak, the state is certain to be pared away; purely hard and purely strong, the state is certain to perish." The emperor Guangwu's edict answering two generals' petition of his twenty-seventh year to strike the Xiongnu, and refusing it, quotes 柔能制剛 as from the 黃石公記, 《黃石公記》曰，「柔能制剛，弱能制強」 [20]; he took the throne in 25 and named the era 建武, so by the 建武 count the year is 51 CE [21].
983. The 太平御覽: the same sentences under another title. The 太平御覽 is a Song encyclopedia in 1,000 卷, compiled at the emperor Taizong's command by 李昉 and others and completed in 983 (two of the encyclopedias there give 984), which quotes about 1,690 works, some of them now lost [5]. In its section on war, 兵部, under feasting the troops, 饗士, it quotes from the 黃石公記 a passage that holds this line in other words; a print of the encyclopedia with a preface of 1818 reads, at the leaf [4][3]:
黃石公記曰動爲事機舒之彌四海卷之不盈懷柔而能剛則其國彌光弱而能强則其國彌章一單之醪投之於河令士衆迎飲三軍爲其死
The Records of Huang Shigong say: in motion it is the trigger of affairs; unrolled, it fills the four seas; rolled up, it does not fill the bosom. If soft and yet able to be hard, then the state grows ever brighter; if weak and yet able to be strong, then the state grows ever more illustrious. A single vessel of wine poured into the river, and the troops told to drink of it: the three armies will die for him. The words differ from the 三略's in several places, among them 柔而能剛 for 能柔能剛, 章 for 彰, and the sentence of the vessel of wine (一簞之醪 in the 三略 and at Wikisource; the print writes 一單), which the 三略 tells later in its first section in a story of a good general, follows at once [2][3]. Whether the 黃石公記 is the 三略 under an earlier title the sources read do not settle: Sawyer reports that view [17], and the catalogue of the Qing imperial library, the 四庫全書總目提要, says that the title 三略 first appears in the catalogue of the 隋書, and lists a 黃石公記 in three 卷 as one of several books the dynastic catalogues give under Huang Shigong's name, most of them lost and, in its judgment, for the most part 附會, attached to his name [22]. Nothing read here shows which wording is older.
The Ming: a commentary names the commander. The 三畧直解 of the Ming scholar 劉寅 comments [11]:
軍䜟有曰為主將者能柔能剛則其國愈益光顯如文王囚於羑里之庫其臣南宫适散宜生求美女善馬獻紂而出之是能柔也伐崇伐宻一怒而安天下是能剛也如日月之照臨光於四方顯於西土其國豈不光乎
The 軍讖 has it, in the commentator's words, that if the commander can be soft and can be hard, his state grows ever more brightly manifest. So King Wen, imprisoned at Youli, when his ministers found fine women and good horses to present to Zhou and so got him out: that is being able to be soft. He attacked Chong and Mi, and with one burst of anger brought peace to the world: that is being able to be hard. Like the sun and moon shining down, light in the four quarters, manifest in the western land: how should his state not shine? At the end of the passage 劉寅 notes that the texts of his day lacked 其國必削 after 純柔純弱 and that he added it from the old text [11]; the 大學衍義補 of the Ming scholar 丘濬, completed in 1487, quotes the passage with the two warnings joined and no 必削 [23][24].
1604. A Japanese print with reading marks. A movable-type 黄石公三略 printed in 1604, in the National Diet Library, sets the line across the two pages of a spread, 軍識曰能柔能剛其國 / 彌光能弱能強其國彌彰純柔純弱其國必削純剛純強其國必亡, and among its marks reads 彌 イヨ〳〵, 其 ノ and 光 テル; 能 and 柔 carry no marks [6].
1885. 『六韜三略 明治通解』. A Meiji annotated edition prints the line with the reading 能ク柔ニ能ク剛ナレバ其ノ國彌(イヨ〳〵)光(ヒカリ), and glosses it as quoted under The sense [7].
1886. A war tale opens a chapter with it. 鎮西菊池軍記, a war tale by 暁鐘成, a writer of popular fiction of late-Edo Osaka, read here in a printing of 1886, sets the whole passage under a chapter heading, 三個率頸合符 両臣抛命全謀, as the chapter's epigraph, and then goes on, さる程に, with the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu 足利義満 and more than three thousand horse around him [25][26].
1911 and 1913. In Japanese. 田岡嶺雲's 和訳七書, Japanese translations of the seven military classics, prints 能く柔に能く剛なれば、其國彌々光り [8]. In 1913 the series 漢文叢書 printed, under the editing of 久保天随, the 武経七書合解大成俚諺鈔 of 神田白竜子 (1680–1760), a 講釈師, a professional reciter, of the Kyōhō era (1716–36), who as a military scholar was invited to the houses of daimyo and bannermen to read military books [9][27]. Its reading is 能く柔に能く剛なれば、その國彌よ光る, and its comment reads [9]:
能ク柔ニ能ク剛ナレバ、國ハイヨ〳〵光輝アルナリ、光トハ、日月ノ照臨シテ、四方四維ヲ殘サズ光ラスガ如ク、柔剛ヲ兼ネ用ヒテ、道德ヲ顯ハスユヘニ、國ハ光輝アルナリ
If it can be soft and can be hard, the state has more and more radiance. Light means: as the sun and moon shine down and light every quarter and corner, leaving none out, so by using soft and hard together it shows its virtue, and therefore the state has radiance. The image of the sun and moon shining down on the four quarters stands in the 三畧直解 too [11].
1942. A brush-writing dictionary. 松崎覚本's 揮毫辞典, a 揮毫, brush-writing, dictionary, in its second edition of 1942 (the item record's 2版), has the passage on p. 312, facing p. 313, whose side label is 軍事, military affairs, headed 軍識曰、能柔能剛。其國彌光。能弱能强。其國彌彰。, with 讖's reading シン printed beside 識, 柔 and 剛 marked with their Chinese readings ジウ and ゴウ and no particle, 彌 イヨイヨ and 光 ル, and notes beside it 剛柔宜シキヲ得レバソノ國ハイヨイヨ光リヲ増ス又弱ナルベキ時ニハ弱強ナルベキ時ニハ強トアラバソノ國ハ彰レ成功スル, if hard and soft each have their right measure, the state's light grows more and more; and if it is weak when it should be weak and strong when it should be strong, the state is manifest and succeeds [10]. The next entry, on p. 313, is the warning, 純柔純弱、其國必削。純剛純强、其國必亡。 [10].
Notes
The four characters elsewhere. 能柔能剛 alone is not the 三略's. The 莊子, in the chapter 天運, has the Yellow Emperor say of his music 其聲能短能長，能柔能剛，變化齊一, its sound could be short and long, soft and hard, changing yet all one [28]. The 列子, in 天瑞, has them in a longer list: 能陰能陽，能柔能剛，能短能長, it can be yin and yang, soft and hard, short and long [29]. In the novel 三國演義 the four characters stand in the opening of the letter that Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 sends the Wei general Cao Zhen 曹真: 竊謂夫為將者：能去能就，能柔能剛；能進能退，能弱能強, I hold that a general can go and come, can be soft and be hard, can go forward and fall back, can be weak and be strong; the letter then mocks him, and 曹真看畢，恨氣填胸，至晚死於軍中, Cao Zhen read it to the end, rage filled his chest, and by evening he was dead in the camp [30][31]. The 三略 is the only one of these that joins the four characters to 其國彌光 [2].
軍讖 and 軍識. The prints of 1604, 1911, 1913 and 1942 write 軍識, the 1942 print with 讖's reading シン beside it [6][9][10][8]; the 三略 at Wikisource writes 軍讖 and the 三畧直解 軍䜟 [2][11].
The text as brushed. Of the five hands on the sheet, three write 彌, one in a running form; one writes a cursive that serves for 彌 and 弥 alike; and one writes 弥. All five write 國. 弥 is the modern form of 彌 [14].
Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase
Sources not seen
『武経七書合解大成俚諺鈔』 in an Edo printing: it would give the 鈔's own date, which the 1913 edition and its record do not.
『鎮西菊池軍記』 in an Edo printing, if one exists: it would date the war tale's composition, which the printing of 1886 does not.
A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.
References
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