Posts Tagged "classical"

Introduction

As I watched a friend play the ninja videogame Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, I noticed an inscription on an enemy samurai's war banner. I wrote it down; now I'm translating it.

有死之荣，无生之辱

Source and Translation

A rough translation of just this phrase is:

Having the honor of death, not the shame of life

This quotation comes from the Wuzi, a Chinese military classic by Wu Qi, a Legalist philosopher who lived during the Warring States period. He was a military leader in Wei and, later, a politician in Chu.

The full quote, reproduced below, is a sentence which concludes the first passage of the section 论将 Lùnjiàng.