Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/241

 a reply so true to the dictates of the Bushi-dō. He survived the battle, but his two sons perished.

The spirit dictating such acts is well displayed in a letter addressed by the mother of Kōda Hikoyemon to her son. The latter with his liege lord, Oda Nobutaka, had espoused the cause of the Taikō's enemies, and thus the lives of Hikoyemon's mother and of Nobutaka's mother, who were held hostages in the Taikō's hands, became forfeit. The Taikō threatened to put the women to death unless their sons returned to his camp, whereupon Hikoyemon's mother wrote to her son: "Fealty to his lord is the first duty of every man in the empire, and it is the law of nature that parents should die before their children. My life is sacrificed to the cause of our lord and the cause of our house. Let no one mourn for me. Do you, true to the way of the warrior and the path of filial piety, remember that to have a mother is no reason to be unfaithful." This brave lady was crucified.

Nevertheless no pledge was regarded as better securing the observance of a promise than to give one's mother as a hostage. The Taikō, when all other means of winning the confidence of Iyeyasu had failed, placed his mother in the hands of the Tokugawa chief, and at once obtained the latter's trust. Oda Nobunaga lost his life by disregarding such a pledge. Among his captains was Akechi Mitsuhide, a brave soldier and skilled leader but eccentric and sensitive. Besieging a