Takamori Saigo · Satsuma
Original
幾歴辛酸志始堅
Takamori Saigo's Chinese-style poem, "幾歴辛酸志始堅丈夫玉碎恥甎全我家遺事". Read the original Japanese, translation, meaning, and historical background. This famous Chinese poem reveals the core of Saigo's ethics: hardship is what hardens resolve.
Person
A Satsuma samurai whose scale, solitude, and contradictions shaped the Restoration. He carried both greatness and loneliness: a victor of the new age who also bore the beauty and weight of defeat.
Know This Person
Translation
Only after repeated bitterness does resolve grow firm; I will not buy rich fields merely for my descendants.
Poetic Shape Kanshi draws on a classical Chinese poetic tradition, where restraint, allusion, and moral tension carry much of the weight. The poem sounds formal, but the pressure beneath it is personal.
Reading
This famous Chinese poem reveals the core of Saigo's ethics: hardship is what hardens resolve. It reveals a large figure from within.
Background
One of Saigo's best-known Chinese poems. Its refusal to leave private wealth behind resonates with his later image not as a shining victor, but as a defeated man of austere principle. A Satsuma samurai whose scale, solitude, and contradictions shaped the Restoration.
Source / Transmission Wording and readings may differ by transmission; this page treats the text as one circulated form.
Further Reading
Find related books and places to stay For readers who want more historical context, these links search for related books on external stores.
Affiliate link
