修行会

202「取りまきし槍の林に入るときはこだては己れが心とぞしれ。」- 植芝盛平

Original Waka

取りまきし
槍の林に
入るときは
こだては己れが
心とぞしれ

植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)

Translation

“When stepping into a thicket of spears closing in, know that the ‘little shield’ is none other than your own heart.” – Morihei Ueshiba

Waka Translation

Closing in surrounding,
a spear’s forest, into this,
on entering’s time:

the little-shield is one’s own
heart-mind, as to that, realize…


Morihei Ueshiba

歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）

取り巻きし（とりまきし）
槍の林に（やりのはやしに）
入る時は（いるときは）
小楯は己が（こだてはおのが）
心とぞ知れ（こころとぞしれ）

植芝盛平

Bungo Romanization

torimaki‑shi
yari no hayashi ni
iru toki wa
kodate wa ono ga
kokoro to zo shire

Ueshiba Morihei

Translation, Notes, Commentary, and Research by Latex G. N. R. Space-Coyote

Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–202: Heart shield (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. https://shugyokai.org/rgiz (Original work published 1977)

取りまき / 取り巻き（とりまき; tori‑maki）— continuative form (連用形) of 取り巻く “to surround, hem in”. This use of き in rentai‑kei is textbook bungo morphology (Shirane, 2005; Vovin, 2003).

-し（‑shi）— attributive form (連体形) of past auxiliary き “did, had”.

取りまきし（とりまきし; torimaki‑shi）— “[that] had closed in around [you]”; shi is the rentaikei of the past auxiliary ki, modifying the next line’s 槍の林  (i.e., “the spears that have surrounded [you]”, “the spears [that] had closed in / that encircled [you]”; cf. Shirane, 2005).

槍（やり; yari）— spear, lance.

の（no）— genitive / attributive particle.

林（はやし; hayashi）— grove, “forest” (here: dense mass of spear‑points).

槍の林（やりのはやし; yari no hayashi）— “a forest of spears” → set‑piece image for being hemmed in by many hostile spear‑points in battle. See studies of medieval Japanese warfare for the prevalence of yari formations.

に（ni）— locative / goal marker “into, in”.

槍の林に（やりのはやしに; yari no hayashi ni）— “into the forest of spears”; 槍の林 “forest of spears” is a stereotyped battlefield image for ranks of spear‑points densely massed; studies of medieval tactics note such yari formations as central to Sengoku and late‑medieval warfare (Friday, 2004; Hurst, 1941). Kakekotoba as 槍の囃子に (やりのはやしに) “[in]to the music / clamor of spears” (i.e., entering to the rhythm of clashing spear-points). The 林／囃子 homophone pair is attested as a source of wordplay elsewhere (cf. Morita, 2017; Ryōkan, 2025): for example, modern and early‑modern verse that puns on 杉ばやし / 杉林 / 酒ばやし, explicitly described as hinging on 林 vs 囃子.

入る（いる; iru）— classical reading for “enter”; 入る is read いる in classical diction (ラ行下二段 in bungo); semantic shimmer (i.e., not a true kakekotoba) as (a) 居る – to be, to dwell, and (b) 射る – to shoot (arrows) allowing for (a) 居る: “the time when you are in the spear‑forest” (state rather than moment) — this is more like a shading on 入る時 than a separate lexical item, and (b) 射る: would demand an object marker and bow imagery; “槍の林に射る” is strained grammatically and semantically.

時（とき; toki）— time, moment.

は（wa）— topic / contrastive particle “as for when…”.

小楯（こだて; kodate）— “small shield; makeshift / buckler”; lexica give 木盾／小盾（こだて） “a substitute / handy shield, something used as cover.” This supports the figurative mapping “your true shield is inward”; 木楯 / 小楯 already means “whatever you hunker behind”, whether tree, cart, or shield, in war tales (DIGITALIO, n.d.).

己（おの; ono）— “self; oneself”; stem of 己 / 己れ).

が（ga）— classical genitive / subject particle.

己が（おのが; ono ga）— “one’s own”, classical bungo genitive; many reproductions print 己れが (おのれが), but the shorter 己が is the older bungo norm and restores the 7‑mora line.

心（こころ; kokoro）— heart‑mind, inner core of person (emotion, thought, spirit unified)

己が心（おのがこころ; onoga kokoro）— “one’s own heart-mind” (kokoro = heart‑mind; moral/spiritual center).

と（to）— quotative particle “as / that”.

知れ（しれ; shire）— imperative of 知る “to know, realize”.

とぞ知れ（とぞしれ; to zo shire）— “know it thus, indeed” (assertive emphasis with ぞ + imperative). On kakari‑musubi see standard grammar overviews; とぞ知れ — to (quotative) + zo (emphatic kakari‑joshi) + shire (imperative of shiru, “know”). Classical usage regularly employs zo to add strong assertion; didactic aphorisms often end in …とぞ知れ “know it thus”.

ぞ（zo）— emphatic kakari‑joshi; in waka formulas, it heightens assertion and often functions like a kireji at the close. 

Kami-no-ku to shimo-no-ku. Lines 1–3 describe the tactical situation (“Spears ring all around / enter that spear‑forest now; / as you step within”), it is not hypothetical. Lines 4–5 present the teaching (“your heart, your only small shield — / know this, and let it guard you”).
This reproduces the classic waka “turn” around line 3.

Classical auxiliaries & case. ‑Shi (< ki), が (genitive) with 己（おの）, ぞ (emphatic kakari‑joshi) → all hallmarks of bungo morphology and pragmatics (Shirane, 2005).

Lexis. 小楯（こだて） is an old/orientalizing military term (“buckler, improvised shield”), well‑attested in dictionaries; choosing 己が over 己れが aligns with conservative genitive forms pervasive in premodern texts.

Prosody. Scanning by mora yields 5–7–5 / 7–7, the canonical waka/tanka template (Brower & Miner, 1961). The slight orthographic normalization from 己れが → 己が is consistent with editorial practice in presenting late/didactic waka in classical meters.

Metric fidelity across languages. English cannot reproduce Japanese mora, but the translation observes 5–7–5 / 7–7 syllables and preserves the semantic hinge between kami‑no‑ku (“situation: forest of spears”) and shimo‑no‑ku (“maxim: heart as shield”). This mimics long‑standing Anglophone practice of lineating tanka translations in five parts while signalling the 3+2 structure (Horton, 2019).

Diction and imperative force. The English “know this” echoes とぞ知れ, retaining the didactic imperative that is typical of dōka (didactic waka). For the 5/7/5+7/7 architecture see standard histories of waka (Brower & Miner, 1961).

Budō ethic & “heart as shield”. The image 槍の林 evokes feudal tactics with yari formations; yet the poem’s turnrejects material armor (小楯) in favor of kokoro (heart‑mind), a core budō trope. Historians of Japanese warfare and martial culture document both the tactical reality of the spear and the later moralization of the warrior’s inner state (Hurst, 1998; Friday, 2004).

Religious inflection. Ueshiba’s dōka emerge from a milieu shaped by Ōmoto‑thought and esoteric Shintō‑Buddhist syncretism; scholarship shows how that matrix transposed battlefield metaphors into spiritual discipline—“victory” as purification and harmonization rather than destruction (Stalker, 2008; Stein, 2024; Aikido Journal background pieces). 

Anthropology of practice. Ethnographies of aikidō emphasize disciplined emotion regulation and the cultivation of an embodied “center”—themes that mesh with the poem’s claim that one’s kokoro is the real buckler in moments of threat (Tan, 2014). More broadly, mora‑timed verse and recitation function pedagogically: short gnomic forms (like dōka) are memorized and embodied within dojo practice. 

Form matters. Waka/tanka’s five‑line structure (5–7–5 / 7–7) is not just decorative; it frames a turn from scene to insight (often a maxim). Here that kire moves from “spears closing in” to “heart as shield,” exactly the kind of moralized pivot described in classical poetics (Brower & Miner, 1961).

Kakekotoba analogue. The collocation “heart-mind, your only small shield” imitates the duality of 小楯, making heart-mind serve as both emotional center and functional shield (“heart‑shield”) without over-explaining. This kind of layered diction is broadly in the spirit of Japanese pivot‑word play.

Yoin. Closing on “guard you” after dwelling on “heart-mind” keeps the echo on inner protection rather than external success, aligning with Ueshiba’s own tendency (in both prose and verse) to recast victory as inner rather than outer (cf. Stein, 2024; cf. Greenhalgh, 2003).