Signore Part IV

This passage from the Signore made the case that Nobunaga was a lonely man. As the saying goes, it is always lonely at the top.

The Signore (pp.74-75)

"I knew that the Signore generally slept alone in a room with wooden floors, rather than one with straw matting. I wondered whether there were not perhaps a few days each month that he spent with his wife and children, but it seemed more probable that he was too preoccupied with responsibilities, ambitions, and crises to let himself relax even briefly. In the final analysis, he was living prove of the adage that the soul that seeks to rise above the common herd is perforce a lonely one.

In the Signore's case, however, I do not feel that the case of his loneliness lay only with himself. I had seen how those around him were quite unable to recognize his human qualities--either his strengths or his weaknesses--and imposed on him instead fearsome images of their own creation. I could not help feeling that the gloomy, chilly atmosphere that surrounded him was less a product of his own character that something others had, however unintentionally, fabricated around him."

Nobunaga had to give up his personal life in order to unite Japan. I also agree that other around him could not recognize his traits good or bad. The battle of Okehazama is fine example, but then again, very few knew what Nobunaga was thinking. In the end, I do believe that Nobunaga paid the price of his ambition to unify Sengoku Japan. Not only his life, but his personal one as well.

Tenka not tame!