Katana signed Mitsutada (Jikkyū Mitsutada)
刀 銘 光忠（実休光忠）
別名: Jikkyū Mitsutada, the sword Oda Nobunaga wore at his death
解說
Overview
Jikkyū Mitsutada is a katana attributed to Mitsutada, the effective founder of the Osafune school of Bizen Province. Its name derives from one of its owners, the Sengoku-period warlord Miyoshi Jikkyū. Once listed as a meibutsu in the Kyōhō Meibutsuchō, the blade was lost when Oda Nobunaga, wearing it at the time, perished in the Honnō-ji Incident of 1582; it no longer survives.
Style
Osafune Mitsutada is regarded as the effective founder of the Bizen tradition, celebrated for bold and magnificent hamon dominated by large chōji patterns. According to the Kyōhō Meibutsuchō, the blade bore as many as eighteen sword cuts believed to have been sustained in actual combat, evidence that this was a sword put to hard use on the battlefield.
Provenance
The blade is said to have first belonged to Mikumo Sadamochi, a retainer of the Rokkaku clan in Ōmi Province, before passing to the Sengoku warlord Miyoshi Jikkyū. After Jikkyū's death at the Battle of Kumeda in 1562, Hatakeyama Takamasa acquired the sword and presented it to Oda Nobunaga, who prized it greatly and wore it as a favored blade thereafter.
Designation and Destruction
On June 2, 1582, during the Honnō-ji Incident, Nobunaga, besieged by the rebel forces of Akechi Mitsuhide at Honnō-ji temple, is said to have fought on wearing this sword before taking his own life. The temple was engulfed in flames, and the blade was later recovered, burned, from the ashes. Recorded in the Kyōhō Meibutsuchō along with its history, the fire-damaged blade holds a singular place as the sword that witnessed the death of the man who nearly unified Japan.
Legend
As the blade Nobunaga refused to relinquish to the end at Honnō-ji, Jikkyū Mitsutada stands as a relic symbolizing that pivotal turning point in Japanese history. The burn marks and battle scars on its blade are silent witnesses to the close of the Sengoku era and Nobunaga's dramatic final stand.
逸話與傳說
Besieged by Akechi Mitsuhide's forces at Honnō-ji, Oda Nobunaga is said to have fought on wearing this sword before taking his own life. The blade was later recovered, burned, from the ashes of the temple, and its story was recorded in the Kyōhō Meibutsuchō as the sword that witnessed the end of the man who nearly unified Japan.