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I already knew a good deal about Musashi from Kenji Tokitsu’s book and Takehito Inoue’s stupendously amazing manga Vagabond (which is literally like the best comic ever – the art, the pacing, the characters, the action, etc.)

However, Lives of Master Swordsmen has a surprising amount of detail about his later life, much of it extremely illuminating.

LOVE
For example, when Musashi was around 50, he 50 began a long-term relationship with the courtesan Kumoi, which prompted the following poem:

When in love
Avoid love epistles and amorous letters
Avoid poems expressing love to your beloved
In their place, devote all your strength
To accumulating and saving money.

MONEY
In light of the above advice it should be no surprise that Musashi was very thrifty. However, when he finally accepted employment with a lord, as part of his hiring requirements, he demanded a small salary. How unusual.

MUNENORI
I had always assumed that Musashi and Yagyu Munenori never came into real contact and thus could not duel one another. In fact, plans for a match against Munenori were twice shelved seemingly due to Musashi. Perhaps he didn’t want to make enemies with the shogunate.

BATTLE
Musashi’s military record is clouded and the traditional recountings of his achievements in the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) and the Battles of Winter and Summer in 1614/1615 are scant and vague. Although he was praised for his achievement, they aren’t listed out, but just described in hyperbolic, non-specific terms, unlike others. Perhaps this is due to fighting on the wrong side.
He also fought in the Shimabara rebellion, caused by tyrannical taxes on the peasants and a nascent Christian faith binding them together into 30,000 men, women and children, who were ultimately annihilated. Daimyo Matsukura, the lord over the district, was beheaded for causing the rebellion.

THE ROOT OF IT ALL
Late in life at 54, on a day when he was confined to bed, his lord Tadatoshi died. A friend paid him a visit. Staring at the sun, Musashi suddenly parted his hair and said, “Look at this. Look at the eczema scars that I still have from my infancy. I can’t shave my sakayaki (forehead to crown) the way all samurai did. I can’t wear a topknot.”

Is that the key to Musashi? Anti-authoritarian form childhood, spurred on by a ruthless single father towards strength, and predisposed against all strictures because superficial scars from a baby. & so Musashi dressed unclean and unkempt, as a way to say – I am fine as I am, able to cut down all you fancy samurai, so you proper people can go to hell.