Odai Nogata, was born as the youngest daughter of the lord of the Mizuno Clan in 1528 and died in 1602.
She married Matsudaira Hirotada when she was fourteen years old and gave birth to Takechiyo, later called Tokugawa Iyeyasu. She was considered a famous beauty along with her mother. According to the book ‘The Greatest Ambition’, Matsudaira Gyots, the father of Matsudaira Hirotada, later becoming her husband, showed his interest in Odai’s mother to the lord Mizuno who was the father of Odai. Lord Mizuno recognized what Gyots meant so he divorced his wife for the welfare of his clan. Subsequently, Odai’s mother married Matsdaira Gyots. Therefore, Odai, by means of marrying Matsudaira Hirotada, met her mother as a mother-in-law. As mom said, the author didn’t mind this happening as much as I beheld, indicating these kinds of political arrangements for marriage and divorce were not hard to find at that time.
When she married, she was merely the age of a middle school student, but what she possessed more than her famous beauty was her endurance and wisdom. Not surprisingly, her husband already had a concubine before married. Odai didn’t succumb to his maltreatment and ignorance but accepted what came to her life with patience. So, she could give birth to Takeyochi, and attained a friendly relationship with her husband during this marriage. However, since the Mizuno clan betrayed the Matsudaira clan to get an alliance with the Oda clan which was hostile to the Matsudaira clan, Matsudaira Hirotada divorced Odai and sent her to her family.
Although she had already gotten married and then divorced, she was still very young, being sixteen years old. Later on, she married lord Hitsmas Doshikass, giving birth to three sons and three daughters, and was also able to meet her first son, Tokugawa Iyeyasu. When her husband died, she took the tonsure and lived her life as a Buddhist. Afterwards, she was sent as a hostage to Toyetemi Hideyoshi by his son, Tokugawa Iyeyasu’s political arrangement but then died at seventy three years old, regarded as not too early at that time.
The novel, ‘The Greatest Ambition’ itself is an epic drama, covering wars, and conquests between warlords, so it is hard to find any notable behaviors or outstanding talents in her character as a female protagonist. What impressed me most is she accepted what came into her life. Someone might question ‘Born as a daughter of an aristocrat, nothing in short, why should she live a life of a rebel?’ Nevertheless, during her life which could be considered fairly grieving and tumultuous, how she managed to raise her son, Tokugawa Iyeyas, the victor of the time is as I think, due to her this kind of personality. If one had had beauty and background like hers, she might have made a colorful stroke to her history. After all, what Odai chose as her life is the one of patience that accepted the flow of her era, rather than putting herself up. How she lived is quite different than how I felt from what mom talked about her in the first place. Her life in a way resembles the life of my maternal grandmother and also the one of my mother who is always grumbling out of her strong disposition but nevertheless chose the one of acceptance, getting the better of herself in the end.
Odai, the wise who chose to wait silently with patience till when the history made the way, rather than putting herself up against the world to make a noise in the history.
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