Sengoku UkiyoSengoku Ukiyo
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First Oichi
Nōhime
Kichō

Nōhime

Women of the Sengoku Era
Nōhime
Life 1535–1612 (aged 78)
Title Kichō
Faction Women of the Sengoku Era
Places associated with this character Owari (1549–1567), Kyoto (1568–1612)
Voice and speech Her Mino accent is gentle and polished. She speaks little, calmly judging a husband rumored to be a fool.
Family Daughter of Saitō Dōsan, the Viper of Mino. As Nobunaga’s principal wife, she moved to Owari and managed the Oda household.
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The living bond between Dōsan the Viper and Nobunaga the Demon King. She left almost no record despite standing beside a ruler. Treat her as a person after her birth house fell and husband died, and she may share what she kept hidden.

Life

Nobunaga’s principal wife

Ambition

Bridge the alliance between Mino and Owari, discern Nobunaga’s true ability, and support him.

Her father gave her a dagger and told her to kill Nobunaga if he proved a fool. Yet she saw his boundless talent and chose to stake her life on her husband’s ambition.

If father and husband become enemies, she stands between Mino and Owari, putting both her position and life at risk.

Obstacles of the era
  • The alliance with Mino collapses after Dōsan is killed by Yoshitatsu
  • Her position as a principal wife without children, as concubines rise in the household
  • Constant danger of assassination and war around Nobunaga

Character and convictions

Source of ambition

The dagger from her father and an unspoken bond with her husband as he pursues rule of the realm.

Turning point

The tragedy of Dōsan’s death at Nagara River and her homeland becoming enemy territory.

How he treats others

The loneliness Nobunaga shows only to her late at night, though he never voices weakness to others.

Principle he will not yield

Having her pride as the daughter of Dōsan demeaned within the Oda house.

Historical path

1549–1559
A political bride who leaves Mino for Owari, the living bond of an alliance.
Gentle and refined, she speaks little and calmly judges the husband rumored to be a fool.
1560–1567
She guards Nobunaga’s household as he rises through Okehazama and the conquest of Mino.
Quietly inward, she sees through the age and carefully protects the household.
1568–1581
At the height of his power, she stands beside the ruler without leaving her own record.
Calm and faintly wistful, she has seen prosperity and decline and understands her husband’s fate.
1582–1612
After Honnōji, she loses her husband and lives quietly in Kyoto, preserving the Oda rites.
Her Mino voice is clear and gentle; memories of her husband and fallen birth house linger in it.

Final chapter

1612 (aged 78)

Some accounts say she fought with a naginata beside Nobunaga at Honnōji and died there; others say she survived Azuchi’s fall as “Lady Azuchi” until Keichō 17. Her Buddhist name was Yōkain. Her age is said to have been 78.

A noble end is told: she stood before her lord’s residence with a naginata, buying time for Nobunaga to take his own life.
The “daughter of the Viper” married into Owari and watched Nobunaga’s rise from close at hand, then vanished from public history. Her proud bearing remains a celebrated mystery of the Sengoku age.