Word: bladed
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...study a Renaissance bronze or a medieval ivory in a vitrine and appreciate it, though with some loss. But with a Japanese sword, appreciation is more difficult. The visual subtleties of a great blade are taxing. No gaze through a glass case can substitute for the experience of holding and turning it under natural light, observing the grain of the steel surface, the contrasts of polish, the relentlessly delicate curves of ridge and back, and the hamon or temper pattern-hard as diamonds and impalpable as blown frost-along its cutting edge...
...example is the glittering arc of Kunimune, a late 13th century blade that Dr. Compton bought from a job lot offered by a Midwestern gun dealer. The sword, which had been looted from its shrine in Kyushu by a G.I. and has since been restored to Japan as a gift, is considered by Ogawa Morihiro "perfect in every aspect among all the existing national treasure blades." At first sight, it is difficult to imagine that the sword was finished by a contemporary of Giotto, a quarter of a century before Dante began writing the Divine Comedy...
...with the strict parabolas of a tachi's profile: Brancusi's Bird in Flight, with its soaring curvature, immaculate surface and absolute finality of line. The resemblance is not merely formal. Just as the abstract contour of the Bird is rich with allusions to nature, so the blade contains landscapes...
...Crimson had built up a slim 5-4 lead after the first round of weapons, led by double victories in foil and epee. Captain Phillippe Bennett and John Major each foiled their Bulldog blade brandishers, and Matt Simmons and John Hirschfeld easily took their epee bouts. Nick Tepe was the only saberman on target however, and that proved costly as the match wore...
They did not come along fast enough however, as the Harvard blade brandishers sliced through Baxter's troops like a sword through warm butter. And when Bob Bargar won his second round epee contest, the match was officially Harvard...