{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34215/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34215","id":"gutenberg_34215","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34215","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Cicada (Genus)","Japanese poetry -- Translations into English","Names, Personal -- Japanese"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Juliet Sutherland, Ernest Schaal, and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               SHADOWINGS\n\n                           BY LAFCADIO HEARN\n                   LECTURER ON ENGLISH LITERATURE IN\n                 THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY, TOKYO, JAPAN\n\n               _AUTHOR OF_ \"EXOTICS AND RETROSPECTIVES,\"\n                   \"IN GHOSTLY JAPAN,\" ETC., ETC.\n\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n\n                                 BOSTON\n                       LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY\n                                  1919\n\n\n\n\n                           _Copyright, 1900_,\n                     BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY\n\n                       _All rights reserved_\n\n\n                                Printers\n                 S. J. PARKHILL & CO. BOSTON, U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n                                Contents\n\n\n    STORIES FROM STRANGE BOOKS:\n\n          I. THE RECONCILIATION                                5\n\n         II. A LEGEND OF FUGEN-BOSATSU                        15\n\n        III. THE SCREEN-MAIDEN                                23\n\n         IV. THE CORPSE-RIDER                                 33\n\n          V. THE SYMPATHY OF BENTEN                           41\n\n         VI. THE GRATITUDE OF THE SAMEBITO                    57\n\n    JAPANESE STUDIES:\n\n          I. SEMI                                             71\n\n         II. JAPANESE FEMALE NAMES                           105\n\n        III. OLD JAPANESE SONGS                              157\n\n     FANTASIES:\n\n          I. NOCTILUCAE                                       197\n\n         II. A MYSTERY OF CROWDS                             203\n\n        III. GOTHIC HORROR                                   213\n\n         IV. LEVITATION                                      225\n\n          V. NIGHTMARE-TOUCH                                 235\n\n         VI. READINGS FROM A DREAM-BOOK                      249\n\n        VII. IN A PAIR OF EYES                               265\n\n\n\n\n                          Illustrations\n\n\n                                                   _Facing page_\n\n    PLATE I                                                   72\n        1-2, _Young Semi._\n        3-4, _Haru-Zemi_, also called _Nawashiro-Zemi_.\n\n    PLATE II                                                  76\n        \"_Shinne-Shinne_\" also called _Yama-Zemi_, and\n            _Kuma-Zemi_.\n\n    PLATE III                                                 80\n     _Aburazemi._\n\n    PLATE IV                                                  84\n        1-2, _Mugikari-Zemi_, also called _Goshiki-Zemi_.\n        3, _Higurashi_.\n        4, \"_Min-Min-Zemi_.\"\n\n    PLATE V                                                   88\n        1, \"_Tsuku-tsuku-Boshi_,\" also called\n            \"_Kutsu-kutsu-Boshi_,\" etc. (_Cosmopsaltria\n            Opalifera?_)\n        2, _Tsurigane-Zemi_.\n        3, _The Phantom_.\n\n\n\n\nSTORIES FROM STRANGE BOOKS\n\n    Il avait vu bruler d'etranges pierres,\n    Jadis, dans les brasiers de la pensee ...\n\n                       EMILE VERHAEREN\n\n\n\n\n                         The Reconciliation[1]\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n    [1] The original story is to be found in the curious volume\n        entitled _Konseki-Monogatari_\n\nTHERE was a young Samurai of Kyoto who had been reduced to poverty by\nthe ruin of his lord, and found himself obliged to leave his home, and\nto take service with the Governor of a distant province. Before quitting\nthe capital, this Samurai divorced his wife,--a good and beautiful\nwoman,--under the belief that he could better obtain promotion by\nanother alliance. He then married the daughter of a family of some\ndistinction, and took her with him to the district whither he had been\ncalled.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut it was in the time of the thoughtlessness of youth, and the sharp\nexperience of want, that the Samurai could not understand the worth of\nthe affection so lightly cast away. His second marriage did not prove a\nhappy one; the character of his new wife was hard and selfish; and he\nsoon found every cause to think with regret of Kyoto days. Then he\ndiscovered that he still loved his first wife--loved her more than he\ncould ever love the second; and he began to feel how unjust and how\nthankless he had been. Gradually his repentance deepened into a remorse\nthat left him no peace of mind. Memories of the woman he had\nwronged--her gentle speech, her smiles, her dainty, pretty ways, her\nfaultless patience--continually haunted him. Sometimes in dreams he saw\nher at her loom, weaving as when she toiled night and day to help him\nduring the years of their distress: more often he saw her kneeling alone\nin the desolate little room where he had left her, veiling her tears\nwith her poor worn sleeve. Even in the hours of official duty, his\nthoughts would wander back to her: then he would ask himself how she was\nliving, what she was doing. Something in his heart assured him that she\ncould not accept another husband, and that she never would refuse to\npardon him. And he secretly resolved to seek her out as soon as he could\nreturn to Kyoto,--then to beg her forgiveness, to take her back, to do\neverything that a man could do to make atonement. But the years went\nby.\n\nAt last the Governor's official term expired, and the Samurai was free.\n\"Now I will go back to my dear one,\" he vowed to himself. \"Ah, what a\ncruelty,--what a folly to have divorced her!\" He sent his second wife to\nher own people (she had given him no children); and hurrying to Kyoto,\nhe went at once to seek his former companion,--not allowing himself even\nthe time to change his travelling-garb.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen he reached the street where she used to live, it was late in the\nnight,--the night of the tenth day of the ninth month;--and the city was\nsilent as a cemetery. But a bright moon made everything visible; and he\nfound the house without difficulty. It had a deserted look: tall weeds\nwere growing on the roof. He knocked at the sliding-doors, and no one\nanswered. Then, finding that the doors had not been fastened from\nwithin, he pushed them open, and entered. The front room was matless and\nempty: a chilly wind was blowing through crevices in the planking; and\nthe moon shone through a ragged break in the wall of the alcove. Other\nrooms presented a like forlorn condition. The house, to all seeming, was\nunoccupied. Nevertheless, the Samurai determined to visit one other\napartment at the further end of the dwelling,--a very small room that\nhad been his wife's favorite resting-place. Approaching the\nsliding-screen that closed it, he was startled to perceive a glow\nwithin. He pushed the screen aside, and uttered a cry of joy; for he saw\nher there,--sewing by the light of a paper-lamp. Her eyes at the same\ninstant met his own; and with a happy smile she greeted him,--asking\nonly:--\"When did you come back to Kyoto? How did you find your way here\nto me, through all those black rooms?\" The years had not changed her.\nStill she seemed as fair and young as in his fondest memory of her;--but\nsweeter than any memory there came to him the music of her voice, with\nits trembling of pleased wonder.\n\nThen joyfully he took his place beside her, and told her all:--how\ndeeply he repented his selfishness,--how wretched he had been without\nher,--how constantly he had regretted her,--how long he had hoped and\nplanned to make amends;--caressing her the while, and asking her\nforgiveness over and over again. She answered him, with loving\ngentleness, according to his heart's desire,--entreating him to cease\nall self-reproach. It was wrong, she said, that he should have allowed\nhimself to suffer on her account: she had always felt that she was not\nworthy to be his wife. She knew that he had separated from her,\nnotwithstanding, only because of poverty; and while he lived with her,\nhe had always been kind; and she had never ceased to pray for his\nhappiness. But even if there had been a reason for speaking of amends,\nthis honorable visit would be ample amends;--what greater happiness than\nthus to see him again, though it were only for a moment? \"Only for a\nmoment!\" he answered, with a glad laugh,--\"say, rather, for the time of\nseven existences! My loved one, unless you forbid, I am coming back to\nlive with you always--always--always! Nothing shall ever separate us\nagain. Now I have means and friends: we need not fear poverty. To-morrow\nmy goods will be brought here; and my servants will come to wait upon\nyou; and we shall make this house beautiful.... To-night,\" he added,\napologetically, \"I came thus late--without even changing my dress--only\nbecause of the longing I had to see you, and to tell you this.\" She\nseemed greatly pleased by these words; and in her turn she told him\nabout all that had happened in Kyoto since the time of his\ndeparture,--excepting her own sorrows, of which she sweetly refused to\nspeak. They chatted far into the night: then she conducted him to a\nwarmer room, facing south,--a room that had been their bridal chamber in\nformer time. \"Have you no one in the house to help you?\" he asked, as\nshe began to prepare the couch for him. \"No,\" she answered, laughing\ncheerfully: \"I could not afford a servant;--so I have been living all\nalone.\" \"You will have plenty of servants to-morrow,\" he said,--\"good\nservants,--and everything else that you need.\" They lay down to\nrest,--not to sleep: they had too much to tell each other;--and they\ntalked of the past and the present and the future, until the dawn was\ngrey. Then, involuntarily, the Samurai closed his eyes, and slept.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen he awoke, the daylight was streaming through the chinks of the\nsliding-shutters; and he found himself, to his utter amazement, lying\nupon the naked boards of a mouldering floor.... Had he only dreamed a\ndream? No: she was there;--she slept.... He bent above her,--and\nlooked,--and shrieked;--for the sleeper had no face!... Before him,\nwrapped in its grave-sheet only, lay the corpse of a woman,--a corpse so\nwasted that little remained save the bones, and the long black tangled\nhair.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nSlowly,--as he stood shuddering and sickening in the sun,--the icy\nhorror yielded to a despair so intolerable, a pain so atrocious, that he\nclutched at the mocking shadow of a doubt. Feigning ignorance of the\nneighborhood, he ventured to ask his way to the house in which his wife\nhad lived.\n\n\"There is no one in that house,\" said the person questioned. \"It used to\nbelong to the wife of a Samurai who left the city several years ago. He\ndivorced her in order to marry another woman before he went away; and\nshe fretted a great deal, and so became sick. She had no relatives in\nKyoto, and nobody to care for her; and she died in the autumn of the\nsame year,--on the tenth day of the ninth month....\"\n\n\n\n\n                      A Legend of Fugen-Bosatsu[2]\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n    [2] From the old story-book, _Jikkun-sho_\n\n\nTHERE was once a very pious and learned priest, called Shoku Shonin, who\nlived in the province of Harima. For many years he meditated daily upon\nthe chapter of Fugen-Bosatsu [the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra] in the\nSutra of the Lotos of the Good Law; and he used to pray, every morning\nand evening, that he might at some time be permitted to behold\nFugen-Bosatsu as a living presence, and in the form described in the\nholy text.[3]\n\n    [3] The priest's desire was probably inspired by the promises\n        recorded in the chapter entitled \"The Encouragement of\n        Samantabhadra\" (see Kern's translation of the Saddharma\n        Pundarika in the _Sacred Books of the East_,--pp.\n        433-434):--\"Then the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Samantabhadra\n        said to the Lord: ... 'When a preacher who applies himself\n        to this Dharmaparyaya shall take a walk, then, O Lord, will\n        I mount a white elephant with six tusks, and betake myself\n        to the place where that preacher is walking, in order to\n        protect this Dharmaparyaya. And when that preacher, applying\n        himself to this Dharmaparyaya, forgets, be it but a single\n        word or syllable, then will I mount the white elephant with\n        six tusks, and show my face to that preacher, and repeat\n        this entire Dharmaparyaya.\"--But these promises refer to\n        \"the end of time.\"\n\nOne evening, while he was reciting the Sutra, drowsiness overcame him;\nand he fell asleep leaning upon his _kyosoku_.[4] Then he dreamed; and\nin his dream a voice told him that, in order to see Fugen-Bosatsu,\nhe must go to the house of a certain courtesan, known as the\n\"Yujo-no-Choja,\"[5] who lived in the town of Kanzaki. Immediately upon\nawakening he resolved to go to Kanzaki;--and, making all possible haste,\nhe reached the town by the evening of the next day.\n\n    [4] The _Kyosoku_ is a kind of padded arm-rest, or arm-stool,\n        upon which the priest leans one arm while reading. The use\n        of such an arm-rest is not confined, however, to the\n        Buddhist clergy.\n\n    [5] A yujo, in old days, was a singing-girl as well as a\n        courtesan. The term \"Yujo-no-Choja,\" in this case, would\n        mean simply \"the first (or best) of yujo.\"\n\nWhen he entered the house of the _yujo_, he found many persons already\nthere assembled--mostly young men of the capital, who had been attracted\nto Kanzaki by the fame of the woman's beauty. They were feasting and\ndrinking; and the _yujo_ was playing a small hand-drum (_tsuzumi_),\nwhich she used very skilfully, and singing a song. The song which she\nsang was an old Japanese song about a famous shrine in the town of\nMurozumi; and the words were these:--\n\n    _Within the sacred water-tank[6] of Murozumi in Suwo,\n    Even though no wind be blowing,\n    The surface of the water is always rippling._\n\n        [6] _Mitarai_. _Mitarai_ (or _mitarashi_) is the name\n            especially given to the water-tanks, or water-fonts--of\n            stone or bronze--placed before Shinto shrines in order\n            that the worshipper may purify his lips and hands before\n            making prayer. Buddhist tanks are not so named.\n\nThe sweetness of the voice filled everybody with surprise and delight.\nAs the priest, who had taken a place apart, listened and wondered, the\ngirl suddenly fixed her eyes upon him; and in the same instant he saw\nher form change into the form of Fugen-Bosatsu, emitting from her brow a\nbeam of light that seemed to pierce beyond the limits of the universe,\nand riding a snow-white elephant with six tusks. And still she sang--but\nthe song also was now transformed; and the words came thus to the ears\nof the priest:--\n\n    _On the Vast Sea of Cessation,\n    Though the Winds of the Six Desires and of the Five Corruptions\n        never blow,\n    Yet the surface of that deep is always covered\n    With the billowings of Attainment to the Reality-in-Itself._\n\nDazzled by the divine ray, the priest closed his eyes: but through their\nlids he still distinctly saw the vision. When he opened them again, it\nwas gone: he saw only the girl with her hand-drum, and heard only the\nsong about the water of Murozumi. But he found that as often as he shut\nhis eyes he could see Fugen-Bosatsu on the six-tusked elephant, and\ncould hear the mystic Song of the Sea of Cessation. The other persons\npresent saw only the _yujo_: they had not beheld the manifestation.\n\nThen the singer suddenly disappeared from the banquet-room--none could\nsay when or how. From that moment the revelry ceased; and gloom took\nthe place of joy. After having waited and sought for the girl to no\npurpose, the company dispersed in great sorrow. Last of all, the priest\ndeparted, bewildered by the emotions of the evening. But scarcely had\nhe passed beyond the gate, when the _yujo_ appeared before him, and\nsaid:--\"Friend, do not speak yet to any one of what you have seen this\nnight.\" And with these words she vanished away,--leaving the air filled\nwith a delicious fragrance.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe monk by whom the foregoing legend was recorded, comments upon it\nthus:--The condition of a _yujo_ is low and miserable, since she is\ncondemned to serve the lusts of men. Who therefore could imagine\nthat such a woman might be the _nirmanakaya_, or incarnation, of a\nBodhisattva. But we must remember that the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas\nmay appear in this world in countless different forms; choosing,\nfor the purpose of their divine compassion, even the most humble or\ncontemptible shapes when such shapes can serve them to lead men into\nthe true path, and to save them from the perils of illusion.\n\n\n\n\n                          The Screen-Maiden[7]\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n    [7] Related in the _Otogi-Hyaku-Monogatari_\n\n\nSAYS the old Japanese author, Hakubai-En Rosui:--[8]\n\n\"In Chinese and in Japanese books there are related many stories,--both\nof ancient and of modern times,--about pictures that were so beautiful\nas to exercise a magical influence upon the beholder. And concerning\nsuch beautiful pictures,--whether pictures of flowers or of birds or of\npeople, painted by famous artists,--it is further told that the shapes\nof the creatures or the persons, therein depicted, would separate\nthemselves from the paper or the silk upon which they had been painted,\nand would perform various acts;--so that they became, by their own will,\nreally alive. We shall not now repeat any of the stories of this\nclass which have been known to everybody from ancient times. But\neven in modern times the fame of the pictures painted by Hishigawa\nKichibei--'Hishigawa's Portraits'--has become widespread in the land.\"\n\n    [8] He died in the eighteenth year of Kyoho (1733). The painter\n        to whom he refers--better known to collectors as Hishigawa\n        Kichibei Moronobu--flourished during the latter part of the\n        seventeenth century. Beginning his career as a dyer's\n        apprentice, he won his reputation as an artist about 1680,\n        when he may be said to have founded the _Ukiyo-ye_ school of\n        illustration. Hishigawa was especially a delineator of what\n        are called _furyu_, (\"elegant manners\"),--the aspects of\n        life among the upper classes of society.\n\nHe then proceeds to relate the following story about one of the\nso-called portraits:--\n\n    There was a young scholar of Kyoto whose name was Tokkei. He\n    used to live in the street called Muromachi. One evening,\n    while on his way home after a visit, his attention was attracted\n    by an old single-leaf screen (_tsuitate_), exposed for sale\n    before the shop of a dealer in second-hand goods. It was only\n    a paper-covered screen; but there was painted upon it the\n    full-length figure of a girl which caught the young man's\n    fancy. The price asked was very small: Tokkei bought the\n    screen, and took it home with him.\n\n    When he looked again at the screen, in the solitude of his\n    own room, the picture seemed to him much more beautiful than\n    before. Apparently it was a real likeness,--the portrait of a\n    girl fifteen or sixteen years old; and every little detail\n    in the painting of the hair, eyes, eyelashes, mouth, had\n    been executed with a delicacy and a truth beyond praise. The\n    _manajiri_[9] seemed \"like a lotos-blossom courting favor\"; the\n    lips were \"like the smile of a red flower\"; the whole young face\n    was inexpressibly sweet. If the real girl so portrayed had been\n    equally lovely, no man could have looked upon her without losing\n    his heart. And Tokkei believed that she must have been thus\n    lovely;--for the figure seemed alive,--ready to reply to anybody\n    who might speak to it.\n\n        [9] Also written _mejiri_,--the exterior canthus of the\n            eye. The Japanese (like the old Greek and the old\n            Arabian poets) have many curious dainty words and\n            similes to express particular beauties of the hair,\n            eyes, eyelids, lips, fingers, etc.\n\n    Gradually, as he continued to gaze at the picture, he felt\n    himself bewitched by the charm of it. \"Can there really have\n    been in this world,\" he murmured to himself, \"so delicious a\n    creature? How gladly would I give my life--nay, a thousand\n    years of life!--to hold her in my arms even for a moment!\" (The\n    Japanese author says \"for a few seconds.\") In short, he became\n    enamoured of the picture,--so much enamoured of it as to feel\n    that he never could love any woman except the person whom it\n    represented. Yet that person, if still alive, could no longer\n    resemble the painting: perhaps she had been buried long before\n    he was born!\n\n    Day by day, nevertheless, this hopeless passion grew upon\n    him. He could not eat; he could not sleep: neither could he\n    occupy his mind with those studies which had formerly delighted\n    him. He would sit for hours before the picture, talking to\n    it,--neglecting or forgetting everything else. And at last he\n    fell sick--so sick that he believed himself going to die.\n\n    Now among the friends of Tokkei there was one venerable scholar\n    who knew many strange things about old pictures and about young\n    hearts. This aged scholar, hearing of Tokkei's illness, came to\n    visit him, and saw the screen, and understood what had happened.\n    Then Tokkei, being questioned, confessed everything to his\n    friend, and declared:--\"If I cannot find such a woman, I shall\n    die.\"\n\n    The old man said:--\n\n    \"That picture was painted by Hishigawa Kichibei,--painted from\n    life. The person whom it represented is not now in the world.\n    But it is said that Hishigawa Kichibei painted her mind as well\n    as her form, and that her spirit lives in the picture. So I\n    think that you can win her.\"\n\n    Tokkei half rose from his bed, and stared eagerly at the\n    speaker.\n\n    \"You must give her a name,\" the old man continued;--\"and you\n    must sit before her picture every day, and keep your thoughts\n    constantly fixed upon her, and call her gently by the name which\n    you have given her, _until she answers you_....\"\n\n    \"Answers me!\" exclaimed the lover, in breathless amazement.\n\n    \"Oh, yes,\" the adviser responded, \"she will certainly answer\n    you. But you must be ready, when she answers you, to present her\n    with what I am going to tell you....\"\n\n    \"I will give her my life!\" cried Tokkei.\n\n    \"No,\" said the old man;--\"you will present her with a cup of\n    wine that has been bought at one hundred different wine-shops.\n    Then she will come out of the screen to accept the wine. After\n    that, probably she herself will tell you what to do.\"\n\n    With these words the old man went away. His advice aroused\n    Tokkei from despair. At once he seated himself before the\n    picture, and called it by the name of a girl--(what name the\n    Japanese narrator has forgotten to tell us)--over and over\n    again, very tenderly. That day it made no answer, nor the next\n    day, nor the next. But Tokkei did not lose faith or patience;\n    and after many days it suddenly one evening answered to its\n    name,--\n\n    \"_Hai!_\" (Yes.)\n\n    Then quickly, quickly, some of the wine from a hundred different\n    wine-shops was poured out, and reverentially presented in a\n    little cup. And the girl stepped from the screen, and walked\n    upon the matting of the room, and knelt to take the cup from\n    Tokkei's hand,--asking, with a delicious smile:--\n\n    \"How could you love me so much?\"\n\n    Says the Japanese narrator: \"She was much more beautiful than the\n    picture,--beautiful to the tips of her finger-nails,--beautiful\n    also in heart and temper,--lovelier than anybody else in the\n    world.\" What answer Tokkei made to her question is not recorded:\n    it will have to be imagined.\n\n    \"But will you not soon get tired of me?\" she asked.\n\n    \"Never while I live!\" he protested.\n\n    \"And after--?\" she persisted;--for the Japanese bride is not\n    satisfied with love for one life-time only.\n\n    \"Let us pledge ourselves to each other,\" he entreated, \"for the\n    time of seven existences.\"\n\n    \"If you are ever unkind to me,\" she said, \"I will go back to the\n    screen.\"\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\n    They pledged each other. I suppose that Tokkei was a good\n    boy,--for his bride never returned to the screen. The space that\n    she had occupied upon it remained a blank.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Exclaims the Japanese author,--\n\n    \"How very seldom do such things happen in this world!\"\n\n\n\n\n                          The Corpse-Rider[10]\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n    [10] From the _Konseki-Monogatari_\n\n\nTHE body was cold as ice; the heart had long ceased to beat: yet there\nwere no other signs of death. Nobody even spoke of burying the woman.\nShe had died of grief and anger at having been divorced. It would have\nbeen useless to bury her,--because the last undying wish of a dying\nperson for vengeance can burst asunder any tomb and rift the heaviest\ngraveyard stone. People who lived near the house in which she was lying\nfled from their homes. They knew that she was only _waiting for the\nreturn of the man who had divorced her_.\n\nAt the time of her death he was on a journey. When he came back and was\ntold what had happened, terror seized him. \"If I can find no help before\ndark,\" he thought to himself, \"she will tear me to pieces.\" It was yet\nonly the Hour of the Dragon;[11] but he knew that he had no time to\nlose.\n\n    [11] _Tatsu no Koku_, or the Hour of the Dragon, by old Japanese\n         time, began at about eight o'clock in the morning.\n\nHe went at once to an _inyoshi_[12] and begged for succor. The _inyoshi_\nknew the story of the dead woman; and he had seen the body. He said to\nthe supplicant:--\"A very great danger threatens you. I will try to save\nyou. But you must promise to do whatever I shall tell you to do. There\nis only one way by which you can be saved. It is a fearful way. But\nunless you find the courage to attempt it, she will tear you limb from\nlimb. If you can be brave, come to me again in the evening before\nsunset.\" The man shuddered; but he promised to do whatever should be\nrequired of him.\n\n    [12] _Inyoshi_, a professor or master of the science of\n         _in-yo_,--the old Chinese nature-philosophy, based upon the\n         theory of a male and a female principle pervading the\n         universe.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt sunset the _inyoshi_ went with him to the house where the body was\nlying. The _inyoshi_ pushed open the sliding-doors, and told his client\nto enter. It was rapidly growing dark. \"I dare not!\" gasped the man,\nquaking from head to foot;--\"I dare not even look at her!\" \"You will\nhave to do much more than look at her,\" declared the _inyoshi_;--\"and\nyou promised to obey. Go in!\" He forced the trembler into the house and\nled him to the side of the corpse.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe dead woman was lying on her face. \"Now you must get astride upon\nher,\" said the _inyoshi_, \"and sit firmly on her back, as if you were\nriding a horse.... Come!--you must do it!\" The man shivered so that the\n_inyoshi_ had to support him--shivered horribly; but he obeyed. \"Now\ntake her hair in your hands,\" commanded the _inyoshi_,--\"half in the\nright hand, half in the left.... So!... You must grip it like a bridle.\nTwist your hands in it--both hands--tightly. That is the way!... Listen\nto me! You must stay like that till morning. You will have reason to be\nafraid in the night--plenty of reason. But whatever may happen, never\nlet go of her hair. If you let go,--even for one second,--she will tear\nyou into gobbets!\"\n\nThe _inyoshi_ then whispered some mysterious words into the ear of the\nbody, and said to its rider:--\"Now, for my own sake, I must leave you\nalone with her.... Remain as you are!... Above all things, remember that\nyou must not let go of her hair.\" And he went away,--closing the doors\nbehind him.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nHour after hour the man sat upon the corpse in black fear;--and the hush\nof the night deepened and deepened about him till he screamed to break\nit. Instantly the body sprang beneath him, as to cast him off; and the\ndead woman cried out loudly, \"Oh, how heavy it is! Yet I shall bring\nthat fellow here now!\"\n\nThen tall she rose, and leaped to the doors, and flung them open, and\nrushed into the night,--always bearing the weight of the man. But he,\nshutting his eyes, kept his hands twisted in her long hair,--tightly,\ntightly,--though fearing with such a fear that he could not even moan.\nHow far she went, he never knew. He saw nothing: he heard only the sound\nof her naked feet in the dark,--_picha-picha_, _picha-picha_,--and the\nhiss of her breathing as she ran.\n\nAt last she turned, and ran back into the house, and lay down upon the\nfloor exactly as at first. Under the man she panted and moaned till the\ncocks began to crow. Thereafter she lay still.\n\nBut the man, with chattering teeth, sat upon her until the _inyoshi_\ncame at sunrise. \"So you did not let go of her hair!\"--observed the\n_inyoshi_, greatly pleased. \"That is well ... Now you can stand up.\" He\nwhispered again into the ear of the corpse, and then said to the\nman:--\"You must have passed a fearful night; but nothing else could have\nsaved you. Hereafter you may feel secure from her vengeance.\"\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\nThe conclusion of this story I do not think to be morally satisfying.\nIt is not recorded that the corpse-rider became insane, or that his\nhair turned white: we are told only that \"he worshipped the _inyoshi_\nwith tears of gratitude.\" A note appended to the recital is equally\ndisappointing. \"It is reported,\" the Japanese author says, \"that a\ngrandchild of the man [_who rode the corpse_] still survives, and that a\ngrandson of the _inyoshi_ is at this very time living in a village\ncalled Otokunoi-mura [_probably pronounced Otonoi-mura_].\"\n\nThis village-name does not appear in any Japanese directory of to-day.\nBut the names of many towns and villages have been changed since the\nforegoing story was written.\n\n\n\n\n                       The Sympathy of Benten[13]\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n    [13] The original story is in the _Otogi-Hyaku-Monogatari_\n\n\nIN Kyoto there is a famous temple called Amadera. Sadazumi Shinno, the\nfifth son of the Emperor Seiwa, passed the greater part of his life\nthere as a priest; and the graves of many celebrated persons are to be\nseen in the temple-grounds.\n\nBut the present edifice is not the ancient Amadera. The original temple,\nafter the lapse of ten centuries, fell into such decay that it had to be\nentirely rebuilt in the fourteenth year of Genroku (1701 A. D.).\n\nA great festival was held to celebrate the rebuilding of the Amadera;\nand among the thousands of persons who attended that festival there was\na young scholar and poet named Hanagaki Baishu. He wandered about the\nnewly-laid-out grounds and gardens, delighted by all that he saw, until\nhe reached the place of a spring at which he had often drunk in former\ntimes. He was then surprised to find that the soil about the spring had\nbeen dug away, so as to form a square pond, and that at one corner of\nthis pond there had been set up a wooden tablet bearing the words\n_Tanjo-Sui_ (\"Birth-Water\").[14] He also saw that a small, but very\nhandsome temple of the Goddess Benten had been erected beside the pond.\nWhile he was looking at this new temple, a sudden gust of wind blew to\nhis feet a _tanzaku_,[15] on which the following poem had been written:--\n\n              Shirushi areto\n            Iwai zo somuru\n              Tama hoki,\n            Torute bakari no\n            Chigiri naretomo.\n\n    [14] The word _tanjo_ (birth) should here be understood in its\n         mystical Buddhist meaning of new life or rebirth, rather\n         than in the western signification of birth.\n\n    [15] _Tanzaku_ is the name given to the long strips or ribbons\n         of paper, usually colored, upon which poems are written\n         perpendicularly. Poems written upon _tanzaku_ are suspended\n         to trees in flower, to wind-bells, to any beautiful object\n         in which the poet has found an inspiration.\n\nThis poem--a poem on first love (_hatsu koi_), composed by the famous\nShunrei Kyo--was not unfamiliar to him; but it had been written upon\nthe _tanzaku_ by a female hand, and so exquisitely that he could\nscarcely believe his eyes. Something in the form of the characters,--an\nindefinite grace,--suggested that period of youth between childhood and\nwomanhood; and the pure rich color of the ink seemed to bespeak the\npurity and goodness of the writer's heart.[16]\n\n    [16] It is difficult for the inexperienced European eye to\n         distinguish in Chinese or Japanese writing those\n         characteristics implied by our term \"hand\"--in the sense of\n         individual style. But the Japanese scholar never forgets\n         the peculiarities of a handwriting once seen; and he can\n         even guess at the approximate age of the writer. Chinese\n         and Japanese authors claim that the color (quality) of the\n         ink used tells something of the character of the writer. As\n         every person grounds or prepares his or her own ink, the\n         deeper and clearer black would at least indicate something\n         of personal carefulness and of the sense of beauty.\n\nBaishu carefully folded up the _tanzaku_, and took it home with him.\nWhen he looked at it again the writing appeared to him even more\nwonderful than at first. His knowledge in caligraphy assured him only\nthat the poem had been written by some girl who was very young, very\nintelligent, and probably very gentle-hearted. But this assurance\nsufficed to shape within his mind the image of a very charming person;\nand he soon found himself in love with the unknown. Then his first\nresolve was to seek out the writer of the verses, and, if possible, make\nher his wife.... Yet how was he to find her? Who was she? Where did she\nlive? Certainly he could hope to find her only through the favor of the\nGods.\n\nBut presently it occurred to him that the Gods might be very willing\nto lend their aid. The _tanzaku_ had come to him while he was\nstanding in front of the temple of Benten-Sama; and it was to this\ndivinity in particular that lovers were wont to pray for happy union.\nThis reflection impelled him to beseech the Goddess for assistance.\nHe went at once to the temple of Benten-of-the-Birth-Water\n(_Tanjo-sui-no-Benten_) in the grounds of the Amadera; and there, with\nall the fervor of his heart, he made his petition:--\"O Goddess, pity\nme!--help me to find where the young person lives who wrote the\n_tanzaku_!--vouchsafe me but one chance to meet her,--even if only for\na moment!\" And after having made this prayer, he began to perform a\nseven days' religious service (_nanuka-mairi_)[17] in honor of the\nGoddess; vowing at the same time to pass the seventh night in ceaseless\nworship before her shrine.\n\n    [17] There are many kinds of religious exercises called _mairi_.\n         The performer of a _nanuka-mairi_ pledges himself to pray\n         at a certain temple every day for seven days in succession.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow on the seventh night,--the night of his vigil,--during the hour when\nthe silence is most deep, he heard at the main gateway of the\ntemple-grounds a voice calling for admittance. Another voice from within\nanswered; the gate was opened; and Baishu saw an old man of majestic\nappearance approaching with slow steps. This venerable person was clad\nin robes of ceremony; and he wore upon his snow-white head a black cap\n(_eboshi_) of the form indicating high rank. Reaching the little temple\nof Benten, he knelt down in front of it, as if respectfully awaiting\nsome order. Then the outer door of the temple was opened; the hanging\ncurtain of bamboo behind it, concealing the inner sanctuary, was rolled\nhalf-way up; and a _chigo_[18] came forward,--a beautiful boy, with long\nhair tied back in the ancient manner. He stood at the threshold, and\nsaid to the old man in a clear loud voice:--\n\n    [18] The term _chigo_ usually means the page of a noble\n         household, especially an Imperial page. The _chigo_ who\n         appears in this story is of course a supernatural\n         being,--the court-messenger of the Goddess, and her\n         mouthpiece.\n\n\"There is a person here who has been praying for a love-union not\nsuitable to his present condition, and otherwise difficult to bring\nabout. But as the young man is worthy of Our pity, you have been called\nto see whether something can be done for him. If there should prove to\nbe any relation between the parties from the period of a former birth,\nyou will introduce them to each other.\"\n\nOn receiving this command, the old man bowed respectfully to the\n_chigo_: then, rising, he drew from the pocket of his long left sleeve a\ncrimson cord. One end of this cord he passed round Baishu's body, as if\nto bind him with it. The other end he put into the flame of one of the\ntemple-lamps; and while the cord was there burning, he waved his hand\nthree times, as if to summon somebody out of the dark.\n\nImmediately, in the direction of the Amadera, a sound of coming steps\nwas heard; and in another moment a girl appeared,--a charming girl,\nfifteen or sixteen years old. She approached gracefully, but very\nshyly,--hiding the lower part of her face with a fan; and she knelt down\nbeside Baishu. The _chigo_ then said to Baishu:--\n\n\"Recently you have been suffering much heart-pain; and this desperate\nlove of yours has even impaired your health. We could not allow you to\nremain in so unhappy a condition; and We therefore summoned the\nOld-Man-under-the-Moon[19] to make you acquainted with the writer of\nthat _tanzaku_. She is now beside you.\"\n\n    [19] _Gekkawo_. This is a poetical appellation for the God\n         of Marriage, more usually known as _Musubi-no-kami_.\n         Throughout this story there is an interesting mingling of\n         Shinto and Buddhist ideas.\n\nWith these words, the _chigo_ retired behind the bamboo curtain. Then\nthe old man went away as he had come; and the young girl followed him.\nSimultaneously Baishu heard the great bell of the Amadera sounding the\nhour of dawn. He prostrated himself in thanksgiving before the shrine of\nBenten-of-the-Birth-Water, and proceeded homeward,--feeling as if\nawakened from some delightful dream,--happy at having seen the charming\nperson whom he had so fervently prayed to meet,--unhappy also because of\nthe fear that he might never meet her again.\n\nBut scarcely had he passed from the gateway into the street, when he saw\na young girl walking alone in the same direction that he was going; and,\neven in the dusk of the dawn, he recognized her at once as the person to\nwhom he had been introduced before the temple of Benten. As he quickened\nhis pace to overtake her, she turned and saluted him with a graceful\nbow. Then for the first time he ventured to speak to her; and she\nanswered him in a voice of which the sweetness filled his heart with\njoy. Through the yet silent streets they walked on, chatting happily,\ntill they found themselves before the house where Baishu lived. There he\npaused--spoke to the girl of his hopes and fears. Smiling, she\nasked:--\"Do you not know that I was sent for to become your wife?\" And\nshe entered with him.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBecoming his wife, she delighted him beyond expectation by the charm of\nher mind and heart. Moreover, he found her to be much more accomplished\nthan he had supposed. Besides being able to write so wonderfully, she\ncould paint beautiful pictures; she knew the art of arranging flowers,\nthe art of embroidery, the art of music; she could weave and sew; and\nshe knew everything in regard to the management of a house.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was in the early autumn that the young people had met; and they lived\ntogether in perfect accord until the winter season began. Nothing,\nduring those months, occurred to disturb their peace. Baishu's love for\nhis gentle wife only strengthened with the passing of time. Yet,\nstrangely enough, he remained ignorant of her history,--knew nothing\nabout her family. Of such matters she had never spoken; and, as the Gods\nhad given her to him, he imagined that it would not be proper to\nquestion her. But neither the Old-Man-under-the-Moon nor any one else\ncame--as he had feared--to take her away. Nobody even made any inquiries\nabout her. And the neighbors, for some undiscoverable reason, acted as\nif totally unaware of her presence.\n\nBaishu wondered at all this. But stranger experiences were awaiting\nhim.\n\nOne winter morning he happened to be passing through a somewhat remote\nquarter of the city, when he heard himself loudly called by name, and\nsaw a man-servant making signs to him from the gateway of a private\nresidence. As Baishu did not know the man's face, and did not have a\nsingle acquaintance in that part of Kyoto, he was more than startled by\nso abrupt a summons. But the servant, coming forward, saluted him with\nthe utmost respect, and said, \"My master greatly desires the honor of\nspeaking with you: deign to enter for a moment.\" After an instant of\nhesitation, Baishu allowed himself to be conducted to the house. A\ndignified and richly dressed person, who seemed to be the master,\nwelcomed him at the entrance, and led him to the guest-room. When the\ncourtesies due upon a first meeting had been fully exchanged, the host\napologized for the informal manner of his invitation, and said:--\n\n\"It must have seemed to you very rude of us to call you in such a way.\nBut perhaps you will pardon our impoliteness when I tell you that we\nacted thus upon what I firmly believe to have been an inspiration from\nthe Goddess Benten. Now permit me to explain.\n\n\"I have a daughter, about sixteen years old, who can write rather\nwell,[20] and do other things in the common way: she has the ordinary\nnature of woman. As we were anxious to make her happy by finding a good\nhusband for her, we prayed the Goddess Benten to help us; and we sent to\nevery temple of Benten in the city a _tanzaku_ written by the girl. Some\nnights later, the Goddess appeared to me in a dream, and said: 'We have\nheard your prayer, and have already introduced your daughter to the\nperson who is to become her husband. During the coming winter he will\nvisit you.' As I did not understand this assurance that a presentation\nhad been made, I felt some doubt; I thought that the dream might have\nbeen only a common dream, signifying nothing. But last night again I saw\nBenten-Sama in a dream; and she said to me: 'To-morrow the young man, of\nwhom I once spoke to you, will come to this street: then you can call\nhim into your house, and ask him to become the husband of your daughter.\nHe is a good young man; and later in life he will obtain a much higher\nrank than he now holds.' Then Benten-Sama told me your name, your age,\nyour birthplace, and described your features and dress so exactly that\nmy servant found no difficulty in recognizing you by the indications\nwhich I was able to give him.\"\n\n    [20] As it is the old Japanese rule that parents should speak\n         depreciatingly of their children's accomplishments the\n         phrase \"rather well\" in this connection would mean, for the\n         visitor, \"wonderfully well.\" For the same reason the\n         expressions \"common way\" and \"ordinary nature,\" as\n         subsequently used, would imply almost the reverse of the\n         literal meaning.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis explanation bewildered Baishu instead of reassuring him; and his\nonly reply was a formal return of thanks for the honor which the master\nof the house had spoken of doing him. But when the host invited him to\nanother room, for the purpose of presenting him to the young lady, his\nembarrassment became extreme. Yet he could not reasonably decline the\nintroduction. He could not bring himself, under such extraordinary\ncircumstances, to announce that he already had a wife,--a wife given to\nhim by the Goddess Benten herself; a wife from whom he could not even\nthink of separating. So, in silence and trepidation, he followed his\nhost to the apartment indicated.\n\nThen what was his amazement to discover, when presented to the daughter\nof the house, that she was the very same person whom he had already\ntaken to wife!\n\n_The same,--yet not the same._\n\nShe to whom he had been introduced by the Old-Man-under-the-Moon, was\nonly the soul of the beloved.\n\nShe to whom he was now to be wedded, in her father's house, was the\nbody.\n\nBenten had wrought this miracle for the sake of her worshippers.\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\nThe original story breaks off suddenly at this point, leaving several\nmatters unexplained. The ending is rather unsatisfactory. One would like\nto know something about the mental experiences of the real maiden during\nthe married life of her phantom. One would also like to know what became\nof the phantom,--whether it continued to lead an independent existence;\nwhether it waited patiently for the return of its husband; whether it\npaid a visit to the real bride. And the book says nothing about these\nthings. But a Japanese friend explains the miracle thus:--\n\n\"The spirit-bride was really formed out of the _tanzaku_. So it is\npossible that the real girl did not know anything about the meeting at\nthe temple of Benten. When she wrote those beautiful characters upon the\n_tanzaku_, something of her spirit passed into them. Therefore it was\npossible to evoke from the writing the double of the writer.\"\n\n\n\n\n                   The Gratitude of the Samebito[21]\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n    [21] The original of this story may be found in the book called\n         _Kibun-Anbaiyoshi_\n\n\nTHERE was a man named Tawaraya Totaro, who lived in the Province of Omi.\nHis house was situated on the shore of Lake Biwa, not far from the\nfamous temple called Ishiyamadera. He had some property, and lived in\ncomfort; but at the age of twenty-nine he was still unmarried. His\ngreatest ambition was to marry a very beautiful woman; and he had not\nbeen able to find a girl to his liking.\n\nOne day, as he was passing over the Long Bridge of Seta,[22] he saw a\nstrange being crouching close to the parapet. The body of this being\nresembled the body of a man, but was black as ink; its face was like the\nface of a demon; its eyes were green as emeralds; and its beard was like\nthe beard of a dragon. Totaro was at first very much startled. But the\ngreen eyes looked at him so gently that after a moment's hesitation he\nventured to question the creature. Then it answered him, saying: \"I am a\n_Samebito_,[23]--a Shark-Man of the sea; and until a short time ago I\nwas in the service of the Eight Great Dragon-Kings [_Hachi-Dai-Ryu-O_]\nas a subordinate officer in the Dragon-Palace [_Ryugu_].[24] But\nbecause of a small fault which I committed, I was dismissed from the\nDragon-Palace, and also banished from the Sea. Since then I have been\nwandering about here,--unable to get any food, or even a place to lie\ndown. If you can feel any pity for me, do, I beseech you, help me to\nfind a shelter, and let me have something to eat!\"\n\n    [22] The Long Bridge of Seta (_Seta-no-Naga-Hashi_), famous in\n         Japanese legend, is nearly eight hundred feet in length,\n         and commands a beautiful view. This bridge crosses the\n         waters of the Setagawa near the junction of the stream with\n         Lake Biwa. Ishiyamadera, one of the most picturesque\n         Buddhist temples in Japan, is situated within a short\n         distance from the bridge.\n\n    [23] Literally, \"a Shark-Person,\" but in this story the\n         _Samebito_ is a male. The characters for _Samebito_ can\n         also be read _Kojin_,--which is the usual reading. In\n         dictionaries the word is loosely rendered by \"merman\" or\n         \"mermaid;\" but as the above description shows, the\n         _Samebito_ or _Kojin_ of the Far East is a conception\n         having little in common with the Western idea of a merman\n         or mermaid.\n\n    [24] _Ryugu_ is also the name given to the whole of that\n         fairy-realm beneath the sea which figures in so many\n         Japanese legends.\n\nThis petition was uttered in so plaintive a tone, and in so humble a\nmanner, that Totaro's heart was touched. \"Come with me,\" he said. \"There\nis in my garden a large and deep pond where you may live as long as you\nwish; and I will give you plenty to eat.\"\n\nThe _Samebito_ followed Totaro home, and appeared to be much pleased\nwith the pond.\n\nThereafter, for nearly half a year, this strange guest dwelt in the\npond, and was every day supplied by Totaro with such food as\nsea-creatures like.\n\n    [_From this point of the original narrative the Shark-Man is\n    referred to, not as a monster, but as a sympathetic Person of\n    the male sex._]\n\nNow, in the seventh month of the same year, there was a female\npilgrimage (_nyonin-mode_) to the great Buddhist temple called Miidera,\nin the neighboring town of Otsu; and Totaro went to Otsu to attend the\nfestival. Among the multitude of women and young girls there assembled,\nhe observed a person of extraordinary beauty. She seemed about sixteen\nyears old; her face was fair and pure as snow; and the loveliness of\nher lips assured the beholder that their every utterance would sound \"as\nsweet as the voice of a nightingale singing upon a plum-tree.\" Totaro\nfell in love with her at sight. When she left the temple he followed her\nat a respectful distance, and discovered that she and her mother were\nstaying for a few days at a certain house in the neighboring village of\nSeta. By questioning some of the village folk, he was able also to learn\nthat her name was Tamana; that she was unmarried; and that her family\nappeared to be unwilling that she should marry a man of ordinary\nrank,--for they demanded as a betrothal-gift a casket containing ten\nthousand jewels.[25]\n\n    [25] _Tama_ in the original. This word _tama_ has a multitude of\n         meanings; and as here used it is quite as indefinite as our\n         own terms \"jewel,\" \"gem,\" or \"precious stone.\" Indeed, it\n         is more indefinite, for it signifies also a bead of coral,\n         a ball of crystal, a polished stone attached to a hairpin,\n         etc., etc. Later on, however, I venture to render it by\n         \"ruby,\"--for reasons which need no explanation.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTotaro returned home very much dismayed by this information. The more\nthat he thought about the strange betrothal-gift demanded by the girl's\nparents, the more he felt that he could never expect to obtain her for\nhis wife. Even supposing that there were as many as ten thousand jewels\nin the whole country, only a great prince could hope to procure them.\n\nBut not even for a single hour could Totaro banish from his mind the\nmemory of that beautiful being. It haunted him so that he could neither\neat nor sleep; and it seemed to become more and more vivid as the days\nwent by. And at last he became ill,--so ill that he could not lift his\nhead from the pillow. Then he sent for a doctor.\n\nThe doctor, after having made a careful examination, uttered an\nexclamation of surprise. \"Almost any kind of sickness,\" he said, \"can be\ncured by proper medical treatment, except the sickness of love. Your\nailment is evidently love-sickness. There is no cure for it. In ancient\ntimes Roya-O Hakuyo died of that sickness; and you must prepare yourself\nto die as he died.\" So saying, the doctor went away, without even giving\nany medicine to Totaro.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nAbout this time the Shark-Man that was living in the garden-pond heard\nof his master's sickness, and came into the house to wait upon Totaro.\nAnd he tended him with the utmost affection both by day and by night.\nBut he did not know either the cause or the serious nature of the\nsickness until nearly a week later, when Totaro, thinking himself about\nto die, uttered these words of farewell:--\n\n\"I suppose that I have had the pleasure of caring for you thus long,\nbecause of some relation that grew up between us in a former state of\nexistence. But now I am very sick indeed, and every day my sickness\nbecomes worse; and my life is like the morning dew which passes away\nbefore the setting of the sun. For your sake, therefore, I am troubled\nin mind. Your existence has depended upon my care; and I fear that there\nwill be no one to care for you and to feed you when I am dead.... My\npoor friend!... Alas! our hopes and our wishes are always disappointed\nin this unhappy world!\"\n\nNo sooner had Totaro spoken these words than the Samebito uttered a\nstrange wild cry of pain, and began to weep bitterly. And as he wept,\ngreat tears of blood streamed from his green eyes and rolled down his\nblack cheeks and dripped upon the floor. And, falling, they were blood;\nbut, having fallen, they became hard and bright and beautiful,--became\njewels of inestimable price, rubies splendid as crimson fire. For when\nmen of the sea weep, their tears become precious stones.\n\nThen Totaro, beholding this marvel, was so amazed and overjoyed that his\nstrength returned to him. He sprang from his bed, and began to pick up\nand to count the tears of the Shark-Man, crying out the while: \"My\nsickness is cured! I shall live! I shall live!\"\n\nTherewith, the Shark-Man, greatly astonished, ceased to weep, and asked\nTotaro to explain this wonderful cure; and Totaro told him about the\nyoung person seen at Miidera, and about the extraordinary marriage-gift\ndemanded by her family. \"As I felt sure,\" added Totaro, \"that I should\nnever be able to get ten thousand jewels, I supposed that my suit would\nbe hopeless. Then I became very unhappy, and at last fell sick. But now,\nbecause of your generous weeping, I have many precious stones; and I\nthink that I shall be able to marry that girl. Only--there are not yet\nquite enough stones; and I beg that you will be good enough to weep a\nlittle more, so as to make up the full number required.\"\n\nBut at this request the Samebito shook his head, and answered in a tone\nof surprise and of reproach:--\n\n\"Do you think that I am like a harlot,--able to weep whenever I wish?\nOh, no! Harlots shed tears in order to deceive men; but creatures of the\nsea cannot weep without feeling real sorrow. I wept for you because of\nthe true grief that I felt in my heart at the thought that you were\ngoing to die. But now I cannot weep for you, because you have told me\nthat your sickness is cured.\"\n\n\"Then what am I to do?\" plaintively asked Totaro. \"Unless I can get ten\nthousand jewels, I cannot marry the girl!\"\n\nThe Samebito remained for a little while silent, as if thinking. Then he\nsaid:--\n\n\"Listen! To-day I cannot possibly weep any more. But to-morrow let us go\ntogether to the Long Bridge of Seta, taking with us some wine and some\nfish. We can rest for a time on the bridge; and while we are drinking\nthe wine and eating the fish, I shall gaze in the direction of the\nDragon-Palace, and try, by thinking of the happy days that I spent\nthere, to make myself feel homesick--so that I can weep.\"\n\nTotaro joyfully assented.\n\nNext morning the two, taking plenty of wine and fish with them, went to\nthe Seta bridge, and rested there, and feasted. After having drunk a\ngreat deal of wine, the Samebito began to gaze in the direction of the\nDragon-Kingdom, and to think about the past. And gradually, under the\nsoftening influence of the wine, the memory of happier days filled his\nheart with sorrow, and the pain of homesickness came upon him, so that\nhe could weep profusely. And the great red tears that he shed fell upon\nthe bridge in a shower of rubies; and Totaro gathered them as they fell,\nand put them into a casket, and counted them until he had counted the\nfull number of ten thousand. Then he uttered a shout of joy.\n\nAlmost in the same moment, from far away over the lake, a delightful\nsound of music was heard; and there appeared in the offing, slowly\nrising from the waters, like some fabric of cloud, a palace of the color\nof the setting sun.\n\nAt once the Samebito sprang upon the parapet of the bridge, and looked,\nand laughed for joy. Then, turning to Totaro, he said:--\n\n\"There must have been a general amnesty proclaimed in the Dragon-Realm;\nthe Kings are calling me. So now I must bid you farewell. I am happy to\nhave had one chance of befriending you in return for your goodness to\nme.\"\n\nWith these words he leaped from the bridge; and no man ever saw him\nagain. But Totaro presented the casket of red jewels to the parents of\nTamana, and so obtained her in marriage.\n\n\n\n\n                            JAPANESE STUDIES\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n                                ... Life ere long\n                Came on me in the public ways, and bent\n                Eyes deeper than of old: Death met I too,\n                         And saw the dawn glow through.\n                                          --GEORGE MEREDITH\n\n\n\n\n                        [Illustration: PLATE I.\n            1-2, _Young Semi_.\n            3-4, _Haru-Zemi_, also called _Nawashiro-Zemi_.]\n\n\n\n\n                                  Semi\n                                (CICADAE)\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n                              Koe ni mina\n                           Naki-shimote ya--\n                              Semi no kara!\n                                    --_Japanese Love-Song_\n\n    The voice having been all consumed by crying, there remains only\n                        the shell of the _semi!_\n\n                                   I\n\n\nA CELEBRATED Chinese scholar, known in Japanese literature as Riku-Un,\nwrote the following quaint account of the Five Virtues of the Cicada:--\n\n    \"I.--The Cicada has upon its head certain figures or signs.[26]\n    These represent its [written] characters, style, literature.\n\n        [26] The curious markings on the head of one variety of\n             Japanese _semi_ are believed to be characters which\n             are names of souls.\n\n    \"II.--It eats nothing belonging to earth, and drinks only dew.\n    This proves its cleanliness, purity, propriety.\n\n    \"III.--It always appears at a certain fixed time. This proves\n    its fidelity, sincerity, truthfulness.\n\n    \"IV.--It will not accept wheat or rice. This proves its probity,\n    uprightness, honesty.\n\n    \"V.--It does not make for itself any nest to live in. This\n    proves its frugality, thrift, economy.\"\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe might compare this with the beautiful address of Anacreon to the\ncicada, written twenty-four hundred years ago: on more than one point\nthe Greek poet and the Chinese sage are in perfect accord:--\n\n    \"_We deem thee happy, O Cicada, because, having drunk, like a\n    king, only a little dew, thou dost chirrup on the tops of trees.\n    For all things whatsoever that thou seest in the fields are\n    thine, and whatsoever the seasons bring forth. Yet art thou\n    the friend of the tillers of the land,--from no one harmfully\n    taking aught. By mortals thou art held in honor as the pleasant\n    harbinger of summer; and the Muses love thee. Phoebus himself\n    loves thee, and has given thee a shrill song. And old age does\n    not consume thee. O thou gifted one,--earth-born, song-loving,\n    free from pain, having flesh without blood,--thou art nearly\n    equal to the Gods!_\"[27]\n\n        [27] In this and other citations from the Greek\n             anthology, I have depended upon Burges'\n             translation.\n\nAnd we must certainly go back to the old Greek literature in order to\nfind a poetry comparable to that of the Japanese on the subject of\nmusical insects. Perhaps of Greek verses on the cricket, the most\nbeautiful are the lines of Meleager: \"_O cricket, the soother of slumber\n... weaving the thread of a voice that causes love to wander away!_\" ...\nThere are Japanese poems scarcely less delicate in sentiment on the\nchirruping of night-crickets; and Meleager's promise to reward the\nlittle singer with gifts of fresh leek, and with \"drops of dew cut up\nsmall,\" sounds strangely Japanese. Then the poem attributed to Anyte,\nabout the little girl Myro making a tomb for her pet cicada and\ncricket, and weeping because Hades, \"hard to be persuaded,\" had taken\nher playthings away, represents an experience familiar to Japanese\nchild-life. I suppose that little Myro--(how freshly her tears still\nglisten, after seven and twenty centuries!)--prepared that \"common tomb\"\nfor her pets much as the little maid of Nippon would do to-day, putting\na small stone on top to serve for a monument. But the wiser Japanese\nMyro would repeat over the grave a certain Buddhist prayer.\n\nIt is especially in their poems upon the cicada that we find the old\nGreeks confessing their love of insect-melody: witness the lines in the\nAnthology about the tettix caught in a spider's snare, and \"making\nlament in the thin fetters\" until freed by the poet;--and the verses by\nLeonidas of Tarentum picturing the \"unpaid minstrel to wayfaring men\"\nas \"sitting upon lofty trees, warmed with the great heat of summer,\nsipping the dew that is like woman's milk;\"--and the dainty fragment of\nMeleager, beginning: \"_Thou vocal tettix, drunk with drops of dew,\nsitting with thy serrated limbs upon the tops of petals, thou givest\nout the melody of the lyre from thy dusky skin_.\" ... Or take the\ncharming address of Evenus to a nightingale:--\n\n    \"_Thou Attic maiden, honey-fed, hast chirping seized a chirping\n    cicada, and bearest it to thy unfledged young,--thou, a twitterer,\n    the twitterer,--thou, the winged, the well-winged,--thou, a\n    stranger, the stranger,--thou, a summer-child, the summer-child!\n    Wilt thou not quickly cast it from thee? For it is not right, it\n    is not just, that those engaged in song should perish by the\n    mouths of those engaged in song._\"\n\nOn the other hand, we find Japanese poets much more inclined to praise\nthe voices of night-crickets than those of semi. There are countless\npoems about semi, but very few which commend their singing. Of course\nthe semi are very different from the cicadae known to the Greeks. Some\nvarieties are truly musical; but the majority are astonishingly\nnoisy,--so noisy that their stridulation is considered one of the great\nafflictions of summer. Therefore it were vain to seek among the myriads\nof Japanese verses on semi for anything comparable to the lines of\nEvenus above quoted; indeed, the only Japanese poem that I could find on\nthe subject of a cicada caught by a bird, was the following:--\n\n                              Ana kanashi!\n                            Tobi ni toraruru\n                              Semi no koe.\n                                      --RANSETSU.\n\n         Ah! how piteous the cry of the semi seized by the kite!\n\nOr \"caught by a boy\" the poet might equally well have observed,--this\nbeing a much more frequent cause of the pitiful cry. The lament of\nNicias for the tettix would serve as the elegy of many a semi:--\n\n    \"_No more shall I delight myself by sending out a sound from my\n    quick-moving wings, because I have fallen into the savage hand\n    of a boy, who seized me unexpectedly, as I was sitting under the\n    green leaves._\"\n\nHere I may remark that Japanese children usually capture semi by means\nof a long slender bamboo tipped with bird-lime (_mochi_). The sound made\nby some kinds of semi when caught is really pitiful,--quite as pitiful\nas the twitter of a terrified bird. One finds it difficult to persuade\noneself that the noise is not a _voice_ of anguish, in the human sense\nof the word \"voice,\" but the production of a specialized exterior\nmembrane. Recently, on hearing a captured semi thus scream, I became\nconvinced in quite a new way that the stridulatory apparatus of certain\ninsects must not be thought of as a kind of musical instrument, but\nas an organ of speech, and that its utterances are as intimately\nassociated with simple forms of emotion, as are the notes of a\nbird,--the extraordinary difference being that the insect has its vocal\nchords _outside_. But the insect-world is altogether a world of goblins\nand fairies: creatures with organs of which we cannot discover the use,\nand senses of which we cannot imagine the nature;--creatures with\nmyriads of eyes, or with eyes in their backs, or with eyes moving about\nat the ends of trunks and horns;--creatures with ears in their legs and\nbellies, or with brains in their waists! If some of them happen to have\nvoices outside of their bodies instead of inside, the fact ought not to\nsurprise anybody.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have not yet succeeded in finding any Japanese verses alluding to the\nstridulatory apparatus of semi,--though I think it probable that such\nverses exist. Certainly the Japanese have been for centuries familiar\nwith the peculiarities of their own singing insects. But I should not\nnow presume to say that their poets are incorrect in speaking of the\n\"voices\" of crickets and of cicadae. The old Greek poets who actually\ndescribe insects as producing music with their wings and feet,\nnevertheless speak of the \"voices,\" the \"songs,\" and the \"chirruping\" of\nsuch creatures,--just as the Japanese poets do. For example, Meleager\nthus addresses the cricket:\n\n    \"_O thou that art with shrill wings the self-formed imitation of\n    the lyre, chirrup me something pleasant while beating your vocal\n    wings with your feet!_ ...\"\n\n\n                                   II\n\nBEFORE speaking further of the poetical literature of semi, I must\nattempt a few remarks about the semi themselves. But the reader need\nnot expect anything entomological. Excepting, perhaps, the butterflies,\nthe insects of Japan are still little known to men of science; and all\nthat I can say about semi has been learned from inquiry, from personal\nobservation, and from old Japanese books of an interesting but totally\nunscientific kind. Not only do the authors contradict each other as to\nthe names and characteristics of the best-known semi; they attach the\nword semi to names of insects which are not cicadae.\n\nThe following enumeration of semi is certainly incomplete; but I believe\nthat it includes the better-known varieties and the best melodists. I\nmust ask the reader, however, to bear in mind that the time of the\nappearance of certain semi differs in different parts of Japan; that\nthe same kind of semi may be called by different names in different\nprovinces; and that these notes have been written in Tokyo.\n\n\n                             I.--HARU-ZEMI.\n\nVARIOUS small semi appear in the spring. But the first of the big semi\nto make itself heard is the _haru-zemi_ (\"spring-semi\"), also called\n_uma-zemi_ (\"horse-semi\"), _kuma-zemi_ (\"bear-semi\"), and other names.\nIt makes a shrill wheezing sound,--_ji-i-i-i-i-iiiiiiii_,--beginning\nlow, and gradually rising to a pitch of painful intensity. No other\ncicada is so noisy as the _haru-zemi;_ but the life of the creature\nappears to end with the season. Probably this is the semi referred to in\nan old Japanese poem:--\n\n                             Hatsu-semi ya!\n                           \"Kore wa atsui\" to\n                             Iu hi yori.\n                                     --TAIMU.\n\n    The day after the first day on which we exclaim, \"Oh, how hot\n    it is!\" the first semi begins to cry.\n\n\n                        [Illustration: PLATE II.\n               \"_Shinne-Shinne_,\"\n               Also called _Yama-Zemi_, and _Kuma-Zemi_.]\n\n                           II.--\"SHINNE-SHINNE.\"\n\nTHE _shinne-shinne_--also called _yama-zemi_, or \"mountain-semi\";\n_kuma-zemi_, or \"bear-semi\"; and _o-semi_, or \"great semi\"--begins to\nsing as early as May. It is a very large insect. The upper part of the\nbody is almost black, and the belly a silvery-white; the head has\ncurious red markings. The name _shinne-shinne_ is derived from the note\nof the creature, which resembles a quick continual repetition of the\nsyllables _shinne_. About Kyoto this semi is common: it is rarely heard\nin Tokyo.\n\n[My first opportunity to examine an _o-semi_ was in Shidzuoka. Its\nutterance is much more complex than the Japanese onomatope implies; I\nshould liken it to the noise of a sewing-machine in full operation.\nThere is a double sound: you hear not only the succession of sharp\nmetallic clickings, but also, below these, a slower series of dull\nclanking tones. The stridulatory organs are light green, looking almost\nlike a pair of tiny green leaves attached to the thorax.]\n\n\n                       [Illustration: PLATE III.\n                             _Aburazemi._]\n\n                            III.--ABURAZEMI.\n\nTHE _aburazemi_, or \"oil-semi,\" makes its appearance early in the\nsummer. I am told that it owes its name to the fact that its\nshrilling resembles the sound of oil or grease frying in a pan. Some\nwriters say that the shrilling resembles the sound of the syllables\n_gacharin-gacharin_; but others compare it to the noise of water\nboiling. The _aburazemi_ begins to chant about sunrise; then a great\nsoft hissing seems to ascend from all the trees. At such an hour, when\nthe foliage of woods and gardens still sparkles with dew, might have\nbeen composed the following verse,--the only one in my collection\nrelating to the _aburazemi_:--\n\n                               Ano koe de\n                         Tsuyu ga inochi ka?--\n                               Aburazemi!\n\n    Speaking with that voice, has the dew taken life?--Only the\n    _aburazemi_!\n\n\n                        [Illustration: PLATE IV.\n           1-2, _Mugikari-Zemi_, also called _Goshiki-Zemi_.\n             3, _Higurashi_.\n             4, \"_Min-Min-Zemi_.\"]\n\n                          IV.--MUGI-KARI-ZEMI.\n\nTHE _mugi-kari-zemi_, or \"barley-harvest semi,\" also called\n_goshiki-zemi_, or \"five-colored semi,\" appears early in the summer. It\nmakes two distinct sounds in different keys, resembling the syllables\n_shi-in, shin--chi-i, chi-i_.\n\n\n                     V.--HIGURASHI, OR \"KANA-KANA.\"\n\nTHIS insect, whose name signifies \"day-darkening,\" is the most\nremarkable of all the Japanese cicadae. It is not the finest singer\namong them; but even as a melodist it ranks second only to the\n_tsuku-tsuku-boshi_. It is the special minstrel of twilight,\nsinging only at dawn and sunset; whereas most of the other semi\nmake their music only in the full blaze of day, pausing even when\nrain-clouds obscure the sun. In Tokyo the _higurashi_ usually\nappears about the end of June, or the beginning of July. Its wonderful\ncry,--_kana-kana-kana-kana-kana_,--beginning always in a very high\nclear key, and slowly descending, is almost exactly like the sound of\na good hand-bell, very quickly rung. It is not a clashing sound, as of\nviolent ringing; it is quick, steady, and of surprising sonority. I\nbelieve that a single _higurashi_ can be plainly heard a quarter of a\nmile away; yet, as the old Japanese poet Yayu observed, \"no matter\nhow many _higurashi_ be singing together, we never find them noisy.\"\nThough powerful and penetrating as a resonance of metal, the\n_higurashi's_ call is musical even to the degree of sweetness; and\nthere is a peculiar melancholy in it that accords with the hour of\ngloaming. But the most astonishing fact in regard to the cry of the\n_higurashi_ is the individual quality characterizing the note of each\ninsect. No two _higurashi_ sing precisely in the same tone. If you\nhear a dozen of them singing at once, you will find that the timbre of\neach voice is recognizably different from every other. Certain notes\nring like silver, others vibrate like bronze; and, besides varieties\nof timbre suggesting bells of various weight and composition, there\nare even differences in tone, that suggest different _forms_ of bell.\n\nI have already said that the name _higurashi_ means \"day-darkening,\"--in\nthe sense of twilight, gloaming, dusk; and there are many Japanese\nverses containing plays on the word,--the poets affecting to believe, as\nin the following example, that the crying of the insect hastens the\ncoming of darkness:--\n\n                                Higurashi ya!\n                              Suteteoitemo\n                                Kururu hi wo.\n\n    O Higurashi!--even if you let it alone, day darkens fast\n    enough!\n\nThis, intended to express a melancholy mood, may seem to the Western\nreader far-fetched. But another little poem--referring to the effect of\nthe sound upon the conscience of an idler--will be appreciated by any\none accustomed to hear the _higurashi_. I may observe, in this\nconnection, that the first clear evening cry of the insect is quite as\nstartling as the sudden ringing of a bell:--\n\n                              Higurashi ya!\n                            Kyo no ketai wo\n                              Omou-toki.\n                                   --RIKEI.\n\n    Already, O Higurashi, your call announces the evening!\n    Alas, for the passing day, with its duties left undone!\n\n\n                           VI.--\"MINMIN\"-ZEMI.\n\nTHE _minmin-zemi_ begins to sing in the Period of Greatest Heat. It is\ncalled \"_min-min_\" because its note is thought to resemble the syllable\n\"_min_\" repeated over and over again,--slowly at first, and very loudly;\nthen more and more quickly and softly, till the utterance dies away in a\nsort of buzz: \"_min--min--min-min-min-minminmin-dzzzzzzz_.\" The sound is\nplaintive, and not unpleasing. It is often compared to the sound of the\nvoice of a priest chanting the _sutras_.\n\n\n                         [Illustration: PLATE V.\n\n    1, _\"Tsuku-tsuku-Boshi_,\" also called \"_Kutsu-kutsu-Boshi_,\" etc.\n    (_Cosmopsaltria Opalifera?_)\n\n    2, _Tsurigane-Zemi_.\n\n    3, _The Phantom_.]\n\n                        VII.--TSUKU-TSUKU-BOSHI.\n\nON the day immediately following the Festival of the Dead, by the old\nJapanese calendar[28] (which is incomparably more exact than our\nWestern calendar in regard to nature-changes and manifestations),\nbegins to sing the _tsuku-tsuku-boshi_. This creature may be said\nto sing like a bird. It is also called _kutsu-kutsu-boshi_,\n_choko-choko-uisu_, _tsuku-tsuku-hoshi_, _tsuku-tsuku-oishi_,--all\nonomatopoetic appellations. The sounds of its song have been imitated\nin different ways by various writers. In Izumo the common version is,--\n\n            Tsuku-tsuku-uisu,\n            Tsuku-tsuku-uisu,\n            Tsuku-tsuku-uisu:--\n                Ui-osu\n                Ui-osu\n                Ui-osu\n                Ui-os-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-su.\n\n    [28] That is to say, upon the 16th day of the 7th month.\n\nAnother version runs,--\n\n            Tsuku-tsuku-uisu,\n            Tsuku-tsuku-uisu,\n            Tsuku-tsuku-uisu:--\n            Chi-i yara!\n            Chi-i yara!\n            Chi-i yara!\n            Chi-i, chi, chi, chi, chi, chiii.\n\nBut some say that the sound is _Tsukushi-koishi_. There is a legend\nthat in old times a man of Tsukushi (the ancient name of Kyushu)\nfell sick and died while far away from home, and that the\nghost of him became an autumn cicada, which cries unceasingly,\n_Tsukushi-koishi!--Tsukushi-koishi!_ (\"I long for Tsukushi!--I want\nto see Tsukushi!\")\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is a curious fact that the earlier semi have the harshest and\nsimplest notes. The musical semi do not appear until summer; and the\n_tsuku-tsuku-boshi_, having the most complex and melodious utterance of\nall, is one of the latest to mature.\n\n\n                       VIII.--TSURIGANE-SEMI.[29]\n\nTHE _tsurigane-semi_ is an autumn cicada. The word _tsurigane_ means a\nsuspended bell,--especially the big bell of a Buddhist temple. I am\nsomewhat puzzled by the name; for the insect's music really suggests\nthe tones of a Japanese harp, or _koto_--as good authorities declare.\nPerhaps the appellation refers not to the boom of the bell, but to those\ndeep, sweet hummings which follow after the peal, wave upon wave.\n\n    [29] This semi appears to be chiefly known in Shikoku.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nJAPANESE poems on semi are usually very brief; and my collection chiefly\nconsists of _hokku_,--compositions of seventeen syllables. Most of these\n_hokku_ relate to the sound made by the semi,--or, rather, to the\nsensation which the sound produced within the poet's mind. The names\nattached to the following examples are nearly all names of old-time\npoets,--not the real names, of course, but the _go_, or literary names\nby which artists and men of letters are usually known.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nYokoi Yayu, a Japanese poet of the eighteenth century, celebrated as a\ncomposer of _hokku_, has left us this naive record of the feelings with\nwhich he heard the chirruping of cicadae in summer and in autumn:--\n\n    \"In the sultry period, feeling oppressed by the greatness of the\n    heat, I made this verse:--\n\n                             \"Semi atsushi\n                           Matsu kirabaya to\n                              Omou-made.\n\n        [The chirruping of the semi aggravates the heat until I wish\n        to cut down the pine-tree on which it sings.]\n\n    \"But the days passed quickly; and later, when I heard the crying\n    of the semi grow fainter and fainter in the time of the autumn\n    winds, I began to feel compassion for them, and I made this\n    second verse:--\n\n                            \"Shini-nokore\n                          Hitotsu bakari wa\n                             Aki no semi.\"\n\n                        [Now there survives\n                        But a single one\n                        Of the semi of autumn!]\n\nLovers of Pierre Loti (the world's greatest prose-writer) may remember\nin _Madame Chrysantheme_ a delightful passage about a Japanese\nhouse,--describing the old dry woodwork as impregnated with sonority by\nthe shrilling crickets of a hundred summers.[30] There is a Japanese\npoem containing a fancy not altogether dissimilar:--\n\n                             Matsu no ki ni\n                           Shimikomu gotoshi\n                             Semi no koe.\n\n                     Into the wood of the pine-tree\n                     Seems to soak\n                     The voice of the semi.\n\n    [30] Speaking of his own attempt to make a drawing of the\n         interior, he observes: \"Il manque a ce logis dessine son\n         air frele et sa sonorite de violon sec. Dans les traits de\n         crayon qui representent les boiseries, il n'y a pas la\n         precision minutieuse avec laquelle elles sont ouvragees, ni\n         leur antiquite extreme, ni leur proprete parfaite, _ni les\n         vibrations de cigales qu' elles semblent avoir emmagasinees\n         pendant des centaines d'etes dans leurs fibres\n         dessechees_.\"\n\nA very large number of Japanese poems about semi describe the noise of\nthe creatures as an affliction. To fully sympathize with the complaints\nof the poets, one must have heard certain varieties of Japanese cicadae\nin full midsummer chorus; but even by readers without experience of the\nclamor, the following verses will probably be found suggestive:--\n\n                              Ware hitori\n                            Atsui yo nari,--\n                              Semi no koe!\n                                           --BUNSO.\n\n    Meseems that only I,--I alone among mortals,--\n    Ever suffered such heat!--oh, the noise of the semi!\n\n                             Ushiro kara\n                           Tsukamu yo nari,--\n                             Semi no koe.\n                                          --JOFU.\n\n    Oh, the noise of the semi!--a pain of invisible seizure,--\n    Clutched in an enemy's grasp,--caught by the hair from behind!\n\n                            Yama no Kami no\n                          Mimi no yamai ka?--\n                            Semi no koe!\n                                         --TEIKOKU.\n\n    What ails the divinity's ears?--how can the God of the Mountain\n    Suffer such noise to exist?--oh, the tumult of semi!\n\n                             Soko no nai\n                           Atsusa ya kumo ni\n                             Semi no koe!\n                                           --SAREN.\n\n    Fathomless deepens the heat: the ceaseless shrilling of semi\n    Mounts, like a hissing of fire, up to the motionless clouds.\n\n                            Mizu karete,\n                          Semi wo fudan-no\n                            Taki no koe.\n                                         --GEN-U.\n\n    Water never a drop: the chorus of semi, incessant,\n    Mocks the tumultuous hiss,--the rush and foaming of rapids.\n\n                            Kageroishi\n                          Kumo mata satte,\n                            Semi no koe.\n                                         --KITO.\n\n    Gone, the shadowing clouds!--again the shrilling of semi\n    Rises and slowly swells,--ever increasing the heat!\n\n                            Daita ki wa,\n                          Ha mo ugokasazu,--\n                            Semi no koe!\n                                        --KAFU.\n\n    Somewhere fast to the bark he clung; but I cannot see him:\n    He stirs not even a leaf--oh! the noise of that semi!\n\n                             Tonari kara\n                           Kono ki nikumu ya!\n                             Semi no koe.\n                                          --GYUKAKU.\n\n    All because of the Semi that sit and shrill on its branches--\n    Oh! how this tree of mine is hated now by my neighbor!\n\nThis reminds one of Yayu. We find another poet compassionating a tree\nfrequented by semi:--\n\n                             Kaze wa mina\n                           Semi ni suwarete,\n                             Hito-ki kana!\n                                        --CHOSUI.\n\n    Alas! poor solitary tree!--pitiful now your lot,--every breath\n    of air having been sucked up by the semi!\n\nSometimes the noise of the semi is described as a moving force:--\n\n                              Semi no koe\n                            Ki-gi ni ugoite,\n                              Kaze mo nashi!\n                                            --SOYO.\n\n    Every tree in the wood quivers with clamor of semi:\n    Motion only of noise--never a breath of wind!\n\n                              Take ni kite,\n                            Yuki yori omoshi\n                              Semi no koe.\n                                          --TOGETSU.\n\n    More heavy than winter-snow the voices of perching semi:\n    See how the bamboos bend under the weight of their song![31]\n\n        [31] Japanese artists have found many a charming\n             inspiration in the spectacle of bamboos bending\n             under the weight of snow clinging to their tops.\n\n                              Morogoe ni\n                            Yama ya ugokasu,\n                              Ki-gi no semi.\n\n    All shrilling together, the multitudinous semi\n    Make, with their ceaseless clamor, even the mountain move.\n\n                               Kusunoki mo\n                             Ugoku yo nari,\n                               Semi no koe.\n                                           --BAIJAKU.\n\n    Even the camphor-tree seems to quake with the clamor of semi!\n\nSometimes the sound is compared to the noise of boiling water:--\n\n                              Hizakari wa\n                            Nietatsu semi no\n                              Hayashi kana!\n\n    In the hour of heaviest heat, how simmers the forest with semi!\n\n                             Niete iru\n                           Mizu bakari nari--\n                             Semi no koe.\n                                         --TAIMU.\n\n    Simmers all the air with sibilation of semi,\n    Ceaseless, wearying sense,--a sound of perpetual boiling.\n\nOther poets complain especially of the multitude of the noise-makers and\nthe ubiquity of the noise:--\n\n                             Aritake no\n                           Ki ni hibiki-keri\n                             Semi no koe.\n\n    How many soever the trees, in each rings the voice of the semi.\n\n                             Matsubara wo\n                           Ichi ri wa kitari,\n                             Semi no koe.\n                                         --SENGA.\n\n    Alone I walked for miles into the wood of pine-trees:\n    Always the one same semi shrilled its call in my ears.\n\nOccasionally the subject is treated with comic exaggeration:--\n\n                             Naite iru\n                           Ki yori mo futoshi\n                             Semi no koe.\n\n    The voice of the semi is bigger [_thicker_] than the tree on\n    which it sings.\n\n                              Sugi takashi\n                            Saredomo semi no\n                              Amaru koe!\n\n    High though the cedar be, the voice of the semi is incomparably\n    higher!\n\n                              Koe nagaki\n                            Semi wa mijikaki\n                              Inochi kana!\n\n    How long, alas! the voice and how short the life of the semi!\n\nSome poets celebrate the negative form of pleasure following upon the\ncessation of the sound:--\n\n                            Semi ni dete,\n                          Hotaru ni modoru,--\n                            Suzumi kana!\n                                        --YAYU.\n\n    When the semi cease their noise, and the fireflies come\n    out--oh! how refreshing the hour!\n\n                             Semi no tatsu,\n                           Ato suzushisa yo!\n                             Matsu no koe.\n                                          --BAIJAKU.\n\n    When the semi cease their storm, oh, how refreshing the\n        stillness!\n    Gratefully then resounds the musical speech of the pines.\n\n[Here I may mention, by the way, that there is a little Japanese song\nabout the _matsu no koe_, in which the onomatope \"zazanza\" very well\nrepresents the deep humming of the wind in the pine-needles:--\n\n                                Zazanza!\n                        Hama-matsu no oto wa,--\n                                Zazanza,\n                                Zazanza!\n                                Zazanza!\n                The sound of the pines of the shore,--\n                                Zazanza!\n                                Zazanza!]\n\nThere are poets, however, who declare that the feeling produced by the\nnoise of semi depends altogether upon the nervous condition of the\nlistener:--\n\n                             Mori no semi\n                           Suzushiki koe ya,\n                             Atsuki koe.\n                                    --OTSUSHU.\n\n    Sometimes sultry the sound; sometimes, again, refreshing:\n    The chant of the forest-semi accords with the hearer's mood.\n\n                             Suzushisa mo\n                           Atsusa mo semi no\n                             Tokoro kana!\n                                     --FUHAKU.\n\n    Sometimes we think it cool,--the resting-place of the\n    semi;--sometimes we think it hot (it is all a matter of fancy).\n\n                              Suzushii to\n                            Omoeba, suzushi\n                              Semi no koe.\n                                     --GINKO.\n\n    If we think it is cool, then the voice of the semi is cool\n    (that is, the fancy changes the feeling).\n\nIn view of the many complaints of Japanese poets about the noisiness of\nsemi, the reader may be surprised to learn that out of semi-skins there\nused to be made in both China and Japan--perhaps upon homoeopathic\nprinciples--a medicine for the cure of ear-ache!\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne poem, nevertheless, proves that semi-music has its admirers:--\n\n                            Omoshiroi zo ya,\n                            Waga-ko no koe wa\n                            Takai mori-ki no\n                                Semi no koe![32]\n\n    Sweet to the ear is the voice of one's own child as the voice\n    of a semi perched on a tall forest tree.\n\n        [32] There is another version of this poem:--\n\n                            Omoshiroi zo ya,\n                            Waga-ko no naku wa\n                            Sembu-segaki no\n                                Kyo yori mo!\n\n             \"More sweetly sounds the crying of one's own child\n             than even the chanting of the sutra in the service\n             for the dead.\" The Buddhist service alluded to is\n             held to be particularly beautiful.\n\nBut such admiration is rare. More frequently the semi is represented as\ncrying for its nightly repast of dew:--\n\n                              Semi wo kike,--\n                            Ichi-nichi naite\n                              Yoru no tsuyu.\n                                       --KIKAKU.\n\n    Hear the semi shrill! So, from earliest dawning,\n    All the summer day he cries for the dew of night.\n\n                             Yu-tsuyu no\n                           Kuchi ni iru made\n                             Naku semi ka?\n                                    --BAISHITSU.\n\n    Will the semi continue to cry till the night-dew fills its\n    mouth?\n\nOccasionally the semi is mentioned in love-songs of which the following\nis a fair specimen. It belongs to that class of ditties commonly sung by\ngeisha. Merely as a conceit, I think it pretty, in spite of the\nfactitious pathos; but to Japanese taste it is decidedly vulgar. The\nallusion to beating implies jealousy:--\n\n                        Nushi ni tatakare,\n                        Washa matsu no semi\n                        Sugaritsuki-tsuki\n                            Naku bakari!\n\n                     Beaten by my jealous lover,--\n                     Like the semi on the pine-tree\n                     I can only cry and cling!\n\nAnd indeed the following tiny picture is a truer bit of work, according\nto Japanese art-principles (I do not know the author's name):--\n\n                             Semi hitotsu\n                           Matsu no yu-hi wo\n                             Kakae-keri.\n\n    Lo! on the topmost pine, a solitary cicada\n    Vainly attempts to clasp one last red beam of sun.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\nPHILOSOPHICAL verses do not form a numerous class of Japanese poems\nupon semi; but they possess an interest altogether exotic. As the\nmetamorphosis of the butterfly supplied to old Greek thought an emblem\nof the soul's ascension, so the natural history of the cicada has\nfurnished Buddhism with similitudes and parables for the teaching of\ndoctrine.\n\nMan sheds his body only as the semi sheds its skin. But each\nreincarnation obscures the memory of the previous one: we remember our\nformer existence no more than the semi remembers the shell from which it\nhas emerged. Often a semi may be found in the act of singing beside its\ncast-off skin; therefore a poet has written:--\n\n                              Ware to waga\n                            Kara ya tomuro--\n                              Semi no koe.\n                                          --YAYU.\n\n    Methinks that semi sits and sings by his former body,--\n    Chanting the funeral service over his own dead self.\n\nThis cast-off skin, or simulacrum,--clinging to bole or branch as in\nlife, and seeming still to stare with great glazed eyes,--has suggested\nmany things both to profane and to religious poets. In love-songs it is\noften likened to a body consumed by passionate longing. In Buddhist\npoetry it becomes a symbol of earthly pomp,--the hollow show of human\ngreatness:--\n\n                              Yo no naka yo\n                            Kaeru no hadaka,\n                              Semi no kinu!\n\n    Naked as frogs and weak we enter this life of trouble;\n    Shedding our pomps we pass: so semi quit their skins.\n\nBut sometimes the poet compares the winged and shrilling semi to a human\nghost, and the broken shell to the body left behind:--\n\n                              Tamashii wa\n                            Ukiyo ni naite,\n                              Semi no kara.\n\n    Here the forsaken shell: above me the voice of the creature\n    Shrills like the cry of a Soul quitting this world of pain.\n\nThen the great sun-quickened tumult of the cicadae--landstorm of summer\nlife foredoomed so soon to pass away--is likened by preacher and poet to\nthe tumult of human desire. Even as the semi rise from earth, and climb\nto warmth and light, and clamor, and presently again return to dust and\nsilence,--so rise and clamor and pass the generations of men:--\n\n                             Yagate shinu\n                           Keshiki wa miezu,\n                             Semi no koe.\n                                    --BASHO.\n\n    Never an intimation in all those voices of semi\n    How quickly the hush will come,--how speedily all must die.\n\nI wonder whether the thought in this little verse does not interpret\nsomething of that summer melancholy which comes to us out of nature's\nsolitudes with the plaint of insect-voices. Unconsciously those millions\nof millions of tiny beings are preaching the ancient wisdom of the\nEast,--the perpetual Sutra of Impermanency.\n\nYet how few of our modern poets have given heed to the voices of\ninsects!\n\nPerhaps it is only to minds inexorably haunted by the Riddle of Life\nthat Nature can speak to-day, in those thin sweet trillings, as she\nspake of old to Solomon.\n\nThe Wisdom of the East hears all things. And he that obtains it will\nhear the speech of insects,--as Sigurd, tasting the Dragon's Heart,\nheard suddenly the talking of birds.\n\n    NOTE.--For the pictures of semi accompanying this paper, I am\n    indebted to a curious manuscript work in several volumes,\n    preserved in the Imperial Library at Uyeno. The work is\n    entitled _Chufu-Zusetsu_,--which might be freely rendered as\n    \"Pictures and Descriptions of Insects,\"--and is divided into\n    twelve books. The writer's name is unknown; but he must have\n    been an amiable and interesting person, to judge from the naive\n    preface which he wrote, apologizing for the labors of a\n    lifetime. \"When I was young,\" he says, \"I was very fond of\n    catching worms and insects, and making pictures of their\n    shapes,--so that these pictures have now become several hundred\n    in number.\" He believes that he has found a good reason for\n    studying insects: \"Among the multitude of living creatures in\n    this world,\" he says, \"those having large bodies are familiar:\n    we know very well their names, shapes, and virtues, and the\n    poisons which they possess. But there remain very many small\n    creatures whose natures are still unknown, notwithstanding the\n    fact that such little beings as insects and worms are able to\n    injure men and to destroy what has value. So I think that it is\n    very important for us to learn what insects or worms have\n    special virtues or poisons.\" It appears that he had sent to him\n    \"from other countries\" some kinds of insects \"that eat the\n    leaves and shoots of trees;\" but he could not \"get their exact\n    names.\" For the names of domestic insects, he consulted many\n    Chinese and Japanese books, and has been \"able to write the\n    names with the proper Chinese characters;\" but he tells us that\n    he did not fail \"to pick up also the names given to worms and\n    insects by old farmers and little boys.\" The preface is dated\n    thus:--\"_Ansei Kanote, the third month--at a little cottage_\"\n    [1856].\n\n    With the introduction of scientific studies the author of the\n    _Chufu-Zusetsu_ could no longer hope to attract attention. Yet\n    his very modest and very beautiful work was forgotten only a\n    moment. It is now a precious curiosity; and the old man's ghost\n    might to-day find some happiness in a visit to the Imperial\n    Library.\n\n\n\n\n                         Japanese Female Names\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n                                   I\n\n\nBY the Japanese a certain kind of girl is called a\nRose-Girl,--_Bara-Musume_. Perhaps my reader will think of Tennyson's\n\"queen-rose of the rosebud-garden of girls,\" and imagine some analogy\nbetween the Japanese and the English idea of femininity symbolized by\nthe rose. But there is no analogy whatever. The _Bara-Musume_ is not so\ncalled because she is delicate and sweet, nor because she blushes, nor\nbecause she is rosy; indeed, a rosy face is not admired in Japan. No;\nshe is compared to a rose chiefly for the reason that a rose has thorns.\nThe man who tries to pull a Japanese rose is likely to hurt his fingers.\nThe man who tries to win a _Bara-Musume_ is apt to hurt himself much\nmore seriously,--even unto death. It were better, alone and unarmed, to\nmeet a tiger than to invite the caress of a Rose-Girl.\n\nNow the appellation of _Bara-Musume_--much more rational as a simile\nthan many of our own floral comparisons--can seem strange only because\nit is not in accord with our poetical usages and emotional habits. It is\none in a thousand possible examples of the fact that Japanese similes\nand metaphors are not of the sort that he who runs may read. And this\nfact is particularly well exemplified in the _yobina_, or personal names\nof Japanese women. Because a _yobina_ happens to be identical with the\nname of some tree, or bird, or flower, it does not follow that the\npersonal appellation conveys to Japanese imagination ideas resembling\nthose which the corresponding English word would convey, under like\ncircumstances, to English imagination. Of the _yobina_ that seem to us\nespecially beautiful in translation, only a small number are bestowed\nfor aesthetic reasons. Nor is it correct to suppose, as many persons\nstill do, that Japanese girls are usually named after flowers, or\ngraceful shrubs, or other beautiful objects. AEsthetic appellations are\nin use; but the majority of _yobina_ are not aesthetic. Some years ago a\nyoung Japanese scholar published an interesting essay upon this\nsubject. He had collected the personal names of about four hundred\nstudents of the Higher Normal School for Females,--girls from every part\nof the Empire; and he found on his list only between fifty and sixty\nnames possessing aesthetic quality. But concerning even these he was\ncareful to observe only that they \"_caused_ an aesthetic sensation,\"--not\nthat they had been given for aesthetic reasons. Among them were such\nnames as _Saki_ (Cape), _Mine_ (Peak), _Kishi_ (Beach), _Hama_ (Shore),\n_Kuni_ (Capital),--originally place-names;--_Tsuru_ (Stork), _Tazu_\n(Ricefield Stork), and _Chizu_ (Thousand Storks);--also such\nappellations as _Yoshino_ (Fertile Field), _Orino_ (Weavers' Field),\n_Shirushi_ (Proof), and _Masago_ (Sand). Few of these could seem\naesthetic to a Western mind; and probably no one of them was originally\ngiven for aesthetic reasons. Names containing the character for \"Stork\"\nare names having reference to longevity, not to beauty; and a large\nnumber of names with the termination \"_no_\" (field or plain) are names\nreferring to moral qualities. I doubt whether even fifteen per cent of\n_yobina_ are really aesthetic. A very much larger proportion are names\nexpressing moral or mental qualities. Tenderness, kindness, deftness,\ncleverness, are frequently represented by _yobina_; but appellations\nimplying physical charm, or suggesting aesthetic ideas only, are\ncomparatively uncommon. One reason for the fact may be that very\naesthetic names are given to _geisha_ and to _joro_, and consequently\nvulgarized. But the chief reason certainly is that the domestic virtues\nstill occupy in Japanese moral estimate a place not less important than\nthat accorded to religious faith in the life of our own Middle Ages. Not\nin theory only, but in every-day practice, moral beauty is placed far\nabove physical beauty; and girls are usually selected as wives, not for\ntheir good looks, but for their domestic qualities. Among the middle\nclasses a very aesthetic name would not be considered in the best taste;\namong the poorer classes, it would scarcely be thought respectable.\nLadies of rank, on the other hand, are privileged to bear very poetical\nnames; yet the majority of the aristocratic yobina also are moral rather\nthan aesthetic.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut the first great difficulty in the way of a study of _yobina_ is the\ndifficulty of translating them. A knowledge of spoken Japanese can help\nyou very little indeed. A knowledge of Chinese also is indispensable.\nThe meaning of a name written in _kana_ only,--in the Japanese\ncharacters,--cannot be, in most cases, even guessed at. The Chinese\ncharacters of the name can alone explain it. The Japanese essayist,\nalready referred to, found himself obliged to throw out no less than\nthirty-six names out of a list of two hundred and thirteen, simply\nbecause these thirty-six, having been recorded only in _kana_, could not\nbe interpreted. _Kana_ give only the pronunciation; and the\npronunciation of a woman's name explains nothing in a majority of cases.\nTransliterated into Romaji, a _yobina_ may signify two, three, or even\nhalf-a-dozen different things. One of the names thrown out of the list\nwas _Banka_. _Banka_ might signify \"Mint\" (the plant), which would be a\npretty name; but it might also mean \"Evening-haze.\" _Yuka_, another\nrejected name, might be an abbreviation of _Yukabutsu_, \"precious\"; but\nit might just as well mean \"a floor.\" _Nochi_, a third example, might\nsignify \"future\"; yet it could also mean \"a descendant,\" and various\nother things. My reader will be able to find many other homonyms in the\nlists of names given further on. _Ai_ in Romaji, for instance, may\nsignify either \"love\" or \"indigo-blue\";--_Cho_, \"a butterfly,\" or\n\"superior,\" or \"long\";--_Ei_, either \"sagacious\" or \"blooming\";--_Kei_,\neither \"rapture\" or \"reverence\";--_Sato_, either \"native home\" or\n\"sugar\";--_Toshi_, either \"year\" or \"arrow-head\";--_Taka_, \"tall,\"\n\"honorable,\" or \"falcon.\" The chief, and, for the present, insuperable\nobstacle to the use of Roman letters in writing Japanese, is the\nprodigious number of homonyms in the language. You need only glance into\nany good Japanese-English dictionary to understand the gravity of this\nobstacle. Not to multiply examples, I shall merely observe that there\nare nineteen words spelled _cho_; twenty-one spelled _ki_; twenty-five\nspelled _to_ or _to_; and no less than forty-nine spelled _ko_ or _ko_.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet, as I have already suggested, the real signification of a woman's\nname cannot be ascertained even from a literal translation made with the\nhelp of the Chinese characters. Such a name, for instance, as _Kagami_\n(Mirror) really signifies the Pure-Minded, and this not in the\nOccidental, but in the Confucian sense of the term. _Ume_\n(Plum-blossom) is a name referring to wifely devotion and virtue.\n_Matsu_ (Pine) does not refer, as an appellation, to the beauty of the\ntree, but to the fact that its evergreen foliage is the emblem of\nvigorous age. The name _Take_ (Bamboo) is given to a child only because\nthe bamboo has been for centuries a symbol of good-fortune. The name\n_Sen_ (Wood-fairy) sounds charmingly to Western fancy; yet it expresses\nnothing more than the parents' hope of long life for their daughter and\nher offspring,--wood-fairies being supposed to live for thousands of\nyears.... Again, many names are of so strange a sort that it is\nimpossible to discover their meaning without questioning either the\nbearer or the giver; and sometimes all inquiry proves vain, because the\noriginal meaning has been long forgotten.\n\nBefore attempting to go further into the subject, I shall here offer a\ntranslation of the Tokyo essayist's list of names,--rearranged in\nalphabetical order, without honorific prefixes or suffixes. Although\nsome classes of common names are not represented, the list will serve to\nshow the character of many still popular _yobina_, and also to\nillustrate several of the facts to which I have already called\nattention.\n\n                SELECTED NAMES OF STUDENTS AND GRADUATES\n                    OF THE HIGHER NORMAL SCHOOL FOR\n                       FEMALES (1880-1895):--\n\n                                                          Number of\n                                                           students\n                                                           so named.\n    _Ai_       (\"Indigo,\"--the color)                              1\n    _Ai_       (\"Love\")                                            1\n    _Akasuke_  (\"The Bright Helper\")                               1\n    _Asa_      (\"Morning\")                                         1\n    _Asa_      (\"Shallow\")[33]                                     2\n\n        [33] Probably a place-name originally.\n\n    _Au_       (\"Meeting\")                                         2\n    _Bun_      (\"Composition\"--in the literary sense)[34]          1\n\n        [34] Might we not quaintly say, \"A Fair Writing\"?\n\n    _Chika_    (\"Near\")[35]                                        5\n\n        [35] Probably in the sense of \"near and dear\"--but not\n             certainly so.\n\n    _Chitose_  (\"A Thousand Years\")                                1\n    _Chiyo_    (\"A Thousand Generations\")                          1\n    _Chizu_    (\"Thousand Storks\")                                 1\n    _Cho_      (\"Butterfly\")                                       1\n    _Cho_      (\"Superior\")                                        2\n    _Ei_       (\"Clever\")                                          1\n    _Ei_       (\"Blooming\")                                        2\n    _Etsu_     (\"Delight\")                                         1\n    _Fude_     (\"Writing-brush\")                                   1\n    _Fuji_     (\"Fuji,\"--the mountain)                             1\n    _Fuji_     (\"Wistaria-flower\")                                 2\n    _Fuki_     (\"Fuki,\"--name of a plant, _Nardosmia\n                  Japonica_)                                       1\n    _Fuku_     (\"Good-fortune\")                                    2\n    _Fumi_     (\"Letter\")[36]                                      5\n\n        [36] _Fumi_ signifies here a letter written by a woman\n             only--a letter written according to the rules of\n             feminine epistolary style.\n\n    _Fumino_   (\"Letter-field\")                                    1\n    _Fusa_     (\"Tassel\")                                          3\n    _Gin_      (\"Silver\")                                          2\n    _Hama_     (\"Shore\")                                           3\n    _Hana_     (\"Blossom\")                                         3\n    _Harue_    (\"Spring-time Bay\")                                 1\n    _Hatsu_    (\"The First-born\")                                  2\n    _Hide_     (\"Excellent\")                                       4\n    _Hide_     (\"Fruitful\")                                        2\n    _Hisano_   (\"Long Plain\")                                      2\n    _Ichi_     (\"Market\")                                          4\n    _Iku_      (\"Nourishing\")                                      3\n    _Ine_      (\"Springing Rice\")                                  3\n    _Ishi_     (\"Stone\")                                           1\n    _Ito_      (\"Thread\")                                          4\n    _Iwa_      (\"Rock\")                                            1\n    _Jun_      (\"The Obedient\")[37]                                1\n\n        [37] _Jun suru_ means to be obedient unto death. The\n             word _jun_ has a much stronger signification than\n             that which attaches to our word \"obedience\" in\n             these modern times.\n\n    _Kagami_   (\"Mirror\")                                          3\n    _Kama_     (\"Sickle\")                                          1\n    _Kame_     (\"Tortoise\")                                        2\n    _Kameyo_   (\"Generations-of-the-Tortoise\")[38]                 1\n\n        [38] The tortoise is supposed to live for a thousand\n             years.\n\n    _Kan_      (\"The Forbearing\")[39]                             11\n\n        [39] Abbreviation of _kannin_, \"forbearance,\"\n             \"self-control,\" etc. The name might equally well\n             be translated \"Patience.\"\n\n    _Kana_     (\"Character\"--in the sense of written\n                  character)[40]                                   2\n\n        [40] _Kana_ signifies the Japanese syllabary,--the\n             characters with which the language is written. The\n             reader may imagine, if he wishes, that the name\n             signifies the Alpha and Omega of all feminine\n             charm; but I confess that I have not been able to\n             find any satisfactory explanation of it.\n\n    _Kane_     (\"Bronze\")                                          3\n    _Katsu_    (\"Victorious\")                                      2\n    _Kazashi_  (\"Hair-pin,\"--or any ornament worn\n                 in the hair)                                      1\n    _Kazu_     (\"Number,\"--i.e., \"great number\")                   1\n    _Kei_      (\"The Respectful\")                                  3\n    _Ken_      (\"Humility\")                                        1\n    _Kiku_     (\"Chrysanthemum\")                                   6\n    _Kikue_    (\"Chrysanthemum-branch\")                            1\n    _Kikuno_   (\"Chrysanthemum-field\")                             1\n    _Kimi_     (\"Sovereign\")                                       1\n    _Kin_      (\"Gold\")                                            4\n    _Kinu_     (\"Cloth-of-Silk\")                                   1\n    _Kishi_    (\"Beach\")                                           2\n    _Kiyo_     (\"Happy Generations\")                               1\n    _Kiyo_     (\"Pure\")                                            5\n    _Ko_       (\"Chime,\"--the sound of a bell)                     1\n    _Ko_       (\"Filial Piety\")                                   11\n    _Ko_       (\"The Fine\")                                        1\n    _Koma_     (\"Filly\")                                           1\n    _Kome_     (\"Cleaned Rice\")                                    1\n    _Koto_     (\"Koto,\"--the Japanese harp)                        4\n    _Kuma_     (\"Bear\")                                            1\n    _Kumi_     (\"Braid\")                                           1\n    _Kuni_     (\"Capital,\"--chief city)                            1\n    _Kuni_     (\"Province\")                                        3\n    _Kura_     (\"Treasure-house\")                                  1\n    _Kurano_   (\"Storehouse-field\")                                1\n    _Kuri_     (\"Chestnut\")                                        1\n    _Kuwa_     (\"Mulberry-tree\")                                   1\n    _Masa_     (\"Straightforward,\"--upright)                       3\n    _Masago_   (\"Sand\")                                            1\n    _Masu_     (\"Increase\")                                        3\n    _Masue_    (\"Branch-of-Increase\")                              1\n    _Matsu_    (\"Pine\")                                            2\n    _Matsue_   (\"Pine-branch\")                                     1\n    _Michi_    (\"The Way,\"--doctrine)                              4\n    _Mie_      (\"Triple Branch\")                                   1\n    _Mikie_    (\"Main-branch\")                                     1\n    _Mine_     (\"Peak\")                                            2\n    _Mitsu_    (\"Light\")                                           5\n    _Mitsue_   (\"Shining Branch\")                                  1\n    _Morie_    (\"Service-Bay\")[41]                                 1\n\n        [41] The word \"service\" here refers especially to\n             attendance at meal-time,--to the serving of rice,\n             etc.\n\n    _Naka_     (\"The Midmost\")                                     4\n    _Nami_     (\"Wave\")                                            1\n    _Nobu_     (\"Fidelity\")                                        6\n    _Nobu_     (\"The Prolonger\")[42]                               1\n\n        [42] Perhaps in the hopeful meaning of extending the\n             family-line; but more probably in the signification\n             that a daughter's care prolongs the life of her\n             parents, or of her husband's parents.\n\n    _Nobue_    (\"Lengthening-branch\")                              1\n    _Nui_      (\"Tapestry,\"--or, Embroidery)                       1\n    _Orino_    (\"Weaving-Field\")                                   1\n    _Raku_     (\"Pleasure\")                                        3\n    _Ren_      (\"The Arranger\")                                    1\n    _Riku_     (\"Land,\"--ground)                                   1\n    _Roku_     (\"Emolument\")                                       1\n    _Ryo_      (\"Dragon\")                                          1\n    _Ryu_      (\"Lofty\")                                           3\n    _Sada_     (\"The Chaste\")                                      8\n    _Saki_     (\"Cape,\"--promontory)                               1\n    _Saku_     (\"Composition\")[43]                                 3\n\n        [43] Abbreviation of _sakubun_, a literary composition.\n\n    _Sato_     (\"Home,\"--native place)                             2\n    _Sawa_     (\"Marsh\")                                           1\n    _Sei_      (\"Force\")                                           1\n    _Seki_     (\"Barrier,\"--city-gate, toll-gate, etc.).           3\n    _Sen_      (\"Fairy\")[44]                                       3\n\n        [44] As a matter of fact, we have no English equivalent\n             for the word \"sen,\" or \"sennin,\"--signifying a\n             being possessing magical powers of all kinds and\n             living for thousands of years. Some authorities\n             consider the belief in _sennin_ of Indian origin,\n             and probably derived from old traditions of the\n             Rishi.\n\n    _Setsu_     (\"True,\"--tender and true)                         2\n    _Shidzu_    (\"The Calmer\")                                     1\n    _Shidzu_    (\"Peace\")                                          2\n    _Shige_     (\"Two-fold\")                                       2\n    _Shika_     (\"Deer\")                                           2\n    _Shikae_    (\"Deer-Inlet\")                                     1\n    _Shime_     (\"The Clasp,\"--fastening)                          1\n    _Shin_      (\"Truth\")                                          1\n    _Shina_     (\"Goods\")                                          1\n    _Shina_     (\"Virtue\")                                         1\n    _Shino_     (\"Slender Bamboo\")                                 1\n    _Shirushi_  (\"The Proof,\"--evidence)                           1\n    _Shun_      (\"The Excellent\")                                  1\n    _Sue_       (\"The Last\")                                       2\n    _Sugi_      (\"Cedar,\"--cryptomeria)                            1\n    _Sute_      (\"Forsaken,\"--foundling)                           1\n    _Suzu_      (\"Little Bell\")                                    8\n    _Suzu_      (\"Tin\")                                            1\n    _Suzue_     (\"Branch of Little Bells\")                         1\n    _Tae_       (\"Exquisite\")                                      1\n    _Taka_      (\"Honor\")                                          2\n    _Taka_      (\"Lofty\")                                          9\n    _Take_      (\"Bamboo\")                                         1\n    _Tama_      (\"Jewel\")                                          1\n    _Tamaki_    (\"Ring\")                                           1\n    _Tame_      (\"For-the-Sake-of--\")                              3\n    _Tani_      (\"Valley\")                                         4\n    _Tazu_      (\"Ricefield-Stork\")                                1\n    _Tetsu_     (\"Iron\")                                           4\n    _Toku_      (\"Virtue\")                                         2\n    _Tome_      (\"Stop,\"--cease)[45]                               1\n\n        [45] Such a name may signify that the parents resolved,\n             after the birth of the girl, to have no more\n             children.\n\n    _Tomi_      (\"Riches\")                                         3\n    _Tomiju_    (\"Wealth-and-Longevity\")                           1\n    _Tomo_      (\"The Friend\")                                     4\n    _Tora_      (\"Tiger\")                                          1\n    _Toshi_     (\"Arrowhead\")                                      1\n    _Toyo_      (\"Abundance\")                                      3\n    _Tsugi_     (\"Next,\"--i. e., second in order of birth)         2\n    _Tsuna_     (\"Bond,\"--rope, or fetter)                         1\n    _Tsune_     (\"The Constant,\"--or, as we should say,\n                    Constance)                                    10\n    _Tsuru_     (\"Stork\")                                          4\n    _Ume_       (\"Plum-blossom\")                                   1\n    _Umegae_    (\"Plumtree-spray\")                                 1\n    _Umeno_     (\"Plumtree-field\")                                 2\n    _Urano_     (\"Shore-field\")                                    1\n    _Ushi_      (\"Cow,\"--or Ox)[46]                                1\n\n        [46] This extraordinary name is probably to be explained\n             as a reference to date of birth. According to the\n             old Chinese astrology, years, months, days, and\n             hours were all named after the Signs of the Zodiac,\n             and were supposed to have some mystic relation to\n             those signs. I surmise that Miss Ushi was born at\n             the Hour of the Ox, on the Day of the Ox, in the\n             Month of the Ox and the Year of the Ox--\"_Ushi no\n             Toshi no Ushi no Tsuki no Ushi no Hi no Ushi no\n             Koku._\"\n\n    _Uta_       (\"Poem,\"--or Song)                                 1\n    _Wakana_    (\"Young _Na_,\"--probably the rape-plant\n                  is referred to)                                  1\n    _Yae_       (\"Eight-fold\")                                     1\n    _Yasu_      (\"The Tranquil\")                                   1\n    _Yo_        (\"The Positive,\"--as opposed to Negative\n                      or Feminine in the old Chinese\n                      philosophy;--therefore, perhaps,\n                      Masculine)                                   1\n    _Yone_      (\"Rice,\"--in the old sense of wealth)              4\n    _Yoshi_     (\"The Good\")                                       1\n    _Yoshino_   (\"Good Field\")                                     1\n    _Yu_        (\"The Valiant\")                                    1\n    _Yuri_      (\"Lily\")                                           1\n\nIt will be observed that in the above list the names referring to\nConstancy, Forbearance, and Filial Piety have the highest numbers\nattached to them.\n\n\n                                   II\n\nA FEW of the more important rules in regard to Japanese female names\nmust now be mentioned.\n\nThe great majority of these _yobina_ are words of two syllables.\nPersonal names of respectable women, belonging to the middle and lower\nclasses, are nearly always dissyllables--except in cases where the name\nis lengthened by certain curious suffixes which I shall speak of further\non. Formerly a name of three or more syllables indicated that the bearer\nbelonged to a superior class. But, even among the upper classes to-day,\nfemale names of only two syllables are in fashion.\n\nAmong the people it is customary that a female name of two syllables\nshould be preceded by the honorific \"O,\" and followed by the title\n\"San,\"--as _O-Matsu San_, \"the Honorable Miss [or Mrs.] Pine\"; _O-Ume\nSan_, \"the Honorable Miss Plum-blossom.\"[47] But if the name happen to\nhave three syllables, the honorific \"O\" is not used. A woman named\n_Kikue_ (\"Chrysanthemum-Branch\") is not addressed as \"O-Kikue San,\" but\nonly as \"Kikue San.\"\n\n    [47] Under certain conditions of intimacy, both prefix and title\n         are dropped. They are dropped also by the superior in\n         addressing an inferior;--for example, a lady would not\n         address her maid as \"_O-Yone San_,\" but merely as \"_Yone_.\"\n\nBefore the names of ladies, the honorific \"O\" is no longer used as\nformerly,--even when the name consists of one syllable only. Instead of\nthe prefix, an honorific suffix is appended to the _yobina_,--the suffix\n_ko_. A peasant girl named _Tomi_ would be addressed by her equals as\n_O-Tomi San_. But a lady of the same name would be addressed as\n_Tomiko_. Mrs. Shimoda, head-teacher of the Peeresses' School, for\nexample, has the beautiful name _Uta_. She would be addressed by letter\nas \"Shimoda Utako,\" and would so sign herself in replying;--the\nfamily-name, by Japanese custom, always preceding the personal name,\ninstead of being, as with us, placed after it.\n\nThis suffix _ko_ is written with the Chinese character meaning \"child,\"\nand must not be confused with the word _ko_, written with a different\nChinese character, and meaning \"little,\" which so often appears in the\nnames of dancing girls. I should venture to say that this genteel suffix\nhas the value of a caressing diminutive, and that the name _Aiko_ might\nbe fairly well rendered by the \"Amoretta\" of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_.\nBe this as it may, a Japanese lady named _Setsu_ or _Sada_ would not be\naddressed in these days as O-Setsu or O-Sada, but as Setsuko or Sadako.\nOn the other hand, if a woman of the people were to sign herself as\nSetsuko or Sadako, she would certainly be laughed at,--since the suffix\nwould give to her appellation the meaning of \"the Lady Setsu,\" or \"the\nLady Sada.\"\n\nI have said that the honorific \"O\" is placed before the _yobina_ of\nwomen of the middle and lower classes. Even the wife of a _kurumaya_\nwould probably be referred to as the \"Honorable Mrs. Such-a-one.\" But\nthere are very remarkable exceptions to this general rule regarding the\nprefix \"O.\" In some country-districts the common _yobina_ of two\nsyllables is made a trisyllable by the addition of a peculiar suffix;\nand before such trisyllabic names the \"O\" is never placed. For example,\nthe girls of Wakayama, in the Province of Kii, usually have added to\ntheir _yobina_ the suffix \"_e_,\"[48] signifying \"inlet,\" \"bay,\"\n\"frith,\"--sometimes \"river.\" Thus we find such names as _Namie_\n(\"Wave-Bay\"), _Tomie_ (\"Riches-Bay\"), _Sumie_ (\"Dwelling-Bay\"), _Shizue_\n(\"Quiet-Bay\"), _Tamae_ (\"Jewel-Bay\"). Again there is a provincial suffix\n\"_no_\" meaning \"field\" or \"plain,\" which is attached to the majority of\nfemale names in certain districts. _Yoshino_ (\"Fertile Field\"), _Umeno_\n(\"Plumflower Field\"), _Shizuno_ (\"Quiet Field\"), _Urano_ (\"Coast\nField\"), _Utano_ (\"Song Field\"), are typical names of this class. A girl\ncalled _Namie_ or _Kikuno_ is not addressed as \"O-Namie San\" or\n\"O-Kikuno San,\" but as \"Namie San,\" \"Kikuno San.\"\n\n    [48] This suffix must not be confused with the suffix \"_e_,\"\n         signifying \"branch,\" which is also attached to many popular\n         names. Without seeing the Chinese character, you cannot\n         decide whether the name _Tamae_, for example, means\n         \"Jewel-branch\" or \"Jewel Inlet.\"\n\n\"San\" (abbreviation of _Sama_, a word originally meaning \"form,\"\n\"appearance\"), when placed after a female name, corresponds to either\nour \"Miss\" or \"Mrs.\" Placed after a man's name it has at least the value\nof our \"Mr.\",--perhaps even more. The unabbreviated form _Sama_ is\nplaced after the names of high personages of either sex, and after the\nnames of divinities: the Shinto Gods are styled the _Kami-Sama_, which\nmight be translated as \"the Lords Supreme\"; the Bodhisattva Jizo is\ncalled _Jizo-Sama_, \"the Lord Jizo.\" A lady may also be styled \"Sama.\" A\nlady called _Ayako_, for instance, might very properly be addressed as\nAyako Sama. But when a lady's name, independently of the suffix,\nconsists of more than three syllables, it is customary to drop either\nthe _ko_ or the title. Thus \"the Lady Ayame\" would not be spoken of as\n\"Ayameko Sama,\" but more euphoniously as \"Ayame Sama,\"[49] or as\n\"Ayameko.\"\n\n    [49] \"Ayame Sama,\" however, is rather familiar; and this form\n          cannot be used by a stranger in verbal address, though a\n          letter may be directed with the name so written. As a\n          rule, the _ko_ is the more respectful form.\n\nSo much having been said as regards the etiquette of prefixes\nand suffixes, I shall now attempt a classification of female\nnames,--beginning with popular _yobina_. These will be found\nparticularly interesting, because they reflect something of race-feeling\nin the matter of ethics and aesthetics, and because they serve to\nillustrate curious facts relating to Japanese custom. The first place I\nhave given to names of purely moral meaning,--usually bestowed in the\nhope that the children will grow up worthy of them. But the lists should\nin no case be regarded as complete: they are only representative.\nFurthermore, I must confess my inability to explain the reason of many\nnames, which proved as much of riddles to Japanese friends as to myself.\n\n\n                    NAMES OF VIRTUES AND PROPRIETIES\n\n    _O-Ai_           \"Love.\"\n    _O-Chie_         \"Intelligence.\"\n    _O-Chu_          \"Loyalty.\"\n    _O-Jin_          \"Tenderness,\"--humanity.\n    _O-Jun_          \"Faithful-to-death.\"\n    _O-Kaiyo_        \"Forgiveness,\"--pardon.\n    _O-Ken_          \"Wise,\"--in the sense of moral discernment.\n    _O-Ko_           \"Filial Piety.\"\n    _O-Masa_         \"Righteous,\"--just.\n    _O-Michi_        \"The Way,\"--doctrine.\n    _Misao_          \"Honor,\"--wifely fidelity.\n    _O-Nao_          \"The Upright,\"--honest.\n    _O-Nobu_         \"The Faithful.\"\n    _O-Rei_          \"Propriety,\"--in the old Chinese sense.\n    _O-Retsu_        \"Chaste and True.\"\n    _O-Ryo_          \"The Generous,\"--magnanimous.\n    _O-Sada_         \"The Chaste.\"\n    _O-Sei_          \"Truth.\"\n    _O-Shin_         \"Faith,\"--in the sense of fidelity, trust.\n    _O-Shizu_        \"The Tranquil,\"--calm-souled.\n    _O-Setsu_        \"Fidelity,\"--wifely virtue.\n    _O-Tame_         \"For-the-sake-of,\"--a name suggesting\n                          unselfishness.\n    _O-Tei_          \"The Docile,\"--in the meaning of virtuous\n                          obedience.\n    _O-Toku_         \"Virtue.\"\n    _O-Tomo_         \"The Friend,\"--especially in the meaning of\n                          mate, companion.\n    _O-Tsune_        \"Constancy.\"\n    _O-Yasu_         \"The Amiable,\"--gentle.\n    _O-Yoshi_        \"The Good.\"\n    _O-Yoshi_        \"The Respectful.\"\n\nThe next list will appear at first sight more heterogeneous than it\nreally is. It contains a larger variety of appellations than the\nprevious list; but nearly all of the _yobina_ refer to some good quality\nwhich the parents trust that the child will display, or to some future\nhappiness which they hope that she will deserve. To the latter category\nbelong such names of felicitation as _Miyo_ and _Masayo_.\n\n\n  MISCELLANEOUS NAMES EXPRESSING PERSONAL QUALITIES, OR PARENTAL HOPES\n\n    _O-Atsu_        \"The Generous,\"--liberal.\n    _O-Chika_       \"Closely Dear.\"\n    _O-Chika_       \"Thousand Rejoicings.\"\n    _O-Cho_         \"The Long,\"--probably in reference to life.\n    _O-Dai_         \"Great.\"\n    _O-Den_         \"Transmission,\"--bequest from ancestors, tradition.\n    _O-E_           \"Fortunate.\"\n    _O-Ei_          \"Prosperity.\"\n    _O-En_          \"Charm.\"\n    _O-En_          \"Prolongation,\"--of life.\n    _O-Etsu_        \"Surpassing.\"\n    _O-Etsu_        \"The Playful,\"--merry, joyous.\n    _O-Fuku_        \"Good Luck.\"\n    _O-Gen_         \"Source,\"--spring, fountain.\n    _O-Haya_        \"The Quick,\"--light, nimble.\n    _O-Hide_        \"Superior.\"\n    _Hideyo_        \"Superior Generations.\"\n    _O-Hiro_        \"The Broad.\"\n    _O-Hisa_        \"The Long.\" (?)\n    _Isamu_         \"The Vigorous,\"--spirited, robust.\n    _O-Jin_         \"Superexcellent.\"\n    _Kameyo_        \"Generations-of-the-Tortoise.\"\n    _O-Kane_[50]    \"The Doubly-Accomplished.\"\n\n        [50] From the strange verb _kaneru_, signifying, to do two\n             things at the same time.\n\n    _Kaoru_         \"The Fragrant.\"\n    _O-Kata_        \"Worthy Person.\"\n    _O-Katsu_       \"The Victorious.\"\n    _O-Kei_         \"Delight.\"\n    _O-Kei_         \"The Respectful.\"\n    _O-Ken_         \"The Humble.\"\n    _O-Kichi_       \"The Fortunate.\"\n    _O-Kimi_        \"The Sovereign,\"--peerless.\n    _O-Kiwa_        \"The Distinguished.\"\n    _O-Kiyo_  }    {\"The Clear,\"--in the sense of\n    _Kiyoshi_ }    { bright, beautiful.\n    _O-Kuru_        \"She-who-Comes\" (?).[51]\n\n        [51] One is reminded of, \"O whistle, and I'll come to you,\n             my lad\"--but no Japanese female name could have the\n             implied signification. More probably the reference is\n             to household obedience.\n\n    _O-Maru_        \"The Round,\"--plump.\n    _O-Masa_        \"The Genteel.\"\n    _Masayo_        \"Generations-of-the-Just.\"\n    _O-Masu_        \"Increase.\"\n    _O-Mie_         \"Triple Branch.\"\n    _O-Miki_        \"Stem.\"\n    _O-Mio_         \"Triple Cord.\"\n    _O-Mitsu_       \"Abundance.\"\n    _O-Miwa_        \"The Far-seeing.\"\n    _O-Miwa_        \"Three Spokes\" (?).[52]\n\n        [52] Such is the meaning of the characters. I cannot\n             understand the name. A Buddhist explanation suggests\n             itself; but there are few, if any, Buddhist _yobina_.\n\n    _O-Miyo_        \"Beautiful Generations.\"\n    _Miyuki_[53]    \"Deep Snow.\"\n\n        [53] This beautiful name refers to the silence and calm\n             following a heavy snowfall. But, even for the Japanese,\n             it is an aesthetic name also--suggesting both\n             tranquillity and beauty.\n\n    _O-Moto_        \"Origin.\"\n    _O-Naka_        \"Friendship.\"\n    _O-Rai_         \"Trust.\"\n    _O-Raku_[54]    \"Pleasure.\"\n\n        [54] The name seems curious, in view of the common proverb,\n             _Raku wa ku no tane_,--\"Pleasure is the seed of pain.\"\n\n    _O-Sachi_       \"Bliss.\"\n    _O-Sai_         \"The Talented.\"\n    _Sakae_         \"Prosperity.\"\n    _O-Saku_        \"The Blooming.\"\n    _O-Sei_         \"The Refined,\"--in the sense of \"clear.\"\n    _O-Sei_         \"Force.\"\n    _O-Sen_         \"Sennin,\"--wood-fairy.\n    _O-Shige_       \"Exuberant.\"\n    _O-Shime_       \"The Total,\"--_summum bonum_.\n    _O-Shin_        \"The Fresh.\"\n    _O-Shin_        \"Truth.\"\n    _O-Shina_       \"Goods,\"--possessions.\n    _Shirushi_      \"Proof,\"--evidence.\n    _O-Shizu_       \"The Humble.\"\n    _O-Sho_         \"Truth.\"\n    _O-Shun_        \"Excellence.\"\n    _O-Suki_        \"The Beloved,\"--_Aimee_.\n    _O-Suke_        \"The Helper.\"\n    _O-Sumi_        \"The Refined,\"--in the sense of \"sifted.\"\n    _O-Sute_        \"The Forsaken,\"--foundling.[55]\n\n        [55] Not necessarily a real foundling. Sometimes the name\n             may be explained by a curious old custom. In a certain\n             family several children in succession die shortly after\n             birth. It is decided, according to traditional usage,\n             that the next child born must be exposed. A girl is the\n             next child born;--she is carried by a servant to some\n             lonely place in the fields, or elsewhere, and left\n             there. Then a peasant, or other person, hired for the\n             occasion (it is necessary that he should be of no kin\n             to the family), promptly appears, pretends to find the\n             babe, and carries it back to the parental home. \"See\n             this pretty foundling,\" he says to the father of the\n             girl,--\"will you not take care of it?\" The child is\n             received, and named \"Sute,\" the foundling. By this\n             innocent artifice, it was formerly (and perhaps in some\n             places is still) supposed that those unseen influences,\n             which had caused the death of the other children, might\n             be thwarted.\n\n    _O-Tae_         \"The Exquisite.\"\n    _O-Taka_        \"The Honorable.\"\n    _O-Taka_        \"The Tall.\"\n    _Takara_        \"Treasure,\"--precious object.\n    _O-Tama_        \"Jewel.\"\n    _Tamae_         \"Jewel-branch.\"\n    _Tokiwa_[56]    \"Eternally Constant.\"\n\n        [56] Lit., \"Everlasting-Rock,\"--but the ethical meaning is\n             \"Constancy-everlasting-as-the-Rocks.\" \"Tokiwa\" is a\n             name famous both in history and tradition; for it was\n             the name of the mother of Yoshitsune. Her touching\n             story,--and especially the episode of her flight\n             through the deep snow with her boys,--has been a source\n             of inspiration to generations of artists.\n\n    _O-Tomi_        \"Riches.\"\n    _O-Toshi_       \"The Deft,\"--skilful.\n    _O-Tsuma_       \"The Wife.\"\n    _O-Yori_        \"The Trustworthy.\"\n    _O-Waka_        \"The Young.\"\n\nPlace-names, or geographical names, are common; but they are\nparticularly difficult to explain. A child may be called after a place\nbecause born there, or because the parental home was there, or because\nof beliefs belonging to the old Chinese philosophy regarding direction\nand position, or because of traditional custom, or because of ideas\nconnected with the religion of Shinto.\n\n\n                              PLACE-NAMES\n\n    _O-Fuji_           [Mount] \"Fuji.\"\n    _O-Hama_           \"Coast.\"\n    _O-Ichi_           \"Market,\"--fair.\n    _O-Iyo_            \"Iyo,\"--province of Iyo, in Shikoku.\n    _O-Kawa_ (rare)    \"River.\"\n    _O-Kishi_          \"Beach,\"--shore.\n    _O-Kita_           \"North.\"\n    _O-Kiwa_           \"Border.\"\n    _O-Kuni_           \"Province.\"\n    _O-Kyo_            \"Capital,\"--metropolis,--Kyoto.\n    _O-Machi_          \"Town.\"\n    _Matsue_           \"Matsue,\"--chief city of Izumo.\n    _O-Mina_[57]       \"South.\"\n\n        [57] Abbreviation of _Minami_.\n\n    _O-Mine_           \"Peak.\"\n    _O-Miya_           \"Temple\" [_Shinto_].[58]\n\n        [58] I must confess that in classing this name as a\n             place-name, I am only making a guess. It seems to me\n             that the name probably refers to the _ichi no miya_, or\n             chief Shinto temple of some province.\n\n    _O-Mon_[59]        \"Gate.\"\n\n        [59] I fancy that this name, like that of O-Seki, must\n             have originated in the custom of naming children after\n             the place, or neighborhood, where the family lived. But\n             here again, I am guessing.\n\n    _O-Mura_           \"Village.\"\n    _O-Nami_[60]       \"Wave.\"\n\n        [60] This classification also is a guess. I could learn\n             nothing about the name, except the curious fact that it\n             is said to be unlucky.\n\n    _Naniwa_           \"Naniwa,\"--ancient name of Osaka.\n    _O-Nishi_          \"West.\"\n    _O-Rin_            \"Park.\"\n    _O-Saki_           \"Cape.\"\n    _O-Sato_           \"Native Place,\"--village,--also, home.\n    _O-Sawa_           \"Marsh.\"\n    _O-Seki_           \"Toll-Gate,\"--barrier.\n    _Shigeki_          \"Thickwood,\"--forest.\n    _O-Shima_          \"Island.\"\n    _O-Sono_           \"Flower-garden.\"\n    _O-Taki_           \"Cataract,\"--or Waterfall.\n    _O-Tani_           \"Valley.\"\n    _O-Tsuka_          \"Milestone.\"\n    _O-Yama_           \"Mountain.\"\n\nThe next list is a curious medley, so far as regards the quality of the\n_yobina_ comprised in it. Some are really aesthetic and pleasing; others\nindustrial only; while a few might be taken for nicknames of the most\ndisagreeable kind.\n\n\n   NAMES OF OBJECTS AND OF OCCUPATIONS ESPECIALLY PERTAINING TO WOMEN\n\n    _Ayako_ or }       \"Damask-pattern.\"\n    _O-Aya_[61] }\n\n        [61] _Aya-Nishiki_,--the famous figured damask brocade of\n             Kyoto,--is probably referred to.\n\n    _O-Fumi_           \"Woman's Letter.\"\n    _O-Fusa_           \"Tassel.\"\n    _O-Ito_            \"Thread.\"\n    _O-Kama_[62]       \"Rice-Sickle.\"\n\n        [62] _O-Kama_ (Sickle) is a familiar peasant-name. _O-Kama_\n             (caldron, or iron cooking-pot), and several other\n             ugly names in this list are servants' names. Servants\n             in old time not only trained their children to become\n             servants, but gave them particular names referring\n             to their future labors.\n\n    _O-Kama_           \"Caldron.\"\n    _Kazashi_          \"Hair-pin.\"\n    _O-Kinu_           \"Cloth-of-Silk.\"\n    _O-Koto_           \"Harp.\"\n    _O-Nabe_           \"Pot,\"--or cooking-vessel.\n    _O-Nui_            \"Embroidery.\"\n    _O-Shime_          \"Clasp,\"--ornamental fastening.\n    _O-Some_           \"The Dyer.\"\n    _O-Taru_           \"Cask,\"--barrel.\n\nThe following list consists entirely of material nouns used as names.\nThere are several _yobina_ among them of which I cannot find the\nemblematical meaning. Generally speaking, the _yobina_ which signify\nprecious substances, such as silver and gold, are aesthetic names; and\nthose which signify common hard substances, such as stone, rock, iron,\nare intended to suggest firmness or strength of character. But the name\n\"Rock\" is also sometimes used as a symbol of the wish for long life, or\nlong continuance of the family line. The curious name _Suna_ has\nnothing, however, to do with individual \"grit\": it is half-moral and\nhalf-aesthetic. Fine sand--especially colored sand--is much prized in\nthis fairy-land of landscape-gardening, where it is used to cover spaces\nthat must always be kept spotless and beautiful, and never\ntrodden,--except by the gardener.\n\n\n                      MATERIAL NOUNS USED AS NAMES\n\n    _O-Gin_       \"Silver.\"\n    _O-Ishi_      \"Stone.\"\n    _O-Iwa_       \"Rock.\"\n    _O-Kane_      \"Bronze.\"\n    _O-Kaze_[63]  \"Air,\"--perhaps Wind.\n\n        [63] I cannot find any explanation of this curious name.\n\n    _O-Kin_       \"Gold.\"\n    _O-Ruri_[64]} \"Emerald,\"--emeraldine?\n    _Ruriko_    }\n\n        [64] The Japanese name does not give the same quality\n        of aesthetic sensation as the name Esmeralda. The _ruri_\n        is not usually green, but blue; and the term \"ruri-iro\"\n        (emerald color) commonly signifies a dark violet.\n\n    _O-Ryu_       \"Fine Metal.\"\n    _O-Sato_      \"Sugar.\"\n    _O-Seki_      \"Stone.\"\n    _O-Shiwo_     \"Salt.\"\n    _O-Suna_      \"Sand.\"\n    _O-Suzu_      \"Tin.\"\n    _O-Tane_      \"Seed.\"\n    _O-Tetsu_     \"Iron.\"\n\nThe following five _yobina_ are aesthetic names,--although literally\nsignifying things belonging to intellectual work. Four of them, at\nleast, refer to calligraphy,--the matchless calligraphy of the Far\nEast,--rather than to anything that we should call \"_literary_ beauty.\"\n\n\n                             LITERARY NAMES\n\n    _O-Bun_       \"Composition.\"\n    _O-Fude_      \"Writing-Brush.\"\n    _O-Fumi_      \"Letter.\"\n    _O-Kaku_      \"Writing.\"\n    _O-Uta_       \"Poem.\"\n\nNames relating to number are very common, but also very interesting.\nThey may be loosely divided into two sub-classes,--names indicating the\norder or the time of birth, and names of felicitation. Such _yobina_ as\n_Ichi_, _San_, _Roku_, _Hachi_ usually refer to the order of birth; but\nsometimes they record the date of birth. For example, I know a person\ncalled O-Roku, who received this name, not because she was the sixth\nchild born in the family, but because she entered this world upon the\nsixth day of the sixth month of the sixth Meiji. It will be observed\nthat the numbers Two, Five, and Nine are not represented in the list:\nthe mere idea of such names as _O-Ni_, _O-Go_, or _O-Ku_ seems to a\nJapanese absurd. I do not know exactly why,--unless it be that they\nsuggest unpleasant puns. The place of _O-Ni_ is well supplied, however,\nby the name _O-Tsugi_ (\"Next\"), which will be found in a subsequent\nlist. Names signifying numbers ranging from eighty to a thousand, and\nupward, are names of felicitation. They express the wish that the bearer\nmay live to a prodigious age, or that her posterity may flourish through\nthe centuries.\n\n\n                 NUMERALS AND WORDS RELATING TO NUMBER\n\n    _O-Ichi_      \"One.\"\n    _O-San_       \"Three.\"\n    _O-Mitsu_     \"Three.\"\n    _O-Yotsu_     \"Four.\"\n    _O-Roku_      \"Six.\"\n    _O-Shichi_    \"Seven.\"\n    _O-Hachi_     \"Eight.\"\n    _O-Ju_        \"Ten.\"\n    _O-Iso_       \"Fifty.\"[65]\n\n        [65] Such a name may record the fact that the girl was a\n             first-born child, and the father fifty years old at\n             the time of her birth.\n\n    _O-Yaso_      \"Eighty.\"\n    _O-Hyaku_     \"Hundred.\"[66]\n\n        [66] The \"O\" before this trisyllable seems contrary to rule;\n             but _Hyaku_ is pronounced almost like a dissyllable.\n\n    _O-Yao_       \"Eight Hundred.\"\n    _O-Sen_       \"Thousand.\"\n    _O-Michi_     \"Three Thousand.\"\n    _O-Man_       \"Ten Thousand.\"\n    _O-Chiyo_     \"Thousand Generations.\"\n    _Yachiyo_     \"Eight Thousand Generations.\"\n    _O-Shige_     \"Two-fold.\"\n    _O-Yae_       \"Eight-fold.\"\n    _O-Kazu_      \"Great Number.\"\n    _O-Mina_      \"All.\"\n    _O-Han_       \"Half.\"[67]\n\n        [67] \"Better half?\"--the reader may query. But I believe\n             that this name originated in the old custom of taking\n             a single character of the father's name--sometimes\n             also a character of the mother's name--to compose\n             the child's name with. Perhaps in this case the name\n             of the girl's father was HANyemon, or HANbei.\n\n    _O-Iku_       \"How Many?\" (?)\n\n\n               OTHER NAMES RELATING TO ORDER OF BIRTH\n\n    _O-Hatsu_     \"Beginning,\"--first-born.\n    _O-Tsugi_     \"Next,\"--the second.\n    _O-Naka_      \"Midmost.\"\n    _O-Tome_      \"Stop,\"--cease.\n    _O-Sue_       \"Last.\"\n\nSome few of the next group of names are probably aesthetic. But such\nnames are sometimes given only in reference to the time or season of\nbirth; and the reason for any particular _yobina_ of this class is\ndifficult to decide without personal inquiry.\n\n\n                   NAMES RELATING TO TIME AND SEASON\n\n    _O-Haru_      \"Spring.\"\n    _O-Natsu_     \"Summer.\"\n    _O-Aki_       \"Autumn.\"\n    _O-Fuyu_      \"Winter.\"\n\n    _O-Asa_       \"Morning.\"\n    _O-Cho_       \"Dawn.\"\n    _O-Yoi_       \"Evening.\"\n    _O-Sayo_      \"Night.\"\n\n    _O-Ima_       \"Now.\"\n    _O-Toki_      \"Time,\"--opportunity.\n    _O-Toshi_     \"Year [of Plenty].\"\n\nNames of animals--real or mythical--form another class of _yobina_. A\nname of this kind generally represents the hope that the child will\ndevelop some quality or capacity symbolized by the creature after which\nit has been called. Names such as \"Dragon,\" \"Tiger,\" \"Bear,\" etc., are\nintended in most cases to represent moral rather than other qualities.\nThe moral symbolism of the _Koi_ (Carp) is too well-known to require\nexplanation here. The names _Kame_ and _Tsuru_ refer to longevity.\n_Koma_, curious as the fact may seem, is a name of endearment.\n\n\n                 NAMES OF BIRDS, FISHES, ANIMALS, ETC.\n\n    _Chidori_     \"Sanderling.\"\n    _O-Kame_      \"Tortoise.\"\n    _O-Koi_       \"Carp.\"[68]\n\n        [68] _Cyprinus carpio._\n\n    _O-Koma_      \"Filly,\"--or pony.\n    _O-Kuma_      \"Bear.\"\n    _O-Ryo_       \"Dragon.\"\n    _O-Shika_     \"Deer.\"\n    _O-Tai_       \"Bream.\"[69]\n\n        [69] _Chrysophris cardinalis._\n\n    _O-Taka_      \"Hawk.\"\n    _O-Tako_      \"Cuttlefish.\" (?)\n    _O-Tatsu_     \"Dragon.\"\n    _O-Tora_      \"Tiger.\"\n    _O-Tori_      \"Bird.\"\n    _O-Tsuru_     \"Stork.\"[70]\n\n        [70] Sometimes this name is shortened into _O-Tsu_. In\n             Tokyo at the present time it is the custom to drop\n             the honorific \"O\" before such abbreviations, and to\n             add to the name the suffix \"chan,\"--as in the case\n             of children's names. Thus a young woman may be\n             caressingly addressed as \"Tsu-chan\" (for O-Tsuru),\n             \"Ya-chan\" (for O-Yasu), etc.\n\n    _O-Washi_     \"Eagle.\"\n\nEven _yobina_ which are the names of flowers or fruits, plants or\ntrees, are in most cases names of moral or felicitous, rather than of\naesthetic meaning. The plumflower is an emblem of feminine virtue; the\nchrysanthemum, of longevity; the pine, both of longevity and constancy;\nthe bamboo, of fidelity; the cedar, of moral rectitude; the willow, of\ndocility and gentleness, as well as of physical grace. The symbolism of\nthe lotos and of the cherryflower are probably familiar. But such names\nas _Hana_ (\"Blossom \") and _Ben_ (\"Petal\") are aesthetic in the true\nsense; and the Lily remains in Japan, as elsewhere, an emblem of\nfeminine grace.\n\n\n                              FLOWER-NAMES\n\n    _Ayame_       \"Iris.\"[71]\n\n        [71] _Iris setosa, or Iris sibrisia._\n\n    _Azami_       \"Thistle-Flower.\"\n    _O-Ben_       \"Petal.\"\n    _O-Fuji_      \"Wistaria.\"[72]\n\n        [72] _Wistaria chinensis._\n\n    _O-Hana_      \"Blossom.\"\n    _O-Kiku_      \"Chrysanthemum.\"\n    _O-Ran_       \"Orchid.\"\n    _O-Ren_       \"Lotos.\"\n    _Sakurako_    \"Cherryblossom.\"\n    _O-Ume_       \"Plumflower.\"\n    _O-Yuri_      \"Lily.\"\n\n\n                   NAMES OF PLANTS, FRUITS, AND TREES\n\n    _O-Ine_      \"Rice-in-the-blade.\"\n    _Kaede_      \"Maple-leaf.\"\n    _O-Kaya_     \"Rush.\"[73]\n\n        [73] _Imperata arundinacea._\n\n    _O-Kaya_     \"Yew.\"[74]\n\n        [74] _Torreya nucifera._\n\n    _O-Kuri_     \"Chestnut.\"\n    _O-Kuwa_     \"Mulberry.\"\n    _O-Maki_     \"Fir.\"[75]\n\n        [75] _Podocarpus chinensis._\n\n    _O-Mame_     \"Bean.\"\n    _O-Momo_     \"Peach,\"--the fruit.[76]\n\n        [76] Yet this name may possibly have been written with\n             the wrong character. There is another _yobina_,\n             \"Momo\" signifying \"hundred,\"--as in the phrase\n             _momo yo_, \"for a hundred ages.\"\n\n    _O-Nara_      \"Oak.\"\n    _O-Ryu_       \"Willow.\"\n    _Sanae_       \"Sprouting-Rice.\"\n    _O-Sane_      \"Fruit-seed.\"\n    _O-Shino_     \"Slender Bamboo.\"\n    _O-Suge_      \"Reed.\"[77]\n\n        [77] _Scirpus maritimus._\n\n    _O-Sugi_      \"Cedar.\"[78]\n\n        [78] _Cryptomeria Japonica._\n\n    _O-Take_      \"Bamboo.\"\n    _O-Tsuta_     \"Ivy.\"[79]\n\n        [79] _Cissus Thunbergii._\n\n    _O-Yae_       \"Double-Blossom.\"[80]\n\n        [80] A flower-name certainly; but the _yae_ here is probably\n             an abbreviation of _yae-zakura_, the double-flower of a\n             particular species of cherry-tree.\n\n    _O-Yone_      \"Rice-in-grain.\"\n    _Wakana_      \"Young _Na_.\"[81]\n\n        [81] _Brassica chinensis._\n\nNames signifying light or color seem to us the most aesthetic of all\n_yobina_; and they probably seem so to the Japanese. Nevertheless the\nrelative purport even of these names cannot be divined at sight. Colors\nhave moral and other values in the old nature-philosophy; and an\nappellation that to the Western mind suggests only luminosity or beauty\nmay actually refer to moral or social distinction,--to the hope that\nthe girl so named will become \"illustrious.\"\n\n\n                      NAMES SIGNIFYING BRIGHTNESS\n\n    _O-Mika_        \"New Moon.\"[82]\n\n        [82] _Mika_ is an abbreviation of Mikazuki, \"the moon of the\n             third night\" [of the old lunar month].\n\n    _O-Mitsu_       \"Light.\"\n    _O-Shimo_       \"Frost.\"\n    _O-Teru_        \"The Shining.\"\n    _O-Tsuki_       \"Moon.\"\n    _O-Tsuya_       \"The Glossy,\"--lustrous.\n    _O-Tsuyu_       \"Dew.\"\n    _O-Yuki_        \"Snow.\"\n\n\n                              COLOR-NAMES\n\n    _O-Ai_          \"Indigo.\"\n    _O-Aka_         \"Red.\"\n    _O-Iro_         \"Color.\"\n    _O-Kon_         \"Deep Blue.\"\n    _O-Kuro_        \"Dark,\"--lit., \"Black.\"\n    _Midori_[83]    \"Green.\"\n    _Murasaki_[83]  \"Purple.\"\n\n        [83] _Midori_ and _Murasaki_, especially the latter,\n        should properly be classed with aristocratic _yobina_;\n        and both are very rare. I could find neither in the\n        collection of aristocratic names which was made for me\n        from the records of the Peeresses' School; but I\n        discovered a \"Midori\" in a list of middle-class names.\n        Color-names being remarkably few among _yobina_, I\n        thought it better in this instance to group the whole of\n        them together, independently of class-distinctions.\n\n    _O-Shiro_       \"White.\"\n\nThe following and final group of female names contains several queer\npuzzles. Japanese girls are sometimes named after the family crest; and\nheraldry might explain one or two of these _yobina_. But why a girl\nshould be called a ship, I am not sure of being able to guess. Perhaps\nsome reader may be reminded of Nietzsche's \"Little Brig called\nAngeline\":--\n\n            \"Angeline--they call me so--\n            Now a ship, one time a maid,\n            (Ah, and evermore a maid!)\n            Love the steersman, to and fro,\n            Turns the wheel so finely made.\"\n\nBut such a fancy would not enter into a Japanese mind. I find, however,\nin a list of family crests, two varieties of design representing a ship,\ntwenty representing an arrow, and two representing a bow.\n\n\n                 NAMES DIFFICULT TO CLASSIFY OR EXPLAIN\n\n    _O-Fuku_[84]    \"Raiment,\"--clothing.\n\n        [84] Possibly this name belongs to the same class as _O-Nui_\n             (\"Embroidery\"), _O-Some_ (\"The Dyer\"); but I am not\n             sure.\n\n    _O-Fune_        \"Ship,\"--or Boat.\n    _O-Hina_[85]    \"Doll,\"--a paper doll?\n\n        [85] Probably a name of caress. The word _hina_ is applied\n             especially to the little paper dolls made by hand for\n             amusement,--representing young ladies with elaborate\n             coiffure; and it is also given to the old-fashioned\n             dolls representing courtly personages in full\n             ceremonial costume. The true doll--doll-baby--is\n             called _ningyo_.\n\n    _O-Kono_        \"This.\"\n    _O-Nao_         \"Still More.\"\n    _O-Nari_        \"Thunder-peal.\"\n    _O-Nibo_        \"Palanquin\" (?).\n    _O-Rai_         \"Thunder.\"\n    _O-Rui_         \"Sort,\"--kind, species.\n    _O-Suzu_[86]    \"Little Bell.\"\n\n        [86] Perhaps this name is given because of the sweet sound\n        of the _suzu_,--a tiny metal ball, with a little stone or\n        other hard object inside, to make the ringing.--It is a\n        pretty Japanese custom to put one of these little _suzu_\n        in the silk charm-bag (_mamori-bukero_) which is attached\n        to a child's girdle. The _suzu_ rings with every motion\n        that the child makes,--somewhat like one of those tiny\n        bells which we attach to the neck of a pet kitten.\n\n    _Suzue_         \"Branch-of-Little-Bells.\"\n    _O-Tada_        \"The Only.\"\n    _Tamaki_        \"Armlet,\"--bracelet.\n    _O-Tami_        \"Folk,\"--common people.\n    _O-Toshi_       \"Arrowhead,\"--or barb.\n    _O-Tsui_        \"Pair,\"--match.\n    _O-Tsuna_       \"Rope,\"--bond.\n    _O-Yumi_        \"Bow,\"--weapon.\n\nBefore passing on to the subject of aristocratic names, I must mention\nan old rule for Japanese names,--a curious rule that might help to\naccount for sundry puzzles in the preceding lists. This rule formerly\napplied to all personal names,--masculine or feminine. It cannot be\nfully explained in the present paper; for a satisfactory explanation\nwould occupy at least fifty pages. But, stated in the briefest possible\nway, the rule is that the first or \"head-character\" of a personal name\nshould be made to \"accord\" (in the Chinese philosophic sense) with the\nsupposed _Sei_, or astrologically-determined nature, of the person to\nwhom the name is given;--the required accordance being decided, not by\nthe meaning, but by the sound of the Chinese written character. Some\nvague idea of the difficulties of the subject may be obtained from the\naccompanying table. (Page 143.)\n\n\n    [Illustration:\n\n    PHONETIC RELATION OF THE FIVE ELEMENTAL-NATURES TO THE JAPANESE\n                               SYLLABARY\n\n                              a,   i,   u,   e,   o.\n                              -----------------------\n    I.--WOOD-NATURE         { ka,  ki,  ku,  ke,  ko. }\n                            { ga,  gi,  gu,  ge,  go. }\n                              -----------------------\n                            { sa,  shi, su,  se,  so. }\n                            { za,  ji,  zu,  ze,  zo. }\n                              -----------------------\n    II.--FIRE-NATURE        { ta,  chi, tsu, te,  to. }\n                            { da,  ji,  dzu, de,  do. }\n                              -----------------------\n                              na,  ni,  nu,  ne,  no.\n    III.--EARTH-NATURE        -----------------------\n                            { ha,  hi,  fu,  he,  ho. }\n                            { ba,  bi,  bu,  be,  bo. }\n                            { pa,  pi,  pu,  pe,  po. }\n                              -----------------------\n    IV.--METAL-NATURE         ma,  mi,  mu,  me,  mo.\n                              -----------------------\n                              ya,  i,   yu,  ye,  yo.\n                              -----------------------\n                              ra,  ri,  ru,  re,  ro.\n    V.--WATER-NATURE          -----------------------\n                              wa,  i,   u,   ye,  wo.]\n\n\n    ************************************************************\n    *                                                          *\n    *          Transcriber Note: Explanation of Table          *\n    *                                                          *\n    *   In the table above, there were lines connecting the    *\n    *   five elements of nature with the lines of Japanese     *\n    *   syllabary:                                             *\n    *                                                          *\n    *       The Wood element was associated with the           *\n    *           ka/ga lines,                                   *\n    *                                                          *\n    *       the Fire element was associated with the           *\n    *           ta/da, na, and ra lines,                       *\n    *                                                          *\n    *       the Earth element was associated with the          *\n    *           a, ka/ga, ya, and wa lines,                    *\n    *                                                          *\n    *       the Metal element was associated with the          *\n    *           sa/za lines, and                               *\n    *                                                          *\n    *       the Water element was associated with the          *\n    *           ha/ba/pa, and ma lines.                        *\n    *                                                          *\n    ************************************************************\n\n\n                                  III\n\nFOR examples of contemporary aristocratic names I consulted the reports\nof the _Kwazoku-Jogakko_ (Peeresses' School), published between the\nnineteenth and twenty-seventh years of Meiji (1886-1895). The\nKwazoku-Jogakko admits other students besides daughters of the nobility;\nbut for present purposes the names of the latter only--to the number of\none hundred and forty-seven--have been selected.\n\nIt will be observed that names of three or more syllables are rare among\nthese, and also that the modern aristocratic _yobina_ of two syllables,\nas pronounced and explained, differ little from ordinary _yobina_. But\nas written in Chinese they differ greatly from other female names, being\nin most cases represented by characters of a complex and unfamiliar\nkind. The use of these more elaborate characters chiefly accounts for\nthe relatively large number of homonyms to be found in the following\nlist:--\n\n\n           PERSONAL NAMES OF LADY STUDENTS OF THE KWAZOKU JOGAKKO\n\n    _Aki-ko_           \"Autumn.\"\n    _Aki-ko_           \"The Clear-Minded.\"\n    _Aki-ko_           \"Dawn.\"\n    _Asa-ko_           \"Fair Morning.\"\n    _Aya-ko_           \"Silk Damask.\"\n    _Chiharu-ko_       \"A Thousand Springs.\"\n    _Chika-ko_         \"Near,\"--close.\n    _Chitsuru-ko_      \"A Thousand Storks.\"\n    _Chiyo-ko_         \"A Thousand Generations.\"\n    _Ei-ko_            \"Bell-Chime.\"\n    _Etsu-ko_          \"Delight.\"\n    _Fuji-ko_          \"Wistaria.\"\n    _Fuku-ko_          \"Good-Fortune.\"\n    _Fumi-ko_          \"A Woman's Letter.\"\n    _Fuyo-ko_          \"Lotos-flower.\"\n    _Fuyu-ko_          \"Winter.\"\n    _Hana-ko_          \"Flower.\"\n    _Hana-ko_          \"Fair-Blooming.\"\n    _Haru-ko_          \"The Tranquil.\"\n    _Haru-ko_          \"Spring,\"--the season of flowers.\n    _Haru-ko_          \"The Far-Removed,\"--in the sense, perhaps, of\n                           superlative.\n    _Hatsu-ko_         \"The First-born.\"\n    _Hide-ko_          \"Excelling.\"\n    _Hide-ko_          \"Surpassing.\"\n    _Hiro-ko_          \"Magnanimous,\"--literally, \"broad,\"\n                           \"large,\"--in the sense of beneficence.\n    _Hiro-ko_          \"Wide-Spreading,\"--with reference to family\n                           prosperity.\n    _Hisa-ko_          \"Long-lasting.\"\n    _Hisa-ko_          \"Continuing.\"\n    _Hoshi-ko_         \"Star.\"\n    _Iku-ko_           \"The Quick,\"--in the sense of living.\n    _Ima-ko_           \"Now.\"\n    _Iho-ko_           \"Five Hundred,\"--probably a name of\n                           felicitation.\n    _Ito-ko_           \"Sewing-Thread.\"\n    _Kame-ko_          \"Tortoise.\"\n    _Kane-ko_          \"Going around\" (?).[87]\n\n        [87] It is possible that this name was made simply by\n             taking one character of the father's name. The\n             girl's name otherwise conveys no intelligible\n             meaning.\n\n    _Kane-ko_          \"Bell,\"--the character indicates a large\n                           suspended bell.\n    _Kata-ko_          \"Condition\"?\n    _Kazu-ko_          \"First.\"\n    _Kazu-ko_          \"Number,\"--a great number.\n    _Kazu-ko_          \"The Obedient.\"\n    _Kiyo-ko_          \"The Pure.\"\n    _Ko_[88]           \"Filial Piety.\"\n\n        [88] The suffix \"_ko_\" is sometimes dropped for reasons\n             of euphony, and sometimes for reasons of good\n             taste--difficult to explain to readers unfamiliar\n             with the Japanese language--even when the name\n             consists of only one syllable or of two syllables.\n\n    _Ko-ko_            \"Stork.\"\n    _Koto_             \"Harp.\"\n    _Kuni-ko_          \"Province.\"\n    _Kuni_             \"Country,\"--in the largest sense.\n    _Kyo-ko_           \"Capital,\"--metropolis.\n    _Machi_            \"Ten-Thousand Thousand.\"\n    _Makoto_           \"True-Heart.\"\n    _Masa-ko_          \"The Trustworthy,\"--sure.\n    _Masa-ko_          \"The Upright.\"\n    _Masu-ko_          \"Increase.\"\n    _Mata-ko_          \"Completely,\"--wholly.\n    _Matsu-ko_         \"Pine-tree.\"\n    _Michi-ko_         \"Three Thousand.\"\n    _Mine_             \"Peak.\"\n    _Mine-ko_          \"Mountain-Range.\"\n    _Mitsu-ko_         \"Light,\"--radiance.\n    _Miyo-ko_          \"Beautiful Generations.\"\n    _Moto-ko_          \"Origin,\"--source.\n    _Naga-ko_          \"Long,\"--probably in reference to time.\n    _Naga-ko_          \"Long Life.\"\n    _Nami-ko_          \"Wave.\"\n    _Nao-ko_           \"Correct,\"--upright.\n    _Nyo-ko_[89]       \"Gem-Treasure.\"\n\n        [89] This name is borrowed from the name of the sacred\n             gem _Nyoihoju_, which figures both in Shinto and in\n             Buddhist legend. The divinity Jizo is usually\n             represented holding in one hand this gem, which is\n             said to have the power of gratifying any desire\n             that its owner can entertain. Perhaps the _Nyoihoju_\n             may be identified with the Gem-Treasure _Veluriya_,\n             mentioned in the Sutra of The Great King of Glory,\n             chapter i. (See _Sacred Books of the East_, vol.\n             xi.)\n\n    _Nobu-ko_          \"Faithful.\"\n    _Nobu-ko_          \"Abundance,\"--plenty.\n    _Nobu-ko_          \"The Prolonger.\"\n    _Nori-ko_          \"Precept,\"--doctrine.\n    _Nui_              \"Embroidery,\"--sewing.\n    _Oki_              \"Offing,\"--perhaps originally a place-name.[90]\n\n        [90] A naval officer named Oki told me that his family\n             had originally been settled in the Oki Islands\n             (\"Islands of the Offing\"). This interesting\n             coincidence suggested to me that the above _yobina_\n             might have had the same origin.\n\n    _Sada-ko_          \"The Chaste.\"\n    _Sada-ko_          \"The Sure,\"--trustworthy.\n    _Sakura-ko_        \"Cherry-Blossom.\"\n    _Sakae_            \"The Prosperous.\"\n    _Sato-ko_          \"Home.\"\n    _Sato-ko_          \"The Discriminating.\"\n    _Seki-ko_          \"Great.\"\n    _Setsu-ko_         \"The Chaste.\"\n    _Shige-ko_         \"Flourishing.\"\n    _Shige-ko_         \"Exuberant,\"--in the sense of rich growth.\n    _Shige-ko_         \"Upgrowing.\"\n    _Shige-ko_         \"Fragrance.\"\n    _Shiki-ko_         \"Prudence.\"\n    _Shima-ko_         \"Island.\"\n    _Shin-ko_          \"The Fresh,\"--new.\n    _Shizu-ko_         \"The Quiet,\"--calm.\n    _Shizue_           \"Quiet River.\"\n    _Sono-ko_          \"Garden.\"\n    _Sue-ko_           \"Last,\"--in the sense of youngest.\n    _Suke-ko_          \"The Helper.\"\n    _Sumi-ko_          \"The Clear,\"--spotless, refined.\n    _Sumi-ko_          \"The Veritable,\"--real.\n    _Sumie-ko_         \"Clear River.\"\n    _Suzu-ko_          \"Tin.\"\n    _Suzu-ko_          \"Little Bell.\"\n    _Suzune_           \"Sound of Little Bell.\"\n    _Taka-ko_          \"High,\"--lofty, superior.\n    _Taka-ko_          \"Filial Piety.\"\n    _Taka-ko_          \"Precious.\"\n    _Take-ko_          \"Bamboo.\"\n    _Taki-ko_          \"Waterfall.\"\n    _Tama-ko_          \"Gem,\"--jewel.\n    _Tama-ko_          \"Gem,\"--written with a different character.\n    _Tame-ko_          \"For the Sake of--\"\n    _Tami-ko_          \"People,\"--folks.\n    _Tane-ko_          \"Successful.\"\n    _Tatsu-ko_         \"Attaining.\"\n    _Tatsuru-ko_[91]   \"Many Storks.\"\n\n        [91] So written, but probably pronounced as two syllables\n             only.\n\n    _Tatsuru-ko_       \"Ricefield Stork.\"\n    _Teru-ko_          \"Beaming,\"--luminous.\n    _Tetsu-ko_         \"Iron.\"\n    _Toki-ko_          \"Time.\"\n    _Tome-ko_          \"Cessation.\"\n    _Tomi-ko_          \"Riches.\"\n    _Tomo_             \"Intelligence.\"\n    _Tomo_             \"Knowledge.\"\n    _Tomo-ko_          \"Friendship.\"\n    _Toshi-ko_         \"The Quickly-Perceiving.\"\n    _Toyo-ko_          \"Fruitful.\"\n    _Tsune_            \"Constancy.\"\n    _Tsune-ko_         \"Ordinary,\"--usual, common.\n    _Tsune-ko_         \"Ordinary,\"--written with a different\n                           character.\n    _Tsune-ko_         \"Faithful,\"--in the sense of wifely fidelity.\n    _Tsuru-ko_         \"Stork.\"\n    _Tsuya-ko_         \"The Lustrous,\"--shining, glossy.\n    _Ume_              \"Female Hare.\"\n    _Ume-ko_           \"Plum-Blossom.\"\n    _Yachi-ko_         \"Eight Thousand.\"\n    _Yaso-ko_          \"Eighty.\"\n    _Yasoshi-ko_       \"Eighty-four.\"\n    _Yasu-ko_          \"The Maintainer,\"--supporter.\n    _Yasu-ko_          \"The Respectful.\"\n    _Yasu-ko_          \"The Tranquil-Minded.\"\n    _Yone-ko_          \"Rice.\"\n    _Yori-ko_          \"The Trustful.\"\n    _Yoshi_            \"Eminent,\"--celebrated.\n    _Yoshi-ko_         \"Fragrance.\"\n    _Yoshi-ko_         \"The Good,\"--or Gentle.\n    _Yoshi-ko_         \"The Lovable.\"\n    _Yoshi-ko_         \"The Lady-like,\"--gentle in the sense of\n                           refined.\n    _Yoshi-ko_         \"The Joyful.\"\n    _Yoshi-ko_         \"Congratulation.\"\n    _Yoshi-ko_         \"The Happy.\"\n    _Yoshi-ko_         \"Bright and Clear.\"\n    _Yuki-ko_          \"The Lucky.\"\n    _Yuki-ko_          \"Snow.\"\n    _Yuku-ko_          \"Going.\"\n    _Yutaka_           \"Plenty,\"--affluence, superabundance.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\nIN the first part of this paper I suggested that the custom of giving\nvery poetical names to _geisha_ and to _joro_ might partly account for\nthe unpopularity of purely aesthetic _yobina_. And in the hope of\ncorrecting certain foreign misapprehensions, I shall now venture a few\nremarks about the names of _geisha_.\n\n_Geisha_-names,--like other classes of names,--although full of curious\ninterest, and often in themselves really beautiful, have become\nhopelessly vulgarized by association with a calling the reverse of\nrespectable. Strictly speaking, they have nothing to do with the subject\nof the present study,--inasmuch as they are not real personal names, but\nprofessional appellations only,--not _yobina_, but _geimyo_.\n\nA large proportion of such names can be distinguished by certain\nprefixes or suffixes attached to them. They can be known, for example,--\n\n(1) By the prefix _Waka_, signifying \"Young\";--as in the names\n    _Wakagusa_, \"Young Grass\"; _Wakazuru_, \"Young Stork\";\n    _Wakamurasaki_, \"Young Purple\"; _Wakakoma_, \"Young Filly\".\n\n(2) By the prefix _Ko_, signifying \"Little\";--as in the names, _Ko-en_,\n    \"Little Charm\"; _Ko-hana_, \"Little Flower\"; _Kozakura_, \"Little\n    Cherry-Tree\".\n\n(3) By the suffix _Ryo_, signifying \"Dragon\" (the Ascending Dragon being\n    especially a symbol of success);--as _Tama-Ryo_, \"Jewel-Dragon\";\n    _Hana-Ryo_, \"Flower-Dragon\"; _Kin-Ryo_, \"Golden-Dragon\".\n\n(4) By the suffix _ji_, signifying \"to serve\", \"to administer\";--as in\n    the names _Uta-ji_, _Shinne-ji_, _Katsu-ji_.\n\n(5) By the suffix _suke_, signifying \"help\";--as in the names\n    _Tama-suke_, _Koma-suke_.\n\n(6) By the suffix _kichi_, signifying \"luck\", \"fortune\";--as\n    _Uta-kichi_, \"Song-Luck\"; _Tama-kichi_, \"Jewel-Fortune\".\n\n(7) By the suffix _giku_ (i. e., _kiku_) signifying \"chrysanthemum\";--as\n    _Mitsu-giku_, \"Three Chrysanthemums\"; _Hina-giku_,\n    \"Doll-Chrysanthemum\"; _Ko-giku_, \"Little Chrysanthemum\".\n\n(8) By the suffix tsuru, signifying \"stork\" (emblem of longevity);--as\n    _Koma-tsuru_, \"Filly-Stork\"; _Ko-tsuru_, \"Little Stork\"; _Ito-zuru_,\n    \"Thread-Stork\".\n\nThese forms will serve for illustration; but there are others. _Geimyo_\nare written, as a general rule, with only two Chinese characters, and\nare pronounced as three or as four syllables. _Geimyo_ of five syllables\nare occasionally to be met with; _geimyo_ of only two syllables are\nrare--at least among names of dancing girls. And these professional\nappellations have seldom any moral meaning: they signify things relating\nto longevity, wealth, pleasure, youth, or luck,--perhaps especially to\nluck.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf late years it became a fashion among certain classes of _geisha_ in\nthe capital to assume real names with the genteel suffix _Ko_, and even\naristocratic _yobina_. In 1889 some of the Tokyo newspapers demanded\nlegislative measures to check the practice. This incident would seem to\nafford proof of public feeling upon the subject.\n\n\n\n\n                           Old Japanese Songs\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n\nTHIS New Year's morning I find upon my table two most welcome gifts from\na young poet of my literary class. One is a roll of cloth for a new\nkimono,--cloth such as my Western reader never saw. The brown warp is\ncotton thread; but the woof is soft white paper string, irregularly\nspeckled with black. When closely examined, the black specklings prove\nto be Chinese and Japanese characters;--for the paper woof is made out\nof manuscript,--manuscript of poems,--which has been deftly twisted into\nfine cord, with the written surface outwards. The general effect of the\nwhite, black, and brown in the texture is a warm mouse-grey. In many\nIzumo homes a similar kind of cloth is manufactured for family use; but\nthis piece was woven especially for me by the mother of my pupil. It\nwill make a most comfortable winter-robe; and when wearing it, I shall\nbe literally clothed with poetry,--even as a divinity might be clothed\nwith the sun.\n\nThe other gift is poetry also, but poetry in the original state: a\nwonderful manuscript collection of Japanese songs gathered from\nunfamiliar sources, and particularly interesting from the fact that\nnearly all of them are furnished with refrains. There are hundreds of\ncompositions, old and new,--including several extraordinary ballads,\nmany dancing-songs, and a surprising variety of love-songs. Neither in\nsentiment nor in construction do any of these resemble the Japanese\npoetry of which I have already, in previous books, offered specimens in\ntranslation. The forms are, in most cases, curiously irregular; but\ntheir irregularity is not without a strange charm of its own.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am going to offer examples of these compositions,--partly because of\ntheir unfamiliar emotional quality, and partly because I think that\nsomething can be learned from their strange art of construction, The\nolder songs--selected from the antique drama--seem to me particularly\nworthy of notice. The thought or feeling and its utterance are\nsupremely simple; yet by primitive devices of reiteration and of pause,\nvery remarkable results have been obtained. What strikes me especially\nnoteworthy in the following specimen is the way that the phrase, begun\nwith the third line of the first stanza, and interrupted by a kind of\nburthen, is repeated and finished in the next stanza. Perhaps the\nsuspension will recall to Western readers the effect of some English\nballads with double refrains, or of such quaint forms of French song as\nthe famous--\n\n                        Au jardin de mon pere--\n                            _Vole, mon coeur, vole!_\n                        Il y a un pommier doux,\n                            _Tout doux!_\n\nBut in the Japanese song the reiteration of the broken phrase produces a\nslow dreamy effect as unlike the effect of the French composition as the\nmovements of a Japanese dance are unlike those of any Western round:--\n\n\n                              KANO YUKU WA\n\n                 (_Probably from the eleventh century_)\n\n            Kano yuku wa,\n            Kari ka?--kugui ka?\n            Kari naraba,--\n\n              (Ref.) _Hareya toto!_\n                     _Hareya toto!_\n\n            Kari nara\n            Nanori zo semashi;--\n            Nao kugui nari-ya!--\n\n              (Ref.) _Toto!_\n\n    That which yonder flies,--\n    Wild goose is it?--swan is it?\n    Wild goose if it be,--\n\n                    _Hareya toto!_\n                    _Hareya toto!_\n\n    Wild goose if it be,\n    Its name I soon shall say:\n    Wild swan if it be,--better still!\n\n                    _Toto!_\n\nThere are many old lyrics in the above form. Here is another song, of\ndifferent construction, also from the old drama: there is no refrain,\nbut there is the same peculiar suspension of phrase; and the effect of\nthe quadruple repetition is emotionally impressive:--\n\n                Isora ga saki ni\n                Tai tsuru ama mo,\n                Tai tsuru ama mo,--\n\n                Wagimoko ga tame to,\n                Tai tsuru ama mo,\n                Tai tsuru ama mo!\n\n    Off the Cape of Isora,\n    Even the fisherman catching _tai_,[92]\n    Even the fisherman catching _tai_,--\n\n    [Works] for the sake of the woman beloved,--\n    Even the fisherman catching _tai_,\n    Even the fisherman catching _tai_!\n\n        [92] _Chrysopbris cardinalis_, a kind of\n             sea-bream,--generally esteemed the best of\n             Japanese fishes.\n\nBut a still more remarkable effect is obtained in the following ancient\nsong by the extraordinary reiteration of an uncompleted phrase, and by a\ndouble suspension. I can imagine nothing more purely natural: indeed the\nrealism of these simple utterances has almost the quality of pathos:--\n\n\n                                AGEMAKI\n\n                 (_Old lyrical drama--date uncertain_)\n\n                        Agemaki[93] wo\n                    Waseda ni yarite ya!\n                        So omou to,\n                        So omou to,\n                        So omou to,\n                        So omou to,\n                        So omou to,--\n\n                        So omou to,\n                    Nani-mo sezushite,--\n                        Harubi sura,\n                        Harubi sura,\n                        Harubi sura,\n                        Harubi sura,\n                        Harubi sura!\n\n          My darling boy!--\n    Oh! they have sent him to the ricefields!\n          When I think about him,--\n          When I think,\n          When I think,\n          When I think,\n          When I think,--\n\n          When I think about him!\n    I--doing nothing at all,--\n          Even on this spring-day,\n          Even this spring-day,\n          Even this spring-day,\n          Even this spring-day,\n          Even on this spring-day!--\n\n        [93] It was formerly the custom to shave the heads of\n             boys, leaving only a tuft or lock of hair on either\n             temple. Such a lock was called _agemaki_, a word\n             also meaning \"tassel\"; and eventually the term came\n             to signify a boy or lad. In these songs it is used\n             as a term of endearment,--much as an English girl\n             might speak of her sweetheart as \"my dear lad,\" or\n             \"my darling boy.\"\n\nOther forms of repetition and of refrain are furnished in the two\nfollowing lyrics:--\n\n\n                               BINDATARA\n\n   (_Supposed to have been composed as early as the twelfth century_)\n\n                      Bindatara wo\n                    Ayugaseba koso,\n                    Ayugaseba koso,\n                    Aikyo zuitare!\n\n                            _Yareko toto,\n                            Yareko toto!_\n\n          With loosened hair,--\n    Only because of having tossed it,\n    Only because of having shaken it,--\n          Oh, sweet she is!\n\n                    _Yareko toto!\n                    Yareko toto!_\n\n\n                             SAMA WA TENNIN\n\n                (_Probably from the sixteenth century_)\n\n                Sama wa tennin!\n                    _Sore-sore_,\n                    _Tontorori!_\n\n                Otome no sugata\n                Kumo no kayoiji\n                Chirato mita!\n                    _Tontorori!_\n\n                Otome no sugata\n                Kumo no kayoiji\n                Chirato mita!\n                    _Tontorori!_\n\n    My beloved an angel is![94]\n                _Sore-sore!_\n                _Tontorori!_\n\n    The maiden's form,\n    In the passing of clouds,\n    In a glimpse I saw!\n                _Tontorori!_\n\n    The maiden's form,\n    In the passage of clouds,\n    In a glimpse I saw!\n                _Tontorori!_\n\n        [94] Lit., \"a Tennin\";--that is to say, an inhabitant\n             of the Buddhist heaven. The Tennin are usually\n             represented as beautiful maidens.\n\nMy next selection is from a love-song of uncertain date, belonging to\nthe Kamakura period (1186-1332). This fragment is chiefly remarkable for\nits Buddhist allusions, and for its very regular form of stanza:--\n\n                   Makoto yara,\n                 Kashima no minato ni\n                 Miroku no mifune ga\n                 Tsuite gozarimosu.\n\n                      _Yono!_\n                      _Sa iyoe, iyoe!_\n                      _Sa iyoe, iyoe!_\n\n                   Hobashira wa,\n                 Kogane no hobashira;\n                 Ho niwa Hokkekyo no\n                 Go no man-makimono.\n\n                      _Sa iyoe, iyoe!_\n                      _Sa iyoe, iyoe!_\n\n                       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    I know not if 't is true\n    That to the port of Kashima\n    The august ship of Miroku[95] has come!\n\n            _Yono!_\n            _Sa iyoe, iyoe!_\n            _Sa iyoe, iyoe!_\n\n        [95] Miroku Bosatsu (Maitreya Bodhisattva) is the next\n             great Buddha to come.\n\n    As for the mast,\n    It is a mast of gold;--\n    The sail is the fifth august roll\n    Of the Hokkekyo![96]\n\n                    _Sa iyoe, iyoe!_\n                    _Sa iyoe, iyoe_\n\n        [96] Japanese popular name for the Chinese version of\n             the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra.--Many of the old\n             Buddhist scriptures were written upon long scrolls,\n             called _makimono_,--a name also given to pictures\n             printed upon long rolls of silk or paper.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nOtherwise interesting, with its queer refrain, is another song called\n\"Agemaki,\"--belonging to one of the curious class of lyrical dramas\nknown as _Saibara_. This may be found fault with as somewhat \"free\"; but\nI cannot think it more open to objection than some of our much-admired\nElizabethan songs which were probably produced at about the same time:--\n\n\n                                AGEMAKI\n\n                (_Probably from the sixteenth century_)\n\n                 Agemaki ya!\n                           _Tonton!_\n                 Hiro bakari ya--\n                           _Tonton!_\n                 Sakarite netaredomo,\n                 Marobi-ainikeri,--\n                           _Tonton!_\n                 Kayori-ainikeri,\n                           _Tonton!_\n\n    Oh! my darling boy!\n              _Tonton!_\n    Though a fathom[97] apart,\n              _Tonton!_\n    Sleeping separated,\n    By rolling we came together!\n              _Tonton!_\n    By slow approaches we came together,\n              _Tonton!_\n\n        [97] Lit., \"_hiro_.\" The _hiro_ is a measure of about\n             five feet English, and is used to measure breadth\n             as well as depth.\n\nMy next group of selections consists of \"local songs\"--by which term the\ncollector means songs peculiar to particular districts or provinces.\nThey are old--though less old than the compositions previously\ncited;--and their interest is chiefly emotional. But several, it will be\nobserved, have curious refrains. Songs of this sort are sung especially\nat the village-dances--_Bon-odori_ and _Honen-odori_:--\n\n\n                               LOVE-SONG\n\n                        (_Province of Echigo_)\n\n                 Hana ka?--chocho ka?\n                 Chocho ka?--hana ka?\n\n                                      _Don-don!_\n\n            Kite wa chira-chira mayowaseru,\n            Kite wa chira-chira mayowaseru!\n\n                                      _Taichokane!_\n                                      _Sokane don-don!_\n\n         Flower is it?--butterfly is it?\n         Butterfly or flower?\n\n                              _Don-don!_\n\n    When you come thus flickering, I am deluded!--\n    When you come thus twinkling, I am bewitched!\n\n                              _Taichokane!_\n                              _Sokane don-don!_\n\n\n                               LOVE-SONG\n\n                 (_Province of Kii,--village of Ogawa_)\n\n                Koe wa suredomo\n                Sugata wa mienu--\n                Fuka-no no kirigirisu!\n\n    Though I hear the voice [_of the beloved_], the form I cannot\n    see--a _kirigirisu_[98] in the high grass.\n\n        [98] _The kirigirisu_ is a kind of grasshopper with a\n             very musical note. It is very difficult to see it,\n             even when it is singing close by, for its color is\n             exactly the color of the grass. The song alludes to\n             the happy peasant custom of singing while at work\n             in the fields.\n\n\n                               LOVE-SONG\n\n               (_Province of Mutsu,--district of Sugaru_)\n\n                 Washi no kokoro to\n                 Oki kuru fune wa,\n                 Raku ni misetemo,\n                        Ku ga taenu.\n\n    My heart and a ship in the offing--either seems to move with\n    ease; yet in both there is trouble enough.\n\n\n                               LOVE-SONG\n\n              (_Province of Suwo,--village of Iseki_)\n\n                 Namida koboshite\n                 Shinku wo kataru,\n                 Kawairashi-sa ga\n                         Mashimasuru!\n\n    As she tells me all the pain of her toil, shedding tears,--ever\n    her sweetness seems to increase.\n\n\n                               LOVE-SONG\n\n             (_Province of Suruga, village of Gotemba_)\n\n                 Hana ya, yoku kike!\n                 Sho aru naraba,\n                 Hito ga fusagu ni\n                        Naze hiraku?\n\n    O flower, hear me well if thou hast a soul! When any one sorrows\n    as I am sorrowing, why dost thou bloom?\n\n\n                             OLD TOKYO SONG\n\n                 Iya-na o-kata no\n                 Shinsetsu yori ka\n                 Suita o-kata no\n                        Muri ga yoi.\n\n    Better than the kindness of the disliked is the violence of the\n    beloved.\n\n\n                               LOVE-SONG\n\n                         (_Province of Iwami_)\n\n                 Kawairashi-sa ya!\n                 Hotaru no mushi wa\n                 Shinobu nawate ni\n                       Hi wo tomosu.\n\n    Ah, the darling!... Ever as I steal along the ricefield-path\n    [_to meet my lover_], the firefly kindles a light to show me\n    the way.\n\n\n                               COMIC SONG\n\n                        (_Province of Shinano_)\n\n                        Ano yama kage de\n                        Hikaru wa nanja?--\n                 Tsuki ka, hoshi ka, hotaru no mushi ka?\n                        Tsuki demo naiga;\n                        Hoshi demo naiga;--\n                 Shuto no o-uba no me ga hikaru,--\n                                  (Chorus) _Me ga hikaru!_\n\n    In the shadow of the mountain\n    What is it that shines so?\n    Moon is it, or star?--or is it the firefly-insect?\n            Neither is it moon,\n            Nor yet star;--\n    It is the old woman's Eye;--it is the Eye of my\n        mother-in-law that shines,--\n                       (Chorus) _It is her Eye that shines!_\n\n\n                            KAERI-ODORI[99]\n\n                         (_Province of Sanuki_)\n\n        [99] I am not sure of the real meaning of the name\n             _Kaeri-Odori_ (lit. \"turn-dance\" or \"return-dance\").\n\n    Oh! the cruelty, the cruelty of my mother-in-law!--\n\n                                        (Chorus) _Oh! the cruelty!_\n\n    Even tells me to paint a picture on running water!\n    If ever I paint a picture on running water,\n    You will count the stars in the night-sky!\n\n                                 _Count the stars in the night-sky!_\n\n    --_Come! let us dance the Dance of the Honorable\n         Garden!_--\n\n                        _Chan-chan!\n                        Cha-cha!\n                        Yoitomose,\n                        Yoitomose!_\n\n    Who cuts the bamboo at the back of the house?--\n\n                                   (Chorus) _Who cuts the bamboo?_--\n\n    My sweet lord's own bamboo, the first he planted,--\n\n                                             _The first be planted?_\n\n    --_Come! let us dance the Dance of the Honorable Garden!_--\n\n                        _Chan-chan!\n                        Cha-cha!\n                        Yoitomose,\n                        Yoitomose!_\n\n    Oh! the cruelty, the cruelty of my mother-in-law!--\n\n                                                  _Oh! the cruelty!_\n\n    Tells me to cut and make a hakama[100] out of rock!\n    If ever I cut and sew a hakama of rock,\n    Then you will learn to twist the fine sand into thread,--\n\n                                             _Twist it into thread._\n\n    --_Come! let us dance the Dance of the Honorable\n         Garden!_--\n\n                        _Chan-chan!\n                        Cha-cha!\n                        Yoitomose,\n                        Yoitomose!\n                    Chan-chan-chan!_\n\n        [100] A divided skirt of a peculiar form, worn formerly\n              by men chiefly, to-day worn by female students\n              also.\n\n\n                       OTERA-ODORI (TEMPLE-DANCE)\n\n             (_Province of Iga, village called Uenomachi_)\n\n    Visiting the honorable temple, when I see the august gate,\n    The august gate I find to be of silver, the panels of gold.\n    Noble indeed is the gate of the honorable temple,--\n                                             _The honorable temple!_\n\n    Visiting the honorable temple, when I see the garden,\n    I see young pinetrees flourishing in the four directions:\n    On the first little branch of one the _shijugara_[101] has\n        made her nest,--\n                                                _Has made her nest_.\n\n    Visiting the honorable temple, when I see the water-tank,\n    I see little flowers of many colors set all about it,\n    Each one having a different color of its own,--\n                                                _A different color._\n\n    Visiting the honorable temple, when I see the parlor-room,\n    I find many kinds of little birds gathered all together,\n    Each one singing a different song of its own,--\n                                                 _A different song._\n\n    Visiting the honorable temple, when I see the guest-room,\n    There I see the priest, with a lamp beside him,\n    Reading behind a folding-screen--oh, how admirable it is!--\n                                              _How admirable it is!_\n\n        [101] The Manchurian great tit. It is said to bring good\n              fortune to the owners of the garden in which it\n              builds a nest,--providing that the nest be not\n              disturbed and that the brood be protected.\n\nMany kinds of popular songs--and especially the class of songs sung at\ncountry-dances--are composed after a mnemonic plan. The stanzas are\nusually ten in number; and the first syllable of each should correspond\nin sound to the first syllable of the numeral placed before the verse.\nSometimes Chinese numerals are used; sometimes Japanese. But the rule is\nnot always perfectly observed. In the following example it will be\nobserved that the correspondence of the first two syllables in the first\nverse with the first two syllables of the Japanese word for one\n(_hitotsu_) is a correspondence of meaning only;--_ichi_ being the\nChinese numeral:--\n\n\n                           SONG OF FISHERMEN\n\n             (_Province of Shimosa,--town of Choshi_)[102]\n\n        [102] Choshi, a town of some importance, is situated at\n              the mouth of the Tonegawa. It is celebrated for\n              its _iwashi_-fishery. The _iwashi_ is a fish about\n              the size of the sardine, and is sought chiefly for\n              the sake of its oil. Immense quantities of\n              _iwashi_ are taken off the coast. They are boiled\n              to extract the oil; and the dried residue is sent\n              inland to serve as manure.\n\n            _Hitotsutose_,--\n              Ichiban bune e tsumi-konde,\n              Kawaguchi oshikomu o-yagoe.\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n            _Futatsutose_,--\n              Futaba no oki kara Togawa made\n              Tsuzuite oshikomu o-yagoe.\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n            _Mitsutose_,--\n              Mina ichido-ni maneki wo age,\n              Kayowase-bune no nigiyakasa\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n            _Yotsutose_,--\n              Yoru-hiru taitemo taki-amaru,\n              San-bai itcho no o-iwashi!\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n            _Itsutsutose_,--\n              Itsu kite mitemo hoshika-ba ni\n              Akima sukima wa sarani nai.\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n            _Mutsutoye_,--\n              Mutsu kara mutsu made kasu-wari ga\n              O-wari ko-wari de te ni oware.\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n            _Nanatsutose_,--\n              Natakaki Tonegawa ichi-men ni\n              Kasu-ya abura wo tsumi-okuru\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n            _Yatsutose_,--\n              Yatebune no okiai wakashu ga,\n              Ban-shuku soroete miya-mairi.\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n            _Kokonotsutose_,--\n              Kono ura mamoru kawa-guchi no\n              Myojin riyaku wo arawasuru.\n\n                                _Kono tai-ryo-bune!_\n\n    _Firstly_ (or \"Number One\"),--\n\n    The first ship, filled up with fish, squeezes her way through\n    the river-mouth, with a great shouting.[103]\n\n        [103] _O-yagoe._ The chorus-cry or chant of sailors,\n              pulling all together, is called yagoe.\n\n                                _O this ship of great fishing!_[104]\n\n        [104] _Tai-ryo bune_, lit.:--\"great-fishing,\" or\n              \"great-catching-ship.\" The adjective refers to the\n              fishing, not to the ship. The real meaning of the\n              refrain is, \"this-most-successful-in-fishing of\n              ships.\"\n\n    _Secondly_,--\n\n    From the offing of Futaba even to the Togawa,[105] the ships, fast\n    following, press in, with a great shouting.\n\n                                     _O this ship of great fishing!_\n\n        [105] Perhaps the reference is to a village at the mouth\n              of the river Togawa,--not far from Choshi on the\n              Tonegawa. The two rivers are united by a canal.\n              But the text leaves it uncertain whether river or\n              village is meant.\n\n    _Thirdly_,--\n\n    When, all together, we hoist our signal-flags, see how fast the\n    cargo-boats come hurrying!\n\n                                     _O this ship of great fishing!_\n\n    _Fourthly_,--\n\n    Night and day though the boiling be, there is still too much to\n    boil--oh, the heaps of _iwashi_ from the three ships together!\n\n                                     _O this ship of great fishing!_\n\n    _Fifthly_,--\n\n    Whenever you go to look at the place where the dried fish are\n    kept,[106] never do you find any room,--not even a crevice.\n\n                                     _O this ship of great fishing!_\n\n        [106] _Hoshika-ba_: lit., \"the hoshika-place\" or\n              \"hoshika-room.\" \"Hoshika\" is the name given to\n              dried fish prepared for use as fertilizer.\n\n    _Sixthly_,--\n\n    From six to six o'clock is cleaning and washing: the great\n    cutting and the small cutting are more than can be done.\n\n                                     _O this ship of great fishing!_\n\n    _Seventhly_,--\n\n    All up and down the famous river Tonegawa we send our loads of\n    oil and fertilizer.\n\n                                     _O this ship of great fishing!_\n\n    _Eighthly_,--\n\n    All the young folk, drawing the _Yatai-bune_,[107] with ten\n    thousand rejoicings, visit the shrine of the God.\n\n                                     _O this ship of great fishing!_\n\n        [107] _Yatai_ is the name given to the ornamental cars\n              drawn with ropes in a religious procession.\n              _Yatai-bune_ here seems to mean either the model\n              of a boat mounted upon such a car, or a real boat\n              so displayed in a religious procession. I have\n              seen real boats mounted upon festival-cars in a\n              religious procession at Mionoseki.\n\n    _Ninthly_,--\n\n    Augustly protecting all this coast, the Deity of the river-mouth\n    shows to us his divine favor.\n\n                                     _O this ship of great fishing!_\n\nA stranger example of this mnemonic arrangement is furnished by a\nchildren's song, composed at least a hundred years ago. Little girls of\nYedo used to sing it while playing ball. You can see the same ball-game\nbeing played by girls to-day, in almost any quiet street of Tokyo. The\nball is kept bounding in a nearly perpendicular line by skilful taps of\nthe hand delivered in time to the measure of a song; and a good player\nshould be able to sing the song through without missing a stroke. If she\nmisses, she must yield the ball to another player.[108] There are many\npretty \"ball-play songs;\" but this old-fashioned and long-forgotten one\nis a moral curiosity:--\n\n    [108] This is the more common form of the game; but there are\n          many other forms. Sometimes two girls play at once with\n          the same ball--striking it alternately as it bounds.\n\n    _Hitotsu to ya:_--\n\n        Hito wa ko na hito to iu;\n        On wo shiraneba ko naraji.\n\n    _Futatsu to ya:_--\n\n        Fuji yori takaki chichi no on;\n        Tsune-ni omoute wasure-naji.\n\n    _Mitsu to ya:_--\n\n        Mizu-umi kaette asashi to wa,\n        Haha no on zo ya omou-beshi.\n\n    _Yotsu to ya:_--\n\n        Yoshiya mazushiku kurasu tomo,\n        Sugu-naru michi wo maguru-moji.\n\n    _Itsutsu to ya:_--\n\n        Itsumo kokoro no kawaranu wo,\n        Makoto no hito to omou-beshi.\n\n    _Mutsu to ya:_--\n\n        Munashiku tsukihi wo kurashi-naba,\n        Nochi no nageki to shirinu-beshi.\n\n    _Nanatsu to ya:_--\n\n        Nasaki wa hito no tame narode,\n        Waga mi no tame to omou-beshi.\n\n    _Yatsu to ya:_--\n\n        Yaku-nan muryo no wazawai mo\n        Kokoro zen nara nogaru-beshi.\n\n    _Kokonotsu to ya:_--\n\n        Kokoro kotoba no sugu-naraba,\n        Kami ya Hotoke mo mamoru-beshi.\n\n    _To to ya_:--\n\n        Totoi hito to naru naraba,\n        Koko mono to iwaru-beshi.\n\n    _This is the first_:--\n\n        [Only] a person having filial piety is [worthy to be] called\n            a person:[109]\n        If one does not know the goodness of parents, one has not\n            filial piety.\n\n        [109] Lit., \"A person having filial piety is called a\n              person.\" The word _hito_ (person), usually\n              indicating either a man or a woman, is often used\n              in the signification of \"people\" or \"Mankind.\" The\n              full meaning of the sentence is that no unfilial\n              person deserves to be called a human being.\n\n    _The second_:--\n\n        Higher than the [mountain] Fuji is the favor of a father:\n        Think of it always;--never forget it.\n\n    _The third_:--\n\n        [Compared with a mother's love] the great lake is shallow\n            indeed!\n        [By this saying] the goodness of a mother should be\n            estimated.\n\n    _The fourth_:--\n\n        Even though in poverty we have to pass our days,\n        Let us never turn aside from the one straight path.\n\n    _The fifth:_--\n\n        The person whose heart never changes with time,\n        A true man or woman that person must be deemed.\n\n    _The sixth_:--\n\n        If the time [of the present] be spent in vain,\n        In the time of the future must sorrow be borne.\n\n    _The seventh_:--\n\n        That a kindness done is not for the sake of others only,\n        But also for one's own sake, should well be kept in mind.\n\n    _The eighth_:--\n\n        Even the sorrow of numberless misfortunes\n        We shall easily escape if the heart be pure.\n\n    _The ninth_:--\n\n        If the heart and the speech be kept straight and true,\n        The Gods and the Buddhas will surely guard us well.\n\n    _The tenth_:--\n\n        In order to become a person held in honor,\n        As a filial person one must [first] be known.\n\nThe reader may think to himself, \"How terribly exigent the training that\ncould require the repetition of moral lessons even in a 'ball-play\nsong'!\" True,--but it produced perhaps the very sweetest type of woman\nthat this world has ever known.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn some dance-songs the burthen is made by the mere repetition of the\nlast line, or of part of the last line, of each stanza. The following\nqueer ballad exemplifies the practice, and is furthermore remarkable by\nreason of the curious onomatopoetic choruses introduced at certain\npassages of the recitative:--\n\n                          KANE-MAKI-ODORI UTA\n\n   (\"_Bell-wrapping-dance song_.\"--_Province of Iga--Naga district_)\n\n    A Yamabushi of Kyoto went to Kumano. There resting in the inn\n    Chojaya, by the beach of Shirotaka, he saw a little girl three\n    years old; and he petted and hugged her, playfully promising to\n    make her his wife,--\n\n                                    (Chorus)  _Playfully promising._\n\n    Thereafter that Yamabushi travelled in various provinces;\n    returning only when that girl was thirteen years old. \"O my\n    princess, my princess!\" he cried to her,--\"my little princess,\n    pledged to me by promise!\"--\"O Sir Yamabushi,\" made she\n    answer,--\"good Sir Yamabushi, take me with you now!--\n\n                                           \"_Take me with you now!_\"\n\n    \"O soon,\" he said, \"I shall come again; soon I shall come again:\n    then, when I come again, I shall take you with me,--\n\n                                               \"_Take you with me._\"\n\n    Therewith the Yamabushi, escaping from her, quickly, quickly\n    fled away;--with all haste he fled away. Having passed through\n    Tanabe and passed through Minabe, he fled on over the Komatsu\n    moor,--\n\n                                            _Over the Komatsu moor._\n\n                 KAKKARA, KAKKARA, KAKKARA, KAKKA![110]\n\n        [110] These syllables, forming a sort of special chorus,\n              are simply onomatopes; intended to represent the\n              sound of sandalled feet running at utmost speed.\n\n    Therewith the damsel, pursuing, quickly, quickly followed after\n    him;--with all speed she followed after him. Having passed\n    through Tanabe and passed through Minabe, she pursued him over\n    the Komatsu moor,--\n\n                                            _Over the Komatsu moor._\n\n    Then the Yamabushi, fleeing, came as he fled to the river of\n    Amoda, and cried to the boatman of the river of Amoda,--\"O good\n    boatman, good sir boatman, behind me comes a maid\n    pursuing!--pray do not take her across, good boatman,--\n\n                                               \"_Good sir boatman!_\"\n\n                 _DEBOKU, DEBOKU, DEBOKU, DENDEN!_[111]\n\n        [111] These onomatopes, chanted by all the dancers\n              together in chorus, with appropriate gesture,\n              represent the sound of the ferryman's single oar,\n              or scull, working upon its wooden peg. The\n              syllables have no meaning in themselves.\n\n    Then the damsel, pursuing, came to the river of Amoda and\n    called to the boatman, \"Bring hither the boat!--take me over in\n    the boat!\"--\"No, I will not bring the boat; I will not take you\n    over: my boat is forbidden to carry women!--\n\n                                       \"_Forbidden to carry women!_\"\n\n    \"If you do not take me over, I will cross!--if you do not take\n    me over, I will cross!--there is a way to cross the river of\n    Amoda!\" Taking off her sandals and holding them aloft, she\n    entered the water, and at once turned into a dragon with twelve\n    horns fully grown,--\n\n                                    _With twelve horns fully grown._\n\n    Then the Yamabushi, fleeing, reached the temple Dojoji, and\n    cried to the priests of the temple Dojoji:--\"O good priests,\n    behind me a damsel comes pursuing!--hide me, I beseech you,\n    good sir priests!--\n\n                                               \"_Good sir priests!_\"\n\n    Then the priests, after holding consultation, took down from its\n    place the big bell of the temple; and under it they hid him,--\n\n                                            _Under it they hid him_.\n\n    Then the dragon-maid, pursuing, followed him to the temple\n    Dojoji. For a moment she stood in the gate of the temple: she\n    saw that bell, and viewed it with suspicion. She thought:--\"I\n    must wrap myself about it once.\" She thought:--\"I must wrap\n    myself about it twice!\" At the third wrapping, the bell was\n    melted, and began to flow like boiling water,--\n\n                                               _Like boiling water_.\n\n    So is told the story of the Wrapping of the Bell. Many damsels\n    dwell by the seashore of Japan;--but who among them, like the\n    daughter of the Choja, will become a dragon?--\n\n                                                  _Become a dragon?_\n\n    This is all the Song of the Wrapping of the Bell!--this is all\n    the Song,--\n\n                                                _All the song!_[112]\n\n        [112] This legend forms the subject of several Japanese\n              dramas, both ancient and modern. The original\n              story is that a Buddhist priest, called Anchin,\n              having rashly excited the affection of a maiden\n              named Kiyohime, and being, by reason of his vows,\n              unable to wed her, sought safety from her advances\n              in flight. Kiyohime, by the violence of her\n              frustrated passion, therewith became transformed\n              into a fiery dragon; and in that shape she\n              pursued the priest to the temple called Dojoji,\n              in Kumano (modern Kishu), where he tried to hide\n              himself under the great temple-bell. But the\n              dragon coiled herself round the bell, which at\n              once became red-hot, so that the body of the\n              priest was totally consumed.\n\n              In this rude ballad Kiyohime figures only as the\n              daughter of an inn-keeper,--the _Choja_, or rich\n              man of his village; while the priest Anchin is\n              changed into a Yamabushi. The Yamabushi are, or at\n              least were, wandering priests of the strange sect\n              called Shugendo,--itinerant exorcists and\n              diviners, professing both Shinto and Buddhism. Of\n              late years their practices have been prohibited by\n              law; and a real Yamabushi is now seldom to be met\n              with.\n\n              The temple Dojoji is still a famous place of\n              pilgrimage. It is situated not far from Gobo, on\n              the western coast of Kishu. The incident of Anchin\n              and the dragon is said to have occurred in the\n              early part of the tenth century.\n\nI shall give only one specimen of the true street-ballad,--the kind of\nballad commonly sung by wandering samisen-players. It is written in an\nirregular measure, varying from twelve to sixteen syllables in length;\nthe greater number of lines having thirteen syllables. I do not know the\ndate of its composition; but I am told by aged persons who remember\nhearing it sung when they were children, that it was popular in the\nperiod of Tenpo (1830-1843). It is not divided into stanzas; but there\nare pauses at irregular intervals,--marked by the refrain, _Yanrei!_\n\n                          O-KICHI-SEIZA KUDOKI\n\n                  (\"_The Ditty of O-Kichi and Seiza_\")\n\n    Now hear the pitiful story of two that died for love.--In Kyoto\n    was the thread-shop of Yoemon, a merchant known far and near,--a\n    man of much wealth. His business prospered; his life was\n    fortunate. One daughter he had, an only child, by name O-Kichi:\n    at sixteen years she was lovely as a flower. Also he had a clerk\n    in his house, by name Seiza, just in the prime of youth, aged\n    twenty-and-two.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    Now the young man Seiza was handsome; and O-Kichi fell in love\n    with him at sight. And the two were so often together that their\n    secret affection became known; and the matter came to the ears\n    of the parents of O-Kichi; and the parents, hearing of it, felt\n    that such a thing could not be suffered to continue.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    So at last, the mother, having called O-Kichi into a private\n    room, thus spoke to her:--\"O my daughter, I hear that you have\n    formed a secret relation with the young man Seiza, of our shop.\n    Are you willing to end that relation at once, and not to think\n    any more about that man, O-Kichi?--answer me, O my daughter.\"\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    \"O my dear mother,\" answered O-Kichi, \"what is this that you ask\n    me to do? The closeness of the relation between Seiza and me is\n    the closeness of the relation of the ink to the paper that it\n    penetrates.[113] Therefore, whatever may happen, O mother of\n    mine, to separate from Seiza is more than I can bear.\"\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n        [113] Lit.:--\"that affinity as-for, ink-and-paper-soaked-like\n              affinity.\"\n\n    Then, the father, having called Seiza to the innermost private\n    room, thus spoke to him:--\"I called you here only to tell you\n    this: You have turned the mind of our daughter away from what is\n    right; and even to hear of such a matter is not to be borne.\n    Pack up your things at once, and go!--to-day is the utmost limit\n    of the time that you remain in this house.\"\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    Now Seiza was a native of Osaka. Without saying more than\n    \"Yes--yes,\" he obeyed and went away, returning to his home.\n    There he remained four or five days, thinking only of O-Kichi.\n    And because of his longing for her, he fell sick; and as there\n    was no cure and no hope for him, he died.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    Then one night O-Kichi, in a moment of sleep, saw the face of\n    Seiza close to her pillow,--so plainly that she could not tell\n    whether it was real, or only a dream. And rising up, she looked\n    about; but the form of Seiza had vanished.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    Because of this she made up her mind to go at once to the house\n    of Seiza. And, without being seen by any one, she fled from the\n    home of her parents.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    When she came to the ferry at the next village, she did not take\n    the boat, but went round by another road; and making all haste\n    she found her way to the city of Osaka. There she asked for the\n    house of Seiza; and she learned that it was in a certain street,\n    the third house from a certain bridge.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    Arriving at last before the home of Seiza, she took off her\n    travelling hat of straw; and seating herself on the threshold\n    of the entrance, she cried out:--\"Pardon me kindly!--is not this\n    the house of Master Seiza?\"\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    Then--O the pity of it!--she saw the mother of Seiza, weeping\n    bitterly, and holding in her hand a Buddhist rosary. \"O my good\n    young lady,\" the mother of Seiza asked, \"whence have you come;\n    and whom do you want to see?\"\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    And O-Kichi said:--\"I am the daughter of the thread-merchant\n    of Kyoto. And I have come all the way here only because of the\n    relation that has long existed between Master Seiza and myself.\n    Therefore, I pray you, kindly permit me to see him.\"\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    \"Alas!\" made answer the mother, weeping, \"Seiza, whom you have\n    come so far to see, is dead. To-day is the seventh day from the\n    day on which he died.\" ... Hearing these words, O-Kichi herself\n    could only shed tears.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    But after a little while she took her way to the cemetery. And\n    there she found the sotoba[114] erected above the grave of\n    Seiza; and leaning upon it, she wept aloud.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n        [114] A wooden lath, bearing Buddhist texts, planted\n              above graves. For a full account of the sotoba see\n              _my Exotics and Retrospectives_: \"The Literature\n              of the Dead.\"\n\n    Then--how fearful a thing is the longing of a person[115]--the\n    grave of Seiza split asunder; and the form of Seiza rose up\n    therefrom and spoke.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n        [115] In the original:--_Hito no omoi wa osoroshi mono\n              yo!_--(\"how fearful a thing is the thinking of a\n              person!\"). The word _omoi_, used here in the sense\n              of \"longing,\" refers to the weird power of Seiza's\n              dying wish to see his sweetheart. Even after his\n              burial, this longing has the strength to burst\n              open the tomb.\n\n              --In the old English ballad of \"William and\n              Marjorie\" (see Child: vol. ii. p. 151) there is\n              also a remarkable fancy about the opening and\n              closing of a grave:--\n\n                  She followed him high, she followed him low,\n                    Till she came to yon churchyard green;\n                  _And there the deep grave opened up_,\n                    And young William he lay down.\n\n    \"Ah! is not this O-Kichi that has come? Kind indeed it was to\n    have come to me from so far away! My O-Kichi, do not weep thus.\n    Never again--even though you weep--can we be united in this\n    world. But as you love me truly, I pray you to set some fragrant\n    flowers before my tomb, and to have a Buddhist service said for\n    me upon the anniversary of my death.\"\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n    And with these words the form of Seiza vanished. \"O wait, wait\n    for me!\" cried O-Kichi,--\"wait one little moment![116] I cannot\n    let you return alone!--I shall go with you in a little time!\"\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n        [116] With this episode compare the close of the English\n              ballad \"Sweet William's Ghost\" (Child: vol. ii.,\n              page 148):--\n\n                  \"O stay, my only true love, stay!\"\n                    The constant Margaret cried:\n                  Wan grew her cheeks; she closed her een,\n                    Stretched her soft limbs, and died.\n\n    Then quickly she went beyond the temple-gate to a moat some four\n    or five _cho_[117] distant; and having filled her sleeves with\n    small stones, into the deep water she cast her forlorn body.\n\n                                                           _Yanrei!_\n\n        [117] A _cho_ is about one fifteenth of a mile.\n\nAnd now I shall terminate this brief excursion into unfamiliar\nsong-fields by the citation of two Buddhist pieces. The first is from\nthe famous work _Gempei Seisuiki_ (\"Account of the Prosperity and\nDecline of the Houses of Gen and Hei\"), probably composed during the\nlatter part of the twelfth, or at the beginning of the thirteenth\ncentury. It is written in the measure called _Imayo_,--that is to say,\nin short lines alternately of seven and of five syllables (7, 5; 7, 5;\n7, 5, _ad libitum_). The other philosophical composition is from a\ncollection of songs called _Ryutachi-bushi_ (\"Ryutachi Airs\"), belonging\nto the sixteenth century:--\n\n                                   I\n\n                           (_Measure, Imayo_)\n\n                           Sama mo kokoro mo\n                           Kawaru kana!\n                           Otsuru namida wa\n                           Taki no mizu:\n                           Myo-ho-renge no\n                           Ike to nari;\n                           Guze no fune ni\n                           Sao sashite;\n                           Shizumu waga mi wo\n                           Nose-tamae!\n\n                        Both form and mind--\n                        Lo! how these change!\n                        The falling of tears\n                        Is like the water of a cataract.\n                        Let them become the Pool\n                        Of the Lotos of the Good Law!\n                        Poling thereupon\n                        The Boat of Salvation,\n                        Vouchsafe that my sinking\n                        Body may ride!\n\n                                   II\n\n                    (_Period of Bunroku--1592-1596_)\n\n                Who twice shall live his youth?\n                What flower faded blooms again?\n                Fugitive as dew\n                Is the form regretted,\n                Seen only\n                In a moment of dream.\n\n\n\n\n                               FANTASIES\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n                ... Vainly does each, as he glides,\n                Fable and dream\n                Of the lands which the River of Time\n                Had left ere he woke on its breast,\n                Or shall reach when his eyes have\n                   been closed.\n                                      MATTHEW ARNOLD\n\n\n\n\n                               Noctilucae\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n\nTHE moon had not yet risen; but the vast of the night was all seething\nwith stars, and bridged by a Milky Way of extraordinary brightness.\nThere was no wind; but the sea, far as sight could reach, was running in\nripples of fire,--a vision of infernal beauty. Only the ripplings were\nradiant (between them was blackness absolute);--and the luminosity was\namazing. Most of the undulations were yellow like candle-flame; but\nthere were crimson lampings also,--and azure, and orange, and emerald.\nAnd the sinuous flickering of all seemed, not a pulsing of many waters,\nbut a laboring of many wills,--a fleeting conscious and monstrous,--a\nwrithing and a swarming incalculable, as of dragon-life in some depth of\nErebus.\n\nAnd life indeed was making the sinister splendor of that spectacle--but\nlife infinitesimal, and of ghostliest delicacy,--life illimitable, yet\nephemeral, flaming and fading in ceaseless alternation over the whole\nround of waters even to the sky-line, above which, in the vaster abyss,\nother countless lights were throbbing with other spectral colors.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWatching, I wondered and I dreamed. I thought of the Ultimate Ghost\nrevealed in that scintillation tremendous of Night and Sea;--quickening\nabove me, in systems aglow with awful fusion of the past dissolved, with\nvapor of the life again to be;--quickening also beneath me, in\nmeteor-gushings and constellations and nebulosities of colder\nfire,--till I found myself doubting whether the million ages of the\nsun-star could really signify, in the flux of perpetual dissolution,\nanything more than the momentary sparkle of one expiring noctiluca.\n\nEven with the doubt, the vision changed. I saw no longer the sea of the\nancient East, with its shudderings of fire, but that Flood whose width\nand depth and altitude are one with the Night of Eternity,--the\nshoreless and timeless Sea of Death and Birth. And the luminous haze of\na hundred millions of suns,--the Arch of the Milky Way,--was a single\nsmouldering surge in the flow of the Infinite Tides.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet again there came a change. I saw no more that vapory surge of suns;\nbut the living darkness streamed and thrilled about me with infinite\nsparkling; and every sparkle was beating like a heart,--beating out\ncolors like the tints of the sea-fires. And the lampings of all\ncontinually flowed away, as shivering threads of radiance, into\nillimitable Mystery....\n\nThen I knew myself also a phosphor-point,--one fugitive floating sparkle\nof the measureless current;--and I saw that the light which was mine\nshifted tint with each changing of thought. Ruby it sometimes shone, and\nsometimes sapphire: now it was flame of topaz; again, it was fire of\nemerald. And the meaning of the changes I could not fully know. But\nthoughts of the earthly life seemed to make the light burn red; while\nthoughts of supernal being,--of ghostly beauty and of ghostly\nbliss,--seemed to kindle ineffable rhythms of azure and of violet.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut of white lights there were none in all the Visible. And I\nmarvelled.\n\nThen a Voice said to me:--\n\n\"The White are of the Altitudes. By the blending of the billions they\nare made. Thy part is to help to their kindling. Even as the color of\nthy burning, so is the worth of thee. For a moment only is thy\nquickening; yet the light of thy pulsing lives on: by thy thought, in\nthat shining moment, thou becomest a Maker of Gods.\"\n\n\n\n\n                           A Mystery of Crowds\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n\nWHO has not at some time leaned over the parapet of a bridge to watch\nthe wrinklings and dimplings of the current below,--to wonder at the\ntrembling permanency of surface-shapes that never change, though the\nsubstance of them is never for two successive moments the same? The\nmystery of the spectacle fascinates; and it is worth thinking about.\nSymbols of the riddle of our own being are those shuddering forms. In\nourselves likewise the substance perpetually changes with the flow of\nthe Infinite Stream; but the shapes, though ever agitated by various\ninter-opposing forces, remain throughout the years.\n\nAnd who has not been fascinated also by the sight of the human stream\nthat pours and pulses through the streets of some great metropolis?\nThis, too, has its currents and counter-currents and eddyings,--all\nstrengthening or weakening according to the tide-rise or tide-ebb of the\ncity's sea of toil. But the attraction of the greater spectacle for us\nis not really the mystery of motion: it is rather the mystery of man. As\noutside observers we are interested chiefly by the passing forms and\nfaces,--by their intimations of personality, their suggestions of\nsympathy or repulsion. We soon cease to think about the general flow.\nFor the atoms of the human current are visible to our gaze: we see them\nwalk, and deem their movements sufficiently explained by our own\nexperience of walking. And, nevertheless, the motions of the visible\nindividual are more mysterious than those of the always invisible\nmolecule of water.--I am not forgetting the truth that all forms of\nmotion are ultimately incomprehensible: I am referring only to the fact\nthat our common relative knowledge of motions, which are supposed to\ndepend upon will, is even less than our possible relative knowledge of\nthe behavior of the atoms of a water-current.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery one who has lived in a great city is aware of certain laws of\nmovement which regulate the flow of population through the more crowded\nthoroughfares. (We need not for present purposes concern ourselves about\nthe complex middle-currents of the living river, with their thunder of\nhoofs and wheels: I shall speak of the side-currents only.) On either\nfootpath the crowd naturally divides itself into an upward and a\ndownward stream. All persons going in one direction take the right-hand\nside; all going in the other direction take the left-hand side. By\nmoving with either one of these two streams you can proceed even\nquickly; but you cannot walk against it: only a drunken or insane person\nis likely to attempt such a thing. Between the two currents there is\ngoing on, by reason of the pressure, a continual self-displacement of\nindividuals to left and right, alternately,--such a yielding and\nswerving as might be represented, in a drawing of the double-current, by\nzigzag medial lines ascending and descending. This constant yielding\nalone makes progress possible: without it the contrary streams would\nquickly bring each other to a standstill by lateral pressure. But it is\nespecially where two crowd-streams intersect each other, as at\nstreet-angles, that this systematic self-displacement is worthy of\nstudy. Everybody observes the phenomenon; but few persons think about\nit. Whoever really thinks about it will discover that there is a mystery\nin it,--a mystery which no individual experience can fully explain.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn any thronged street of a great metropolis thousands of people are\nconstantly turning aside to left or right in order to pass each other.\nWhenever two persons walking in contrary directions come face to face in\nsuch a press, one of three things is likely to happen:--Either there is\na mutual yielding,--or one makes room for the other,--or else both, in\ntheir endeavor to be accommodating, step at once in the same direction,\nand as quickly repeat the blunder by trying to correct it, and so keep\ndancing to and fro in each other's way,--until the first to perceive the\nabsurdity of the situation stands still, or until the more irritable\nactually pushes his _vis-a-vis_ to one side. But these blunders are\nrelatively infrequent: all necessary yielding, as a rule, is done\nquickly and correctly.\n\nOf course there must be some general law regulating all this\nself-displacement,--some law in accord with the universal law of motion\nin the direction of least resistance. You have only to watch any\ncrowded street for half an hour to be convinced of this. But the law is\nnot easily found or formulated: there are puzzles in the phenomenon.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf you study the crowd-movement closely, you will perceive that those\nencounters in which one person yields to make way for the other are much\nless common than those in which both parties give way. But a little\nreflection will convince you that, even in cases of mutual yielding, one\nperson must of necessity yield sooner than the other,--though the\ndifference in time of the impulse-manifestation should be--as it often\nis--altogether inappreciable. For the sum of character, physical and\npsychical, cannot be precisely the same in two human beings. No two\npersons can have exactly equal faculties of perception and will, nor\nexactly similar qualities of that experience which expresses itself in\nmental and physical activities. And therefore in every case of apparent\nmutual yielding, the yielding must really be successive, not\nsimultaneous. Now although what we might here call the \"personal\nequation\" proves that in every case of mutual yielding one individual\nnecessarily yields sooner than the other, it does not at all explain the\nmystery of the individual impulse in cases where the yielding is not\nmutual;--it does not explain why you feel at one time that you are about\nto make your _vis-a-vis_ give place, and feel at another time that you\nmust yourself give place. What originates the feeling?\n\nA friend once attempted to answer this question by the ingenious theory\nof a sort of eye-duel between every two persons coming face to face in a\nstreet-throng; but I feel sure that his theory could account for the\npsychological facts in scarcely half-a-dozen of a thousand such\nencounters. The greater number of people hurrying by each other in a\ndense press rarely observe faces: only the disinterested idler has time\nfor that. Hundreds actually pass along the street with their eyes fixed\nupon the pavement. Certainly it is not the man in a hurry who can guide\nhimself by ocular snap-shot views of physiognomy;--he is usually\nabsorbed in his own thoughts.... I have studied my own case repeatedly.\nWhile in a crowd I seldom look at faces; but without any conscious\nobservation I am always able to tell when I should give way, or when my\n_vis-a-vis_ is going to save me that trouble. My knowledge is certainly\nintuitive--a mere knowledge of feeling; and I know not with what to\ncompare it except that blind faculty by which, in absolute darkness, one\nbecomes aware of the proximity of bulky objects without touching them.\nAnd my intuition is almost infallible. If I hesitate to obey it, a\ncollision is the invariable consequence.\n\nFurthermore, I find that whenever automatic, or at least semi-conscious,\naction is replaced by reasoned action--in plainer words, whenever I\nbegin to think about my movements--I always blunder. It is only while I\nam thinking of other matters,--only while I am acting almost\nautomatically,--that I can thread a dense crowd with ease. Indeed, my\npersonal experience has convinced me that what pilots one quickly and\nsafely through a thick press is not conscious observation at all, but\nunreasoning, intuitive perception. Now intuitive action of any kind\nrepresents inherited knowledge, the experience of past lives,--in this\ncase the experience of past lives incalculable.\n\nUtterly incalculable.... Why do I think so? Well, simply because this\nfaculty of intuitive self-direction in a crowd is shared by man with\nvery inferior forms of animal being,--evolutional proof that it must be\na faculty immensely older than man. Does not a herd of cattle, a herd of\ndeer, a flock of sheep, offer us the same phenomenon of mutual yielding?\nOr a flock of birds--gregarious birds especially: crows, sparrows, wild\npigeons? Or a shoal of fish? Even among insects--bees, ants,\ntermites--we can study the same law of intuitive self-displacement. The\nyielding, in all these cases, must still represent an inherited\nexperience unimaginably old. Could we endeavor to retrace the whole\ncourse of such inheritance, the attempt would probably lead us back, not\nonly to the very beginnings of sentient life upon this planet, but\nfurther,--back into the history of non-sentient substance,--back even to\nthe primal evolution of those mysterious tendencies which are stored up\nin the atoms of elements. Such atoms we know of only as points of\nmultiple resistance,--incomprehensible knittings of incomprehensible\nforces. Even the tendencies of atoms doubtless represent accumulations\nof inheritance----but here thought checks with a shock at the eternal\nbarrier of the Infinite Riddle.\n\n\n\n\n                             Gothic Horror\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n                                   I\n\n\nLONG before I had arrived at what catechisms call the age of reason, I\nwas frequently taken, much against my will, to church. The church was\nvery old; and I can see the interior of it at this moment just as\nplainly as I saw it forty years ago, when it appeared to me like an evil\ndream. There I first learned to know the peculiar horror that certain\nforms of Gothic architecture can inspire.... I am using the word\n\"horror\" in a classic sense,--in its antique meaning of ghostly fear.\n\nOn the very first day of this experience, my child-fancy could place the\nsource of the horror. The wizened and pointed shapes of the windows\nimmediately terrified me. In their outline I found the form of\napparitions that tormented me in sleep;--and at once I began to imagine\nsome dreadful affinity between goblins and Gothic churches. Presently,\nin the tall doorways, in the archings of the aisles, in the ribbings and\ngroinings of the roof, I discovered other and wilder suggestions of\nfear. Even the facade of the organ,--peaking high into the shadow above\nits gallery,--seemed to me a frightful thing.... Had I been then\nsuddenly obliged to answer the question, \"What are you afraid of?\" I\nshould have whispered, \"_Those points!_\" I could not have otherwise\nexplained the matter: I only knew that I was afraid of the \"points.\"\n\nOf course the real enigma of what I felt in that church could not\npresent itself to my mind while I continued to believe in goblins. But\nlong after the age of superstitious terrors, other Gothic experiences\nseverally revived the childish emotion in so startling a way as to\nconvince me that childish fancy could not account for the feeling. Then\nmy curiosity was aroused; and I tried to discover some rational cause\nfor the horror. I read many books, and asked many questions; but the\nmystery seemed only to deepen.\n\nBooks about architecture were very disappointing. I was much less\nimpressed by what I could find in them than by references in pure\nfiction to the awfulness of Gothic art,--particularly by one writer's\nconfession that the interior of a Gothic church, seen at night, gave him\nthe idea of being inside the skeleton of some monstrous animal; and by a\nfar-famed comparison of the windows of a cathedral to eyes, and of its\ndoor to a great mouth, \"devouring the people.\" These imaginations\nexplained little; they could not be developed beyond the phase of vague\nintimation: yet they stirred such emotional response that I felt sure\nthey had touched some truth. Certainly the architecture of a Gothic\ncathedral offers strange resemblances to the architecture of bone; and\nthe general impression that it makes upon the mind is an impression\nof life. But this impression or sense of life I found to be\nindefinable,--not a sense of any life organic, but of a life latent and\ndaemonic. And the manifestation of that life I felt to be in the\n_pointing_ of the structure.\n\nAttempts to interpret the emotion by effects of altitude and gloom and\nvastness appeared to me of no worth; for buildings loftier and larger\nand darker than any Gothic cathedral, but of a different order of\narchitecture,--Egyptian, for instance,--could not produce a like\nimpression. I felt certain that the horror was made by something\naltogether peculiar to Gothic construction, and that this something\nhaunted the tops of the arches.\n\n\"Yes, Gothic architecture is awful,\" said a religious friend, \"because\nit is the visible expression of Christian faith. No other religious\narchitecture symbolizes spiritual longing; but the Gothic embodies it.\nEvery part climbs or leaps; every supreme detail soars and points\nlike fire....\" \"There may be considerable truth in what you say,\" I\nreplied;--\"but it does not relate to the riddle that baffles me. Why\nshould shapes that symbolize spiritual longing create horror? Why should\nany expression of Christian ecstasy inspire alarm?...\"\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nOther hypotheses in multitude I tested without avail; and I returned to\nthe simple and savage conviction that the secret of the horror somehow\nbelonged to the points of the archings. But for years I could not find\nit. At last, at last, in the early hours of a certain tropical morning,\nit revealed itself quite unexpectedly, while I was looking at a glorious\ngroup of palms.\n\nThen I wondered at my stupidity in not having guessed the riddle before.\n\n\n                                   II\n\nThe characteristics of many kinds of palm have been made familiar by\npictures and photographs. But the giant palms of the American tropics\ncannot be adequately represented by the modern methods of pictorial\nillustration: they must be seen. You cannot draw or photograph a palm\ntwo hundred feet high.\n\nThe first sight of a group of such forms, in their natural environment\nof tropical forest, is a magnificent surprise,--a surprise that strikes\nyou dumb. Nothing seen in temperate zones,--not even the huger growths\nof the Californian slope,--could have prepared your imagination for the\nweird solemnity of that mighty colonnade. Each stone-grey trunk is a\nperfect pillar,--but a pillar of which the stupendous grace has no\ncounterpart in the works of man. You must strain your head well back to\nfollow the soaring of the prodigious column, up, up, up through abysses\nof green twilight, till at last--far beyond a break in that infinite\ninterweaving of limbs and lianas which is the roof of the forest--you\ncatch one dizzy glimpse of the capital: a parasol of emerald feathers\noutspread in a sky so blinding as to suggest the notion of azure\nelectricity.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow what is the emotion that such a vision excites,--an emotion too\npowerful to be called wonder, too weird to be called delight? Only\nwhen the first shock of it has passed,--when the several elements\nthat were combined in it have begun to set in motion widely different\ngroups of ideas,--can you comprehend how very complex it must have\nbeen. Many impressions belonging to personal experience were\ndoubtless revived in it, but also with them a multitude of sensations\nmore shadowy,--accumulations of organic memory; possibly even vague\nfeelings older than man,--for the tropical shapes that aroused the\nemotion have a history more ancient than our race.\n\nOne of the first elements of the emotion to become clearly\ndistinguishable is the aesthetic; and this, in its general mass, might be\ntermed the sense of terrible beauty. Certainly the spectacle of that\nunfamiliar life,--silent, tremendous, springing to the sun in colossal\naspiration, striving for light against Titans, and heedless of man in\nthe gloom beneath as of a groping beetle,--thrills like the rhythm of\nsome single marvellous verse that is learned in a glance and remembered\nforever. Yet the delight, even at its vividest, is shadowed by a queer\ndisquiet. The aspect of that monstrous, pale, naked, smooth-stretching\ncolumn suggests a life as conscious as the serpent's. You stare at the\ntowering lines of the shape,--vaguely fearing to discern some sign of\nstealthy movement, some beginning of undulation. Then sight and reason\ncombine to correct the suspicion. Yes, motion is there, and life\nenormous--but a life seeking only sun,--life, rushing like the jet of a\ngeyser, straight to the giant day.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nDuring my own experience I could perceive that certain feelings\ncommingled in the wave of delight,--feelings related to ideas of power\nand splendor and triumph,--were accompanied by a faint sense of\nreligious awe. Perhaps our modern aesthetic sentiments are so interwoven\nwith various inherited elements of religious emotionalism that the\nrecognition of beauty cannot arise independently of reverential\nfeeling. Be this as it may, such a feeling defined itself while I\ngazed;--and at once the great grey trunks were changed to the pillars of\na mighty aisle; and from altitudes of dream there suddenly descended\nupon me the old dark thrill of Gothic horror.\n\nEven before it died away, I recognized that it must have been due to\nsome old cathedral-memory revived by the vision of those giant trunks\nuprising into gloom. But neither the height nor the gloom could account\nfor anything beyond the memory. Columns tall as those palms, but\nsupporting a classic entablature, could evoke no sense of disquiet\nresembling the Gothic horror. I felt sure of this,--because I was able,\nwithout any difficulty, to shape immediately the imagination of such a\nfacade. But presently the mental picture distorted. I saw the architrave\nelbow upward in each of the spaces between the pillars, and curve and\npoint itself into a range of prodigious arches;--and again the sombre\nthrill descended upon me. Simultaneously there flashed to me the\nsolution of the mystery. I understood that the Gothic horror was a\n_horror of monstrous motion_,--and that it had seemed to belong to the\npoints of the arches because the idea of such motion was chiefly\nsuggested by the extraordinary angle at which the curves of the arching\ntouched.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo any experienced eye, the curves of Gothic arching offer a striking\nresemblance to certain curves of vegetal growth;--the curves of the\npalm-branch being, perhaps, especially suggested. But observe that the\narchitectural form suggests more than any vegetal comparison could\nillustrate! The meeting of two palm-crests would indeed form a kind of\nGothic arch; yet the effect of so short an arch would be insignificant.\nFor nature to repeat the strange impression of the real Gothic arch, it\nwere necessary that the branches of the touching crests should vastly\nexceed, both in length of curve and strength of spring, anything of\ntheir kind existing in the vegetable world. The effect of the Gothic\narch depends altogether upon the intimation of energy. An arch formed by\nthe intersection of two short sprouting lines could suggest only a\nfeeble power of growth; but the lines of the tall mediaeval arch seem to\nexpress a crescent force immensely surpassing that of nature. And the\nhorror of Gothic architecture is not in the mere suggestion of a\ngrowing life, but in the suggestion of an energy supernatural and\ntremendous.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf course the child, oppressed by the strangeness of Gothic forms, is\nyet incapable of analyzing the impression received: he is frightened\nwithout comprehending. He cannot divine that the points and the curves\nare terrible to him because they represent the prodigious exaggeration\nof a real law of vegetal growth. He dreads the shapes because they\nseem alive; yet he does not know how to express this dread. Without\nsuspecting why, he feels that this silent manifestation of power,\neverywhere pointing and piercing upward, is not natural. To his startled\nimagination, the building stretches itself like a phantasm of\nsleep,--makes itself tall and taller with intent to frighten. Even\nthough built by hands of men, it has ceased to be a mass of dead stone:\nit is infused with Something that thinks and threatens;--it has become\na shadowing malevolence, a multiple goblinry, a monstrous fetish!\n\n\n\n\n                               Levitation\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n\nOUT of some upper-story window I was looking into a street of\nyellow-tinted houses,--a colonial street, old-fashioned, narrow, with\npalm-heads showing above its roofs of tile. There were no shadows; there\nwas no sun,--only a grey soft light, as of early gloaming.\n\nSuddenly I found myself falling from the window; and my heart gave one\nsickening leap of terror. But the distance from window to pavement\nproved to be much greater than I supposed,--so great that, in spite of\nmy fear, I began to wonder. Still I kept falling, falling,--and still\nthe dreaded shock did not come. Then the fear ceased, and a queer\npleasure took its place;--for I discovered that I was not falling\nquickly, but only _floating_ down. Moreover, I was floating feet\nforemost--must have turned in descending. At last I touched the\nstones--but very, very lightly, with only one foot; and instantly at\nthat touch I went up again,--rose to the level of the eaves. People\nstopped to stare at me. I felt the exultation of power superhuman;--I\nfelt for the moment as a god.\n\nThen softly I began to sink; and the sight of faces, gathering below me,\nprompted a sudden resolve to fly down the street, over the heads of the\ngazers. Again like a bubble I rose, and, with the same impulse, I sailed\nin one grand curve to a distance that astounded me. I felt no wind;--I\nfelt nothing but the joy of motion triumphant. Once more touching\npavement, I soared at a bound for a thousand yards. Then, reaching the\nend of the street, I wheeled and came back by great swoops,--by long\nslow aerial leaps of surprising altitude. In the street there was dead\nsilence: many people were looking; but nobody spoke. I wondered what\nthey thought of my feat, and what they would say if they knew how easily\nthe thing was done. By the merest chance I had found out how to do it;\nand the only reason why it seemed a feat was that no one else had ever\nattempted it. Instinctively I felt that to say anything about the\naccident, which had led to the discovery, would be imprudent. Then the\nreal meaning of the strange hush in the street began to dawn upon me. I\nsaid to myself:--\n\n\"This silence is the Silence of Dreams;--I am quite well aware that this\nis a dream. I remember having dreamed the same dream before. But the\ndiscovery of this power is not a dream: _it is a revelation!_ ... Now\nthat I have learned how to fly, I can no more forget it than a swimmer\ncan forget how to swim. To-morrow morning I shall astonish the people,\nby sailing over the roofs of the town.\"\n\nMorning came; and I woke with the fixed resolve to fly out of the\nwindow. But no sooner had I risen from bed than the knowledge of\nphysical relations returned, like a sensation forgotten, and compelled\nme to recognize the unwelcome truth that I had not made any discovery at\nall.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis was neither the first nor the last of such dreams; but it was\nparticularly vivid, and I therefore selected it for narration as a good\nexample of its class. I still fly occasionally,--sometimes over fields\nand streams,--sometimes through familiar streets; and the dream is\ninvariably accompanied by remembrance of like dreams in the past, as\nwell as by the conviction that I have really found out a secret, really\nacquired a new faculty. \"This time, at all events,\" I say to myself, \"it\nis impossible that I can be mistaken;--I _know_ that I shall be able to\nfly after I awake. Many times before, in other dreams, I learned the\nsecret only to forget it on awakening; but this time I am absolutely\nsure that I shall not forget.\" And the conviction actually stays with me\nuntil I rise from bed, when the physical effort at once reminds me of\nthe formidable reality of gravitation.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe oddest part of this experience is the feeling of buoyancy. It is\nmuch like the feeling of floating,--of rising or sinking through tepid\nwater, for example;--and there is no sense of real effort. It is a\ndelight; yet it usually leaves something to be desired. I am a low\nflyer; I can proceed only like a pteromys or a flying-fish--and far less\nquickly: moreover, I must tread earth occasionally in order to obtain a\nfresh impulsion. I seldom rise to a height of more than twenty-five or\nthirty feet;--the greater part of the time I am merely skimming\nsurfaces. Touching the ground only at intervals of several hundred\nyards is pleasant skimming; but I always feel, in a faint and watery\nway, the dead pull of the world beneath me.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow the experience of most dream-flyers I find to be essentially like my\nown. I have met but one who claims superior powers: he says that he\nflies over mountains--goes sailing from peak to peak like a kite. All\nothers whom I have questioned acknowledge that they fly low,--in long\nparabolic curves,--and this only by touching ground from time to time.\nMost of them also tell me that their flights usually begin with an\nimagined fall, or desperate leap; and no less than four say that the\nstart is commonly taken from the top of a stairway.\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\nFor myriads of years humanity has thus been flying by night. How did the\nfancied motion, having so little in common with any experience of active\nlife, become a universal experience of the life of sleep?\n\nIt may be that memory-impressions of certain kinds of aerial\nmotion,--exultant experiences of leaping or swinging, for example,--are\nin dream-revival so magnified and prolonged as to create the illusion\nof flight. We know that in actual time the duration of most dreams is\nvery brief. But in the half-life of sleep--(nightmare offering some\nstartling exceptions)--there is scarcely more than a faint smouldering\nof consciousness by comparison with the quick flash and vivid thrill of\nactive cerebration;--and time, to the dreaming brain, would seem to be\nmagnified, somewhat as it must be relatively magnified to the feeble\nconsciousness of an insect. Supposing that any memory of the sensation\nof falling, together with the memory of the concomitant fear, should be\naccidentally revived in sleep, the dream-prolongation of the sensation\nand the emotion--unchecked by the natural sequence of shock--might\nsuffice to revive other and even pleasurable memories of airy motion.\nAnd these, again, might quicken other combinations of interrelated\nmemories able to furnish all the incident and scenery of the long\nphantasmagoria.\n\nBut this hypothesis will not fully explain certain feelings and ideas of\na character different from any experience of waking-hours,--the\nexultation of voluntary motion without exertion,--the pleasure of the\nutterly impossible,--the ghostly delight of imponderability. Neither\ncan it serve to explain other dream-experiences of levitation which do\nnot begin with the sensation of leaping or falling, and are seldom of a\npleasurable kind. For example, it sometimes happens during nightmare\nthat the dreamer, deprived of all power to move or speak, actually feels\nhis body lifted into the air and floated away by the force of the horror\nwithin him. Again, there are dreams in which the dreamer has no physical\nbeing. I have thus found myself without any body,--a viewless and\nvoiceless phantom, hovering upon a mountain-road in twilight time, and\ntrying to frighten lonely folk by making small moaning noises. The\nsensation was of moving through the air by mere act of will: there was\nno touching of surfaces; and I seemed to glide always about a foot above\nthe road.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nCould the feeling of dream-flight be partly interpreted by organic\nmemory of conditions of life more ancient than man,--life weighty, and\nwinged, and flying heavily, _a little above the ground?_\n\nOr might we suppose that some all-permeating Over-Soul, dormant in other\ntime, wakens within the brain at rare moments of our sleep-life? The\nlimited human consciousness has been beautifully compared to the visible\nsolar spectrum, above and below which whole zones of colors invisible\nawait the evolution of superior senses; and mystics aver that something\nof the ultra-violet or infra-red rays of the vaster Mind may be\nmomentarily glimpsed in dreams. Certainly the Cosmic Life in each of us\nhas been all things in all forms of space and time. Perhaps you would\nlike to believe that it may bestir, in slumber, some vague sense-memory\nof things more ancient than the sun,--memory of vanished planets with\nfainter powers of gravitation, where the normal modes of voluntary\nmotion would have been like the realization of our flying dreams?...\n\n\n\n\n                            Nightmare-Touch\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n                                   I\n\n\nWHAT _is_ the fear of ghosts among those who believe in ghosts?\n\nAll fear is the result of experience,--experience of the individual or\nof the race,--experience either of the present life or of lives\nforgotten. Even the fear of the unknown can have no other origin. And\nthe fear of ghosts must be a product of past pain.\n\nProbably the fear of ghosts, as well as the belief in them, had its\nbeginning in dreams. It is a peculiar fear. No other fear is so\nintense; yet none is so vague. Feelings thus voluminous and dim are\nsuper-individual mostly,--feelings inherited,--feelings made within us\nby the experience of the dead.\n\nWhat experience?\n\nNowhere do I remember reading a plain statement of the reason why ghosts\nare feared. Ask any ten intelligent persons of your acquaintance, who\nremember having once been afraid of ghosts, to tell you exactly why they\nwere afraid,--to define the fancy behind the fear;--and I doubt whether\neven one will be able to answer the question. The literature of\nfolk-lore--oral and written--throws no clear light upon the subject. We\nfind, indeed, various legends of men torn asunder by phantoms; but such\ngross imaginings could not explain the peculiar quality of ghostly fear.\nIt is not a fear of bodily violence. It is not even a reasoning\nfear,--not a fear that can readily explain itself,--which would not be\nthe case if it were founded upon definite ideas of physical danger.\nFurthermore, although primitive ghosts may have been imagined as capable\nof tearing and devouring, the common idea of a ghost is certainly that\nof a being intangible and imponderable.[118]\n\n    [118] I may remark here that in many old Japanese legends and\n          ballads, ghosts are represented as having power to _pull\n          off_ people's heads. But so far as the origin of the fear\n          of ghosts is concerned, such stories explain nothing,--since\n          the experiences that evolved the fear must have been real,\n          not imaginary, experiences.\n\nNow I venture to state boldly that the common fear of ghosts is _the\nfear of being touched by ghosts_,--or, in other words, that the imagined\nSupernatural is dreaded mainly because of its imagined power to touch.\nOnly to _touch_, remember!--not to wound or to kill.\n\nBut this dread of the touch would itself be the result of\nexperience,--chiefly, I think, of prenatal experience stored up in the\nindividual by inheritance, like the child's fear of darkness. And who\ncan ever have had the sensation of being touched by ghosts? The answer\nis simple:--_Everybody who has been seized by phantoms in a dream._\n\nElements of primeval fears--fears older than humanity--doubtless enter\ninto the child-terror of darkness. But the more definite fear of\nghosts may very possibly be composed with inherited results of\ndream-pain,--ancestral experience of nightmare. And the intuitive terror\nof supernatural touch can thus be evolutionally explained.\n\nLet me now try to illustrate my theory by relating some typical\nexperiences.\n\n\n                                   II\n\nWhen about five years old I was condemned to sleep by myself in a\ncertain isolated room, thereafter always called the Child's Room. (At\nthat time I was scarcely ever mentioned by name, but only referred to as\n\"the Child.\") The room was narrow, but very high, and, in spite of one\ntall window, very gloomy. It contained a fire-place wherein no fire was\never kindled; and the Child suspected that the chimney was haunted.\n\nA law was made that no light should be left in the Child's Room at\nnight,--simply because the Child was afraid of the dark. His fear of the\ndark was judged to be a mental disorder requiring severe treatment. But\nthe treatment aggravated the disorder. Previously I had been accustomed\nto sleep in a well-lighted room, with a nurse to take care of me. I\nthought that I should die of fright when sentenced to lie alone in the\ndark, and--what seemed to me then abominably cruel--actually _locked_\ninto my room, the most dismal room of the house. Night after night when\nI had been warmly tucked into bed, the lamp was removed; the key clicked\nin the lock; the protecting light and the footsteps of my guardian\nreceded together. Then an agony of fear would come upon me. Something in\nthe black air would seem to gather and grow--(I thought that I could\neven _hear_ it grow)--till I had to scream. Screaming regularly brought\npunishment; but it also brought back the light, which more than consoled\nfor the punishment. This fact being at last found out, orders were given\nto pay no further heed to the screams of the Child.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy was I thus insanely afraid? Partly because the dark had always\nbeen peopled for me with shapes of terror. So far back as memory\nextended, I had suffered from ugly dreams; and when aroused from them\nI could always _see_ the forms dreamed of, lurking in the shadows of\nthe room. They would soon fade out; but for several moments they would\nappear like tangible realities. And they were always the same\nfigures.... Sometimes, without any preface of dreams, I used to see\nthem at twilight-time,--following me about from room to room, or\nreaching long dim hands after me, from story to story, up through the\ninterspaces of the deep stairways.\n\nI had complained of these haunters only to be told that I must never\nspeak of them, and that they did not exist. I had complained to\neverybody in the house; and everybody in the house had told me the very\nsame thing. But there was the evidence of my eyes! The denial of that\nevidence I could explain only in two ways:--Either the shapes were\nafraid of big people, and showed themselves to me alone, because I was\nlittle and weak; or else the entire household had agreed, for some\nghastly reason, to say what was not true. This latter theory seemed to\nme the more probable one, because I had several times perceived the\nshapes when I was not unattended;--and the consequent appearance of\nsecrecy frightened me scarcely less than the visions did. Why was I\nforbidden to talk about what I saw, and even heard,--on creaking\nstairways,--behind wavering curtains?\n\n\"Nothing will hurt you,\"--this was the merciless answer to all my\npleadings not to be left alone at night. But the haunters _did_ hurt me.\nOnly--they would wait until after I had fallen asleep, and so into their\npower,--for they possessed occult means of preventing me from rising or\nmoving or crying out.\n\nNeedless to comment upon the policy of locking me up alone with these\nfears in a black room. Unutterably was I tormented in that room--for\nyears! Therefore I felt relatively happy when sent away at last to a\nchildren's boarding-school, where the haunters very seldom ventured to\nshow themselves.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey were not like any people that I had ever known. They were shadowy\ndark-robed figures, capable of atrocious self-distortion,--capable, for\ninstance, of growing up to the ceiling, and then across it, and then\nlengthening themselves, head-downwards, along the opposite wall. Only\ntheir faces were distinct; and I tried not to look at their faces. I\ntried also in my dreams--or thought that I tried--to awaken myself from\nthe sight of them by pulling at my eyelids with my fingers; but the\neyelids would remain closed, as if sealed.... Many years afterwards, the\nfrightful plates in Orfila's _Traite des Exhumes_, beheld for the first\ntime, recalled to me with a sickening start the dream-terrors of\nchildhood. But to understand the Child's experience, you must imagine\nOrfila's drawings intensely alive, and continually elongating or\ndistorting, as in some monstrous anamorphosis.\n\nNevertheless the mere sight of those nightmare-faces was not the worst\nof the experiences in the Child's Room. The dreams always began with a\nsuspicion, or sensation of something heavy in the air,--slowly quenching\nwill,--slowly numbing my power to move. At such times I usually found\nmyself alone in a large unlighted apartment; and, almost simultaneously\nwith the first sensation of fear, the atmosphere of the room would\nbecome suffused, half-way to the ceiling, with a sombre-yellowish glow,\nmaking objects dimly visible,--though the ceiling itself remained\npitch-black. This was not a true appearance of light: rather it seemed\nas if the black air were changing color from beneath.... Certain\nterrible aspects of sunset, on the eve of storm, offer like effects of\nsinister color.... Forthwith I would try to escape,--(feeling at every\nstep a sensation _as of wading_),--and would sometimes succeed in\nstruggling half-way across the room;--but there I would always find\nmyself brought to a standstill,--paralyzed by some innominable\nopposition. Happy voices I could hear in the next room;--I could see\nlight through the transom over the door that I had vainly endeavored to\nreach;--I knew that one loud cry would save me. But not even by the\nmost frantic effort could I raise my voice above a whisper.... And all\nthis signified only that the Nameless was coming,--was nearing,--was\nmounting the stairs. I could hear the step,--booming like the sound of a\nmuffled drum,--and I wondered why nobody else heard it. A long, long\ntime the haunter would take to come,--malevolently pausing after each\nghastly footfall. Then, without a creak, the bolted door would\nopen,--slowly, slowly,--and the thing would enter, gibbering\nsoundlessly,--and put out hands,--and clutch me,--and toss me to the\nblack ceiling,--and catch me descending to toss me up again, and again,\nand again.... In those moments the feeling was not fear: fear itself had\nbeen torpified by the first seizure. It was a sensation that has no name\nin the language of the living. For every touch brought a shock of\nsomething infinitely worse than pain,--something that thrilled into the\ninnermost secret being of me,--a sort of abominable electricity,\ndiscovering unimagined capacities of suffering in totally unfamiliar\nregions of sentiency.... This was commonly the work of a single\ntormentor; but I can also remember having been caught by a group, and\ntossed from one to another,--seemingly for a time of many minutes.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nWhence the fancy of those shapes? I do not know. Possibly from some\nimpression of fear in earliest infancy; possibly from some experience of\nfear in other lives than mine. That mystery is forever insoluble. But\nthe mystery of the shock of the touch admits of a definite hypothesis.\n\nFirst, allow me to observe that the experience of the sensation itself\ncannot be dismissed as \"mere imagination.\" Imagination means cerebral\nactivity: its pains and its pleasures are alike inseparable from nervous\noperation, and their physical importance is sufficiently proved by their\nphysiological effects. Dream-fear may kill as well as other fear; and no\nemotion thus powerful can be reasonably deemed undeserving of study.\n\nOne remarkable fact in the problem to be considered is that the\nsensation of seizure in dreams differs totally from all sensations\nfamiliar to ordinary waking life. Why this differentiation? How\ninterpret the extraordinary massiveness and depth of the thrill?\n\nI have already suggested that the dreamer's fear is most probably not a\nreflection of relative experience, but represents the incalculable total\nof ancestral experience of dream-fear. If the sum of the experience of\nactive life be transmitted by inheritance, so must likewise be\ntransmitted the summed experience of the life of sleep. And in normal\nheredity either class of transmissions would probably remain distinct.\n\nNow, granting this hypothesis, the sensation of dream-seizure would have\nhad its beginnings in the earliest phases of dream-consciousness,--long\nprior to the apparition of man. The first creatures capable of thought\nand fear must often have dreamed of being caught by their natural\nenemies. There could not have been much imagining of pain in these\nprimal dreams. But higher nervous development in later forms of\nbeing would have been accompanied with larger susceptibility to\ndream-pain. Still later, with the growth of reasoning-power, ideas\nof the supernatural would have changed and intensified the character of\ndream-fear. Furthermore, through all the course of evolution, heredity\nwould have been accumulating the experience of such feeling. Under those\nforms of imaginative pain evolved through reaction of religious beliefs,\nthere would persist some dim survival of savage primitive fears, and\nagain, under this, a dimmer but incomparably deeper substratum of\nancient animal-terrors. In the dreams of the modern child all these\nlatencies might quicken,--one below another,--unfathomably,--with the\ncoming and the growing of nightmare.\n\nIt may be doubted whether the phantasms of any particular nightmare have\na history older than the brain in which they move. But the shock of the\ntouch would seem to indicate _some point of dream-contact with the total\nrace-experience of shadowy seizure_. It may be that profundities of\nSelf,--abysses never reached by any ray from the life of sun,--are\nstrangely stirred in slumber, and that out of their blackness\nimmediately responds a shuddering of memory, measureless even by\nmillions of years.\n\n\n\n\n                       Readings from a Dream-book\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n\nOFTEN, in the blind dead of the night, I find myself reading a book,--a\nbig broad book,--a dream-book. By \"dream-book,\" I do not mean a book\nabout dreams, but a book made of the stuff that dreams are made of.\n\nI do not know the name of the book, nor the name of its author: I have\nnot been able to see the title-page; and there is no running title. As\nfor the back of the volume, it remains,--like the back of the\nMoon,--invisible forever.\n\nAt no time have I touched the book in any way,--not even to turn a leaf.\nSomebody, always viewless, holds it up and open before me in the dark;\nand I can read it only because it is lighted by a light that comes from\nnowhere. Above and beneath and on either side of the book there is\ndarkness absolute; but the pages seem to retain the yellow glow of\nlamps that once illuminated them.\n\nA queer fact is that I never see the entire text of a page at once,\nthough I see the whole page itself plainly. The text rises, or seems to\nrise, to the surface of the paper as I gaze, and fades out almost\nimmediately after having been read. By a simple effort of will, I can\nrecall the vanished sentences to the page; but they do not come back in\nthe same form as before: they seem to have been oddly revised during the\ninterval. Never can I coax even one fugitive line to reproduce itself\nexactly as it read at first. But I can always force something to return;\nand this something remains sharply distinct during perusal. Then it\nturns faint grey, and appears to sink--as through thick milk--backward\nout of sight.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nBy regularly taking care to write down, immediately upon awakening,\nwhatever I could remember reading in the dream-book, I found myself able\nlast year to reproduce portions of the text. But the order in which I\nnow present these fragments is not at all the order in which I recovered\nthem. If they seem to have any interconnection, this is only because I\ntried to arrange them in what I imagined to be the rational sequence. Of\ntheir original place and relation, I know scarcely anything. And, even\nregarding the character of the book itself, I have been able to discover\nonly that a great part of it consists of dialogues about the\nUnthinkable.\n\n\n                                 Fr. I\n\n... Then the Wave prayed to remain a wave forever.\n\nThe Sea made answer:--\n\n\"Nay, thou must break: there is no rest in me. Billions of billions of\ntimes thou wilt rise again to break, and break to rise again.\"\n\nThe Wave complained:--\n\n\"I fear. Thou sayest that I shall rise again. But when did ever a wave\nreturn from the place of breaking?\"\n\nThe Sea responded:--\n\n\"Times countless beyond utterance thou hast broken; and yet thou art!\nBehold the myriads of the waves that run before thee, and the myriads\nthat pursue behind thee!--all have been to the place of breaking times\nunspeakable; and thither they hasten now to break again. Into me they\nmelt, only to swell anew. But pass they must; for there is not any rest\nin me.\"\n\nMurmuring, the Wave replied:--\n\n\"Shall I not be scattered presently to mix with the mingling of all\nthese myriads? How should I rise again? Never, never again can I become\nthe same.\"\n\n\"The same thou never art,\" returned the Sea, \"at any two moments in thy\nrunning: perpetual change is the law of thy being. What is thine 'I'?\nAlways thou art shaped with the substance of waves forgotten,--waves\nnumberless beyond the sands of the shores of me. In thy multiplicity\nwhat art thou?--a phantom, an impermanency!\"\n\n\"Real is pain,\" sobbed the Wave,--\"and fear and hope, and the joy of the\nlight. Whence and what are these, if I be not real?\"\n\n\"Thou hast no pain,\" the Sea responded,--\"nor fear nor hope nor joy.\nThou art nothing--save in me. I am thy Self, thine 'I': thy form is my\ndream; thy motion is my will; thy breaking is my pain. Break thou must,\nbecause there is no rest in me; but thou wilt break only to rise\nagain,--for death is the Rhythm of Life. Lo! I, too, die that I may\nlive: these my waters have passed, and will pass again, with wrecks of\ninnumerable worlds to the burning of innumerable suns. I, too, am\nmultiple unspeakably: dead tides of millions of oceans revive in mine\nebb and flow. Suffice thee to learn that only because thou wast thou\nart, and that because thou art thou wilt become again.\"\n\nMuttered the Wave,--\n\n\"I cannot understand.\"\n\nAnswered the Sea,--\n\n\"Thy part is to pulse and pass,--never to understand. I also,--even I,\nthe great Sea,--do not understand....\"\n\n\n                                 Fr. II\n\n... \"The stones and the rocks have felt; the winds have been breath and\nspeech; the rivers and oceans of earth have been locked into chambers of\nhearts. And the palingenesis cannot cease till every cosmic particle\nshall have passed through the uttermost possible experience of the\nhighest possible life.\"\n\n\"But what of the planetary core?--has that, too, felt and thought?\"\n\n\"Even so surely as that all flesh has been sun-fire! In the ceaseless\nsuccession of integrations and dissolutions, all things have shifted\nrelation and place numberless billions of times. Hearts of old moons\nwill make the surface of future worlds....\"\n\n\n                                Fr. III\n\n... \"No regret is vain. It is sorrow that spins the thread,--softer\nthan moonshine, thinner than fragrance, stronger than death,--the\nGleipnir-chain of the Greater Memory....\n\n\"In millions of years you will meet again;--and the time will not seem\nlong; for a million years and a moment are the same to the dead. Then\nyou will not be all of your present self, nor she be all that she has\nbeen: both of you will at once be less, and yet incomparably more. Then,\nto the longing that must come upon you, body itself will seem but a\nbarrier through which you would leap to her--or, it may be, to him; for\nsex will have shifted numberless times ere then. Neither will remember;\nbut each will be filled with a feeling immeasurable of having met\nbefore....\"\n\n\n                                 Fr. IV\n\n... \"So wronging the being who loves,--the being blindly imagined but of\nyesterday,--this mocker mocks the divine in the past of the Soul of the\nWorld. Then in that heart is revived the countless million sorrows\nburied in forgotten graves,--all the old pain of Love, in its patient\ncontest with Hate, since the beginning of Time.\n\n\"And the Gods know,--the dim ones who dwell beyond Space,--spinning the\nmysteries of Shape and Name. For they sit at the roots of Life; and the\npain runs back to them; and they feel that wrong,--as the Spider feels\nin the trembling of her web that a thread is broken....\"\n\n\n                                 Fr. V\n\n\"Love at sight is the choice of the dead. But the most of them are older\nthan ethical systems; and the decision of their majorities is rarely\nmoral. They choose by beauty,--according to their memory of physical\nexcellence; and as bodily fitness makes the foundation of mental and of\nmoral power, they are not apt to choose ill. Nevertheless they are\nsometimes strangely cheated. They have been known to want beings that\ncould never help ghost to a body,--hollow goblins....\"\n\n\n                                 Fr. VI\n\n... \"The Animulae making the Self do not fear death as dissolution. They\nfear death only as reintegration,--recombination with the strange and\nthe hateful of other lives: they fear the imprisonment, within another\nbody, of that which loves together with that which loathes....\"\n\n\n                                Fr. VII\n\n... \"In other time the El-Woman sat only in waste places, and by\nsolitary ways. But now in the shadows of cities she offers her breasts\nto youth; and he whom she entices, presently goes mad, and becomes, like\nherself, a hollowness. For the higher ghosts that entered into the\nmaking of him perish at that goblin-touch,--die as the pupa dies in the\ncocoon, leaving only a shell and dust behind....\"\n\n\n                                Fr. VIII\n\n... The Man said to the multitude remaining of his Souls:--\n\n\"I am weary of life.\"\n\nAnd the remnant replied to him:--\n\n\"We also are weary of the shame and pain of dwelling in so vile a\nhabitation. Continually we strive that the beams may break, and the\npillars crack, and the roof fall in upon us.\"\n\n\"Surely there is a curse upon me,\" groaned the Man. \"There is no justice\nin the Gods!\"\n\nThen the Souls tumultuously laughed in scorn,--even as the leaves of a\nwood in the wind do chuckle all together. And they made answer to him:--\n\n\"As a fool thou liest! Did any save thyself make thy vile body? Was it\nshapen--or misshapen--by any deeds or thoughts except thine own?\"\n\n\"No deed or thought can I remember,\" returned the Man, \"deserving that\nwhich has come upon me.\"\n\n\"Remember!\" laughed the Souls. \"No--the folly was in other lives. But we\nremember; and remembering, we hate.\"\n\n\"Ye are all one with me!\" cried the Man,--\"how can ye hate?\"\n\n\"One with thee,\" mocked the Souls,--\"as the wearer is one with his\ngarment!... How can we hate? As the fire that devours the wood from\nwhich it is drawn by the fire-maker--even so we can hate.\"\n\n\"It is a cursed world!\" cried the Man--\"why did ye not guide me?\"\n\nThe Souls replied to him:--\n\n\"Thou wouldst not heed the guiding of ghosts that were wiser than we....\nCowards and weaklings curse the world. The strong do not blame the\nworld: it gives them all that they desire. By power they break and take\nand keep. Life for them is a joy, a triumph, an exultation. But\ncreatures without power merit nothing; and nothingness becomes their\nportion. Thou and we shall presently enter into nothingness.\"\n\n\"Do ye fear?\"--asked the Man.\n\n\"There is reason for fear,\" the Souls answered. \"Yet no one of us would\nwish to delay the time of what we fear by continuing to make part of\nsuch an existence as thine.\"\n\n\"But ye have died innumerable times?\"--wonderingly said the Man.\n\n\"No, we have not,\" said the Souls,--\"not even once that we can remember;\nand our memory reaches back to the beginnings of this world. We die only\nwith the race.\"\n\nThe Man said nothing,--being afraid. The Souls resumed:--\n\n\"Thy race ceases. Its continuance depended upon thy power to serve our\npurposes. Thou hast lost all power. What art thou but a charnel-house,\na mortuary-pit? Freedom we needed, and space: here we have been\ncompacted together, a billion to a pin-point! Doorless our chambers and\nblind;--and the passages are blocked and broken;--and the stairways lead\nto nothing. Also there are Haunters here, not of our kind,--Things never\nto be named.\"\n\nFor a little time the Man thought gratefully of death and dust. But\nsuddenly there came into his memory a vision of his enemy's face, with a\nwicked smile upon it. And then he wished for longer life,--a hundred\nyears of life and pain,--only to see the grass grow tall above the\ngrave of that enemy. And the Souls mocked his desire:--\n\n\"Thine enemy will not waste much thought upon thee. He is no\nhalf-man,--thine enemy! The ghosts in that body have room and great\nlight. High are the ceilings of their habitation; wide and clear the\npassageways; luminous the courts and pure. Like a fortress excellently\ngarrisoned is the brain of thine enemy;--and to any point thereof the\ndefending hosts can be gathered for battle in a moment together. _His_\ngeneration will not cease--nay! that face of his will multiply\nthroughout the centuries! Because thine enemy in every time provided for\nthe needs of his higher ghosts: he gave heed to their warnings; he\npleasured them in all just ways; he did not fail in reverence to them.\nWherefore they now have power to help him at his need.... How hast thou\nreverenced or pleasured us?\"\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Man remained silent for a space. Then, as in horror of doubting, he\nquestioned:--\n\n\"Wherefore should ye fear--if nothingness be the end?\"\n\n\"What is nothingness?\" the Souls responded. \"Only in the language of\ndelusion is there an end. That which thou callest the end is in truth\nbut the very beginning. The essence of us cannot cease. In the burning\nof worlds it cannot be consumed. It will shudder in the cores of great\nstars;--it will quiver in the light of other suns. And once more, in\nsome future cosmos, it will reconquer knowledge--but only after\nevolutions unthinkable for multitude. Even out of the nameless\nbeginnings of form, and thence through every cycle of vanished\nbeing,--through all successions of exhausted pain,--through all the\nAbyss of the Past,--it must climb again.\"\n\nThe Man uttered no word: the Souls spoke on:--\n\n\"For millions of millions of ages must we shiver in tempests of fire:\nthen shall we enter anew into some slime primordial,--there to quicken,\nand again writhe upward through all foul dumb blind shapes. Innumerable\nthe metamorphoses!--immeasurable the agonies!... And the fault is not of\nany Gods: it is thine!\"\n\n\"Good or evil,\" muttered the Man,--\"what signifies either? The best must\nbecome as the worst in the grind of the endless change.\"\n\n\"Nay!\" cried out the Souls; \"for the strong there is a goal,--the goal\nthat thou couldst not strive to gain. They will help to the fashioning\nof fairer worlds;--they will win to larger light;--they will tower and\nsoar as flame to enter the Zones of the Divine. But thou and we go\nback to slime! Think of the billion summers that might have been for\nus!--think of the joys, the loves, the triumphs cast away!--the dawns\nof the knowledge undreamed,--the glories of sense unimagined,--the\nexultations of illimitable power!... think, think, O fool, of all that\nthou hast lost!\"\n\nThen the Souls of the Man turned themselves into worms, and devoured\nhim.\n\n\n\n\n                           In a Pair of Eyes\n\n                              [Decoration]\n\n\nTHERE is one adolescent moment never to be forgotten,--the moment when\nthe boy learns that this world contains nothing more wonderful than a\ncertain pair of eyes. At first the surprise of the discovery leaves\nhim breathless: instinctively he turns away his gaze. That vision\nseemed too delicious to be true. But presently he ventures to look\nagain,--fearing with a new fear,--afraid of the reality, afraid also\nof being observed;--and lo! his doubt dissolves in a new shock of\necstasy. Those eyes are even more wonderful than he had imagined--nay!\nthey become more and yet more entrancing every successive time that he\nlooks at them! Surely in all the universe there cannot be another such\npair of eyes! What can lend them such enchantment? Why do they appear\ndivine?... He feels that he must ask somebody to explain,--must\npropound to older and wiser heads the riddle of his new emotions. Then\nhe makes his confession, with a faint intuitive fear of being laughed\nat, but with a strange, fresh sense of rapture in the telling. Laughed\nat he is--tenderly; but this does not embarrass him nearly so much as\nthe fact that he can get no answer to his question,--to the simple\n\"Why?\" made so interesting by his frank surprise and his timid\nblushes. No one is able to enlighten him; but all can sympathize with\nthe bewilderment of his sudden awakening from the long soul-sleep of\nchildhood.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nPerhaps that \"Why?\" never can be fully answered. But the mystery that\nprompted it constantly tempts one to theorize; and theories may have a\nworth independent of immediate results. Had it not been for old theories\nconcerning the Unknowable, what should we have been able to learn about\nthe Knowable? Was it not while in pursuit of the Impossible that we\nstumbled upon the undreamed-of and infinitely marvellous Possible?\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy indeed should a pair of human eyes appear for a time to us so\nbeautiful that, when likening their radiance to splendor of diamond or\namethyst or emerald, we feel the comparison a blasphemy? Why should we\nfind them deeper than the sea, deeper than the day,--deep even as the\nnight of Space, with its scintillant mist of suns? Certainly not because\nof mere wild fancy. These thoughts, these feelings, must spring from\nsome actual perception of the marvellous,--some veritable revelation of\nthe unspeakable. There is, in very truth, one brief hour of life during\nwhich the world holds for us nothing so wonderful as a pair of eyes. And\nthen, while looking into them, we discover a thrill of awe vibrating\nthrough our delight,--awe made by a something _felt_ rather than seen: a\nlatency,--a power,--a shadowing of depth unfathomable as the cosmic\nEther. It is as though, through some intense and sudden stimulation of\nvital being, we had obtained--for one supercelestial moment--the glimpse\nof a reality, never before imagined, and never again to be revealed.\n\nThere is, indeed, an illusion. We seem to view the divine; but this\ndivine itself, whereby we are dazzled and duped, is a ghost. Not to\nactuality belongs the spell,--not to anything that is,--but to some\ninfinite composite phantom of what has been. Wondrous the vision--but\nwondrous only because our mortal sight then pierces beyond the surface\nof the present into profundities of myriads of years,--pierces beyond\nthe mask of life into the enormous night of death. For a moment we are\nmade aware of a beauty and a mystery and a depth unutterable: then the\nVeil falls again forever.\n\nThe splendor of the eyes that we worship belongs to them only as\nbrightness to the morning-star. It is a reflex from beyond the shadow of\nthe Now,--a ghost-light of vanished suns. Unknowingly within that\nmaiden-gaze we meet the gaze of eyes more countless than the hosts of\nheaven,--eyes otherwhere passed into darkness and dust.\n\nThus, and only thus, the depth of that gaze is the depth of the Sea of\nDeath and Birth,--and its mystery is the World-Soul's vision, watching\nus out of the silent vast of the Abyss of Being.\n\nThus, and only thus, do truth and illusion mingle in the magic of\neyes,--the spectral past suffusing with charm ineffable the apparition\nof the present;--and the sudden splendor in the soul of the Seer is but\na flash,--one soundless sheet-lightning of the Infinite Memory.\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:\n\nSome of the illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up\nparagraphs and so they correspond to the text, thus the page number of\nthe illustration no longer matches the page number in the List of\nIllustrations.\n\nRepeated chapter titles have been deleted.\n\nThroughout the document, vowels having macrons in Japanese words are\nindicated by vowels having circumflexes. For example, English word for\nthe Japanese capital (currently written in Japanese romanji as toukyou)\nused to be written as Tokyo, but with macrons associated with each\nletter \"o\". In this text the Japanese capital would be written as Tokyo.\n\nThroughout the document, there are instances where punctuation seems to\nbe missing, but it is unclear whether the missing punctuation is\ndeliberate or what the missing punctuation should be. In those cases the\npunctuation was not \"corrected\".\n\nAlso, throughout the document, the [oe] ligature was replaced with \"oe\".\n\nPassages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.\n\nSmall caps have been replaced with ALL CAPS.\n\nSometimes in the text the word \"Samebito\" was italicized and sometimes\nit was not italicized. That inconsistency was persevered.\n\nIn the third footnote, which began on page 15, there was a missing close\nquotation mark. That \"error in punctuation\" was not changed, as it\nappeared in a quotation from another work.\n\nOn page 55, a period was added after \"Kibun-Anbaiyoshi\".\n\nOn page 57, \"Setagawa\" was replaced with \"Setagawa\".\n\nOn page 140, two footnote markers point to footnote 83. That is because\nthe footnote is about the two words marked by the two footnote marker.\nThat was how it was in the original text.\n\nOn page 143, a transcriber's note was added right after the illustration\nexplaining the connections draw between the five elemental-natures and\nthe Japanese syllabary.\n\nOn page 178, an emdash was added after \"Sixthly,\".\n\nOn page 178, \"processsion\" was replaced with \"procession\".\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Shadowings","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":38974}