PLATE V.
1, " Tsuku-tsuku-Bōshi" also called "Kutsu-ku, Bōshi," etc. (Cosmopsaltria Opalifera?)
2, Tsuri gané-Zémi.
3, The Phantom.
Matsu no ki ni
Shimikomu gotoshi
Sémi no koë.
Into the wood of the pine-tree
Seems to soak
The voice of the sémi.
A very large number of Japanese poems about sémi describe the noise of the creatures as an affliction. To fully sympathize with the complaints of the poets, one must have heard certain varieties of Japanese cicadæ in full midsummer chorus; but even by readers without experience of the clamor, the following verses will probably be found suggestive:—
Waré hitori
Atsui yō nari,—
Sémi no koë!
—BunsŌ.
Meseems that only I,—I alone among mortals,—
Ever suffered such heat!—oh, the noise of the sémi!
Ushiro kara
Tsukamu yō nari,—
Sémi no koë.
—JofŪ.
Oh, the noise of the sémi!—a pain of invisible seizure,—
Clutched in an enemy's grasp,—caught by the hair from behind!
Yama no Kami no
Mimi no yamai ka?—
Sémi no koë!
—Teikoku.
What ails the divinity's ears?—how can the God of the Mountain
Suffer such noise to exist?—oh, the tumult of sémi!
Soko no nai
Atsusa ya kumo ni
Sémi no koë!
—Saren.
Fathomless deepens the heat: the ceaseless shrilling of sémi
Mounts, like a hissing of fire, up to the motionless clouds.
Mizu karété,
Sémi wo fudan-no
Taki no koë.
—Gen-U.
Water never a drop: the chorus of sémi, incessant,
Mocks the tumultuous hiss,—the rush and foaming of rapids.
Kagéroishi
Kumo mata satté,
Sémi no koë.
—KitŌ.
Gone, the shadowing clouds!—again the shrilling of sémi
Rises and slowly swells,—ever increasing the heat!
Daita ki wa,
Ha mo ugokasazu,—
Sémi no koë!
—KafŪ.
Somewhere fast to the bark he clung; but I cannot see him:
He stirs not even a leaf—oh! the noise of that sémi!
Tonari kara
Kono ki nikumu ya!
Sémi no koë.
—Gyukaku.
All because of the sémi that sit and shrill on its branches—
Oh! how this tree of mine is hated now by my neighbor!
This reminds one of Yayū. We find another poet compassionating a tree frequented by sémi:—
Kazé wa mina
Sémi ni suwarété,
Hito-ki kana!
—ChŌsui.
Alas! poor solitary tree!—pitiful now your lot,—every breath of air having been sucked up by the sémi!
Sometimes the noise of the sémi is described as a moving force:—
Sémi no koë
Ki-gi ni ugoité,
Kazé mo nashi!
—SŌyŌ.
Every tree in the wood quivers with clamor of sémi:
Motion only of noise—never a breath of wind!
Také ni kité,
Yuki yori omoshi
Sémi no koë.
—TŌgetsu.
More heavy than winter-snow the voices of perching sémi:
See how the bamboos bend under the weight of their song!1
Morogoë ni
Yama ya ugokasu,
Ki-gi no sémi.
All shrilling together, the multitudinous sémi
Make, with their ceaseless clamor, even the mountain move.
Kusunoki mo
Ugoku yō nari,
Sémi no koë.
—Baijaku.
Even the camphor-tree seems to quake with the clamor of sémi!
Sometimes the sound is compared to the noise of boiling water:—
Hizakari wa
Niétatsu sémi no
Hayashi kana!
In the hour of heaviest heat, how simmers the forest with sémi!
Niété iru
Mizu bakari nari—
Sémi no koë.
—Taimu.
Simmers all the air with sibilation of sémi,
Ceaseless, wearying sense,—a sound of perpetual boiling.
Other poets complain especially of the multitude of the noise-makers and the ubiquity of the noise:—
Aritaké no
Ki ni hibiki-kéri
Sémi no koë.
How many soever the trees, in each rings the voice of the sémi.
Matsubara wo
Ichi ri wa kitari,
Sémi no koë.
—Senga.
Alone I walked for miles into the wood of pine-trees:
Always the one same sémi shrilled its call in my ears.
Occasionally the subject is treated with comic exaggeration:—
Naité iru
Ki yori mo futoshi
Sémi no koë.
The voice of the sémi is bigger [thicker] than the tree on which it sings.
Sugi takashi
Sarédomo sémi no
Amaru koë!
High though the cedar be, the voice of the sémi is incomparably higher!
Koë nagaki
Sémi wa mijikaki
Inochi kana!
How long, alas! the voice and how short the life of the sémi!
Some poets celebrate the negative form of pleasure following upon the cessation of the sound:—
Sémi ni dété,
Hotaru ni modoru,—
Suzumi kana!
—YayŪ.
When the sémi cease their noise, and the fireflies come out—oh! how refreshing the hour!
Sémi no tatsu,
Ato suzushisa yo!
Matsu no koë.
—Baijaku.
When the sémi cease their storm, oh, how refreshing the stillness!
Gratefully then resounds the musical speech of the pines.
[Here I may mention, by the way, that there is a little Japanese song about the matsu no koë, in which the onomatope "zazanza" very well represents the deep humming of the wind in the pine-needles:—
Zazanza!
Hama-matsu no oto wa,—
Zazanza,
Zazanza!
Zazanza!
The sound of the pines of the shore,—
Zazanza!
Zazanza!]
There are poets, however, who declare that the feeling produced by the noise of sémi depends altogether upon the nervous condition of the listener:—
Mori no sémi
Suzushiki koë ya,
Atsuki koë.
—Otsushu.
Sometimes sultry the sound; sometimes, again, refreshing:
The chant of the forest-sémi accords with the hearer's mood.
Suzushisa mo
Atsusa mo sémi no
Tokoro kana!
—Fuhaku.
Sometimes we think it cool,—the resting-place of the sémi;—sometimes we think it hot (it is all a matter of fancy).
Suzushii to
Omoéba, suzushi
Sémi no koë.
—GinkŌ.
If we think it is cool, then the voice of the sémi is cool (that is, the fancy changes the feeling).
In view of the many complaints of Japanese poets about the noisiness of sémi, the reader may be surprised to learn that out of sémi-skins there used to be made in both China and Japan—perhaps upon homoeopathic principles—a medicine for the cure of ear-ache!
One poem, nevertheless, proves that sémi-music has its admirers:—
Omoshiroi zo ya,
Waga-ko no koë wa
>
Takai mori-ki no
Sémi no koë!1
Sweet to the ear is the voice of one's own child as the voice of a sémi perched on a tall forest tree.
But such admiration is rare. More frequently the sémi is represented as crying for its nightly repast of dew:—
Sémi wo kiké,—
Ichi-nichi naité
Yoru no tsuyu.
—Kikaku.
Hear the sémi shrill! So, from earliest dawning,
All the summer day he cries for the dew of night.
Yū-tsuyu no
Kuchi ni iru madé
Naku sémi ka?
—Baishitsu.
Will the sémi continue to cry till the night-dew fills its mouth?
Occasionally the sémi is mentioned in love-songs of which the following is a fair specimen. It belongs to that class of ditties commonly sung by geisha. Merely as a conceit, I think it pretty, in spite of the factitious pathos; but to Japanese taste it is decidedly vulgar. The allusion to beating implies jealousy:—
Nushi ni tatakaré,
Washa matsu no sémi
Sugaritsuki-tsuki
Naku bakari!
Beaten by my jealous lover,—
Like the sémi on the pine-tree
I can only cry and cling!
And indeed the following tiny picture is a truer bit of work, according to Japanese art-principles (I do not know the author's name):—
Sémi hitotsu
Matsu no yū-hi wo
Kakaé-kéri.
Lo! on the topmost pine, a solitary cicada
Vainly attempts to clasp one last red beam of sun.
IV
Philosophical verses do not form a numerous class of Japanese poems upon sémi; but they possess an interest altogether exotic. As the metamorphosis of the butterfly supplied to old Greek thought an emblem of the soul's ascension, so the natural history of the cicada has furnished Buddhism with similitudes and parables for the teaching of doctrine.
Man sheds his body only as the sémi sheds its skin. But each reincarnation obscures the memory of the previous one: we remember our former existence no more than the sémi remembers the shell from which it has emerged. Often a sémi may be found in the act of singing beside its cast-off skin; therefore a poet has written:—
Waré to waga
Kara ya tomurō—
Sémi no koë.
—YayŪ.
Methinks that sémi sits and sings by his former body,—
Chanting the funeral service over his own dead self.
This cast-off skin, or simulacrum,—clinging to bole or branch as in life, and seeming still to stare with great glazed eyes,—has suggested many things both to profane and to religious poets. In love-songs it is often likened to a body consumed by passionate longing. In Buddhist poetry it becomes a symbol of earthly pomp,—the hollow show of human greatness:—
Yo no naka yo
Kaëru no hadaka,
Sémi no kinu!
Naked as frogs and weak we enter this life of trouble;
Shedding our pomps we pass: so sémi quit their skins.
But sometimes the poet compares the winged and shrilling sémi to a human ghost, and the broken shell to the body left behind:—
Tamashii wa
Ukiyo ni naité,
Sémi no kara.
Here the forsaken shell: above me the voice of the creature
Shrills like the cry of a Soul quitting this world of pain.
Then the great sun-quickened tumult of the cicadæ—landstorm of summer life foredoomed so soon to pass away—is likened by preacher and poet to the tumult of human desire. Even as the sémi rise from earth, and climb to warmth and light, and clamor, and presently again return to dust and silence,—so rise and clamor and pass the generations of men:—
Yagaté shinu
Keshiki wa miézu,
Sémi no koë.
—BashŌ.
Never an intimation in all those voices of sémi
How quickly the hush will come,—how speedily all must die.
I wonder whether the thought in this little verse does not interpret something of that summer melancholy which comes to us out of nature's solitudes with the plaint of insect-voices. Unconsciously those millions of millions of tiny beings are preaching the ancient wisdom of the East,—the perpetual Sûtra of Impermanency.
Yet how few of our modern poets have given heed to the voices of insects!
Perhaps it is only to minds inexorably haunted by the Riddle of Life that Nature can speak today, in those thin sweet trillings, as she spake of old to Solomon.
The Wisdom of the East hears all things. And he that obtains it will hear the speech of insects,—as Sigurd, tasting the Dragon's Heart, heard suddenly the talking of birds.
Note.—For the pictures of sémi accompanying this paper, I am indebted to a curious manuscript work in several volumes, preserved in the Imperial Library at Uyéno. The work is entitled Chūfu-Zusetsu,—which might be freely rendered as "Pictures and Descriptions of Insects,"—and is divided into twelve books. The writer's name is unknown; but he must have been an amiable and interesting person, to judge from the naïve preface which he wrote, apologizing for the labors of a lifetime. "When I was young," he says, "I was very fond of catching worms and insects, and making pictures of their shapes,—so that these pictures have now become several hundred in number." He believes that he has found a good reason for studying insects: "Among the multitude of living creatures in this world,'' he says, "those having large bodies are familiar: we know very well their names, shapes, and virtues, and the poisons which they possess. But there remain very many small creatures whose natures are still unknown, notwithstanding the fact that such little beings as insects and worms are able to injure men and to destroy what has value. So I think that it is very important for us to learn what insects or worms have special virtues or poisons." It appears that he had sent to him "from other countries" some kinds of insects "that eat the leaves and shoots of trees;" but he could not "get their exact names." For the names of domestic insects, he consulted many Chinese and Japanese books, and has been "able to write the names with the proper Chinese characters;" but he tells us that he did not fail "to pick up also the names given to worms and insects by old farmers and little boys." The preface is dated thus:—"Ansei Kanoté, the third month—at a little cottage " [1856].
With the introduction of scientific studies the author of the Chūfu-Zusetsu could no longer hope to attract attention. Yet his very modest and very beautiful work was forgotten only a moment. It is now a precious curiosity; and the old man's ghost might to-day find some happiness in a visit to the Imperial Library.
Footnotes
1 The curious markings on the head of one variety of Japanese sémi are believed to be characters which are names of souls.
1 In this and other citations from the Greek anthology, I have depended upon Burges' translation.
1 That is to say, upon the 16th day of the 7th month.
1 This sémi appears to be chiefly known in Shikoku.
1 Speaking of his own attempt to make a drawing of the interior, he observes: "Il manque à ce logis dessiné son air frêle et sa sonorité de violon sec. Dans les traits de crayon qui représentent les boiseries, il n'y a pas la précision minutieuse avec laquelle elles sont ouvragées, ni leur antiquité extrême, ni leur propreté parfaite, ni les vibrations de cigales qu'elles semblent avoir emmagasinées pendant des centaines d'étés dans leurs fibres desséchées."
1 Japanese artists have found many a charming inspiration in the spectacle of bamboos bending under the weight of snow clinging to their tops.
1 There is another version of this poem:—
Omoshiroi zo ya,
Waga-ko no naku wa
Sembu-ségaki no
Kyō yori mo!
"More sweetly sounds the crying of one's own child than even the chanting of the sûtra in the service for the dead." The Buddhist service alluded to is
held to be particularly beautiful.
Japanese Female Names
Japanese Female Names
I
BY the Japanese a certain kind of girl is called a Rose-Girl,—Bara-Musumè. Perhaps my reader will think of Tennyson's "queen-rose of the rosebud-garden of girls," and imagine some analogy between the Japanese and the English idea of femininity symbolized by the rose. But there is no analogy whatever. The Bara-Musumé is not so called because she is delicate and sweet, nor because she blushes, nor because she is rosy; indeed, a rosy face is not admired in Japan. No; she is compared to a rose chiefly for the reason that a rose has thorns. The man who tries to pull a Japanese rose is likely to hurt his fingers. The man who tries to win a Bara-Musumé is apt to hurt himself much more seriously,—even unto death. It were better, alone and unarmed, to meet a tiger than to invite the caress of a Rose-Girl.
Now the appellation of Bara-Musumé—much more rational as a simile than many of our own floral comparisons—can seem strange only because it is not in accord with our poetical usages and emotional habits. It is one in a thousand possible examples of the fact that Japanese similes and metaphors are not of the sort that he who runs may read. And this fact is particularly well exemplified in the yobina, or personal names of Japanese women. Because a yobina happens to be identical with the name of some tree, or bird, or flower, it does not follow that the personal appellation conveys to Japanese imagination ideas resembling those which the corresponding English word would convey, under like circumstances, to English imagination. Of the yobina that seem to us especially beautiful in translation, only a small number are bestowed for æsthetic reasons. Nor is it correct to suppose, as many persons still do, that Japanese girls are usually named after flowers, or graceful shrubs, or other beautiful objects. Æsthetic appellations are in use; but the majority of yobina are not æsthetic. Some years ago a young Japanese scholar published an interesting essay upon this subject. He had collected the personal names of about four hundred students of the Higher Normal School for Females,—girls from every part of the Empire; and he found on his list only between fifty and sixty names possessing æsthetic quality. But concerning even these he was careful to observe only that they "caused an æsthetic sensation,"—not that they had been given for æsthetic reasons. Among them were such names as Saki (Cape), Miné (Peak), Kishi (Beach), Hama (Shore), Kuni (Capital),—originally place-names;—Tsuru (Stork), Tazu (Ricefield Stork), and Chizu (Thousand Storks);—also such appellations as Yoshino (Fertile Field), Orino (Weavers' Field), Shirushi (Proof), and Masago (Sand). Few of these could seem æsthetic to a Western mind; and probably no one of them was originally given for æsthetic reasons. Names containing the character for "Stork" are names having reference to longevity, not to beauty; and a large number of names with the termination "no" (field or plain) are names referring to moral qualities. I doubt whether even fifteen per cent of yobina are really æsthetic. A very much larger proportion are names expressing moral or mental qualities. Tenderness, kindness, deftness, cleverness, are frequently represented by yobina; but appellations implying physical charm, or suggesting æsthetic ideas only, are comparatively uncommon. One reason for the fact may be that very æsthetic names are given to geisha and to jōro, and consequently vulgarized. But the chief reason certainly is that the domestic virtues still occupy in Japanese moral estimate a place not less important than that accorded to religious faith in the life of our own Middle Ages. Not in theory only, but in every-day practice, moral beauty is placed far above physical beauty; and girls are usually selected as wives, not for their good looks, but for their domestic qualities. Among the middle classes a very æsthetic name would not be considered in the best taste; among the poorer classes, it would scarcely be thought respectable. Ladies of rank, on the other hand, are privileged to bear very poetical names; yet the majority of the aristocratic yobina also are moral rather than æsthetic.
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