🧚 Names of Incense Used., part 8

II1

Recently while looking over a manuscript-collection of verses,—mostly short poems of an emotional or descriptive character,—it occurred to me that a selection from them might serve to illustrate certain Japanese qualities of sentiment, as well as some little-known Japanese theories of artistic expression,—and I ventured forthwith, upon this essay.2 The poems, which had been collected for me by different persons at many different times and places, were chiefly of the kind written on particular occasions, and cast into forms more serried, if not also actually briefer, than anything in Western prosody.3 Probably few of my readers are aware of two curious facts relating to this order of composition.4 Both facts are exemplified in the history and in the texts of my collection,—though I cannot hope, in my renderings, to reproduce the original effect, whether of imagery or of feeling.5

The first curious fact is that, from very ancient times, the writing of short poems has been practised in Japan even more as a moral duty than as a mere literary art.6 The old ethical teaching was somewhat like this:—“Are you very angry?—do not say anything unkind, but compose a poem.7 Is your best-beloved dead?—do not yield to useless grief, but try to calm your mind by making a poem.8 Are you troubled because you are about to die, leaving so many things unfinished?—be brave, and write a poem on death!9 Whatever injustice or misfortune disturbs you, put aside your resentment or your sorrow as soon as possible, and write a few lines of sober and elegant verse for a moral exercise.”10 Accordingly, in the old days, every form of trouble was encountered with a poem.11 Bereavement, separation, disaster called forth verses in lieu of plaints.12 The lady who preferred death to loss of honor, composed a poem before piercing her throat The samurai sentenced to die by his own hand, wrote a poem before performing _hara-kiri_.13 Even in this less romantic era of Meiji, young people resolved upon suicide are wont to compose some verses before quitting the world.14 Also it is still the good custom to write a poem in time of ill-fortune.15 I have frequently known poems to be written under the most trying circumstances of misery or suffering,—nay even upon a bed of death;-and if the verses did not display any extraordinary talent, they at least afforded extraordinary proof of self-mastery under pain….16 Surely this fact of composition as ethical practice has larger interest than all the treatises ever written about the rules of Japanese prosody.17

The other curious fact is only a fact of aesthetic theory.18 The common art-principle of the class of poems under present consideration is identical with the common principle of Japanese pictorial illustration.19 By the use of a few chosen words the composer of a short poem endeavors to do exactly what the painter endeavors to do with a few strokes of the brush,—to evoke an image or a mood,—to revive a sensation or an emotion.20 And the accomplishment of this purpose,—by poet or by picture-maker,—depends altogether upon capacity to _suggest_, and only to suggest.21 A Japanese artist would be condemned for attempting elaboration of detail in a sketch intended to recreate the memory of some landscape seen through the blue haze of a spring morning, or under the great blond light of an autumn after-noon.22 Not only would he be false to the traditions of his art: he would necessarily defeat his own end thereby.23 In the same way a poet would be condemned for attempting any _completeness_ of utterance in a very short poem: his object should be only to stir imagination without satisfying it.24 So the term _ittakkiri_—meaning “all gone,” or “entirely vanished,” in the sense of “all told,”—is contemptuously applied to verses in which the verse-maker has uttered his whole thought;—praise being reserved for compositions that leave in the mind the thrilling of a something unsaid.25 Like the single stroke of a temple-bell, the perfect short poem should set murmuring and undulating, in the mind of the hearer, many a ghostly aftertone of long duration.26

III27

But for the same reason that Japanese short poems may be said to resemble.28 Japanese pictures, a full comprehension of them requires an intimate knowledge of the life which they reflect.29 And this is especially true of the emotional class of such poems,—a literal translation of which, in the majority of cases, would signify almost nothing to the Western mind.30 Here, for example, is a little verse, pathetic enough to Japanese comprehension:—31

Chōchō ni!..32 Kyonen shishitaru Tsuma koishi!33

Translated, this would appear to mean only,—“_Two butterflies!…34 Last year my dear wife died!35 _” Unless you happen to know the pretty Japanese symbolism of the butterfly in relation to happy marriage, and the old custom of sending with the wedding-gift a large pair of paper-butterflies (_ochō-mechō_), the verse might well seem to be less than commonplace.36 Or take this recent composition, by a University student, which has been praised by good judges:—37

Furusato ni Fubo ari—mushi no Koë-goë!38 [1]39

—“_In my native place the old folks [or, my parents] are—clamor of insect-voices!40

[1] I must observe, however, that the praise was especially evoked by the use of the term _koë-goë_—(literally meaning “voice after voice” or a crying of many voices);—and the special value of the syllables here can be appreciated only by a Japanese poet.41

The poet here is a country-lad.42 In unfamiliar fields he listens to the great autumn chorus of insects; and the sound revives for him the memory of his far-off home and of his parents.43 But here is something incomparably more touching,—though in literal translation probably more obscure,—than either of the preceding specimens;—44

Mi ni shimiru Kazé ya!45 Shōji ni Yubi no ato!46

—“_Oh, body-piercing wind!—that work of little fingers in the shōji!47 _”[2]….48 What does this mean?49 It means the sorrowing of a mother for her dead child.50 _Shōji_ is the name given to those light white-paper screens which in a Japanese house serve both as windows and doors, admitting plenty of light, but concealing, like frosted glass, the interior from outer observation, and excluding the wind.51 Infants delight to break these by poking their fingers through the soft paper: then the wind blows through the holes.52 In this case the wind blows very cold indeed,—into the mother’s very heart;—for it comes through the little holes that were made by the fingers of her dead child.53

[2] More literally:—“body-through-pierce wind—ah!—_shōji_ in the traces of [viz.: holes made by] fingers!”54

The impossibility of preserving the inner quality of such poems in a literal rendering, will now be obvious.55 Whatever I attempt in this direction must of necessity be _ittakkiri;_—for the unspoken has to be expressed; and what the Japanese poet is able to say in seventeen or twenty-one syllables may need in English more than double that number of words.56 But perhaps this fact will lend additional interest to the following atoms of emotional expression:—57