_Numberless insects there are that call from dawn to evening,_
_Crying, "I love! I love!"--but the Firefly's silent passion,_
_Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing._
_Even such is my love ... yet I cannot think through what_ ingwa
_I opened my heart--alas!--to a being not sincere!_[11]
[Footnote 11:
Kaäi, kaäi to
Naku mushi yori mo
Nakanu hotaru ga
Mi we kogasu.
Nanno ingwa dé
Jitsu naki hito ni
Shin we akashité,--
Aa kuyashi!
Lit.: "'I-love-I-love'-saying-cry-insects than, better
never-cry-firefly, body scorch! What Karma because-of,
sincerity-not-is-man to, inmost-mind opened?--ah! regret!" ... It was
formerly believed that the firefly's light really burned its own body.]
If the foregoing seem productions possible only to our psychological
antipodes, it is quite otherwise with a group of folk-songs reflecting
the doctrine of Impermanency. Concerning the instability of all
material things, and the hollowness of all earthly pleasures, Christian
and Buddhist thought are very much in accord. The great difference
between them appears only when we compare their teaching as to things
ghostly,--and especially as to the nature of the Ego. But the Oriental
doctrine that the Ego itself is an impermanent compound, and that the
Self is not the true Consciousness, rarely finds expression in these
popular songs. For the common people the Self exists: it is a real
(though multiple) personality that passes from birth to birth. Only the
educated Buddhist comprehends the deeper teaching that what we imagine
to be Self is wholly illusion,--a darkening veil woven by Karma; and
that there is no Self but the Infinite Self, the eternal Absolute.
In the following _dodoitsu_ will be found mostly thoughts or emotions
according with universal experience:--
_Gathering clouds to the moon;--storm and rain to the flowers:_
_Somehow this world of woe never is just as we like._[12]
[Footnote 12:
Tsuki ni murakumo,
Hana ni wa arashi:
Tokaku uki-yo wa
Mama naranu.
This song especially refers to unhappy love, and contains the
substance of two Buddhist proverbs: _Tsuki ni murakumo, hana ni kazé_
(cloud-masses to the moon; wind to flowers); and _Mama ni naranu wa
uki-yo no narai_ (to be disappointed is the rule in this miserable
world). "Uki-yo" (this fleeting or unhappy world) is one of the
commonest Buddhist terms in use.]
_Almost as soon as they bloom, the scented flowers of the plum-tree_
_By the wind of this world of change are scattered and blown away._
_Thinking to-morrow remains, thou heart's frail flower-of-cherry?_
_How knowest whether this night the tempest will not come?_[13]
[Footnote 13:
Asu ari to
Omō kokoro no
Ada-zakura:
Yo wa ni arashi no
Fukanu monokawa?
Lit.: "To-morrow-is that think heart-of perishable-cherry flower:
this-night-in-storm blow-not, is-it-certain?"]
_Shadow and shape alike melt and flow back to nothing:_
_He who knows this truth is the Daruma of snow._[14]
[Footnote 14:
Kagé mo katachi mo
Kiyuréba moto no
Midzu to satoru zo
Yuki-Daruma.
Lit.: "Shadow and shape also, if-melt-away, original-water
is,--that-understands Snow-Daruma." Daruma (Dharma), the twenty-eighth
patriarch of the Zen sect, is said to have lost his legs through
remaining long in the posture of meditation; and many legless
toy-figures, which are so balanced that they will always assume an
upright position however often placed upside-down, are called by his
name. The snow-men made by Japanese children have the same traditional
form.--The Japanese friend who helped me to translate these verses,
tells me that a ghostly meaning attaches to the word "Kagé" [shadow] in
the above;--this would give a much more profound signification to the
whole verse.]
_As the moon of the fifteenth night, the heart till the age fifteen:_
_Then the brightness wanes, and the darkness comes with love._[15]
[Footnote 15: According to the old calendar, there was always a full
moon on the fifteenth of the month. The Buddhist allusion in the verse
is to _mayoi,_ the illusion of passion, which is compared to a darkness
concealing the Right Way.]
_All things change, we are told, in this world of change and sorrow;_
_But love's way never changes of promising never to change._[16]
[Footnote 16:
Kawaru uki-yo ni
Kawaranu mono wa
Kawarumai to no
Koi no michi.
Lit.: "Change changeable-world-in, does-not-change that-which,
'We-will-never-change'-saying of Love-of Way."]
_Cruel the beautiful flash,--utterly heartless that lightning!_ _Before
one can look even twice it vanishes wholly away!_[17]
[Footnote 17:
Honni tsurénai
Ano inadzuma wa
Futa mé minu uchi
Kiyété yuku.
The Buddhist saying, _Inadzuma no hikari, ishi no hi_ (lightning-flash
and flint-spark),--symbolizing the temporary nature of all
pleasures,--is here playfully referred to. The song complains of a too
brief meeting with sweet-heart or lover.]
_His very sweetness itself makes my existence a burden!_
_Truly this world of change is a world of constant woe!_[18]
[Footnote 18: Words of a loving but jealous woman, thus interpreted
by my Japanese friend: "The more kind he is, the more his kindness
overwhelms me with anxiety lest he be equally tender to other girls who
may also fall in love with him."]
_Neither for youth nor age is fixed the life of the body;_
_--Bidding me wait for a time is the word that forever divides._[19]
[Footnote 19:
Rō-shō fujō no
Mi dé ari nagara,
Jisetsu maté to wa
Kiré-kotoba.
Lit.: "Old-young not-fixed-of body being, time-wait to-say,
cutting-word." Ro-shō fujō is a Buddhist phrase. The meaning of the
song is: "Since all things in this world are uncertain, asking me to
wait for our marriage-day means that you do not really love me;--for
either of us might die before the time you speak of."]
_Only too well I know that to meet will cause more weeping;_[20]
_Yet never to meet at all were sorrow too great to bear._
[Footnote 20: Allusion is made to the Buddhist text, _Shōja hitsu
metsu, esha jōri_ ("Whosoever is born must die, and all who meet
must as surely part"), and to the religious phrase, _Ai betsu ri ku_
("Sorrow of parting and pain of separation").]
_Too joyful in union to think, we forget that the smiles of the
evening_
_Sometimes themselves become the sources of morning-tears._
Yet, notwithstanding the doctrine of impermanency, we are told in
another _dodoitsu_ that--
_He who was never bewitched by the charming smile of a woman,_
_A wooden Buddha is he--a Buddha of bronze or stone!_[21]
[Footnote 21: Much more amusing in the original:--
Adana é-gao ni
Mayowanu mono wa
Ki-Butsu,--kana-Butsu,--
Ishi-botoké
"Charming-smile-by bewildered-not, he-as-for, wood-Buddha,
metal-Buddha, stone-Buddha!" The term "Ishi-botoké"
especially refers to the stone images of the Buddha
placed in cemeteries.--This song is sung in every part of
Japan; I have heard it many times in different places.]
And why a Buddha of wood, or bronze, or stone? Because the living
Buddha was not so insensible, as we are assured, with jocose
irreverence, in the following:--
_"Forsake this fitful world"!_--
{_Lord Buddha's_}
_that was_ _or_ _teaching!_
{_upside-down_ }
_And Ragora,[22] son of his loins?--was he forgotten indeed?_
There is an untranslatable pun in the original, which, if written in
Romaji, would run thus:--
Uki-yo we sutéyo t'a
{Shaka Sama}
Sorya yo
{saka-sama }
Ragora to iū ko we
Wasurété ka?
_Shakamuni_ is the Japanese rendering of "Sakyamuni;" "Shaka Sama" is
therefore "Lord Sakya," or "Lord Buddha." But _saka-sama_ is a Japanese
word meaning "topsy-turvy," "upside down;" and the difference between
the pronunciation of Shaka Sama and _saka-sama_ is slight enough to
have suggested the pun. Love in suspense is not usually inclined to
reverence.
[Footnote 22: Râhula.]
_Even while praying together in front of the tablets ancestral,_
_Lovers find chance to murmur prayers never meant for the dead!_[23]