than the love-sick suspense of a whining suitor, that the myriad
marriages of bird and beast and blossom are perhaps as much or
as little to her as the predilections of Maud. He would enjoy
Professor Huxley’s rap at the singers who “mistake their sensual
caterwauling for the music of the spheres,” and his pedestrian
fancy would shudder at the unchartered imagination of Tennyson.
Buddhist doctrines have so profoundly influenced thought and
feeling, that thousands of little songs rise daily like prayers
of intercession or gratitude to the Lord Buddha. But these would
demand a volume of explanation, which I am not competent to write.
I select one playful and one serious poem, having reference to
religious ideas. The first might be called
EXTRAVAGANCE.
Joy drew the rickshaw,
Heaven takes vengeance,
Empty the larder,
Rickshaw of fire.
This may be expanded into: “We drove about in a rickshaw, enjoying
ourselves; we spent all our money; we are punished by Heaven,
for we suffer remorse, like the sinners, who are pulled in fiery
rickshaws by avenging devils in hell.” Such engaging pictures of
a future state are often exhibited at temple _fêtes_, and serve to
stimulate liberality on the part of worshippers. Quite philosophic
is the pessimism of
OCCASION.
For the moon, cloud-wrack;
For the flower, tempest;
For the truth, _this_ world;
Wanting the hour.
I translate _ukiyo_ by “_this_ world”: the more scrupulous
dictionary renders it by “this fleeting or miserable world, so full
of vicissitudes and unsettled.” For the “vale of tears” is not a
Christian concept only: Mrs. Gummidge was also a Buddhist without
knowing it. It is curious that this theological term, with its
disparaging connotation, was affixed to the modern popular school
of painters, among whom Hokusai is the best known, because they
descended from lofty, conventional subjects to the life of workaday
folk. The central thought of the poem, however, narrowed to a
romantic application, recalls a line by Browning:
“Never the time and place, and the loved one altogether.”
Writers of Dodoitsu have this advantage over versifiers who employ
more classical metres, that they are not forced by convention to
repeat stereotyped fancies, but are at liberty to invent new ones.
The balloon, the camera, the locomotive, may take the place of
dragon, stork, and phœnix. This pouring of foreign wine into native
bottles produces a quaint blend. A girl thus reproaches her lover
with
INCONSTANCY.
My heart to body
Fuel to engine;
Thy heart an air-ship
Loose in the sky.
Here the similes are plain and forcible. The next poem is less
lucid:
DESPAIR.
Borne in no road-car,
Endless the railway,
How shall poor I reach
Station at last?
Literally: “Riding in no vehicle (which is used for a short
journey), the train whithersoever going (for an indefinite
distance), by doing what shall this body of mine, Terminus?” That
is: My love is not a short-lived fancy, but a lifelong passion,
until I reach the terminus of death. Graceful, indeed, but scarcely
gracious is a lady’s reply to an admirer who had sent her his
photograph:
THE HIGHER PHOTOGRAPHY.
Only your likeness!
Faithful? I know not.
Could I but take one,
Too, of your heart!
The double meaning of a “faithful” likeness and a “faithful” lover
can, for once, be preserved in English. A pun on the word _tokeru_,
which means “to melt” and “to be undone,” is allied with a dainty
antithesis in
DISSOLUTION.
White snow of Fuji
Loosened at sunrise;
Maiden’s _shimada_
Loosened for sleep.
The _shimada_ is perhaps the most elaborate, and certainly the
most elegant, way of dressing the hair. It is generally adopted by
geisha and young married women, dividing favour with the _chōchō_
or butterfly coiffure. Respect for age is counselled in a rather
pathetic protest by an old woman, who recalls her faded beauty
in a conventional image. Nightingales and plum-trees are always
associated in Japanese minds.
ONCE.
Mock not the puckered
Bloom of a dried plum;
Once on its fresh spray
Nightingales wept.
The _umeboshi_, a plum pickled in salt and _shiso_ and afterwards
dried, is as happily descriptive of the wizened monkey face of a
Japanese crone as the peach of an Anglo-Saxon lassie’s complexion.
It will be seen that serio-comic touches of self-depreciation, like
the old lady’s frank comparison of faded bloom to dried fruit,
do not jar on the Japanese. Sincerity--genuine feeling and just
appreciation--is at the root of their poetic impulse. Why should a
disappointed girl shrink from whispering her secret to the reeds of
anonymous minstrelsy?
REJECTION.
As vine weds ivy,
So would I clasp him;
If the man will not,
What can be done?
[Illustration: Jealousy exorcised from Aoi-no-Uye. (Nō).]
From the foregoing thirty Dodoitsu the reader can form a not
inadequate opinion of “ditties sung by singing-girls to the
twanging of the guitar.” That accidental glamour, which
constitutes style and makes of one word a queen, of another a
beggar-maid, through vicissitudes of usage, does not emanate from
one of them. They are marred for a native ear by domestic and
colloquial idiom, “soiled by all ignoble use”; they treat too often
of sexual sentiment, which our literary verse parades to satiety,
and which theirs rather shrouds in dignified silence. No doubt you
will find among Tanka and Haikai more ingenuity of thought, more
dexterity of pen. But, putting that aside, the Dodoitsu has more
interest for a humanist, since its range of feeling is wider. Just
as the street-scenes of Hokusai and the love-scenes of Utamaro
afford more humane pleasure than the purely artistic studies of
their academic precursors, so we are less allured by “A Fan in
my Lady’s Chamber,” by “A Distant View of a Fishing Boat,” by
“Hoar-frost on the Bamboos,” than by the artless outcries of else
inarticulate nature. The blue-stocking at court, who finds it so
easy to turn a polished compliment, is more remote from our hearts
than her humble sister, doing rough work in the rice-field. The
sorrows of wife and maid, the joy of flowers and laughter--these
inspire in us deeper sympathy than the experimental literature
of dilettante dames. There is often a crude spontaneity in the
non-literary poem which is more pleasing than a recondite conceit.
But, however crude the expression may be, it yet owes something to
form. The poet is obliged to satisfy the easy metrical conditions
which regulate the structure of a Dodoitsu, thus ensuring a neat
circlet for a single gem, whether it be paste or diamond. How
clumsy a Japanese song can become, when the Muse has forgotten her
corset, may be seen by the following effusion:
“Mukōjima,
Cherry-blossom,
Sliced dumpling,
Boiled eggs,
Girl, come here!
Drinking, sleeping,
Heigh-ho! Tra-la-la!”
This is neither poetry nor literature. It reminds one of the
primitive war-song, which Mr. Aston quotes in his “History of
Japanese Literature” as being sung by the Imperial Guards:
“Ho! now is the time;
Ho! now is the time;
Ha! Ha! Psha!
Even now
My boys!
Even now
My boys!”
In conclusion, let me say that an exhaustive study of Dodoitsu
would assuredly yield richer results than the writer has been able
to obtain by the casual gleaning of such songs as fell in his way
from the lips of geisha or student.
TAKING THE WATERS
TAKING THE WATERS
I
In a large enclosure behind one of the smaller Shiba temples on
a burning 1st of July sat a perspiring crowd of men and boys,
whose attitude of joyful and critical attention strangely revived
memories of a great match at Lord’s or the Oval. Yet the trial of
strength which was provoking similar enthusiasm presented a very
different spectacle. Instead of the green pitch, a sanded ring
formed the arena; instead of twenty-two lithe cricketers, clad
in white flannels and protected by glove and pad from dangerous
balls, a band of twenty-two wrestlers, enormous and bloated, with
no clothing but a garish loin-cloth and no protection but their own
skill, awaited the umpire’s word to begin. He, too, bore little
likeness to the straw-hatted oracle in a milkman’s coat, whose
vigilant silence is unbroken but for occasional appeals from bowler
or batsman. His _kimono_ was of grey silk, his sash embroidered
with gold, his short cape of black silk with brightly coloured
clasp; and, as he gave the signal with his fan, or directed the
combatants with excited insistence, hopping and crying on the
flanks of the panting giants, he resembled some gorgeous gadfly
goading two buffaloes to the fray. Nothing could be less Japanese
than the build and bulk of the wrestlers. They seemed men of
another race, Maoris or Patagonians, with their huge naked limbs
and long hair, drawn forward in a queue to the middle of the head
or falling loose on the shoulders. Before entering the ring each
would carefully adjust his apron and bind his hair as coquettishly
as possible, for, hideous though they appear to us, these monsters
of fat and muscle are the darlings of every schoolboy, enjoying a
popularity as fervent as that of “W. G.” or Prince “Ranji.” Their
names, their records, their chances of success are on every tongue.
The bouts are more interesting to watch than any I had seen
elsewhere, for attack and defence were more various. The conqueror
might win by other methods than by bringing his opponent to the
ground: if he could hurl or hustle him outside the ring, victory
was his. The rules are said to authorise forty-eight falls--twelve
throws, twelve lifts, twelve twists, and twelve throws over the
back. To avoid being pinned down or pitched out, the smaller men
must exercise extraordinary agility, and loud was the shouting when
Goliath fell victim to a scientific ruse. It happened sometimes
that the men lost their tempers; spitting, slapping, taunting
would precede more legitimate sport: then indeed it was good to
hear the bystanders’ Homeric laughter, which soon recalled the
heroes to their higher selves. I will confess that these indecorous
interludes were partly due to a mischievous American, who primed
his favourites with praise and whisky. As the afternoon wore on,
the heat became intolerable, but, fired with professional ambition,
Dares succeeded Entellus, while cheap coloured portraits of the
competitors found ready sale and the overcrowded enclosure reeked
of sweat and sand. At length the final bout was announced. Each
side chose a champion, whose laurels were difficult to gain,
for three rivals must be worsted in continuous struggle by the
prize-winner. Before the end was reached my patience had been
exhausted. On a degenerate descendant of the fighting Anglo-Saxon
breed this barbarous exhibition of brute locked with brute began
to pall. Besides, the tropical atmosphere, which from that day
forward made dress a weariness and sleep impossible, pleaded more
eloquently than any argument how wise it were to seek less fiery
pleasures. I resolved to leave Tōkyō the following day and take the
waters of some mountain-spa, remote from wrestlers and mosquitoes.
At an altitude of nearly three thousand feet on the north-eastern
slope of Mount Haruna, an extinct volcano, stands the picturesque
village of Ikao. Half the houses are hotels and most have
balconies, which command a view of the Tonegawa Valley and sublime
Akagi San. The main street climbs from terrace to terrace, a
natural staircase, between châlets equipped with bamboo pipes,
through which the hot yellow water pours incessantly. Proximity to
the capital makes this health resort very popular, yet access is
not altogether easy. After five hours’ train to Mayebashi, another
five hours are required of rather rough rickshaw travelling: at one
point the Tonegawa must be crossed by means of a rope ferry; at
others the traveller must dismount, so steep is the road. Yet he
will be well rewarded at his journey’s end by a panorama of rare
extent and beauty. Behind him, and eighteen hundred feet above,
soars Soma-yama, from which the summit of Fuji is just visible;
opposite stretch the Mikuni and Nikkō ranges; at his feet are
wooded valleys and foaming torrents. The Kindayu Hotel, under most
courteous and capable management, combines two great advantages.
It supplies the foreigner with such food and general comfort as
his habits generally render indispensable; at the same time, it
accommodates so many Japanese of all classes, that exceptional
opportunities are afforded of becoming more intimately acquainted
with the latter than would be possible in their own homes, where
various duties and claims absorb their time. Here they seek only
health and pleasure: no obstacle but the easily surmounted barrier
of language hinders mutually delightful intercourse. At least, the
writer formed more friendships and obtained more glimpses of native
life during a month at Ikao than at any other period of his stay in
the country.
Bathing is, of course, the centre round which existence revolves.
Half-a-dozen small baths, fitted with hot and cold water, that
the temperature may be modified to suit each bather, enable the
stranger to bathe in the solitude he prefers. But more than two
dozen others, in which from three to thirteen people can bathe
together, are more characteristic of the place. The largest
has a hot douche, and the temperature is often as high as 115°
Fahrenheit. Here the native guests return two or three times a day
to soak and to gossip. In this _al fresco_ salon laughter reigns
and conversation flows as freely as the water. Surprised indeed
would the bathers be to learn that a costume is deemed essential by
more prurient races, whose artificial manners divorce simplicity
from decency. Yet Western prudery is beginning to corrupt the upper
classes, who tend to convert these social gatherings into family
parties, without going so far as to adopt a bathing-dress. The
water is rather turbid and yellow. It contains iron and sulphate of
soda. Most of the patients suffer from rheumatism or barrenness,
and look on a course of treatment as a sovereign remedy. Some also
drink of the mineral spring which lies at the end of the Yusawa
ravine, where seats and swings line a well-shaded avenue. Probably
they derive more benefit from the pleasant promenade than the
unpleasant beverage.
The first friend I made was a silk merchant and a poet. I shall
call him Yamada San. I had gone one day a few hundred yards down
the precipitous path leading to Shibukawa, when my attention was
arrested by a very pretty tableau. To the left of the road lay
a lute-shaped pond, traversed by little bridges and dotted with
islands on which stone lanterns and wooden shrines proclaimed the
owner’s piety. The deeper end of the lakelet was overshadowed by
a balcony, on which sat two serious young men with rod and line,
while a daintily-dressed girl reclining beside them was preparing
bait--that is, crumbling a soft bread-cake with delicate fingers.
The fish seemed wary, and I remarked one astute leviathan among
gold-fish that succeeded in snatching the bait and swimming away
with an impudent cock of the tail that would have exasperated
a less patient angler. Remarking my interest, the fishermen
politely invited me to join them; and then I discovered two
curious features of this gentle angling--its cheapness and its
humanity. The proprietor was willing to provide all accessories and
implements for three-farthings, on one condition: any fish which
had the imprudence to be hooked must be tenderly replaced in the
water. Thus he reconciled Buddhistic kindness to animals with
encouragement of sport, and the fish obtained a maximum of food
with a minimum of risk. It seemed that Yamada San was also staying
at Kindayu’s. We therefore returned together, while O Mitsu, his
charming child-wife, walked submissively behind. Woven silk filled
his business hours, but woven sentiments his leisure. Before
the hotel was reached he confided to me the poem which had just
germinated in his mind that afternoon. He had really been fishing
for fancies.
“Yioyeyama
Kasanaru kumono
Ōkunaron
Honokani moreru
Saoshika no koye.”
Range above range, piled up to the clouds, what numberless
mountains!
Faintly between escapes from afar the voice of the roebuck.
As he understood a little English, I conferred on him this brace of
hexameters. He was naturally astonished by such long lines, but, as
his Tanka contained thirty-one syllables and my translation only
thirty, we had both expressed the same ideas in about the same
space. Exchange of verses was followed by exchange of presents. In
the evening I received a large cake with Yamada San’s compliments.
Then came my first unconscious lapse from etiquette. In the hope of
pleasing both husband and wife, I presented O Mitsu with a quaintly
carven _kanzashi_, an ornamental hair-pin; but, though she did not
seem displeased, the poet thanked me with a cold, disapproving air.
At a later stage he explained how improper it was considered to
pay the least attention to a married woman. I apologised, and he
went on to explain that love-marriages were becoming the rule and
not the exception, and that among his friends few matches were now
arranged without consulting the wishes of the two most concerned.
However, O Mitsu was permitted to play to me on her _koto_, and to
condone my indiscretion with the parting gift of a much-cherished
fan, on which was inscribed a famous poem by Tsuma to the following
effect:
Though I may sing of the beautiful garments of beautiful women,
Dearer to me are the pines of Japan and the cherries in blossom.
By this engaging couple I was initiated into a novel game, played
with flower cards, _Hana-Karuta_. The pack consists of forty-eight
pieces, each three inches by two, and of twelve suits, Moon, Rain,
Iris, Clover, Cherry-blossom, Maple-leaf, Wistaria, Chrysanthemum,
Pine, Peony, Plum, and _Paulownia Imperialis_. The four cards of
each suit are worth 1, 5, 10, and 20 points respectively. The
player may only draw a card from the pool if he have one of the
same suit in his hand. Failing this, he must enrich the pool by one
of his cards when his turn comes to draw. Each pair, when made, is
laid on the table, and when the pack is exhausted the player who
has scored most points is declared winner. This very simple game
had much vogue in Ikao, but when the party included no ladies the
more difficult _Go-Ban_ was more popular. Like all his countrymen,
Yamada San was a rapid draughtsman, and would often, when
appealed to for information on historical or religious matters,
illustrate his meaning by clever sketches. Of these I retain
two excellent specimens: a drawing of Yoshitsune in elaborate
armour and a long-nosed _tengu_, or mountain-goblin, which has
many characteristics in common with the Scandinavian _trold_.
Unfortunately, our acquaintance was limited to three days, for at
the end of that time business recalled the poet to Ashikaga, but
he exacted a promise that I would pay a visit to that interesting
town, given up to cotton and Confucius.
As if to console me on the evening of this departure, the kindly
Kindayu family invited all their guests to a performance given by
three local geisha in the principal room of the hotel. The chief
musician was a masculine-looking woman of fifty, who thrummed a
_kokyu_, or three-stringed fiddle, and broke in on the recitative
of her young companions at unexpected moments with peculiar growls
and sharp cries as of an animal in agony. When the narrative of
the soloist took a tragic turn, these inhuman noises were so
distressing that, without following the story, I experienced acute
pain, while my neighbours of the more sympathetic sex were actually
in tears. Had my musical education been more advanced, I should
have realised that these were no singers of light Dodoitsu, but
exponents of a far loftier type of entertainment, the _Gedayu_
or musical drama. It originated in the middle of the seventeenth
century, and is sometimes called _Jōruri_ after a heroine of that
name, whose tragic love for Yoshitsune is a favourite theme of
composers. In fact, the geisha on this occasion were usurping the
_rôle_ of _Jōruri-katari_ or dramatic reciters, whose chanted
recitative formed the nucleus, first, of the marionette theatre,
and, later, of the popular theatre, when dialogue and scenic art
were superadded. In the absence of either human or wooden dolls,
a most lugubrious effect was produced. At last, to my relief, a
male performer, a _pince-sans-rire_, whose dry humour and staccato
diction stamped him of the tribe of Grossmith, transformed the
audience from weeping Niobes to effigies of mirth. In vain the
polite little ladies tried to smother their smiles behind their
raised _kimono_ sleeves: as the song proceeded they were vanquished
by fits of laughter, and shook helplessly on their cushions.
I possessed but one cue to this infectious merriment in the
constantly recurring word _emma_, which on the lips of Mr. Dan Leno
would have assuredly referred to his wife or his mother-in-law,
those patient butts of music-hall humour, but which would only
mean for Japanese ears the Buddhist Rhadamanthus, who pronounces
sentence on all who enter hell. Considerably mystified, I turned to
Tanaka Okusama, another visitor from Ashikaga, and inquired if “the
honourable singer were really singing about hell-things.” He was.
The song was an amusing but irreverent pastiche of social satire.
It described the arrival in Hades of the bad judge, the cheating
merchant, the false singing-girl; their confession and appropriate
punishment. Again I missed the marionettes, for their presence
would have recalled an exactly similar treatment of the same theme
in a Montmartre puppet-show. And I remembered how the Parisian
populace joined delightedly in the cry of “A la chaudière!” as
the mimic devil chased lawyer and cocotte into a Punch-and-Judy
Inferno. It was the mystery play of the Middle Ages, surviving
as a crude comedy for the ignorant poor--a rough travesty of the
theology in which their more instructed superiors still affect to
believe.
In the course of the next fortnight I became well acquainted
with Tanaka Okusama, and through her with many others. She was
a most intelligent, capable woman, who conducted one business
while her husband had charge of another, grain and rice being
the commodities in which they dealt. She considered herself
middle-aged at the age of thirty-two, wore therefore most sombre
colours, and was the mother of six boys, two of whom joined her
at Ikao. Her explanation of the _emma_ song was followed by an
avowal of religious disbelief. She was neither a Buddhist nor a
Shintōist, but believed that the priests taught old wives’ fables,
and for her own part concentrated her mind on her business and
her family. A free-thinking Japanese woman was a novel phenomenon
to me then, though I have since met several. The fragments of
Western history which she had acquired were also interesting
items in her conversation. Plied with questions about English
sights and customs, I was also asked to give an opinion on Cæsar,
Napoleon, and Epaminondas. What I recalled of the last hero was so
shadowy that I felt inclined to parody the Oxford undergraduate’s
evasive reply: “About Epaminondas little is known, but it may
safely be assumed that, as he lived, so he died.” However,
Tanaka Okusama knew more than that about him, for she had just
been reading “Keikoku Bidan,” a popular novel by Yano Fumiō, who
is supposed to have selected Theban politics for his subject,
that he might administer useful lessons to his compatriots. I
suspected that novel-reading was the source of most of the lady’s
knowledge. Indeed, she disclaimed all pretension to the title of
blue-stocking.