Thus it appears that for more than eleven hundred years the Japanese
have been making poems about frogs; and it is at least possible that
verses on this subject, which have been preserved in the _Manyōshū_,
were composed even earlier than the eighth century. From the oldest
classical period to the present day, the theme has never ceased to
be a favorite one with poets of all ranks. A fact noteworthy in
this relation is that the first poem written in the measure called
_hokku_, by the famous Bashō, was about frogs. The triumph of this
extremely brief form of verse--(three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables
respectively)--is to create one complete sensation-picture; and Bashō’s
original accomplishes the feat,--difficult, if not impossible, to repeat
in English:--
Furu iké ya,
Kawazu tobikomu,
Midzu no oto.
(“Old pond--frogs jumping in--sound of water.”) An immense number of
poems about frogs were subsequently written in this measure. Even at
the present time professional men of letters amuse themselves by making
short poems on frogs. Distinguished among these is a young poet known
to the Japanese literary world by the pseudonym of “Roséki,” who lives
in Ōsaka and keeps in the pond of his garden hundreds of singing frogs.
At fixed intervals he invites all his poet-friends to a feast, with the
proviso that each must compose, during the entertainment, one poem about
the inhabitants of the pond. A collection of the verses thus obtained
was privately printed in the spring of 1897, with funny pictures of
frogs decorating the covers and illustrating the text.
But unfortunately it is not possible through English translation to give
any fair idea of the range and character of the literature of frogs. The
reason is that the greater number of compositions about frogs depend
chiefly for their literary value upon the untranslatable,--upon local
allusions, for example, incomprehensible outside of Japan; upon puns;
and upon the use of words with double or even triple meanings. Scarcely
two or three in every one hundred poems can bear translation. So I can
attempt little more than a few general observations.
* * * * *
That love-poems should form a considerable proportion of this curious
literature will not seem strange to the reader when he is reminded that
the lovers’ trysting-hour is also the hour when the frog-chorus is in
full cry, and that, in Japan at least, the memory of the sound would be
associated with the memory of a secret meeting in almost any solitary
place. The frog referred to in such poems is not usually the kajika.
But frogs are introduced into love-poetry in countless clever ways. I
can give two examples of modern popular compositions of this kind. The
first contains an allusion to the famous proverb,--_I no naka no kawazu
daikai wo shirazu_: “The frog in the well knows not the great sea.” A
person quite innocent of the ways of the world is compared to a frog in
a well; and we may suppose the speaker of the following lines to be some
sweet-hearted country-girl, answering an ungenerous remark with very
pretty tact:--
_Laugh me to scorn if you please;--call me your “frog-in-the-well”:
Flowers fall into my well; and its water mirrors the moon!_
The second poem is supposed to be the utterance of a woman having good
reason to be jealous:--
_Dull as a stagnant pond you deemed the mind of your mistress;
But the stagnant pond can speak: you shall hear the cry of the
frog!_
Outside of love-poems there are hundreds of verses about the common
frogs of ponds or ricefields. Some refer chiefly to the volume of the
sound that the frogs make:--
_Hearing the frogs of the ricefields, methinks that the water
sings._
_As we flush the ricefields of spring, the frog-song flows with
the water._
_From ricefield to ricefield they call: unceasing the challenge
and answer._
_Ever as deepens the night, louder the chorus of pond-frogs._
_So many the voices of frogs that I cannot but wonder if the pond
be not wider at night than by day!_
_Even the rowing boats can scarce proceed, so thick the clamor of
the frogs of Horié!_
The exaggeration of the last verse is of course intentional, and in the
original not uneffective. In some parts of the world--in the marshes of
Florida and of southern Louisiana, for example,--the clamor of the frogs
at certain seasons resembles the roaring of a furious sea; and whoever
has heard it can appreciate the fancy of sound as obstacle.
Other poems compare or associate the sound made by frogs with the sound
of rain:--
_The song of the earliest frogs,--fainter than falling of rain._
_What I took for the falling of rain is only the singing of frogs._
_Now I shall dream, lulled by the patter of rain and the song of
the frogs._
Other poems, again, are intended only as tiny pictures,--thumb-nail
sketches,--such as this _hokku_,--
_Path between ricefields; frogs jumping away to right and left_;--
--or this, which is a thousand years old:--
_Where the flowers of the yamabuki are imaged in the still
marsh-water, the voice of the kawazu is heard_;--
--or the following pretty fancy:--
_Now sings the frog, and the voice of the frog is perfumed;--for
into the shining stream the cherry-petals fall._
The last two pieces refer, of course, to the true singing frog.
Many short poems are addressed directly to the frog itself,--whether
kaeru or kajika. There are poems of melancholy, of affection, of humor,
of religion, and even of philosophy among these. Sometimes the frog is
likened to a spirit resting on a lotos-leaf; sometimes, to a priest
repeating sûtras for the sake of the dying flowers; sometimes to a
pining lover; sometimes to a host receiving travellers; sometimes to a
blasphemer, “always beginning” to say something against the gods, but
always afraid to finish it. Most of the following examples are taken
from the recent book of frog-poems published by Roséki;--each paragraph
of my prose rendering, it should be remembered, represents a distinct
poem:--
_Now all the guests being gone, why still thus respectfully
sitting, O frog?_
_So resting your hands on the ground, do you welcome the Rain,
O frog?_
_You disturb in the ancient well the light of the stars, O frog!_
_Sleepy the sound of the rain; but your voice makes me dream,
O frog!_
_Always beginning to say something against the great Heaven,
O frog!_
_You have learned that the world is void: you never look at it as
you float, O frog!_
_Having lived in clear-rushing mountain-streams, never can your
voice become stagnant, O frog!_
The last pleasing conceit shows the esteem in which the superior vocal
powers of the kajika are held.