red legs and a red bill; and it was a fowl never beheld in Miyako, so none of all the company did know it. So when they inquired of the ferryman its name, and Narihira heard him make answer, 'This is the Miyako-bird,' he composed this verse :] Miyako-bird! if not in vain men give Thy pleasing name, my question deign to hear :And has she pass'd away, my darling dear, Or doth she still for Narihira live? (NARIHIRA 27. (Acrostics, 8.*) Since that I talk'd with thee, my brooding heart 28. The barest ledge of rock, if but a seed (Anon.) * In the English version of this stanza the general sense alone has been preserved. The play in the original is on Kara-momo-no-hana, the name of a flower, which is embedded in the text after the fashion of the popular game of "Buried Cities," thus : Afu KARA MO MONO HA NAHO koso Kanashikere, Wakaren koto wo Kanete omoheba. 29. (Love, i. 54.) There is on earth a thing more bootless still 30. (Love, i. 66.*) Now hid from sight are great Mount Fusi's fires. For the word Fusi signifies, I ween, Few see the constant flame of my desires. (Anon.) 31. (Love, ii. 2.) Since that first night when, bath'd in hopeless tears, I sank asleep, and he I love did seem To visit me, I welcome ev'ry dream, Sure that they come as heav'n-sent messengers. 32. (KOMACHI.) Methinks my tenderness the grass must be, Clothing some mountain desolate and lone; * This stanza is, by the necessity of the case, a mere free imitation of the punning original. For though it daily grows luxuriantly, To ev'ry mortal eye 'tis still unknown. (YOSHIKI) 33. (Love, ii. 23.) Upon the causeway through the land of dreams For when I've wander'd up and down all night, (TSURAYUKI.) 34. (Love, ii. 43.) Fast fall the silv'ry dews, albeit not yet As I wake from dreaming of my dear. (Anon.) 35. (Love, v. 56.) I ask'd my soul where springs th' ill-omened seed (SOSEI.) *The "Herb of Forgetfulness" (wasure-gusa) answers in the poetical diction of the Japanese to the classical waters of Lethe.. 36. (Flegies, 10.*) So frail our life, perchance to-morrow's sun (TSURAYUKI.) 37. (Elegies, 23.) The perfume is the same, the same the hue Is here no more, alas! to please my sight! (TSURAYUKI.) 38. (Elegies, 31.) One thing, alas! more fleeting have I seen Is man's brief passage o'er this mortal scene! (CHISATO.) *It is the young poet Ki-no-Tomonori who is mourned in this stanza. He was nephew to Tsurayuki, and, after holding several high posts at court, had been appointed to assist his uncle in the compilation of the "Odes Ancient and Modern." He died in A.D. 905, a few months before the completion of the work. I 39. (Miscellaneous, i. 1.) Softly the dews upon my forehead light: 40. (Miscellaneous, i. 24.) What though the waters of that antique rill (Anon.) 41. (Miscellaneous, i. 33.†) Old Age is not a friend I wish to meet; The Milky Way. + This stanza is remarkable for being (so far as the present writer is aware) the only instance in Japanese literature of that direct impersonation of an abstract idea which is so very strongly marked a characteristic of Western thoughts and modes of expression. |