Translation
by
F.
F.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v14 - Ibn to Juv
)
MEDITATIONS OF A HERMIT
[From the Hōjōki,' 1212; translated by J. M. Dixon. The writer, Kamo
no Chomei, the son of a priest, disappointed with life, sought seclusion from
the world in a ten-feet-square hut (höjo), on Mt. Ohara. There he made a
record of his thoughts, this “Höjõki, now valued as a literary treasure. )
T"
He water incessantly changes as the stream glides calmly on;
the spray that hangs over a cataract appears for a moment
only to vanish away. Such is the fate of mankind on this
earth and of the houses in which they dwell. If we gaze at a
mighty town we behold a succession of walls, surmounted by tiled
roofs which vie with one another in loftiness, These have been
from generation to generation the abodes of the rich and of
the poor, and yet none resist the destructive influence of time.
Some are allowed to fall into decay; others are replaced by
new structures. Their fate is shared by their inmates. If after
the lapse of a long period we return to a familiar locality, we
scarcely recognize one in ten of the faces we were accustomed to
## p. 8171 (#371) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8171
meet long ago.
In the morning we behold the light, and next
evening we depart for our long home. Our destiny resembles
the foam on the water. Whence came we, and whither are we
tending? What things vex us, what things delight us, in this
world of unreality? It is impossible truly to say. A house and
A
its occupant, changing perpetually, may well be compared to a
morning-glory flecked with dew. Sometimes it happens that the
dew evaporates and leaves the flower to die in the first glare of
day; sometimes the dew survives the flower, but only for a few
hours; before sunset the dew also has disappeared.
VAGRANT REVERIES
[From (Tsure-zure Gusa, 1345; translated by C. S. Eby. Yoshida Kenko,
the writer of these (Weeds of Idleness,' was a court official, who upon the
death of the Mikado entered the priesthood and became a monk. He was
poet as well as prose writer; was also a profound student of philosophy and
of the Chinese classics. ]
I
F MAN did not disappear like the dew of the field, or vanish
like the mists of Toribe hills, and continued his stay upon
earth, then tenderness of heart, sympathy, pity, would perish.
The unsettled changeableness of the present sublunary life is
vastly to be preferred.
never
a
OF ALL living creatures man is the most long-lived. The
ephemeral gnat comes into existence in the morning, and van-
ishes ere evening falls. The summer cicada knows
spring or autumn. One year of a man's life in comparison with
these things must be considered laborious and long. A life of a
thousand years, if passed in discontent and clung to, would seem
to fly away as a dream of the night. What profit is there in
clinging to a life which results in deformity, and cannot after all
continue forever? Longevity produces shame and disgrace. It is
better to die before forty years are passed, and thus escape the
shame of decrepitude.
A QUIET talk with one perfectly of your own turn of mind is
a very pleasant thing. It would give one great delight to speak
freely with such a friend about things that are pleasant, and
about the instability of earthly joys. But no such friendship is
possible.
## p. 8172 (#372) ###########################################
8172
JAPANESE LITERATURE
The changes of the seasons are full of things which arouse
our souls to deep emotion.
To sit opposite to and converse with a man like oneself in
every respect would be as good as sitting by oneself. Two
persons in many respects alike could sometimes raise a dispute.
And that would be very useful in dissipating the gloomy thoughts
of solitude.
To SPREAD open your books under the light of your lamp,
and hold communion with men of bygone ages, is surpassingly
comfortable.
JAPANESE poetry is especially charming. Even the toil of an
awkward peasant or of a woodman, expressed in poetic form,
delights the mind. The name of the terrible wild boar also,
when styled "fusui no toko,” sounds elegant.
(
Every one says that the autumn is the most affecting season
of the year.
Perhaps so. But the springtime transformations
of nature are more delightful, giving buoyancy to the heart.
The warbling of cheery songsters gives signal for the full out-
burst of spring-tide glory. The wild grass sprouts under the
hedge in answer to the mild rays of the kindly sun. The spring
advances and the mists melt into translucent air. The flowers
seem ready to burst into bloom. But rain and wind still make
their reckless attacks, and flowers are shattered to our dismay.
The changefulness of the days before the leaves are all green
cause us much distress. The past is brought back to our loving
memories more by the fragrance of the plum than by the hana
tachibana,* which is noted in this respect. The pure appearance
of the yamabukit and the uncertain condition of the fuji | cannot
be missed without pain.
The heart of man has been compared to flowers; but unlike
them, it does not wait for the blowing of the wind to be scattered
abroad. It is so fleeting and changeful.
* A small orange flower.
| A kind of yellow wild rose.
| Wistaria
## p. 8173 (#373) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8173
THE DANCE OF THE MOON FAIRY
[This beautiful translation by B. H. Chamberlain, of the second and third
parts of the lyric drama (Hagoromo) (Robe of Feathers), is an excellent
illustration of the mediæval No no Utai. These dramas bear a striking
resemblance to the drama of ancient Greece. In this, Hagoromo, a fisher-
man, finds on a tree on Mio beach a feather robe. The robe is claimed by a
lovely maiden, a moon fairy, who regains possession of her treasure by show-
ing to the fisherman one of the dances of the immortals. ]
C"
HORUS - Where'er we gaze the circling mists are twining:
Perchance e'en now the moon her tendrils fair
Celestial blossoms bear.
Those flowerets tell us that the spring is shining –
Those fresh-blown flowerets in the maiden's hair.
Fairy-
Blest hour beyond compare!
Chorus — Heaven hath its joys, but there is beauty here.
Blow, blow, ye winds! that the white cloud-belts driven
Around my path may bar my homeward way:
Not yet would I return to heaven,
But here on Mio's pine-clad shore I'd stray,
Or where the moon in bright unclouded glory
Shines on Kiyomi's lea,
And where on Fujiyama's summit hoary
The snows look on the sea,
While breaks the morning merrily!
But of these three, beyond compare
The wave-washed shore of Mio is most fair,
When through the pines the breath of spring is playing.
What barrier rises 'twixt the heaven and earth ?
Here too on earth the immortal gods came straying,
And gave our monarchs birth,
Fairy – Who in this empire of the rising sun,
While myriad ages run,
Shall ever rule their bright dominions,
Chorus
E'en when the feathery shock
Of fairies Aitting past with silvery pinions
Shall wear away the granite rock!
Oh magic strains that fill our ravished ears!
The fairy sings, and from the cloudy spheres
Chiming in unison, the angels' lutes,
Tabrets and cymbals and sweet silvery flutes,
Ring through the heaven that glows with purple hues,
As when Soméiro's western slope endues
## p. 8174 (#374) ###########################################
8174
JAPANESE LITERATURE
The tints of sunset, while the azure wave
From isle to isle the pine-clad shores doth lave,
From Ukishima's slope - a beauteous storm -
Whirl down the flowers; and still that magic form,
Those snowy pinions, fluttering in the light,
Ravish our souls with wonder and delight.
Fairy — Hail to the kings that o'er the moon hold sway!
Heaven is their home, and Buddhas too are they.
Chorus — The fairy robes the maiden's limbs endue
Fairy — Are, like the very heavens, of tenderest blue;
Chorus — Or, like the mists of spring, all silvery white,
Fairy — Fragrant and fair — too fair for mortal sight!
Chorus — Dance on, sweet maiden, through the happy hours!
Dance on, sweet maiden, while the magic flowers
Crowning thy tresses flutter in the wind
Raised by thy waving pinions intertwined!
Dance on! for ne'er to mortal dance 'tis given
To vie with that sweet dance thou bring'st from heaven:
And when, cloud-soaring, thou shalt all too soon
Homeward return to the full-shining moon,
Then hear our prayers, and from thy bounteous hand
Pour sevenfold treasures on our happy land;
Bless every coast, refresh each panting field,
That earth may still her proper increase yield !
But ah! the hour, the hour of parting rings!
Caught by the breeze, the fairy's magic wings
Heavenward do bear her from the pine-clad shore,
Past Ukishima's widely stretching moor,
Past Ashidaka's heights, and where are spread
The eternal snows on Fujiyama's head, -
Higher and higher to the azure skies,
Till wandering vapors hide her from our eyes!
## p. 8175 (#375) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8175
THE TRUE SAMURAI
[This illustration of the spirit of the true samurai is taken from a mediæval
drama entitled Dwarf Trees, translated by «Shinebi. ” The drama tells of
the award made to a poverty-stricken knight by the de facto ruler of Japan,
1190, for great kindness shown to the latter when once abroad in the garb of
a mendicant priest. The samurai had sacrificed even his dwarf trees to warm
his mean-looking guest. ]
Ting towards Kamakura ? *
Hail, traveler! Is it true that the troops are gather-
ing towards Kamakura ? * Why do such immense numbers
now advance to the capital ? [Following in the train. ] Why,
here are all the barons and knights of the eight provinces of
Adzuma in splendid equipment, all aiming for Kamakura! Their
weapons are brilliantly flashing, their armor resplendent with
silver and gold, mounted on well-fattened horses, with numerous
steeds for relief in the train. Amid them all this poor Tsuneyo
cuts a sorry figure, with horse and weapons and all so
this rough road. Doubtless they will laugh at me, though my
soul is by no means inferior. Still this lean, slow horse renders
the heart's courage abortive.
mean on
Chorus — Though he hastens, hastens, as a quivering willow twig
he is so weak, so very weak. Though he twist and pull,
the horse is ill-fed; though he beat him and whack his
flanks, yet he can scarcely make him budge. There is no
better conveyance for him; but he eventually comes in last
of all with weary weakly feet.
Saimiõji [in state in Kamakura] - Is my attendant there?
Attendant - At your service, my lord.
Saimiõji —— Have the troops arrived from all the provinces ?
Attendant - All have safely come. .
Saimioji — Among the troops is a single retainer in ragged
armor, with rusty spear, and leading himself a starved steed. Go
find him and order him into my presence.
Attendant — Your orders shall be executed. [Goes out. ] Any
one there?
Servant - At your service, sir.
Attendant - My lord's orders are that we go out immediately,
and find among the troops a samurai in battered armor, with a
* The seat of the Shogunate from 1192 to 1455.
## p. 8176 (#376) ###########################################
8176
JAPANESE LITERATURE
rusty spear, leading a lean horse, and bring him at once into his
august presence.
Servant -- I will attend to the matter. [Goes out and hails
Tsuneyo. ] Hail! Art thou my man ?
Tsune yo — Why am I called ?
Servant Haste there; come into the presence of our Lord
Saimiõji.
Tsuneyo — And am I called to appear in his august presence ?
Servant - Most assuredly.
Tsune yo — Alack, but this is unexpected! You must have mis-
taken your man.
Servant — Not at all: you are the man intended. The way
of it is this: my lord has ordered into his presence the worst-
looking samurai of all the assembled arinies; I have looked well
over the hosts, and am sure that there is none that can compare
with you for hideous appearance. So it is settled. Come, haste
to the palace.
Tsuneyo — What do you say? He wants the worst-looking
samurai in the army!
Servant — Most positively; those are the orders.
Tsune yo — Then I must be the man. Go; say I'm coming.
Servant — Very well.
Tsuneyo [approaching the palace] — Verily, this is incompre-
hensible. Some enemy has accused me of treason, and this
being ordered into my lord's presence is but the prelude of hav-
ing my head taken off. Well, well, I can do nothing to help it.
I will go in at any risk; please show me the way.
Chorus — Then in an instant, suddenly ushered into the midst
of assembled soldiers ranged like blazing stars, rank on
rank of samurai of the armies, besides many other notables.
Their eyes are drawn to him, and many point the scornful
finger.
Tsuneyo — What is well sewed may yet be ripped.
Chorus — His old armor and rusty spear are not useless to him,
nor cares he for the ridiculous figure he cuts.
[He appears before Saimioji. ]
Saimioji — Ha! That is the man. [To Tsuneyo. ] Art thou
Genzaemon Tsuneyo of Sano, and hast thou forgotten the wan-
dering priest who sought shelter of thee yon snowy night?
## p. 8177 (#377) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8177
Thou declaredst then that should trouble arise at Kamakura thou
wouldst don thy battered armor, seize thy rusty spear, mount
thy shadowy steed, and speed thee first of all to Kamakura.
Now thou hast valiantly kept thy word; for this I admire thee.
[To the assembly. ) The object of this gathering of vassals in
]
the capital was for no other cause than to test the truth or
falsehood of Tsuneyo's words. However, if there is any per-
son here with a grievance to state, let him now plead his cause,
and judgment shall be given according to justice and law. But
first of all I give judgment in the case of Tsuneyo. His for-
mer inheritance in Sano, over thirty counties, must be forthwith
returned to him. Moreover, besides this, for that in the cold
snow-storm he willingly cut down his precious ornamental trees
to warm the stranger guest, in hope of reward in some other
world, I now in return for the ume [plum], sakura [cherry),
matsu (pine] trees, bestow upon him Ume-da in Kaga, Sakura-i
in Etchu, and Matsu-eda in Ködzuke, three portions as a per-
petual inheritance for himself and his heirs to all generations;
in testimony whereof, I now give official documents signed and
sealed.
Chorus — With gladness of heart he accepts the benefactions of
his lord.
Tsuneyo — Tsuneyo accepts the gifts.
Chorus — He accepts, and three times makes humble obeisance,
O ye who erst laughed him to scorn, look now upon him
excelling in honor. The warriors all return to their
homes, and among them Tsuneyo, his face all bright with
new-found joy. Now riding bravely on a gorgeous steed,
away he speeds to his home in Sano of Kamitsuke with
joyous heart.
XJV-512
## p. 8178 (#378) ###########################################
8178
JAPANESE LITERATURE
THE DOMINANT NOTE OF THE LAW
[This is one of the Buddhist (Wasan,' or hymns, from the latter part of
the sixteenth (? ) century, written by a priest, Kwaihan; translation by Clay
MacCauley. The translation follows the Japanese metre of the naga uła,
each line containing two series of alternating five and seven syllable measures. ]
I
N SPENDING my days chasing things that are trifles,
In sowing the seed of the sixfold migration,
I pass through the world with my life-purpose baffled.
Since gaining a birth among those that are human,
Just now I have learned that I may become godlike;
So now I seek Buddha's help, trusting the promise.
This world, after all,— it is only a dream-world;
And we, after all, are vain selves with dust mingled.
Our jealousies, angers, and scoffing reproaches,
All evils we do, though disguised by our cunning,
At last become massed like the bulk of a mountain,
And we are cast down to “The River of Three Paths ;*
A fitting reward for our self-prompted actions,
Whose ills each must bear, never blaming another.
Live I a long life,-'tis like flashing of lightning.
Live I but one life, lo! 'tis lived in a dream-world.
Grow I into one life with wife and with children,
The love of such one life abides but a moment.
Think, how to the depths has my heart been affected!
Engrossed by my bonds to a world that is fleeting,
Naught led me to pray,—“Namu Amida Buddha;” +
As wind to a horse-ear were things of the future;
Reminded of death's blast, I answered, “When comes it? »
The preacher I trusted not; thought he spoke falsely:
And so has my time sped to this very moment.
Desire I thought was for good that would follow;-
Oh! how I lament as I think of what has been.
But yet in this troubled life comes consolation:
Adorable Buddha enlightens the dark way;
Has pity on all those who live in these last days;
To all gives compassion and blessed redemption,
Whose depth or whose height passes ocean or mountain.
To Buddha's salvation so bountiful, boundless,
*A river in the underworld over which the souls of the dead must go.
Three paths there lead to the realms of “Demons,» «Brutes, and the “Hur-
gry Ones. )
+ A sacred phrase by repetition of which salvation may be gained.
## p. 8179 (#379) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8179
Thanksgiving forever;- to me it is given.
Up pointing towards heaven, down pointing 'neath heaven,*
The Buddha sheds light upon all who are living.
Now, knowing the Law as the Law has been given,
The blest triple treasure,— Rite, Priesthood, and Buddha,t-
I lift up my song, though I sing in a dream-world.
If sorrow and knowing are both the mind's flowering,
If demon or Buddha with each is attendant,
Then let all my faith upon knowing be centred.
Up-striving, away from «The River of Three Paths,”
A glance at the Fullness Divine of all Goodness
Will gladden my eyes,— the reward of my striving.
Recite then the Prayer; — for by its mere virtue
Your pathway will enter the Land of the Holy. ”
»
MODERN LITERATURE UNDER THE TOKUGAWA
SHOGUNATE
1600-1850 A. D.
CLOSING SCENE FROM THE "CHIUSHINGURA)
[This story, (Chiusbingura,' records the celebrated fidelity of the Forty-
seven Ronin,” the great heroes of feudal Japan, 1701–2.
Translation by
F. Victor Dickins. It embodies the dearest ideals of a large part of the Jap-
anese people. In dramatic form it receives repeated rendering in Japanese
theatres. Mr. Dickins's translation follows the modified text of a famous
dramatist, Takeda Izumo, who shares with Chikamatsu a wide popularity. ]
NOTHER moment, and the body of Moronao lay on the floor,
A covered with wounds.
The conspirators crowded round it, wild with excite-
ment, shouting: -
"Oh, rare sight! Oh, happy fortune! Happy are we as the
móki when he found his waif, I fortunate as though we gazed
upon the flower of the udonge, that blossoms but once in three
thousand years. "
»
* The attitude taken by the Buddha immediately after his birth into this
world.
+ The three precious things of Buddhism — Law, Church, and Nirvana.
Some drift-wood by which this sea-tortoise (móki) saw the light it had
longed in vain to see for three thousand years.
## p. 8180 (#380) ###########################################
8180
JAPANESE LITERATURE
Cutting off their enemy's head with the dagger with which
their dead master had committed seppuku,* they resumed their
orgy, exclaiming:-
“We deserted our wives, we abandoned our children, we left
our aged folk uncared-for, all to obtain this one head. How
auspicious a day is this ! »
They struck at the head in their frenzy, gnashed at it, shed
tears over it; their grief and fury, poor wretches, beggared
description.
Yuranosuke, drawing from his bosom the ihait of his dead
master, placed it reverently on a small stand at the upper end
of the room; and then set the head of Moronao, cleansed from
blood, on another opposite to it. He next took a perfume from
within his helmet, and burnt it before the tablet of his lord,
prostrating himself and withdrawing slowly, while he bowed his
head reverently three times, and then again thrice three times.
"O thou soul of my liege lord, with awe doth thy vassal
approach thy mighty presence, who art now like unto him that
was born of the lotos-flower, 1 to attain a glory and eminence
beyond the understanding of men! Before the sacred tablet
tremblingly set I the head of thine enemy, severed from his
corpse by the sword thou deignedst to bestow upon thy servant
in the hour of thy last agony. O thou that art now resting
amid the shadows of the tall grass, look with favor on my offer-
ing. ” Bursting into tears, the Karo of Yenya thus adored the
memory of his lord.
" “And now, comrades,” he resumed after a pause, “advance
each of you, one after the other, and burn incense before the
tablet of your master. ”
“We would all,” cried Yoshida, “venture to ask our chief
first among us to render that honor to our lord's memory. ”
Nay,” answered the Karõ, «tis not I who of right should
be the first. Yazama Jiutaro, to you of right falls that honor. ”
“Not so,” cried Yazama: "I claim no such favor. Others
might think I had no right to it, and troubles might thus arise. ”
"No one will think that,” exclaimed Yuranosuke. « We have
all freely ventured our lives in the struggle to seize Moronao,
»
>
* Suicide by hara kiri, or cutting open the abdomen.
+ Tablet holding the posthumous name of the dead, and date of death.
| Buddha.
## p. 8181 (#381) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8181
>>
(C
but to you,- to you fell the glory of finding him, and it was you
who dragged him here alive, into our presence. 'Twas a good
deed, Yazama, acceptable to the spirit of our master; each of us
would fain have been the doer of it. Comrades, say I not well ? »
Yoshida assented on behalf of the rest.
“Delay not, Yazama,” resumed Yuranosuke; “for time flies
fast. »
If it must be so," cried Yazama, as he passed forward, utter-
ing gomen* in a low tone, and offered incense the first of the
company.
“And next our chief,” exclaimed Yoshida.
“Nay,” said the Karo, “there is yet one who should pass
before me. ”
«What man can that be? ” asked Yoshida wonderingly, while
his comrades echoed his words.
The Karo, without replying, drew a purse made of striped
stuff from his bosom. “He who shall precede me,” cried the
Karo, “is Hayano Kampei. A negligence of his duty as a vassal
prevented him from being received into our number; but, eager
to take at least a part in the erection of a monument to his liege
lord, he sold away his wife, and thus became able to furnish his
share toward the expense.
As his father-in-law had the money,
and was murdered, and I caused the subscription to be returned
to him, mad with despair he committed seppuku and died — a most
miserable and piteous death. A11
my
life I shall never cease
to regret having caused the money to be returned to him; never
for a moment will be absent from my memory that through my
fault he came to so piteous an end. During this night's strug-
gle the purse has been among us, borne by Heiyemon. Let the
latter pass forward, and in the name of his sister's dead husband,
burn incense before the tablet of our lord. ”
Heiyemon, thus addressed, passed forward, exclaiming, “From
amidst the shadows of the tall grass blades the soul of Kampei
thanks you for the unlooked-for favor you confer upon him. ”
Laying the purse upon the censer, he added:-
« 'Tis Hayano Kampei who, second in turn, offers incense
before the tablet of his liege lord. ”
The remainder followed, offering up in like manner -- amid
loud cries of grief, and with sobs and tears, and trembling in the
anguish of their minds — incense before the tablet of their master.
* «Pardon me » (for going forward).
## p. 8182 (#382) ###########################################
8182
JAPANESE LITERATURE
f
Suddenly the air is filled with the din of the trampling of
men, with the clatter of hoofs, and with the noise of war drums.
Yuranosuke does not change a feature.
« 'Tis the retainers of Moronao who are coming down upon
us: why should we fight with them? ”
The Karó is about to give the signal to his comrades to
accomplish the final act of their devotion, by committing seppuku
in memory of their lord, when Momonoi Wakasanosuke appears
upon the scene, disordered with the haste he had used, in his
fear of being too late.
"Moroyasu, the young brother of Moronao, is already at the
great gate, cries Momonoi. « If you commit seppuku at such a
moment it will be said that you were driven to it by fear, and
an infamous memory will attach to your deed.
I counsel you to
depart hence without delay, and betake yourselves to the burial-
place of your lord, the Temple of Kömyo. ”
“So shall it be,” answered Yuranosuke after a pause. “We
will do as you counsel us, and will accomplish our last hour
before the tomb of our ill-fated lord. We would ask you, Sir
Wakasanosuke, to prevent our enemies from following us. ”
Hardly had Yuranosuke concluded, when Yakushiji Jirūza-
yemon and Sagisaka Bannai suddenly rushed forth from their
hiding-places, shouting — "Oboshi, villain, thou shalt not escape! ”
and struck right and left at the Karo. Without a moment's
delay Rikiya hastened to his father's assistance, and forced the
wretches to turn their weapons against himself. The struggle
did not last long. Avoiding a blow aimed at him by Yaku.
shiji, Rikiya cut the fellow down, and left him writhing in mor-
tal agony upon the ground. Bannai met with a similar fate: a
frightful gash upon the leg brought him to his knee,-a piti-
able spectacle enough, - and a few moments afterward the wretch
breathed his last.
"A valiant deed, a valiant deed! »
Forever and ever shall the memory endure of these faithful
clansmen; and in the earnest hope that the story of their loyalty
- full bloom of the bamboo leaf* — may remain a bright example
—
as long as the dynasty of our rulers shall last, has the foregoing
tale of their heroism been writ down.
а
* The name of each heir to the Tokugawa Shogunate contained the name
take (bamboo).
## p. 8183 (#383) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8183
OPENING TO (GLIMPSES OF DREAMLANDS)
The
»
[This extract from the preface to one of Bakin's famous novels, published
1809-10, is part of a translation by Ludovic Mordwin, who characterizes Bakin
as a rationalist of the most modern Teutonic type; and his grim satire and
good-tempered cynicism best remind us alternately of Carlyle and Thackeray. ]
HE length of man's life is fifty years, and even in ancient
times men rarely reached seventy. A merely limited life is
received from Heaven-and-Earth by man, but his passions
have no limit. He is bound like a slave to the cent which he
wears his nails to the very quick to obtain. Before the six-
monthly term days arrive, payments and receipts are being briskly
carried on, pleadings for grace or money, and loud lamentations;
men borrowing with the meek, downcast look of a stone saint,
yet rushing off to evil deeds with it whenever they grasp the
desired treasure, and then repaying their loan with visage scowl.
ing like the King of Hell when he has his mouth smeared with
red incense.
The popular proverb that even in hell sins are estimated in
money” is, alas! esteemed a golden saying. "My property," and
«this or the other man's," although receiving the titles of their
owners, remain but a little time, like a passing traveler who tar-
ries for a night; for if there is income there is also expenditure.
Eating and drinking, after all, are the pegs which give strength
and continuity to life; and when you are really hungry perhaps
nothing tastes nasty. Barbarous foreigners buy the first bonitos
of the season with a golden koban, and when they have devoured
them still crave for more. If you try to fare on plain rice
flavored only with tea, it will travel but about three inches down
your throat, and soon all will find its way to the public boats. A
tight little house that you can get your knees into is quite large
enough. The grand palace of the Chinese Emperor Shiko and a
straw hovel differ only in being spacious or narrow, and in being
placed in the country or in the capital. If you have but a room
which a single mat covers, and in which you can just manage to
stretch your legs, your body will be completely protected. So
again, when you have packed your five feet of carcass into clothes,
they form a convenient temporary skin to your frame; while the
finest brocade or the coarsest rags differ only in being brilliant
or dirty. When men die and become mere clay, no one by
looking at their flayed [unclothed] bodies only can tell which of
## p. 8184 (#384) ###########################################
8184
JAPANESE LITERATURE
them wore the grandest raiment during life. A waist-cloth made
of silk crape is after all only a waist-cloth. When the true prin-
ciples which ought to regulate these things have been appre-
hended, our shoulders and knees will no doubt be covered with
such patches of all sorts and hues as may first come to hand;
but when one knowing of any costly article for which he has no
special purpose strikes a bargain on the condition of two six-
monthly payments, adorns himself with a borrowed wadded gown,
and points his toes to the pawn-shop, it is really a most pitiful
state of affairs !
According to the kind of costume they wear, men are divided
into great and mean; and if one follows simply the laws of eti-
quette in regard to the cut and color of his clothes, putting on
even tattered pants and carrying a rusty sword in his girdle,
though his possessions may be slender, still he can pay his debts.
Performing all the duties assigned to him by Heaven, seizing the
opportunity which a little leisure affords to turn over the green
covers of an old book, viewing the ways and manners of the
ancients, and resolving henceforth to mend his own ways, this is
better far than purchasing pain with money. The Religion of
Heaven does not give superabundantly. If a man has money he
may have no children to bestow it upon; if his family is large
his means may be small; handsome men are often fools, ugly men
clever; taking sorts of fellows are frequently lascivious, and men
poor in speech are strong in will.
ON PAINTING
>
[This illustration of art criticism is from the “Tamagatsuma' (Wicker
Basket) of Motoori, an entertaining miscellany by this modern master of Jap-
anese prose. Professor Chamberlain, translator of the extract given here, says
that “as a stylist Motoori stands quite alone amongst Japanese writers. His
elegance is equaled only by his perspicuity. . . This greatest scholar and
writer of modern Japan was born in Matsuzaka in Ise in the year 1730, and
died in 1801. «To him more than to any other one man is due the move.
ment which has restored the Mikado to his ancestral rights. »]
He great object in painting any one is to make as true a like-
ness of him as possible,-a likeness of his face (that is of
course the first essential), and also of his figure, and even
of his very clothes. Great attention should therefore be paid
to the smallest details of a portrait. Now in the present day,
T"
## p. 8185 (#385) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8185
painters of the human face set out with no other intention than
that of showing their vigor of touch, and of producing an elegant
picture. The result is a total want of likeness to the subject.
Indeed, likeness to the subject is not a thing to which they
attach any importance. From this craving to display vigor and
to produce elegant pictures there results a neglect of details.
Pictures are dashed off so sketchily that not only is there no
likeness to the face of the person painted, but wise and noble
men are represented with an expression of countenance befitting
none but rustics of the lowest degree. This is worthy of the
gravest censure. If the real features of a personage of antiquity
are unknown, it should be the artist's endeavor to represent such
a personage in a manner appropriate to his rank or virtues. The
man of great rank should be represented as having a dignified
air, so that he may appear to have been really great. The vir-
tuous man, again, should be painted so as to look really virtuous.
But far from conforming to this principle, the artists of modern
times, occupied as they are with nothing but the desire of dis-
playing their vigor of touch, represent the noble and virtuous
alike as if they had been rustics or idiots.
The same ever-present desire for mere technical display makes
our artists turn beautiful women's faces into ugly ones. It will
perhaps be alleged that a too elegant representation of mere
beauty of feature may result in a less valuable work of art; but
when it does so the fault must lie with the artist. His business
is to paint the beautiful face, and at the same time not to pro-
duce a picture artistically inferior. In any case, fear for his own
.
reputation as an artist is a wretched excuse for turning a beau-
tiful face into an ugly one. On the contrary, a beautiful woman
should be painted as beautiful as possible; for ugliness repels the
beholder. At the same time it often happens in such pictures as
those which are sold in the Yedo shops, that the strained effort
to make the faces beautiful ends in excessive ugliness and vul-
garity, to say nothing of artistic degradation.
Our warlike paintings (that is, representations of fierce war-
riors fighting) have nothing human about the countenances. The
immense round eyes, the angry nose, the great mouth, remind
one of demons. Now, will any one assert that this unnatural,
demoniacal fashion is the proper way to give an idea of the very
fiercest warrior's look ? No! The warrior's fierceness should in-
deed be depicted, but he should at the same time be recognized
## p. 8186 (#386) ###########################################
8186
JAPANESE LITERATURE
as a simple human being. It is doubtless to such portraits of
warriors that a Chinese author alludes, when, speaking of Japan-
ese paintings, he says that the figures in them are like those of
the anthropophagous demons of Buddhist lore.
As his country-
men do not ever actually meet living Japanese, such of them as
read his book will receive the impression that all our country.
men resemble demons in appearance. For though the Japanese,
through constant reading of Chinese books, are well acquainted
with Chinese matters, the Chinese, who never read our liter-
ature, are completely ignorant on our score, and there can be
little doubt that the few stray allusions to us that do occur are
implicitly believed in. This belief of foreigners in our portraits
as an actual representation of our people will have the effect of
making them imagine - when they see our great men painted
like rustics and our beautiful women like frights — that the Jap-
anese men are really contemptible in appearance and all the
Japanese women hideous. Neither is it foreigners alone who will
be thus misled. Our own very countrymen will not be able to
resist the impression that the portraits they see of the unknown
heroes of antiquity do really represent those heroes' faces.
## p. 8187 (#387) ###########################################
8187
JACQUES JASMIN
(1798–1864)
BY HARRIET WATERS PRESTON
ACQUES JASMIN, the barber-poet of Gascony, and the legit-
imate father of modern Provençal song, was born at Agen,
in the Department of Lot-et-Garonne, March 6th, 1798. He
wrote with charming ease and vivacity in his native Languedocian
dialect; which is closely allied to that of the Bouches-du-Rhône,
made famous not long afterward by the more formal efforts of Fré-
déric Mistral and the self-styled Félibres. The humble parents of
Jasmin, . after a signally unsuccessful effort to prepare him for the
priesthood, apprenticed the boy to a barber;
and he gayly gave to his first volume of
verses, which appeared in 1825, the appro-
priate name of Papillotos,' or Curl-Papers.
These naïve compositions consisted mainly
of such occasional pieces as are always in
request from the local poet of a provin-
cial neighborhood: hymns for celebrations,
birthday odes, dedications, and elegies:
"improvisations obligées,” Sainte-Beuve
impatiently called them, which, while they
showed the musical capacities of the Gas-
con patois, and its great richness in onoma-
topæic words and phrases, were far from JACQUES JASMIN
revealing the full range of the singer's
power. « One can only pay a poetical debt by means of an im-
promptu,” was Jasmin's own quaint apology, in after years, for the
conventionality of his youthful efforts; but impromptus, though very
good money of the heart, are almost always bad money of the head. ”
At the age of thirty-two, five years after the adventurous fight
of the Papillotos,' Jasmin told with fascinating simplicity and an
inimitable mixture of pathos and fun, in an autobiographical poem
entitled Soubenes) or Souvenirs, the tale of his own early struggles
and privations (he came literally of a line of paupers), and his auda-
cious conquest of a position among men of letters. The touching story
of The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuillé, admirably translated into Eng-
lish verse by Longfellow, appeared about 1835; Françonette in 1840;
as
## p. 8188 (#388) ###########################################
8188
JACQUES JASMIN
and subsequently, at intervals of several years, “The Twin Brothers,
(Simple Martha,' and (The Son's Week. )
(Françonette,' a romantic and highly wrought narrative in verse,
of religious persecution, sorcery, and passion, was held, both in Jas-
min's own frank judgment and that of his ablest critics, to be the
Gascon's masterpiece. It won him warm and wide recognition, not
only in France but throughout literary Europe. Writers of the rank
of Pontmartin and Charles Nodier, and highest of all Sainte-Beuve,
proceeded to make elaborate studies of the poems and their dialect,
lauded their originality, and confessed their distinction. Learned
societies and foreign potentates caused medals to be struck in honor
of the whilom barber's apprentice. He was made Chevalier of the
Legion of Honor in 1846; in 1852 his works were crowned by the
French Academy, and he received the very exceptional prize of five
thousand francs. The head of the parvenu poet was not at all turned
by his abrupt recognition in high quarters. Sainte-Beuve had said,
with his own exquisite discrimination, that the finest of Jasmin's
qualities as a writer was his intellectual sobriety. He proved that he
possessed this rare quality in the moral order as well. It is the
trait by which he is most distinguished from the younger school of
Provençal poets, with their proposed immortalities;— their somewhat
over-solemn and oppressive consciousness of descent from the Trouba-
dours, and a mighty poetic mission to fulfill. Jasmin is never pomp-
ous, and hardly ever dithyrambic. He is above everything natural
and humane; equally impulsive and spontaneous in his laughter and
his tears, and always essentially clean. He wrote slowly and with
untiring care; bringing out his principal poems, as we have seen,
about five years apart.
"I have learned,” he said on one occasion,
“that in moments of heat and emotion we are all alike eloquent and
laconic — prompt both in speech and action; that is to say, we are
unconscious poets. And I have also learned that it is possible for a
muse to become all this wittingly, and by dint of patient toil. ” No
man was ever better pleased by the approval of high authorities than
Jasmin; and he was so far reassured about his first metrical experi-
ments by the commendation of Sainte-Beuve, that he issued a new
edition of his early lyrics, including a mock-heroic poem called “The
Charivari, which he merrily dedicated to the prince of critics. "Away
on your snow-white paper wings! ” is the burden of his light-hearted
envoi, «for now you know that an angel protects you.
He has even
dressed you up in fine French robes, and put you in the Deux
Mondes ! » But he was also quite equal to forming an independent
opinion of his own performances; and when some one congratu-
lated him on having revived the traditions of the Troubadours, the
irrepressible Gascon shouted in reply, “Troubadours indeed! Why,
## p. 8189 (#389) ###########################################
JACQUES JASMIN
8189
I am
a great deal better poet than any of the Troubadours! Not
one of them has written a long poem of sustained interest like my
Françonette! ! ) There is at least no petty vanity here.
Jasmin may almost be said to have introduced the fashion, in
modern times, of reading or reciting his own poems in public. He
had a powerful and mellow voice, and declaimed with great dramatic
effect. He made none of those bold and brilliant experiments in
metre which allured the younger Félibres, but clung always to the
measures long approved in legal” French poetry; especially to Alex-
andrines and iambic tetrameters, and to their association in that sort
of irregular ballad measure of which La Fontaine had proved the
flexibility in classic French, and its peculiar fitness for poetical narra-
tive. Jasmin lived always in the South, but visited the capital occas-
ionally in his later years, and took the lionizing which he received
there as lightly as he had taken the medals and snuff-boxes of royal
dilettanti, or the habitual starvation, varied by frequent floggings, of
his wayward and squalid infancy. He died at Agen on the 4th of
October, 1864, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.
A popular edition of his complete works, in parallel Gascon and
French, was issued in Paris in 1860 — one year after the first publica-
tion there of Mistral's (Miréio. ' The rather coarse wood-cut likeness
which serves as a frontispiece to this volume represents a striking
and very attractive face: broad, open, and massive in feature, shrewd
and yet sweet in expression. It is a peasant's face in every line, but
full of power; and the head is carried high, with all the unconscious
fierté of old South-European race.
Full details concerning the first and most interesting period of
Jasmin's remarkable career are to be found in the Souvenirs,' which
begin, as the poet always preferred to begin a story, in a low and
quiet key, confidentially and colloquially:-
:-
“Now will I keep my promise, and will tell
How I was born, and what my youth befell. ”
Harmet aux preston
## p. 8190 (#390) ###########################################
8190
JACQUES JASMIN
A SIMPLE STORY
From My Souvenirs
NY
ow will I keep my promise, and will tell
How I was born, and what my youth befell.
The poor decrepit century passed away;
Had barely two more years on earth to stay,
When in a dingy and a dim retreat,
An old rat-palace in a narrow street,
Behind a door, Shrove Tuesday morn,
Just as the day flung its black nightcap by,
Of mother lame, and humpbacked sire, was born
A boy,- and it was I.
When princes come to life, the cannon thunder
With joy; but when I woke,
Being but a tailor's son, it was no wonder
Not even a cracker spoke.
Only a certain charivarian band
Before our neighbor's door had ta’en its stand,
Whereby my little virgin ears were torn
With dreadful din of kettle and of horn,
Which only served to echo wide the drone
Of forty couplets of my father's own.
Suddenly life became a pastime gay.
We can but paint what we have felt, they say:
Why, then must feeling have begun for me
At seven years old; for then myself I see,
With paper cap on head and horn in hand,
Following my father in the village band.
Was I not happy while the horns were blowing ?
Or better still, when we by chance were going,
A score or more, as we were wont to, whiles,
To gather fagots on the river isles ?
Bare heads, bare feet, our luncheon carrying,
Just as the noontide bells began to ring,
We would set forth. Ah, that was glee!
Singing The Lamb thou gavest me! )
I'm merry at the very memory!
Nathless, I was a dreamy little thing;
One simple word would strike me mute full often,
And I would hark, as to a viol string,
And knew not why I felt my heart so soften:
## p. 8191 (#391) ###########################################
JACQUES JASMIN
8191
And that was school, a pleasant word enow;
But when my mother at her spinning-wheel
Would pause and look on me with pitying brow,
And breathe it to my grandsire, I would feel
A sudden sorrow as I eyed the twain,-
A mystery, a long whole moment's pain.
And something else there was that made me sad:
I liked to fill a little pouch I had,
At the great fairs, with whatso I could glean,
And then to bid my mother look within;
And if my purse but showed her I had won
A few poor coins, a sou for service done,
Sighing, "Ah, my poor little one,” she said,
« This comes in time;) and then my spirit bled.
MEDITATIONS OF A HERMIT
[From the Hōjōki,' 1212; translated by J. M. Dixon. The writer, Kamo
no Chomei, the son of a priest, disappointed with life, sought seclusion from
the world in a ten-feet-square hut (höjo), on Mt. Ohara. There he made a
record of his thoughts, this “Höjõki, now valued as a literary treasure. )
T"
He water incessantly changes as the stream glides calmly on;
the spray that hangs over a cataract appears for a moment
only to vanish away. Such is the fate of mankind on this
earth and of the houses in which they dwell. If we gaze at a
mighty town we behold a succession of walls, surmounted by tiled
roofs which vie with one another in loftiness, These have been
from generation to generation the abodes of the rich and of
the poor, and yet none resist the destructive influence of time.
Some are allowed to fall into decay; others are replaced by
new structures. Their fate is shared by their inmates. If after
the lapse of a long period we return to a familiar locality, we
scarcely recognize one in ten of the faces we were accustomed to
## p. 8171 (#371) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8171
meet long ago.
In the morning we behold the light, and next
evening we depart for our long home. Our destiny resembles
the foam on the water. Whence came we, and whither are we
tending? What things vex us, what things delight us, in this
world of unreality? It is impossible truly to say. A house and
A
its occupant, changing perpetually, may well be compared to a
morning-glory flecked with dew. Sometimes it happens that the
dew evaporates and leaves the flower to die in the first glare of
day; sometimes the dew survives the flower, but only for a few
hours; before sunset the dew also has disappeared.
VAGRANT REVERIES
[From (Tsure-zure Gusa, 1345; translated by C. S. Eby. Yoshida Kenko,
the writer of these (Weeds of Idleness,' was a court official, who upon the
death of the Mikado entered the priesthood and became a monk. He was
poet as well as prose writer; was also a profound student of philosophy and
of the Chinese classics. ]
I
F MAN did not disappear like the dew of the field, or vanish
like the mists of Toribe hills, and continued his stay upon
earth, then tenderness of heart, sympathy, pity, would perish.
The unsettled changeableness of the present sublunary life is
vastly to be preferred.
never
a
OF ALL living creatures man is the most long-lived. The
ephemeral gnat comes into existence in the morning, and van-
ishes ere evening falls. The summer cicada knows
spring or autumn. One year of a man's life in comparison with
these things must be considered laborious and long. A life of a
thousand years, if passed in discontent and clung to, would seem
to fly away as a dream of the night. What profit is there in
clinging to a life which results in deformity, and cannot after all
continue forever? Longevity produces shame and disgrace. It is
better to die before forty years are passed, and thus escape the
shame of decrepitude.
A QUIET talk with one perfectly of your own turn of mind is
a very pleasant thing. It would give one great delight to speak
freely with such a friend about things that are pleasant, and
about the instability of earthly joys. But no such friendship is
possible.
## p. 8172 (#372) ###########################################
8172
JAPANESE LITERATURE
The changes of the seasons are full of things which arouse
our souls to deep emotion.
To sit opposite to and converse with a man like oneself in
every respect would be as good as sitting by oneself. Two
persons in many respects alike could sometimes raise a dispute.
And that would be very useful in dissipating the gloomy thoughts
of solitude.
To SPREAD open your books under the light of your lamp,
and hold communion with men of bygone ages, is surpassingly
comfortable.
JAPANESE poetry is especially charming. Even the toil of an
awkward peasant or of a woodman, expressed in poetic form,
delights the mind. The name of the terrible wild boar also,
when styled "fusui no toko,” sounds elegant.
(
Every one says that the autumn is the most affecting season
of the year.
Perhaps so. But the springtime transformations
of nature are more delightful, giving buoyancy to the heart.
The warbling of cheery songsters gives signal for the full out-
burst of spring-tide glory. The wild grass sprouts under the
hedge in answer to the mild rays of the kindly sun. The spring
advances and the mists melt into translucent air. The flowers
seem ready to burst into bloom. But rain and wind still make
their reckless attacks, and flowers are shattered to our dismay.
The changefulness of the days before the leaves are all green
cause us much distress. The past is brought back to our loving
memories more by the fragrance of the plum than by the hana
tachibana,* which is noted in this respect. The pure appearance
of the yamabukit and the uncertain condition of the fuji | cannot
be missed without pain.
The heart of man has been compared to flowers; but unlike
them, it does not wait for the blowing of the wind to be scattered
abroad. It is so fleeting and changeful.
* A small orange flower.
| A kind of yellow wild rose.
| Wistaria
## p. 8173 (#373) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8173
THE DANCE OF THE MOON FAIRY
[This beautiful translation by B. H. Chamberlain, of the second and third
parts of the lyric drama (Hagoromo) (Robe of Feathers), is an excellent
illustration of the mediæval No no Utai. These dramas bear a striking
resemblance to the drama of ancient Greece. In this, Hagoromo, a fisher-
man, finds on a tree on Mio beach a feather robe. The robe is claimed by a
lovely maiden, a moon fairy, who regains possession of her treasure by show-
ing to the fisherman one of the dances of the immortals. ]
C"
HORUS - Where'er we gaze the circling mists are twining:
Perchance e'en now the moon her tendrils fair
Celestial blossoms bear.
Those flowerets tell us that the spring is shining –
Those fresh-blown flowerets in the maiden's hair.
Fairy-
Blest hour beyond compare!
Chorus — Heaven hath its joys, but there is beauty here.
Blow, blow, ye winds! that the white cloud-belts driven
Around my path may bar my homeward way:
Not yet would I return to heaven,
But here on Mio's pine-clad shore I'd stray,
Or where the moon in bright unclouded glory
Shines on Kiyomi's lea,
And where on Fujiyama's summit hoary
The snows look on the sea,
While breaks the morning merrily!
But of these three, beyond compare
The wave-washed shore of Mio is most fair,
When through the pines the breath of spring is playing.
What barrier rises 'twixt the heaven and earth ?
Here too on earth the immortal gods came straying,
And gave our monarchs birth,
Fairy – Who in this empire of the rising sun,
While myriad ages run,
Shall ever rule their bright dominions,
Chorus
E'en when the feathery shock
Of fairies Aitting past with silvery pinions
Shall wear away the granite rock!
Oh magic strains that fill our ravished ears!
The fairy sings, and from the cloudy spheres
Chiming in unison, the angels' lutes,
Tabrets and cymbals and sweet silvery flutes,
Ring through the heaven that glows with purple hues,
As when Soméiro's western slope endues
## p. 8174 (#374) ###########################################
8174
JAPANESE LITERATURE
The tints of sunset, while the azure wave
From isle to isle the pine-clad shores doth lave,
From Ukishima's slope - a beauteous storm -
Whirl down the flowers; and still that magic form,
Those snowy pinions, fluttering in the light,
Ravish our souls with wonder and delight.
Fairy — Hail to the kings that o'er the moon hold sway!
Heaven is their home, and Buddhas too are they.
Chorus — The fairy robes the maiden's limbs endue
Fairy — Are, like the very heavens, of tenderest blue;
Chorus — Or, like the mists of spring, all silvery white,
Fairy — Fragrant and fair — too fair for mortal sight!
Chorus — Dance on, sweet maiden, through the happy hours!
Dance on, sweet maiden, while the magic flowers
Crowning thy tresses flutter in the wind
Raised by thy waving pinions intertwined!
Dance on! for ne'er to mortal dance 'tis given
To vie with that sweet dance thou bring'st from heaven:
And when, cloud-soaring, thou shalt all too soon
Homeward return to the full-shining moon,
Then hear our prayers, and from thy bounteous hand
Pour sevenfold treasures on our happy land;
Bless every coast, refresh each panting field,
That earth may still her proper increase yield !
But ah! the hour, the hour of parting rings!
Caught by the breeze, the fairy's magic wings
Heavenward do bear her from the pine-clad shore,
Past Ukishima's widely stretching moor,
Past Ashidaka's heights, and where are spread
The eternal snows on Fujiyama's head, -
Higher and higher to the azure skies,
Till wandering vapors hide her from our eyes!
## p. 8175 (#375) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8175
THE TRUE SAMURAI
[This illustration of the spirit of the true samurai is taken from a mediæval
drama entitled Dwarf Trees, translated by «Shinebi. ” The drama tells of
the award made to a poverty-stricken knight by the de facto ruler of Japan,
1190, for great kindness shown to the latter when once abroad in the garb of
a mendicant priest. The samurai had sacrificed even his dwarf trees to warm
his mean-looking guest. ]
Ting towards Kamakura ? *
Hail, traveler! Is it true that the troops are gather-
ing towards Kamakura ? * Why do such immense numbers
now advance to the capital ? [Following in the train. ] Why,
here are all the barons and knights of the eight provinces of
Adzuma in splendid equipment, all aiming for Kamakura! Their
weapons are brilliantly flashing, their armor resplendent with
silver and gold, mounted on well-fattened horses, with numerous
steeds for relief in the train. Amid them all this poor Tsuneyo
cuts a sorry figure, with horse and weapons and all so
this rough road. Doubtless they will laugh at me, though my
soul is by no means inferior. Still this lean, slow horse renders
the heart's courage abortive.
mean on
Chorus — Though he hastens, hastens, as a quivering willow twig
he is so weak, so very weak. Though he twist and pull,
the horse is ill-fed; though he beat him and whack his
flanks, yet he can scarcely make him budge. There is no
better conveyance for him; but he eventually comes in last
of all with weary weakly feet.
Saimiõji [in state in Kamakura] - Is my attendant there?
Attendant - At your service, my lord.
Saimiõji —— Have the troops arrived from all the provinces ?
Attendant - All have safely come. .
Saimioji — Among the troops is a single retainer in ragged
armor, with rusty spear, and leading himself a starved steed. Go
find him and order him into my presence.
Attendant — Your orders shall be executed. [Goes out. ] Any
one there?
Servant - At your service, sir.
Attendant - My lord's orders are that we go out immediately,
and find among the troops a samurai in battered armor, with a
* The seat of the Shogunate from 1192 to 1455.
## p. 8176 (#376) ###########################################
8176
JAPANESE LITERATURE
rusty spear, leading a lean horse, and bring him at once into his
august presence.
Servant -- I will attend to the matter. [Goes out and hails
Tsuneyo. ] Hail! Art thou my man ?
Tsune yo — Why am I called ?
Servant Haste there; come into the presence of our Lord
Saimiõji.
Tsuneyo — And am I called to appear in his august presence ?
Servant - Most assuredly.
Tsune yo — Alack, but this is unexpected! You must have mis-
taken your man.
Servant — Not at all: you are the man intended. The way
of it is this: my lord has ordered into his presence the worst-
looking samurai of all the assembled arinies; I have looked well
over the hosts, and am sure that there is none that can compare
with you for hideous appearance. So it is settled. Come, haste
to the palace.
Tsuneyo — What do you say? He wants the worst-looking
samurai in the army!
Servant — Most positively; those are the orders.
Tsune yo — Then I must be the man. Go; say I'm coming.
Servant — Very well.
Tsuneyo [approaching the palace] — Verily, this is incompre-
hensible. Some enemy has accused me of treason, and this
being ordered into my lord's presence is but the prelude of hav-
ing my head taken off. Well, well, I can do nothing to help it.
I will go in at any risk; please show me the way.
Chorus — Then in an instant, suddenly ushered into the midst
of assembled soldiers ranged like blazing stars, rank on
rank of samurai of the armies, besides many other notables.
Their eyes are drawn to him, and many point the scornful
finger.
Tsuneyo — What is well sewed may yet be ripped.
Chorus — His old armor and rusty spear are not useless to him,
nor cares he for the ridiculous figure he cuts.
[He appears before Saimioji. ]
Saimioji — Ha! That is the man. [To Tsuneyo. ] Art thou
Genzaemon Tsuneyo of Sano, and hast thou forgotten the wan-
dering priest who sought shelter of thee yon snowy night?
## p. 8177 (#377) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8177
Thou declaredst then that should trouble arise at Kamakura thou
wouldst don thy battered armor, seize thy rusty spear, mount
thy shadowy steed, and speed thee first of all to Kamakura.
Now thou hast valiantly kept thy word; for this I admire thee.
[To the assembly. ) The object of this gathering of vassals in
]
the capital was for no other cause than to test the truth or
falsehood of Tsuneyo's words. However, if there is any per-
son here with a grievance to state, let him now plead his cause,
and judgment shall be given according to justice and law. But
first of all I give judgment in the case of Tsuneyo. His for-
mer inheritance in Sano, over thirty counties, must be forthwith
returned to him. Moreover, besides this, for that in the cold
snow-storm he willingly cut down his precious ornamental trees
to warm the stranger guest, in hope of reward in some other
world, I now in return for the ume [plum], sakura [cherry),
matsu (pine] trees, bestow upon him Ume-da in Kaga, Sakura-i
in Etchu, and Matsu-eda in Ködzuke, three portions as a per-
petual inheritance for himself and his heirs to all generations;
in testimony whereof, I now give official documents signed and
sealed.
Chorus — With gladness of heart he accepts the benefactions of
his lord.
Tsuneyo — Tsuneyo accepts the gifts.
Chorus — He accepts, and three times makes humble obeisance,
O ye who erst laughed him to scorn, look now upon him
excelling in honor. The warriors all return to their
homes, and among them Tsuneyo, his face all bright with
new-found joy. Now riding bravely on a gorgeous steed,
away he speeds to his home in Sano of Kamitsuke with
joyous heart.
XJV-512
## p. 8178 (#378) ###########################################
8178
JAPANESE LITERATURE
THE DOMINANT NOTE OF THE LAW
[This is one of the Buddhist (Wasan,' or hymns, from the latter part of
the sixteenth (? ) century, written by a priest, Kwaihan; translation by Clay
MacCauley. The translation follows the Japanese metre of the naga uła,
each line containing two series of alternating five and seven syllable measures. ]
I
N SPENDING my days chasing things that are trifles,
In sowing the seed of the sixfold migration,
I pass through the world with my life-purpose baffled.
Since gaining a birth among those that are human,
Just now I have learned that I may become godlike;
So now I seek Buddha's help, trusting the promise.
This world, after all,— it is only a dream-world;
And we, after all, are vain selves with dust mingled.
Our jealousies, angers, and scoffing reproaches,
All evils we do, though disguised by our cunning,
At last become massed like the bulk of a mountain,
And we are cast down to “The River of Three Paths ;*
A fitting reward for our self-prompted actions,
Whose ills each must bear, never blaming another.
Live I a long life,-'tis like flashing of lightning.
Live I but one life, lo! 'tis lived in a dream-world.
Grow I into one life with wife and with children,
The love of such one life abides but a moment.
Think, how to the depths has my heart been affected!
Engrossed by my bonds to a world that is fleeting,
Naught led me to pray,—“Namu Amida Buddha;” +
As wind to a horse-ear were things of the future;
Reminded of death's blast, I answered, “When comes it? »
The preacher I trusted not; thought he spoke falsely:
And so has my time sped to this very moment.
Desire I thought was for good that would follow;-
Oh! how I lament as I think of what has been.
But yet in this troubled life comes consolation:
Adorable Buddha enlightens the dark way;
Has pity on all those who live in these last days;
To all gives compassion and blessed redemption,
Whose depth or whose height passes ocean or mountain.
To Buddha's salvation so bountiful, boundless,
*A river in the underworld over which the souls of the dead must go.
Three paths there lead to the realms of “Demons,» «Brutes, and the “Hur-
gry Ones. )
+ A sacred phrase by repetition of which salvation may be gained.
## p. 8179 (#379) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8179
Thanksgiving forever;- to me it is given.
Up pointing towards heaven, down pointing 'neath heaven,*
The Buddha sheds light upon all who are living.
Now, knowing the Law as the Law has been given,
The blest triple treasure,— Rite, Priesthood, and Buddha,t-
I lift up my song, though I sing in a dream-world.
If sorrow and knowing are both the mind's flowering,
If demon or Buddha with each is attendant,
Then let all my faith upon knowing be centred.
Up-striving, away from «The River of Three Paths,”
A glance at the Fullness Divine of all Goodness
Will gladden my eyes,— the reward of my striving.
Recite then the Prayer; — for by its mere virtue
Your pathway will enter the Land of the Holy. ”
»
MODERN LITERATURE UNDER THE TOKUGAWA
SHOGUNATE
1600-1850 A. D.
CLOSING SCENE FROM THE "CHIUSHINGURA)
[This story, (Chiusbingura,' records the celebrated fidelity of the Forty-
seven Ronin,” the great heroes of feudal Japan, 1701–2.
Translation by
F. Victor Dickins. It embodies the dearest ideals of a large part of the Jap-
anese people. In dramatic form it receives repeated rendering in Japanese
theatres. Mr. Dickins's translation follows the modified text of a famous
dramatist, Takeda Izumo, who shares with Chikamatsu a wide popularity. ]
NOTHER moment, and the body of Moronao lay on the floor,
A covered with wounds.
The conspirators crowded round it, wild with excite-
ment, shouting: -
"Oh, rare sight! Oh, happy fortune! Happy are we as the
móki when he found his waif, I fortunate as though we gazed
upon the flower of the udonge, that blossoms but once in three
thousand years. "
»
* The attitude taken by the Buddha immediately after his birth into this
world.
+ The three precious things of Buddhism — Law, Church, and Nirvana.
Some drift-wood by which this sea-tortoise (móki) saw the light it had
longed in vain to see for three thousand years.
## p. 8180 (#380) ###########################################
8180
JAPANESE LITERATURE
Cutting off their enemy's head with the dagger with which
their dead master had committed seppuku,* they resumed their
orgy, exclaiming:-
“We deserted our wives, we abandoned our children, we left
our aged folk uncared-for, all to obtain this one head. How
auspicious a day is this ! »
They struck at the head in their frenzy, gnashed at it, shed
tears over it; their grief and fury, poor wretches, beggared
description.
Yuranosuke, drawing from his bosom the ihait of his dead
master, placed it reverently on a small stand at the upper end
of the room; and then set the head of Moronao, cleansed from
blood, on another opposite to it. He next took a perfume from
within his helmet, and burnt it before the tablet of his lord,
prostrating himself and withdrawing slowly, while he bowed his
head reverently three times, and then again thrice three times.
"O thou soul of my liege lord, with awe doth thy vassal
approach thy mighty presence, who art now like unto him that
was born of the lotos-flower, 1 to attain a glory and eminence
beyond the understanding of men! Before the sacred tablet
tremblingly set I the head of thine enemy, severed from his
corpse by the sword thou deignedst to bestow upon thy servant
in the hour of thy last agony. O thou that art now resting
amid the shadows of the tall grass, look with favor on my offer-
ing. ” Bursting into tears, the Karo of Yenya thus adored the
memory of his lord.
" “And now, comrades,” he resumed after a pause, “advance
each of you, one after the other, and burn incense before the
tablet of your master. ”
“We would all,” cried Yoshida, “venture to ask our chief
first among us to render that honor to our lord's memory. ”
Nay,” answered the Karõ, «tis not I who of right should
be the first. Yazama Jiutaro, to you of right falls that honor. ”
“Not so,” cried Yazama: "I claim no such favor. Others
might think I had no right to it, and troubles might thus arise. ”
"No one will think that,” exclaimed Yuranosuke. « We have
all freely ventured our lives in the struggle to seize Moronao,
»
>
* Suicide by hara kiri, or cutting open the abdomen.
+ Tablet holding the posthumous name of the dead, and date of death.
| Buddha.
## p. 8181 (#381) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8181
>>
(C
but to you,- to you fell the glory of finding him, and it was you
who dragged him here alive, into our presence. 'Twas a good
deed, Yazama, acceptable to the spirit of our master; each of us
would fain have been the doer of it. Comrades, say I not well ? »
Yoshida assented on behalf of the rest.
“Delay not, Yazama,” resumed Yuranosuke; “for time flies
fast. »
If it must be so," cried Yazama, as he passed forward, utter-
ing gomen* in a low tone, and offered incense the first of the
company.
“And next our chief,” exclaimed Yoshida.
“Nay,” said the Karo, “there is yet one who should pass
before me. ”
«What man can that be? ” asked Yoshida wonderingly, while
his comrades echoed his words.
The Karo, without replying, drew a purse made of striped
stuff from his bosom. “He who shall precede me,” cried the
Karo, “is Hayano Kampei. A negligence of his duty as a vassal
prevented him from being received into our number; but, eager
to take at least a part in the erection of a monument to his liege
lord, he sold away his wife, and thus became able to furnish his
share toward the expense.
As his father-in-law had the money,
and was murdered, and I caused the subscription to be returned
to him, mad with despair he committed seppuku and died — a most
miserable and piteous death. A11
my
life I shall never cease
to regret having caused the money to be returned to him; never
for a moment will be absent from my memory that through my
fault he came to so piteous an end. During this night's strug-
gle the purse has been among us, borne by Heiyemon. Let the
latter pass forward, and in the name of his sister's dead husband,
burn incense before the tablet of our lord. ”
Heiyemon, thus addressed, passed forward, exclaiming, “From
amidst the shadows of the tall grass blades the soul of Kampei
thanks you for the unlooked-for favor you confer upon him. ”
Laying the purse upon the censer, he added:-
« 'Tis Hayano Kampei who, second in turn, offers incense
before the tablet of his liege lord. ”
The remainder followed, offering up in like manner -- amid
loud cries of grief, and with sobs and tears, and trembling in the
anguish of their minds — incense before the tablet of their master.
* «Pardon me » (for going forward).
## p. 8182 (#382) ###########################################
8182
JAPANESE LITERATURE
f
Suddenly the air is filled with the din of the trampling of
men, with the clatter of hoofs, and with the noise of war drums.
Yuranosuke does not change a feature.
« 'Tis the retainers of Moronao who are coming down upon
us: why should we fight with them? ”
The Karó is about to give the signal to his comrades to
accomplish the final act of their devotion, by committing seppuku
in memory of their lord, when Momonoi Wakasanosuke appears
upon the scene, disordered with the haste he had used, in his
fear of being too late.
"Moroyasu, the young brother of Moronao, is already at the
great gate, cries Momonoi. « If you commit seppuku at such a
moment it will be said that you were driven to it by fear, and
an infamous memory will attach to your deed.
I counsel you to
depart hence without delay, and betake yourselves to the burial-
place of your lord, the Temple of Kömyo. ”
“So shall it be,” answered Yuranosuke after a pause. “We
will do as you counsel us, and will accomplish our last hour
before the tomb of our ill-fated lord. We would ask you, Sir
Wakasanosuke, to prevent our enemies from following us. ”
Hardly had Yuranosuke concluded, when Yakushiji Jirūza-
yemon and Sagisaka Bannai suddenly rushed forth from their
hiding-places, shouting — "Oboshi, villain, thou shalt not escape! ”
and struck right and left at the Karo. Without a moment's
delay Rikiya hastened to his father's assistance, and forced the
wretches to turn their weapons against himself. The struggle
did not last long. Avoiding a blow aimed at him by Yaku.
shiji, Rikiya cut the fellow down, and left him writhing in mor-
tal agony upon the ground. Bannai met with a similar fate: a
frightful gash upon the leg brought him to his knee,-a piti-
able spectacle enough, - and a few moments afterward the wretch
breathed his last.
"A valiant deed, a valiant deed! »
Forever and ever shall the memory endure of these faithful
clansmen; and in the earnest hope that the story of their loyalty
- full bloom of the bamboo leaf* — may remain a bright example
—
as long as the dynasty of our rulers shall last, has the foregoing
tale of their heroism been writ down.
а
* The name of each heir to the Tokugawa Shogunate contained the name
take (bamboo).
## p. 8183 (#383) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8183
OPENING TO (GLIMPSES OF DREAMLANDS)
The
»
[This extract from the preface to one of Bakin's famous novels, published
1809-10, is part of a translation by Ludovic Mordwin, who characterizes Bakin
as a rationalist of the most modern Teutonic type; and his grim satire and
good-tempered cynicism best remind us alternately of Carlyle and Thackeray. ]
HE length of man's life is fifty years, and even in ancient
times men rarely reached seventy. A merely limited life is
received from Heaven-and-Earth by man, but his passions
have no limit. He is bound like a slave to the cent which he
wears his nails to the very quick to obtain. Before the six-
monthly term days arrive, payments and receipts are being briskly
carried on, pleadings for grace or money, and loud lamentations;
men borrowing with the meek, downcast look of a stone saint,
yet rushing off to evil deeds with it whenever they grasp the
desired treasure, and then repaying their loan with visage scowl.
ing like the King of Hell when he has his mouth smeared with
red incense.
The popular proverb that even in hell sins are estimated in
money” is, alas! esteemed a golden saying. "My property," and
«this or the other man's," although receiving the titles of their
owners, remain but a little time, like a passing traveler who tar-
ries for a night; for if there is income there is also expenditure.
Eating and drinking, after all, are the pegs which give strength
and continuity to life; and when you are really hungry perhaps
nothing tastes nasty. Barbarous foreigners buy the first bonitos
of the season with a golden koban, and when they have devoured
them still crave for more. If you try to fare on plain rice
flavored only with tea, it will travel but about three inches down
your throat, and soon all will find its way to the public boats. A
tight little house that you can get your knees into is quite large
enough. The grand palace of the Chinese Emperor Shiko and a
straw hovel differ only in being spacious or narrow, and in being
placed in the country or in the capital. If you have but a room
which a single mat covers, and in which you can just manage to
stretch your legs, your body will be completely protected. So
again, when you have packed your five feet of carcass into clothes,
they form a convenient temporary skin to your frame; while the
finest brocade or the coarsest rags differ only in being brilliant
or dirty. When men die and become mere clay, no one by
looking at their flayed [unclothed] bodies only can tell which of
## p. 8184 (#384) ###########################################
8184
JAPANESE LITERATURE
them wore the grandest raiment during life. A waist-cloth made
of silk crape is after all only a waist-cloth. When the true prin-
ciples which ought to regulate these things have been appre-
hended, our shoulders and knees will no doubt be covered with
such patches of all sorts and hues as may first come to hand;
but when one knowing of any costly article for which he has no
special purpose strikes a bargain on the condition of two six-
monthly payments, adorns himself with a borrowed wadded gown,
and points his toes to the pawn-shop, it is really a most pitiful
state of affairs !
According to the kind of costume they wear, men are divided
into great and mean; and if one follows simply the laws of eti-
quette in regard to the cut and color of his clothes, putting on
even tattered pants and carrying a rusty sword in his girdle,
though his possessions may be slender, still he can pay his debts.
Performing all the duties assigned to him by Heaven, seizing the
opportunity which a little leisure affords to turn over the green
covers of an old book, viewing the ways and manners of the
ancients, and resolving henceforth to mend his own ways, this is
better far than purchasing pain with money. The Religion of
Heaven does not give superabundantly. If a man has money he
may have no children to bestow it upon; if his family is large
his means may be small; handsome men are often fools, ugly men
clever; taking sorts of fellows are frequently lascivious, and men
poor in speech are strong in will.
ON PAINTING
>
[This illustration of art criticism is from the “Tamagatsuma' (Wicker
Basket) of Motoori, an entertaining miscellany by this modern master of Jap-
anese prose. Professor Chamberlain, translator of the extract given here, says
that “as a stylist Motoori stands quite alone amongst Japanese writers. His
elegance is equaled only by his perspicuity. . . This greatest scholar and
writer of modern Japan was born in Matsuzaka in Ise in the year 1730, and
died in 1801. «To him more than to any other one man is due the move.
ment which has restored the Mikado to his ancestral rights. »]
He great object in painting any one is to make as true a like-
ness of him as possible,-a likeness of his face (that is of
course the first essential), and also of his figure, and even
of his very clothes. Great attention should therefore be paid
to the smallest details of a portrait. Now in the present day,
T"
## p. 8185 (#385) ###########################################
JAPANESE LITERATURE
8185
painters of the human face set out with no other intention than
that of showing their vigor of touch, and of producing an elegant
picture. The result is a total want of likeness to the subject.
Indeed, likeness to the subject is not a thing to which they
attach any importance. From this craving to display vigor and
to produce elegant pictures there results a neglect of details.
Pictures are dashed off so sketchily that not only is there no
likeness to the face of the person painted, but wise and noble
men are represented with an expression of countenance befitting
none but rustics of the lowest degree. This is worthy of the
gravest censure. If the real features of a personage of antiquity
are unknown, it should be the artist's endeavor to represent such
a personage in a manner appropriate to his rank or virtues. The
man of great rank should be represented as having a dignified
air, so that he may appear to have been really great. The vir-
tuous man, again, should be painted so as to look really virtuous.
But far from conforming to this principle, the artists of modern
times, occupied as they are with nothing but the desire of dis-
playing their vigor of touch, represent the noble and virtuous
alike as if they had been rustics or idiots.
The same ever-present desire for mere technical display makes
our artists turn beautiful women's faces into ugly ones. It will
perhaps be alleged that a too elegant representation of mere
beauty of feature may result in a less valuable work of art; but
when it does so the fault must lie with the artist. His business
is to paint the beautiful face, and at the same time not to pro-
duce a picture artistically inferior. In any case, fear for his own
.
reputation as an artist is a wretched excuse for turning a beau-
tiful face into an ugly one. On the contrary, a beautiful woman
should be painted as beautiful as possible; for ugliness repels the
beholder. At the same time it often happens in such pictures as
those which are sold in the Yedo shops, that the strained effort
to make the faces beautiful ends in excessive ugliness and vul-
garity, to say nothing of artistic degradation.
Our warlike paintings (that is, representations of fierce war-
riors fighting) have nothing human about the countenances. The
immense round eyes, the angry nose, the great mouth, remind
one of demons. Now, will any one assert that this unnatural,
demoniacal fashion is the proper way to give an idea of the very
fiercest warrior's look ? No! The warrior's fierceness should in-
deed be depicted, but he should at the same time be recognized
## p. 8186 (#386) ###########################################
8186
JAPANESE LITERATURE
as a simple human being. It is doubtless to such portraits of
warriors that a Chinese author alludes, when, speaking of Japan-
ese paintings, he says that the figures in them are like those of
the anthropophagous demons of Buddhist lore.
As his country-
men do not ever actually meet living Japanese, such of them as
read his book will receive the impression that all our country.
men resemble demons in appearance. For though the Japanese,
through constant reading of Chinese books, are well acquainted
with Chinese matters, the Chinese, who never read our liter-
ature, are completely ignorant on our score, and there can be
little doubt that the few stray allusions to us that do occur are
implicitly believed in. This belief of foreigners in our portraits
as an actual representation of our people will have the effect of
making them imagine - when they see our great men painted
like rustics and our beautiful women like frights — that the Jap-
anese men are really contemptible in appearance and all the
Japanese women hideous. Neither is it foreigners alone who will
be thus misled. Our own very countrymen will not be able to
resist the impression that the portraits they see of the unknown
heroes of antiquity do really represent those heroes' faces.
## p. 8187 (#387) ###########################################
8187
JACQUES JASMIN
(1798–1864)
BY HARRIET WATERS PRESTON
ACQUES JASMIN, the barber-poet of Gascony, and the legit-
imate father of modern Provençal song, was born at Agen,
in the Department of Lot-et-Garonne, March 6th, 1798. He
wrote with charming ease and vivacity in his native Languedocian
dialect; which is closely allied to that of the Bouches-du-Rhône,
made famous not long afterward by the more formal efforts of Fré-
déric Mistral and the self-styled Félibres. The humble parents of
Jasmin, . after a signally unsuccessful effort to prepare him for the
priesthood, apprenticed the boy to a barber;
and he gayly gave to his first volume of
verses, which appeared in 1825, the appro-
priate name of Papillotos,' or Curl-Papers.
These naïve compositions consisted mainly
of such occasional pieces as are always in
request from the local poet of a provin-
cial neighborhood: hymns for celebrations,
birthday odes, dedications, and elegies:
"improvisations obligées,” Sainte-Beuve
impatiently called them, which, while they
showed the musical capacities of the Gas-
con patois, and its great richness in onoma-
topæic words and phrases, were far from JACQUES JASMIN
revealing the full range of the singer's
power. « One can only pay a poetical debt by means of an im-
promptu,” was Jasmin's own quaint apology, in after years, for the
conventionality of his youthful efforts; but impromptus, though very
good money of the heart, are almost always bad money of the head. ”
At the age of thirty-two, five years after the adventurous fight
of the Papillotos,' Jasmin told with fascinating simplicity and an
inimitable mixture of pathos and fun, in an autobiographical poem
entitled Soubenes) or Souvenirs, the tale of his own early struggles
and privations (he came literally of a line of paupers), and his auda-
cious conquest of a position among men of letters. The touching story
of The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuillé, admirably translated into Eng-
lish verse by Longfellow, appeared about 1835; Françonette in 1840;
as
## p. 8188 (#388) ###########################################
8188
JACQUES JASMIN
and subsequently, at intervals of several years, “The Twin Brothers,
(Simple Martha,' and (The Son's Week. )
(Françonette,' a romantic and highly wrought narrative in verse,
of religious persecution, sorcery, and passion, was held, both in Jas-
min's own frank judgment and that of his ablest critics, to be the
Gascon's masterpiece. It won him warm and wide recognition, not
only in France but throughout literary Europe. Writers of the rank
of Pontmartin and Charles Nodier, and highest of all Sainte-Beuve,
proceeded to make elaborate studies of the poems and their dialect,
lauded their originality, and confessed their distinction. Learned
societies and foreign potentates caused medals to be struck in honor
of the whilom barber's apprentice. He was made Chevalier of the
Legion of Honor in 1846; in 1852 his works were crowned by the
French Academy, and he received the very exceptional prize of five
thousand francs. The head of the parvenu poet was not at all turned
by his abrupt recognition in high quarters. Sainte-Beuve had said,
with his own exquisite discrimination, that the finest of Jasmin's
qualities as a writer was his intellectual sobriety. He proved that he
possessed this rare quality in the moral order as well. It is the
trait by which he is most distinguished from the younger school of
Provençal poets, with their proposed immortalities;— their somewhat
over-solemn and oppressive consciousness of descent from the Trouba-
dours, and a mighty poetic mission to fulfill. Jasmin is never pomp-
ous, and hardly ever dithyrambic. He is above everything natural
and humane; equally impulsive and spontaneous in his laughter and
his tears, and always essentially clean. He wrote slowly and with
untiring care; bringing out his principal poems, as we have seen,
about five years apart.
"I have learned,” he said on one occasion,
“that in moments of heat and emotion we are all alike eloquent and
laconic — prompt both in speech and action; that is to say, we are
unconscious poets. And I have also learned that it is possible for a
muse to become all this wittingly, and by dint of patient toil. ” No
man was ever better pleased by the approval of high authorities than
Jasmin; and he was so far reassured about his first metrical experi-
ments by the commendation of Sainte-Beuve, that he issued a new
edition of his early lyrics, including a mock-heroic poem called “The
Charivari, which he merrily dedicated to the prince of critics. "Away
on your snow-white paper wings! ” is the burden of his light-hearted
envoi, «for now you know that an angel protects you.
He has even
dressed you up in fine French robes, and put you in the Deux
Mondes ! » But he was also quite equal to forming an independent
opinion of his own performances; and when some one congratu-
lated him on having revived the traditions of the Troubadours, the
irrepressible Gascon shouted in reply, “Troubadours indeed! Why,
## p. 8189 (#389) ###########################################
JACQUES JASMIN
8189
I am
a great deal better poet than any of the Troubadours! Not
one of them has written a long poem of sustained interest like my
Françonette! ! ) There is at least no petty vanity here.
Jasmin may almost be said to have introduced the fashion, in
modern times, of reading or reciting his own poems in public. He
had a powerful and mellow voice, and declaimed with great dramatic
effect. He made none of those bold and brilliant experiments in
metre which allured the younger Félibres, but clung always to the
measures long approved in legal” French poetry; especially to Alex-
andrines and iambic tetrameters, and to their association in that sort
of irregular ballad measure of which La Fontaine had proved the
flexibility in classic French, and its peculiar fitness for poetical narra-
tive. Jasmin lived always in the South, but visited the capital occas-
ionally in his later years, and took the lionizing which he received
there as lightly as he had taken the medals and snuff-boxes of royal
dilettanti, or the habitual starvation, varied by frequent floggings, of
his wayward and squalid infancy. He died at Agen on the 4th of
October, 1864, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.
A popular edition of his complete works, in parallel Gascon and
French, was issued in Paris in 1860 — one year after the first publica-
tion there of Mistral's (Miréio. ' The rather coarse wood-cut likeness
which serves as a frontispiece to this volume represents a striking
and very attractive face: broad, open, and massive in feature, shrewd
and yet sweet in expression. It is a peasant's face in every line, but
full of power; and the head is carried high, with all the unconscious
fierté of old South-European race.
Full details concerning the first and most interesting period of
Jasmin's remarkable career are to be found in the Souvenirs,' which
begin, as the poet always preferred to begin a story, in a low and
quiet key, confidentially and colloquially:-
:-
“Now will I keep my promise, and will tell
How I was born, and what my youth befell. ”
Harmet aux preston
## p. 8190 (#390) ###########################################
8190
JACQUES JASMIN
A SIMPLE STORY
From My Souvenirs
NY
ow will I keep my promise, and will tell
How I was born, and what my youth befell.
The poor decrepit century passed away;
Had barely two more years on earth to stay,
When in a dingy and a dim retreat,
An old rat-palace in a narrow street,
Behind a door, Shrove Tuesday morn,
Just as the day flung its black nightcap by,
Of mother lame, and humpbacked sire, was born
A boy,- and it was I.
When princes come to life, the cannon thunder
With joy; but when I woke,
Being but a tailor's son, it was no wonder
Not even a cracker spoke.
Only a certain charivarian band
Before our neighbor's door had ta’en its stand,
Whereby my little virgin ears were torn
With dreadful din of kettle and of horn,
Which only served to echo wide the drone
Of forty couplets of my father's own.
Suddenly life became a pastime gay.
We can but paint what we have felt, they say:
Why, then must feeling have begun for me
At seven years old; for then myself I see,
With paper cap on head and horn in hand,
Following my father in the village band.
Was I not happy while the horns were blowing ?
Or better still, when we by chance were going,
A score or more, as we were wont to, whiles,
To gather fagots on the river isles ?
Bare heads, bare feet, our luncheon carrying,
Just as the noontide bells began to ring,
We would set forth. Ah, that was glee!
Singing The Lamb thou gavest me! )
I'm merry at the very memory!
Nathless, I was a dreamy little thing;
One simple word would strike me mute full often,
And I would hark, as to a viol string,
And knew not why I felt my heart so soften:
## p. 8191 (#391) ###########################################
JACQUES JASMIN
8191
And that was school, a pleasant word enow;
But when my mother at her spinning-wheel
Would pause and look on me with pitying brow,
And breathe it to my grandsire, I would feel
A sudden sorrow as I eyed the twain,-
A mystery, a long whole moment's pain.
And something else there was that made me sad:
I liked to fill a little pouch I had,
At the great fairs, with whatso I could glean,
And then to bid my mother look within;
And if my purse but showed her I had won
A few poor coins, a sou for service done,
Sighing, "Ah, my poor little one,” she said,
« This comes in time;) and then my spirit bled.
