The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories
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Project Gutenberg's The Romance of the Milky Way, by Lafcadio Hearn This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Romance of the Milky Way And Other Studies & Stories Author: Lafcadio Hearn Release Date: March 10, 2005 [EBook #15320] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY *** Produced by Ted Garvin, William Flis, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. SHORT STORY THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY AND OTHER STUDIES & STORIES BY LAFCADIO HEARN HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK 1905 COPYRIGHT 1905 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PUBLISHED OCTOBER 1905 CONTENTS THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY 1 GOBLIN POETRY 51 "ULTIMATE QUESTIONS" 103 THE MIRROR MAIDEN 125 THE STORY OF ITŌ NORISUKÉ 139 STRANGER THAN FICTION 167 A LETTER FROM JAPAN 179 [pg vii] INTRODUCTION Lafcadio Hearn, known to Nippon as Yakumo Koizumi, was born in Leucadia in the Ionian Islands, June 27, 1850. His father was an Irish surgeon in the British Army; his mother was a Greek. Both parents died while Hearn was still a child, and he was adopted by a great-aunt, and educated for the priesthood.
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| Publié par | oddi |
| Publié le | 08 décembre 2010 |
| Nombre de lectures | 22 |
| Langue | English |
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Project Gutenberg's The Romance of the Milky Way, by Lafcadio Hearn
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.
You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Romance of the Milky Way
And Other Studies & Stories
Author: Lafcadio Hearn
Release Date: March 10, 2005 [EBook #15320]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY ***
Produced by Ted Garvin, William Flis, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
SHORT STORY
THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY
AND OTHER STUDIES & STORIES
BY LAFCADIO HEARN
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK 1905
COPYRIGHT 1905 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 1905
CONTENTS
THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY
1
GOBLIN POETRY
51
"ULTIMATE QUESTIONS"
103
THE MIRROR MAIDEN
125
THE STORY OF ITŌ NORISUKÉ
139
STRANGER THAN FICTION
167
A LETTER FROM JAPAN
179
INTRODUCTION
[pg vii]
Lafcadio Hearn, known to Nippon as Yakumo Koizumi, was born in Leucadia in
the Ionian Islands, June 27, 1850. His father was an Irish surgeon in the British
Army; his mother was a Greek. Both parents died while Hearn was still a child,
and he was adopted by a great-aunt, and educated for the priesthood. To this
training he owed his Latin scholarship and, doubtless, something of the subtlety
of
his
intelligence.
He
soon
found, however,
that
the
prospect
of
an
ecclesiastical career was alien from his inquiring mind and vivid temperament,
and at the age of nineteen he came to America to seek his fortune. After
working for a time as a proof-reader, he obtained employment as a newspaper
reporter in Cincinnati. Soon he rose to be an editorial writer, and went in the
course of a few years to New Orleans to join the editorial staff of the "Times-
Democrat." Here he lived until 1887, writing odd fantasies and arabesques for
his paper, contributing articles and sketches to the magazines, and publishing
several curious little books, among them his "Stray Leaves from Strange
Literature," and his translations from Gautier. In the winter of 1887 he began his
pilgrimages to exotic countries, being, as he wrote to a friend, "a small literary
bee in search of inspiring honey." After a couple of years, spent chiefly in the
French West Indies, with periods of literary work in New York, he went in 1890
to Japan to prepare a series of articles for a magazine. Here through some
deep affinity of mood with the marvelous people of that country he seems
suddenly to have felt himself at last at home. He married a Japanese woman;
h e acquired Japanese citizenship in order to preserve the succession of his
property to his family there; he became a lecturer in the Imperial University at
Tōkyō; and in a series of remarkable books he made himself the interpreter to
the Western World of the very spirit of Japanese life and art. He died there of
paralysis of the heart on the 26th of September, 1904.
With the exception of a body of familiar letters now in process of collection, the
present volume contains all of Hearn's writing that he left uncollected in the
magazines or in manuscript of a sufficient ripeness for publication. It is worth
noting, however, that perfect as is the writing of "Ultimate Questions," and
complete as the essay is in itself, the author regarded it as unfinished, and, had
he lived, would have revised and amplified some portions of it.
But if this volume lacks the incomparably exquisite touch of its author in its
arrangement and revision, it does, nevertheless, present him in all of his most
characteristic veins, and it is in respect both to style and to substance perhaps
the most mature and significant of his works.
In his first days as a writer Hearn had conceived an ideal of his art as specific
as it was ambitious. Early in the eighties he wrote from New Orleans in an
unpublished letter to the Rev. Wayland D. Ball of Washington: "The lovers of
antique loveliness are proving to me the future possibilities of a long cherished
dream,—the English realization of a Latin style, modeled upon foreign masters,
and rendered even more forcible by that element of
strength
which is the
characteristic of Northern tongues. This no man can hope to accomplish, but
even
a
translator may
carry
his
stones
to
the master-masons of a new
architecture of language." In the realization of his ideal Hearn took unremitting
pains. He gave a minute and analytical study to the writings of such masters of
style as Flaubert and Gautier, and he chose his miscellaneous reading with a
peculiar care. He wrote again to the same friend: "I never read a book which
does
not powerfully impress the imagination; but whatever contains novel,
curious, potent imagery I always read, no matter what the subject. When the
soil of fancy is really well enriched with innumerable fallen leaves, the flowers
of language grow spontaneously." Finally, to the hard study of technique, to
[pg viii]
[pg ix]
[pg x]
vast but judicious reading, he added a long, creative brooding time. To a
Japanese friend, Nobushige Amenomori, he wrote in a passage which contains
by implication a deep theory not only of literary composition, but of all art:—
"Now with regard to your own sketch or story. If you are quite dissatisfied with it,
I
think
this
is
probably
due
not
to
what you
suppose,—imperfection
of
expression,—but rather to the fact that some
latent
thought or emotion has not
yet defined itself in your mind with sufficient sharpness. You feel something and
have not been able to express the feeling—only because you do not yet quite
know what it is. We feel without understanding feeling; and our most powerful
emotions are the most undefinable. This must be so, because they are inherited
accumulations of feeling, and the multiplicity of them—superimposed one over
another—blurs them, and makes them dim, even though enormously increasing
their strength....
Unconscious
brain work is the best to develop such latent
feeling or thought. By quietly writing the thing over and over again, I find that the
emotion or idea often
develops itself
in the process,—unconsciously. Again, it
is often worth while to
try
to analyze the feeling that remains dim. The effort of
trying
to
understand exactly what it is that moves us sometimes proves
successful.... If you have any feeling—no matter what—strongly latent in the
mind (even only a haunting sadness or a mysterious joy), you may be sure that
it is expressible. Some feelings are, of course, very difficult to develop. I shall
show you one of these days, when we see each other, a page that I worked at
for
months
before the idea came clearly.... When the best result comes, it ought
to surprise you, for our best work is out of the Unconscious."
Through this study, reading, and brooding Lafcadio Hearn's prose ripened and
mellowed consistently to the end. In mere workmanship the present volume is
one of his most admirable, while in its heightened passages, like the final
paragraph of "The Romance of the Milky Way," the rich, melancholy music, the
profound suggestion, are not easily matched from any but the very greatest
English prose.
In substance the volume is equally significant. In 1884 he wrote to one of the
closest of his friends that he had at last found his feet intellectually through the
reading of Herbert Spencer which had dispelled all "isms" from his mind and
left him "the vague but omnipotent consolation of the Great Doubt." And in
"Ultimate Questions," which strikes, so to say, the dominant chord of this
volume, we have an almost lyrical expression of the meaning for him of the
Spencerian philosophy and psychology. In it is his characteristic mingling of
Buddhist and Shinto thought with English and French psychology, strains
which in his work "do not simply mix well," as he says in one of his letters, but
"absolutely unite, like chemical elements—rush together with a shock;"—and in
it he strikes his deepest note. In his steady envisagement of the horror that
envelops the stupendous universe of science, in his power to evoke and revive
old myths and superstitions, and by their glamour to cast a ghostly light of
vanished suns over the darkness of the abyss, he was the most Lucretian of
modern writers.
In outward appearance Hearn, the man, was in no way prepossessing. In the
sharply lined picture of him drawn by one of his Japanese comrades in the
"Atlantic" for October, 1905, he appears, "slightly corpulent in later years, short
in stature, hardly five feet high, of somewhat stooping gait. A little brownish in
complexion, and of rather hairy skin. A thin, sharp, aquiline nose, large
protruding eyes, of which the left was blind and the right very near-sighted."
The same writer, Nobushige Amenomori, has set down a reminiscence, not of
[pg xi]
[pg xii]
[pg xiii]
Hearn the man, but of Hearn the genius, wherewith this introduction to the last
of his writings may fitly conclude: "I shall ever retain the vivid remembrance of
the sight I had when I stayed over night at his house for the first time. Being
used myself also to sit up late, I read in bed that night. The clock struck one in
the morning, but there was a light in Hearn's study. I heard some low, hoarse
coughing. I was afraid my friend might be ill; so I stepped out of my room and
went to his study. Not wanting, however, to disturb him, if he was at work, I
cautiously opened the door just a little, and peeped in. I saw my friend intent in
writing at his high desk, with his nose almost touching the paper. Leaf after leaf
he wrote on. In a while he held up his head, and what did I see! It was not the
Hearn I was familiar with; it was another Hearn. His face was mysteriously
white; his large eye gleamed. He appeared like one in touch with some
unearthly presence.
"Within that homely looking man there burned something pure as the vestal fire,
and in that flame dwelt a mind that called forth life and poetry out of dust, and
grasped the highest themes of human thought."
F.G.
September, 1905.
THE ROMANCE, OF THE MILKY WAY
Of old it was said: 'The River of Heaven is the Ghost of Waters.' We
behold it shifting its bed in the course of the year as an earthly river
sometimes does.
Ancient Scholar
Among
the
many
charming
festivals
celebrated
by
Old
Japan, the
most
romantic was the festival of Tanabata-Sama, the Weaving-Lady of the Milky
Way. In the chief cities her holiday is now little observed; and in Tōkyō it is
almost forgotten. But in many country districts, and even in villages, near the
capital, it is still celebrated in a small way. If you happen to visit an old-
fashioned country town or village, on the seventh day of the seventh month (by
the ancient calendar), you will probably notice many freshly-cut bamboos fixed
upon the roofs of the houses, or planted in the ground beside them, every
bamboo having attached to it a number of strips of colored paper. In some very
poor villages you might find that these papers are white, or of one color only;
but the general rule is that the papers should be of five or seven different colors.
Blue, green, red, yellow, and white are the tints commonly displayed. All these
papers are inscribed with short poems written in praise of Tanabata and her
husband Hikoboshi. After the festival the bamboos are taken down and thrown
into the nearest stream, together with the poems attached to them.
To understand the romance of this old festival, you must know the legend of
those astral divinities to whom offerings used to be made, even by, the Imperial
Household, on the seventh day of the seventh month. The legend is Chinese.
This is the Japanese popular version of it:—
The great god of the firmament had a lovely daughter, Tanabata-tsumé, who
passed her days in weaving garments for her august parent. She rejoiced in her
work, and thought that there was no greater pleasure than the pleasure of
weaving. But one day, as she sat before her loom at the door of her heavenly
[pg xiv]
[pg 1]
[pg 3]
[pg 4]
[pg 5]
dwelling, she saw a handsome peasant lad pass by, leading an ox, and she fell
in love with him. Her august father, divining her secret wish, gave her the youth
for a husband. But the wedded lovers became too fond of each other, and
neglected their duty to the god of the firmament; the sound of the shuttle was no
longer heard, and the ox wandered, unheeded, over the plains of heaven.
Therefore the great god was displeased, and he separated the pair. They were
sentenced to live thereafter apart, with the Celestial River between them; but it
was permitted them to see each other once a year, on the seventh night of the
seventh moon. On that night—providing the skies be clear—the birds of heaven
make, with their bodies and wings, a bridge over the stream; and by means of
that bridge the lovers can meet. But if there be rain, the River of Heaven rises,
and becomes so wide that the bridge cannot be formed. So the husband and
wife cannot always meet, even on the seventh night of the seventh month; it
may happen, by reason of bad weather, that they cannot meet for three or four
years at a time. But their love remains immortally young and eternally patient;
and they continue to fulfill their respective duties each day without fault,—
happy in their hope of being able to meet on the seventh night of the next
seventh month.
To ancient Chinese fancy, the Milky Way was a luminous river,—the River of
Heaven,—the
Silver
Stream.
It has been stated by Western writers that
Tanabata, the Weaving-Lady, is a star in Lyra; and the Herdsman, her beloved,
a star in Aquila, on the opposite side of the galaxy. But it were more correct to
say that both are represented, to Far-Eastern imagination, by groups of stars.
An old Japanese book puts the matter thus plainly: "Kengyū (the Ox-Leader) is
on the west side of the Heavenly River, and is represented by three stars in a
row, and looks like a man leading an ox. Shokujo (the Weaving-Lady) is on the
east side of the Heavenly River: three stars so placed as to appear like the
figure of a woman seated at her loom.... The former presides over all things
relating to agriculture; the latter, over all that relates to women's work."
In an old book called Zatsuwa-Shin, it is said that these deities were of earthly
origin. Once in this world they were man and wife, and lived in China; and the
husband was called Ishi, and the wife Hakuyō. They especially and most
devoutly reverenced the Moon. Every clear evening, after sundown, they waited
with eagerness to see her rise. And when she began to sink towards the
horizon, they would climb to the top of a hill near their house, so that they might
be able to gaze upon her face as long as possible. Then, when she at last
disappeared from view, they would mourn together. At the age of ninety and
nine, the wife died; and her spirit rode up to heaven on a magpie, and there
became a star. The husband, who was then one hundred and three years old,
sought consolation for his bereavement in looking at the Moon and when he
welcomed her rising and mourned her setting, it seemed to him as if his wife
were still beside him.
One summer night, Hakuyō—now immortally beautiful and young—descended
from heaven upon her magpie, to visit her husband; and he was made very
happy by that visit. But from that time he could think of nothing but the bliss of
becoming a star, and joining Hakuyō beyond the River of Heaven. At last he
also ascended to the sky, riding upon a crow; and there he became a star-god.
But he could not join Hakuyō at once, as he had hoped;—for between his
allotted place and hers flowed the River of Heaven; and it was not permitted for
either star to cross the stream, because the Master of Heaven (
Ten-Tei
) daily
bathed in its waters. Moreover, there was no bridge. But on one day every year
—the seventh day of the seventh month—they were allowed to see each other.
[pg 6]
[pg 7]
[pg 8]
The Master of Heaven goes always on that day to the Zenhōdo, to hear the
preaching of the law of Buddha; and then the magpies and the crows make,
with their hovering bodies and outspread wings, a bridge over the Celestial
Stream; and Hakuyō crosses that bridge to meet her husband.
There can be little doubt that the Japanese festival called Tanabata was
originally identical with the festival of the Chinese Weaving-Goddess, Tchi-Niu;
the Japanese holiday seems to have been especially a woman's holiday, from
the earliest times; and the characters with which the word Tanabata is written
signify a weaving-girl. But as both of the star-deities were worshiped on the
seventh of the seventh month, some Japanese scholars have not been satisfied
with the common explanation of the name, and have stated that it was originally
composed with the word
tané
(seed, or grain), and the word
hata
(loom). Those
who
accept
this
etymology
make the appellation, Tanabata-Sama, plural
instead of singular, and render it as "the deities of grain and of the loom,"—that
is to say, those presiding over agriculture and weaving. In old Japanese
pictures the star-gods are represented according to this conception of their
respective attributes;—Hikoboshi being figured as a peasant lad leading an ox
to drink of the Heavenly River, on the farther side of which Orihimé (Tanabata)
appears, weaving at her loom. The garb of both is Chinese; and the first
Japanese pictures of these divinities were probably copied from some Chinese
original.
In the oldest collection of Japanese poetry extant,—the Manyōshū, dating from
7 6 0 A.D.,—the male divinity is usually called Hikoboshi, and the female
Tanabata-tsumé; but in later times both have been called Tanabata. In Izumo
the male deity is popularly termed O-Tanabata Sama, and the female Mé-
Tanabata Sama. Both are still known by many names. The male is called
Kaiboshi as well as Hikoboshi and Kengyū; while the female is called Asagao-
himé ("Morning Glory Princess")
1
, Ito-ori-himé ("Thread-Weaving Princess"),
Momoko-himé ("Peach-Child Princess"), Takimono-himé ("Incense Princess"),
and Sasagani-himé ("Spider Princess"). Some of these names are difficult to
explain,—especially the last, which reminds us of the Greek legend of Arachne.
Probably the Greek myth and the Chinese story have nothing whatever in
common; but in old Chinese books there is recorded a curious fact which might
well suggest a relationship. In the time of the Chinese Emperor Ming Hwang
(whom the Japanese call Gensō), it was customary for the ladies of the court,
on the seventh day of the seventh month, to catch spiders and put them into an
incense-box for purposes of divination. On the morning of the eighth day the
box was opened; and if the spiders had spun thick webs during the night the
omen was good. But if they had remained idle the omen was bad.
There is a story that, many ages ago, a beautiful woman visited the dwelling of
a farmer in the mountains of Izumo, and taught to the only daughter of the
household an art of weaving never before known. One evening the beautiful
stranger vanished away; and the people knew that they had seen the Weaving-
Lady of Heaven. The daughter of the farmer became renowned for her skill in
weaving. But she would never marry,—because she had been the companion
of Tanabata-Sama.
Then there is a Chinese story—delightfully vague—about a man who once
made a visit, unawares, to the Heavenly Land. He had observed that every
year, during the eighth month, a raft of precious wood came floating to the shore
on which he lived; and he wanted to know where that wood grew. So he loaded
a boat with provisions for a two years' voyage, and sailed away in the direction
[pg 9]
[pg 10]
[pg 11]
[pg 12]
from which the rafts used to drift. For months and months he sailed on, over an
always placid sea; and at last he arrived at a pleasant shore, where wonderful
trees were growing. He moored his boat, and proceeded alone into the
unknown land, until he came to the bank of a river whose waters were bright as
silver. On the opposite shore he saw a pavilion; and in the pavilion a beautiful
woman sat weaving; she was white like moonshine, and made a radiance all
about her. Presently he saw a handsome young peasant approaching, leading
an ox to the water; and he asked the young peasant to tell him the name of the
place and the country. But the youth seemed to be displeased by the question,
and answered in a severe tone: "If you want to know the name of this place, go
back to where you came from, and ask Gen-Kum-Pei."
2
So the voyager, feeling
afraid, hastened to his boat, and returned to China. There he sought out the
sage Gen-Kum-Pei, to whom he related the adventure. Gen-Kum-Pei clapped
his hands for wonder, and exclaimed, "So it was you!... On the seventh day of
the seventh month I was gazing at the heavens, and I saw that the Herdsman
and the Weaver were about to meet;—but between them was a new Star, which
I took to be a Guest-Star. Fortunate man! you have been to the River of Heaven,
and have looked upon the face of the Weaving-Lady!..."
—It is said that the meeting of the Herdsman and the Weaver can be observed
b y any one with good eyes; for whenever it occurs those stars burn with five
different colors. That is why offerings of five colors are made to the Tanabata
divinities, and why the poems composed in their praise are written upon paper
of five different tints.
But, as I have said before, the pair can meet only in fair weather. If there be the
least rain upon the seventh night, the River of Heaven will rise, and the lovers
must wait another whole year. Therefore the rain that happens to fall on
Tanabata night is called
Namida no Amé
, "The Rain of Tears."
When the sky is clear on the seventh night, the lovers are fortunate; and their
stars can be seen to sparkle with delight. If the star Kengyū then shines very
brightly, there will be great rice crops in the autumn. If the star Shokujo looks
brighter than usual, there will be a prosperous time for weavers, and for every
kind of female industry.
In old Japan it was generally supposed that the meeting of the pair signified
good fortune to mortals. Even to-day, in many parts of the country, children sing
a
little song on the evening of the Tanabata festival,—
Tenki ni nari!
("O
weather, be clear!") In the province of Iga the young folks also sing a jesting
song at the supposed hour of the lovers' meeting:—
Tanabata ya!
Amari isogaba,
Korobubéshi!
3
But in the province of Izumo, which is a very rainy district, the contrary belief
prevails; and it is thought that if the sky be clear on the seventh day of the
seventh month, misfortune will follow. The local explanation of this belief is that
if the stars can meet, there will be born from their union many evil deities who
will afflict the country with drought and other calamities.
The festival of Tanabata was first celebrated in Japan on the seventh day of the
seventh month of Tombyō Shōhō (A.D. 755). Perhaps the Chinese origin of the
[pg 13]
[pg 14]
[pg 15]
[pg 16]
Tanabata divinities accounts for the fact that their public worship was at no time
represented by many temples.
I have been able to find record of only one temple to them, called Tanabata-
jinja, which was situated at a village called Hoshiaimura, in the province of
Owari, and surrounded by a grove called Tanabata-mori.
4
Even before Tembyō Shōhō, however, the legend of the Weaving-Maiden
seems to have been well known in Japan; for it is recorded that on the seventh
night of the seventh year of Yōrō (A.D. 723) the poet Yamagami no Okura
composed the song:—
Amanogawa,
Ai-muki tachité,
Waga koïshi
Kimi kimasu nari—
Himo-toki makina!
5
It would seem that the Tanabata festival was first established in Japan eleven
hundred and fifty years ago, as an Imperial Court festival only, in accordance
with
Chinese precedent. Subsequently the nobility and the military classes
everywhere followed imperial example; and the custom of celebrating the
Hoshi-mat-suri, or Star-Festival,—as it was popularly called,—spread gradually
downwards, until at last the seventh day of the seventh month became, in the
full sense of the term, a national holiday. But the fashion of its observance
varied considerably at different eras and in different provinces.
The ceremonies at the Imperial Court were of the most elaborate character: a
full account of them is given in the
Kōji Kongen
,—with explanatory illustrations.
On the evening of the seventh day of the seventh month, mattings were laid
down on the east side of that portion of the Imperial Palace called the Seir-
yōden; and upon these mattings were placed four tables of offerings to the Star-
deities. Besides the customary food-offerings, there were placed upon these
tables rice-wine, incense, vases of red lacquer containing flowers, a harp and
flute, and a needle with five eyes, threaded with threads of five different colors.
Black-lacquered oil-lamps were placed beside the tables, to illuminate the
feast. In another part of the grounds a tub of water was so placed as to reflect
the light of the Tanabata-stars; and the ladies of the Imperial Household
attempted to thread a needle by the reflection. She who succeeded was to be
fortunate during the following year. The court-nobility (
Kugé
) were obliged to
make certain offerings to the Imperial House on the day of the festival. The
character of these offerings, and the manner of their presentation, were fixed by
decree. They were conveyed to the palace upon a tray, by a veiled lady of rank,
in ceremonial dress. Above her, as she walked, a great red umbrella was borne
by an attendant. On the tray were placed seven
tanzaku
(longilateral slips of
fi n e tinted
paper
for
the
writing
of poems); seven
kudzu
-leaves;
6
seven
inkstones; seven
strings
of
sōmen
(a
kind of vermicelli); fourteen writing-
brushes; and a bunch of yam-leaves gathered at night, and thickly sprinkled
with dew. In the palace grounds the ceremony began at the Hour of the Tiger,—
4 A.M. Then the inkstones were carefully washed,—prior to preparing the ink
for the writing of poems in praise of the Star-deities,—and each one set upon a
kudzu
-leaf. One bunch of bedewed yam-leaves was then laid upon every
inkstone; and with this dew, instead of water, the writing-ink was prepared. All
t h e ceremonies appear to have been copied from those in vogue at the
Chinese court in the time of the Emperor Ming-Hwang.
[pg 17]
[pg 18]
[pg 19]
It was not until the time of the Tokugawa Shōgunate that the Tanabata festival
became really a national holiday; and the popular custom of attaching
tansaku
of different colors to freshly-cut bamboos, in celebration of the occasion, dates
only from the era of Bunser (1818). Previously the
tanzaku
had been made of a
very costly quality of paper; and the old aristocratic ceremonies had been not
less expensive than elaborate. But in the time of the Tokugawa Shōgunate a
very
cheap paper of various colors was manufactured; and the holiday
ceremonies were suffered to assume an inexpensive form, in which even the
poorest classes could indulge.
The popular customs relating to the festival differed according to locality. Those
of Izumo—where all classes of society,
samurai
or common folk, celebrated the
holiday in much the same way—used to be particularly interesting; and a brief
account of them will suggest something of the happy aspects of life in feudal
times. At the Hour of the Tiger, on the seventh night of the seventh month,
everybody was up; and the work of washing the inkstones and writing-brushes
was performed. Then, in the household garden, dew was collected upon yam-
leaves. This dew was called
Amanogawa no suzuki
("drops from the River of
Heaven"); and it was used to make fresh ink for writing the poems which were
to be suspended to bamboos planted in the garden. It was usual for friends to
present each other with new inkstones at the time of the Tanabata festival; and
i f there were any new inkstones in the house, the fresh ink was prepared in
these. Each member of the family then wrote poems. The adults composed
verses, according to their ability, in praise of the Star-deities; and the children
either wrote dictation or tried to improvise. Little folk too young to use the
writing-brush without help had their small hands guided, by parent or elder
sister or elder brother, so as to shape on a
tanzaku
the character of some single
word or phrase relating to the festival,—such as "Amanogawa," or "Tanabata,"
or "Kasasagi no Hashi" (the Bridge of Magpies). In the garden were planted two
freshly-cut bamboos, with branches and leaves entire,—a male bamboo (
otoko-
daké
) and a female bamboo (
onna-daké
). They were set up about six feet apart,
and to a cord extended between them were suspended paper-cuttings of five
colors, and skeins of dyed thread of five colors. The paper-cuttings represented
upper-robes,—
kimono
. To the leaves and branches of the bamboos were tied
the
tanzaku
on which poems had been written by the members of the family.
And upon a table, set between the bamboos, or immediately before them, were
placed vessels containing various offerings to the Star-deities,—fruits,
sōmen
,
rice-wine, and
vegetables
of
different
kinds,
such
as
cucumbers
and
watermelons.
But the most curious Izumo custom relating to the festival was
the
Nému-
nagashi
, or "Sleep-wash-away" ceremony. Before day-break the young folks
used to go to some stream, carrying with them bunches composed of
némuri
-
leaves and bean-leaves mixed together. On reaching the stream, they would
fling their bunches of leaves into the current, and sing a little song:—
Nému wa, nagaré yo!
Mamé no ha wa, tomaré!
These verses might be rendered in two ways; because the word
nému
can be
taken in the meaning either of
némuri
(sleep), or of
nemuri-gi
or
némunoki
, the
"sleep-plant" (mimosa),—while the syllables
mamé
, as written i n
kana
, can
signify either "bean," or "activity," or "strength," "vigor," "health," etc. But the
ceremony was symbolical, and the intended meaning of the song was:—
Drowsiness, drift away!
Leaves of vigor, remain!
[pg 20]
[pg 21]
[pg 22]
[pg 23]
After this, all the young folk would jump into the water, to bathe or swim, in
token of their resolve to shed all laziness for the coming year, and to maintain a
vigorous spirit of endeavor.
Yet it was probably in Yédo (now Tōkyō) that the Tanabata festival assumed its
most picturesque aspects. During the two days that the celebration lasted,—the
sixth
and seventh
of
the
seventh
month,—the
city
used
to
present the
appearance of one vast bamboo grove; fresh bamboos, with poems attached to
them, being erected upon the roofs of the houses. Peasants were in those days
able to do a great business in bamboos, which were brought into town by
hundreds of wagonloads for holiday use. Another feature of the Yédo festival
was the children's procession, in which bamboos, with poems attached to them,
were carried about the city. To each such bamboo there was also fastened a
red plaque on which were painted, in Chinese characters, the names of the
Tanabata stars.
But almost everywhere, under the Tokugawa régime, the Tanabata festival
used to be a merry holiday for the young people of all classes,—a holiday
beginning
with
lantern displays before sunrise, and lasting well into the
following night. Boys and girls on that day were dressed in their best, and paid
visits of ceremony to friends and neighbors.
—The moon of the seventh month used to be called
Tanabata-tsuki
, or "The
Moon of Tanabata." And it was also called
Fumi-tsuki
, or "The Literary Moon,"
because during the seventh month poems were everywhere composed in
praise of the Celestial Lovers.
I think that my readers ought to be interested in the following selection of
ancient Japanese poems, treating of the Tanabata legend. All are from the
Manyōshū
. T h e
Manyōshū
, or "Gathering of a Myriad Leaves," is a vast
collection of poems composed before the middle of the eighth century. It was
compiled by Imperial order, and completed early in the ninth century. The
number of the poems which it contains is upwards of four thousand; some
being "long poems" (
naga-uta
), but the great majority
tanka
, or compositions
limited to thirty-one syllables; and the authors were courtiers or high officials.
The first eleven
tanka
hereafter translated were composed by Yamagami no
Okura, Governor of the province of Chikuzen more than eleven hundred years
ago. His fame as a poet is well deserved; for not a little of his work will bear
comparison w i th some of the finer epigrams of the Greek Anthology. The
following verses, upon the death of his little son Furubi, will serve as an
example:—
Wakakeréba
Nichi-yuki shiraji:
Mahi wa sému,
Shitabé no tsukahi
Ohité-tohorasé.
—[
As he is so young, he cannot know the way.... To the messenger
of the Underworld I will give a bribe, and entreat him, saying: "Do
thou kindly take the little one upon thy back along the road."
]
Eight hundred years earlier, the Greek poet Diodorus Zonas of Sardis had
written:—
[pg 24]
[pg 25]
[pg 26]
"
Do thou, who rowest the boat of the dead in the water of this reedy
lake, for Hades, stretch out thy hand, dark Charon, to the son of
Kinyras, as he mounts the ladder by the gang-way, and receive him.
For his sandals will cause the lad to slip, and he fears to set his feet
naked on the sand of the shore.
"
But the charming epigram of Diodorus was inspired only by a myth,—for the
"son of Kinyras" was no other than Adonis,—whereas the verses of Okura
express for us the yearning of a father's heart.
—Though the legend of Tanabata was indeed borrowed from China, the reader
will find nothing Chinese in the following compositions. They represent the old
classic poetry at its purest, free from alien influence; and they offer us many
suggestions as to the condition of Japanese life and thought twelve hundred
years ago. Remembering that they were written before any modern European
literature had yet taken form, one is startled to find how little the Japanese
written language has changed in the course of so many centuries. Allowing for
a few obsolete words, and sundry slight changes of pronunciation, the ordinary
Japanese reader to-day can enjoy these early productions of his native muse
with about as little difficulty as the English reader finds in studying the poets of
the Elizabethan era. Moreover, the refinement and the simple charm of the
Manyōshū
compositions have never been surpassed, and seldom equaled, by
later Japanese poets.
As for the forty-odd
tanka
which I have translated, their chief attraction lies, I
think, in what they reveal to us of the human nature of their authors. Tanabata-
tsumé still represents for us the Japanese wife, worshipfully loving;—Hikoboshi
appears to us with none of the luminosity of the god, but as the young
Japanese husband of the sixth or seventh century, before Chinese ethical
convention had begun to exercise its restraint upon life and literature. Also
these poems interest us by their expression of the early feeling for natural
beauty. In them we find the scenery and the seasons of Japan transported to
the Blue Plain of High Heaven;—the Celestial Stream with its rapids and
shallows, its sudden risings and clamourings within its stony bed, and its water-
grasses bending in the autumn wind, might well be the Kamogawa;—and the
mists that haunt its shores are the very mists of Arashiyama. The boat of
Hikoboshi, impelled by a single oar working upon a wooden peg, is not yet
obsolete; and at many a country ferry you may still see the
hiki-funé
in which
Tanabata-tsumé prayed her husband to cross in a night of storm,—a flat broad
barge pulled over the river by cables. And maids and wives still sit at their
doors in country villages, on pleasant autumn days, to weave as Tanabata-
tsumé wove for the sake of her lord and lover.
—It will be observed that, in most of these verses, it is not the wife who dutifully
crosses the Celestial River to meet her husband, but the husband who rows
over the stream to meet the wife; and there is no reference to the Bridge of
Birds.... As for my renderings, those readers who know by experience the
difficulty of translating Japanese verse will be the most indulgent, I fancy. The
Romaji system of spelling has been followed (except in one or two cases
where I thought it better to indicate the ancient syllabication after the method
adopted by Aston); and words or phrases necessarily supplied have been
inclosed in parentheses.
Amanogawa
[pg 27]
[pg 28]
[pg 29]
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