charm is compared to the cherry flower and also to the plum flower; but the quality symbolized by the plum flower is moral always rather than physical.[2] The verse represents a man strongly attracted by two girls: one, perhaps a dancer, very fair to look upon; the other beautiful in character. Which shall he choose to be his companion for life? One more example:—
Too long, with pen in hand, idling, fearing, and doubting, I cast my silver pin for the test of the tatamizan.
Here we know from the mention of the hairpin that the speaker is a woman, and we can also suppose that she is a geisha; the sort of divination called tatamizan being especially popular with dancing-girls. The rush covering of floor-mats (tatami,) woven over a frame of thin strings, shows on its upper surface a regular series of lines about three fourths of an inch apart. The girl throws her pin upon a mat, and then counts the lines it touches. According to their number she deems herself lucky or unlucky. Sometimes a little pipe—geishas' pipes are usually of silver—is used instead of the hairpin.
*
The theme of all the songs was love, as indeed it is of the vast majority of the Japanese chansons des rues et des bois; even songs about celebrated places usually containing some amatory suggestion. I noticed that almost every simple phase of the emotion, from its earliest budding to its uttermost ripening, was represented in the collection; and I therefore tried to arrange the pieces according to the natural passional sequence. The result had some dramatic suggestiveness.
[1] Literally, "God-Age-since not-changed-things as-for: water of flowing and love-of way."
[2] See Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, ii. 357.
II
The songs really form three distinct groups, each corresponding to a particular period of that emotional experience which is the subject of all. In the first group of seven the surprise and pain and weakness of passion find utterance; beginning with a plaintive cry of reproach and closing with a whisper of trust.
I
You, by all others disliked!—oh, why must my heart thus like you? II This pain which I cannot speak of to any one in the world: Tell me who has made it—whose do you think the fault? III Will it be night forever?—I lose my way in this darkness: Who goes by the path of Love must always go astray! IV Even the brightest lamp, even the light electric, Cannot lighten at all the dusk of the Way of Love. V Always the more I love, the more it is hard to say so: Oh! how happy I were should the loved one say it first! VI Such a little word!—only to say, "I love you"! Why, oh, why do I find it hard to say like this?[1]
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