Read Ebook: Japanese Prints by Fletcher John Gould Lathrop Dorothy Pulis Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 168 lines and 12943 words, and 4 pages

Illustrator: Dorothy Pulis Lathrop

"Of what is she dreaming? Of long nights lit with orange lanterns, Of wine-cups and compliments and kisses of the two-sword men."

PREFACE 11

Lovers Embracing 21 A Picnic Under the Cherry Trees 22 Court Lady Standing Under Cherry Tree 23 Court Lady Standing Under a Plum Tree 24 A Beautiful Woman 25 A Reading 26 An Actor as a Dancing Girl 27 Josan No Miya 28 An Oiran and Her Kamuso 29 Two Ways Of Love 30 Kurenai-ye or "Red Picture" 31 A Woman Standing by a Gate with an Umbrella 32 Scene from a Drama 33 A Woman in Winter Costume 34 A Pedlar 35 Kiyonobu and Kiyomasu Contrasted 36 An Actor 37

Memory and Forgetting 41 Pillar-Print, Masonobu 42 The Young Daimyo 43 Masonubu--Early 44 The Beautiful Geisha 45 A Young Girl 46 The Heavenly Poetesses 47 The Old Love and The New 48 Fugitive Thoughts 49 Disappointment 50 The Traitor 51 The Fop 52 Changing Love 53 In Exile 54 The True Conqueror 55 Spring Love 56 The Endless Lament 57 Toyonobu. Exile's Return 58 Wind and Chrysanthemum 59 The Endless Pilgrimage 60

The Clouds 63 Two Ladies Contrasted 64 A Night Festival 65 Distant Coasts 66 On the Banks of the Sumida 67 Yoshiwara Festival 68 Sharaku Dreams 69 A Life 70 Dead Thoughts 71 A Comparison 72 Mutability 73 Despair 74 The Lonely Grave 75

Evening Sky 79 City Lights 80 Fugitive Beauty 81 Silver Jars 82 Evening Rain 83 Toy-Boxes 84 Moods 85 Grass 86 A Landscape 87 Terror 88 Mid-Summer Dusk 89 Evening Bell from a Distant Temple 90 A Thought 91 The Stars 92 Japan 93 Leaves 94

"Of what is she dreaming? Of long nights lit with orange lanterns, Of wine-cups and compliments and kisses of the two-sword men." Frontispiece

HEADPIECE--PART I 19

TAILPIECE--PART I 37

HEADPIECE--PART II 39

"Out of the rings and the bubbles, The curls and the swirls of the water, Out of the crystalline shower of drops shattered in play, Her body and her thoughts arose." 46

"The cranes have come back to the temple, The winds are flapping the flags about, Through a flute of reeds I will blow a song." 58

TAILPIECE--PART II 60

"Then in her heart they grew, The snows of changeless winter, Stirred by the bitter winds of unsatisfied desire." 70

"The green and violet peacocks Through the golden dusk Stately, nostalgically, Parade." Endleaf

At the earliest period concerning which we have any accurate information, about the sixth century A. D., Japanese poetry already contained the germ of its later development. The poems of this early date were composed of a first line of five syllables, followed by a second of seven, followed by a third of five, and so on, always ending with a line of seven syllables followed by another of equal number. Thus the whole poem, of whatever length always was composed of an odd number of lines, alternating in length of syllables from five to seven, until the close, which was an extra seven syllable line. Other rules there were none. Rhyme, quantity, accent, stress were disregarded. Two vowels together must never be sounded as a diphthong, and a long vowel counts for two syllables, likewise a final "n", and the consonant "m" in some cases.

This method of writing poetry may seem to the reader to suffer from serious disadvantages. In reality this was not the case. Contrast it for a moment with the undignified welter of undigested and ex parte theories which academic prosodists have tried for three hundred years to foist upon English verse, and it will be seen that the simple Japanese rule has the merit of dignity. The only part of it that we Occidentals could not accept perhaps, with advantage to ourselves, is the peculiarly Oriental insistence on an odd number of syllables for every line and an odd number of lines to every poem. To the Western mind, odd numbers sound incomplete. But to the Chinese , the odd numbers are masculine and hence heavenly; the even numbers feminine and hence earthy. This idea in itself, the antiquity of which no man can tell, deserves no less than a treatise be written on it. But the place for that treatise is not here.

To return to our earliest Japanese form. Sooner or later this crystallized into what is called a tanka or short ode. This was always five lines in length, constructed syllabically 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, or thirty-one syllables in all. Innumerable numbers of these tanka were written. Gradually, during the feudal period, improvising verses became a pastime in court circles. Some one would utter the first three lines of a tanka and some one else would cap the composition by adding the last two. This division persisted. The first hemistich which was composed of 17 syllables grew to be called the hokku, the second or finishing hemistich of 14 syllables was called ageku. Thus was born the form which is more peculiarly Japanese than any other, and which only they have been able to carry to perfection.

Zen Buddhism, as Basho practised it, may be called religion under the forms of nature. Everything on earth, from the clouds in the sky to the pebble by the roadside, has some spiritual or ethical significance for us. Blake's words describe the aim of the Zen Buddhist as well as any one's:

"To see a World in a grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower; Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour."

Basho would have subscribed to this as the sole rule of poetry and imagination. The only difference between the Western and the Eastern mystic is that where one sees the world in the grain of sand and tells you all about it, the other sees and lets his silence imply that he knows its meaning. Or to quote Lao-tzu: "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak." It must always be understood that there is an implied continuation to every Japanese hokku. The concluding hemistich, whereby the hokku becomes the tanka, is existent in the writer's mind, but never uttered.

Let us take an example. The most famous hokku that Basho wrote, might be literally translated thus:

"An old pond And the sound of a frog leaping Into the water."

This means nothing to the Western mind. But to the Japanese it means all the beauty of such a life of retirement and contemplation as Basho practised. If we permit our minds to supply the detail Basho deliberately omitted, we see the mouldering temple enclosure, the sage himself in meditation, the ancient piece of water, and the sound of a frog's leap--passing vanity--slipping into the silence of eternity. The poem has three meanings. First it is a statement of fact. Second, it is an emotion deduced from that. Third, it is a sort of spiritual allegory. And all this Basho has given us in his seventeen syllables.

All of Basho's poems have these three meanings. Again and again we get a sublime suggestion out of some quite commonplace natural fact. For instance:

"On the mountain-road There is no flower more beautiful Than the wild violet."

The wild violet, scentless, growing hidden and neglected among the rocks of the mountain-road, suggested to Basho the life of the Buddhist hermit, and thus this poem becomes an exhortation to "shun the world, if you would be sublime."

I need not give further examples. The reader can now see for himself what the main object of the hokku poetry is, and what it achieved. Its object was some universalized emotion derived from a natural fact. Its achievement was the expression of that emotion in the fewest possible terms. It is therefore necessary, if poetry in the English tongue is ever to attain again to the vitality and strength of its beginnings, that we sit once more at the feet of the Orient and learn from it how little words can express, how sparingly they should be used, and how much is contained in the meanest natural object. Shakespeare, who could close a scene of brooding terror with the words: "But see, the morn in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill" was nearer to the oriental spirit than we are. We have lost Shakespeare's instinct for nature and for fresh individual vision, and we are unwilling to acquire it through self-discipline. If we do not want art to disappear under the froth of shallow egotism, we must learn the lesson Basho can teach us.

That is not to say, that, by taking the letter for the spirit, we should in any way strive to imitate the hokku form. Good hokkus cannot be written in English. The thing we have to follow is not a form, but a spirit. Let us universalize our emotions as much as possible, let us become impersonal as Shakespeare or Basho was. Let us not gush about our fine feelings. Let us admit that the highest and noblest feelings are things that cannot be put into words. Therefore let us conceal them behind the words we have chosen. Our definition of poetry would then become that of Edwin Arlington Robinson, that poetry is a language which tells through a reaction upon our emotional natures something which cannot be put into words. Unless we set ourselves seriously to the task of understanding that language is only a means and never an end, poetic art will be dead in fifty years, from a surfeit of superficial cleverness and devitalized realism.

In the poems that follow I have taken as my subjects certain designs of the so-called Uki-oye school. These prints, made and produced for purely popular consumption by artists who, whatever their genius, were despised by the literati of their time, share at least one characteristic with Japanese poetry, which is, that they exalt the most trivial and commonplace subjects into the universal significance of works of art. And therefore I have chosen them to illustrate my doctrine, which is this: that one must learn to do well small things before doing things great; that the universe is just as much in the shape of a hand as it is in armies, politics, astronomy, or the exhortations of gospel-mongers; that style and technique rest on the thing conveyed and not the means of conveyance; and that though sentiment is a good thing, understanding is a better. As for the poems themselves they are in some cases not Japanese at all, but all illustrate something of the charm I have found in Japanese poetry and art. And if they induce others to seek that charm for themselves, my purpose will have been attained.

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER.

Force and yielding meet together: An attack is half repulsed. Shafts of broken sunlight dissolving Convolutions of torpid cloud.

The boat drifts to rest Under the outward spraying branches.

There is faint sound of quavering strings, The reedy murmurs of a flute, The soft sigh of the wind through silken garments;

All these are mingled With the breeze that drifts away, Filled with thin petals of cherry blossom, Like tinkling laughter dancing away in sunlight.

She is an iris, Dark purple, pale rose, Under the gnarled boughs That shatter their stars of bloom. She waves delicately With the movement of the tree.

Of what is she dreaming?

Of long nights lit with orange lanterns, Of wine cups and compliments and kisses of the two-sword men. And of dawn when weary sleepers Lie outstretched on the mats of the palace, And of the iris stalk that is broken in the fountain.

Autumn winds roll through the dry leaves On her garments; Autumn birds shiver Athwart star-hung skies. Under the blossoming plum-tree, She expresses the pilgrimage Of grey souls passing, Athwart love's scarlet maples To the ash-strewn summit of death.

Iris-amid-clouds Must be her name.

Tall and lonely as the mountain-iris, Cold and distant.

She has never known longing: Many have died for love of her.

"And the prince came to the craggy rock But saw only hissing waves So he rested all day amid them."

He listens idly, He is content with her voice.

He dreams it is the murmur Of distant wave-caps breaking Upon the painted screen.

The peony dancer Swirls orange folds of dusty robes Through the summer.

They are spotted with thunder showers, Falling upon the crimson petals.

Heavy blooms Breaking and spilling fiery cups Drowsily.

She is a fierce kitten leaping in sunlight Towards the swaying boughs.

She is a gust of wind, Bending in parallel curves the boughs of the willow-tree.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet