Cherry and Plum
The supreme floral glory of Japan takes place in April with the coming of the cherry-blossom, and, as we have seen in the above quotation, it is the cherry and plum that are regarded with the most favour. The poet Motoöri wrote: "If one should ask you concerning the heart of a true Japanese, point to the wild cherry flower glowing in the sun," and Lafcadio Hearn, without the least exaggeration, but with true poetic insight, has compared Japan's cherry-blossom with a delicate sunset that has, as it were, strayed from the sky and lingered about the leafless branches.
The really great wonders of Nature, to those who are sufficiently susceptible to the beautiful, are apt to leave behind an indefinable yearning, a regret that so much loveliness must needs pass away, and this gentle touch of sorrow mingled with the ecstasy is easily discovered in much of the Japanese poetry. It is a point worthy of emphasis because it reveals a temperament charged with a supreme love of the beautiful, this craving for a petal that shall never wither, a colour that shall never fade. Thus sang Korunushi:
"No man so callous but he heaves a sigh
When o'er his head the withered cherry flowers
Come fluttering down. Who knows? the Spring's soft showers
May be but tears shed by the sorrowing sky."
Trans. by B. H. Chamberlain.
One of the greatest tributes Japan has paid to the cherry is as follows: "The cherry-trees in the far-away mountain villages should keep back their blooms until the flowers in the town have faded, for then the people will go out to see them too." A Japanese woman's beauty is frequently associated with the cherry-blossom, while her virtue is compared with the flower of the plum.
The Camellia
The Precious-Camellia of Yaegaki, with its double trunk and immense head, is of great age, and is regarded as so sacred that it is surrounded by a fence, and stone lamps are placed about it. The tree's unique shape, with the double trunk growing together in the middle, has given rise to the belief that this extraordinary tree symbolises a happy wedded life, and, moreover, that good spirits inhabit it, ever ready to answer the ardent prayers of lovers.
The camellia-tree is not always beneficent. A legend is recorded of a tree of this species walking about at night in a samurai's garden at Matsue. Its strange and restless wanderings became so frequent that at last the tree was cut down, and it is said that when it was struck it shot forth a stream of blood.