Ka-mi-yo ko-no-ka-ta
Ka-wa-ra-nu mo-no wa:
Mi-dzu no na-ga-ré to
Ko-i no mi-chi.[1]
Among various deviations from this construction I found 7-7-7-7-5, and 5-7-7-7-5, and 7-5-7-5, and 5-7-5; but the classical five-line form (tanka,) represented by 5-7-5-7-7, was entirely absent.
Terms indicating gender were likewise absent; even the expressions corresponding to "I" and "you" being seldom used, and the words signifying "beloved" applying equally to either sex. Only by the conventional value of some comparison, the use of a particular emotional tone, or the mention of some detail of costume, was the sex of the speaker suggested, as in this verse:—
I am the water-weed drifting,—finding no place of attachment:
Where, I wonder, and when, shall my flower begin to bloom??
Evidently the speaker is a girl who wishes for a lover: the same simile uttered by masculine lips would sound in Japanese ears much as would sound in English ears a man's comparison of himself to a violet or to a rose. For the like reason, one knows that in the following song the speaker is not a woman:—
Flowers in both my hands,—flowers of plum and cherry: Which will be, I wonder, the flower to give me fruit?
Womanly 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.
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