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]
[1] Inimitably simple in the original:—
Horeta wai na to
Sukoshi no koto ga:
Nazé ni kono yō ni
Iinikui?
VII
Clicked-to[2] the locks of our hearts; let the keys remain in our bosoms.
[2] In the original this is expressed by an onomatope, pinto, imitating the sound of the fastening of the lock of a tansu, or chest of drawers:—