II
A small selection of hokku (1) on butterflies will help to illustrate Japanese interest in the aæsthetic side of the subject. Some are pictures only,—tiny color-sketches made with seventeen syllables; some are nothing more than pretty fancies, or graceful suggestions;—but the reader will find variety. Probably he will not care much for the verses in themselves. The taste for Japanese poetry of the epigrammatic sort is a taste that must be slowly acquired; and it is only by degrees, after patient study, that the possibilities of such composition can be fairly estimated. Hasty criticism has declared that to put forward any serious claim on behalf of seventeen-syllable poems “would be absurd.” But what, then, of Crashaw’s famous line upon the miracle at the marriage feast in Cana?—
Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit.[[1]]
Only fourteen syllables—and immortality. Now with seventeen Japanese syllables things quite as wonderful—indeed, much more wonderful—have been done, not once or twice, but probably a thousand times... However, there is nothing wonderful in the following hokku, which have been selected for more than literary reasons:—
Nugi-kakuru[[2]]
Haori sugata no
Kochō kana!
[Like a haori being taken off—that is the shape of a butterfly!]
Torisashi no
Sao no jama suru
Kochō kana!
[Ah, the butterfly keeps getting in the way of the bird-catcher’s pole![[3]]]
Tsurigané ni
Tomarité nemuru
Kochō kana!
[Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps:]