Tsuku-tsuku-uisu,
Tsuku-tsuku-uisu,
Tsuku-tsuku-uisu:—
Chi-i yara!
Chi-i yara!
Chi-i yara!
Chi-i, chi, chi, chi, chi, chiii.
But some say that the sound is Tsukushi-koïshi. There is a legend that in old times a man of Tsukushi (the ancient name of Kyūshū) fell sick and died while far away from home, and that the ghost of him became an autumn cicada, which cries unceasingly, Tsukushi-koïshi!—Tsukushi-koïshi! ("I long for Tsukushi!—I want to see Tsukushi!")
It is a curious fact that the earlier sémi have the harshest and simplest notes. The musical sémi do not appear until summer; and the tsuku-tsuku-bōshi, having the most complex and melodious utterance of all, is one of the latest to mature.
VIII.—Tsurigané-Sémi.[29]
The tsurigané-sémi is an autumn cicada. The word tsurigané means a suspended bell,—especially the big bell of a Buddhist temple. I am somewhat puzzled by the name; for the insect's music really suggests the tones of a Japanese harp, or koto—as good authorities declare. Perhaps the appellation refers not to the boom of the bell, but to those deep, sweet hummings which follow after the peal, wave upon wave.
[29] ] This sémi appears to be chiefly known in Shikoku.
III
JAPANESE poems on sémi are usually very brief; and my collection chiefly consists of hokku,—compositions of seventeen syllables. Most of these hokku relate to the sound made by the sémi,—or, rather, to the sensation which the sound produced within the poet's mind. The names attached to the following examples are nearly all names of old-time poets,—not the real names, of course, but the gō, or literary names by which artists and men of letters are usually known.