Chapter IX: Part 9

_Moral Characteristics._--The most prominent trait of Japanese disposition is gaiety of heart. Emphatically of a laughter-loving nature, the Japanese passes through the world with a smile on his lips. The petty ills of life do not disturb his equanimity. He takes them as part of the day's work, and though he sometimes grumbles, rarely, if ever, does he repine. Exceptional to this general rule, however, is a mood of pessimism which sometimes overtakes youths on the threshold of manhood. Finding the problem of life insolvable, they abandon the attempt to solve it and take refuge in the grave. It seems as though there were always a number of young men hovering on the brink of such suicidal despair. An example alone is needed finally to destroy the equilibrium. Some one throws himself over a cataract or leaps into the crater of a volcano, and immediately a score or two follow. Apparently the more picturesquely awful the manner of the demise, the greater its attractive force. The thing is not a product of insanity, as the term is usually interpreted; letters always left behind by the victims prove them to have been in full possession of their reasoning faculties up to the last moment. Some observers lay the blame at the door of Buddhism, a creed which promotes pessimism by begetting the anchorite, the ascetic and the shuddering believer in seven hells. But Buddhism did not formerly produce such incidents, and, for the rest, the faith of Shaka has little sway over the student mind in Japan. The phenomenon is modern: it is not an outcome of Japanese nature nor yet of Buddhist teaching, but is due to the stress of endeavouring to reach the standards of Western acquirement with grievously inadequate equipment, opportunities and resources. In order to support himself and pay his academic fees many a Japanese has to fall into the ranks of the physical labourer during a part of each day or night. Ill-nourished, over-worked and, it may be, disappointed, he finds the struggle intolerable and so passes out into the darkness. But he is not a normal type. The normal type is light-hearted and buoyant. One naturally expects to find, and one does find, that this moral sunshine is associated with good temper. The Japanese is exceptionally serene. Irascibility is regarded as permissible in sickly children only: grown people are supposed to be superior to displays of impatience. But there is a limit of imperturbability, and when that limit is reached, the subsequent passion is desperately vehement. It has been said that these traits go to make the Japanese soldier what he is. The hardships of a campaign cause him little suffering since he never frets over them, but the hour of combat finds him forgetful of everything save victory. In the case of the military class--and prior to the Restoration of 1867 the term "military class" was synonymous with "educated class"--this spirit of stoicism was built up by precept on a solid basis of heredity. The _samurai_ (soldier) learned that his first characteristic must be to suppress all outward displays of emotion. Pain, pleasure, passion and peril must all find him unperturbed. The supreme test, satisfied so frequently as to be commonplace, was a shocking form of suicide performed with a placid mien. This capacity, coupled with readiness to sacrifice life at any moment on the altar of country, fief or honour, made a remarkably heroic character. On the other hand, some observers hold that the education of this stoicism was effected at the cost of the feelings it sought to conceal. In support of that theory it is pointed out that the average Japanese, man or woman, will recount a death or some other calamity in his own family with a perfectly calm, if not a smiling, face. Probably there is a measure of truth in the criticism. Feelings cannot be habitually hidden without being more or less blunted. But here another Japanese trait presents itself--politeness. There is no more polite nation in the world than the Japanese. Whether in real courtesy of heart they excel Occidentals may be open to doubt, but in all the forms of comity they are unrivalled. Now one of the cardinal rules of politeness is to avoid burdening a stranger with the weight of one's own woes. Therefore a mother, passing from the chamber which has just witnessed her paroxysms of grief, will describe calmly to a stranger--especially a foreigner--the death of her only child. The same suppression of emotional display in public is observed in all the affairs of life. Youths and maidens maintain towards each other a demeanour of reserve and even indifference, from which it has been confidently affirmed that love does not exist in Japan. The truth is that in no other country do so many dual suicides occur--suicides of a man and woman who, unable to be united in this world, go to a union beyond the grave. It is true, nevertheless, that love as a prelude to marriage finds only a small place in Japanese ethics. Marriages in the great majority of cases are arranged with little reference to the feelings of the parties concerned. It might be supposed that conjugal fidelity must suffer from such a custom. It does suffer seriously in the case of the husband, but emphatically not in the case of the wife. Even though she be cognisant--as she often is--of her husband's extra-marital relations, she abates nothing of the duty which she has been taught to regard as the first canon of female ethics. From many points of view, indeed, there is no more beautiful type of character than that of the Japanese woman. She is entirely unselfish; exquisitely modest without being anything of a prude; abounding in intelligence which is never obscured by egoism; patient in the hour of suffering; strong in time of affliction; a faithful wife; a loving mother; a good daughter; and capable, as history shows, of heroism rivalling that of the stronger sex. As to the question of sexual virtue and morality in Japan, grounds for a conclusive verdict are hard to find. In the interests of hygiene prostitution is licensed, and that fact is by many critics construed as proof of tolerance. But licensing is associated with strict segregation, and it results that the great cities are conspicuously free from evidences of vice, and that the streets may be traversed by women at all hours of the day and night with perfect impunity and without fear of encountering offensive spectacles. The ratio of marriages is approximately 8.46 per thousand units of the population, and the ratio of divorces is 1.36 per thousand. There are thus about 16 divorces for every hundred marriages. Divorces take place chiefly among the lower orders, who frequently treat marriage merely as a test of a couple's suitability to be helpmates in the struggles of life. If experience develops incompatibility of temper or some other mutually repellent characteristic, separation follows as a matter of course. On the other hand, divorces among persons of the upper classes are comparatively rare, and divorces on account of a wife's unfaithfulness are almost unknown.

Concerning the virtues of truth and probity, extremely conflicting opinions have been expressed. The Japanese _samurai_ always prided himself on having "no second word." He never drew his sword without using it; he never gave his word without keeping it. Yet it may be doubted whether the value attached in Japan to the abstract quality, truth, is as high as the value attached to it in England, or whether the consciousness of having told a falsehood weighs as heavily on the heart. Much depends upon the motive. Whatever may be said of the upper class, it is probably true that the average Japanese will not sacrifice expediency on the altar of truth. He will be veracious only so long as the consequences are not seriously injurious. Perhaps no more can be affirmed of any nation. The "white lie" of the Anglo-Saxon and the _hoben no uso_ of the Japanese are twins. In the matter of probity, however, it is possible to speak with more assurance. There is undoubtedly in the lower ranks of Japanese tradesmen a comparatively large fringe of persons whose standard of commercial morality is defective. They are descendants of feudal days when the mercantile element, being counted as the dregs of the population, lost its self-respect. Against this blemish--which is in process of gradual correction--the fact has to be set that the better class of merchants, the whole of the artisans and the labouring classes in general, obey canons of probity fully on a level with the best to be found elsewhere. For the rest, frugality, industry and patience characterize all the bread-winners; courage and burning patriotism are attributes of the whole nation.

There are five qualities possessed by the Japanese in a marked degree. The first is frugality. From time immemorial the great mass of the people have lived in absolute ignorance of luxury in any form and in the perpetual presence of a necessity to economize. Amid these circumstances there has emerged capacity to make a little go a long way and to be content with the most meagre fare. The second quality is endurance. It is born of causes cognate with those which have begotten frugality. The average Japanese may be said to live without artificial heat; his paper doors admit the light but do not exclude the cold. His brazier barely suffices to warm his hands and his face. Equally is he a stranger to methods of artificial cooling. He takes the frost that winter inflicts and the fever that summer brings as unavoidable visitors. The third quality is obedience; the offspring of eight centuries passed under the shadow of military autocracy. Whatever he is authoritatively bidden to do, that the Japanese will do. The fourth quality is altruism. In the upper classes the welfare of the family has been set above the interests of each member. The fifth quality is a genius for detail. Probably this is the outcome of an extraordinarily elaborate system of social etiquette. Each generation has added something to the canons of its predecessor, and for every ten points preserved not more than one has been discarded. An instinctive respect for minutiae has thus been inculcated, and has gradually extended to all the affairs of life. That this accuracy may sometimes degenerate into triviality, and that such absorption in trifles may occasionally hide the broad horizon, is conceivable. But the only hitherto apparent evidence of such defects is an excessive clinging to the letter of the law; a marked reluctance to exercise discretion; and that, perhaps, is attributable rather to the habit of obedience. Certainly the Japanese have proved themselves capable of great things, and their achievements seem to have been helped rather than retarded by their attention to detail.

III.--LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

_Language._--Since the year 1820, when Klaproth concluded that the Japanese language had sprung from the Ural-Altaic stock, philologists have busied themselves in tracing its affinities. If the theories hitherto held with regard to the origin of the Japanese people be correct, close relationship should exist between the Japanese and the Korean tongues, and possibly between the Japanese and the Chinese. Aston devoted much study to the former question, but although he proved that in construction the two have a striking similarity, he could not find any corresponding likeness in their vocabularies. As far back as the beginning of the Christian era the Japanese and the Koreans could not hold intercourse without the aid of interpreters. If then the languages of Korea and Japan had a common stock, they must have branched off from it at a date exceedingly remote. As for the languages of Japan and China, they have remained essentially different throughout some twenty centuries in spite of the fact that Japan adopted Chinese calligraphy and assimilated Chinese literature. Mr K. Hirai has done much to establish his theory that Japanese and Aryan had a common parent. But nothing has yet been substantiated. Meanwhile an inquirer is confronted by the strange fact that of three neighbouring countries between which frequent communication existed, one (China) never deviated from an ideographic script; another (Korea) invented an alphabet, and the third (Japan) devised a syllabary. Antiquaries have sought to show that Japan possessed some form of script before her first contact with either Korea or China. But such traces of prehistoric letters as are supposed to have been found seem to be corruptions of the Korean alphabet rather than independent symbols. It is commonly believed that the two Japanese syllabaries--which, though distinct in form, have identical sounds--were invented by Kukai (790) and Kibi Daijin (760) respectively. But the evidence of old documents seems to show that these syllabaries had a gradual evolution and that neither was the outcome of a single scholar's inventive genius.

The sequence of events appears to have been this:--Japan's earliest
contact with an over-sea people was with the Koreans, and she made
some tentative efforts to adapt their alphabet to the expression of
her own language. Traces of these efforts survived, and inspired the
idea that the art of writing was practised by the Japanese before the
opening of intercourse with their continental neighbours. Korea,
however, had neither a literary nor an ethical message to deliver, and
thus her script failed to attract much attention. Very different was
the case when China presented her noble code of Confucian philosophy
and the literature embodying it. The Japanese then recognized a lofty
civilization and placed themselves as pupils at its feet, learning its
script and deciphering its books. Their veneration extended to
ideographs. At first they adapted them frankly to their own tongue.
For example, the ideographs signifying _rice_ or _metal_ or _water_ in
Chinese were used to convey the same ideas in Japanese. Each ideograph
thus came to have two sounds, one Japanese, the other Chinese--e.g.
the ideograph for _rice_ had for Japanese sound _kome_ and for Chinese
sound _bei_. Nor was this the whole story. There were two epochs in
Japan's study of the Chinese language: first, the epoch when she
received Confucianism through Korea; and, secondly, the epoch when she
began to study Buddhism direct from China. Whether the sounds that
came by Korea were corrupt, or whether the interval separating these
epochs had sufficed to produce a sensible difference of pronunciation
in China itself, it would seem that the students of Buddhism who
flocked from Japan to the Middle Kingdom during the Sui era (A.D.
589-619) insisted on the accuracy of the pronunciation acquired there,
although it diverged perceptibly from the pronunciation already
recognized in Japan. Thus, in fine, each word came to have three
sounds--two Chinese, known as the _kan_ and the _go_, and one
Japanese, known as the _kun_. For example:--

"KAN" "GO" JAPANESE
SOUND. SOUND. SOUND. MEANING.

_Sei_ _Jo_ _Koe_ Voice
_Nen_ _Zen_ _Toshi_ Year
_Jinkan_ _Ningen_ _Hito no aida_ Human being.

As to which of the first two methods of pronunciation had
chronological precedence, the weight of opinion is that the kan came
later than the _go_. Evidently this triplication of sounds had many
disadvantages, but, on the other hand, the whole Chinese language may
be said to have been grafted on the Japanese. Chinese has the widest
capacity of any tongue ever invented. It consists of thousands of
monosyllabic roots, each having a definite meaning. These
monosyllables may be used singly or combined, two, three or four at a
time, so that the resulting combinations convey almost any conceivable
shades of meaning. Take, for example, the word "electricity." The very
idea conveyed was wholly novel in Japan. But scholars were immediately
able to construct the following:--

Lightning. _Den._
Exhalation. _Ki._
Electricity. _Denki._
Telegram. _Dempo._ _Ho_ = tidings.
Electric light. _Dento._ _To_ = lamp.
Negative electricity. _Indenki._ _In_ = the negative principle.
Positive electricity. _Yodenki._ _Yo_ = the positive principle.
Thermo-electricity. _Netsudenki._ _Netsu_ = heat.
Dynamic-electricity. _Ryudo-denki._ _Ryudo_ = fluid.
Telephone. _Denwa._ _Wa_= conversation.

Every branch of learning can thus be equipped with a vocabulary.
Potent, however, as such a vehicle is for expressing thought, its
ideographic script constitutes a great obstacle to general
acquisition, and the Japanese soon applied themselves to minimizing
the difficulty by substituting a phonetic system. Analysis showed that
all the required sounds could be conveyed with 47 syllables, and
having selected the ideographs that corresponded to those sounds, they
reduced them, first, to forms called _hiragana_, and, secondly, to
still more simplified forms called _katakana_.

Such, in brief, is the story of the Japanese language. When we come to
dissect it, we find several striking characteristics. First, the
construction is unlike that of any European tongue: all qualifiers
precede the words they qualify, except prepositions which become
postpositions. Thus instead of saying "the house of Mr Smith is in
that street," a Japanese says "Smith Mr of house that street in is."
Then there is no relative pronoun, and the resulting complication
seems great to an English-speaking person, as the following
illustration will show:--

JAPANESE. ENGLISH.

_Zenaku wo saiban suru tame no_ The unique standard which is used
Virtue vice-judging sake of for judging virtue or vice is
_mochiitaru yuitsu no hyojun wa_ benevolent conduct solely.
used unique standard
_jiai no koi tada_
benevolence of conduct only
_kore nomi._
this alone.

It will be observed that in the above sentence there are two
untranslated words, _wo_ and _wa_. These belong to a group of four
auxiliary particles called _te_ _ni_ _wo_ _ha_ (or _wa_), which serve
to mark the cases of nouns, _te_ (or _de_) being the sign of the
instrumental ablative; _ni_ that of the dative; _wo_ that of the
objective, and _wa_ that of the nominative. These exist in the Korean
language also, but not in any other tongue. There are also polite and
ordinary forms of expression, often so different as to constitute
distinct languages; and there are a number of honorifics which
frequently discharge the duty of pronouns. Another marked peculiarity
is that active agency is never attributed to neuter nouns. A Japanese
does not say "the poison killed him" but "he died on account of the
poison;" nor does he say "the war has caused commodities to
appreciate," but "commodities have appreciated in consequence of the
war." That the language loses much force owing to this limitation
cannot be denied: metaphor and allegory are almost completely
banished.

The difficulties that confront an Occidental who attempts to learn
Japanese are enormous. There are three languages to be acquired:
first, the ordinary colloquial; second, the polite colloquial; and,
third, the written. The ordinary colloquial differs materially from
its polite form, and both are as unlike the written form as modern
Italian is unlike ancient Latin. "Add to this," writes Professor B. H.
Chamberlain, "the necessity of committing to memory two syllabaries,
one of which has many variant forms, and at least two or three
thousand Chinese ideographs, in forms standard and
cursive--ideographs, too, most of which are susceptible of three or
four different readings according to circumstance,--add, further, that
all these kinds of written symbols are apt to be encountered pell mell
on the same page, and the task of mastering Japanese becomes almost
Herculean." In view of all this there is a strong movement in favour
of romanizing the Japanese script: that is to say, abolishing the
ideograph and adopting in its place the Roman alphabet. But while
every one appreciates the magnitude of the relief that would thus be
afforded, there has as yet been little substantial progress. A
language which has been adapted from its infancy to ideographic
transmission cannot easily be fitted to phonetic uses.

_Dictionaries._--F. Brinkley, _An Unabridged Japanese-English
Dictionary_ (Tokyo, 1896); Y. Shimada, _English-Japanese Dictionary_,
(Tokyo, 1897); _Webster's Dictionary, trans. into Japanese_, (Tokyo,
1899); J. H. Gubbins, _Dictionary of Chinese-Japanese Words_ (3
vols., London, 1889); J. C. Hepburn, _Japanese-English and
English-Japanese Dictionary_ (London, 1903); E. M. Satow and I.
Masakata, _English-Japanese Dictionary_ (London, 1904).

_Literature._--From the neighbouring continent the Japanese derived the art of transmitting ideas to paper. But as to the date of that acquisition there is doubt. An authenticated work compiled A.D. 720 speaks of historiographers having been appointed to collect local records for the first time in 403, from which it is to be inferred that such officials had already existed at the court. There is also a tradition that some kind of general history was compiled in 620 but destroyed by fire in 645. At all events, the earliest book now extant dates from 712. Its origin is described in its preface. When the emperor Temmu (673-686) ascended the throne, he found that there did not exist any revised collection of the fragmentary annals of the chief families. He therefore caused these annals to be collated. There happened to be among the court ladies one Hiyeda no Are, who was gifted with an extraordinary memory. Measures were taken to instruct her in the genuine traditions and the old language of former ages, the intention being to have the whole ultimately dictated to a competent scribe. But the emperor died before the project could be consummated, and for twenty-five years Are's memory remained the sole depository of the collected annals. Then, under the auspices of the empress Gemmyo, the original plan was carried out in 712, Yasumaro being the scribe. The work that resulted is known as the _Kojiki_ (_Record of Ancient Matters_). It has been accurately translated by Professor B. H. Chamberlain (_Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol. x.), who, in a preface justly regarded by students of Japan as an exegetical classic, makes the pertinent comment: "Taking the word Altaïc in its usual acceptation, viz. as the generic name of all the languages belonging to the Manchu, Mongolian, Turkish and Finnish groups, not only the archaic, but the classical, literature of Japan carries us back several centuries beyond the earliest extant documents of any other Altaïc tongue." By the term "archaic" is to be understood the pure Japanese language of earliest times, and by the term "classical" the quasi-Chinese language which came into use for literary purposes when Japan appropriated the civilization of her great neighbours. The _Kojiki_ is written in the archaic form: that is to say, the language is the language of old Japan, the script, although ideographic, is used phonetically only, and the case-indicators are represented by Chinese characters having the same sounds. It is a species of saga, setting forth not only the heavenly beginnings of the Japanese race, but also the story of creation, the succession of the various sovereigns and the salient events of their reigns, the whole interspersed with songs, many of which may be attributed to the 6th century, while some doubtless date from the fourth or even the third. This _Kojiki_ marks the parting of the ways. Already by the time of its compilation the influence of Chinese civilization and Chinese literature had prevailed so greatly in Japan that the next authentic work, composed only eight years later, was completely Chinese in style and embodied Chinese traditions and Chinese philosophical doctrines, not distinguishing them from their Japanese context. This volume was called the _Nihongi_ (_Chronicles of Japan_). It may be said to have wholly supplanted its predecessor in popular favour, for the classic style--that is to say, the Chinese--had now come to be regarded as the only erudite script. The _Chronicles_ re-traversed much of the ground already gone over by the _Record_, preserving many of the songs in occasionally changed form, omitting some portions, supplementing others, and imparting to the whole such an exotic character as almost to disqualify the work for a place in Japanese literature. Yet this was the style which thenceforth prevailed among the litterati of Japan. "Standard Chinese soon became easier to understand than archaic Japanese, as the former alone was taught in the schools, and the native language changed rapidly during the century or two that followed the diffusion of the foreign tongue and civilization" (CHAMBERLAIN). The neglect into which the _Kojiki_ fell lasted until the 17th century. Almost simultaneously with its appearance in type (1644) and its consequent accessibility, there arose a galaxy of scholars under whose influence the archaic style and the ancient Japanese traditions entered a period of renaissance. The story of this period and of its products has been admirably told by Sir Ernest Satow ("Revival of Pure Shinto," _Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol. iii.), whose essay, together with Professor Chamberlain's _Kojiki_, the same author's introduction to _The Classical Poetry of the Japanese_, and Mr W. G. Aston's _Nihongi_, are essential to every student of Japanese literature. To understand this 17th century renaissance, knowledge of one fact is necessary, namely, that about the year A. D. 810, a celebrated Buddhist priest, Kukai, who had spent several years studying in China, compounded out of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto a system of doctrine called _Ryobu Shinto_ (Dual Shinto), the prominent tenet of which was that the Shinto deities were merely transmigrations of Buddhist divinities. By this device Japanese conservatism was effectually conciliated, and Buddhism became in fact the creed of the nation, its positive and practical precepts entirely eclipsing the agnostic intuitionalism of Shinto. Against this hybrid faith several Japanese scholars arrayed themselves in the 17th and 18th centuries, the greatest of them being Mabuchi and Motoori. The latter's _magnum opus_, _Kojikiden_ (_Exposition of the Record of Ancient Matters_), declared by Chamberlain to be "perhaps the most admirable work of which Japanese erudition can boast," consists of 44 large volumes, devoted to elucidating the _Kojiki_ and resuscitating the Shinto cult as it existed in the earliest days. This great work of reconstruction was only one feature of the literary activity which marked the 17th and 18th centuries, when, under Tokugawa rule, the blessing of long-unknown peace came to the nation. Iyeyasu himself devoted the last years of his life to collecting ancient manuscripts. In his country retreat at Shizuoka he formed one of the richest libraries ever brought together in Japan, and by will he bequeathed the Japanese section of it to his eighth son, the feudal chief of Owari, and the Chinese section to his ninth son, the prince of Kishu, with the result that under the former feudatory's auspices two works of considerable merit were produced treating of ancient ceremonials and supplementing the _Nihongi_. Much more memorable, however, was a library formed by Iyeyasu's grandson the feudal chief of Mito (1662-1700), who not only collected a vast quantity of books hitherto scattered among Shinto and Buddhist monasteries and private houses, but also employed a number of scholars to compile a history unprecedented in magnitude, the _Dai-Nihon-shi_. It consisted of 240 volumes, and it became at once the standard in its own branch of literature. Still more comprehensive was a book emanating from the same source and treating of court ceremonials. It ran to more than 500 volumes, and the emperor honoured the work by bestowing on it the title _Reigi Ruiten_ (_Rules of Ceremonials_). These compilations together with the _Nihon Gwaishi_ (_History of Japan Outside the Court_), written by Rai Sanyo and published in 1827, constituted the chief sources of historical knowledge before the Meiji era. Rai Sanyo devoted twenty years to the preparation of his 22 volumes and took his materials from 259 Japanese and Chinese works. But neither he nor his predecessors recognized in history anything more than a vehicle for recording the mere sequence of events and their relations, together with some account of the personages concerned. Their volumes make profoundly dry reading. Vicarious interest, however, attaches to the productions of the Mito School on account of the political influence they exercised in rehabilitating the nation's respect for the throne by unveiling the picture of an epoch prior to the usurpations of military feudalism. The struggles of the great rival clans, replete with episodes of the most tragic and stirring character, inspired quasi-historical narrations of a more popular character, which often took the form of illuminated scrolls. But it was not until the Meiji era that history, in the modern sense of the term, began to be written. During recent times many students have turned their attention to this branch of literature. Works of wide scope and clear insight have been produced, and the Historiographers' section in the Imperial University of Tokyo has been for several years engaged in collecting and collating materials for a history which will probably rank with anything of the kind in existence.

Poetry.

In their poetry above everything the Japanese have remained impervious
to alien influences. It owes this conservation to its prosody. Without
rhyme, without variety of metre, without elasticity of dimensions, it
is also without known counterpart. To alter it in any way would be to
deprive it of all distinguishing characteristics. At some remote date
a Japanese maker of songs seems to have discovered that a peculiar and
very fascinating rhythm is produced by lines containing 5 syllables
and 7 syllables alternately. That is Japanese poetry (_uta_ or
_tanka_). There are generally five lines: the first and third
consisting of 5 syllables, the second, fourth and fifth of 7, making a
total of 31 in all. The number of lines is not compulsory: sometimes
they may reach to thirty, forty or even more, but the alternation of 5
and 7 syllables is compulsory. The most attenuated form of all is the
_hokku_ (or _haikai_) which consists of only three lines, namely, 17
syllables. Necessarily the ideas embodied in such a narrow vehicle
must be fragmentary. Thus it results that Japanese poems are, for the
most part, impressionist; they suggest a great deal more than they
actually express. Here is an example:--

Momiji-ha wo \
Kaze ni makasete | More fleeting than the glint of
Miru yori mo > withered leaf wind-blown, the
Hakanaki mono wa | thing called life.
Inochi nari keri /

There is no English metre with this peculiar cadence.

It is not to be inferred that the writers of Japan, enamoured as they
were of Chinese ideographs and Chinese style, deliberately excluded
everything Chinese from the realm of poetry. On the contrary, many of
them took pleasure in composing versicles to which Chinese words were
admitted and which showed something of the "parallelism" peculiar to
Chinese poetry, since the first ideograph of the last line was
required to be identical with the final ideograph. But rhyme was not
attempted, and the syllabic metre of Japan was preserved, the
alternation of 5 and 7 being, however, dispensed with. Such couplets
were called _shi_ to distinguish them from the pure Japanese _uta_ or
_tanka_. The two greatest masters of Japanese poetry were Hitomaro and
Akahito, both of the early 8th century, and next to them stands
Tsurayuki, who flourished at the beginning of the 10th century, and is
not supposed to have transmitted his mantle to any successor. The
choicest productions of the former two with those of many other poets
were brought together in 756 and embodied in a book called the
_Manyoshu (Collection of a Myriad Leaves)_. The volume remained unique
until the beginning of the 10th century, when (A.D. 905) Tsurayuki and
three coadjutors compiled the _Kokinshu (Collection of Odes Ancient
and Modern)_, the first of twenty-one similar anthologies between the
11th and the 15th centuries, which constitute the _Niju-ichi Dai-shu
(Anthologies of the One-and-Twenty Reigns)_. If to these we add the
_Hyaku-ninshu (Hundred Odes by a Hundred Poets)_ brought together by
Teika Kyo in the 13th century, we have all the classics of Japanese
poetry. For the composition of the _uta_ gradually deteriorated from
the end of the 9th century, when a game called _uta-awase_ became a
fashionable pastime, and aristocratic men and women tried to string
together versicles of 31 syllables, careful of the form and careless
of the thought. The _uta-awase_, in its later developments, may not
unjustly be compared to the Occidental game of _bouts-rimés_. The
poetry of the nation remained immovable in the ancient groove until
very modern times, when, either by direct access to the originals or
through the medium of very defective translations, the nation became
acquainted with the masters of Occidental song. A small coterie of
authors, headed by Professor Toyama, then attempted to revolutionize
Japanese poetry by recasting it on European lines. But the project
failed signally, and indeed it may well be doubted whether the
Japanese language can be adapted to such uses.

Influence of Women in Japanese Literature.

It was under the auspices of an empress (Suiko) that the first
historical manuscript is said to have been compiled in 620. It was
under the auspices of an empress (Gemmyo) that the _Record of Ancient
Matters_ was transcribed (712) from the lips of a court lady. And it
was under the auspices of an empress that the _Chronicles of Japan_
were composed (720). To women, indeed, from the 8th century onwards
may be said to have been entrusted the guardianship of the pure
Japanese language, the classical, or Chinese, form being adopted by
men. The distinction continued throughout the ages. To this day the
spoken language of Japanese women is appreciably simpler and softer
than that of the men, and to this day while the educated woman uses
the hiragana syllabary in writing, eschews Chinese words and rarely
pens an ideograph, the educated man employs the ideograph entirely,
and translates his thoughts as far as possible into the mispronounced
Chinese words without recourse to which it would be impossible for him
to discuss any scientific subject, or even to refer to the details of
his daily business. Japan was thus enriched with two works of very
high merit, the _Genji Monogatari_ (c. 1004) and the _Makura no Zoshi_
(about the same date). The former, by Murasaki no Shikibu--probably a
pseudonym--was the first novel composed in Japan. Before her time
there had been many _monogatari_ (narratives), but all consisted
merely of short stories, mythical or quasi-historical, whereas
Murasaki no Shikibu did for Japan what Fielding and Richardson did for
England. Her work was "a prose epic of real life," the life of her
hero, _Genji_. Her language is graceful and natural, her sentiments
are refined and sober; and, as Mr Aston well says, her "story flows on
easily from one scene of real life to another, giving us a varied and
minutely detailed picture of life and society in Kioto, such as we
possess for no other country at the same period." The _Makura no Zoshi
(Pillow Sketches)_, like the _Genji Monogatari_, was by a noble
lady--Sei Shonagon--but it is simply a record of daily events and
fugitive thoughts, though not in the form of a diary. The book is one
of the most natural and unaffected compositions ever written.
Undesignedly it conveys a wonderfully realistic picture of
aristocratic life and social ethics in Kioto at the beginning of the
11th century. "If we compare it with anything that Europe has to show
at this period, it must be admitted that it is indeed a remarkable
work. What a revelation it would be if we had the court life of
Alfred's or Canute's reign depicted to us in a similar way?"

The Dark Age.

The period from the early part of the 14th century to the opening of
the 17th is generally regarded as the dark age of Japanese literature.
The constant wars of the time left their impress upon everything. To
them is due the fact that the two principal works compiled during this
epoch were, one political, the other quasi-historical. In the former,
_Jinkoshoto-ki (History of the True Succession of the Divine
Monarchs)_, Kitabatake Chikafusa (1340) undertook to prove that of the
two sovereigns then disputing for supremacy in Japan, Go-Daigo was the
rightful monarch; in the latter, _Taihei-ki (History of Great Peace)_,
Kojima (1370) devoted his pages to describing the events of
contemporaneous history. Neither work can be said to possess signal
literary merit, but both had memorable consequences. For the
_Jinkoshoto-ki_, by its strong advocacy of the mikado's administrative
rights as against the usurpations of military feudalism, may be said
to have sowed the seeds of Japan's modern polity; and the _Taihei-ki_,
by its erudite diction, skilful rhetoric, simplification of old
grammatical constructions and copious interpolation of Chinese words,
furnished a model for many imitators and laid the foundations of
Japan's 19th-century style. The _Taihei-ki_ produced another notable
effect; it inspired public readers who soon developed into historical
_raconteurs_; a class of professionals who are almost as much in vogue
to-day as they were 500 years ago. Belonging to about the same period
as the _Jinkoshoto-ki_, another classic occupies a leading place in
Japanese esteem. It is the _Tsure-zure-gusa (Materials for Dispelling
Ennui)_, by Kenko-boshi, described by Mr Aston as "one of the most
delightful oases in Japanese literature; a collection of short
sketches, anecdotes and essays on all imaginable subjects, something
in the manner of Selden's _Table Talk_."

The Drama.

The so-called dark age of Japanese literature was not entirely
unproductive: it gave the drama (_No_) to Japan. Tradition ascribes
the origin of the drama to a religious dance of a pantomimic
character, called _Kagura_ and associated with Shinto ceremonials. The
No, however, owed its development mainly to Buddhist influence. During
the medieval era of internecine strife the Buddhist priests were the
sole depositaries of literary talent, and seeing that, from the close
of the 14th century, the Shinto mime (Kagura) was largely employed by
the military class to invoke or acknowledge the assistance of the
gods, the monks of Buddha set themselves to compose librettos for this
mime, and the performance, thus modified, received the name of No.
Briefly speaking, the No was a dance of the most stately character,
adapted to the incidents of dramas "which embrace within their scope a
world of legendary lore, of quaint fancies and of religious
sentiment." Their motives were chiefly confined to such themes as the
law of retribution to which all human beings are subjected, the
transitoriness of life and the advisability of shaking off from one's
feet the dust of this sinful world. But some were of a purely martial
nature. This difference is probably explained by the fact that the
idea of thus modifying the Kagura had its origin in musical
recitations from the semi-romantic semi-historical narratives of the
14th century. Such recitations were given by itinerant Bonzes, and it
is easy to understand the connexion between them and the No. Very soon
the No came to occupy in the estimation of the military class a
position similar to that held by the _tanka_ as a literary pursuit,
and the _gagaku_ as a musical, in the Imperial court. All the great
aristocrats not only patronized the No but were themselves ready to
take part in it. Costumes of the utmost magnificence were worn, and
the chiselling of masks for the use of the performers occupied scores
of artists and ranked as a high glyptic accomplishment. There are 335
classical dramas of this kind in a compendium called the _Yokyoka
Tsuge_, and many of them are inseparably connected with the names of
Kwanami Kiyotsugu (1406) and his son Motokiyo (1455), who are counted
the fathers of the art. For a moment, when the tide of Western
civilization swept over Japan, the No seemed likely to be permanently
submerged. But the renaissance of nationalism (_kokusui hoson_) saved
the venerable drama, and owing to the exertions of Prince Iwakura, the
artist Hosho Kuro and Umewaka Minoru, it stands as high as ever in
popular favour. Concerning the five schools into which the No is
divided, their characteristics and their differences--these are
matters of interest to the initiated alone.

The Farce.

The Japanese are essentially a laughter-loving people. They are highly
susceptible of tragic emotions, but they turn gladly to the brighter
phases of life. Hence a need was soon felt of something to dispel the
pessimism of the No, and that something took the form of comedies
played in the interludes of the No and called _Kyogen_ (mad words).
The Kyogen needs no elaborate description: it is a pure farce, never
immodest or vulgar.

The Theatre.

The classic drama No and its companion the Kyogen had two children,
the _Joruri_ and the _Kabuki_. They were born at the close of the 16th
century and they owed their origin to the growing influence of the
commercial class, who asserted a right to be amused but were excluded
from enjoyment of the aristocratic No and the Kyogen. The Joruri is a
dramatic ballad, sung or recited to the accompaniment of the _samisen_
and in unison with the movements of puppets. It came into existence in
Kioto and was thence transferred to Yedo (Tokyo), where the greatest
of Japanese playwrights, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), and a
musician of exceptional talent, Takemoto Gidayu, collaborated to
render this puppet drama a highly popular entertainment. It flourished
for nearly 200 years in Yedo, and is still occasionally performed in
Osaka. Like the No the Joruri dealt always with sombre themes, and was
supplemented by the Kabuki (farce). This last owed its inception to a
priestess who, having abandoned her holy vocation at the call of love,
espoused dancing as a means of livelihood and trained a number of
girls for the purpose. The law presently interdicted these female
comedians (_onna-kabuki_) in the interests of public morality, and
they were succeeded by "boy comedians" (_wakashu-kabuki_) who
simulated women's ways and were vetoed in their turn, giving place to
_yaro-kabuki_ (comedians with queues). Gradually the Kabuki developed
the features of a genuine theatre; the actor and the playwright were
discriminated, and, the performances taking the form of domestic drama
(_Wagoto_ and _Sewamono_) or historical drama (_Aragoto_ or
_Jidaimono_), actors of perpetual fame sprang up, as Sakata Tojuro and
Ichikawa Danjinro (1660-1704). Mimetic posture-dances (_Shosagoto_)
were always introduced as interludes; past and present
indiscriminately contributed to the playwright's subjects; realism was
carried to extremes; a revolving stage and all mechanical accessories
were supplied; female parts were invariably taken by males, who
attained almost incredible skill in these simulations; a chorus--relic
of the No--chanted expositions of profound sentiments or thrilling
incidents; and histrionic talent of the very highest order was often
displayed. But the _Kabuki-za_ and its _yakusha_ (actors) remained
always a plebeian institution. No _samurai_ frequented the former or
associated with the latter. With the introduction of Western
civilization in modern times, however, the theatre ceased to be
tabooed by the aristocracy. Men and women of all ranks began to visit
it; the emperor himself consented (1887) to witness a performance by
the great stars of the stage at the private residence of Marquis
Inouye; a dramatic reform association was organized by a number of
prominent noblemen and scholars; drastic efforts were made to purge
the old historical dramas of anachronisms and inconsistencies, and at
length a theatre (the _Yuraku-za_) was built on purely European lines,
where instead of sitting from morning to night witnessing one
long-drawn-out drama with interludes of whole farces, a visitor may
devote only a few evening-hours to the pastime. The Shosagoto has not
been abolished, nor is there any reason why it should be. It has
graces and beauties of its own. There remains to be noted the
incursion of amateurs into the histrionic realm. In former times the
actor's profession was absolutely exclusive in Japan. Children were
trained to wear their fathers' mantles, and the idea that a
non-professional could tread the hallowed ground of the stage did not
enter any imagination. But with the advent of the new regimen in Meiji
days there arose a desire for social plays depicting the life of the
modern generation, and as these "croppy dramas" (_zampatsu-mono_)--so
called in allusion to the European method of cutting the hair
close--were not included in the repertoire of the orthodox theatre,
amateur troupes (known as _soshi-yakusha_) were organized to fill the
void. Even Shakespeare has been played by these amateurs, and the
abundant wit of the Japanese is on the way to enrich the stage with
modern farces of unquestionable merit.

Literature of the Tokugawa Era.

The Tokugawa era (1603-1867), which popularized the drama, had other
memorable effects upon Japanese literature. Yedo, the shogun's
capital, displaced Kioto as the centre of literary activity. Its
population of more than a million, including all sorts and conditions
of men--notably wealthy merchants and mechanics--constituted a new
audience to which authors had to address themselves; and an
unparalleled development of mental activity necessitated wholesale
drafts upon the Chinese vocabulary. To this may be attributed the
appearance of a group of men known as _kangakusha_ (Chinese scholars).
The most celebrated among them were: Fujiwara Seikwa (1560-1619), who
introduced his countrymen to the philosophy of Chu-Hi; Hayashi Rasan
(1583-1657), who wrote 170 treatises on scholastic and moral subjects;
Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), teacher of a fine system of ethics; Arai
Hakuseki (1657-1725), historian, philosopher, statesman and financier:
and Muro Kiuso, the second great exponent of Chu-Hi's philosophy.
"Japan owes a profound debt of gratitude to the _kangakusha_ of that
time. For their day and country they were emphatically the salt of
earth." But naturally not all were believers in the same philosophy.
The fervour of the followers of Chu-Hi (the orthodox school) could not
fail to provoke opposition. Thus some arose who declared allegiance to
the idealistic intuitionalism of Wang Yang-ming, and others advocated
direct study of the works of Confucius and Mencius. Connected with
this rejection of Chu-Hi were such eminent names as those of Ito
Junsai (1627-1718), Ito Togai (1617-1736), Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) and
Dazai Shuntai (1679-1747). These Chinese scholars made no secret of
their contempt for Buddhism, and in their turn they were held in
aversion by the Buddhists and the Japanese scholars (_wagakusha_), so
that the second half of the 18th century was a time of perpetual
wrangling and controversy. The worshippers at the shrine of Chinese
philosophy evoked a reactionary spirit of nationalism, just as the
excessive worship of Occidental civilization was destined to do in the
19th century.

Apart from philosophical researches and the development of the drama,
as above related, the Tokugawa era is remarkable for folk-lore, moral
discourses, fiction and a peculiar form of poetry. This last does not
demand much attention. Its principal variety is the _haikai_, which is
nothing more than a _tanka_ shorn of its concluding fourteen
syllables, and therefore virtually identical with the _hokku_, already
described. The name of Basho is immemorially associated with this kind
of lilliputian versicle, which reached the extreme of impressionism. A
more important addition to Japanese literature was made in the 17th
century in the form of children's tales (_Otogibanashi_). They are
charmingly simple and graceful, and they have been rendered into
English again and again since the beginning of the Meiji era. But
whether they are to be regarded as genuine folk-lore or merely as a
branch of the fiction of the age when they first appeared in book
form, remains uncertain. Of fiction proper there was an abundance. The
pioneer of this kind of literature is considered to have been Saikaku
(1641-1693), who wrote sketches of everyday life as he saw it, short
tales of some merit and novels which deal with the most disreputable
phases of human existence. His notable successors in the same line
were two men of Kioto, named Jisho (1675-1745) and Kiseki (1666-1716).
They had their own publishing house, and its name _Hachimonji-ya_
(figure-of-eight store) came to be indelibly associated with this kind
of literature. But these men did little more than pave the way for the
true romantic novel, which first took shape under the hand of Santo
Kyoden (1761-1816), and culminated in the works of Bakin, Tanehiko,
Samba, Ikku, Shunsui and their successors. Of nearly all the books in
this class it may be said that they deal largely in sensationalism and
pornography, though it does not follow that their language is either
coarse or licentious. The life of the virtuous Japanese woman being
essentially uneventful, these romancists not unnaturally sought their
female types among dancing-girls and courtesans. The books were
profusely illustrated with woodcuts and chromoxylographs from pictures
of the _ukiyoe_ masters, who, like the playwright, the actor and the
romancer, ministered to the pleasure of the "man in the street." Brief
mention must also be made of two other kinds of books belonging to
this epoch; namely, the _Shingaku-sho_ (ethical essays) and the
_Jitsuroku-mono_ (true records). The latter were often little more
than historical novels founded on facts; and the former, though
nominally intended to engraft the doctrines of Buddhism and Shinto
upon the philosophy of China, were really of rationalistic tendency.

The Meiji Era.

Although the incursions made into Chinese philosophy and the revival
of Japanese traditions during the Tokugawa Epoch contributed
materially to the overthrow of feudalism and the restoration of the
Throne's administrative power, the immediate tendency of the last two
events was to divert the nation's attention wholly from the study of
either Confucianism or the _Record of Ancient Matters_. A universal
thirst set in for Occidental science and literature, so that students
occupied themselves everywhere with readers and grammars modelled on
European lines rather than with the Analects or the _Kojiki_. English
at once became the language of learning. Thus the three colleges which
formed the nucleus of the Imperial University of Tokyo were presided
over by a graduate of Michigan College (Professor Toyama), a member of
the English bar (Professor Hozumi) and a graduate of Cambridge (Baron
Kikuchi). If Japan was eminently fortunate in the men who directed her
political career at that time, she was equally favoured in those that
presided over her literary culture. Fukuzawa Yukichi, founder of the
Keio Gijuku, now one of Japan's four universities, did more than any
of his contemporaries by writing and speaking to spread a knowledge of
the West, its ways and its thoughts, and Nakamura Keiu laboured in the
same cause by translating Smiles's _Self-help_ and Mill's
_Representative Government_. A universal geography (by Uchida Masao);
a history of nations (by Mitsukuri Rinsho); a translation of
_Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ by the department of education; Japanese
renderings of Herbert Spencer and of Guizot and Buckle--all these made
their appearance during the first fourteen years of the epoch. The
influence of politics may be strongly traced in the literature of that
time, for the first romances produced by the new school were all of a
political character: _Keikoku Bidan_ (_Model for Statesmen_, with
Epaminondas for hero) by Yano Fumio; _Setchubai (Plum-blossoms in
snow)_ and _Kwakwan-o (Nightingale Among Flowers)_ by Suyehiro. This
idea of subserving literature to political ends is said to have been
suggested by Nakae Tokusuke's translation of Rousseau's _Contrat
social_. The year 1882 saw _Julius Caesar_ in a Japanese dress. The
translator was Tsubouchi Shoyo, one of the greatest writers of the
Meiji era. His _Shosetsu Shinsui (Essentials of a Novel)_ was an
eloquent plea for realism as contrasted with the artificiality of the
characters depicted by Bakin, and his own works illustrative of this
theory took the public by storm. He also brought out the first
literary periodical published in Japan, namely, the _Waseda Bungaku_,
so called because Tsubouchi was professor of literature in the Waseda
University, an institution founded by Count Okuma, whose name cannot
be omitted from any history of Meiji literature, not as an author but
as a patron. As illustrating the rapid development of familiarity with
foreign authors, a Japanese retrospect of the Meiji era notes that
whereas Macaulay's _Essays_ were in the curriculum of the Imperial
University in 1881-1882, they were studied, five or six years later,
in secondary schools, and pupils of the latter were able to read with
understanding the works of Goldsmith, Tennyson and Thackeray. Up to
Tsubouchi's time the Meiji literature was all in the literary
language, but there was then formed a society calling itself
_Kenyusha_, some of whose associates--as Bimyosai--used the colloquial
language in their works, while others--as Koyo, Rohan, &c.--went back
to the classical diction of the Genroku era (1655-1703). Rohan is one
of the most renowned of Japan's modern authors, and some of his
historical romances have had wide vogue. Meanwhile the business of
translating went on apace. Great numbers of European and American
authors were rendered into Japanese--Calderon, Lytton, Disraeli,
Byron, Shakespeare, Milton, Turgueniev, Carlyle, Daudet, Emerson,
Hugo, Heine, De Quincey, Dickens, Körner, Goethe--their name is legion
and their influence upon Japanese literature is conspicuous. In 1888 a
special course of German literature was inaugurated at the Imperial
University, and with it is associated the name of Mori Ogai, Japan's
most faithful interpreter of German thought and speech. Virtually
every literary magnate of the Occident has found one or more
interpreters in modern Japan. Accurate reviewers of the era have
divided it into periods of two or three years each, according to the
various groups of foreign authors that were in vogue, and every year
sees a large addition to the number of Japanese who study the
masterpieces of Western literature in the original.

Newspapers and Periodicals.