Read Online Lafcadio Hearn's Japan by Donald; Lafcadio; Richie Hearn - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Donald; Lafcadio; Richie Hearn
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each slips through her fingers, the holy invocation, âNamu Jiz Å , Dai Bosatsu!â
Doubtless this pious little woman, praying beside me in the dusk, is very poor. Were she not, she would hire a boat and scatter her tiny papers far away upon the bosom of the lake. (It is now only after dark that this may be done; for the policeâI know not whyâhave been instructed to prevent the pretty rite, just as in the open ports they have been instructed to prohibit the launching of the little straw boats of the dead, the sh Å ry Å bune).
But why should the papers be cast into running water? A good old Tendai priest tells me that originally the rite was only for the souls of the drowned. But now these gentle hearts believe that all waters flow downward to the Shadow-world and through the Sai-no-Kawara, where Jiz Å is.
XXII
At home again I slide open once more my little paper window, and look out upon the night. I see the paper lanterns flitting over the bridge, like a long shimmering of fireflies. I see the spectres of a hundred lights trembling upon the black flood. I see the broad sh Å ji of dwellings beyond the river suffused with the soft yellow radiance of invisible lamps; and upon those lighted spaces I can discern slender moving shadows, silhouettes of graceful women. Devoutly do I pray that glass may never become universally adopted in Japan,âthere would be no more delicious shadows.
I listen to the voices of the city awhile. I hear the great bell of T Å k Å ji rolling its soft Buddhist thunder across the dark, and the songs of the night-walkers whose hearts have been made merry with wine, and the long sonorous chanting of the night-peddlers.
âU-mu-don-yai-soba-yai!â It is the seller of hot soba, Japanese buckwheat, making his last round.
âUmai handan, machibito endan, usemono nins Å kas Å kichiky Å no urainai!â The cry of the itinerant fortune-teller.
âAme-yu!â The musical cry of the seller of midzu-ame, the sweet amber syrup which children love.
âAmai!â The shrilling call of the seller of ama-zaké, sweet rice wine.
âKawachi-no-kuni-hiotan-yama-koi-no-tsuji-ura!â The peddler of love-papers, of divining-papers, pretty tinted things with little shadowy pictures upon them. When held near a fire or a lamp, words written upon them with invisible ink begin to appear. These are always about sweethearts, and sometimes tell one what he does not wish to know. The fortunate ones who read them believe themselves still more fortunate; the unlucky abandon all hope; the jealous become even more jealous than they were before.
From all over the city there rises into the night a sound like the bubbling and booming of great frogs in a marsh,âthe echoing of the tiny drums of the dancing girls, of the charming geisha. Like the rolling of a waterfall continually reverberates the multitudinous pat tering of geta upon the bridge. A new light rises in the east; the moon is wheeling up from behind the peaks, very large and weird and wan through the white vapors. Again I hear the sounds of the clapping of many hands. For the wayfarers are paying obeisance to O-Tsuki-San: from the long bridge they are saluting the coming of the White Moon-Lady. 10
I sleep, to dream of little children, in some moldering mossy temple court, playing at the game of Shadows and of Demons.
Three Popular Ballads 1
During the spring of 1891, I visited the settlement in Matsué, Izumo, of an outcast people known as the yama-no-mono . Some results of the visit were subsequently communicated to the âJapan Mail,â in a letter published June 13, 1891, and some extracts from that letter I think it may be worthwhile to cite here, by way of introduction to the subject of the present paper.
âThe settlement is at the southern end of Matsué, in a tiny valley, or rather hollow among the hills which form a half-circle behind the city. Few Japanese of the
Doubtless this pious little woman, praying beside me in the dusk, is very poor. Were she not, she would hire a boat and scatter her tiny papers far away upon the bosom of the lake. (It is now only after dark that this may be done; for the policeâI know not whyâhave been instructed to prevent the pretty rite, just as in the open ports they have been instructed to prohibit the launching of the little straw boats of the dead, the sh Å ry Å bune).
But why should the papers be cast into running water? A good old Tendai priest tells me that originally the rite was only for the souls of the drowned. But now these gentle hearts believe that all waters flow downward to the Shadow-world and through the Sai-no-Kawara, where Jiz Å is.
XXII
At home again I slide open once more my little paper window, and look out upon the night. I see the paper lanterns flitting over the bridge, like a long shimmering of fireflies. I see the spectres of a hundred lights trembling upon the black flood. I see the broad sh Å ji of dwellings beyond the river suffused with the soft yellow radiance of invisible lamps; and upon those lighted spaces I can discern slender moving shadows, silhouettes of graceful women. Devoutly do I pray that glass may never become universally adopted in Japan,âthere would be no more delicious shadows.
I listen to the voices of the city awhile. I hear the great bell of T Å k Å ji rolling its soft Buddhist thunder across the dark, and the songs of the night-walkers whose hearts have been made merry with wine, and the long sonorous chanting of the night-peddlers.
âU-mu-don-yai-soba-yai!â It is the seller of hot soba, Japanese buckwheat, making his last round.
âUmai handan, machibito endan, usemono nins Å kas Å kichiky Å no urainai!â The cry of the itinerant fortune-teller.
âAme-yu!â The musical cry of the seller of midzu-ame, the sweet amber syrup which children love.
âAmai!â The shrilling call of the seller of ama-zaké, sweet rice wine.
âKawachi-no-kuni-hiotan-yama-koi-no-tsuji-ura!â The peddler of love-papers, of divining-papers, pretty tinted things with little shadowy pictures upon them. When held near a fire or a lamp, words written upon them with invisible ink begin to appear. These are always about sweethearts, and sometimes tell one what he does not wish to know. The fortunate ones who read them believe themselves still more fortunate; the unlucky abandon all hope; the jealous become even more jealous than they were before.
From all over the city there rises into the night a sound like the bubbling and booming of great frogs in a marsh,âthe echoing of the tiny drums of the dancing girls, of the charming geisha. Like the rolling of a waterfall continually reverberates the multitudinous pat tering of geta upon the bridge. A new light rises in the east; the moon is wheeling up from behind the peaks, very large and weird and wan through the white vapors. Again I hear the sounds of the clapping of many hands. For the wayfarers are paying obeisance to O-Tsuki-San: from the long bridge they are saluting the coming of the White Moon-Lady. 10
I sleep, to dream of little children, in some moldering mossy temple court, playing at the game of Shadows and of Demons.
Three Popular Ballads 1
During the spring of 1891, I visited the settlement in Matsué, Izumo, of an outcast people known as the yama-no-mono . Some results of the visit were subsequently communicated to the âJapan Mail,â in a letter published June 13, 1891, and some extracts from that letter I think it may be worthwhile to cite here, by way of introduction to the subject of the present paper.
âThe settlement is at the southern end of Matsué, in a tiny valley, or rather hollow among the hills which form a half-circle behind the city. Few Japanese of the
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