Chapter 3 No.3

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.

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Yokoi Yayū, a Japanese poet of the eighteenth century, celebrated as a composer of hokku, has left us this na?ve record of the feelings with which he heard the chirruping of cicad? in summer and in autumn:-

"In the sultry period, feeling oppressed by the greatness of the heat, I made this verse:-

"Sémi atsushi

Matsu kirabaya to

Omou-madé.

[The chirruping of the sémi aggravates the heat until I wish to cut down the pine-tree on which it sings.]

"But the days passed quickly; and later, when I heard the crying of the sémi grow fainter and fainter in the time of the autumn winds, I began to feel compassion for them, and I made this second verse:-

"Shini-nokoré

Hitotsu bakari wa

Aki no sémi."

[Now there survives

But a single one

Of the sémi of autumn!]

Lovers of Pierre Loti (the world's greatest prose-writer) may remember in Madame Chrysanthème a delightful passage about a Japanese house,-describing the old dry woodwork as impregnated with sonority by the shrilling crickets of a hundred summers.[30] There is a Japanese poem containing a fancy not altogether dissimilar:-

[30] Speaking of his own attempt to make a drawing of the interior, he observes: "Il manque à ce logis dessiné son air frêle et sa sonorité de violon sec. Dans les traits de crayon qui représentent les boiseries, il n'y a pas la précision minutieuse avec laquelle elles sont ouvragées, ni leur antiquité extrême, ni leur propreté parfaite, ni les vibrations de cigales qu' elles semblent avoir emmagasinées pendant des centaines d'étés dans leurs fibres desséchées."

Matsu no ki ni

Shimikomu gotoshi

Sémi no ko?.

Into the wood of the pine-tree

Seems to soak

The voice of the sémi.

A very large number of Japanese poems about sémi describe the noise of the creatures as an affliction. To fully sympathize with the complaints of the poets, one must have heard certain varieties of Japanese cicad? in full midsummer chorus; but even by readers without experience of the clamor, the following verses will probably be found suggestive:-

Waré hitori

Atsui yō nari,-

Sémi no ko?!

-Bunsō.

Meseems that only I,-I alone among mortals,-

Ever suffered such heat!-oh, the noise of the sémi!

Ushiro kara

Tsukamu yō nari,-

Sémi no ko?.

-Jofū.

Oh, the noise of the sémi!-a pain of invisible seizure,-

Clutched in an enemy's grasp,-caught by the hair from behind!

Yama no Kami no

Mimi no yamai ka?-

Sémi no ko?!

-Teikoku.

What ails the divinity's ears?-how can the God of the Mountain

Suffer such noise to exist?-oh, the tumult of sémi!

Soko no nai

Atsusa ya kumo ni

Sémi no ko?!

-Saren.

Fathomless deepens the heat: the ceaseless shrilling of sémi

Mounts, like a hissing of fire, up to the motionless clouds.

Mizu karété,

Sémi wo fudan-no

Taki no ko?.

-Gen-U.

Water never a drop: the chorus of sémi, incessant,

Mocks the tumultuous hiss,-the rush and foaming of rapids.

Kagéroishi

Kumo mata satté,

Sémi no ko?.

-Kitō.

Gone, the shadowing clouds!-again the shrilling of sémi

Rises and slowly swells,-ever increasing the heat!

Daita ki wa,

Ha mo ugokasazu,-

Sémi no ko?!

-Kafū.

Somewhere fast to the bark he clung; but I cannot see him:

He stirs not even a leaf-oh! the noise of that sémi!

Tonari kara

Kono ki nikumu ya!

Sémi no ko?.

-Gyukaku.

All because of the Sémi that sit and shrill on its branches-

Oh! how this tree of mine is hated now by my neighbor!

This reminds one of Yayū. We find another poet compassionating a tree frequented by sémi:-

Kazé wa mina

Sémi ni suwarété,

Hito-ki kana!

-Chōsui.

Alas! poor solitary tree!-pitiful now your lot,-every breath of air having been sucked up by the sémi!

Sometimes the noise of the sémi is described as a moving force:-

Sémi no ko?

Ki-gi ni ugoité,

Kazé mo nashi!

-Sōyō.

Every tree in the wood quivers with clamor of sémi:

Motion only of noise-never a breath of wind!

Také ni kité,

Yuki yori omoshi

Sémi no ko?.

-Tōgetsu.

More heavy than winter-snow the voices of perching sémi:

See how the bamboos bend under the weight of their song![31]

[31] Japanese artists have found many a charming inspiration in the spectacle of bamboos bending under the weight of snow clinging to their tops.

Morogo? ni

Yama ya ugokasu,

Ki-gi no sémi.

All shrilling together, the multitudinous sémi

Make, with their ceaseless clamor, even the mountain move.

Kusunoki mo

Ugoku yō nari,

Sémi no ko?.

-Baijaku.

Even the camphor-tree seems to quake with the clamor of sémi!

Sometimes the sound is compared to the noise of boiling water:-

Hizakari wa

Niétatsu sémi no

Hayashi kana!

In the hour of heaviest heat, how simmers the forest with sémi!

Niété iru

Mizu bakari nari-

Sémi no ko?.

-Taimu.

Simmers all the air with sibilation of sémi,

Ceaseless, wearying sense,-a sound of perpetual boiling.

Other poets complain especially of the multitude of the noise-makers and the ubiquity of the noise:-

Aritaké no

Ki ni hibiki-kéri

Sémi no ko?.

How many soever the trees, in each rings the voice of the sémi.

Matsubara wo

Ichi ri wa kitari,

Sémi no ko?.

-Senga.

Alone I walked for miles into the wood of pine-trees:

Always the one same sémi shrilled its call in my ears.

Occasionally the subject is treated with comic exaggeration:-

Naité iru

Ki yori mo futoshi

Sémi no ko?.

The voice of the sémi is bigger [thicker] than the tree on which it sings.

Sugi takashi

Sarédomo sémi no

Amaru ko?!

High though the cedar be, the voice of the sémi is incomparably higher!

Ko? nagaki

Sémi wa mijikaki

Inochi kana!

How long, alas! the voice and how short the life of the sémi!

Some poets celebrate the negative form of pleasure following upon the cessation of the sound:-

Sémi ni dété,

Hotaru ni modoru,-

Suzumi kana!

-Yayū.

When the sémi cease their noise, and the fireflies come out-oh! how refreshing the hour!

Sémi no tatsu,

Ato suzushisa yo!

Matsu no ko?.

-Baijaku.

When the sémi cease their storm, oh, how refreshing the stillness!

Gratefully then resounds the musical speech of the pines.

[Here I may mention, by the way, that there is a little Japanese song about the matsu no ko?, in which the onomatope "zazanza" very well represents the deep humming of the wind in the pine-needles:-

Zazanza!

Hama-matsu no oto wa,-

Zazanza,

Zazanza!

Zazanza!

The sound of the pines of the shore,-

Zazanza!

Zazanza!]

There are poets, however, who declare that the feeling produced by the noise of sémi depends altogether upon the nervous condition of the listener:-

Mori no sémi

Suzushiki ko? ya,

Atsuki ko?.

-Otsushu.

Sometimes sultry the sound; sometimes, again, refreshing:

The chant of the forest-sémi accords with the hearer's mood.

Suzushisa mo

Atsusa mo sémi no

Tokoro kana!

-Fuhaku.

Sometimes we think it cool,-the resting-place of the sémi;-sometimes we think it hot (it is all a matter of fancy).

Suzushii to

Omoéba, suzushi

Sémi no ko?.

-Ginkō.

If we think it is cool, then the voice of the sémi is cool (that is, the fancy changes the feeling).

In view of the many complaints of Japanese poets about the noisiness of sémi, the reader may be surprised to learn that out of sémi-skins there used to be made in both China and Japan-perhaps upon hom?opathic principles-a medicine for the cure of ear-ache!

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One poem, nevertheless, proves that sémi-music has its admirers:-

Omoshiroi zo ya,

Waga-ko no ko? wa

Takai mori-ki no

Sémi no ko?![32]

Sweet to the ear is the voice of one's own child as the voice of a sémi perched on a tall forest tree.

[32] There is another version of this poem:-

Omoshiroi zo ya,

Waga-ko no naku wa

Sembu-ségaki no

Kyō yori mo!

"More sweetly sounds the crying of one's own child than even the chanting of the s?tra in the service for the dead." The Buddhist service alluded to is held to be particularly beautiful.

But such admiration is rare. More frequently the sémi is represented as crying for its nightly repast of dew:-

Sémi wo kiké,-

Ichi-nichi naité

Yoru no tsuyu.

-Kikaku.

Hear the sémi shrill! So, from earliest dawning,

All the summer day he cries for the dew of night.

Yū-tsuyu no

Kuchi ni iru madé

Naku sémi ka?

-Baishitsu.

Will the sémi continue to cry till the night-dew fills its mouth?

Occasionally the sémi is mentioned in love-songs of which the following is a fair specimen. It belongs to that class of ditties commonly sung by geisha. Merely as a conceit, I think it pretty, in spite of the factitious pathos; but to Japanese taste it is decidedly vulgar. The allusion to beating implies jealousy:-

Nushi ni tatakaré,

Washa matsu no sémi

Sugaritsuki-tsuki

Naku bakari!

Beaten by my jealous lover,-

Like the sémi on the pine-tree

I can only cry and cling!

And indeed the following tiny picture is a truer bit of work, according to Japanese art-principles (I do not know the author's name):-

Sémi hitotsu

Matsu no yū-hi wo

Kakaé-kéri.

Lo! on the topmost pine, a solitary cicada

Vainly attempts to clasp one last red beam of sun.