Net of Fireflies. Harold Stewart
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SNARE by Kosugi Misei :
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Geoffrey Fair-bairn of Melbourne and Mr. Harvey Mason of Sydney, whose unexpected and spontaneous generosity helped materially with this work. I am also indebted to Mr. Leslie Oates for valuable technical suggestions, to Mr. Peter Kelly for editorial assistance, to Mr. Gordon Kirby for arranging publication in Japan, and to Mr. Meredith Weatherby for designing the book and discovering the illustrations.
Special thanks are due to the respective publishers for permission to make quotations from the works of Alan Watts, D. T. Suzuki, R. H. Blyth, A. Miyamori, H. G. Henderson, and Arthur Waley. These quotations appear in the essay at the end of this volume.
The frontispiece was specially painted for this book by the well-known Japanese artist Tomoda Toshio, whose "haiku" name is Sōgyo. All the other illustrations have been selected from the four volumes of the Gendai Haiga Shû (Collection of Modern Haiga), edited and published by Shimada Yûkichi under the imprint of his publishing house, the Haigadô (Haiga Pavilion), Tokyo, 1915-17. This publication contained some 119 haiku paintings (haiga in Japanese), by 37 of Japan's leading contemporary haijin, skilfully reproduced in color by wood blocks. It was a limited edition which has long been out of print, the Haigadô is no longer in existence, and only a few of the artists are known to be still living. The paintings are reproduced here by kind permission of the publisher's grandson, Shi-mada Junji, with thanks to those artists who live and in memory of those departed. On behalf of all these genial haijin, the publishers and I welcome the opportunity of providing these examples of this little-known aspect of Japanese art.
Whatever accuracy there may be in the following verses is due to my predecessors in translation; while any poetic merit they may possess is the inspiration of Benten, the Japanese Goddess of Music and Poetry.
HAROLD STEWART
SPRING
"Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire."
—VOLTAIRE
THE RECLUSE
In my ten-foot bamboo hut this spring,
There is nothing: there is everything.
—SODÔ
REBIRTH
Ah, for the heart whose winter knew no doubt,
The white plum-blossoms, first to venture out!
—MOKUIN
THE ENTRANCE OF SPRING
The scene is almost set for spring to come:
A hazy moon and blossoms on the plum. . . .
—BASHÔ
UNCONVENTIONAL DEBUT
The little nightingale of buff and brown
Singing its first spring quaver—upside down!
—KEKAKU
ON THE ROAD TO NARA
Because of early spring, this nameless hill
Is knee-deep in the gauze of morning still.
—BASHÔ
THE GESTURE
"Be careful not to break my flowering tree!"
He warned; and broke a branch of plum for me.
—TAIGI
ONE SENSE OF BEAUTY
On white plum-petals that were pure and sweet,
The nightingale now wipes its muddy feet.
—ISSA
MORE THAN FORGIVEN
Plum-blossoms give their fragrance still to him
Whose thoughtless hand has broken off their limb.
—CHIYO
AFTER THE FISHING-BOATS DEPART
The tall white sails emerge above the bay's
Low and level veils of morning haze.
—GAKOKU
THE SPRING SEA
All day, with gently undulating swell,
The spring sea rose and fell, and rose and fell. . . .
—BUSON
SPRING CALM
The Inland Sea at twilight: star by star,
The lamps shine out on islands, near and far. . . .
—SHIKI
A MUSICAL EVENING
The geisha's pose is shadowed on the screen
Beside a willow sapling, fledged with green.
—HÔ-Ô
UNFATHOMED
Without a sound, the white camellia fell
To sound the darkness of the deep stone well.
—BUSON
SPRING DAWN
Up comes the bucket from the well of gloom,
And in it floats—a pink camellia bloom.
—KAKEI
SUDDEN SPRING
With