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And the conventional and pictorial character of the literary form is illustrated again in the lines: Shira-kumo ni Hane uchi-kawashi Tobu kari no Kazu sae miyuru Aki no yo no tsuki! which the same eminent scholar translates: "The moon on an autumn night making visible the very number of the wild-geese that fly past with wings intercrossed in the white clouds."
Caged, the little creature will remain silent and die. Poets often wait vainly in the dew, from sunset till dawn, to hear the strange cry which has inspired so many exquisite verses. But those who have heard found it so mournful that they have likened it to the cry of one wounded suddenly to death. Hototogisu Chi ni naku koe wa Ariake no Tsuki yori kokani Kiku hito mo nashi.
If I kill myself I throw myself into the river like a common geisha. I think it is best you marry Ito. In Japan it is bad to have a husband; but to have no husband, it is worse." Kuraki yori Kuraki michi ni zo Iri-nu-beki: Haruka ni terase Yuma no ha no tsuki! Some days before Christmas Asako had moved into her own little home.
Across and beyond the road of glass, the sky grew cold now and blue, like the side of a dead fish. A glow subtle and unmistakable as perfume tingled up through the dusk. "The Lady Moon," whispered Umè, softly. Freeing her little hands she joined them, bent her head, and gave the prayer of welcome to O Tsuki Sama. Tatsu watched her gloomily. "I pray to no moon," he said.
In the place of our English term "sun," the Japanese have several alternative terms in common use, such as "hi," "day," "Nichirin," "day-ball," "Ten-to Sama," "the god of heaven's light;" and for "moon," it has "tsuki," "month," "getsu-rin," "month ball." The names given to her men-of-war also indicate a fanciful nature.
"This letter, if I remember rightly, I picked up in some town in Hitachi, and I shall be very glad if you will accept it, either to use it for a model if it be written beautifully, or to laugh at if it prove to have been written awkwardly." Then the chief among the maids, receiving the letter, tried to read the writing upon the envelope: "Tsuki ni hoshi ame ni arare ga kori kana,"
Only at night, the people say, is its voice heard, and most often upon the nights of great moons; and it chants while hovering high out of sight, wherefore a poet has sung of it thus: Hito koe wa. Tsuki ga naitaka Hototogisu! And another has written: Hototogisu Nakitsuru kata wo Nagamureba, Tada ariake no Tsuki zo nokoreru. The dweller in cities may pass a lifetime without hearing the hototogisu.
The sketchy nature of Japanese poetry, especially in this five-line stanza, may be illustrated further by two poems quoted by Prof. The first: Hototogisu Nakitsuru kata wo Nagamureba Tada ari-ake no Tsuki zo nokoreru is literally translated by Professor Chamberlain as follows: "When I gaze towards the place where the cuckoo has been singing, nought remains but the moon in the early dawn."
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