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This lover presumes to write his girl's whole name; but the example, so far as I am able to discover, is unique. Other enamoured ones write only the yobi-na of their bewitchers; and the honourable prefix, 'O, and the honourable suffix, 'San, find no place in the familiarity of love.
If he writes his jitsumyo, then he contents himself with whispering the yobi-na of his sweetheart to the gods and to the bamboos. If he cuts her yobi-na into the bark, then he substitutes for his own name a mention of his existence and his age only, as in this touching instance: Takata-Toki-to-en-musubi-negaimas. Jiu-hassai-no-otoko
Nothing is written upon the strips of paper. But there is enough writing upon the bamboos to occupy curiosity for many an hour, in spite of the mosquitoes. Most of the names are yobi-na, -that is to say, pretty names of women; but there are likewise names of men jitsumyo; and, oddly enough, a girl's name and a man's are in no instance written together.
To judge by all this ideographic testimony, lovers in Japan or at least in Izumo are even more secretive than in our Occident. The enamoured youth never writes his own jitsumyo and his sweetheart's yobi-na together; and the family name, or myoji, he seldom ventures to inscribe.
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