Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/54

poems "would be absurd." But what, then, of Crashaw's^[1] famous line upon the miracle at the marriage feast in Cana^[2]?—

Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit.^[3]

Only fourteen syllables—and immortality. Now with seventeen Japanese syllables things quite as wonderful—indeed; much more wonderful—have been done, not once or twice, but probably a thousand times...... However, there is nothing wonderful in the following hokku, which have been selected for more than literary reasons:—

       Nugi-kakuru
Haori sugata no
       Kochō kana!

[Like a haori being taken off—that is the shape of a butterfly!]

       Torisashi no
Sao no jama suru,
       Kochō kana!

[Ah, the butterfly keeps getting in the way of the bird-catcher's pole!]

註

1. Richard Crashaw (1616–49) 英國の詩人。
2. ガリラヤのカナにて婚筵に葡萄酒盡きたるを基督が水を葡萄酒に變じたるその奇蹟なり。新約約翰傳第二章參照。
3. The modest nymph beheld her God, and blushed の羅典語。くだけて譯すれば The modest water saw its God, and blushed なり。 nymph は山林水澤に捿み、上位の神に仕ふる半神半人の少女にて水の精なり。此の句にては nympha は二重の意味を有てり。一つは泉といふ意味、一つは水の精といふ意味なり。