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The sentiment of this song therefore recalls our own “ We won't go home till morning.” The following, which is said to have been composed by the Mikado Ojin, a.p. 282, but which more probably belongs to the sixth century, may serve to indicate the highest level to which poetry attained during this period. This Mikado was about to add to his harem a beautiful woman named Kaminaga-hime, or the “long-haired . maid,’ when he discovered that his son had fallen vio- lently in love with her. He invited them both to a banquet, and then surprised his son by resigning to him the lady with the following words :— “Lo! my son! On the moor, garlte to gather, Garlic to gather, On the way as [ went, Pleasing of perfume Was the orange tn flower. Its branches beneath Men had all plundered, Its branches above Birds perching had withered, Midway tts branches Feld in thetr hiding A blushing maiden. Lo! my son, for thee Let her burst into blossom.” \ SHINTO RITUALS 9 The Kojzkt and Nrhongi have preserved to us more than two hundred of these poems. Their study tends to correct ideas such as that of Macaulay, who, doubt- less reasoning from the now exploded premiss that Homer is a primitive poet, argued that “in a rude state of society we may expect to find the poetical temperament in its highest perfection.” Judging from this early poetry of Japan, a want of culture by no means acts as a stimulus to the poetic faculty. We nowhere find “ the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of belief,” which Macaulay would have us look for in this product of an age and country which were certainly far less advanced than those of Homer in intellectual culture. Instead of passion, sublimity, and a vigorous imagination, we have little more than mild sentiment, word-plays, and pretty conceits. Moreover, a suspicion will not be banished that even for such poetical quali- ties as they possess, these poems are in some degree indebted to the inspiration of China. Of this, however, I can not offer any definite proof. SHINTO RITUALS. The prose of the Archaic period is represented by a series of Norito,’ or prayers to the deities of the Shinto religion, which were recited with much ceremony by the Nakatomi, a hereditary corporation of court officials whose especial function it was to represent the Mikado in his capacity of high priest of the nation. Their precise date and authorship are unknown. In their essence they are no doubt of very great antiquity, but there is reason 1 Vide Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, March 1879, &c., for a translation of some of these by Sir Ernest Satow. 10 JAPANESE LITERATURE to believe that they did not assume their present form until the seventh century, some of them perhaps even later. The Norito are not known to have been commit- ted to writing before the period Yengi (go1-923), when the preparation was begun of the work entitled Yengz- shiki or “ Institutes of Yengi,” a collection of the ceremo- nial regulations in force at this time. The Yengishiki enumerates seventy-five of these prayers, and gives the text of twenty-seven, which, no doubt, comprise all the most important. There are prayers fora good harvest, deprecating fire and pestilence, invoking blessings on the palace, services in honour of the Food Goddess, the Wind Deities, and so on. The most famous of all is the Oharai or General Purification Service. It is not devoid of literary quality, as the following translation may perhaps indicate. The other Norito which I have read are much inferior in merit. “Give ear, all ye Imperial Princes, Ministers of State, and high functionaries, who are here assembled, and hearken to the great purification by which at this inter- lune of the sixth month are purged and washed away all sins which may have been committed by Imperial off- cials and attendants—whether they wear the scarf [wom- en] or the shoulder strap [stewards]; whether they bear on their back the bow, or gird on them the sword. “ Of yore, our Imperial ancestors who dwellin the plain of high heaven, summoned to an assembly the eight hundred myriads of deities, and held divine counsel with them. And they gave command, saying, ‘ Let our August Grandchild hold serene rule over the land of fair rice-ears—the fertile reed-plain.’ But in the land thus delivered to him there were savage deities. These they chastised with a divine chastisement, and expelled witha SHINTO RITUALS II divine expulsion. Moreover, the rocks, trees, and leaves of grass which had the power of speech, were silenced. Then they despatched him downward from his celestial, everlasting throne, cleaving as he went with an awful way-cleaving the many-piled clouds of heaven. Here at the middle point of the land entrusted to him—in Yamato, the High Sun Land—the August Grandchild established his peaceful rule and built a fair palace, basing deep on the nethermost rock the massy pillars, and upraising to high heaven the timbers of the roof wherewithal to shelter him from sun and sky. ‘‘ Now, of the various offences to be committed by the celestial race destined more and more to people this land of peaceful rule, some are of heaven and others of earth. Heavenly offences are the breaking down of divisions between rice-fields, filling up of water-courses, removing water-pipes, flaying alive, flaying backwards. ... Earth- ly offences are the cutting of living bodies, the cutting of dead bodies, leprosy, incest, calamities from creep- ing things, from the high gods and from high birds, kill- ing of cattle, bewitchments. “‘ Whensoever these offences are committed, for com- mitted they will be, let the great Nakatomi clip heavenly twigs at the top and clip them at the bottom, making thereof a complete array of one thousand stands for offerings. Having trimmed rushes of heaven at the top and trimmed them at the bottom, let them split them into a manifold brush. Then let them recite this great liturgy. “When they do so, the gods of heaven, thrusting open the adamantine doors of heaven and cleaving the many- piled clouds of heaven with an awful way-cleaving, will approach and lend ear. The gods of earth, ascending 12 JAPANESE LITERATURE to the tops of the high mountains and the tops of the low mountains, sweeping aside the mists of the high mountains and the mists of the low mountains, will approach and lend ear. “Then shall no offences remain unpurged, from the court of the august child of the gods even to the remotest ends of the realm. As the many-piled clouds of heaven are scattered at the breath of the Wind Gods; as the morning breezes and the evening breezes disperse the morning vapours and the evening vapours; as a huge ship moored in a great harbour, casting off its stern moorings, casting off its bow moorings, drives forth into the vast ocean; as yonder thick brushwood is smitten and cleared away by the sharp sickle forged in the fire— so shall all offences be swept utterly away. To purge and purify them, let the goddess Seoritsu-hime, who dwells in the rapids of the swift stream whose cataracts tumble headlong from the high mountains and from the low mountains, bear them out into the great sea plain. There let the goddess Haya-akitsu-hime, who dwells in the myriad ways of the tides of the raging sea, and in the myriad meeting-places of the tides of the myriad sea paths, swallow them up, and let the god Ibukido Nushi [the master of the spurting-out place], who dwells in Ibukido, spurt them out away to the nether region. Then let the goddess Haya-sasura-hime, who dwells in the nether region, dissolve and destroy them. “They are now destroyed, and all, from the servants of the Imperial court down to the people in the four quarters of the realm, are from this day forth void of offence. “ Attend, all of you, withears pricked up to the plain of high heaven, to this great purification by which, on SHINTO RITUALS 13 this interlune of the sixth month as the sun goes down, your offences are purged and purified.” The Norito, although prose, are in some respects more poetical than much of the contemporary poetry. This is not the place to discuss the general question whether literature begins with prose or poetry. Itmay be noted, however, that the earliest Japanese literature presents two imperfectly differentiated types—a poetry which in metrical form, thought, and diction, is not far removed from prose; and prose compositions which contain an appreciable element of poetry. BOOK THE SECOND NARA PERIOD (EIGHTH CENTURY) BOOK THE SECOND NARA PERIOD! (EIGHTH CENTURY) CHAPTER I PROSE OF THE NARA PERIOD—THE KOJIKI” STRICTLY speaking, this period begins A.D. 710, when Nara was made the seat of the Mikado’s government, and ends A.D. 794, when the capital was removed to Nagaoka, in the province of Yamashiro, a site which was aban- doned afew years later for that of the existing city of Kkidto. For the present purpose it is sufficiently accu- rate to make the Nara period coincide with the eighth century. With the establishment of the capital at Nara, the old system by which every Mikado built himself a new palace in a fresh locality was discontinued. This was not only in itself an important progressive measure, but it was an evidence of the advance in civilisation which had been made during the previous two centuries.