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KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (Lafcadio Hearn) online
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BUTTERFLIES
[How the butterfly strives to compete in lightness with the falling flowers! [8]]
Chocho ya!
Onna no michi no
Ato ya saki!
[See that butterfly on the woman's path,-- now fluttering behind her, now before!]
Chocho ya!
Hana-nusubito wo
Tsukete-yuku!
[Ha! the butterfly! -- it is following the person who stole the flowers!]
Aki no cho
Tomo nakereba ya;
Hito ni tsuku
[Poor autumn butterfly!-- when left without a comrade (of its own race), it follows after man (or "a person")!]
Owarete mo,
Isoganu furi no
Chocho kana!
[Ah, the butterfly! Even when chased, it never has the air of being in a hurry.]
Cho wa mina
Jiu-shichi-hachi no
Sugata kana!
[As for butterflies, they all have the appearance of being about seventeen or eighteen years old.[9]]
Cho tobu ya --
Kono yo no urami
Naki yo ni!
[How the butterfly sports,-- just as if there were no enmity (or "envy") in this world!]
Cho tobu ya,
Kono yo ni nozomi
Nai yo ni!
[Ah, the butterfly! -- it sports about as if it had nothing more to desire in this present state of existence.]
Nami no hana ni
Tomari kanetaru,
Kocho kana!
[Having found it difficult indeed to perch upon the (foam-) blossoms of the waves,-- alas for the butterfly!]
Mutsumashi ya! --
Umare-kawareba
Nobe no cho. [10]
[If (in our next existence) we be born into the state of butterflies upon the moor, then perchance we may be happy together!]
Nadeshiko ni
Chocho shiroshi --
Tare no kon? [11]
[On the pink-flower there is a white butterfly: whose spirit, I wonder?]
Ichi-nichi no
Tsuma to miekeri --
Cho futatsu.
[The one-day wife has at last appeared -- a pair of butterflies!]
Kite wa mau,
Futari shidzuka no
Kocho kana!
[Approaching they dance; but when the two meet at last they are very quiet, the butterflies!]
Cho wo ou
Kokoro-mochitashi
Itsumademo!
[Would that I might always have the heart (desire) of chasing butterflies![12]]
* * *
Besides these specimens of poetry about butterflies, I have one queer example to offer of Japanese prose literature on the same topic. The original, of which I have attempted only a free translation, can be found in the curious old book Mushi-Isame ("Insect-Admonitions"); and it assumes the form of a discourse to a butterfly. But it is really a didactic allegory,-- suggesting the moral significance of a social rise and fall:--
"Now, under the sun of spring, the winds are gentle, and flowers pinkly bloom, and grasses are soft, and the hearts of people are glad. Butterflies everywhere flutter joyously: so many persons now compose Chinese verses and Japanese verses about butterflies.
"And this season, O Butterfly, is indeed the season of your bright prosperity: so comely you now are that in the whole world there is nothing more comely. For that reason all other insects admire and envy you;-- there is not among them even one that does not envy you. Nor do insects alone regard you with envy: men also both envy and admire you. Soshu of China, in a dream, assumed your shape;-- Sakoku of Japan, after dying, took your form, and therein made ghostly apparition. Nor is the envy that you inspire shared only by insects and mankind: even things without soul change their form into yours;-- witness the barley-grass, which turns into a butterfly. [13]