Ernest Mason Satow

“ It is a pity that so much acuteness and erudition as Motoöri possessed should have been thrown away in defending views of which the logical effect would be to enslave the whole Japanese nation. His Jindai Shogo is the mythological part of the Kojiki, with additions from the Nihongi, in a mixture of Chinese characters and kana, with kana at the side, for the use of the young. The Rekicho Shoshi-kai is a collection of the speeches and proclamations of the early mikados, with a commentary, which from his point of view are part of the sources of Shinto. ”

“ The Hamamatsu Chiunagon Monogatari is the story of a nobleman who goes to China, has a child by the empress, and then returns to Japan. The Sumiyoshi Monogatari is the story of a young girl, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, who has two other daughters by his own wife. When the heroine is about eight years of age her mother dies, after earnestly praying her lover to send her child to the palace to become one of the mikado's waiting women. He takes her to live in his own house, in separate apartments, and the affection he displays for her excites the hatred of her stepmother. ”

“ A young nobleman, attracted by the strange music which proceeds from her dwelling, passes a night there, and never returns. She bears a son who performs wonders of filial piety, and feeds her with roots which he digs in the mountains. ”

“ The Japanese have formed or invented many ideographs, after the manner of the Chinese, to designate things or words in their own language for which there were no equivalent characters in the Chinese. They also attach meanings to many of the characters different from the Chinese, and use them in a different way to suit the grammatical requirements of their native tongue. There are three general styles of literary composition in use. One is pure Chinese, in which none but Chinese characters are employed, and the grammatical construction is in accordance with the Chinese idiom. ”

“ In analyzing the Japanese syllables, we find they have 5 vowel, a, e, i, o, u, and 19 consonantal sounds, b, ch, d, f, g, h, j, k, m, n, p, r, s, sh, t, ts, w, y, and z. They have not the sounds of l, qu, v, th, or x, and the people find it very difficult to make them. All the syllables of the native words end in a vowel, except the future tense of the verb, which now ends in a final n, though anciently it was written with the character for mu, and there is reason to believe it was so pronounced. In all other cases the final n is only used in spelling Chinese words. ”

“ A noble has two children, a girl and a boy, each of whom from a very early age displays the characteristics of the opposite sex, the boy being fond of playing with dolls and painted shells, averse to women, and of a retiring modest disposition, while the girl constantly seeks the society of young men, with whom she plays at foot ball, practises archery, blows the flute, and sings songs. ”

“ So great a work was perhaps never achieved before by any private individual, under similar circumstances. He was blind from infancy.—The history of Japanese literature may be divided into four periods. The first will commence far back in the age which preceded the introduction of Chinese literature and writing, and extend down to the end of the 9th century A. D. During this period the only purely Japanese literature consisted of poetry and sacred liturgies, the Chinese language being adopted as the vehicle of all other forms. ”

“ In conversation as well as in books personal pronouns seem to be carefully avoided, in this respect agreeing with the custom of the Chinese. In books especially it is often difficult to distinguish the speaker, the person spoken of, and the person spoken to. This is indicated mainly by the style of language employed, which varies with the rank or social position of the person addressed or spoken of. Most of the words used as personal pronouns are such as express humility on the part of the speaker, and honor the person addressed.—The ancient Japanese cardinal numbers are: ひと, f'to, h'to, one ”

“ Most of the Japanese Buddhist literature, of which there is a considerable quantity, is in the Chinese language, and therefore not easily accessible. The Shingaku Michi no Hanashi, Kiuo Dowa, and Teshima Dowa are collections of sermons by priests who belong to a modern eclectic sect, which professes to derive its doctrines from Confucianism, Shinto, and Buddhism. ”

“ The hira-kana is the kind of letter commonly used, especially in books intended for the common people and the uneducated classes. The kata-kana has been little used, except in dictionaries to define the meaning of Chinese characters, or in scientific and philosophical works. In the hira-kana there are also several ways of writing the same letter, differing in being more or less contracted, as well as several different letters to express the same syllabic sound, making the acquisition of the written language extremely troublesome.—The Japanese letters are 48 in number. ”

“ All the partners of her guilt are duly punished by avenging fate, and the father retires from the world, while all the good people in the story have their reward. The Ise Monogatari is the history of the love adventures of a noble celebrated for his beauty, named Ariwara Narihira (825–'80) , and contains a large number of verses written by himself and his numerous sweethearts. It is considered to be a model of good Japanese prose. The precise date of its composition and the name of its author are unknown, but Mabuchi thinks it belongs to the middle of the 10th century. ”

“ To these men succeeded Kamo no Mabuchi, whose commentaries on the Manyoshiu, on the Norito, and the Ise Monogatari, and lexicon of Makura-kotoba (entitled Kuanji-ko) , are most valuable. His original works are the Niimanabi, on the study of Japanese literature, and various archæological essays. From his time the study of Shinto and philology went on hand in hand under the name of koku-gaku, "national learning," in antithesis to kan-gaku, "Chinese learning." ”

“ In poetry the Japanese do not seem to have advanced much beyond the most elementary forms. With few exceptions their so-called poetry consists of songs in five lines of 31 syllables called uta. These songs seem in early times to have been spontaneous compositions, but about the middle of the 8th century they had hardened into a conventional form, and verse making became a mechanical accomplishment, of which dexterity in punning was the most important part. ”

“ The Konjaku Monogatari is a collection of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian stories by Minamoto no Takakuni (died in 1077) , in 60 volumes, divided into customs, wonders, crimes, retributions, Buddhism, and miscellaneous. The Uji Shiui Monogatari, in 15 volumes, is a supplement to the above. The Tsutsumi Chiunagon Monogatari, in one volume, is a collection of ten short tales, ascribed to Fujiwara no Kanesuke (877–933) ; and if this be correct, it is one of the earliest specimens of purely Japanese composition. ”

“ The native language is the same whether written or spoken, though the colloquial differs in several respects from the best literary style; the latter is more concise, and still retains some of the archaic forms of the verb and auxiliary words. The common colloquial abounds in interjectional and onomatopoetic words and particles, uses a more simple inflection of the verb, and makes a greater use of honorific and polite terms. The dialectical variations in different parts of the country consist mainly in the different pronunciation of some of the syllables, and in the use of provincialisms. ”

“ The Chinese nouns are declined or take the postpositions in the same way as the native words.—The words classed or used as pronouns are numerous, and may be divided into personal, demonstrative, interrogative, reflexive, indefinite, and distributive. There are no relative pronouns; where in English a relative pronoun is used, in Japanese the person or thing is put in direct subjection to the verb, which acts as an attributive adjective; as tegami wo kaku hito, a man who writes letters (literally, letter-writing-man) . ”

“ The syllable tsu, when preceding the consonants k, s, p, and t, is elided, and the consonant of the syllable following is doubled; thus batsu-kun is pronounced bakkun; matsusugu, massugu. Ku, when followed by a syllable beginning with k, loses its vowel; thus baku-ka is pronounced bakka; koku-ka, kokka.—The Japanese language has no article. The noun has no inflections; case, gender, and number are designated by words or particles either prefixed or affixed to the noun. The case is designated by postpositions, as follows: nominative, wa or ga, as neko wa, a cat ”

“ The Kojiki begins by relating the foundation of the heavens and earth, and the first volume is entirely occupied by the events of the mythological period. The second and third volumes contain the history of the mikados from Jimmu Tenno down to the empress Suiko Tenno, whose reign ended in 628. It is written with Chinese characters, some of which represent whole Japanese words (mana) , and others merely separate sounds of the syllabary (kana) , and in general conformity with Japanese idiom. ”

“ But the monogatari, properly so called, is essentially a fiction, and the word "romance" is the closest English equivalent. The earliest of these is the Taketori Monogatari, the authorship of which is sometimes ascribed to Minamoto no Shitagau (911–'83) , but some writers think it belongs to the first half of the 9th century. An old man finds a little girl only three inches high in a joint of bamboo, whom he adopts and educates. ”

“ Only 5 volumes, containing the words beginning with A, have appeared as yet, and it is feared that the project has been abandoned. The Wakan Gorui Osetsuyoshiu, in 13 volumes, is an excellent dictionary of Japanese words with their corresponding Chinese characters, arranged first by categories, and then according to the iroha; but it contains neither definitions nor derivations. Owing to the Japanese generally writing their own language with Chinese characters, using the kana only for terminations and particles, they have as a general rule been always very ignorant of spelling. ”

“ A most valuable commentary on it was compiled by the learned Motoöri Norinaga toward the end of the 18th century, under the title of Kojikiden. The next most ancient work of the kind is the Nihongi or Nihonshoki, which was also composed at the command of the reigning mikado, and completed in 720, by a commission presided over by the prince Toneri Shinno. It differs very much from the Kojiki in being composed in a purely Chinese idiom, and the poetry which occurs here and there is all that it contains of Japanese. ”

“ If the number is very great and indefinite, it is expressed by sen, 1,000, or ban, 10,000; thus, ban-koku, all countries; ban-motsu, everything. The plural is also designated by su, several, and sho, many or all. All these are Chinese. The plural is formed by duplicating the word, as ware-ware, we; hito-hito, people; tokoro-dokoro, places; also by the words domo, tachi, ra, nado, nazo, and for Chinese words shu and to, following the noun. Gender is designated, when it must be expressed, by the words otoko, male, and onna, female ”

“ It follows therefore that the most ancient compositions, namely, the verses of poetry given in the Kojiki and Nihongi, and the norito or liturgies read at the festivals of the native Shinto gods, were handed down orally. It happens unfortunately that at the period when they came to be written down the Chinese character was preferred to the kana, only recently introduced, and the real text is often difficult to ascertain. I. Standard Histories. Japanese bibliographers make history the first division of their literature. ”

“ In construction the attributive adjective, and also the adverbial form, always precede the noun and the verb which they qualify.—The verb has no inflection to express either number or person; but in polite language, by the use of certain particles or auxiliary words prefixed or joined to the root form, the personal relations of the verb may be distinguished, as well as by the form and kind of verb used. The verb has transitive, intransitive, causative, passive, potential, negative, and desiderative forms; for example: transitive, age, to raise or lift up ”

“ After a while the heroine's foster mother also dies, and she is left alone with her foster sister, a girl two years older than herself, through whom she enters into a secret correspondence with a young nobleman who has fallen in love with her from report of her beauty. ”

“ His Shutsu-jo Shogo (7 vols.) is an extremely amusing attack upon Buddhism, written in a style closely approaching the colloquial, a style which if it were universally adopted would be an immense relief to the intellectual powers of the Japanese; for the ability to translate thought into the literary style requires years of patient study to acquire, and is a barrier to all freedom of expression. ”

“ On the approach of winter he removes her to a cave vacated for them by a family of bears, and the apes who inhabit the surrounding hills bring them food and water. At last she is rediscovered by the young nobleman, who is now grown up to ripe manhood, as he is hunting in the mikado's train, and they live together happily for ever after. ”

“ The Teijo Zakki, in 16 books, is a work of the same nature, arranged in categories, but extending over a narrower field. Being written in the Japanese language, it is more useful to students than the Sansaidzuye. The author was Ise Sadatake, and it was published after his death in 1843. The Gioku Sekizasshi (1843) , and its supplement (1848) , in 20 volumes, by Kurihara Nobumitsu, contain much antiquarian information not to be found elsewhere. ”