Spring in a Snowy Country

第2話

Anyone who doubts that climate and weather can determine a country's learning and art to such an extent is probably still unaware of the great bias in Japanese literature. It was not necessarily our mere absolute obedience or indifference to them that we had hitherto had them represent the whole country, with literature that could not actually be perceived in its beauty unless one had long flourished or declined in the natural landscape that had advanced from the southwestern island and surrounded the inland sea. No human being of any ancestry would not be willing to come and stay in such a good land for a long time, though it may be that the roots of the problem go back, or it may be that they were a particularly relieved and inhabited race among such a soft nature. We have been so uncommonly fortunate that we have never had the slightest trouble of being pursued or escaped, and have always enjoyed the carefree world by ourselves, that our affinity with it has become so high that we have become so assimilated with it that we are no longer able to find some other, cleaner, better life in the next new place.

unaware......（形）気づかない

absolute......（形）絶対的な

obedience......（名）服従

indifference......（名）無関心

hitherto......（副）これまでは

flourish......（動）繁栄する

decline......（動）衰退する

inland sea......内海

relieve......（動）安心させる

uncommonly......（副）まれに

pursue......（動）追う

carefree......（形）心配のない、気楽な

affinity......（名）親和性

assimilate......（動）同化する

The authority of literature was more powerful in these peaceable societies than the present people would have guessed. Repeatedly reciting it like scripture or an incantation, each phrase or word before people know it has become so rich in content, albeit a type, that it has rendered useless the mundane invention of human expression. The observance of style and the need for imitation were especially acutely felt by those who happened to be a little removed from the center of the country and wanted to go and live deep in the mountains or by the sea. Therefore, more and more people have willingly endorsed standards of discrimination that have no reason to be urban and rural, elegant and vulgarian. As a result, the unification of national tastes was easy to achieve, and a special kind of literature that still receives 40,000 to 50,000 applicants from the ends of the north and south for the New Year's imperial tanka titles* has turned the times on their head.

peaceable......（形）落ち着いた

repeatedly......（副）繰り返して、たびたび

recite......（動）吟唱する

scripture......（名）経典

incantation......（名）呪文

albeit......（副）にもかかわらず

mundane......（形）平凡な

observance......（名）遵守

willingly......（副）喜んで、進んで

endorse......（動）承認する

discrimination......（名）差別

vulgarian......（形）卑俗な

unification......（名）統一

applicant......（名）出願者

It was enough to make one smile that every art of the Edo period had, until very recently, accepted the promise of this ancient writing. It is probably based on the habit of imitation over the years that people have not welcomed it and have not bothered to express themselves there until they are sure that there is still some kind of precedent in Russia or France, even though the curious fancy has finally come in and people are allowed to huddle in the corner or people of wild birth are allowed to express themselves at will. That is, it is a succession of plums with warblers, leaves with deer, and rape blossoms with butterflies. Moreover, as boldly as they think they have lost even that, the so-called popular literature is so pious that it is now returning to the unnecessarily moderate yomihon** book world of the previous era. I've heard that the purpose of classical studies in Western European countries is to free people's ideas, but only Japan seems to contradict this by poking around in the past to go back into captivity. I think that's a heartbreaking thing to do. So we may be laughed at for being the only ones who are childish. We are deliberately trying to break away from such a trend. And so we look for histories that have been marginalized by historians, and hope to find room for a little more carefree provincial literature to grow.

precedent......（名）前例

huddle......（動）うずくまる

plum......（名）梅

Japanese bush warbler......ウグイス

rape......（名）[セイヨウ]アブラナ

boldly......（副）大胆に

pious......（形）敬虔な

moderate......（形）穏やかな、穏健な

contradict......（動）相反する

poke......（動）突き出す

captivity......（名）捕らわれること

childish......（形）子供っぽい

deliberately......（副）わざと

break away......決別する

marginalize......（動）過小評価する、除外する

provincial......（形）地方の

To make that story as simple as possible, I'll only explain New Year's Day in the snow here, but my opinion, which I'm about to explain, actually stems from a very small experience. The roof of the inn was tiled, and deep sleepers often didn't know it, but Kyoto's drizzle really does fall again and again from night to dawn for only three or four minutes, and then it passes quickly. It fell with a loud noise that would have been graupel or hail if it had been on the plains of the eastern land. This is indeed a night drizzle（sayo shigure）. I may compose a waka poem when it surprises me in my dreams, and it is tasteful to say that it is not constant, raining, or not raining. This is why all the waka poems about the drizzle in the world have been about this, although it is not a story that can be started in other lands. The same kind of thing is said in almost all cases, from renga*** and haikai****, to utai*****, joruri******, and even kouta******* in the town. Standing on the banks of the Kamogawa River********, the northern mountains and the western mountains sometimes have a thin stagnation of water vapor, creating beautiful shades according to the perspective of the peaks. I realized for the first time, "Well, this is what spring haze is all about". In certain seasons, it remains until night and becomes a hazy moon in the spring night. In autumn, the mist hides the surface of the river where the boats carrying firewood come down only in the daytime, but at night the mist breaks off and the moon becomes clearly visible. All of the scenes in Japanese waka poetry, so to speak, must have been unique to this small basin in Yamasiro*********. Thank you for your time. Even those who had never been to the capital not only wrote waka poems about such things in the titles but also felt that if the moonlit night drizzle in their own countryside happened to be different from this, nature, on the contrary, would not keep its contract. Whether it was landscape, humanity, love, or narrative, there was always a fixed task, and the answer was always expected, as was the case with the Tiantai sect********** and the Catholic catechism. This is why, to this day, the pastoral literature covers the village life like a scab, blocking the passage of their free spirit.

drizzle......（名）小雨、小糠雨

graupel......（名）雪あられ

hail......（名）雹

plain......（名）平地

compose......（動）書く

tasteful......（形）上品な、趣味の良い

stagnation......（名）停滞

vapor......（名）霧、蒸気

perspective......（名）遠近法

haze......（名）霞

hazy......（形）霞がかった

basin......（名）盆地

fixed......（形）定着した

pastoral......（形）田園の

*the New Year's imperial tanka titles: Every year at New Year's, the imperial family recites a waka poem at the palace. The general public can also apply, and when their waka poems are chosen, they are recited at the party.

**yomihon: A bizarre fantasy novel that became popular in the late Edo period, influenced by the Chinese novel

***renga: It is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry—poetry written by more than one author working together. A renga consists of at least two stanzas.

****haikai: A form of Japanese literature often practiced in the Edo period. It was more playful than renga and became the prototype for haiku.

*****utai: A line from the traditional Japanese performing art of Noh theatre.

******joururi: A traditional Japanese narrative music in which a tayu sings to the accompaniment of a shamisen.

*******kouta: A short song mainly sung to the shamisen at banquets.

********Kamogawa River: . The river flows through Kyoto City in Kyoto Prefecture.

*********Yamashiro; Present-day central and southern Kyoto Prefecture. It was once the capital of Japan.

**********Tiantai: One of the Mahayana Buddhist sects originating in China, it was introduced to Japan by a monk named Saicho in the 9th century.