PRIMITIVE & MEDIAEVAL JAPANESE TEXTS

TRANSLITERATED INTO ROMAN WITH INTRODUCTIONS NOTES AND GLOSSARIES

BY FREDERICK VICTOR DICKINS, C.B. SOMETIME REGISTRAR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

WITH A COMPANION VOLUME OF TRANSLATIONS

反以將之說詳而學博 MENCIUS 也約說

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1906

[ii]

HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH NEW YORK AND TORONTO

[iii]

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR ERNEST SATOW, G.C.M.G. MINISTER TO CHINA SOMETIME MINISTER TO JAPAN

KASANE-GOHI [五ひ] KA MO

[iv] [v]

PREFACE

The following texts are exact transliterations of the Kana yomi of the Manyôshiu, and of the yomi of the mixed Japanese script of the Taketori Monogatari, the Preface to the Kokinwakashiu, and Takasago, according to the system devised by Sir Ernest Satow and adopted by Professor Chamberlain.

The translations of the texts are given in a companion volume, where full explanatory introductions and notes will be found.

The following abbreviations are employed: (K.) Professor Chamberlain’s translation of the Kojiki; (N.) Dr. Aston’s translation of the Nihongi; (Fl.) Professor Florenz’s part translation of the Nihongi; (Br.) Captain Brinkley’s Japanese-English Dictionary; (I.) Kotoba no Izumi; (T.A.S.J.) Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.

The texts contained in the present volume are:—

1. The nagauta or chôka (long lays) of the Manyôshiu, the earliest of the Japanese Anthologies, compiled about 760 A.D., with their kaheshi uta or hanka (envoys). The text used is that of Kamochi Masazumi in his magnificent edition, Manyôshiu Kogi, the Ancient Meaning of the Manyôshiu, written during the first half of the nineteenth century but published in 1879.

2. The Taketori Monogatari, Story of the Old Wicker-worker. The text used is that of Tanaka Daishiu, published about 1838.

3. The Preface of Ki no Tsurayuki to his famous Anthology—the second of the old anthologies—known[vi] as Kokinwakashiu—Anthology of Japanese Verse Old and New—written about 922 A.D. The text is that of Kaneko Genshin in his edition of 1903.

4. The utahi of Takasago, perhaps the earliest of the medieval miracle-plays (Nô), composed in the fifteenth century. The text used is that of the Yôkyoku Tsûge, edited by Ohowada Kenjiu, and published by the Hakubunkwan in 22 Meiji (1889).

Appended to 1. are some tanka from the Kokinshiu and the Hyakunin Isshiu (1214 A.D.), and in the volume of translations examples of hokku or the half-stanza, the so-called Japanese epigram, are given with their translations.

A careful perusal, twice or thrice repeated, of the short grammar and the following section on the Language of the Manyôshiu comprised in the Introduction, with the aid of the List of Makura Kotoba, the Glossary, and the companion volume of translations, will meet nearly all the difficulties of the romanized texts, and enable the reader to appreciate sufficiently the charm of these ancient lays, of which the more unique elements escape translation.

[vii]

EMENDATIONS

For the necessity of these emendations I am wholly responsible.

In a few of the earlier lays the lines are not properly indented. In one or two cases the category is wrongly printed as part of the dai—as under Lay 1.

In a very few instances a capital letter is mistakenly used—thus Tsuma for tsuma.

In the following instances it is better to print place-names with initial capital—Kashihara, Ohotsu, Shirokane, Chitose, Kagu, Katsu, Tagi, Kamu, Yuki.

Where eta is found it should be read eba.

Some few cases of u for a, u for n, u for i, a for o, e for i, or the reverse, occur—they are quite obvious. Occasionally words are joined which on the whole are better separated, as Kata nashi, or the reverse.

[ix]

INTRODUCTION

SHORT GRAMMAR OF OLD JAPANESE

The pronunciation of Old Japanese follows a very simple scheme. There are the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, and no diphthongs, and the following consonants and digraphs b, ch, d, dz, f, g, h, j, k, m, n, r, s, sh, t, ts, w, y, z, zh. The syllables are all open, and consist of

(1) The five vowels.

(2) b, k, m, n, r, followed by all the vowels.

(3) s, y, z, followed by a, e, o, u.

(4) h, w, followed by a, e, i, o.

(5) d, t, followed by a, e, o.

(6) f, followed by i, u.

(7) ch, j, sh, zh, followed by i.

(8) ts, dz, followed by u.

Sixty-four open syllables in all, out of 105 possible ones, of which and their various agglutinations the whole language is made up.

The vowels are pronounced as in Italian, a being the accented a, e and o the open sounds. The vowel u is English u in put, never as in rut or lute. The vowels a, e, o are half-long, i and u are shorter, and u shortest of all. Value is given to each syllable, subject as above, with scarcely any ictus (as in French), but the last syllable of a word, especially in u, is always weakest, and the penultimate rather the strongest.

The consonants are pronounced as in English, h well aspirated, but rather forward, even between vowels, z as in zany, zh as the s in pleasure, f may have descended from an original p, with h and w.

[x]

The scheme, according to that of the Oxford Dictionary, would be—

The Chinese and Japanese languages differ from Aryan and Semitic forms of speech in the total absence of all concords dependent upon number, person, case, and gender, in the like default of relative words, and (from Aryan speech) in the absence of narratio obliqua. They further differ in the almost complete absence of any morphological moods or tenses. Chinese has, broadly speaking, no accidence at all; the grammar is a syntax teaching the right order and use of vocables (used as words), double vocables (constituting words), and the few form-words (empty words the Chinese call them) which serve as variously connective particles. In Japanese there is a very scanty accidence of the few adjectives the language possesses, and a more complete one of the verb; but the verbal forms are all (with an exception or two) resolvable into locutions, more or less agglutinated, scarcely constituting true inflexions. Hence, morphologically, even in Japanese there is neither mood nor tense, but there is an approach to both of the highest value to the language, giving it, in conjunction with a

goodly number of particles, an articulation and plasticity wanting to Chinese. From the above considerations it will be readily understood that the power of expression even in Japanese is far inferior to that of Western speech. The imagery is, of necessity, extremely limited in range and flat in tone. It seems to me, however, of greater range and higher quality than in Chinese. But neither Chinese nor Japanese possesses a tithe of the capacity of Aryan and Semitic languages to express human thought and feeling,[xi] and describe the works of man or the appearances of nature.

Ὦ δῖος αἰθήρ, &c., thought and words, are absolutely unintelligible to the whole Far East.

Nevertheless the poetry of the two great Far Eastern languages has its charm, especially the early poetry of Japan, but that charm, depending as it does largely upon suggestiveness rather than definite statement, and upon characteristic form and decoration rather than content, can only be felt by those who are able to read the texts. The Japanese texts, apart from the labour of decipherment, in themselves present no difficulty, once their simple grammar and construction understood, and in their romanized dress, with the brief grammar that is now subjoined, and the other aids offered in the present volume and its accompanying volume of translations are, it is hoped, made accessible to the English reader who cannot give several years to the acquisition of the complicated scripts which Dai Nippon has taken over, by necessity rather than choice, from the Middle Kingdom.

The following sketch of the grammar of Old Japanese is intended merely to elucidate the texts, principally those of the Manyôshiu and the Taketori.[1] By Old Japanese is meant the unsinicized language of the Kojiki and Nihongi (as read japonicé) and particularly of the uta quoted in those works, of the norito or rituals, and of the texts above mentioned. There are no texts illustrating earlier stages of the language, and all etymologies are doubtful, both on that account and because the elements of Old Japanese are mere agglutinations (more or less contracted) of only sixty-four open syllables.

Japanese (by which expression Old Japanese is here always intended) has no affinity with Chinese, a language consisting of disconnected elements (simple or compound), for in it agglutination has to some extent contracted into inflexion or quasi-inflexion, and it possesses in addition a large number of particles which give it a plasticity not[xii] found in Chinese. In my opinion, had the development of Japanese not been arrested by Chinese influences about the middle of the first millennium, it might have won a far higher place than it occupies in the hierarchy of human speech.

This agglutinative inflexion is practically confined to the verb, and—to a slight extent—to nouns adjective, simple or verbalized. What may be called the stem of the verb shows a pure vocalic inflexion in a, e, i, o or u. The stem in u is the form usually found in native and foreign dictionaries—in Lemaréchal’s it is the stem in e or i. To the stem the various locutions are suffixed to construct the forms representing, logically, moods and tenses as well as negative, causative, and potential-passive ‘voices’.

The stems in e, i and o are used as imperatives; koge, row!, mi, look!, ko come!, often with addition of the vocative particle yo (or ro)—miyo, koyo. They are also used as ‘indefinite’ (Chamberlain) forms, mood and tense being determined by that of the principal verb in the sentence. Before proceeding further it is well to state that in the regular Japanese sentence the principal verb is always at the end, the object (if expressed) in the middle, and the subject (if expressed) at the beginning of the sentence, while words of qualification precede the words qualified. In poetry however, especially in the Manyôshiu, inversions are common.

All syllables in Japanese are open, and the terminal syllables of the stems are the consonants b, f, g, k, m, n, r, s, the digraph ts, w, y, and z followed by the vowels a, e, i, o, u (also u without consonant as in suu, e stem suwe, to place). Before i ts becomes ch, and before e and a t, before i s becomes sh and z zh; before every vowel except u f becomes h. All verbs have the stem in u, most verbs have also the stem in a and i, some have also the stem in e only, some in i only. There are a very few irregular verbs. The following list of verbs and their stems will illustrate the above remarks:—

The Japanese verb has neither number nor person, the forms that follow therefore are indefinite as to number and person. The locutions—or more strictly the complements that with the stem make up the locution—are given below as suffixed to the stem.

Two moods may be distinguished. One I call Independent, in which form the verb is unconnected with any other verb, the other Dependent, in which the verb is connected with some verb in the Independent mood.[2] Mr. Chamberlain calls them Indicative and Oblique respectively.

There are in each mood three forms or quasi-tenses—a present, temporally indefinite; a past denoting action or state completed at or before the present or some indicated past time; and a future denoting action, &c., that may or will be completed at a future (or past-future) time. Each of these tenses in the Independent mood has a predicative or simpler form and a relative form—as relating to some noun. It is the simpler form, identical with the stem in u, which is found in the dictionaries (in Lemaréchal’s the stem in a, i, or e is found). The relative form ends in uru (modern iru or eru). Thus toki sugu, time passes; suguru toki,[xiv] tempus quod fugit (some verbs in uru are transitive as tatsu, stand, tatsuru, make stand, set up). Only those verbs which have e or i stems throughout appear to possess this relative form;[3] in verbs with i and a stems this morphological distinction does not exist.

The Past has four forms, each double (P. predicative, R. relative).

(1) P. ki, R. -shi.

(2) P. tari (te-ari), R. -taru (te-aru).

(3) P. -tariki, R. -tarishi (composed of (2) and (1)).

(4) P. -nu, R. -nuru.

[ki (kuru) = come (cp. Ital. vien fatto); shi (suru) = do; te = stem of tsu, tsuru, continue; ari is an irr. P. form of aru, be; nu is an old verb = be.] In i a verbs there is a past in P. -eri, R. -eru (see below).

The Future is formed by suffixing mu (or namu) to stem or naramu (ni [nu] aramu [aru]) to R. form if any.

Schematic Examples.

kogu, row (with oars or sculls).

tomu, stop, and sugu, pass, are conjugated like kogu, except that tomu replaces i and a of kogu forms by e, and sugu by i.

In the Dependent mood the forms are constructed with the help of -ba (the particle ha, voiced). Shikaba (etym. of shika?), tareba, taraba (te areba, -araba), naba (nu) and naraba (ni araba).

[xv]

Schematic Examples.

Of tomu, sugu, the Dependent Mood is similarly conjugated preserving the e and i vowels, and for tomeba using tomureba for tomaba tomeba, for sugiba sugureba, for sugaba sugiba.

The negative voice (there are no negative words = not, no, none). The Present Independent is formed by changing the -mu of future into -zu or -zaru (zu aru), P. and -nu, R. Thus kogu (kogamu), kogazu, kogazaru, koganu; sugu, sugimu, sugizu, &c.

In the past -zu becomes zariki, P., and -zarishi, R.; in the future -zaramu or -zhi, P. and R. (kogazaramu, kogazhi).

There is a second future with sense of obligation exemplified as follows:—kogu (not koga) -mazhiku (indefinite), -mazhi, P., -mazhiki, R., -mazhikariki, P., past fut. -mazhikarishi, R., past fut. -mazhikereba, conditional, when as, &c., and -mazhikuba, hypothetical, if, &c.

In the Dependent Mood we have:—

The Imperatives are:—

Kogazare (kogazu are); kogu nakare (naku are); koguna, kogu koto nakare (row-thing do-not), na kogi so, yume kogu na (emphatic imperative). But na with i or e stem is an affirmative imperative kogi na, do row!

There is another past in tsu[4], tsuru as kogitsu, kogitsuru, and a continuative form in tsutsu, kogitsutsu, while rowing.[xvi] Also a form in -keri, P. and -keru, R. with a dependent -kereba as kogikeru, kogikereba. This keri form seems equivalent to a perfect definite, have rowed. Its etymology must be ki -ari; of tsu the stem would be te, which added to stem in i or e makes forms such as kogite, tomete, which are continuative indefinites almost equal to ‘whilst’, kogite, yuku, whilst-row-go, i.e. row to (a place).

The negative form of -te is -de, kogade, or -zu, -zu ni, -zu shite, as kogazu, not-row, kogazu ni, in, or by not-row, kogazu shite, not-row-do, all meaning essentially whilst-not-row.

The particles mo, too, to mo, that too (with variant domo) keredomo (ki-ari-to-mo), following or suffixed to verb-forms, give a concessive force, although, even though, &c., beku, with sense of must, can, will, ought, is suffixed to the u stem, thus kogubeku is must, or ought to row, or will row—the forms of beku are beshi, P.; beki, R.; bemi, bekariki, P.; -shi, R.; bekereba, bekuba, bekarazu, &c.; beku mazhiku almost = bekarazu.

Causative verbs (often used as transitives or as honour-forms) are easily recognized. Thus nageku, sigh, lament, nagekasu; or forms derived from su (suru), do, are added—shimuru, seshimuru, sasuru. Thus yaku, burn, yakasu, yakashimuru; suru (se), do, sesasuru, make-do.

Nu (ni) is an old verb ‘be’. Ni + aru = naru, become, be at, of, in. The future namu is a common auxiliary suffix. Namu may become namashi, by composition with mashi, more, a suffixed optative particle. Another optative is formed by adding the slight interrogative particle ya to the form in -aba as yukabaya, should like to go; sometimes the future form is in -ramu (aramu?) added to the u-stem, as aruramu for aramu, kofuramu for kohamu (kohimu), will love. Aru, be, is peculiar in that its P.-form is ari not aru.

The verb miru, see, keeps the mi throughout, miru, miki, mishi, mimu, miba, mitsu (past), mizu, minu, mizhi, mide, &c.; but mireba, miredomo, miru or miheku, &c. So hi(ru), dry, i(ru), shoot, (w)i(ru), be in or at, ki(ru), wear ni(ru), be like, ni(ru), boil. See Chamberlain, p. 66. By[xvii] adding u, uru (get) with or without aru (be) verbs passive and potential are obtained. Thus yaku (burn) + ari + uru = yakaruru, so we have homeraruru (homu, praise), sugiraruru (sugu, pass), miraruru (miru, see). Or we have miyuru, see-get = seem, so omoyuru, omoheru (from omofu, think), or omoharuru (see Glossary, omofu, &c.), iheru (ihi-uru), is said, &c. From aru (be) lengthened to arafu, we get araharu, araharuru, arahaseru, be manifest or make manifest.

Other passive-like forms are iyu (i), shot, oyu (oi), grown old, omohoyu (omofu), thought. There is a form in -aku, thus ifu, say, ihaku—even the future has it, kakemu, will utter, kakemaku, and the past omoheraku, the morphological origin of which is unknown. It seems to give a substantival character to the verb; ihaku, the saying (is); omoheraku, what was thought (is): also a frequentative (rare) in mi, wemi-mi, wemazu mo, smiling and not smiling.

Under koso will be found the verbal forms used with that particle.

Of the verb su suru, do, the principal forms are:—

Independent Mood.

Dependent Mood.

Negative Voice.

[xviii]

Of the verb ku kuru, come, the principal forms are:—

Independent Mood.

Dependent Mood.

Negative Voice.

The other forms of kuru are easily formed from those of suru, replacing se and su by ko and ku.

There are not many true adjectives. Such have a sort of positional inflexion—a predicative form in -shi, akashi, be red, a form used chiefly with verbs (but also indefinitely) in -ku, akaku naru, become red, and a form in -ki, used mainly with nouns, akaki mono, red thing. There is also a form in -mu, -mi, which has a verbal force denoting a state or condition.

Adjectives may also be verbalized by the addition of aru, be, and many of its forms with obvious contractions.

Lastly, adjectival expressions are formed by adding naru, be or become, to adjectival stems yaharaka, yaharaka-naru, soft, gentle.

Nouns substantive (and pronouns) are absolutely devoid of gender or case, and only occasionally have a plural suffix ra or tachi or nodo or domo.

Pronouns are few, and—the personal pronouns especially—are little used, the subject of the verb being generally unexpressed and left to be gathered from the context.

Interrogative Pronouns.

Other pronouns are shi, onore, mi, self, onore and mi, often I myself, or I, ono-ono, every, mina, all. Other pronominal forms, chiefly indefinite, are explained in the glossary.

Only the principal particles need here be noticed. Others are explained in the glossary. The following are of special importance, and are found mainly in connexion with nouns as postpositions. They are wa (ha), ga, no, ni, he (e, ye) and wo.

ha (wa, ba) isolates and emphasizes the noun rather as apart from the verb—chichi haha ha, uwe-samukaramu, father and mother, they will be hungry and cold; kono toki ha, ika ni shitsutsuka, this time then while doing what. This emphatic force explains its occurrence after verbs and sentences or clauses—ihazu-ba, not say indeed = should we not say …; Yamato ni ha, it is in Yamato that …; yuki furu yo ha, a night indeed on which snow falls: a wo koso se to ha, it is I indeed whom (you should call) husband.

ga is a possessive particle, wa-ga (warega) ohokimi, my great lord; Wazami ga hara, plain of Wazami. It may be used before verbs, tori ga naku, the bird cries; or after, nabiku ga gotoku, like bending before. Sometimes it resembles ha kimi ga agari-ki-masamu, my lord, he will embark.

tsu is possessive, amatsu kami, gods of heaven, kuni tsu kami, gods of the land. It seems to follow names of things only.