should like to know the text of a
certain Chinese official recognition of sundry butterflies as the
spirits of an Emperor and of his attendants...

Most of the Japanese literature about butterflies, excepting some
poetry, appears to be of Chinese origin; and even that old national
aesthetic feeling on the subject, which found such delightful
expression in Japanese art and song and custom, may have been first
developed under Chinese teaching. Chinese precedent doubtless explains
why Japanese poets and painters chose so often for their geimyo, or
professional appellations, such names as Chomu ("Butterfly-Dream),"
Icho ("Solitary Butterfly)," etc. And even to this day such geimyo as
Chohana ("Butterfly-Blossom"), Chokichi ("Butterfly-Luck"), or
Chonosuke ("Butterfly-Help"), are affected by dancing-girls. Besides
artistic names having reference to butterflies, there are still in use
real personal names (yobina) of this kind,--such as Kocho, or Cho,
meaning "Butterfly." They are borne by women only, as a rule,--though
there are some strange exceptions... And here I may mention that, in
the province of Mutsu, there still exists the curious old custom of
calling the youngest daughter in a family Tekona,--which quaint word,
obsolete elsewhere, signifies in Mutsu dialect a butterfly. In classic
time this word signified also a beautiful woman...

It is possible also that some weird Japanese beliefs about butterflies
are of Chinese derivation; but these beliefs might be older than China
herself. The most interesting one, I think, is that the soul of a
living person may wander about in the form of a butterfly. Some pretty
fancies have been evolved out of this belief,--such as the notion that
if a butterfly enters your guest-room and perches behind the bamboo
screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. That a
butterfly may be the spirit of somebody is not a reason for being
afraid of it. Nevertheless there are times when even butterflies can
inspire fear by appearing in prodigious numbers; and Japanese history
records such an event. When Taira-no-Masakado was secretly preparing
for his famous revolt, there appeared in Kyoto so vast a swarm of
butterflies that the people were frightened,--thinking the apparition
to be a portent of coming evil... Perhaps those butterflies were
supposed to be the spirits of the thousands doomed to perish in battle,
and agitated on the eve of war by some mysterious premonition of de