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HEADPIECE--PART IV 94

"The green and violet peacocks
Through the golden dusk
Stately, nostalgically,
Parade." Endleaf

_Preface_

At the earliest period concerning which we have any accurate
information, about the sixth century A. D., Japanese poetry already
contained the germ of its later development. The poems of this early
date were composed of a first line of five syllables, followed by a
second of seven, followed by a third of five, and so on, always ending
with a line of seven syllables followed by another of equal number. Thus
the whole poem, of whatever length (a poem of as many as forty-nine
lines was scarce, even at that day) always was composed of an odd number
of lines, alternating in length of syllables from five to seven, until
the close, which was an extra seven syllable line. Other rules there
were none. Rhyme, quantity, accent, stress were disregarded. Two vowels
together must never be sounded as a diphthong, and a long vowel counts
for two syllables, likewise a final "n", and the consonant "m" in some
cases.

This method of writing poetry may seem to the reader to suffer from
serious disadvantages. In reality this was not the case. Contrast it for
a moment with the undignified welter of undigested and ex parte
theories which academic prosodists have tried for three hundred years to
foist upon English verse, and it will be seen that the simple Japanese
rule has the merit of dignity. The only part of it that we Occidentals
could not accept perhaps, with advantage to ourselves, is the peculiarly
Oriental insistence on an odd number of syllables for every line and an
odd number of lines to every poem. To the Western mind, odd numbers
sound incomplete. But to the Chinese (and Japanese art is mainly a
highly-specialized expression of Chinese thought), the odd numbers are
masculine and hence heavenly; the even numbers feminine and hence
earthy. This idea in itself, the antiquity of which no man can tell,
deserves no less than a treatise be written on it. But the place for
that treatise is not here.

To return to our earliest Japanese form. Sooner or later this
crystallized into what is called a tanka or short ode. This was always
five lines in length, constructed syllabically 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, or
thirty-one syllables in all. Innumerable numbers of these tanka were
written. Gradually,