A Hundred Verses from Old Japan - the Hyaku-nin-isshiu - or Single Verses by a Hundred People
THE Hyaku-nin-isshiu, or 'Single Verses by a Hundred People', had been collected together in A.D. 1235. They are placed in approximate chronological order, and range from about the year AD 670. Perhaps what strikes a single most in connection with the Hyaku-nin-isshiu is the date when the verses were written most of them were developed prior to the time of the Norman Conquest (AD 1066), and one can not but be struck with the advanced state of art and culture in Japan at a time when Europe was still in a rather elementary stage of civilization.
The Collection consists virtually entirely of appreciate-poems and what the editor calls picture-poems, intended to bring before the mind's eye some well-known scene in nature and it is marvellous what impact small thumbnail sketches are compressed within thirty-one syllables. Some show the cherry blossoms which are doomed to fall, the dewdrops scattered by the wind, the mournful cry of the wild deer on the mountains, the dying crimson of the fallen maple leaves, the weird sadness of the cuckoo singing in the moonlight, and the loneliness of the recluse in the mountain wilds though those verses which appear to be of a a great deal more cheerful kind are rather of the nature of the 'Japanese smile', described by Lafcadio Hearn as a mask to hide the true feelings.
