The Garden of Bright Waters Part 19

THE CUSHION: the poetess, daughter of Tsu-gu-naka, lord of Su-Wo, while at a party, asked for a cushion. A certain Iye-tada offered his arm for her to lean her head against, and she answered with these lines.

STREET SONGS: the three poems which I have so called are written in everyday colloquial j.a.panese. The words of the old language, which are the ornament of literary verse, are almost entirely excluded from these songs. In them one finds a superabundance of auxiliaries, and the presence of these marks a clear line between the literary and the folk-idiom.

KAZACKS

TAMOUR-LENG, Tamerlane. The facts of "You Do Not Want Me" are historical; but it should be added that Gahuan-Beyg succeeded in overcoming Zohrah's indifference, and that a few months after their marriage he beheaded her with his own hand for speaking to another man.

LAOS

THE LOVE NIGHTS OF LAOS, "Wan-Pak" Nights, at the eighth evening of the waxing or waning of the moon, when even Buddha has no fault to find with love-making in the thickets. Songs, of which I have translated three, are sung on these nights to the accompaniments of the "Khane," a pan-pipe of seven flutes; some being reserved for the singing of the wandering bands of girls, and others for answer by the youths.

PERSIA

THE ROSES, this rubai made Abu Yshac famous. He died at least twenty years before the birth of Omar Khayyam. Readers will have been struck by the similarity of idea in "The Roses" and in two lines in Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat:

I often wonder what the vintners buy One-half so precious as the goods they sell.

THIBET

THE LOVE OF THE ARCHER PRINCE: this form of poem, with one rhyme and repet.i.tive and increasing lines, is a familiar one in Thibet; and thence it has entered Kafiristan and become a popular manner of composition Archipelago. English readers will remember an a.n.a.logous poem, "The House that Jack built."