in regard to plants could be given; Japanese literature teems with them, for flowers are bound up in the lives and affections of every one, and even peasants make poems, or quote them. Here is an example: Prince Ota Dokwan, hunting in the mountains with his suite, was overtaken by driving rain. He stopped at a wayside inn to ask for the loan of one of the straw rain-coats the Japanese wear. The girl of whom the request was made went off, and returned greatly embarrassed without the coat and without an explanation, but with a Yamabuki blossom (a kind of yellow Rose) on her outstretched fan. The Prince was furious, and started away in a tremendous rage, when one of his followers interpreted the poor girl’s action by quoting the verse by which her behaviour, a subtle apology, was prompted—
“The Yamabuki blossom has
A wealth of petals gay;
But yet! in spite of this, alas!
I much regret to say,
No seed can it display,”
which by a play upon words really means, “The mountain flower herself has no rain-coat.”[1]
- ↑
“Nanae yae
Hana wa sake domo
Yamabuki no
Mi no hitotsu dani
Naka zo kanashiki.”
A Hundred Verses from Old Japan
(W. N. Porter)
