Page:Insect Literature by Lafcadio Hearn.djvu/190

Rh from ancient time; and frequent mention of them is made in early classical prose. One of the fifty-four chapters of the famous novel, Genji-Monogatari, for example,—written either toward the close of the tenth century or at the beginning of the eleventh,—is entitled, "Fireflies"; and the author relates how a certain noble person was enabled to obtain one glimpse of a lady’s face in the dark by the device of catching and suddenly liberating a number of fireflies. The first literary interest in fireflies may have been stimulated, if not aroused, by the study of Chinese poetry. Even to-day every Japanese child knows a little song about the famous Chinese scholar who, in the time of his struggles with poverty, studied by the light of a paper bag filled with fireflies. But, whatever the original source of their inspiration, Japanese poets have been making verses about fireflies during more than a thousand years. Compositions on the subject can be found in every form of Japanese poetry; but the greater number of firefly poems are in hokku,—the briefest of all measures, consisting of only seventeen syllables. Modern love-poems relating to the firefly are legion; 註