Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/83

Rh even at the moment of death, were never taken, to use the modern words, by the thought of pessimism or sentimentality; they were the singers of life and joy, not of death and tears.

They knew the world was never made for weak body and mind; they never exercised pity and compassion upon any form of weakness; they believed that the instant that one begins to doubt his own strength, whether it be of mind or body, all the hopes of winning life’s prizes shall be at once overthrown. The fact that the sad destruction of life comes most surely through indulgence, not through struggle and pain, is well illustrated in the story of the Emperor Chuai somewhere in the second volume.

The book reads as follows: “So when the Heavenly Sovereign, dwelling at the Palace of Kashii in Tsukushi, was about to smite the land of Kumaso, the Heavenly Sovereign played on his lute; the Prime Minister, the noble Takeuchi, being in the pine court, requested the divine orders. Hereupon the Empress, divinely possessed, charged him with this instruction and counsel: ‘There is a land to the Westward; in that land is abundance of treasures dazzling to the eye, from gold and silver downward. I will now bestow this land upon thee.’ Then the Heavenly Sovereign replied saying: ‘If one ascend to a high place and look Westward, no country is to be seen. There is only the great sea. What