Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/97

Rh 7; 8 and 6; 7 and 8; 7 and 4; 7 and 6; 3, 3, and 4; 4, 7, and 6; 5, 7, and 7; 5, 7, and 5; and others have been invented to advantage. But since every syllable of the Japanese language ends in a vowel, and there are only five vowels, no poet could be successful in the use of rhyme: the result would be only intolerably monotonous if we used it. However, there are many who attempt to overcome the weakness; and even alliteration has been introduced. We have a trick of words in Uta poetry called makura kotoba or “pillow-words,” standing at the beginning of a verse, and serving, as it were, as the pillow upon which it rests; it might be said to be an adjective in many cases; but always it is unintelligible and often absurd. Another bit of word-jugglery is the “pivot-words”; a word or a part of a word is used in two senses; one, with what precedes, the other with what follows. The use of such artifices is utterly despised by our modern poets. The old poets tabooed in their poetry the introduction of a monosyllable Chinese word, which the shintai-shijin freely use; and again the latter are not shy about using even English. Like the English poets, they have begun to use the personification of abstract qualities. In one word, they are not so very different from them in writing lyrics, ballads, allegories, epics, and so forth. However, it may be some time yet before we see real development of the drama.