Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/370

358 Hana, ominaeshi,

Mata Fuji-bakama,

Asa-gao no hana.

The hagi is the lespedeza. The obana is identified with the flowering eulalia (susuki), a beautiful tall grass which sways in the wind and seems to beckon to the wanderer over pathless moors. The kuzu is the pueraria, which bears masses of purple blossom. The nadeshiko is the wild pink; the ominaeshi, a tiny yellow flower, the patrinia. The fuji-bakama, with small pink and white flowers, is the eupatorium. The asa-gao, in modern usage, is the convolvulus; but this is said to be an imported plant, and the asa-gao of early days was probably either the platycodon grandiflorum or else an althea.

[There are also (春の七草); but these are of a more homely nature,—parsley, chickweed, etc.—and are made into a sort of thick soup, which is eaten on the seventh day of the first moon, with a view to warding off all diseases during the coming year.]

"" (八景). Following an old Chinese precedent, almost every picturesque neighbourhood in Japan has its eight views. The best-known are "the Eight Views of Lake Biwa" (Ōmi Hakkei), which are enumerated as follows:—the autumn moon seen from Ishiyama, the evening snow on Hirayama, the sunset at Seta, the evening bell of Miidera, the boats sailing back from Yabase, the bright sky with a breeze at Awazu, rain by night at Karasaki, and the wild geese alighting at Katata. Pretty and thoroughly Oriental ideas,—are they not?

" (大八洲), namely, the eight largest islands of the Japanese archipelago; hence, in poetical parlance, Japan itself.

"" (二十一代