Longing

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  At the feast of Kamo I put rose-mallows in my hair; He never came back, and I am waiting. Time has a way of piling long days, Long days, long days Into a great hill. 24. Return. I know she is light and faithless, But she has come back half repentant And very pale and very sad, A butterfly needs somewhere to rest At evening. 25. A Single Cry. A flight of flying cuckoos Across the moon, a single cry. Is the moon crying cuckoo? Night pales slowly. Men are cruel And women are not. They weep and say over sorrow For a small separation. 26. The Mat. She sulkily pretends to sleep, Turning her back; Suddenly the pretty slender music Of a samisen delicately fingered. Reconciliation. Where is her comb? But there are dawn bells. Separation, and always, always separation, A boat puts out on a lake of the Yoshiwara. 27. Dead Flower or Living. Last night a peach petal was wetted by the rain, And when a girl After her toilet said: 'Which is the more beautiful, I or the peach petal?' And he said: 'Peach petal wetted by the rain is incomparable.' There were tears and a tearing of flowers. To taste the living flower To-night would be quite a good night, my lord, If so you wish. 28. Alone. The device of the two copper plums With silver in them Slowly and very slowly Satisfies. Just as all finishes Dew falls on my clenched hand. I would rather the bean flowered yellow And he were here. 29. Shut In. Cherry flowers do not touch The old Stones of the wall. I am shut in here. I am very much shut in here. There is a part of the trap Where the rat need not touch the curd. The cherry trees are rose beyond Fuji. 30. Since. What has happened to my thoughts Since I knew you? That is easy. Until I met you I had no thoughts. 31. After. After he left me, Two pillows, One body. Where is he now? He must be getting on for Komagata. Damn that cuckoo. 32. Night Rain. Sad night rain, I count the Straws in the mat, He will come, he won't come. I twist a paper frog. Does it Stand? It falls down. A vague presentiment. The little lamp goes down and up, Its oil exhausted. He was always capricious. Ah, my soul, that is his voice. 33. Madam Moon. The moon is digustingly modest Under a great cloud When I am waiting, And when he comes She spitefully breaks forth. You are jealous, Madam Moon, But we have had a few black nights When you were lazy. 34. Weariness. The pale day Pierces the bamboo blind. Grief pierces my heart And I count the bands of light Not knowing why, Like that. 35. Annoyed. Really I am annoyed this time And I have left her. But the weeping willow wept at my door And quenched my anger.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  2–3.) Where do we find ourselves when we combine 4000 BCE as time and Mesopotamia as place? After Chapter 2, we already know the answer. We find ourselves amid the climax of the Neolithic Revolution, amid the dawn of civilization, on the mighty plain of Mesopotamia. Civilization’s dawn for Sumer was creation’s date for Israel. The date was totally inaccurate chronologically but fully accurate metaphorically. In any case, for Genesis 2–3, our world was gifted from divinity to humanity around 4000 BCE in Mesopotamia as a garden made by God. It is time, therefore, to enter that garden. But we do so through the matrix-gateway of Sumerian imagination, far, far back in the 2000s BCE . Try to bracket for now the much later Christian matrix and interpretation, doctrine and dogma, catechism and convention about “original sin.” You might even prepare yourself for a new way of seeing the story of Eden by noticing that such words as “sin,” “disobedience,” and “punishment,” let alone “fall,” never occur anywhere in Genesis 2–3. Instead, approach the biblical story about Adam and Eve by thinking about a Mesopotamian story about an earlier and equally primordial couple named Gilgamesh and Enkidu. “Must I Lie Down Too, Never to Rise, Ever Again?”GILGAMESH WAS AN ACTUAL , historical figure from around 2700 BCE , a priest-king of Uruk—Erech in Genesis 10:10 and Warka in modern Iraq. Uruk in southern Sumer was the first great city in recorded human history. Gilgamesh rebuilt its six-mile-long walls, led its warriors in battle, and liberated it from submission to Kish in northern Sumer. Then, as transcendental fiction enveloped historical fact, Gilgamesh became the divine superhero of Mesopotamian tradition and the protagonist of the first great epic of world literature. Here the alluvial soil of Sumer became the seedbed from which the Gilgamesh tradition spread around the Fertile Crescent from oral versions to written variants, from the Mesopotamian plain through the Anatolian plateau to the Mediterranean Sea, from Sumer and Akkad, through Babylonia and Assyria, to Ugarit and Israel. (A fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh was found at Megiddo dated to the 1300s BCE .) I begin, therefore, in Sumer with one of its five extant stories about Gilgamesh. The story concerns the “Death of Gilgamesh” (ETCSL 1.8.1.3),2 and I focus here on two motifs in it, namely, dream and lament. In the dream section, Gilgamesh’s night vision is interpreted to mean that the supreme God “Enlil, the Great Mountain, the Father of Gods, has made kingship your destiny, but not eternal life.” Then follows the chant of Gilgamesh’s impending death with emphasis on its human inevitability: You must have been told that this is what the bane of being human involves. You must have been told that this is what the cutting of your umbilical cord involved. The darkest day of humans awaits you now. The solitary place of humans awaits you now. The unstoppable flood-wave awaits you now. The unavoidable battle awaits you now.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  No one ever did anything great without a vision which made it possible to face the difficulties and discouragements of the way. To Abraham there was given the vision; and, even when his body was wandering in Palestine, his soul was at home with God. God cannot give us the vision unless we allow him to; but, if we are patient and look to him, even in earth’s desert places he will send us the vision, and with it the toil and trouble of the way all become worth while. STRANGERS AND NOMADS Hebrews 11:13–16 All these died without obtaining possession of the promises. They only saw them from far away and greeted them from afar, and they admitted that they were strangers and sojourners upon the earth. Now, people who speak like that make it quite clear that they are searching for a fatherland. If they were thinking of the land from which they had come out, they would have had time to return. In point of fact, they were reaching out after something better, I mean, the heavenly country. It was because of that that God was not ashamed to be called their God, for he had prepared a city for them. N ONE of the patriarchs entered into the full possession of the promises that God had made to Abraham. To the end of their days they were nomads, never living a settled life in a settled land. They had to be constantly moving on. Certain great permanent truths emerge from them. (1) They lived as permanent strangers. The writer to the Hebrews uses three vivid Greek words about them. (a) In 11:13, he calls them xenoi . Xenos is the word for a stranger and a foreigner . In the ancient world, the fate of strangers was hard. They were regarded with hatred and suspicion and contempt. In Sparta, xenos was the equivalent of barbaros , barbarian. One man writes complaining that he was despised ‘because I am a xenos ’. Another writes that, however poor a home is, it is better to live at home than epi xenēs , in a foreign country. When clubs had their common meal, those who sat down to it were divided into members and xenoi . Xenos can even mean a refugee . All their lives, the patriarchs were foreigners in a land that was never their own . (b) In 11:9, he uses the word paroikein, to stay for a time, of Abraham. A paroikos was a resident alien. The word is used of the Jews when they were captives in Babylon and in Egypt.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  D 10 Letter from a Buddhist Priest telling his Friend that his Lover comes to him EAR FRIEND IN THE TEACHING OF BUDDHA: The cherry trees in flower at Kyoto so troubled me that I left the capital last spring. I send you this letter by a man who is going to visit the city. I hope that you are zealous in our religion at your temple, and without disturbance. My hut must have become the resort of mice and rats since it has been unoccupied; though there is not a single piece of fish left there for such guests to enjoy. You may laugh at my poverty, dear friend. No one will regret the chrysanthemums when they fade in my garden. But if by chance you should be passing near my hut, enter, and, since I have given you the key, let the weary passers-by come in. I buried some nuts and potatoes under the north door: use them, for otherwise they will be spoiled. Takenaka sent me these provisions, and I do not like to waste them. And now I shall speak to you of myself. As you know, my eternal and incurable weakness is to fall in love with some pretty boy; and I confess to you that I have an affair here with an entrancing lad, and I hesitate to return to Kyoto. Last year, on leaving the capital, I went to my friend at Okayama in the Province of Bizen. He received me very hospitably, but I quickly grew weary there; so I went by boat to the Province of Higo, where I have a friend who is a poet and a priest of the temple of Kiyomasa, and I lived with him. One evening I was in his wonderful garden, enjoying the fresh breeze after a hot day. An artificial Stream flowed between fanciful rocks and grass-covered hillocks which had been built up there. The effect was as the dwelling of some mountain hermit, delighting in spiritual beauty and the pure pleasures of the soul. The faint song of a cuckoo rose from the density of the mighty pines behind the temple, so poignantly pure that I thought I had never heard such beautiful song in Kyoto. I thought that a cuckoo, singing in the evening in so sacred a place as the temple of Kiyomasa, would make a fitting subject for a poem. I began to compose a poem in my head, and was thinking out the rhymes and the arrangement of the syllables. Then there came out of the temple the whole of the High Priest's train. Amongst them walked a very beautiful page, about sixteen years old, so lovely that I thought I had never seen such charm and elegance even in the flowering capital. I was indeed surprised to see so beautiful a page in such a remote district as the Western Province of Higo. I was greatly troubled by him.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I liked that it had been some time, because I wanted to be the only one. I didn’t care what the reason was, even if he simply hadn’t been near land. Of course, the inability to be with someone else on land did not mean he loved me in a special way. And his having been with other women who had feet did not necessarily equal lack of love. But it still made me feel safe to be the only one in a long time. These thoughts, themselves, were madness. He lived in the ocean and I lived in the desert. This wasn’t going to last. Maybe there could be some magic bend in our time together, the way I felt when he was going down on me. That had felt so eternal—as though if it were happening in one moment it was happening forever. But no one could live inside a moment. It was already over. And yet, here he was, still with me. We were sitting beside each other and he had his hand on my thigh, my hand tracing his knuckles. He is still here, I kept repeating to myself. “I have to go,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “It’s not a great idea for me to be out of the water like this with the light coming up.” I hadn’t realized that it was dawn. The sun was rising over the Santa Monica Mountains, turning the water silver. I could see that a few surfers had made their way to the Venice pier, laughing with one another. “Are you like a vampire?” I asked. “Are we in one of those teen vampire movies, only you’re a mermaid?” “Ha, no, nothing like that,” he said. “It’s just not a great idea for anyone to see me out here. I’ve gotten harassed before. I’ve gotten hurt. I could be taken to the Venice freak show. I can’t exactly run. So it’s always dangerous for me to be out of the water.” “Will I see you tomorrow?” “Not tomorrow, but how about the following night? You should wear a skirt again like that.” “Ha-ha. Okay.” Two nights sounded so far away. It seemed endless. “Also, you shouldn’t tell anyone about me,” he said. “As we discussed. Mostly I say that for you. I don’t want you ending up in a psychiatric hospital or in rehab and that’s what people will think if you tell them you met a man who lives under the sea.” “But you’re just a boy,” I said. “I’m not Sappho-old but I’m older than you think. The salt has preserved me. Also, maybe I’m immature.” He kissed me on the forehead and on the hand. Then he dove back into the water, parting the seaweedy murk. “Wait!” I called. “What time in two nights from now?”

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Songs of the Geishas 1. Campanula. Eglantine and campanula furtively Placed in a letter, a moon setting Beyond the plain, dew on the grass, I wait. Matsumushi singing of night, the late night, Bell far sounds, and the crying of the wild geese, All these things are love. 2.Cherry. A horse tied by the bridle To a flowering cherry. When he shakes his head There falls a snow of flowers, Flower snow, A snow of flowers. 3. Notes taken in my Bedroom. Called out by the rushes I go to my doorstep. And there is dew. Troubled heart and coloured chrysanthemums, Their deep scent is troubling And their gold colour. How pleasant is the scent of sake With a chrysanthemum petal floating. White frost is on the opened petal And the frost has Coloured and deep Transparencies. 4. Do Not Go. In the morning I hid his overcoat. Your overcoat is playing hide and seek. It is raining so. Look at the green rice field Where the wet frogs are singing. 5. Frog. I wish to keep him, but he will go to his own. I call him back, but he goes to his own. A frog jumps and goes to his own rice field And the water there. The world is leaving me. Night rain. 6. Heart. My heart, a fine rain, Life is so uncertain, Drop by drop in the mist. One is very handsome, And the other may be more sincere. This downfalling of leaves, I shall never have any luck, I will always be alone. A Stag cries and tramples the red leaves Of the red maple. My heart is torn. 7. Joy of Obscurity. Very little happiness would be enough; I see myself walking in a snow Storm to her With a net of new carps on my shoulder. I would have paper garments And, on windy Winter nights When the plovers cry, Also have my little flaming brazier of pine cones, My little red portable brazier. I could not do without that. It is true, is it not, That I could not do without that? 8. Prediction. A hole in the paper wall, Who has been so guilty? Through it I hear the breaking of a samisen string, Meaning bad luck. Yet the prediction-seller says That mine is excellent. 9. Unstable love Love is unstable. I dream of a drifting Barque. My body is limited. My thought is infinite. Things do not go as I would have them. I see him in the dream of a light sleep Or resting on one arm in place of a pillow. Audible are the bells of Mil. 10. Tamagava River. I bathed my snow skin In pure Tamagava river. Our quarrel is loosened slowly, And he loosens my hair. I am all uncombed. I will not remember him, I will not altogether forget him, I will wait for Spring. 11. Katushika. At Katushika the river water Runs gently, and the plum blossom

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Because of the lurid tales we read and our vivid imaginations and, probably, memories of our brief but hectic lives, Bailey and I were afflicted—he physically and I mentally. He stuttered, and I sweated through horrifying nightmares. He was constantly told to slow down and start again, and on my particularly bad nights my mother would take me in to sleep with her, in the large bed with Mr. Freeman. Because of a need for stability, children easily become creatures of habit. After the third time in Mother's bed, I thought there was nothing strange about sleeping there. One morning she got out of bed for an early errand, and I fell asleep again. But I awoke to a pressure, a strange feeling on my left leg. It was too soft to be a hand, and it wasn't the touch of clothes. Whatever it was, I hadn't encountered the sensation in all the years of sleeping with Momma. It didn't move, and I was too startled to. I turned my head a little to the left to see if Mr. Freeman was awake and gone, but his eyes were open and both hands were above the cover. I knew, as if I had always known, it was his “thing” on my leg. He said, “Just stay right here, Ritie, I ain't gonna hurt you.” I wasn't afraid, a little apprehensive, maybe, but not afraid. Of course I knew that lots of people did “it” and they used their “things” to accomplish the deed, but no one I knew had ever done it to anybody. Mr. Freeman pulled me to him, and put his hand between my legs. He didn't hurt, but Momma had drilled into my head: “Keep your legs closed, and don't let nobody see your pocketbook.” “Now, I didn't hurt you. Don't get scared.” He threw back the blankets and his “thing” stood up like a brown ear of corn. He took my hand and said, “Feel it.” It was mushy and squirmy like the inside of a freshly killed chicken. Then he dragged me on top of his chest with his left arm, and his right hand was moving so fast and his heart was beating so hard that I was afraid that he would die. Ghost stories revealed how people who died wouldn't let go of whatever they were holding. I wondered if Mr. Freeman died holding me how I would ever get free. Would they have to break his arms to get me loose? Finally he was quiet, and then came the nice part. He held me so softly that I wished he wouldn't ever let me go. I felt at home. From the way he was holding me I knew he'd never let me go or let anything bad ever happen to me. This was probably my real father and we had found each other at last. But then he rolled over, leaving me in a wet place and stood up.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  My master Yoshimasa would like to know it.' The man answered: 'Are you then so eager to know a trifle? If your master is thus fond of incense, take him this, although there is not much more of it.' And, giving him the incense and the censer, he went quickly away. Toshikiyo came back with the incense and censer to Yoshimasa and told his master every detail of the Strange old man. The Shyôgun was greatly intrigued by the Stranger's refinement and had him sought through the whole of Kyoto; but no trace of the old man was found. The Shyôgun was grieved at this, and kept his gift with the utmost care. He named that incense 'The Plover,' and the Strange Story soon spread among his attendants. One of Yoshimasa's pages, the son of a samurai of an Eastern Province, had so beautiful a face that even the flowers of Kyoto grew pale before him. He was one of the Shyôgun's favourite lads. When he saw the censer his countenance changed suddenly, and he was seized with great distress. His name was Gorokitji Sakurai. His closest friend asked him why the sight of the censer had so moved him, but Gorokitji would not open his heart. Now this friend was his very dear lover. His distress finally made Gorokitji ill, and, on his bed, he confided at last in his friend, whose name was Muranosuke Higutji. Gorokitji's voice was weak and shook as he told of his past life and how it was concerned with the censer: 'The owner of this incense was my lover. We loved each other with unchangeable love. But he thought that our love might be harmful to my career, and therefore he left me in that Eastern land and came to Kyoto. But I could not forget him. I followed him here as a page of our master Yoshimasa, hoping and waiting for a blessing of Providence to let me meet him once again. But fortune was not with me. I have met only the censer; I have not met him to whom it belonged, him whom I love.' And Gorokitji wept many bitter tears. Muranosuke was very sorrowful. He was afraid of losing his friend and lover if Gorokitji should die. And yet Gorokitji grew weaker and weaker, until there was no more hope of his living. Then he called Muranosuke to his bedside and said: 'Dear Muranosuke, find that old man after my death and love him in my place. Because you have been my best friend I ask you this unpleasing and indelicate favour. I beg you to perform my last wish, for the love of my soul which is about to leave you. If you refuse it this favour, it will not be able to ascend into Heaven.' This prayer was truly unreasonable, but Gorokitji and Muranosuke were friends and lovers, and were bound to sacrifice their lives for each other.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  [image file=image_rsrc1KX.jpg] INTRODUCTORY NOTETHE following verses are definitely popular ones. They are folksongs, almost music-hall songs, and are taken solely from the singing repertoire of Geishas. These girls have usually been sold into the trade by their parents, and their one desire is to be released by purchase or marriage. Release is the keynote of all their singing. It should be remembered, too, that practically all the Japanese poems with which we have been made familiar in English are classical and written to one or other of very strict rules, whereas these songs for the samisen are technically free. They have therefore no strict literary justification, and I trust that, even in second-hand translation, they may not seem to need one. I have selected some of my ninety from Le Livre des Geishas of Gaston Morphy, and the rest from Chansons des Geishas by Steinilber-Oberlin and Hidetake-Iwamura. [image file=image_rsrc1KY.jpg] Songs of the Geishas1. Campanula.Eglantine and campanula furtively Placed in a letter, a moon setting Beyond the plain, dew on the grass, I wait. Matsumushi singing of night, the late night, Bell far sounds, and the crying of the wild geese, All these things are love. 2.Cherry.A horse tied by the bridle To a flowering cherry. When he shakes his head There falls a snow of flowers, Flower snow, A snow of flowers. 3. Notes taken in my Bedroom.Called out by the rushes I go to my doorstep. And there is dew. Troubled heart and coloured chrysanthemums, Their deep scent is troubling And their gold colour. How pleasant is the scent of sake With a chrysanthemum petal floating. White frost is on the opened petal And the frost has Coloured and deep Transparencies. 4. Do Not Go.In the morning I hid his overcoat. Your overcoat is playing hide and seek. It is raining so. Look at the green rice field Where the wet frogs are singing. 5. Frog.I wish to keep him, but he will go to his own. I call him back, but he goes to his own. A frog jumps and goes to his own rice field And the water there. The world is leaving me. Night rain. 6. Heart.My heart, a fine rain, Life is so uncertain, Drop by drop in the mist. One is very handsome, And the other may be more sincere. This downfalling of leaves, I shall never have any luck, I will always be alone. A Stag cries and tramples the red leaves Of the red maple. My heart is torn. 7. Joy of Obscurity.Very little happiness would be enough; I see myself walking in a snow Storm to her With a net of new carps on my shoulder. I would have paper garments And, on windy Winter nights When the plovers cry, Also have my little flaming brazier of pine cones, My little red portable brazier. I could not do without that. It is true, is it not, That I could not do without that? 8. Prediction.A hole in the paper wall,

• From The Pisces (2018)

  4.Then came the obsession. I started reading my weekly horoscopes and his (Sagittarius), parsing every word for a sign that the universe was going to bring us back together. If there was nothing about love I would read a different horoscope. I would read them until I found one that suited me—until it said this was my lucky day or week or month. I consulted a psychic, an old woman in Tempe who worked in the back of a Mediterranean restaurant. She said that I needed to focus on me, do work on myself and my “blocks” and more would be revealed. She suggested a powder made of quartz crystal to put in my bath. She said it would serve as a clearing of negativity. I bought it for $250 and soaked in it. Nothing happened. So I called more psychics. I realized how much time I had spent with Jamie. Or maybe not how much time I’d spent with him, but how much time I spent alone but knowing, at least, that he was there. It was different now, being totally alone, with no one person in the back of my mind—that little figure, like a cushion. I’d never had many friends in Phoenix to begin with. There was Rochelle, a professor of anthropology, who had introduced me to Jamie. Rochelle had been married since before I met her. Mid-forties with wiry, pubic-looking hair that she kept cut very short, in a style I secretly called “the Brillo,” she wore no makeup and was deeply okay with herself. I thought it was nice that there was a man on Earth who was happy to fuck her—not only to fuck her but to marry her. I wondered if this was where she got her confidence or if it was her confidence that had drawn her husband to her. When Rochelle first introduced me to Jamie, I was barely thirty, and had the luxury of time, a cool air about my future, zero apparent desperation. She probably thought I was normal. Through the years we would meet every six months or so at the same Colombian restaurant and make the same jokes about how her husband and Jamie both snored, the way they both acted like babies when they got a cold. There was an affected comfort in these casual insults, as if to say, I know this man is mine. He isn’t going anywhere. I could take him or leave him. I pretended to her that I didn’t want to marry Jamie, didn’t want to move in together, and had more than enough time with him. I was a woman contented with what she had and did not need more of anyone or anything. But now I became clingy with Rochelle, besieged her with a barrage of compulsive questioning about Jamie’s whereabouts. The questions were coupled with a series of neurotic affirmations on my part that he would be coming back, it was only a matter of when.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  57. Maples Leaves. Do you know why the Autumn moon Spreads her desirable brightness On the hill? It is so that we two may count the leaves of the maple Falling One by one. 58. Deep Light. I have no wish for A frivolous or coquettish existence, I want the deep life of love. have set up the double screen Against a wind balmed with the plum trees. Come to me and I will love you In the tender light of a veiled moon, I will love you, far from the plum trees. Yet afterwards in bed I know I shall sulk and weep; Frogs in the garden pool All night, all night. 59. Snow Night. There are two in the small room On this cold snow night. Pretty half-meanings As they tease each other, Hair she has just washed And cannot manage. 'You get on my nerves,' she says, 'Always chewing your toothpick.' 60. Spring Night. This dream of a Spring night Grows complicated. The smell of his body lies on the air. The cloudy sky and my ringed eyes Are veiled. Are we not a couple Made of flower and butterfly? Well, well, I mean to say. 61. Love Night. The cuckoo has sung all night And at first they did not sleep at all. There is sweet slumber after love With a rounded arm for pillow. The lamp was fetched away Without their noticing. 62. Moon and Plum Tree. The moon and the plum tree part not On a very clear night, But rather lie smiling to the snow. Not a word is said, But the scent the plum tree cannot hold Goes up toward the moon. And look at the innocent whiteness Of the plum tree. 63. Bamboos and Sparrows. This sparrow lighting Harmoniously On the bamboo. In love things do not go quite so Harmoniously. It is I alone who love and suffer. I hate his beastly face. 64. Sky before Dawn. Sky just at dawn between the trees The cuckoo flies and hides. I comb the wet hair on my temples I am wetted and am happy. I am so wet. It rains this morning. 65. Myosotis. If I clasp my hands, my sleeve: Dew and perfume and colour. His picture remains in absence Myosotis, memory. If he flowered on a branch I would plant him, And love him every Lonely hour. 66. Flower of the Cherry. It is because they fall That they are admirable. What is the good of clinging Without hope? Clinging violently to the branches, Withered on all the branches, Soiled by the birds. 67. Pillow. How many nights We have not come together. The plovers of Awaji island Mingle their crying. I am alone and wretched In this plank custom's hut, Alone and loft. That moonbeam entering to my pillow,

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Her mother lived in reduced circumstances, but she was genteel, and though she worked as a maid I decided she should be called a governess and did so to Bailey and myself. (Who could teach a romantic dreamy ten-year-old to call a spade a spade?) Mrs. Kendricks could not have been very old, but to me all people over eighteen were adults and there could be no degree given or taken. They had to be catered to and pampered with politeness, then they had to stay in the same category of lookalike, soundalike and beingalike. Louise was a lonely girl, although she had plenty of playmates and was a ready partner for any ring game in the schoolyard. Her face, which was long and dark chocolate brown, had a thin sheet of sadness over it, as light but as permanent as the viewing gauze on a coffin. And her eyes, which I thought her best feature, shifted quickly as if what they sought had just a second before eluded her. She had come near and the spotted light through the trees fell on her face and braids in running splotches. I had never noticed before, but she looked exactly like Bailey. Her hair was “good”—more straight than kinky-and her features had the regularity of objects placed by a careful hand. She looked up—“Well, you can't see much sky from here.” Then she sat down, an arm away from me. Finding two exposed roots, she laid thin wrists on them as if she had been in an easy chair. Slowly she leaned back against the tree. I closed my eyes and thought of the necessity of finding another place and the unlikelihood of there being another with all the qualifications that this one had. There was a little peal of a scream and before I could open my eyes Louise had grabbed my hand. “I was falling”—she shook her long braids—“I was falling in the sky.” I liked her for being able to fall in the sky and admit it. I suggested, “Let's try together. But we have to sit up straight on the count of five.” Louise asked, “Want to hold hands? Just in case?” I did. If one of us did happen to fall, the other could pull her out. After a few near tumbles into eternity (both of us knew what it was), we laughed at having played with death and destruction and escaped . Louise said, “Let's look at that old sky while we're spinning.” We took each other's hands in the center of the clearing and began turning around. Very slowly at first. We raised our chins and looked straight at the seductive patch of blue. Faster, just a little faster, then faster, faster yet. Yes, help, we were falling. Then eternity won, after all. We couldn't stop spinning or falling until I was jerked out of her grasp by greedy gravity and thrown to my fate below—no, above, not below.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  And Shyume saw Guzayemon from his litter, and understood that Guzayemon loved him. He was deeply touched by such an attachment, and wished to speak to him. So he descended from his litter, while the train Stopped for a short time on Mount Sayono Nakayama, and Stood waiting for Guzayemon to approach. But Guzayemon was too far off to come near him, and they saw each other no more on that occasion. Guzayemon did not indeed behold him again during the whole of that journey, though he did not cease to think of him. His feet were worn and bleeding from his long walking; he had no more money, and ended by becoming a beggar by the roadside. But he clung desperately to his miserable life. He protected his body from rain, snow and wind with a thin reed hat and a garment of woven grass. He shivered when it blew cold. During the day he Stayed in a vile thatched hut in a field, and at evening, when Shyume returned home to his master's palace, stood near the palace door and consoled himself by watching the dear lad from a distance. One rainy evening Shyume called his servant, Kuzayemon, because he felt lonely and very bored after his day's service, and said to him: 'I was born of a family of samurai, and I have not yet killed a living man with my sword. Yet I must have practice in case of a battle. I cannot be a good warrior if I have no exercise in the art of killing. Kuzayemon, I wish to try to kill a living man this evening,' His servant rebuked him: 'Dear master, you are an excellent swordsman, and very expert with your weapon. You are not inferior to any of the courtiers of this company. You have nothing to fear in this matter, nothing at all. Heaven will punish you if you kill a living man without sufficient reason, merely from caprice. I beg you to wait for a more serious occasion to exercise your skill.' Shyume explained to him: 'I do not wish to kill an honourable man, dear Kuzayemon. Over there by the Street gutter there is a beggar, who seems entirely wretched. He cannot love his life. Ask him to give me his life, after I have satisfied all his

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Guzayemon decided to follow the page; so he sold all the furniture of his house, shut it up, and paid his debts to the grocer, the fishmonger and the wine merchant; he dismissed his young servant, and followed the train of the Lord. The train Stopped for their first night in the town of Kanayawa, and next day took up their quarters at Oysso. That evening the page went out in a litter to visit historic Shigitatsusawa. He opened the door of his litter a trifle and murmured the famous poem which Saigyô, the Buddhist priest, had written concerning that palace: Although I have renounced all human emotion As a priest of Buddha, I am seized with deep sadness When I find myself here at Shigitatsusawa On an Autumn evening. Guzayemon could only behold his love from a distance; yet the other also perceived him, and their looks crossed. But they were immediately separated, and Guzayemon did not see the page again until a day when they were going along a rocky road at the summit of Mount Utsunoyama. Guzayemon was Standing behind a big rock at the side of the road, and threw a glance into the young man's litter; then, in spite of himself, he began to weep with emotion. The young man turned his gracious face to him, and Guzayemon became more than ever inflamed. He did not see his page again before they reached the town of Tsuyama in the Province of Mimasaka, and there he caught but a bare glimpse of him. That was his last chance, for soon the Lord arrived safely in the Province of Yezumo. There Guzayemon became a labourer to gain his food, for he had spent all his money during the long journey from Yedo to Yezumo. In the following year the Lord again set out for Yedo, to pay his court to the Shyôgun in April. Guzayemon followed in his train a second time; but he only beheld the page thrice during the whole journey: once in the ferry at Kuwana, the second time on the Steep hill of Shihomizaki, and the last time in the grove of Suzuga, quite close to Yedo. Then the Lord remained for a whole year at Yedo. Guzayemon went every day to the palace in the hope of seeing his love. With the life that he was leading, all his refinement and distinguished appearance had gone from him. He was haggard and miserable. No one could have discerned in him a fallen samurai, whose beauty had once been famous. His health was also affected. Next year he again followed the Lord from Yedo to his Province. He looked like a beggar, so greatly had he suffered. His clothes had more than one hole in them, and his sleeves were torn. But he kept his two swords, which are the soul of a samurai. In the outskirts of a town called Kanaya he saw the page's litter.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  A 8 A Samurai becomes a Beggar through his Love for a Page YOUNG SAMURAI NAMED GUZAYEMON Toyawa lived in a house by himself in his master's palace near Toranomon. One day, being at liberty, he went out for a walk, as he was tired of his bachelor solitude. When young he had been famous for his manly beauty, and had lived in the town of Matsuyama in the Province of South Shikoku; but he had at length left his former master and come to Yedo. There he was soon engaged by another Lord at the same salary which he had received at Matsuyama. His house was in the Shibuya district. Mid-spring had come, and the weather was delightful. He went to visit the shrine of the god Tudo at Meguro. Passing by a little water-fall in the temple garden, he saw a beautiful young man. This youth was wearing a large hat decorated with silk and kept in place by a pale blue ribbon: his wide-sleeved robe was as purple as the glory of morning flowers: he carried at his girdle two swords in wonderfully-ornamented scabbards: he was walking at ease carrying a branch of yellow flowers in his hand. His beauty was such that Guzayemon for a moment asked himself if the god Roya had not taken human form, or if a peony had not come to life and was walking in the spring sunlight. He was fascinated by the young man, who was already accompanied by two shaven courtiers and several servants, and followed him. Guzayemon thought that he must be the favourite page of some noble Prince. He was profoundly disturbed, and followed him. The two shaven courtiers were singing gay songs, for they were a little drunk. The young boy went towards a palace near the shrine of Koroku, and entered it by a door crowned with violet paulownia leaves. Guzayemon asked a Guard what this palace might be, and learned that the young man's name was Shyume Okuyama, the favourite page of his master. Guzayemon dreamed of the boy all night. Next day he Stood before the palace door, hoping to see the page; but in vain. Returning to his house, he could not keep his mind on his work. He pretended to be ill, and resigned from his service. He then went to live in a little house in a Street in the Kojimachi district. Since his time was all his own, he walked every day before the palace door, from the twenty-third of May till the month of October; but he never saw the young man again. He had no means of sending him a love-letter, and therefore suffered cruelly from his passion by day and by night. Then the young page's master received permission from the Shyogun to return to his own country, and the twenty-fifth day was fixed for his departure.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  F 13 Love long Concealed OLLOWING A DISPUTE WITH THE counsellor of the Lord of the Province of Osumi, the samurai Jiuzayemon Fatjibana retired from official life. He lived very comfortably with his wife and son in a remote village. His son, Tamanosuke, was at that time fifteen years old, and so beautiful that people thought it a pity to leave him hidden in this remote village, and not to make him a well-known samurai in some large town. But when Jiuzayemon thought that his son was old enough to serve a Prince as a page, he sent him to the capital, Yedo. He also caused his servant, Kakubel Kanazawa, to accompany him. This man had served him for many years, and was fifty years old and had great experience of life. Before leaving him, his father gave his son some good advice, telling him to conduct himself bravely and to defend his honour to the death. But his mother whispered for a moment with Kakubel, asking him to guard and protect her son, and ended by saying: 'I beg you to take particular care of my son, especially in this matter.' When Tamanosuke and Kakubel were some distance from the house, Tamanosuke asked: 'Did not my mother tell you not to deliver love-letters to me if a samurai should send me one? But if you refuse to oblige a man who sends me love-letters, you will ad heartlessly. You will be a cruel man. I want to be loved by some great samurai, since that is one of the best things in this life of ours. If no one loves me, I shall hate my beautiful face. Once in Great China, a prevalent poet of the Province of Yoshu said in one of his poems, speaking of a young boy: "A cruel youth without a heart." I wish you to feel sympathy for pederasty, O Kakubel.' Kakubel answered: 'But of course, young master! If everybody were as scrupulous as your mother, such a thing as honourable love between samurai would not exist. I shall act quite in accordance with your wishes.' And they laughed together. After a long and troublesome journey they at last reached Yedo. Tamanosuke was presented by a friend of his father's to the Prince of the Province of Aezu, who was charmed with him and immediately engaged him as a page, and took him to the Province of Aezu with him. Tamanosuke was greatly attached to this Lord, and very polite to the other courtiers, of whom this Lord made him his favourite. Compared with Tamanosuke's beauty, all the other pages were as flowers hidden behind a fence from the rays of the sun. One summer evening Tamanosuke was playing ball with the other pages in the palace garden. He was the best player of all, and people watched and admired his grace and skill. Suddenly his eyes grew haggard, his body began to tremble, and he was seized with convulsions in all his limbs.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Ihara Saikaku's youthful writings were unsuccessful, but when he published his novel The Armorous Life of Yonosuke, the gateway to fame and prosperity opened to him. Among his many popular bawdy best sellers is Five Women Who Loved Love (Charles E. Tuttle). The Songs of the Geisha is quite unassociated with the stories of Ihara Saikaku. It is a collection of geisha folk songs composed to be sung to the accompaniment of the shamisen. Ninety of these songs were retranslated by E. Powys Mathers from Gaston Morphy's anthology Le Livre des Geisha . The remainder are from Chansons des Geishas by Steinilber Oberlin and Hidetake Iwamura. All have that charmingly nostalgic quality which fitted well the time and the circumstances for which they were composed. Geisha entered the entertainment trade in old Japan under sad circumstances, most often being sold to procurers by impoverished parents for training in the ways of pleasure houses (for the whole story see De Becker's The Nightless City (Charles E. Tuttle). For lonely girls who were courtesans and geisha the only hope was to find a lover to purchase their freedom, but until this happened —which was rare—they were obliged to spend many years in erotic slavery. When youthful bloom had faded and their time of service had expired, they were often cast aside undesired. So these songs, freely composed and intimately personal, expressed the feelings of the geisha toward their sympathetic listeners. Unlike classic songs, they reach to the heart of the common people. Love, frustration, and the futility of hope are their main themes. Here is an example from "Who Loves": A body that loves Is fragile and uncertain, A floating boat. The fires in the fishing boat at night Burn red, my heart burns red. Wooden stakes hold up the nets Against the tide of Uji. The tide is against me. These song-poems, mere thumbnail sketches of life, belong to a very ancient oral tradition in Japan. The best known are popularly quoted and sung, but for a true rendering they must be heard from a beautiful geisha with a shamisen, and in a teahouse. The effect is unique. After long training in singing, dancing, and playing instruments, the geisha became herself a living work of art. These lyrics, for all their erotic symbolism, are restrained and tactful. Their erotic beauty must be felt rather than heard. Ihara(or Ibara)Saikaku, whose real name was probably Hirayama Togo, was born in Osaka, 1642. As a poet and novelist he was one of the most illustrious writers of Japan's seventeenth-century literary revival. He excelled in describing the life of the common people and, in satirical tone, the samurai, who were in his age falling from positions of grace before the money power of the merchants.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Who has been so guilty? Through it I hear the breaking of a samisen string, Meaning bad luck. Yet the prediction-seller says That mine is excellent. 9. Unstable loveLove is unstable. I dream of a drifting Barque. My body is limited. My thought is infinite. Things do not go as I would have them. I see him in the dream of a light sleep Or resting on one arm in place of a pillow. Audible are the bells of Mil. 10. Tamagava River.I bathed my snow skin In pure Tamagava river. Our quarrel is loosened slowly, And he loosens my hair. I am all uncombed. I will not remember him, I will not altogether forget him, I will wait for Spring. 11. Katushika.At Katushika the river water Runs gently, and the plum blossom Bursts out laughing. The nightingale cannot withstand so many joys And sings, and we are reconciled. Our warm bodies touch, Cane branch and pine branch, Our boat floats in toward the bank. 12. Blackness.The night is black And I am excited about you. My love climbs in me, and you ask That I should climb to the higher room. Things are hidden in a black night. Even the dream is black On the black-lacquered pillow, Even our talk is hidden. 13. Models.Butterfly Or falling leaf, Which ought I to imitate In my dancing? 14. Ghosts.Midnight uncalm shadows Creaking the willow. I am afraid. This firefly That has come to rest on my sleeve. How strange it is, How strange it all is. 15. Snow Dance.The snow dances endlessly, The snow falls in a whirlwind Endlessly. The wind-screen being put up Provides our coming together. Our bed of triple down With its silk embroidered in butterflies and peewees, My young lover. The perch-bird with the tender bill Comes back to perch. 16. Cats.With no care for duty or people Or Strange looks or the opinion of other cats, One Striped and the other white Go on the edge of the roof Or climb to the ridge of it. Driven by the need of love Which is Stronger than death. One day the wind of Autumn shall come And they will not know each other. My soul, I envy the love of cats. 17. Night Waiting.I have waited all night. It is midnight and I burn for love. Towards dawn I pillow my head on my folded arms In case I may see him in dream. I hate these blustering birds. 18. Intimacy.Two in their little room Far from other people and from life. The silence of boiling water, And she says: 'Listen to the wind In the pine tops. 19. Small Hours.Midnight has passed and she wakes And looks to left and right, There is no one. She only sees the long sleeve of her nightgown To left and right. 20. Knots in the Bamboo.The nightingale Climbing a bamboo Stem Sings his love at every knot, At every knot of it. The season of long night is coming

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And Concha answered: ‘I also see nothing; it is better to suppose that there is nothing to see. They are wealthy and the big one is very careless—she trusts me completely and I do my utmost. She is so taken up with the amighita that I really believe I could easily rob her! Quien sabe? They are certainly queer those two—however, I am blind, it is better so; and in any case they are only the English!’ But Pedro was very sorely afflicted, for Pedro had fallen in love with Mary, and now he must stay at home in the garden when she and Stephen rode up to the mountains. Now they wished to be all alone it seemed, and what food they took would be stuffed into a pocket. It was spring and Pedro was deeply enamoured, so that he sighed as he tended the roses, sighed and stubbed the hard earth with his toes, and made insolent faces at the good-tempered Ramon, and killed flies with a kind of grim desperation, and sang songs of longing under his breath: ‘A-a-a-y! Thou art to me as the mountain. Would I could melt thy virginal snows. . . .’ ‘Would I could kick thy behind!’ grinned Ramon. One evening Mary asked Pedro to sing, speaking to him in her halting Spanish. So Pedro went off and got his guitar; but when he must stand there and sing before Mary he could only stammer a childish old song having in it nothing of passion and longing: ‘I was born on a reef that is washed by the sea; It is a part of Spain that is called Teneriffe. I was born on a reef. . . .’ sang the unhappy Pedro. Stephen felt sorry for the lanky boy with the lovesick eyes, and so to console him she offered him money, ten pesetas—for she knew that these people set much store by money. But Pedro seemed to have grown very tall as he gently but firmly refused consolation. Then he suddenly burst into tears and fled, leaving his little guitar behind him. 3The days were too short, as were now the nights—those spring nights of soft heat and incredible moonlight. And because they both felt that something was passing, they would turn their minds to thoughts of the future. The future was drawing very near to the present; in less than three weeks they must start for Paris. Mary would suddenly cling to Stephen: ‘Say that you’ll never leave me, belovèd!’ ‘How could I leave you and go on living?’ Thus their talk of the future would often drift into talk of love, that is always timeless. On their lips, as in their hearts, would be words such as countless other lovers had spoken, for love is the sweetest monotony that was ever conceived of by the Creator. ‘Promise you’ll never stop loving me, Stephen.’ ‘Never. You know that I couldn’t Mary.’

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  He did not see his page again before they reached the town of Tsuyama in the Province of Mimasaka, and there he caught but a bare glimpse of him. That was his last chance, for soon the Lord arrived safely in the Province of Yezumo. There Guzayemon became a labourer to gain his food, for he had spent all his money during the long journey from Yedo to Yezumo. In the following year the Lord again set out for Yedo, to pay his court to the Shyôgun in April. Guzayemon followed in his train a second time; but he only beheld the page thrice during the whole journey: once in the ferry at Kuwana, the second time on the Steep hill of Shihomizaki, and the last time in the grove of Suzuga, quite close to Yedo. Then the Lord remained for a whole year at Yedo. Guzayemon went every day to the palace in the hope of seeing his love. With the life that he was leading, all his refinement and distinguished appearance had gone from him. He was haggard and miserable. No one could have discerned in him a fallen samurai, whose beauty had once been famous. His health was also affected. Next year he again followed the Lord from Yedo to his Province. He looked like a beggar, so greatly had he suffered. His clothes had more than one hole in them, and his sleeves were torn. But he kept his two swords, which are the soul of a samurai. In the outskirts of a town called Kanaya he saw the page's litter. And Shyume saw Guzayemon from his litter, and understood that Guzayemon loved him. He was deeply touched by such an attachment, and wished to speak to him. So he descended from his litter, while the train Stopped for a short time on Mount Sayono Nakayama, and Stood waiting for Guzayemon to approach. But Guzayemon was too far off to come near him, and they saw each other no more on that occasion. Guzayemon did not indeed behold him again during the whole of that journey, though he did not cease to think of him. His feet were worn and bleeding from his long walking; he had no more money, and ended by becoming a beggar by the roadside. But he clung desperately to his miserable life. He protected his body from rain, snow and wind with a thin reed hat and a garment of woven grass. He shivered when it blew cold. During the day he Stayed in a vile thatched hut in a field, and at evening, when Shyume returned home to his master's palace, stood near the palace door and consoled himself by watching the dear lad from a distance.