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various translations. On the other hand, the rhythm of the short verse of thirty-one syllables is so peculiar, and so constant, by whatever author it may be handled, that it has been judged best to reproduce it in every instance in the same English form, viz., a four-lined stanza, slight differences of melody being represented by an occasional change in the position of the rhymes.

The whole question, of course, is one of ear, and it must be left to more competent scholars to decide whether the translator's ear has guided him as correctly as the circumstances of the case will allow. To such as would argue, from the absence of rhyme in Japanese poetry, to the necessity of excluding rhyme from an English translation, it may suffice to point out, that English blank verse is, in reality, as different from the Japanese metre as is English rhymed verse, reposing, as it does, on completely different principles; and also that many of the best translators of Western classical poetry, from Dryden downwards, have not hesitated to adopt rhyme, and even to break up the continuous flow of Greek and Latin hexameters, to fit them into the straiter limits of the modern stanza.

NOTE ON THE SPELLING OF JAPANESE PROPER NAMES.

No gonoral agreement as to the best method of translitoring Japanese having as yet been arrived at by European students of the languago, great confusion still prevails in the Roman spelling of native names of persons and places. Most writers seem to have taken as their standard the modern pronunciation of the portion of the country with which they happened themselves to be most familiar, and to have

written down the words, more or loss approximately, by ear. Such a plan, which is not without its drawbacks, even in the case of a spoken dialect, is singularly inapplicable to a dead language such as ancient Japanese, which differs as much from the speech of the present day as Latin does from Italian, and whose true pronunciation is not to be ascertained with any certainty. It has, therefore, been thought advis able in the present work to follow a more regular system, suggested by Mr. Satow in vol. vii. part iii. of the "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan,” and which consists in simply reproducing in Roman letters each syllable of the original precisely as it is written. It seems almost certain that in ancient times each letter was sounded, though that is no longer the case; thus, Muñyefushifu is now pronounced in three syllables, Manyóshyu. As a rough general rule, it will be best to give to the consonants their English, and to the vowcls their Italian, value. Japanese has, like French, little or no tonic accent; and such native names as are introduced into the translations have, therefore, been accentuated on whatever syllable best suits the metre.

various translations. On the other hand, the rhythm of the short verse of thirty-one syllables is so peculiar, and so constant, by whatever author it may be handled, that it has been judged best to reproduce it in every instance in the same English form, viz., a four-lined stanza, slight differences of melody being represented by an occasional change in the position of the rhymes.

The whole question, of course, is one of ear, and it must be left to more competent scholars to decide whether the translator's ear has guided him as correctly as the circumstances of the case will allow. To such as would argue, from the absence of rhyme in Japanese poetry, to the necessity of excluding rhyme from an English translation, it may suffice to point out, that English blank verse is, in reality, as different from the Japanese metre as is English rhymed verse, reposing, as it does, on completely different principles; and also that many of the best translators of Western classical poetry, from Dryden downwards, have not hesitated to adopt rhyme, and even to break up the continuous flow of Greek and Latin hexameters, to fit them into the straiter limits of the modern stanza.

NOTE ON THE SPELLING OF JAPANESE PROPER

NAMES.

No general agreement as to the best method of translitering Japanese having as yot been arrived at by European students of the languago, great confusion still prevails in the Roman spelling of native namnes of persons and places. Most writers seem to have taken as their standard the modern pronunciation of the portion of the country with which they happened themselves to be most familiar, and to have

written down the words, more or less approximately, by ear. Such a plan, which is not without its drawbacks, even in the case of a spoken dialect, is singularly inapplicable to a dead language such as ancient Japanese, which differs as much from the speech of the present day as Latin does from Italian, and whose true pronunciation is not to be ascertained with any certainty. It has, therefore, been thought advisable in the present work to follow a more regular system, suggested by Mr. Satow in vol. vii. part iii. of the "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan,” and which consists in simply reproducing in Roman letters each syllable of the original precisely as it is written. It seems almost certain that in ancient times each letter was sounded, though that is no longer the case; thus, Muñyefushifu is now pronounced in three syllables, Manýóshyu. As a rough general rule, it will be best to give to the consonants their English, and to the vowcls their Italian, value. Japanese has, like French, little or no tonic accent; and such native names as are introduced into the translations have, therefore, been accentuated on whatever syllable best suits the metre.

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Ballads

FROM THE

"MANYEFUSHIFU;"

OR,

"COLLECTION OF A MYRIAD LEAVES."

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