Kishibe: Kind of stalker-ish, yes, or like some kind of guiding spirit. The next Chinese poem is part of a seven-character quatrain by the Tang-dynasty poet Li Shangyin.8 “Spring silkworms die and only then cease spinning their strands./The candle turns to ash and for the first time ceases shedding tears of love.” It’s a declaration of love that only death can end.
Nishioka: Pretty intense. Whoa. Calm down, Majime.9
Forgive me. What I just wrote was posturing. I made it sound as if I ask nothing whatsoever. That is not true. Sensing your presence, every night I toss and turn. How could I have known that living under the same roof could bring such sweet despair!
Times to see each other are hard, parting, too, is hard.10
How true this is! Since we live our lives in such different stretches of time, it is difficult to meet, and on those occasions when you have the night shift and can enjoy a relaxed morning, I am in danger of developing a phobia about leaving for work myself. Yet I cannot give in to such temptation but must remind myself the dictionary is waiting for me and drag myself from the doorstep in tears. On such days my thoughts scatter far and wide, and the order of the kana syllabary changes from “
a ka sa ta na ha ma ya ra wa” to “a ka sa ta na ha ri ma o ya.” 11I cannot help feeling anxious about whether the entries in The Great Passage will appear in the correct order.12 Kishibe: The next one is by the same poet.10It’s the first line of the silkworm poem.
“It is hard to meet, yet harder still to part.” Wait, doesn’t that sound as if it’s referring to two people already in a relationship?”
Nishioka: Never mind, let it go. What’s this got to do with silkworms and candles, though?
Kishibe: Chinese poetry is dynamic.
Kishibe: Uh-oh, now he wrote something off-the-wall again.11
If I were to write my present feelings in plain terms, I would sum them up this way: “Kaguya Kaguya, what shall I do with you?” Or perhaps I should say this:
Chang’e regrets having stolen the elixir.
Jade sea blue sky night after night in her heart.13
Chang’e is the Chinese moon goddess, a woman who drank a magic potion and flew off to live on the moon, much like Princess Kaguya in the Japanese folktale. Some say the poet had in mind a woman who had abandoned him and disappeared, that he was likening her to that remote moon goddess and wrote these lines in bitterness and longing. I concur. These lines are exactly expressive of my state of mind.
If only she had not drunk the forbidden potion, she would not have had to spend her nights picturing the same human face in fierce yearning!
I yearn. The expression “to want something so much a hand reaches from the throat to grasp it” must surely refer to what I feel as I burn with great intensity. I yearn for radiance. For beautiful beams of light. And yet for so many years, I never even knew that I lived in total darkness.
This is all I have to say. Or no, this is not all I want to say, but if I tried to say it all, even if I lived 150 years it wouldn’t be enough, and I would use up so much paper they would need to cut down every tree in the rain forest, so I will rest my pen here.
I would be very grateful if after reading this you would let me know what you think. Whatever your response, I am prepared. I will take it solemnly to heart.
Do take care of yourself.
To Kaguya Hayashi
from Mitsuya Majime
November 20xx Nishioka: Really, this is getting to be . . .
Kishibe: Hang in there, Nishioka. 12
Kishibe: This is the last Chinese poem.13Another seven-character quatrain by Li Shangyin, called “Chang’e.” I guess Majime really likes his poetry. It means “Chang’e must regret stealing the elixir of life and drinking it/as night after night she casts her gaze from the lonely moon world onto the cold azure seas.” It describes extreme loneliness in the void.
Nishioka: You know, I have to say, on rereading this thing, it seems to me that Majime is actually being pretty straightforward with his declaration of love. No real curveballs.
Kishibe: You think so? I think it’s pretty hard to follow. Plus his calligraphy is just too good. It takes away something, makes this seem like a letter from an old man.
Nishioka: Ouch. Poor Majime.
Kishibe: But in the end he and Kaguya got together, so all’s well that ends well.
Nishioka: True. Damn it. Majime, you sly fox! All right, we’re through here!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DICTIONARIES CITED
Kojien (Wide Garden of Words) and Iwanami kokugo jiten (Iwanami Japanese Dictionary), Iwanami Shoten.
Nihonkokugo daijiten (Great Dictionary of the Japanese Language), Shogakukan.
Daijirin (Great Forest of Words) and Shin meikai kokugo jiten (The New Clear Dictionary of Japanese), Sanseido.
Daigenkai (Great Sea of Words), Fuzanbo.
REFERENCES
Kurashima, Tokihisa. Jisho to Nihongo: Kokugo jiten o kaibou suru (Dictionaries and Japanese: Dissecting Japanese Dictionaries). Kobunsha Shinsho, 2002.
Matsui, Eiichi. Deatta Nihongo 50mango: Jishozukuri sandai no kiseki (Encounters with 500,000 Words: Three Generations of Dictionary Making). Sanseido, 2002.
Ishiyama, Morio. Urayomi fukayomi kokugo jisho (Reading Between the Lines, Reading Too Much into Things: Japanese Dictionaries). Soshisha, 2001.
Shibata, Takeshi and Yasushi Muto, eds. Meikai monogatari (The Story of Meikai Dictionaries). Sanseido, 2001.
Matsui, Eiichi. Kokugo jiten wa koshite tsukuru: Riso no jisho o mezashite (This Is How Japanese Dictionaries Are Made: Seeking the Ideal Dictionary). Minato No Hito, 2005.
Yamada, Toshio. Nihongo to jisho (Japanese and Dictionaries). Chuko Shinsho, 1978.
Okimori, Takuya, ed. Zusetsu Nihon no jisho (Dictionaries of Japan: Illustrated). Ohfu, 2008.