should be reckoned an exception to this statement. But its authenticity has been questioned; and, in any case, it is in the Chinese language, and therefore, properly speaking, forms no part of Japanese literature.
The oldest relics of the genuine native literature of Japan are a series of songs contained in the ancient annals known as the Kojiki and Nihongi, and the Norito or liturgies of the Shinto, or native Japanese religion.
These songs are associated with some historical or quasi-historical incident, and are ascribed to Mikados or other distinguished personages. Several of them are attributed to Jimmu Tennō, who is said to have founded the Japanese monarchy in 660 B.C., and equally fictitious accounts are given of others. Probably we shall not be far wrong if we assign most of the poems of the Kojiki and Nihongi to the latter part of the Archaic period, namely, to the sixth and seventh centuries of our era.
The poetry of this time possesses a certain philological and archæological interest, but its merit as literature is small. The language is still unformed, and there is a plentiful lack of imagination and of the other higher qualities of poetry. What, for example, can be more primitive than the following war-song, which is supposed to have been chanted by Jimmu Tennō's soldiers, and which, the author of the Nihongi informs us, was still sung by the Imperial Guards in his own day?
Ho! now is the time;
Ha! Ha! Psha!
Even now
My boys!
Even now
My boys!"
