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JAPANESE LITERATURE
Or this, which is dated 90 B.C.?
"The Hall of Miwa (Of sweet saké fame),Even at morn its door Let us push open—The door of the Hall of Miwa."
Saké, it ought, perhaps, to be explained, is an intoxicating liquor brewed from rice. The sentiment of this song therefore recalls our own "We won't go home till morning."
The following, which is said to have been composed by the Mikado Ōjin, A.D. 282, but which more probably belongs to the sixth century, may serve to indicate the highest level to which poetry attained during this period. This Mikado was about to add to his harem a beautiful woman named Kami-naga-hime, or the "long-haired maid," when he discovered that his son had fallen violently in love with her. He invited them both to a banquet, and then surprised his son by resigning to him the lady with the following words:—
"Lo! my son!On the moor, garlic to gather,Garlic to gather,On the way as I went,Pleasing of perfumeWas the orange in flower.Its branches beneathMen had all plundered,Its branches aboveBirds perching had withered,Midway its branchesHeld in their hidingA blushing maiden.Lo! my son, for theeLet her burst into blossom."
