satellite of the Haikai, and aims at the same conciseness and suggestiveness. The most noted writer of Haibun is Yokoi Yayu (1703–1783), a high official of Nagoya, in Owari. He is the author of the much admired apologue which follows:—
"An earthen vessel, whether it be square or round, strives to adapt to its own form the thing which it contains: a bag does not insist on preserving its own shape, but conforms itself to that which is put into it. Full, it reaches above men's shoulders; empty, it is folded up and hidden in the bosom. How the cloth bag which knows the freedom of fulness and emptiness must laugh at the world contained within the jar!
Of moon and flowers
Whose form is ever changing!"
In other words: How much better it is to yield our hearts to the manifold influences of external nature, like the moon and flowers, which are always changing their aspect with the weather and the season, than, self-concentrated, to try to make everything conform to one's own narrow standard!
Kiōka (literally "mad poetry") is a comic and vulgar variety of Tanka. There is here an absolute freedom both in respect to language and choice of subject. The Kiōka must be funny, that is all. In this kind of poetry, of which an immense quantity was produced during the Yedo period, the punning propensity of the Japanese has been allowed full scope. Share (pronounced "sharry") reigns there supreme. Share is one of those numerous
