Due to popular request, here is a short video which teaches you how to add a link in a blog comment. It is very easy. You simply add the code for “go to this website” by hand. Watch the video, and soon you will be adding cool-looking links like a professional.
Thank you so much for showing us how to make links. I try it now. 清少納言 was born at Heian Period about 1000 years ago, and famous for her essay called 枕草子. She wrote favors of four seasons heartily and quietly（四季のしみじみした情緒）. About autumn is like following. (I don’t know who translated this into English.)
Autumn is best at dusk as the hills, now in the full direct sunlight, seem quite closer, and as crows fly away from ones vantage point into their nest flocking in threes, then in fours, then in pairs, how moving it is, this combination of light and darkness. It is more wonderful even when wild geese and the like, in formation, fly away and become specks in the sky. The sun finally sets, and then it is the sound of the wind, and the chirping of crickets.
This is beautiful. Thank you. I’ve of course heard of The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, but I’ve never read it. By the way, the Wikipedia entry on Pillow Book tells us that there are other books written in this genre. Perhaps my blog is a kind of pillow book!
I think rhythm of verse is a part of ourselves, pulse, breath and so on, which inspaced within us. And there are other rhythms:
wave, tide, and so on, outside of us, and they are also inspaced from view of distance. When they gravitate towards each other, some power of words would be created. In ancient times people didn’t know science but it is supposed that they instinctively knew the power.
My last comment came from this question why phrases composed in 5-syllable, 7-syllable, or the various arrangement of the two, have “prevailed” in Japan. To read your commnet, pumpkin pie, I’ve come to think that ancient people might have found the power of the words expressed in 5-syallabe and 7-syllable, and that rythmic structure have been handed down like something ingrained in Japanese.
Last time, we learned that stories had to be learned by heart when there was no writing system. In order to make the memorizing easier, various tricks were invented like rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, and so on, in English. In Japanese, the tricks seem to be 5-syllable, 7-syllable or the various combination of the two, from the ancient times. Probably the time of Manyoshu Anthology? Japanese people have been so accustomed to this rhythmic structure that they can memorize with fewer efforts. This structure is used not only in “haiku” or “waka” but also in slogans of any kind, song lyrics, translated words, and so on.
おわりよければ,(7)すべてよし(5) All’s well that ends well. (Shakespeare)
ほしがりません、かつまでは We want nothing till we win. (war slogan)
マッチいっぽん, かじのもと (fire prevention slogan)
ほたるのひかり、まどのゆき … (lyrics of Auld Lang Syne)
なもしらぬ とおきしまより …
And what else?
I think there is a difference between tricks or devices to memorize huge amounts of verse or history by heart, and tricks used to sell certain products or policies to the people. Do we remember Basho’s famous poem of the frog which ends 「みずの音」 because it uses a pattern of 5-7-5?
Slogans and marketing may take advantage of certain tendencies in human nature, but their purpose is I think quite different from the purpose of learning the entire Kojiki by heart.
I agree with your point. I remember Basho’s haiku for its conciseness and vividness which arouses emotion in me, not because of 5-7-5 structure. Slogan makers have utilized that kind of rhythmic structure, because they are mnemonic.
Thank you for teaching us the valuable, almighty method to make a link when there’s no special tool to do that. As the process is explained in detail, I won’t fail, if only I’m careful enough. Inspired by your zeal, I’ll give it a try.
I’ve found a website which contains the poem 夕暮れの時はよい時 on behalf of “stray bird.”
In case my trial is unsuccesful, this is the URL
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/smgrh1992/e/599e9c1db0eb6a98c7c1e0f45c6cc799
This picture by Ono Chikko devouring the moment just before sunset, apparently influenced by Western Art, depicts his joy and lament of 夕暮れの時 with such Haiku as “The River Mogami/has drowned the hot,summer sun/into the sea!” 暑き日を海にいれたり最上川by Basho