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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: -- Of course those big paper butterflies (o-cho and me-cho) which figure
at weddings must not be thought of as having any ghostly signification. As
emblems they only express the joy of living union, and the hope that the
newly married couple may pass through life together as a pair of
butterflies flit lightly through some pleasant garden,-- now hovering
upward, now downward, but never widely separating.
II
A small selection of hokku (1) on butterflies will help to illustrate
Japanese interest in the aesthetic side of the subject. Some are pictures
only,-- tiny color-sketches made with seventeen syllables; some are nothing
more than pretty fancies, or graceful suggestions;-- but the reader will
Kwaidan |
