Smi 73 



And we must certainly go back to the old 

 Greek literature in order to find a poetry com- 

 parable to that of the Japanese on the subject 

 of musical insects. Perhaps of Greek verses on 

 the cricket, the most beautiful are the lines of 

 Meleager : " O cricket, the soother of slumber 

 . . . weaving the thread of a voice that causes 

 love to. wander away /'*... There are Japan- 

 ese poems scarcely less delicate in sentiment on 

 the chirruping of night-crickets; and Meleager's 

 promise to reward the little singer with gifts of 

 fresh leek, and with "drops of dew cut up 

 small," sounds strangely Japanese. Then the 

 poem attributed to Anyte, about the little girl 

 Myro making a tomb for her pet cicada and 

 cricket, and weeping because Hades, "hard to 

 be persuaded," had taken her playthings away, 

 represents an experience familiar to Japanese 

 child -life. I suppose that little Myro (how 

 freshly her tears still glisten, after seven and 

 twenty centuries!) prepared that "common 

 tomb" for her pets much as the little maid of 

 Nippon would do to-day, putting a small stone 

 on top to serve for a monument. But the wiser 

 Japanese Myro would repeat over the grave a 

 certain Buddhist prayer. 



