A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

Songs of Japanese Children l8l
" The frogs of yonder mountain cry. Why do they
cry ? Is it for cold that they cry ? Is it for hunger that
they cry? If you are hungry, till the rice-field." — "It is
dirty work, to till the rice-field." — " If it be dirty work,
wash."— "It is cold, to wash."—" If it be cold, warm
yourselves by the fire." — "It is too hot by the fire." —
"If it be too hot, go further away."
—
"If we go further
away, the fleas will bite us." — " If the fleas bite you, kill
them." — " It is too pitiful to kill the poor things." — " If
you pity them so much, embrace them, and sleep with
them." — "If we embrace the fleas and sleep with them,
they will bite us." — "If the fleas bite you, kill them,"
&c., &c.
By far the strangest thing in this part of my
collection is a kind of metaphysical dialogue,
chanted by children as a play-song ! It probably
survives from the period when the teaching of
children was chiefly intrusted to the Buddhist
priesthood, and when almost every Buddhist
temple was also a school, or had some kind of
a school attached to it. There is nothing very
remarkable about the composition itself: it is
only the choice of subject — an astonishing sub-
ject for a play-song, — that makes the thing seem
strange to a Western mind.
This subject is the infinity of Jizo Bosatsu (the
Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha) , whose smiling images
may be seen by almost every roadside, and in