SOURCE: Dickens, F. V. Preface to Hyak Nin Is'shiu or Stanzas by a Century of Poets, Being Japanese Lyrical Odes, translated by F. V. Dickens, pp. v-ix. London: Smith, Elder, & Co, 1866.

In the following excerpted preface to his translation of Japanese lyrical odes, Dickens describes the nature of these short poems first compiled by Fujiwara no Teika.

The Odes [of the Hyak Nin Is'-shiu] are all of a peaceful character, some didactic, some descriptive, and many amatory. Very often the point of the ode lies in a play upon words, very telling in the original, but seldom capable of adequate rendering into English. The most ancient of them seem to have an antiquity of one thousand years, and the most modern of at least six hundred. Each ode has, on an average, thirty characters or syllables; sometimes one or two more when the sounds of these combine with...