Snow on the Pine

Last week, Emperor Hirohito, on a dais in front of a gold-leaf screen, facing 35 morning-coated members of the Imperial Household, heard a chorus singsong through five winning poems in the annual Imperial Poetry Party.

In 1938 the Emperor had been a little careless with his keynote poem:

Peaceful is the morning in the Shrine garden;

World conditions, it is hoped, also will be peaceful.

Hirohito's soldiers in China took him seriously, began deserting. Though the annual poem is usually widely distributed, this one was squelched.

In melancholy 1946 the Emperor took more care in setting the theme--"Snow on the Pine":

Man should be like the manly pine

That does not change its color though bearing the fallen snow.

Likeliest interpretation: the Emperor was exhorting susceptible Japanese not to "change color" by aping Western ways. Witty Carol Bache (who knows her Japan after 14 years'in the U.S. Embassy at Tokyo) offered a paraphrase un-Japanese in its directness:

See here, boys, don't rush out in your plus fours too fast--

Think how funny your legs look.

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