Japanese poetry is also conspicuously different from that of the Occident. It is a form of word painting in brief lyrics, and “it is primarily an expression of emotion.” The odes which all Japanese learn to compose are verbal melodies which can be neither transposed nor translated. Owing to the nature of the Japanese language, there are no accented syllables, nor is there any quantity, nor any rhyme. This is well explained by Aston in his “History of Japanese Literature.” He says:— “As every syllable ends in a vowel, and as there are only five vowels, there could only be five rhymes, the constant reiteration of which would be intolerably monotonous.... The only thing in the mechanism of Japanese poetry which distinguishes it from prose is the _alternation of phrases of five and seven syllables each_. It is, in fact, a species of blank verse.” The art of dancing, which consists mainly in rhythmic posturings, often of great beauty, and requiring not only physical training of the most rigorous character but a high degree of skill, is in turn intimately associated with the histrionic art. For an account of the early dances and their gradual merging into the classical drama or dance known as _Nō_ (literally, “accomplishment”), the reader is referred to the third volume of Captain Brinkley’s “Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature.” Few foreigners ever learn to appreciate Japanese dancing. Its primary purpose is mimetic. “The mechanics of the dance,” says Brinkley, “are as nothing to the Japanese spectator compared with the music of its motion, and he interprets the _staccato_ and _legato_ of its passages with discrimination amounting almost to instinct. In exceptional cases the foreigner’s perception may be similarly subtle,” but as he must generally be unable to apprehend the esoterics of the dance, he is “like one watching a drama where an unknown plot is acted in an unintelligible language.” As to the Japanese drama proper, it differs from our own chiefly in the stage setting and accessories, and in the greater importance given to the mimetic side of the performance.