_shi_, _nomi_, _bakari_, just, only, precisely--in ascending degree of certainty. All of these, especially _shi_, are often not more than slightly emphatic expletives. _made_, up to; _gari_, direction of; _kara_, from; _kara_ (_gara_) = _nagara_ (_naru karada_ or _naru kara_), just as (applied to preceding noun); after verbs, whilst, although. _kaku_, thus, _to mo kaku mo_, that way and this way, anyhow, somehow. _kashi_, be it thus, so be it, may it be so! (Aston). _mashi_ (_mase_, &c.), _mahoshiki_, verbal terminations expressing desire or contingency. _meru_, verbal termination (derived from fut. in _mu_, _mu_ or _mi aru_?), indicates some degree of likelihood. _ramu_, for _aramu_, _hana chiruramu_ = _hana chiru aramu_ = _hana chiramu_, the flowers will, wilt. _rashi_ = _ramu_, nearly; _natsu kitarurashi_, seemeth the summer to have come (Aston). There is an adjectival ending, _rashiki_, of similar import. Of the syntax of Old Japanese little need be said. It is simple owing to the absence of almost the whole apparatus of Western grammar. The order of words has already been mentioned, and in prose is rigid--in poetry inversions are common. In large measure it is the opposite of English order, and this fact, together with the relegation of the verb to the end of the sentence, and the absence of expressed subject, constitutes the initial and principal difficulty of Japanese, apart from that of the vocabulary, the elements of which have usually a connotation different from that of their nearest representatives in any Western language. The absence of relatives and paucity of pronouns are additional difficulties, and the reader has to grow familiar by practice with the modes in which the more definite thought of the West is represented in the vaguer and looser language of Old Japan, where the visual aids of later Sinico-Japanese are not present. Nevertheless if the real meanings of the words be attained, the logical subject kept in mind as gathered from the context, the relations of words and phrases in apposition rather than in accidental or strict syntactical connexion be observed, the influence of the particles in edifying the sentence into a construction understood, and some facility gained in keeping the mind in suspense until the principal verb--read with the relations to it of the subordinate verbs--be reached, there is no great difficulty, apart from the inevitable one of difference of circumstance and allusion, in arriving at a comprehension of the texts. And these will be found, especially the Lays, to have preserved a peculiar beauty and charm, if not of the highest order, of their own, which no version can hope to convey. The opening of the first lay sufficiently exemplifies the reversed order of the Japanese sentence:-- Ko mo yo mi ko mochi fukushi mo yo fukushi mochi kono woka ni na tsumasu ko-- Read almost directly backwards, we get:--