Winter Daphne and Trumpet Vine

Image: Hideo Yoshino Poem Monument and Winter Daphne

The area around the east side of the Old University Library is called Bungaku no Oka (Literature Hill), where three literary monuments—a haiku monument for Mantaro Kubota, a tanka monument for Hideo Yoshino, and a poetry monument for Haruo Sato—stand alongside a bust of Kaoru Osanai, the father of Shingeki (modern Japanese theater). The Hideo Yoshino monument at the front was erected in July 1972.

"When the winter daphne blooms before the library, both love and exams were painful."

These words are engraved on the monument, and the winter daphne planted nearby emits a strong fragrance in early spring. One of Japan's three great fragrant trees, the winter daphne (jinchoge) is said to be named after the scents of agarwood (jinko) and cloves (choji). In fact, prior to the two-year seismic reinforcement and renovation work on the library starting in 2017, winter daphne also grew beside the entrance. However, the excavation around the building during construction necessitated shallower soil, forcing the removal of the plantings. Looking back even further to before the construction of the East Building in 2000, many Keio University alumni likely remember being greeted by the scent of winter daphne as they passed through Maboroshi no Mon and entered the campus. Winter daphne bloomed in profusion in front of the library and beside the stairs. In October 1972, three months after the monument was built, 50 winter daphne saplings were donated and planted by the 1925 Mita-kai, but today only two or three plants remain, which is a lonely sight.

Because Mita Mountain was originally the middle residence of the Shimabara Clan, it was rich with garden trees, and there was even a pond in front of the Jukukan-kyoku (Keio Corporate Administration). Tracing back through history, winter daphne was already found everywhere in the Taisho era: in front of the library, in front of the Public Hall, beside Vickers Hall, and at the entrance of Banraisha. Since Hideo Yoshino enrolled in 1920 (Taisho 9), the scent of winter daphne flowers must have been almost overwhelming during the exam season in February and March. For Keio University alumni who were students before the war, the scent of winter daphne surely evokes memories of Mita Mountain.

Haruo Sato's poetry monument is engraved with the four-line poem "Dansho" (Fragment), beginning "When I come wandering, the autumn grass..." but Sato also has a poem about his student days at Mita titled "Sake, Songs, Tobacco, and Women." It was published in "Mita Bungaku" in 1928.

"At the entrance of Vickers Hall, the trumpet vines bloomed in clusters. It was sentimental and lovely; I wonder if they remain today without withering... At the edge of the sea at Shinagawa Bay, I leaned against the wooden fence and gazed out. The leaves of a single ginkgo tree withered and scattered, burying the garden, and the winter exams drew near..."

Sato was fond of trumpet vines (nosenkazura), and his memorial hall in Wakayama is surrounded by orange trumpet vines in the summer. They were also beside the library in Mita, but they are gone now.

After the completion of the East Building, the then-director of the Office of Facilities and Property Management built a wooden pergola and trained the trumpet vine runners that were crawling below to grow over it. It was a flower connected to Bungaku no Oka, but it disappeared before anyone noticed. The pergola still stands under the bridge, and I hope that it can somehow be restored.