In Japan, a real bestiary goes with the everyday life: cats, badgers, foxes, rabbits, frogs … Each of these animals has a symbolic value: cats for storekeepers, badgers in front of pubs, foxes, rabbits and frogs in shrines.
As for the frogs, they are linked with water, of course, but not only.
In Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as in Japanese mythology, frogs hold a major place, but with a different symbolism.
In Greek, ‘frog’ is translated by βατρακος (batrakos), hence the scientific English words ‘batrachia, batrachian’, according to Oxford Dictionary of English.
Aristophanes, the famous playwriter of Athens, has written a play to which he gave the title of Frogs (406 B.C.). In this comedy, Dionysos, god of Wine and Theater, wants to bring back on Earth one or the other of the late dramatists Aeschylus or Sophocles. Therefore, he goes down into the underworld, where live a lot of frogs in swamps and ponds. The frog’s comical croaking βρεκεκεκεξ κοαξ κοαξ (brekekekex koax koax) enhances this funny play.
One of the frogs is proud to be here and says: ‘For the Muses of the lyre love us well; and hornfoot Pan who plays on the pipe his jocund lays; and Apollo, Harper bright, in our Chorus takes delight; for the strong reed’s sake which I grow within my lake to be girdled in his lyre’s deep shell. Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.’ (Translation: classics.mit.edu)
In Latin, ‘frog’ is translated by rana. It is supposed to forecast rain, as says the poet Virgil: ‘Never has rain brought ill to men unwarned. Either, as it gathers, … in the mud the frogs croak their immemorial plaint.” (Georgics, I, v. 373 sq., translated by H.R. Fairclough, 1916)
It reminds me of the image of a frog climbing a mini-ladder in its bowl, as a meteorological metaphor!
On another side, the poet Ovid tells a story that works as an aetiological myth, i.e. a myth giving figurative explanations about the reason (αιτια aitia means ’cause’) of natural phenomena. In the Metamorphoses, he poetically says why frogs are what they are.
Once upon a time, the goddess Latona (mother, by Zeus, of Artemis and Apollo), travelling in Lycia, was prevented by cruel countrymen from quenching her thirst with the cool water of a spring. As she became angry and wanted to punish them, she said: ‘Live in that swamp for ever!’ Then, says Ovid, ‘it happened as the goddess wished: it is their delight to be under the water, now to submerge their bodies completely in the deep pool, now to show their heads, now to swim on the surface. Often they squat on the edges of the marsh, often retreat to the cool lake, but now as before they employ their ugly voices in quarrelling, and shamefully, even though they are under the water, from under the water they try out their abuse. Now their voices are also hoarse, their inflated throats are swollen, and their croaking distends their wide mouths. Their shoulders and heads meet, and their necks appear to have vanished. Their backs are green; their bellies, the largest part of their body, are white, and, as newly made frogs, they leap in their muddy pool.’ (Metamorphoses, VI, v. 313 sq., translated by A.S. Kline, 2000)
Also, the scientist Pliny the Elder has carefully reported popular beliefs and superstitions as well as scientific facts about frogs, when he wrote about ‘Medicinal uses of marine animals‘. For example, ‘Frogs, they say, have a double liver; and of this liver, when exposed to the ants, the part that is most eaten away is thought to be an effectual antidote to every kind of poison… In the left side, a bone, they say, if put into the drink, (has the property of) conciliating love and ending discord and strife. Worn, too, as an amulet, it acts as an aphrodisiac, we are told.’ (Natural History, Book XXXII, ch. 18, translated by J. Bostock)
Other countries, other habits … and other use of amulets!
In Japan, according to a French dictionary of symbols, some people carry on themselves a frog’s picture that is called ‘substitute frog’: it suffers the consequences of a disaster instead of its owner – acting as a protection against disasters.
To tell the truth, there is a play on words! In Japanese, the name kaeru (frog) is homophonous with the verb kaeru (to come back, to return). Therefore, frogs have become guardians of travellers, who run the risk of leaving their homes. It is also said that a frog always come back, even though it drifted apart from its place of residence. Hence, frogs are present everywhere pilgrims go, i.e. in shrines.
Incidentally, the famous poet Bashō (18th Century), travelling in Japan, has written a lot of poems assembled under the title The narrow road to the deep North.
Among this collection of short texts, this well-known haïku : ‘Furuike ya, Kawazu tobikomu, Mizu no oto’, has been translated in English by an extraordinary teacher, Lafcadio Hearn a.k.a. Koizumi Yakumo, in Matsue : ‘Old pond – frogs jumping in – sound of water‘. (‘Frogs’, Exotics and Retrospectives)
This haïku, although short – according to the rule of Japanese poetry – emphasizes the silence after a small noise, hence the harmony which brings together the opposites.
Moreover, frogs in Japan bring happiness and symbolize tenacity, persistence and hope. All these virtues are included in the frog of this picture (seen in a shrine of Izu peninsula):
The Japanese sentence means: ‘Walking step by step, you finally reach your destination’.
This is a far-reaching symbol of courage, as the little frog wants to climb the (almost) unreachable Mount Fuji and delivers this general message: ‘Never give up!’