* * * * *

—­With these necessary explanations, the quality of the following ky[=o]ka can be understood.  A picture which appears in the Ky[=o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari shows a maid-servant anxious to offer a cup of tea to her mistress,—­a victim of the “ghost-sickness.”  The servant cannot distinguish between the original and the apparitional shapes before her; and the difficulties of the situation are suggested in the first of the ky[=o]ka which I have translated:—­

    Ko-ya, sor[’e] to? 
  Ayam[’e] mo wakanu
    Rikomby[=o]: 
  Izur[’e] we tsuma to
  Hiku zo wazura[:u]!

[Which one is this?—­which one is that?  Between the two shapes of the Rikomby[=o] it is not possible to distinguish.  To find out which is the real wife—­that will be an affliction of spirit indeed!]

    Futatsu naki
  Inochi nagara mo
    Kak[’e]ga[:e] no
  Karada no miyuru—­
  Kage no wazurai!

    [Two lives there certainly are not;—­nevertheless an extra
    body is visible, by reason of the Shadow-Sickness.]

    Naga-tabi no
  Oto we shita[:i]t[’e]
    Mi futatsu ni
  Naru wa onna no
  S[=a]ru rikomby[=o].

    [Yearning after her far-journeying husband, the woman has
    thus become two bodies, by reason of her ghostly sickness.]

    Miru kag[’e] mo
  Naki wazurai no
    Rikomby[=o],—­
  Omoi no hoka ni
  Futatsu miru kag[’e]!

[Though (it was said that), because of her ghostly sickness, there was not even a shadow of her left to be seen,—­yet, contrary to expectation, there are two shadows of her to be seen![28]]

[Footnote 28:  The Japanese say of a person greatly emaciated by sickness, miru-kag[’e] mo naki:  “Even a visible shadow of him is not!”—­Another rendering is made possible by the fact that the same expression is used in the sense of “unfit to be seen,”—­“though the face of the person afflicted with this ghostly sickness is unfit to be seen, yet by reason of her secret longing [for another man] there are now two of her faces to be seen.”  The phrase omoi no hoka, in the fourth line, means “contrary to expectation;” but it is ingeniously made to suggest also the idea of secret longing.]

    Rikomby[=o]
  Hito ni kakushit[’e]
    Oku-zashiki,
  Omot[’e] y d[:e]asanu
  Kag[’e] no wazurai.

    [Afflicted with the Rikomby[=o], she hides away from people
    in the back room, and never approaches the front of the
    house,—­because of her Shadow-disease.[29]]

[Footnote 29:  There is a curious play on words in the fourth line.  The word omot[’e], meaning “the front,” might, in reading, be sounded as omott[’e], “thinking.”  The verses therefore might also be thus translated:—­“She keeps her real thoughts hidden in the back part of the house, and never allows them to be seen in the front part of the house,—­because she is suffering from the ‘Shadow-Sickness’ [of love].”]