The Romance of the Milky Way eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 132 pages of information about The Romance of the Milky Way.

The Romance of the Milky Way eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 132 pages of information about The Romance of the Milky Way.

[Footnote 56:  Perhaps the term might be rendered “Shape-changing Jiz[=o].”  The verb bak[’e]ru means to change shape, to undergo metamorphosis, to haunt, and many other supernatural things.]

    Nanig[’e] naki
  Ishi no Jiz[=o] no
    Sugata sa[:e],
  Yo wa osoroshiki
  Mikag[’e] to zo naki.

[Though the stone Jiz[=o] looks as if nothing were the matter with it, they say that at night it assumes an awful aspect (or, “Though this image appears to be a common stone Jiz[=o], they say that at night it becomes an awful Jiz[=o]; of granite."[57])]

[Footnote 57:  The Japanese word for granite is mikag[’e]; and there is also an honorific term mikag[’e], applied to divinities and emperors, which signifies “august aspect,” “sacred presence,” etc....  No literal rendering can suggest the effect, in the fifth line, of the latter reading. Kag[’e] signifies “shadow,” “aspect,” and “power”—­especially occult power; the honorific prefix mi, attached to names and attributes of divinities, may be rendered “august.”]

XII.  UMI-B[=O]ZU

Place a large cuttlefish on a table, body upwards and tentacles downwards—­and you will have before you the grotesque reality that first suggested the fancy of the Umi-B[=o]zu, or Priest of the Sea.  For the great bald body in this position, with the staring eyes below, bears a distorted resemblance to the shaven head of a priest; while the crawling tentacles underneath (which are in some species united by a dark web) suggests the wavering motion of the priest’s upper robe....  The Umi-B[=o]zu figures a good deal in the literature of Japanese goblinry, and in the old-fashioned picture-books.  He rises from the deep in foul weather to seize his prey.

    Ita hito[:e]
  Shita wa Jigoku ni,
    Sumizom[’e] no
  B[=o]zu no umi ni
  D[’e]ru mo ayashina!

[Since there is but the thickness of a single plank (between the voyager and the sea), and underneath is Hell, ’tis indeed a weird thing that a black-robed priest should rise from the sea (or, “’tis surely a marvelous happening that,” etc.![58])]

[Footnote 58:  The puns are too much for me.... Ayashii means “suspicious,” “marvelous,” “supernatural,” “weird,” “doubtful.”—­In the first two lines there is a reference to the Buddhist proverb:  Funa-ita ichi-mai shita wa Jigoku ("under the thickness of a single ship’s-plank is Hell"). (See my Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, p. 206, for another reference to this saying.)]

XIII.  FUDA-H[’E]GASHI[59]

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The Romance of the Milky Way from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.