The Romance of the Milky Way Part 4

Perhaps the legend of Tanabata, as it was understood by those old poets, can make but a faint appeal to Western minds. Nevertheless, in the silence of transparent nights, before the rising of the moon, the charm of the ancient tale sometimes descends upon me, out of the scintillant sky,--to make me forget the monstrous facts of science, and the stupendous horror of s.p.a.ce. Then I no longer behold the Milky Way as that awful Ring of the Cosmos, whose hundred million suns are powerless to lighten the Abyss, but as the very Amanogawa itself,--the River Celestial. I see the thrill of its s.h.i.+ning stream, and the mists that hover along its verge, and the water-gra.s.ses that bend in the winds of autumn. White Orihime I see at her starry loom, and the Ox that grazes on the farther sh.o.r.e;--and I know that the falling dew is the spray from the Herdsman's oar. And the heaven seems very near and warm and human; and the silence about me is filled with the dream of a love unchanging, immortal,--forever yearning and forever young, and forever left unsatisfied by the paternal wisdom of the G.o.ds.

GOBLIN POETRY

Recently, while groping about an old book shop, I found a collection of Goblin Poetry in three volumes, containing many pictures of goblins. The t.i.tle of the collection is _Ky[=o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari_, or "The Mad Poetry of the _Hyaku-Monogatari_." The _Hyaku-Monogatari_, or "Hundred Tales," is a famous book of ghost stories. On the subject of each of the stories, poems were composed at different times by various persons,--poems of the sort called _Ky[=o]ka_, or Mad Poetry,--and these were collected and edited to form the three volumes of which I became the fortunate possessor. The collecting was done by a certain Tak.u.mi Jingor[=o], who wrote under the literary pseudonym "Temmer Re[=o]jin" (Ancient of the Temmer Era). Tak.u.mi died in the first year of Bunky[=u] (1861), at the good age of eighty; and his collection seems to have been published in the sixth year of Kae (1853). The pictures were made by an artist called Masazumi, who worked under the pseudonym "Ry[=o]sai Kanjin."

From a prefatory note it appears that Tak.u.mi Jingor[=o] published his collection with the hope of reviving interest in a once popular kind of poetry which had fallen into neglect before the middle of the century. The word _ky[=o]ka_ is written with a Chinese character signifying "insane" or "crazy;" and it means a particular and extraordinary variety of comic poetry. The form is that of the cla.s.sic _tanka_ of thirty-one syllables (arranged 57577);--but the subjects are always the extreme reverse of cla.s.sical; and the artistic effects depend upon methods of verbal jugglery which cannot be explained without the help of numerous examples. The collection published by Tak.u.mi includes a good deal of matter in which a Western reader can discover no merit; but the best of it has a distinctly grotesque quality that reminds one of Hood's weird cleverness in playing with grim subjects. This quality, and the peculiar j.a.panese method of mingling the playful with the terrific, can be suggested and explained only by reproducing in Romaji the texts of various _ky[=o]ka_, with translations and notes.

The selection which I have made should prove interesting, not merely because it will introduce the reader to a cla.s.s of j.a.panese poetry about which little or nothing has yet been written in English, but much more because it will afford some glimpses of a supernatural world which still remains for the most part unexplored. Without knowledge of Far Eastern superst.i.tions and folk-tales, no real understanding of j.a.panese fiction or drama or poetry will ever become possible.

There are many hundreds of poems in the three volumes of the _Ky[=o]ka Hyaku-Monogatari_; but the number of the ghosts and goblins falls short of the one hundred suggested by the t.i.tle. There are just ninety-five. I could not expect to interest my readers in the whole of this goblinry, and my selection includes less than one seventh of the subjects. The Faceless Babe, The Long-Tongued Maiden, The Three-Eyed Monk, The Pillow-Mover, The Thousand Heads, The Acolyte-with-the-Lantern, The Stone-that-Cries-in-the-Night, The Goblin-Heron, The Goblin-Wind, The Dragon-Lights, and The Mountain-Nurse, did not much impress me. I omitted _ky[=o]ka_ dealing with fancies too gruesome for Western nerves,--such as that of the _Ob.u.medori_,--also those treating of merely local tradition.

The subjects chosen represent national rather than provincial folklore,--old beliefs (mostly of Chinese origin) once prevalent throughout the country, and often referred to in its popular literature.

I. KITSUNe-BI

The Will-o'-the-wisp is called _kitsune-bi_ ("fox-fire"), because the goblin-fox was formerly supposed to create it. In old j.a.panese pictures it is represented as a tongue of pale red flame, hovering in darkness, and shedding no radiance upon the surfaces over which it glides.

To understand some of the following _ky[=o]ka_ on the subject, the reader should know that certain superst.i.tions about the magical power of the fox have given rise to several queer folk-sayings,--one of which relates to marrying a stranger. Formerly a good citizen was expected to marry within his own community, not outside of it; and the man who dared to ignore traditional custom in this regard would have found it difficult to appease the communal indignation. Even to-day the villager who, after a long absence from his birthplace, returns with a strange bride, is likely to hear unpleasant things said,--such as: "_Wakaranai-mono we hippate-kita!... Doko no uma no hone da ka?_"

("Goodness knows what kind of a thing he has dragged here after him!

Where did he pick up that old horse-bone?") The expression _uma no hone_, "old horse-bone," requires explanation.

A goblin-fox has the power to a.s.sume many shapes; but, for the purpose of deceiving _men_, he usually takes the form of a pretty woman. When he wants to create a charming phantom of this kind, he picks up an old horse-bone or cow-bone, and holds it in his mouth. Presently the bone becomes luminous; and the figure of a woman defines about it,--the figure of a courtesan or singing-girl.... So the village query about the man who marries a strange wife, "What old horse-bone has he picked up?" signifies really, "What wanton has bewitched him?" It further implies the suspicion that the stranger may be of outcast blood: a certain cla.s.s of women of pleasure having been chiefly recruited, from ancient time, among the daughters of eta and other pariah-people.

Hi tomos.h.i.+te Kitsune no kwases.h.i.+, Asobime[26] wa-- Izuka no uma no Hone ni ya aruran!

[Footnote 26: _Asobime_, a courtesan: lit., "sporting-woman." The eta and other pariah cla.s.ses furnished a large proportion of these women.

The whole meaning of the poem is as follows: "See that young wanton with her lantern! It is a pretty sight--but so is the sight of a fox, when the creature kindles his goblin-fire and a.s.sumes the shape of a girl. And just as your fox-woman will prove to be no more than an old horse-bone, so that young courtesan, whose beauty deludes men to folly, may be nothing better than an eta."]

[_--Ah the wanton (lighting her lantern)!--so a fox-fire is kindled in the time of fox-transformation!... Perhaps she is really nothing more than an old horse-bone from somewhere or other...._]

Kitsune-bi no Moyuru ni tsukete, Waga tama no Kiyuru y[=o] nari Kokoro-hoso-michi!

[_Because of that Fox-fire burning there, the very soul of me is like to be extinguished in this narrow path (or, in this heart-depressing solitude)._[27]]

[Footnote 27: The supposed utterance of a belated traveler frightened by a will-o'-the-wisp. The last line allows of two readings.

_Kokoro-hosoi_ means "timid;" and _hosoi michi_ (_hoso-michi_) means a "narrow path," and, by implication, a "lonesome path."]

II. RIKOMBY[=O]

The term _Rikomby[=o]_ is composed with the word _rikon_, signifying a "shade," "ghost," or "spectre," and the word _by[=o]_, signifying "sickness," "disease." An almost literal rendering would be "ghost-sickness." In j.a.panese-English dictionaries you will find the meaning of _Rikomby[=o]_ given as "hypochondria;" and doctors really use the term in this modern sense. But the ancient meaning was _a disorder of the mind which produced a Double_; and there is a whole strange literature about this weird disease. It used to be supposed, both in China and j.a.pan, that under the influence of intense grief or longing, caused by love, the spirit of the suffering person would create a Double. Thus the victim of _Rikomby[=o]_ would appear to have two bodies, exactly alike; and one of these bodies would go to join the absent beloved, while the other remained at home. (In my "Exotics and Retrospectives," under the t.i.tle "A Question in the Zen Texts,"

the reader will find a typical Chinese story on the subject,--the story of the girl Ts'ing.) Some form of the primitive belief in doubles and wraiths probably exists in every part of the world; but this Far Eastern variety is of peculiar interest because the double is supposed to be caused by love, and the subjects of the affliction to belong to the gentler s.e.x.... The term _Rikomby[=o]_ seems to be applied to the apparition as well as to the mental disorder supposed to produce the apparition: it signifies "doppelganger" as well as "ghost-disease."

--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, sore to?

Ayame mo wakanu Rikomby[=o]: Izure we tsuma to Hiku zo wazurau!

[_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 Kakegae 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 s.h.i.+tate 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 kage mo Naki wazurai no Rikomby[=o],-- Omoi no hoka ni Futatsu miru kage!

[_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 j.a.panese say of a person greatly emaciated by sickness, _miru-kage 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 kakus.h.i.+te Oku-zas.h.i.+ki, Omote y deasanu Kage 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 _omote_, meaning "the front," might, in reading, be sounded as _omotte_, "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]."]

Mi wa koko ni; Tama wa otoko ni Sone suru;-- Kokoro mo s.h.i.+raga Haha ga kaih[=o].

[_Here her body lies; but her soul is far away, asleep in the arms of a man;--and the white-haired mother, little knowing her daughter's heart, is nursing (only the body)._[30]]

[Footnote 30: There is a double meaning, suggested rather than expressed, in the fourth line. The word _s.h.i.+raga_, "white-hair,"

suggests _s.h.i.+razu_, "not knowing."]

Tamakus.h.i.+ge Futatsu no sugata Misenuru wa, Awase-kagami no Kage no wazurai.

[_If, when seated before her toilet-stand, she sees two faces reflected in her mirror,--that might be caused by the mirror doubling itself under the influence of the Shadow-Sickness._[31]]

[Footnote 31: There is in this poem a multiplicity of suggestion impossible to render in translation. While making her toilet, the j.a.panese woman uses two mirrors (_awase-kagami_)--one of which, a hand-mirror, serves to show her the appearance of the back part of her coiffure, by reflecting it into the larger stationary mirror. But in this case of Rikomby[=o], the woman sees more than her face and the back of her head in the larger mirror: she sees her own double.

The verses indicate that one of the mirrors may have caught the Shadow-Sickness, and doubled itself. And there is a further suggestion of the ghostly sympathy said to exist between a mirror and the soul of its possessor.]

III. [=O]-GAMA

In the old Chinese and j.a.panese literature the toad is credited with supernatural capacities,--such as the power to call down clouds, the power to make rain, the power to exhale from its mouth a magical mist which creates the most beautiful illusions. Some toads are good spirits,--friends of holy men; and in j.a.panese art a famous Ris.h.i.+ called "Gama-Sennin" (Toad Ris.h.i.+) is usually represented with a white toad resting upon his shoulder, or squatting beside him. Some toads are evil goblins, and create phantasms for the purpose of luring men to destruction. A typical story about a creature of this cla.s.s will be found in my "Kott[=o]," ent.i.tled "The Story of Chug[=o]r[=o]."