all the double meanings in
this composition. _Tsuka-no-ma_ signifies "in a moment" or "quickly";
but it may also mean "in the space [_ma_] between the roof-props"
[_tsuka_]. "_K['e]ta_" means a cross-beam, but _k['e]ta-k['e]ta warau_
means to chuckle or laugh in a mocking way. Ghosts are said to laugh
with the sound of k['e]ta-k['e]ta.]

Roku shaku no
By[=o]bu ni nobiru
Rokuro-Kubi
Mit['e] wa, go shaku no
Mi wo chijimi-k['e]ri!

[_Beholding the Rokuro-Kubi rise up above the six-foot screen,
any five-foot person would have become shortened by fear (or,
"the stature of any person five feet high would have been
diminished")._[35]]

[Footnote 35: The ordinary height of a full screen is six Japanese
feet.]

VI. YUKI-ONNA

The Snow-Woman, or Snow-Spectre, assumes various forms; but in most
of the old folk-tales she appears as a beautiful phantom, whose
embrace is death. (A very curious story about her can be found in my
"Kwaidan.")

Yuki-Onna--
Yos[=o] kushi mo
Atsu k[=o]ri;
Sasu-k[=o]gai ya
K[=o]ri naruran.

[_As for the Snow-Woman,--even her best comb, if I mistake
not, is made of thick ice; and her hair-pin[36], too, is
probably made of ice._]

[Footnote 36: _K[=o]gai_ is the name now given to a quadrangular bar
of tortoise-shell passed under the coiffure, which leaves only the
ends of the bar exposed. The true hair-pin is called _kanzashi_.]

Honrai wa
K[=u] naru mono ka,
Yuki-Onna?
Yoku-yoku mireba
Ichi-butsu mo nashi!

[_Was she, then, a delusion from the very first, that
Snow-Woman,--a thing that vanishes into empty space? When I
look carefully all about me, not one trace of her is to be
seen!_]

Yo-ak['e]r['e]ba
Ki['e]t['e] yuku ['e] wa
Shirayuki[37] no
Onna to mishi mo
Yanagi nari-keri!

[_Having vanished at daybreak (that Snow-Woman), none
could say whither she had gone. But what had seemed to be a
snow-white woman became indeed a willow-tree!_]

[Footnote 37: The term _shirayuki_, as here used, offers an example
of what Japanese poets call _Keny[=o]gen_, or "double-purpose words."
Joined to the words immediately following, it makes the phrase
"white-snow woman" (_shirayuki no onna_);--united with the words
immediately preceding, it suggests the reading, "whither-gone
not-knowing" (_yuku ['e] wa shira[zu]_).]

Yuki-Onna
Mit['e] wa yasathiku,
Matsu wo ori