t because the double
is supposed to be caused by love, and the subjects of the affliction
to belong to the gentler sex.... 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 "doppelg[:a]nger" 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, 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 ing