ans "I," or
"mine," or "one's own," etc., according to circumstances; and _war['e]
m['e]_ (written separately) might be rendered "its own eyes." But
_war['e]m['e]_ (one word) means a crack, rent, split, or fissure. The
reader should remember that the term _saka-bashira_ means not only
"upside-down post," but also the goblin or spectre of the upside-down
post.]

Omo[:i]kiya!
Sakasa-bashira no
Hashira-kak['e]
Kakinishit uta mo
Yamai ari to wa!

[_Who could have thought it!--even the poem inscribed upon
the pillar-tablet, attached to the pillar which was planted
upside-down, has taken the same (ghostly) sickness._[55]]

[Footnote 55: That is to say, "Even the poem on the tablet is
up-side-down,"--all wrong. _Hashira-kak['e]_ ("pillar-suspended
thing") is the name given to a thin tablet of fine wood, inscribed or
painted, which is hung to a post by way of ornament.]

XI. BAK['E]-JIZ[:O]

The figure of the Bodhi-sattva Jiz[:o], the savior of children's
ghosts, is one of the most beautiful and humane in Japanese Buddhism.
Statues of this divinity may be seen in almost every village and by
every roadside. But some statues of Jiz[:o] are said to do uncanny
things--such as to walk about at night in various disguises. A statue
of this kind is called a _Bak['e]-Jiz[=o]_[56],--meaning a Jiz[=o];
that undergoes transformation. A conventional picture shows a little
boy about to place the customary child's-offering of rice-cakes before
the stone image of Jiz[=o],--not suspecting that the statue moves, and
is slowly bending down towards him.

[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