The interest attaching to the following typical group of love-songs will be found to depend chiefly upon the Buddhist allusions:—
In the bed of the River of Souls, or in waiting alone at evening,
The pain differs nothing at all: to a mountain the pebble grows.[25]
Who furthest after illusion wanders on Love's dark pathway
Is ever the clearest-seeing,[26] not the simple or dull.
Sai-no-kawara to
Nushi matsu yoi wa
Koishi, koishi ga
Yama to naru.
A more literal translation would be: "In the Sai-no-Kawara ('Dry bed of the River of Souls') and in the evening when waiting for the loved one, 'Koishi, Koishi' becomes a mountain." There is a delicate pun here,—a play on the word Koishi, which, as pronounced, though not as written, may mean either "a small stone," or "longing to see." In the bed of the phantom river, Sai-no-Kawa, the ghosts of children are obliged to pile up little stones, the weight of which increases so as to tax their strength to the utmost. There is a reference here also to a verse in the Buddhist wasan of Jizō, describing the crying of the children for their parents: "Chichi koishi! haha koishi!" (See Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, vol. i. pp. 59-61.)
[26] Clearest-sighted,—that is, in worldly matters.
Coldly seen from without our love looks utter folly:
Who never has felt mayoi never could understand!
Countless the men must be who dwell in three thousand worlds;
Yet among them all is none worthy to change for mine.[27]
However fickle I seem, my heart is never unfaithful:
Out of the slime itself, spotless the lotos grows.[28]
So that we stay together, even the Hell of the Blood Lake—
Even the Mountain of Swords—will signify nothing at all?[29]