[22] Page 45—The Shepherd’s Purse is one of the seven herbs. Chōan is in China, and the old name of China was Kara, so that the mention of Chōan brings Kara to mind, which in turn suggests the word karai, hot, used in the next line.
[23] Page 45—The dawn is sometimes called the “whitening” in Japanese.
[24] Note the change of person, of course she has really been speaking of herself from the beginning.
[25] Page 47—Ikuta means the living field, or field of life, and as she is about to die the name is meaningless to her.
[26] Page 47—Depending on an old poem in which the short growth of the summer horns is used to express the idea of brief time. An alternative translation of this line would be, “Short is my night’s sleep, short are a stag’s horns,” but these words do not convey to an English reader anything like the meaning the Japanese carries. In the original the word tsuka means either a “tomb” or a “grasp,” and it acts as a pivot word. In the sense of “tomb” it leads to the weeds growing on her tomb, which is the essential part; and in the sense of “grasp” it suggests shortness, and inasmuch as a stag’s horns are so short in summer as to be within the grasp of a hand, their shortness is suggested, and this in turn suggests a night’s sleep in summer. This train of thought would probably not occur had it not been rendered a classical picture by an old and well-known stanza.
[27] Page 48—He is using the words of the Buddhist scriptures. Though in popular belief the hells and torments, as well as the world, exist, yet the higher philosophy of Buddhism holds that all is appearance only, and that the soul that realises this frees itself from the sufferings and restrictions of the grosser existence.
[28] Page 52—Popular Buddhistic teaching postulates eight hells, (1) The hell of equality, where all sinners go first. (2) The hell of black rope, where they are tied and led by devil-jailors to (3) the hell of gathering. Then comes (4) the hell of cries, (5) of bitter cries, (6) the hell of heat, (7) of utmost heat, and lastly (8) the hell of infinite depth.
[29] Page 53—Kagekiyo’s full name is Aku-Shichibioe Kagekiyo. Aku—literally means “wicked”; but sometimes has a special meaning of “wild” or “boisterous,” as in the present case, where it intimates that the man is rough in manners and strong in arms.
[30] I have put this all in one metre, making no difference between the “words” and “song.” (See p. [33].)
[31] Page 56—In the original it reads, “Kamegaegayatsu in Kamakura”; but as this will not fit into any possible metre the first word is left out.