Chapter 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
Nama-dak['e] hishigu
Chikara ari-keri!

[_Though the Snow-Woman appears to sight slender and gentle,
yet, to snap the pine-trees asunder and to crush the live
bamboos, she must have had strength._]

Samuk['e]sa ni
Zotto[38] wa sur['e]do
Yuki-Onna,--
Yuki or['e] no naki
Yanagi-goshi ka mo!

[_Though the Snow-Woman makes one shiver by her coldness,--ah, the willowy grace of her form cannot be broken by the snow (i.e. charms us in spite of the cold)._]

[Footnote 38: _Zotto_ is a difficult word to render literally: perhaps the nearest English equivalent is "thrilling." _Zotto suru_ signifies "to cause a thrill" or "to give a shock," or "to make shiver;" and of a very beautiful person it is said "_Zotto-suru hodo no bijin_,"--meaning! "She is so pretty that it gives one a shock merely to look at her." The term _yanagi-goshi_ ("willow-loins") in the last line is a common expression designating a slender and graceful figure; and the reader should observe that the first half of the term is ingeniously made to do double duty here,--suggesting, with the context, not only the grace of willow branches weighed down by snow, but also the grace of a human figure that one must stop to admire, in spite of the cold.]