The term _Rikomby[=o]_ is composed with the word _rikon_, signifying
a "shade," "ghost," or "spectre," and the word _by[=o]_, signifying
"sickness," "disease." An almost literal rendering would be
"ghost-sickness." In Japanese-English dictionaries you will find the
meaning of _Rikomby[=o]_ given as "hypochondria;" and doctors really
use the term in this modern sense. But the ancient meaning was _a
disorder of the mind which produced a Double_; and there is a whole
strange literature about this weird disease. It used to be supposed,
both in China and Japan, that under the influence of intense grief
or longing, caused by love, the spirit of the suffering person would
create a Double. Thus the victim of _Rikomby[=o]_ would appear to have
two bodies, exactly alike; and one of these bodies would go to join
the absent beloved, while the other remained at home. (In my "Exotics
and Retrospectives," under the title "A Question in the Zen Texts,"
the reader will find a typical Chinese story on the subject,--the
story of the girl Ts'ing.) Some form of the primitive belief in
doubles and wraiths probably exists in every part of the world; but
this Far Eastern variety is of peculiar interest 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 "doppelgänger" 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, soré to?
Ayamé mo wakanu
Rikomby[=o]:
Izuré we tsuma to
Hiku zo wazuraü!
[_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
Kakégaë 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 shitaïté
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 kagé mo
Naki wazurai no
Rikomby[=o],--
Omoi no hoka ni
Futatsu miru kagé!
[_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-kagé 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 ingeniously
made to suggest also the idea of secret longing.]
Rikomby[=o]
Hito ni kakushité
Oku-zashiki,
Omoté y dëasanu
Kagé no wazurai.
[_Afflicted with the Rikomby[=o], she hides away from people
in the back room, and never approaches the front of the
house,--because of her Shadow-disease._[29]]
[Footnote 29: There is a curious play on words in the fourth line.
The word _omoté_, meaning "the front," might, in reading, be sounded
as _omotté_, "thinking." The verses therefore might also be thus
translated:--"She keeps her real thoughts hidden in the back part
of the house, and never allows them to be seen in the front part of
the house,--because she is suffering from the 'Shadow-Sickness' [of
love]."]
Mi wa koko ni;
Tama wa otoko ni
Soïné suru;--
Kokoro mo shiraga
Haha ga kaih[=o].
[_Here her body lies; but her soul is far away, asleep in the
arms of a man;--and the white-haired mother, little knowing
her daughter's heart, is nursing (only the body)._[30]]
[Footnote 30: There is a double meaning, suggested rather than
expressed, in the fourth line. The word _shiraga_, "white-hair,"
suggests _shirazu_, "not knowing."]
Tamakushigé
Futatsu no sugata
Misénuru wa,
Awasé-kagami no
Kagé no wazurai.
[_If, when seated before her toilet-stand, she sees two faces
reflected in her mirror,--that might be caused by the
mirror doubling itself under the influence of the
Shadow-Sickness._[31]]
[Footnote 31: There is in this poem a multiplicity of suggestion
impossible to render in translation. While making her toilet, the
Japanese woman uses two mirrors (_awasé-kagami_)--one of which, a
hand-mirror, serves to show her the appearance of the back part of
her coiffure, by reflecting it into the larger stationary mirror. But
in this case of Rikomby[=o], the woman sees more than her face and
the back of her head in the larger mirror: she sees her own double.
The verses indicate that one of the mirrors may have caught the
Shadow-Sickness, and doubled itself. And there is a further suggestion
of the ghostly sympathy said to exist between a mirror and the soul of
its possessor.]