Place a large cuttlefish on a table, body upwards and tentacles
downwards--and you will have before you the grotesque reality that
first suggested the fancy of the _Umi-B[=o]zu_, or Priest of the Sea.
For the great bald body in this position, with the staring eyes below,
bears a distorted resemblance to the shaven head of a priest; while
the crawling tentacles underneath (which are in some species united
by a dark web) suggests the wavering motion of the priest's upper
robe.... The Umi-B[=o]zu figures a good deal in the literature of
Japanese goblinry, and in the old-fashioned picture-books. He rises
from the deep in foul weather to seize his prey.
Ita hitoë
Shita wa Jigoku ni,
Sumizomé no
B[=o]zu no umi ni
Déru mo ayashina!
[_Since there is but the thickness of a single plank (between
the voyager and the sea), and underneath is Hell, 'tis indeed
a weird thing that a black-robed priest should rise from
the sea (or, "'tis surely a marvelous happening that,"
etc.!_[58])]
[Footnote 58: The puns are too much for me.... _Ayashii_ means
"suspicious," "marvelous," "supernatural," "weird," "doubtful."--In
the first two lines there is a reference to the Buddhist proverb:
_Funa-ita ichi-mai shita wa Jigoku_ ("under the thickness of a single
ship's-plank is Hell"). (See my _Gleanings in Buddha-Fields_, p. 206,
for another reference to this saying.)]