[Footnote 43: There is more weirdness in this poem than the above
rendering suggests. The word _ukaman_ in the fourth line can be
rendered as "shall perhaps float," or as "shall perhaps be saved" (in
the Buddhist sense of salvation),--as there are two verbs _ukami_.
According to an old superstition, the spirits of the drowned must
continue to dwell in the waters _until such time as they can lure the
living to destruction_. When the ghost of any drowned person succeeds
in drowning somebody, it may be able to obtain rebirth, and to leave
the sea forever. The exclamation of the ghost in this poem really
means, "Now perhaps I shall be able to drown somebody." (A very
similar superstition is said to exist on the Breton coast.) A common
Japanese saying about a child or any person who follows another
too closely and persistently is: _Kawa de shinda-y[=u]réï no yona
tsuré-hoshigaru!_--"Wants to follow you everywhere like the ghost of
a drowned person."]

Ukaman to
Funé we shitaëru
Yuréï wa,
Shidzumishi híto no
Omoï naruran.

[_The ghosts following after our ship in their efforts to rise
again (or, "to be saved") might perhaps be the (last vengeful)
thoughts of drowned men.[44]]

[Footnote 44: Here I cannot attempt to render the various plays upon
words; but the term "_omoï_" needs explanation. It means "thought"
or "thoughts;" but in colloquial phraseology it is often used as a