Smi 99 



a semi may be found in the act of singing 

 beside its cast-off skin; therefore a poet has 

 written : 



Ware to waga 

 Kara ya tomuro * 

 Se"mi no koe. 



YAYU. 



Methinks that se"mi sits and sings by his former body, 

 Chanting the funeral service over his own dead self. 



This cast-off skin, or simulacrum, clinging 

 to bole or branch as in life, and seeming still 

 to stare with great glazed eyes, has suggested 

 many things both to profane and to religious 

 poets. In love -songs it is often likened to a body 

 consumed by passionate longing. In Buddhist 

 poetry it becomes a symbol of earthly pomp, 

 the hollow show of human greatness : 



Yo no naka yo 



Kagru no hadaka, 



Se"mi no kinu ! 



Naked as frogs and weak we enter this life of trouble ; 

 Shedding our pomps we pass : so se"mi quit their skins. 



But sometimes the poet compares the winged 

 and shrilling semi to a human ghost, and the 

 broken shell to the body left behind: 



