She looks at the portrait of him to whom for two lives she is promised:
Happy remembrances come, and each brings a smile to her face.[1]

If in this present life we never can hope for union,
Then we shall first keep house in the Lotos-Palace beyond.[2]

Have we not spoken the vow that binds for a double existence?
If we must separate now, I can only wish to die.

[1.

Ni-se to chigirishi
Shashin wo nagame
Omoi-idashite
Warai-gao.

Lit.: "Two existences that made alliance, photograph look-at, thinking bring-out smiling face." The use of the term shashin, photograph, shows that the poem is not old.

2.

Totemo kono yo de
Soware-nu naraba
Hasu no utena de
Ara setai.

Lit.: "By-any-means, this-world-in, cannot-live-together if, Lotos-of Palace-in, new-housekeeping." It is with this thought that lovers voluntarily die together; and the song might be called a song of joshi.]

There!--oh, what shall we do? . . . Pledged for a double existence,
And now, as we sit together, the string of the samisen snaps![1]

He woos by teaching the Law of Cause and Effect for three lives,
And makes a contract for two--the crafty-smiling priest![2]

Every mortal has lived and is destined to live countless lives; yet the happy moments of any single existence are not therefore less precious in themselves:--

Not to have met one night is verily cause for sorrow;
Since twice in a single birth the same night never comes.

But even as a summer unusually warm is apt to herald a winter of exceptional severity, so too much happiness in this life may signify great suffering in the next:--

Always I suffer thus! . . . Methinks, in my last existence,
Too happy I must have been,--did not suffer enough.

Next in point of exotic interest to the songs expressing belief in preexistence and rebirth, I think I should place those treating of the

[1. Among singing-girls it is believed that the snapping of a samisen-string under such circumstances as those indicated in the above song is an omen of coming separation.

2 This song is of a priest who breaks the vow of celibacy.]

doctrine of ingwa, or Karma. I offer some free translations from these, together with one selection from a class of compositions more elaborate and usually much longer than the dodoitsu, called hauta. In the original, at least, my selection from the hauta--which contains a charming simile about the firefly--is by far the prettiest:--

Weep not!--turn to me! . . . Nay, all my suspicions vanish!
Forgive me those words unkind: some ingwa controlled my tongue!

Evidently this is the remorseful pleading of a jealous lover. The next might be the answer of the girl whose tears he had caused to flow: