Note 28 — LAFCADIO HEARN (continued 3)
Reading edition
The familiar Buddhist simile is used more significantly here than the Western reader might suppose from the above rendering. These are supposed to be the words either of a professional singing-girl or of a jorō. Her calling is derisively termed a doro-midzu kagyō ("foul-water occupation"); and her citation of the famous Buddhist comparison in self-defense is particularly, and pathetically, happy.