Note 49 — A LETTER FROM JAPAN
Reading edition
Footnote 49:
(return)
The use of the word hasami in the fifth line is a very good example of kenyōgen. There is a noun hasami, meaning the nippers of a crab, or a pair of scissors; and there is a verb hasami, meaning to harbor, to cherish, or to entertain. (Ikon wo hasamu means "to harbor resentment against.") Reading the word only in connection with those which follow it, we have the phrase hasami mochikéri, "got claws;" but, reading it with the words preceding, we have the expression ikon wo muné ni hasami, "resentment in their breasts nourishing."