Perhaps even more problematically for the Patrochilles naysayers, is that this ambiguity throughout Homer's original epic is really not that ambiguous.

It was neuer in my thoughte saide laūcelot to withholde the quene from my lord Arthur / but in soo moche she shold haue ben dede for my sake / me semeth it was my parte to saue her lyf and putte her from that daunger tyl better recouer myghte come / & now I thanke god sayd sir Launcelot that the pope hath made her pees

Ōgai’s antiquitarianism was thus also something of a flight into the past and, at the same time, a grudging, unresolved capitulation to the modern.

[…] she had this tat of a devil face sticking out a Gene Simmons-class tongue on her left delt.