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As the moon of the fifteenth night, the heart till the age fifteen:
Then the brightness wanes, and the darkness comes with love.[15]
[15] According to the old calendar, there was always a full moon on the fifteenth of the month. The Buddhist allusion in the verse is to mayoi, the illusion of passion, which is compared to a darkness concealing the Right Way.
All things change, we are told, in this world of change and
sorrow;
But love's way never changes of promising never to change.[16]
Kawaru uki-yo ni
Kawaranu mono wa
Kawarumai to no
Koi no michi.
Lit.: "Change changeable-world-in, does-not-change that-which, 'We-will-never-change'-saying of Love-of Way."
Cruel the beautiful flash,—utterly heartless that lightning!
Before one can look even twice it vanishes wholly away![17]
Honni tsurnai
Ano inadzuma wa
Futa m minu uchi
Kiyt yuku.
The Buddhist saying, Inadzuma no hikari, ishi no hi (lightning-flash and flint-spark),—symbolizing the temporary nature of all pleasures,—is here playfully referred to. The song complains of a too brief meeting with sweet-heart or lover.
His very sweetness itself makes my existence a burden!
Truly this world of change is a world of constant woe![18]
[18] Words of a loving but jealous woman, thus interpreted by my Japanese friend: "The more kind he is, the more his kindness overwhelms me with anxiety lest he be equally tender to other girls who may also fall in love with him."
Neither for youth nor age is fixed the life of the body;
—Bidding me wait for a time is the word that forever divides.[19]
R-sh fuj no
Mi d ari nagara,
Jisetsu mat to wa
Kir-kotoba.
Lit.: "Old-young not-fixed-of body being, time-wait to-say, cutting-word." Ro-sh fuj is a Buddhist phrase. The meaning of the song is: "Since all things in this world are uncertain, asking me to wait for our marriage-day means that you do not really love me;—for either of us might die before the time you speak of."
Only too well I know that to meet will cause more weeping;[20]
Yet never to meet at all were sorrow too great to bear.
[20] Allusion is made to the Buddhist text, Shja hitsu metsu, esha jri ("Whosoever is born must die, and all who meet must as surely part"), and to the religious phrase, Ai betsu ri ku ("Sorrow of parting and pain of separation").
Too joyful in union to think, we forget that the smiles of the
evening
Sometimes themselves become the sources of morning-tears.
Yet, notwithstanding the doctrine of impermanency, we are told in another dodoitsu that—
He who was never bewitched by the charming smile of a woman,
A wooden Buddha is he—a Buddha of bronze or stone![21]
[21] Much more amusing in the original:—
Adana -gao ni
Mayowanu mono wa
Ki-Butsu,—kana-Butsu,—
Ishi-botok
"Charming-smile-by bewildered-not, he-as-for, wood-Buddha, metal-Buddha, stone-Buddha!" The term "Ishi-botok" especially refers to the stone images of the Buddha placed in cemeteries.—This song is sung in every part of Japan; I have heard it many times in different places.
And why a Buddha of wood, or bronze, or stone? Because the living Buddha was not so insensible, as we are assured, with jocose irreverence, in the following:—
"Forsake this fitful world"!—
{Lord Buddha's}
that was
or
teaching!
{upside-down }
And Ragora,[22] son of his loins?—was he forgotten indeed?
There is an untranslatable pun in the original, which, if written in Romaji, would run thus:—
Uki-yo we sutyo t'a
{Shaka Sama}
Sorya
yo
{saka-sama }
Ragora to i ko we
Wasurt ka?
Shakamuni is the Japanese rendering of "Sakyamuni;" "Shaka Sama" is therefore "Lord Sakya," or "Lord Buddha." But saka-sama is a Japanese word meaning "topsy-turvy," "upside down;" and the difference between the pronunciation of Shaka Sama and saka-sama is slight enough to have suggested the pun. Love in suspense is not usually inclined to reverence.
[22] Rhula.
Even while praying together in front of the tablets ancestral,
Lovers find chance to murmur prayers never meant for the
dead![23]
And as for interrupters:—
Hateful the wind or rain that ruins the bloom of flowers:
Even more hateful far who obstructs the way of love.
Yet the help of the Gods is earnestly besought:—
I make my hyaku-d, traveling Love's dark pathway.
Ever praying to meet the owner of my heart.[24]
Ek suru tot
Hotok no ma y
Futari mukait,
Konab dat.
Lit.: "Repeat prayers saying, dead-of-presence-in twain facing,—small-pan cooking!" Hotok means a dead person as well as a Buddha. (See my Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan: "The Household Shrine")-Konab-dat is an idiomatic expression signifying a lovers' tte--tte. It is derived from the phrase, Chin-chin kamo nab("cooking a wild duck in a pan"),—the idea suggested being that of the pleasure experienced by an amorous couple in eating out of the same dish. Chin-chin, an onomatope, expresses the sound of the gravy boiling.
