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Page 14
[_The wind having risen, the waves of the river have become
high;--this night cross over in a towboat,[23] I pray thee,
before the hour be late!_]
[Footnote 23: Lit. "pull-boat" (_hiki-fun�_),--a barge or boat pulled
by a rope.]
Amanogawa
Nami wa tatsutomo,
Waga fun� wa
Iza kogi iden
Yo no fuk�nu ma ni.
[_Even though the waves of the River of_ _Heaven run high, I
must row over quickly, before it becomes late in the night._]
Inishi� ni
Orit�shi hata wo;
Kono y[=u]b�
Koromo ni nu�t�--
Kimi matsu ar� wo!
[_Long ago I finished weaving the material; and, this evening,
having finished sewing the garment for him--(why must) I still
wait for my lord?_]
Amanogawa
S� wo hayami ka mo?
Nubatama no
Yo wa fuk� ni tsutsu,
Awanu Hikoboshi!
[_Is it that the current of the River of_ _Heaven (has become too)
rapid? The jet-black night[24] advances--and Hikoboshi has not come!_]
[Footnote 24: _Nubatama no yo_ might better be rendered by some such
phrase as "the berry-black night,"--but the intended effect would be
thus lost in translation. _Nubatama-no_ (a "pillow-word") is written
with characters signifying "like the black fruits of _Karasu-[=O]gi_;"
and the ancient phrase "_nubatama no yo_" therefore may be said
to have the same meaning as our expressions "jet-black night," or
"pitch-dark night."]
Watashi-mori,
Fun� haya watas�;--
Hito-tos� ni
Futatabi kay[=o]
Kimi naranaku ni!
[_Oh, ferryman, make speed across the stream!--my lord is not
one who can come and go twice in a year!_]
Aki kaz� no
Fukinishi hi yori,
Amanogawa
Kawas� ni d�dachi;--
Matsu to tsug� koso!
[_On the very day that the autumn-wind began to blow, I set
out for the shallows of the River of Heaven;--I pray you, tell
my lord that I am waiting here still!_]
Tanabata no
Funanori surashi,--
Maso-kagami,
Kiyoki tsuki-yo ni
Kumo tachi-wataru.
[_Methinks Tanabata must be coming in her boat; for a cloud is
even now passing across the clear face of the moon._[25]]
[Footnote 25: Composed by the famous poet [=O]tomo no Sukun�
Yakamochi, while gazing at the Milky Way, on the seventh night of
the seventh month of the tenth year of Tampy[=o] (A.D. 738). The
pillow-word in the third line (_maso-kagami_) is untranslatable.]
--And yet it has been gravely asserted that the old Japanese poets
could find no beauty in starry skies!...
Perhaps the legend of Tanabata, as it was understood by those old
poets, can make but a faint appeal to Western minds. Nevertheless,
in the silence of transparent nights, before the rising of the moon,
the charm of the ancient tale sometimes descends upon me, out of the
scintillant sky,--to make me forget the monstrous facts of science,
and the stupendous horror of Space. Then I no longer behold the Milky
Way as that awful Ring of the Cosmos, whose hundred million suns are
powerless to lighten the Abyss, but as the very Amanogawa itself,--the
River Celestial. I see the thrill of its shining stream, and the mists
that hover along its verge, and the water-grasses that bend in the
winds of autumn. White Orihim� I see at her starry loom, and the Ox
that grazes on the farther shore;--and I know that the falling dew is
the spray from the Herdsman's oar. And the heaven seems very near and
warm and human; and the silence about me is filled with the dream of
a love unchanging, immortal,--forever yearning and forever young, and
forever left unsatisfied by the paternal wisdom of the gods.
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