From the capital I travel,[51] I who now am speaking to you, And I journey on to Azuma to visit there a friend.
Behind me rise the mountains I have passed Faint in the distance as the clouds and mists. Behind me rise the mountains I have passed Faint in the distance as the clouds and mists. O'er many a mountain path my way has lain, Wide province after province have I crossed. Before me now lies the great Sumida, The river of renown, and at my feet The waiting ferry do I now behold, The waiting ferry do I now behold.
I have hurried, for already, 'tis the ferry of the river, And behold, the boat is leaving, I must enter it at once. What ho! Boatman! stay a moment. I would travel in your boat.
Very good, sir! Now at once though, may it please you to get in. Yet I first would like to ask you, what is that loud noise behind you, There behind, whence you have travelled. What's the matter, may I ask?
'Tis a woman who is coming from the capital and acting Like a mad thing in a queer ecstatic way. I saw her there.
Oh, in that case let us tarry till the mad thing can o'ertake us, We can stay the boat a little, for this way she'll surely come.
Darkness entire can never hold its sway Within a mother's heart, and yet for love Of her sweet child she is a wanderer. Ah! painfully I know for the first time The bitter truth contained within these words. I ask all those who pass Along the snowy way[53] To Azuma to say Where lies my little love. There is no news. Alas! No answer can I find. Shall I then ask the wind That blows unseen above?
If one but waits The wind vibrates The branches of the pine trees till they speak. If one stays still He often will Have brought to him the tidings he does seek.[54]
Fleeting as are the gleaming drops of dew, Desolate as the moor of Makuzu In autumn, is this world of lost delight.
Fretted with sorrow pass her day and night.
I am a woman who had lived for years At Kitajirikawa in the capital; When suddenly I lost my only child, Lured from me by a man who kidnapped him. They told me that beyond Osaka's pass[55], Far to the East, to Azuma, he went. And since I heard it I have felt my mind Losing its hold on ordinary things, Set only, full of love, upon the way The child did follow. Tracing out the marks Of his dear feet, I wander here and there.