Cruel the beautiful fish,--utterly heartless that lightning!
Before one can look even twice it vanishes wholly away![1]

His very sweetness itself makes my existence a burden!
Truly this world of change is a world of constant woe![2]

Neither for youth nor age is fixed the life of the body;--
Bidding me wait for a time is the word that forever divides.[3]

[1.

Honni tsurenai
Ano inadzuma wa
Futa me minu uchi
Kiyete 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 sweetheart or lover.

2. 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."

3.

Ro-sho fujo no
Mi de ari nagara,
Jisetsu mate to wa
Kire-kotoba.

Lit. Old-young not-fixed-of body being, time-wait to-say, cutting-word." "Ros-ho fujo" 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;[1]
Yet never to meet at all were sorrow too great to bear.

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![2]

And why a Buddha of wood, or bronze, or stone? Because the living Buddha was not

[1. Allusion is made to the Buddhist text, Shoja hitsu metsu, esha jo ri ("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").

2. Much more amusing in the original:--

Adana e-gao ni
Mayowanu mono wa
Ki-Butsu,--kana-Butsu,--
Ishi-botoke!

"Charming-smile-by bewildered-not, he-as-for, wood-Buddha, metal-Buddha, stone-Buddha!" The term "Ishi-botoke" 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.]

so insensible, as we are assured, with jocose irreverence, in the following:--

"Forsake this fitful world"!--
that was or teaching teaching!
And Ragora,[1] son of his loins?--was he forgotten indeed?