Saturday, October 19, 2013

Shunshoku Umegoyomi Vol. 1: Into Hiding

Fig. 1: 相
談さい中
お屋敷か
ら。久八
が宅へ役
衆がご
ざられて
Fig. 2: 
殿の
御国
へ御

立ゆ
ゑ。
心づ
かず
にお
いた
るが。
"While [we were] in the middle of discussing [this], young government officials arrived at Kyūhachi’s house from [Lord Hatakeyama’s] mansion (fig. 1)."

The word 「さい中」 is just 「最中」 written in kana for the first character only. This is somewhat reminiscent of mazegaki, although that term is typically used to refer to words written in a mix of kanji and kana as a result of the post-WW2 orthographic reforms.

I couldn't figure out the meaning of the kanji 「㐬」, so I just ignored it in the translation above. Perhaps that's not the right kanji, but the reading does match.

Edit: according to Matt's suggestion in the comments, I've changed 「役人㐬」 to 「役人衆」. He suggested that the reading was 「わかしゅ」, which meant "young man" in the Edo period. However, the difference in the kanji and the furigana for the first two kanji clearly being 「やくにん」 (which is a valid reading for 「役人」) by itself led me to changing the furigana to 「やくにんしゅ」. Therefore, I included the meanings of both readings (「やくにん」 and 「わかしゅ」) in the translation, as "young government officials."

The first component of the verb 「ござられて」 is 「ござら」, or the verb 「ござる」 in the imperfective form (未然形). Next is 「れ」, or the auxiliary verb 「る」 (which makes the preceding verb honorific) in the continuative form (連用形). This is presumably added because the men coming are officials from the government. Last is the continuative particle, 「て」.

Fig. 4: 松
兵へならび
當主人。
"Because the Lord was departing for his [home] province (fig. 2), he had not noticed [the matter] and let it be, but because the Natsui household had been broken up [and sold off], he wouldn't sway for us [in terms of] the price of the tea caddy (fig. 3)."

In fig. 3, the verb 「心づかず」 can be parsed as the verb 「心づく」 in the imperfective form followed by the negative auxiliary verb 「ず」.

Fig. 3: 夏
井の家分
散とあれ
ばゆるが
せならね
茶入の
金子
I wasn't entirely sure about how to break down 「ゆるかせ」, but I'm guessing it's the classical Japanese verb 「許る」 ("to permit") followed by the verb 「仮す」, which means "to grant" or "to forgive."

Edit: according to Matt's comments below, I've changed「ゆるかす」 to 「ゆるがす」, meaning "to sway," which I took to refer to his firmness on receiving repayment for the tea caddy.

The following pattern 「ならね」 is just 「ならない」 with a slightly different pronunciation.

I was also a little confused about the meaning, but I think the issue at hand is that since the Natsui household had already been liquidated, there was no way for Tanjirou (or anyone else from the household, for that matter) to pay Lord Hatakeyama the price of the tea caddy. In such a situation, the debt could have simply been forgiven, but the Lord chose not to in this case.
Fig. 5:
丹次郎
同道い
たせと
大むづ
かし。

"He commanded [the government officials] to get (fig. 5) Matsubei, as well as the husband (fig. 4), Tanjirou, to accompany [them back]. This was a big problem (fig. 5)."
I wasn't sure about what the function of 「當」 in 「當主人」 was, so I just ignored it in my translation above.

In fig. 6, the term 「同道」 ("going with" or "accompanying") is used. The second kanji looked quite different from the print form, so I tracked down this entry in a kuzushiji dictionary to confirm its identity.

Continuing the interpretation from above, the government officials are taking Matsubei and Tanjirou into custody because they cannot pay off their debt from the tea caddy.



Fig. 6: それ
から久八
がはか
らひで。
Fig. 7:
おれハ
しバら
く世を
しのぶ
身の
うへ。
"After that, Kyūhachi made arrangements (fig. 6). I would, for a while, hide myself and my welfare from society (fig. 7)."

Note the phrase 「世をしのぶ」 in fig. 7. 「世を忍ぶ」 means "to hide [oneself] from the view of society."

Later is the phrase 「身のうへ」, or 「身の上」, which means "one's welfare."











Fig. 8:
松兵へハ
行方しれ
す段々
久八が
難儀する
そふだ。
Fig. 9:
とハい
ふもの

おれも
まアく
やしい

難をき
たじや
アねへか
“Due to Matsubei being missing, the hardships have gradually [built up] for Kyūhachi (fig. 8), and because of all this, frustrating difficulties have come to me too, haven’t they? (fig. 9)

Note the verb 「しれす」. 「しれ」 is the shimo-nidan (下二段) conjugation of the verb 「知る」 in the imperfective form. The meaning is the same as 「かかわる」's in modern Japanese: "to have to do with."




4 comments:

  1. No comments on the post this time, but I noticed this weekend at a conference that a newly published anthology of Edo period literature has Shunshoku Umegoyomi in it.

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  2. I am about to start a classical Japanese lit course and I would say I speak pretty fluent Japanese but is terrifying. I would be screwed if I was suddenly put out in ancient Japan.

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  3. Happy new year! Couple of comments: where you have 而 for "o-", I'm pretty sure the character is 御 -- the cursive form is VERY abbreviated, I guess because it was used so often. Re 役人㐬, this is surely 役人衆 "wakashu". Re ゆるかせならね, I think that this is actually "yurugase naranu".

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  4. Whoops, you're right about "yakuninshu" -- what I meant to say, but completely garbled, was that it is the same 衆 that's seen in the much more common word 若衆. Sorry!

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