第一段

Passage 1

Translation and Explanatory Notes

Original Classical Japanese Texts

鬼あり。食水と名づく。長き髪乱れて、面に覆下（り）塞がりて、物見ること能はず。飢渇の火、身の内を焼く。耐え難さに、自ら河の辺に行きて、水を飲まむとすれば、水を守る鬼ども来りて、追ひて打たむとすれば、逃げ走り惑ふ。又、自ら河を渡りたる人の足の滴りを舐りて、命を生く。昔、酒に水を入れて売り、蚯蚓の沈みたるをも顧みずして、酒を売りし人これに墜つ。

English Translation

There are ghosts. They are named “Jikisui”. Their long hair is tangled, covering and concealing their faces, and they are not able to see things (as they truly are). The fire of hunger and thirst burns their insides. When the hungry ghosts go to the side of the river and intend to drink water due to the difficulty of bearing, the ghosts who protect the water come, chase and try to hit them. The Jikisui then flee in confusion. On another occasion, the hungry ghosts sustain themselves by licking water drops from the feet of people who crossed the river. A long time ago, the people who sold wine adulterated with water, and those who sold wine that they had sank worms into without any compunction, both fall into the realm of hungry ghosts.

Explanatory Notes

食水 Jikisui

The word "Jikisui" is a Buddhist term describing a type of hungry ghosts who sold wines adulterated with water or wines that they sank worm into and deceived people. The image on the left is depicting a Jikisui licking waterdrops from a human's foot due to its inability in drinking water normally like humans. It seems like the human did not notice the presence of this Jikisui, even though it is enormous in size.

Notable Grammar Structures

長き髪－Instead of the usual combination of い Adjective with Noun in Modern Japanese, Classical Japanese い Adjectives appear in the form of 終止形 (Final Form) and 連体形 (Attributive Form). In passage 1, for instance, the adjective 長い is written as 長き in attributive form, with the final form of 長し.
塞がりて、行きて、来たりて - These are the examples of 連用形 (Continuative form) of verb conjugation appearing in Classical Japanese. Different from Modern Japanese which the て form for 塞がる is 塞がって, Classical Japanese takes the stem of a verb and follows with て.

Auxiliary Verbs 助動詞

能わず- The ず here acts as negative in Classical Japanese and functions the same as ない from Modern Japanese. The ず is usually followed by 未然形 (Imperfect Form). Ex: 能う- 能わ、読む- 読ま.
飲まむ- The む here acts as intention in Classical Japanese and it is also followed by 未然形. If the text is written in Modern Japanese, it would be 水を飲もうとすれば.
渡りたる- たる followed by 連用形 means "resultative" in Classical Japanese, more like past tense that indicates the result of an action. In this case, 渡りたる indicates the action of crossing river being completed, similar to 渡った in Modern Japanese.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse