In the land of Yamato ...
FISHERMAN.
... many such have been sung.
CHORUS.
“The nightingale singing on the bush,
Even the frog that dwells in the pond——”
I know not if it be in your Honour’s land,
But in Nihon they sing the stanzas of the “uta.”
And so it comes that an old man
Can sing the song you have heard,
A song of great Yamato.
CHORUS (changing the chant).
And as for the nightingale and the poem it made,—
They say that in the royal reign
Of the Emperor Kōren
In the land of Yamato, in the temple of High Heaven
A priest was dwelling.[193]
Each year at the season of Spring
There came a nightingale
To the plum-tree at his window.
And when he listened to its song
He heard it singing a verse:
“Sho-yō mei-chō rai
Fu-sō gem-bon sei.”
And when he wrote down the characters,
Behold, it was an “uta”-song
Of thirty letters and one.
And the words of the song—
FISHERMAN.