Literally: "Hair have-cut although, two existences until, deep relation, cut-how-can-it-be?" By the mention of the hair-cutting we know the speaker is a woman. Her husband, or possibly betrothed lover, is dead; and, according to the Buddhist custom, she signifies her desire to remain faithful to his memory by the sacrifice of her hair. For detailed information on this subject see, in my Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, the chapter, "Of Women's Hair."
She looks at the portrait of him to whom for two lives she is promised:
Happy remembrances come, and each brings a smile to her face.[5]
Ni-sé to chigirishi
Shashin we nagamé
Omoi-idashité
Warai-gao.
Lit.: "Two existences that made alliance, photograph look-at, thinking bring-out smiling face." The use of the term shashin, photograph, shows that the poem is not old.
If in this present life we never can hope for union,
Then we shall first keep house in the Lotos-Palace beyond.[6]
Totémo kono yo dé
Sowaré-nu naraba
Hasu no uténa dé
Ara sėtai.
Lit.: "By-any-means, this-world-in, cannot-live-together if, Lotos-of Palace-in, new-housekeeping." It is with this thought that lovers voluntarily die together; and the song might be called a song of jōshi.
Have we not spoken the vow that binds for a double existence?
If we must separate now, I can only wish to die.