Page:Japanese Peasant Songs.djvu/52

After Drinking Wine

A song on two popular topics: drink and sex. The form is a slightly irregular dodoitsu.

49

Shōchū[1] nonde kara Iwo[2] neburarenu Otoke daite kara Senya ne[3] naran Shokyo yoi

After drinking wine I cannot sleep well. Lying close to a man I cannot do otherwise.[4]

Wine Drinking Drinking

The general idea of this song is that while I drink myself out of house and home, there are plenty of teetotalers who are also poverty stricken—therefore I may continue to drink with a clear conscience. The last two lines of this song evidently form a popular saying, since they are quoted by Hepburn in his Japanese-English, English-Japanese Dictionary.

50

Shōchū wa nomi nomi Mi wa hadeka[5] demo Geko no tatetaru Kura wa naka[6] Yoiya sa

Wine drinking, drinking And going without clothes— Teetotalers[7] build No storehouses.[8]

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1. Shōchū is a distilled rice liquor, the standard drink of Kuma.
2. For: yō sometimes pronounced iyo.
3. Ne is superfluous here so far as syllable count is concerned, nor is it necessary for meaning. It is probably included for effect and to emphasize the n sounds of the line and because the line might sound too short without it. It also emphasizes the negative naran, ‘cannot.’
4. “Than to copulate” is understood.
5. Hadeka-hadaka; or perhaps from hade, “gay.”
6. For: nai.
7. “Also” may be understood after this word.
8. A storehouse is a sign of considerable wealth by rural Japanese standards. The meaning here is that not all teetotalers build storehouses.