About this work
Tanka and commentary consider diaries as records for later generations, childhood by a river and historical suffering, including responses to poems by Maeda Yugure. This English version is an editorial translation for access; the Japanese text remains available alongside it for comparison.
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日本語原文 Japanese original
濱野成秋
今や日記とは後世に語り掛けるデバイスか
日記もて書き遺すべく一隅の
デスク密に吾が死ぬるを待つ 成秋
想いの糸をそっと捨てたり
日記とは時に郷土の歴史なれ
なまじな心は田んぼに墜さめ 成秋
子も孫も先祖になんかまるで関心なし。成秋寂しく。
古日記あたら読む人吾ひとり
結縁虚しや打つ手もなきや
郷里に西除川といふ川あり
春泥の川面閑けき西除の
粘土採りをる吾が幼な背は 成秋
水あかり顔に受けつつ川底の
砂礫すくひゐる人さむげなり 夕暮
と詠みたるに、吾、川床ふかく人知れず横たはるは
誰そと問ひて
冬の川渡し人あり棹の先
疼く屍そもまた愉し 成秋
前田夕暮は同じ歌集で
野さらしの風日を吹きてうら寒し
われは露佛に物申したき 夕暮
と詠んだので、吾は、水子と称して天に戻さる常習を
重ね石戻さる嬰児のはかなきに
涙す母子も百年経ちゐて 成秋
「上げる」とは赤子を生かして育てること。
「戻す」とは天に召されよと、産婆が暗闇に出て間引く。
かほどに辛きこと、我が国では常習にて、今の世の人は知らず、
唯水子供養の重ね石が川辺の洞穴などに遺るも哀れ。
この貧しさは昭和二十年八月十五日の終戦の日まで続いた。
二・二六事件はかくして起こった。この哀しい背景を知らねば
真に歴史を知ったことにはならない。
しかるに歴史家でこれを知らず、唯、皇道派が粛清され
統制派が実験を握ったと書くは、乱暴であり、歴史家の
歴史家たる使命を知らぬ所為にほかならない。本日は以上にて。
（No.1932は以上）
English translation 英訳
AI-assisted English translation. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
Now, a diary is but a device to speak to future generations
With a diary, I must write it down, and wait in a corner of my desk for my death
Thoughts like a thread are softly cast away
A diary is sometimes the history of one's homeland
A foolish heart is cast down into the rice field
Children, grandchildren, and ancestors have no interest in each other. It is lonely, O Hayama.
Only I read the old diary
Binding is futile, and there is no hand to strike
There is a river called Nishikuni in my hometown
Spring mud on the river's surface is quiet, and I go to Nishikuni
My child's back, once small, was digging for clay
Before the poet Maeda Yugure's collection of songs, 'Rainbow' (1933),
Waterlight faces are received, while the person scoops up sand and gravel at the riverbed
It is a lonely person
When I recited this, I lay hidden deep in the riverbed, unknown to anyone
Who would ask me?
There is a winter river-crosser with a pole
His body aches, and yet he finds joy in it
Maeda Yugure, in the same collection, wrote
The wind blows the day, and the cold is biting
I spoke to the dew-buddha
When I recited this, I, as a water child, am returned to heaven as a custom
Again and again, the stone is returned, and the infant is helpless
Even the mother and child weep, and a hundred years have passed
When I recite this, visiting the dew-buddha, and the midwife asks, 'Will you raise it or return it?' What does it mean?
'Raise' is to keep the child alive and raise it
'Return' is to call the child to heaven, and the midwife, in the dark, pulls the string
Such a painful thing is a custom in our country, and now people do not know
Only the stone for water child offerings is left in the caves by the riverbank, and it is pitiful
This poverty continued until August 15th, 1945, the day of the end of the war
The February 26th Incident thus occurred. Without knowing this sad background,
One cannot truly know history
Yet, historians who do not know this, and only write that the Royal Way faction was purged
And the Control faction held the experiment, are brutal, and it is because they do not know the mission of a historian
This is all for today
(No. 1932 is above)
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.