Note 52 — THE SUMIDA RIVER
Marie Carmichael Stopes translation
Page 80—This is a particularly difficult passage. I had previously rendered the lines more freely than the rest of the translation, in an endeavour to construct a consecutive verse which might keep the attention of an English reader. In its present form the verse is perhaps nearer the original, but no entirely literal translation is possible of a passage so full of the essentially Japanese “pillow” and “pivot” words. At the outset the Mother quotes a few words from an old poem.