Tokubei: Let’s think the Bridge of Umeda
The bridge the magpies built and make a vow
That we will always be Wife and Husband Stars.
Narrator: “With all my heart,” she says and clings to him:
So many are the tears that fall between the two,
The waters of the river must have risen.
On a teahouse balcony across the way
A party in the lamplight loudly discuss
Before they go to bed the latest gossip,
With many words about the good and bad
Of this year’s crop of lovers’ suicides.
Tokubei: How strange! but yesterday, even today,
We spoke as if such things didn’t concern us.
Tomorrow we shall figure in their gossip—
Well, if they wish to sing about us, let them.
Narrator: This is the song that now we hear:
“Why can’t you take me for your wife?
Although you think you don’t want me …”[1]
However we think, however lament,
Both our fate and the world go against us.
Never before today was there a day
Of relaxation, and untroubled night,
Instead, the tortures of an ill-starred love.
“What did I do to deserve it?
I never can forget you.
You want to shake me off and go?
I’ll never let you.
Take me with your hands and kill me
Or I’ll never let you go,”
Said the girl in tears.
Tokubei: Of all the many songs, that it should be that one,
This very evening, but who is it that sings?
We are those who listen; others like us
Who’ve gone this way have had the same ordeal.
Narrator: They cling to one another, weeping bitterly,
- ↑ This is a popular ballad of the time describing a love suicide.
