英語訳
"The Gong Tathagata's World Reform" - Chobokure
Oh, the Gong Tathagata, yare sore sore sore, chobokure chongare, speaking of essential matters,
The deity residing in Kashima was busy with worldly love affairs and went to Izumo, leaving his post vacant.
On the night of the second day at the fourth hour (around 10 PM), blue and yellow flashing objects—
tremendous flying things—went north and south as a signal. What chaos! What pandemonium! Even listening to
earthquake stories isn't amusing. In flowery Edo, needless to say, and throughout the eight Kantō provinces and nearby regions,
the earth cracked, mud spouted, shelves fell—such great hardships! Whether tumbling head over heels
or somersaulting, even trying to right themselves like turtles, roof tiles and storehouse wall plaster
kept falling without end. Houses collapsed gate by gate, and people panicked, crying "This is terrible!" and fled,
some carrying beams and eaves on their backs, slipping and falling, hitting their foreheads,
spraining one arm, scraping one leg, nearly stepping through (the ground) with their private parts like moles,
many tumbling down ladders, falling over. Fathers crawled out, grandmothers' backs gave out, cats jumped out,
ladles bounced out, and when women's robes and undergarments were disheveled, revealing white inner thighs and dark private parts—unbearable!
Huddling in gaps during outdoor sleeping, holding and pressing together, by morning one more collapsed, then another.
With all the commotion over the dead, there weren't enough quick coffins, so they used four-to barrels, tea chests, and sugar containers.
Even worse were the irrigation buckets—covered in blue-green moss, slippery and uncleaned,
people were frantically stuffed in, carried by ensaka-hoi carts or gicchira boats,
whatever would do. Temple priests, short on funeral donations,
made sour faces; forget about sutras or funeral rites—they wouldn't even strike wooden fish drums
or ring the temple bells, just sending bodies straight to the cremation grounds as-is.
This too caused confusion—a "full house" of Buddhas, ranking lists and commotion, with waits of ten days before cremation.
The monks were extremely busy. Then, gradually, the evacuated people, in the cold night wind,
got chills in their backs, so tea and barley went to their heads, shoulders stiffened, bellies and foreheads
stung, women's ailments, headaches and catching colds, sneezing and farting simultaneously, with night dew and
frost soaking sleeping robes and futons thoroughly. In panic, actors departed on journeys, geishas (drank?) warmed sake—
was that all they talked about? Courtesans shouldered mallets—amid all this confusion, temporary housing caused commotion.
Skilled courtesans, rotating from below and lifting up,
but customers, fed up with this, complained bitterly. Yare sore chongare, and so
while this was happening [continues]
Rice and business
market prices fell,
and foreign stories
disappeared somewhere. In this situation,
the world has abundant harvests,
dancing and making merry, three family members, three adulterers
sleeping together,
making money—
such things, truly
joyful
and auspicious indeed! Yare sore sore sore
Strange and wondrous
Ho ho ii ii