TO A PERSON

How I dread the thought
Of you leaving——

Like the bearing of fruit before blooming,
Like the sprouting of seed before sowing,
Like summer skipping on to spring,
It's contrary to reason, against all of Nature,
So don't you carry out this thing, I beg you.
A husband cast in the usual mold,
And you, with that curly script of yours,
It makes me cry even to think
That you, who are as timourous as a wee bird,
And all the same, as fickle as a gust of wind,
Are going off to be married.
How I dread the thought
Of you leaving——

Why is it that you so readily,
How should I put it—— consent
To being pawned off in this way,
Up for sale, yes indeed.
From the world of the one and only
To one among tens of thousands,
Defeated by some man.
Defeated all for nothing.
The disgrace of it.
As if, yes,
As if a painting by Titian

Was being hawked in Tsurumaki-town.

(⇒)

Do I feel lonesome? Saddened?
—— no, it isn't like that.
But rather like watching those gloxinia flowers,
Those great big flowers you brought me,
Like watching them rot away before me.
And once having left me, you too rotting away.
It's like watching the journeying birds in the sky,
Like fixing my gaze at where they're headed,
A sad, self-destructive feeling, like the crashing of waves.

—And still it's not an infatuation.
Santa Maria.
It's not. It's not.
Though I never know at the start what's what,
I dread the thought
Of you leaving ——
And that you'll be wed, no less,
To have done whatever another man pleases.