Cast & Chart

Omikuji lot 100 of 100

Zither Carried Through Far Hills

凶 Kyo, Bad fortune

禄走白雲間

携琴過遠山

不遇神仙面

空惹意瓓珊

A stipend runs off among white clouds;

carrying a zither, you pass the distant hills.

You do not meet the face of an immortal,

and only stir a mood that fades away.

What this lot says

Salary or office goes slipping off into the clouds. A person carries a zither across remote hills. No immortal shows their face on the way, and the poem ends on a spirit running down. The last word is spelled unusually, and we read it as fading.

The search in the hills turns up no one and the final word is one of dwindling. The book prints Kyo, Bad fortune, and the verse closes without a meeting.

In a reflection for today, the picture is of someone whose steady pay has slipped away and who goes looking in high places and meets nobody there. What did the zither mean to the one who carried it, apart from any listener in those hills?

A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.

The printed text

Where the 1684 printing differs

  • Line 3, character 4: 1684 printing has 山.

Credits

The verse and grade were read from the two scanned printings named here. The title, translation and reading are our own and modern.

Our own English. The kana commentary printed under each verse in the old books was not read.