Cast & Chart

Omikuji lot 7 of 100

Boat Waiting for Wind

凶 Kyo, Bad fortune

登舟待便風

月色暗朦朧

欲碾香輪去

高山千万重

Aboard the boat, waiting for a fair wind.

The moonlight is dim and blurred.

Wishing to roll away in a scented carriage,

high mountains, thousands upon thousands of ranges.

What this lot says

A traveler sits in a boat with no wind to carry it, under a smeared moon. The thought shifts to going by carriage instead. Then the land route appears, and it is mountain behind mountain.

Water offers no wind and land offers no pass, and over that stalemate the book prints Kyo, Bad fortune. The verse leaves the traveler between the two.

Set in the present day, this is the feeling of having tried a second route and found it as closed as the first. It may be worth asking which of the two obstacles is actually fixed in place.

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 4, character 5: 1684 printing has 里.

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.