Cast & Chart

Omikuji lot 75 of 100

Lone Boat, Empty Ferry

凶 Kyo, Bad fortune

孤舟欲過岸

浪急渡人空

女人立流水

望月意情濃

A lone boat wants to reach the other bank;

the waves are swift and the ferryman is gone.

A woman stands by the flowing water,

gazing at the moon with deep feeling.

What this lot says

A single small boat tries for the far shore, with rough waves and nobody to take it across. At the edge of the moving stream a woman is standing. She looks up at the moon, and the poem says only that her feeling runs strong.

The boat has no crossing and the woman has only the distance between her and the moon, so longing stays unmet in both halves of the poem. Kyo, Bad fortune, appears in print above these lines in the book.

Set in our own time, the poem might describe wanting something strongly when the person who could have helped is no longer there. Wanting looks different when you stand still and observe it.

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 2, character 3: 1684 printing has 浪.

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.