蜻蛉釣り今日はどこまで行ったやら tonbo-tsuri kyō wa doko made itta yara Chiyojo - My little dragonfly hunter, where has he gone today, I wonder

The verse given to Kaga no Chiyo is what a parent says at dusk with a child not yet home. The child is out at a game, and the question stops there. A book printed long after her death says she wrote it when her child died, and readers have heard that grief in it since. The Japanese references hold the story as legend. The grief readers hear is real, and the verse keeps it in the pause after the question.

In the Japanese, 蜻蛉釣り, tonbo-tsuri, is the children's game of catching dragonflies, a season word for autumn. The game was played with a decoy on a thread or a pole tipped with birdlime. 今日は is today. どこまで is how far, and 行った is went. やら is the particle of wondering aloud, and I wonder is its exact English. None of the words says my, little, son or death. Two of the hands write 蜻蛉 in kana, as とんぼ, and one of them also writes 今日 as きょう.

The English is Timothy L. Jackowski's, made for Takase Studios.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 蜻蛉釣り今日はどこまで行ったやら.

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