運命の悪戯 unmei no itazura Whim of Fate

A trick of fate: the strange turn of events that feels as though something beyond human knowing were toying with you. The mischief in it is a prank's, a child's meddling, and it is benign as often as cruel, which is what makes the phrase everyday Japanese rather than a lament; it has its own dictionary headword. Its oldest pages are Meiji: a critic writing on Chikamatsu in 1896, and a translator in 1901 who used it for a Spanish castaway's irony of my fate. Whether it is for the turn that went against you or for the one that went your way is yours.

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