Yomota Inuhiko-I
Cow dung[1]
I’d like you to cover my body with cow dung.
I’d like you to cover my skull, my sunken eyes,
use both hands to put dung over them like clay.
I’d like you to plaster my bloated belly, my legs grown skinny as bones,
my testicles that are like withered bulbs between my legs
with the black and ruddy mix that’s in the storing tubs.
Because I am someone soon heading for death,
someone trying to awaken from the silly dream called the present world.
I’d like you to cover my body with cow dung.
I’d like you to blanket with dung not just my body
but also my soul, my memories I’m tired of supporting,
leaving out nothing.
I’d like you to smear smelly clay
into every one of the innumerable slits that have grown inside my
memories.
Because I am tired of supporting my encephalon fully,
because my soul has gotten humid and lost its vitality.
The soul is fire,
the soul is fire that flares up airily.
But my body has received too much water,
has gotten as bloated as an oyster,
droops,
is ready to wait for a putrefying future,
has lost the power of flying up airily.[2]
I’d like you to cover my body with cow dung.
Children, I plead with you,
I’d like you to scoop up the cow dung in the tub with your innocent
fingers
plaster it into every hole of mine, every dent of mine,
I’d like you to turn me into cow dung itself.
When everything that’s smeared dries up,
cracks, and peels away from my skin,
my soul, released from humidity,
will restore its innate cheerfulness.
Now I lie by a Parthenon, fulfilled, splattered with cow dung.
Children, when you, tired of playing with mud,
think of a new game to play, your unstained souls intact.
[1] Reference to Heraclitus (c535-c475?), a “dark,” “weeping,” i.e., misanthropic philosopher. According to The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, Tr. C. D. Yonge, Heraclitus either “shut himself up in a stable for oxen, and covered himself with cow dung, hoping to cause the wet to evaporate from him, by the warmth that this produced,” and died, or “he placed himself in the sun, and ordered his servants to plaster him over with cow dung; and being stretched out in that way, on the second day he died, and was buried in the market-place.” Another story says that “as he could not tear off the cow-dung, he remained there, and on account of the alteration in his appearance, he was not discovered, and so was devoured by the dogs.”
[2] Heraclitus held that “fire is an element, and that it is by the changes of fire that all things exist;” that “fire, when densified becomes liquid, and becoming concrete, becomes also water; again, that the water when concrete is turned to earth, and that this is the road down; again, that the earth itself becomes fused, from which water is produced, and from that everything else is produced.”
わたしの躯を牛糞で覆ってほしい
頭蓋にも 窪んだ両の眼にも
両手を使って粘土のように糞を被せてほしい
膨れ上がった腹にも 痩せて骨ばかりとなった両の足にも
足の間にある 萎びた球根のような睾丸にも
貯えの桶にある黒と赤土色の混ぜものを塗りつけてほしい
なぜならわたしはもうすぐ死に赴こうとする者だから
現世という愚かしい夢から目覚めようとしている者だからだ
わたしの躯を牛糞で覆ってほしい
躯だけではない わたしの魂にも
支えるのに疲れたわたしの記憶にも
余すところなく糞を被せてほしい
記憶の内側に生じた 夥しい鬆という鬆に
臭いつく粘土をべっとりと塗りこめてほしい
なぜならわたしはもはや脳髄を支えきるのに疲れたから
魂が湿気を帯びて 活力を見失ったから
魂は火
魂は軽やかに燃え立つ炎だ
だがわたしの躯はあまりに多くの水を受けて
牡蠣の身のように膨れ上がり
垂れ下がり
腐爛の到来を待ち受けようとしている
軽やかに飛び立つ力を見失っている
わたしの躯を牛糞で覆ってほしい
子供たちよ、お願いだから
稚なげな指を用いて桶のなかの牛糞を掬いとり
わたしの穴という穴、窪みという窪みを塗りこめてほしい
わたしを牛糞そのものにしてほしい
塗りつけられたすべてが乾ききり
罅割れ、皮膚から剥がれ落ちるとき
わたしの魂は湿気から放たれ
本来の快活さを取り戻すことだろう
今わたしは牛糞に塗れ 心満ちて神殿の傍らに横たわる
子供たちよ、泥遊びに飽きたお前たちが
無地の魂のまま 新しい遊びを思いつくころ
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