Sources

Many stories here quote Japanese as it was written: a line from an old book, a law, a saying. This page is for when you want to follow one back to where it came from.

The original and our translation

When you see Japanese with English beside it marked (our rendering), the English is our own translation, made for that story. The Japanese is the original wording, so if you read Japanese you get to enjoy both.

Finding the passage

Every quotation comes with the title of the work, the chapter or section, and a link to a Japanese library or archive where you can see it for yourself. Much of it is in the National Diet Library Digital Collections, which puts old books online for anyone to browse. Some are scans of the original printed pages, and they are worth a look even if you cannot read them.