Umi Yukaba

Sung recording by the Tokyo Music School, 1941

Umi Yukaba ( Japanese 海 行 か ば , German for "When I drive across the sea") is a Japanese patriotic song. It is based on the middle section of a Chōka (long poem) by the poet Ōtomo no Yakamochi . The elegy was written in 749 on the occasion of an imperial edict regarding a gold discovery in the Michinoku province , which Yakamochi used as an opportunity to reminisce about the past greatness of the Ōtomo clan, which in the past made up the military upper class for a long time. The poem is in volume 18 (poem 4094) of the anthology Man'yōshū, which he has compiled in part . The selected verses were given a melody by Kiyoshi Nobutoki in 1937. It is known among patriots as the “second national anthem” alongside the Kimi Ga Yo .

text

original	Modern	transcription	German translation
海 行者 美 都 久 屍 山 行者 草 牟 須 屍 大 皇 乃 敝 尓 許 曽 死 米 可 敝 里 見 波 勢 自 [...]	海 行 か ば 水漬 く 屍 山 行 か ば 草 生 す 屍 大君 の 辺 に こ そ 死 な め め か え り み は せ じ	umi yukaba mizuku kabane yama yukaba kusa musu kabane okimi no he ni koso shiname kaerimi wa seji	If I go to the sea I 'll be a soggy corpse, if I go to the mountains I 'll be a corpse lying on the grass, but if I die for Your Majesty I will not regret it.

use

The song was very popular during the Pacific War and was recognized by the government of the Japanese Empire as the "second national anthem" until the surrender of Japan . In the final stages of the war, it was sung by kamikaze pilots before their missions.

Today the song is officially sung following the warship march .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Earl Roy Miner: An Introduction to Japanese Court Poetry . Stanford University Press, 1968, ISBN 978-0-8047-0636-0 , pp. 72 ( limited preview in Google Book search).