108Japanese quotation 名言
月日は百代の過客にして
つきひははくたいのかかくにしてTsukihi wa hakutai no kakaku ni shite
“The days and months are travelers of a hundred generations.”
The meaning
Time itself is a traveler that never stops; the years that come and go travel too. We are guests of a passage, and that passage is life itself.
At the origin
The opening of Bashō's "Narrow Road to the Deep North" (Oku no hosomichi), echoing the Chinese poet Li Bai.
The characters
- 月日 tsukihidays and months
- は watopic marker
- 百代 hakutaihundred generations
- の
- 過客
- にして
はParticleMarks the topic: what the sentence is about — “as for…”.
In practice
Treat this day as a leg of a journey: unique, and already moving.
Editorial note
Echoes a text by the Chinese poet Li Bai.