2003-11-26 17:37
I googled "japanese children song Kagome....
Kagome, Kagome
Kago no naka no tori wa
Itsu itsu deyaru?
Yoake no ban ni
Tsuru to kame ga subetta
Ushiro no shoumen dare?
Kagome, Kagome.
What time will the bird in the cage go out?
In the evening of daybreak, the tortoise and crane slipped.
Who is behind you?
(The other version is "Who is in front of the back/where a crane and turtle slipped and fell?", which is more literal I'm guessing.)
....Apparatently, the Japanese in the song is ancient, really old and hard to understand. No one knows what the song means, or what a 'kagome' is, but there are some theories....the characters used for 'kagome' are similiar to the ones for 'basket' and 'woman', and that it might be an old way of saying 'pregnant woman'. And therefore the song itself is a ghost story about a stillborn child. Cranes and turtles are symbols of good luck and longevity, so for them to fall would be a bad sign, while the 'when will the bird in the cage come out' refers to the baby having never been born.
