Hey! I'm back. Sorry, I went to Las Vegas to attend a wedding.

So I was reading Ueda Akinari 上田秋成's Tandai shōshin roku 胆大小心緑 ("Record of a Fearless Fussbudget") when I came across this amusing passage:

狸は又化ようが狐より上手で、狐ほどはれだゝぬ事じや。四國ではたぬきがつくげな。九州では河太郎がつく。京大阪では、おやまや、先生だち、茶人がついてなやます事じや。いづれ安心して居られぬ世界なり。

I was going to translate it, but then I thought to myself: Self, remember the last time you mentioned this book on No-sword, and Mike I. pointed out that a full translation by William E. Clarke and Wendy E. Cobcroft was freely available at PMJS Papers? Why duplicate that effort?

So I went and found their translation, and here it is:

The badger is better at bewitching than the fox, and is not so showy about it all as the fox is. Badgers seem to run the show in Shikoku. In Kyūshū, the gawatarō predominates. In Kyoto and Osaka, trollops, teachers and tea masters rule the roost. Peace and quiet cannot be in this world.

Unfortunately, though, I think that this translation is wrong, and in a manner that ruins the punchline. My issue is with the word tsuku. Clarke and Cobcroft translate it variously as "run the show," "predominate," and "rule the roost," but in the context of spirit beings the more likely meaning is surely "possess."

The badger is better at bewitching than the fox, and is not so showy about it all as the fox is. I hear that in Shikoku there are cases of possession by badgers. In Kyūshū they have possession by gawatarō. In Kyoto and Osaka, it is trollops, teachers and tea masters who possess and torment the people. There is no peace to be had anywhere in this world.

Other comments:

• gawatarō is, as C. and C. point out, another word for kappa. There's nothing in my edition (Iwanami Bunko, natch) to indicate that the first consonant is /g/ rather than /k/, but either are possible readings of the kanji.
• I don't know if Ueda had a particular kind of "teacher" in mind or not. Thoughts?