Please to come in. This is my daughter,
With blue sleeve's embroidered mon .
" Pretty?" ... We of the guest breathe praises
In Japan — not of our own.

So should I speak of the lotus-blossom,
Or of the cherry, she would blush.
It is immodest to praise beauty
In our children! so I hush.

Yet I will sell her — you are thinking? —
To a stranger? for a year?
Please to have tea. In this my country
Many things like that are ... queer?

It is perhaps so. Please to drink still
My unworthy tea. — The price?
Will you not have her dance and play first?
Koto music you find nice?

After you buy her? — Then, three hundred,
For one year — three hundred yen.
Here is the ink, to sign agreement:
You shall read it once again.

No? — Then, I sign it: and the money
You will give now to my hand.
She is my daughter; as the willow
May be swayed at your command.

And with the money I buy pleasure?
On your tongue that is the word?
In Japan ... revenge is sweeter:
We spend first upon the sword.

That I will buy: and then, to-morrow,
Secret entrance to my foe:
And in his entrails. ... It is different
In your country. — Do you go?