藁草履
A story of a farming couple in the Shinshu countryside.
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Sample: three-line reading
Each word has its meaning in this sentence underneath, and each sentence has a full translation. Read the original and glance down only when you need to.
About the book
The text describes the mountain villages around Kitasaku in Shinshū, following the Chikuma River upstream through the valley and settling on the village of Minaminoguchi and the Nomoyama moor, where people live by raising horses. It reads like a quiet, detailed guide to the land and its ways, told in a calm, observational tone.
Cultural notes (selection)
Background a translation can’t carry: social roles, history and allusions. While reading, tap “Note” at the end of a sentence to see them all.
Itinerant merchants from Echigo Province (present-day Niigata Prefecture). Echigo faces the Sea of Japan, and its merchants crossed the mountains into Shinano and other regions to sell salt, dried fish, and other goods. They were renowned for their tenacious long-distance trading, which is why the author describes them as 「忍耐力に富んだ」 (rich in endurance).
Naoetsu is a port in Echigo (the present-day Joetsu area of Niigata Prefecture) and a centre for the distribution of sea salt. Shinano, being inland, produced no salt, so Echigo merchants travelled this route up along the Chikuma River, carrying salt into the mountain regions.
Shinshū is another name for Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture). Shinano is mountainous, and its people mainly made their living by horse breeding, farming, and charcoal burning. In the text, the word 「慓悍」 describes their bold, rugged temperament.
About the author
Tōson Shimazaki (25 March 1872 – 22 August 1943), the pen-name of Haruki Shimazaki, was a Japanese writer active in the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He began his career as a Romantic poet but went on to establish himself as a major proponent of Japanese Naturalism, and his most popular work is the historical novel Before the Dawn (1929–1935), about the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate.
How the glosses are made
Word glosses and sentence translations are generated in context by AI models (DeepSeek and Zhipu GLM), and every word is checked to have a gloss. AI can make mistakes; you can report problems from the book page.
FAQ
Is this the original text?
Yes. The library holds the opening section of the public-domain original, taken from 青空文库.
Do I need to pay or sign up?
Library books are free to read without an account. Other gloss languages and importing your own texts need an account and credits.
What level is it?
This one is marked “Advanced”. Every word is glossed, so you can keep reading even with a small vocabulary.
Can I use another gloss language?
English and Chinese glosses are prepared in advance; signed-in readers can generate other languages.