木村：秋の空はどこまで青く本当にきれいですね。
佐々木：こんな空を見ていると山に行きたくて矢も楯もたまらなくなるわ。
Ya mo Tale mo Tamaranai
Kimura: Aki no sora wa doko made mo aoku hontoo ni kirei desu ne.
Sasaki: Konna sora wo miteiru to yama ni ikitakute ya mo tate mo tamaranakunaru wa.
Mr. Kimura: Autumn certainly is beautiful with blue skies everywhere.
Ms. Sasaki: When I see skies like this, I want so much to go up to the mountains, nothing can keep me down.
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To brood over doing something up to the limits of one's patience is the condition portrayed by the expression ya mo tate mo tamaranai. Strong feelings are seen as being faster than an arrow (ya) and able to pass through a shield (tate) no matter how hard it is. As weapons of war arrows and shielss, of course, have long been out of use; we see them today only in historical dramas and samurai movies. They are still alive and well in this week's expression, however, an expression which shows up quite frequently in everyday conversations :
- A heavy smoker sitting in the No Smoking section: "Tabako ga suitakute ya mo tate mo tamaranai" ("I'm dying for a smoke").
- A girl in love: "Kare ni aitakute ya mo tate mo tamaranai" (I'm dying to see him").
- One of my assistants as he heads off to Osaka for a concert:"J no jyazu konsaato ga kikitakute ya mo tate mo tamaranai".("I'm dying to hear J's jazz concert"). Since the concert was in the evening he couldn't return the same day and so showed up at our seminar room the next day with red, rabbit eyes.
- My youngest daughter who has just gotten her driver's license: "Unten shitakute ya mo tate mo tamaranai" ("I'm dying to be able to drive"). As might be expected, of course, she knows it would be wrong to put her "New Driver" sticker onto the borrowed car -Of a friend and so presses me everyday with,"Mom, buy a car." This is all because, having brought the car we had in Tokyo to Yamaguchi, the parking space in Tokyo is now empty. To my daughter: "I understand just how much you want to drive, but you really don't need a car." My daughter: "No, I do. When it rains I really have a hard time getting to college...And, anyway, I'll do my best during the next examinations." Me : "You study for examinations for yourself and they don't have anything to do with me." Daughter: "Well/ then I'll get a part-time job and pay back \10,000 a month." Perhaps you now have a better sense of the feelings behind the expression ya mo tate mo tamaranai!
Finally...! really do have this irresistible urge to go up to the mountains. I imagine Shiga Kogen in Nagano Prefecture enveloped in the colors of autumn; red and yellow leaves adorning the trees, a bracing breeze in the air. And those mushrooms I found some years ago, are they still ii the same place? I must get to the mountains before they are swallowed up in the clouds.