Farewell to this world, farewell to the night. If I liken myself, going to die, to anything, it is the frost on the road to the graveyard, vanishing with every step. Like a dream within a dream, how fleeting and how sad.
Listen, count: of the seven strokes of the dawn bell, six have sounded, and the last will be the final bell we hear in this world. It tolls, "Extinction is bliss." Not only the bell: grass and trees and sky, this is our last look at them. The clouds are heartless too; in the stars reflected in the water the Dipper shines clear, and the River of Heaven reflects the star lovers. We promise each other that the Umeda Bridge is the magpie bridge the Cowherd and the Weaver cross, and you and I will be husband-and-wife stars forever.
The two reached the Tenjin wood at Sonezaki. Looking around, "On which tree shall we die?", they saw a pine and a palm growing joined from a single root. "A tree of joined branches. Let us die here."
Ohatsu wept a while, saying, "Tell my brothers, my father and my mother just this." Tokubei too wept: "I parted from my own parents when I was small and was raised by my uncle, my master. I'm sorry to die without repaying that kindness."
With Ohatsu's sash they tied their bodies together as one. Tokubei drew his short sword. "Come, time is passing. Namu Amida Butsu." He set the blade to Ohatsu's throat, but he could not drive it into the skin of the one he had loved so long. His eyes went dark; his hands shook. "Quickly, quickly," Ohatsu urged him. At last Tokubei thrust the blade home, then cut his own throat with a razor and followed her.
No one knows who told it, but the sound carried on the wind through the Sonezaki wood, the story spread from mouth to mouth, high and low prayed for them, and there is no doubt the two will attain Buddhahood in the life to come. They became a true model of love.
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Chikamatsu Monzaemon turned a double suicide that really took place on the seventh day of the fourth month of 1703 into a puppet play in just one month and staged it at the Takemoto theater. It was a sensation and, it is said, paid off all the theater's debts. Tsuyu no Tenjin Shrine, where it happened, is still called "Ohatsu Tenjin," and people come to pray for success in love.