Habu no Minato (波浮の港 , The HabuPort)1 is one of the famous Japanese folk songs. Chiyoko Sato’s 2 rendition of the song sold more than 1,00,000 discs in 1928.
磯の鵜の鳥ゃ 日暮れにゃ帰る
波浮の港にゃ 夕焼け小焼け
明日の日和は
ヤレホンニサ 凪るやら
The cormorants come back to the shore
when the sun goes down.
The Habu port is in the red sunset.
Will the sea
YARE HON NISA
be calm tomorrow?
船もせかれりゃ 出船の仕度
島の娘たちゃ 御神火ぐらし
なじょな心で
ヤレホンニサ いるのやら
They are busy preparing the boats for departure.
The young women on the island
Live in the Gojinka house.
How lonely
YARE HON NISA
they must be feeling.
島で暮らすにゃ 乏しゅうてならぬ
伊豆の伊東とは 郵便だより
下田港とは
ヤレホンニサ 風だより
It’s miserable to live on the island.
Only the mail connects us to Ito city on the Izu Peninsula 3
And only the wind
YARE HON NISA
To the Shimoda port
風は潮風 御神火おろし
島の娘たちゃ 出船の時にゃ
船のとも綱
ヤレホンニサ 泣いて解く
The saltbreeze comes down from Mt.Gojinka 4
When the boats are about to go out to the sea
The young women on the island
Untie the mooring lines
YARE HON NISA
With tears in their eyes.
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Habuminato (波浮港) is a fishing harbor on the south side of Izu Ōshima. It’s beautiful with row of historic houses and amazing views. The harbor used to be a crater lake and it connected out in 1703 by a great tsunami. ↩
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Chiyoko Sato (1897 - 1968) is famous for her songs ‘Habu no minato’ (Harbour of Habu) and ‘Tokyo koushin-kyoku’ (Tokyo march). She is also considered as the first pop singer in Japan. ↩
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The Izu peninsula (伊豆半島 Izu-hantō) is a large mountainous peninsula with deeply indented coasts to the west of Tokyo on the Pacific coast of the island of Honshū, Japan. ↩
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Gojinka (God of eruption, 御神火) is a nick name of Mount Mihara (三原山 Mihara-san) which is an active volcano on Izu Ōshima with the height of 764 m. Mihara-san last erupted in 1986. ↩