Fire, famine, earthquake

from The Ten Foot Square Hut · tr. A. L. Sadler (1928)

The disasters

In the great fire the flames spread as though unrolled, and men fled without saving anything, so that the treasures of a whole city turned to ashes in a night. Of the follies of men, none is more foolish than to spend their riches building houses in so unsafe a place.

The disasters

The earth shook and the mountains crumbled; the dust rose like smoke. Of all the terrible things, the most terrible is an earthquake. Yet as the days passed, people ceased to speak of it, and life returned to what it was.

This text is one of the sources behind Kamo no Chōmei, one of the voices you can reflect with.

All chapters in The Ten Foot Square Hut

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