Our Heroine Tells The Target

JAPANESE ARCHERY (H/T Alias Clio)

1.
The hand tells the bowstring:
Obey me.

The bowstring answers the hand:
Draw valiantly.

The bowstring tells the arrow:
O arrow, fly.

The arrow answers the bowstring:
Speed my flight.

The arrow tells the target:
Be my light.

The target answers the arrow:
Love me.

2.
The target tells arrow, bowstring, hand and eye:
Ta twam asi.

Which means in a sacred tongue:
I am thou.

3.
(Footnote of a Christian:
O Mother of God,

watch over the target, the bow, the arrow
and the archer).

Aleksander Wat

Translated by Richard Laurie
From My Century: The Odyssey of a Polish Intellectual. New York and London: Norton, 1988.