Haruki Murakami fans discussion

On pg 56 of Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase there is a quote, "For lo the shadows of a gaol untold, Do grow about our days now many fold." Can anyone who owns this book in Japanese write down the Japanese sentence and does anyone know where's that quote from?

Here is the line in Japanese (I am 95% sure it is correct, I found it on GoogleBooks search tool after selecting the Japanese edition of the book)

生ひたつにっれ牢霡のかげは、われらのめぐりに増えまさる

I can't say anything about its origin. Some unreliable pages on the internet report this line as an extract from a poem by Thomas Cooper, (The Chartist): Purgatory of Suicides, A Prison-Rhyme.
BUT when I checked I couldn't find any matching line. As it looks like a long research, I gave up quite soon, sorry.

And sorry for my English, if it is not clear, just ask! ;)

Kikyosan wrote: "Here is the line in Japanese (I am 95% sure it is correct, I found it on GoogleBooks search tool after selecting the Japanese edition of the book)

生ひたつにっれ牢霡のかげは、われらのめぐりに増えまさる

I can't say anything..."

Thank you so so much. The person who asked me about this quote did try to find it in Cooper's poem as well and couldn't but I honestly thought he just missed it so if you can't find it also it simply means this is not from that poem. I appreciate your time and effort enormously.

You're welcome, it's nothing! if you find something, please let me know, I'm curious now! :D

Maksim wrote: "Kikyosan wrote: "Here is the line in Japanese (I am 95% sure it is correct, I found it on GoogleBooks search tool after selecting the Japanese edition of the book)

生ひたつにっれ牢霡のかげは、われらのめぐりに増えまさる

I c..."
Will do :)

There is some lovely writing:
“I swallowed my breath and gazed at her, transfixed. My mouth went dry. From no part of me could I summon a voice. For an instant, the white plaster wall seemed to ripple. The voices of the other diners and the clinking of their dinnerware grew faint, then once again returned to normal. I heard the sound of waves, recalled the scent of a long-forgotten evening. Yet all this was but a mere fragment of the sensations passing through me in those few hundredths of a second.”

Excerpt from Birnbaum’s English translation.

Since I am adding to an earlier thread on the novel, here is some background information:

A Wild Sheep Chase (羊をめぐる冒険, Hitsuji o meguru bōken) (literally An Adventure Concerning Sheep). Published in Japan in 1982.
1982: Noma Literary Prize (best newcomer) for A Wild Sheep Chase
It was translated into English, by Alfred Birnbaum, and published in 1989. This is often viewed as Murakami's first substantial work.

This quasi-detective tale follows an unnamed, chain-smoking narrator and his adventures in Tokyo and Hokkaido in 1978. The story begins when the recently divorced protagonist, an advertisement executive, publishes a photo of a pastoral scene sent to him in a confessional letter by his long-lost friend, 'Rat.' In the letter, Rat asks him to return to their hometown and give a belated goodbye on his behalf to J, the owner of the bar the two used to frequent, and a woman he was romantically involved with.
(Credit Wikipedia - accessed 10 June, 2025)