Shunshoku Umegoyomi Vol. 1: In The Capital

Fig. 1: 心解あふ裏借家も。

From the description of nature, we proceed to the description of the city:

Is there any place superior to even the alleyway tenements that the heart comes to a mutual understanding with? For there is no place superior to home (figs. 1 & 2).

Of interest here is another example of lack of standardization - okurigana usage is irregular. Whereas the common way of writing 「とけあう」 (for this meaning) in modern Japanese with kanji would be 「解けあう」, Tamenaga uses 「解あふ」 (with the irregular use of 「ふ」 instead of 「う」 as well).

The word for "alleyway tenement" （裏借家） refers to small, rental property, implying that the families living here are not very wealthy. I don't know if it was the case in Edo, but in Heian-era Kyoto, the wealthy would live on the main thoroughfares ("avenues"), while the poor would live in the numerous intersecting alleys.

Fig. 2: 住ば都にまさるらん。

In fig. 2 is a good example of classical-style verb endings. 「まさるらん」 can be broken down into the verb 「勝る」 ("to surpass"), in the predicative form （終止形）. attributive form （連体形）. 「らん」 is a sound-shifted version of 「らむ」, which indicates present speculation in this case （現在推量）. Normally, 「らむ」 is followed by the predicative form of a verb, except for irregularly-conjugated "ra-hen" （ラ変） verbs, when the attributive form is used instead.

Fig. 3: 実と寔の中の郷。

I had written in my notes that 「都」 had the meaning of "home" and not "the capital" here for some reason. Either one fits when the previous sentence is taken into context, but for different reasons. If it means "capital," that would suggest that the reason for living in a small, dingy alleyway was because anything was superior to living in the countryside. If it has the meaning of "home," then that would imply that despite the tenements' poor state, because it was one's home, that could be forgiven.

That's right, it's actually Nakanogou (fig. 3).

Now we know exact name of the place in Edo where the tenements are located. From the comment by Matt below, it was "the old name for the area from modern-day Azumabashi/Higashikomagata to Honjo 4 in Sumida-ku." I searched for any Nakanogous in present-day Tokyo, but all I could find was something in Mie Prefecture, which is nowhere near Tokyo. The names of these back alley places were tenuous anyway, and it's also possible that Tamenaga pulled the name out of thin air.

Note that the size of the characters in the images are adjusted to be the same as that in the handwritten version, so they all line up. As stated previously, there are no small kana in pre-modern written Japanese.

Fig. 4: 家数もわづか五六軒。

The number of dwellings is only five or six (fig. 4).

A new kana irregularity here to point out - 「づ」 is used instead of 「ず」, something that can also be seen occasionally in modern Japanese. Although these two sounds are exactly the same in modern standard Japanese （標準語）, there are dialects that still preserve differences between those two morae, and between 「じ」 and 「ぢ」, a phenomenon known as yotsugana （四つ仮名）. It is possible that a distinction was still made in Tamenaga's time, although I don't know if that has been conclusively determined to be or not be the case.