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- Yamato Monogatari
Asaku koso hito wa miruarame Sekikawa no tayuru kokoro wa araji to zo omou
Shallow, no doubt, is how it looks to others. But like the water of Sekikawa, this heart of mine will not run dry — so I believe.
Sekikawa no iwama o kuguru mizu asami taenubeku nomi miyuru kokoro o
The water running between the rocks of Sekikawa is so shallow that it looks like nothing so much as a heart about to fail.
Yonayona ni izu to mishikado hakanakute irinishi tsuki to iite yaminamu
Night after night I saw it rise, and to no purpose; a moon that set again. Let me call it that, and let that be the end.
Wasuraruru mi wa warekara no ayamachi ni nashite dani koso kimi o uramine
That I am the one forgotten — if I can call it my own doing, my own fault, then at least I need not hold it against you.
Yuyushiku mo omooyuru kana hitogoto ni utomarenikeru yo ni koso arikere
It strikes me as ill-omened — that this should be a world in which each woman in her turn is put aside.
Wasuraruru Tokiwa no yama no ne o zo naku akino no mushi no koe ni midarete
Forgotten, I cry aloud on Tokiwa, the mountain that never turns colour, my voice confounded with the insects of the autumn field.
Naku naredo obotsukanaku zo omooyuru koe kiku koto no ima wa nakereba
You weep, so I hear; and yet it reaches me as something uncertain, for I no longer hear that voice at all.
Kumoi nite yo o furu koro wa samidare no ame no shita ni zo ikeru kai naki
Passing my nights up in the cloud-country, in these long summer rains that fall on all beneath heaven, there is no good in living.
Fureba koso koe mo kumoi ni kikoekeme itodo harukeki kokochi nomi shite
It is because I have gone on weeping that my voice reached the cloud-country at all — and still there is only this sense of a distance growing.
Au koto no negau bakari ni narinureba tada ni kaeshishi toki zo koishiki
Now that meeting you has come to be something I can only pray for, I find myself longing for the days when I sent you home with nothing.
Karisome ni kimi ga fushi mishi tokonatsu no ne mo karenishi o ikade sakikemu
The pink you lay beside and looked at for a while — its root has withered, and our lying together with it. How was it flowering, then?
Waga norishi koto o ushi to ya kienikemu kusa ni kakareru tsuyu no inochi wa
Did it find it hard that I once rode on it, and fade away for that — a life like a drop of dew hanging on a blade of grass?
Ōzora wa kumorazu nagara kannazuki toshi no furu ni mo sode wa nurekeri
The wide sky is not clouded over; and yet, in the godless month, as the years go by and the rains fall, my sleeves are wet through.
Kono yo ni wa kakute mo yaminu wakareji no fuchise o tare ni toite wataramu
In this world it has ended just like this. And the deeps and shallows of the parting road — whom shall I ask, to get across?
Kochikaze wa kyō higurashi ni fukumeredo ame mo yo ni hata yo ni mo araji na
The east wind has blown all day, it seems. And yet surely the rain will not last into the night — surely not.
Mukashi kite nareshi o sureru koromode o ana mezurashi to yoso ni mishi kana
That printed sleeve I once knew so well, worn soft with long wearing — how strange it looked, how fine; and I watched it as a stranger would.