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- Yamato Monogatari
Tsuka no ma mo morotomo ni to zo chigirikeru au to wa hito ni mienu mono kara
Even for a moment — even in the mound — we promised to be together, though no one can see that we are meeting.
Kachimake mo nakute ya hatemu kimi ni yori omoi kurabu no yama wa koyu tomo
Are we to end with neither winner nor loser? For your sake we crossed the mountain of comparing, and crossed it in vain.
Au koto no katami ni kouru nayotake no tachiwazurau to kiku zo kanashiki
Each of them longing for a meeting neither has, they stand there at a loss like slender bamboo; and to hear of it is a sorrow.
Mi o nagete awamu to hito ni chigiranedo ukimi wa mizu ni kage o narabetsu
It was not that I promised anyone we should meet by drowning; and yet these wretched, floating bodies have laid their shapes side by side.
Onaji e ni sumu wa ureshiki naka naredo nado ware to nomi chigirazarikemu
To live in the same inlet, bound by the same tie, is glad enough. But why did you not give your promise to me alone?
Ukarikeru waga minasoko o ōkata wa kakaru chigiri no nakaramashikaba
How wretched it was, this water-floor of mine. If only, from the first, there had been no such promise at all.
Ware to nomi chigirazu nagara onaji e ni sumu wa ureshiki migiwa to zo omou
Though it was not to me alone that you promised, still, to live here in the same inlet is a glad water's edge — so I think it.
Hitori shite ikani semashi to wabitsureba soyo to mo mae no ogi zo kotauru
Alone here, what am I to do? And when I sigh it over, only the reeds before the house rustle and answer: so it is.
Kimi nakute ashikarikeri to omou ni mo itodo Naniwa no ura zo sumiuki
Without you it has gone badly — cutting reeds, and badly; and thinking of it, the bay of Naniwa grows harder still to live beside.
Ashikaraji tote koso hito no wakarekeme nanika Naniwa no ura mo sumiuki
It was so that things should not go badly — so that there should be no reeds to cut — that we parted. Why say now that Naniwa is hard to live beside?
Kaze fukeba okitsu shiranami Tatsutayama yowa ni ya kimi ga hitori koyuramu
When the wind blows, white breakers rise far out at sea — and rising, Tatsuta. Is it that mountain you are crossing alone at midnight?
Wagimoko ga nekutare kami o Sarusawa no ike no tamamo to miru zo kanashiki
That the sleep-tangled hair of the girl I loved should be what I now see as the jewelled weed of the Sarusawa pond — the grief of it.
Sarusawa no ike mo tsurashi na wagimoko ga tamamo kazukaba mizu zo hinamashi
The Sarusawa pond is unfeeling too. If she went down and took the jewelled weed upon her, the water should have dried away.
Tatsutagawa momijiba nagaru kannabi no Mimuro no yama ni shigure fururashi
Down the Tatsuta the autumn leaves are floating; so on the sacred hill of Mimuro the cold rains must be falling.
Tatsutagawa momiji midarete nagarumeri wataraba nishiki naka ya taenamu
Down the Tatsuta the autumn leaves come scattered and tangled; and were I to cross, that brocade would surely be broken in the middle.
Iwade omou zo iu ni masareru
What is thought and not spoken is the greater by far. Of Iwate, of the bird, I say nothing.