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- Yamato Monogatari
Hisashiku wa omooenedomo Suminoe no matsu ya futatabi oikawaruramu
It has not seemed long to me. Or has the pine of Suminoe already died back and grown again a second time?
Aku to ieba shizugokoro naki haru no yo no yume to ya kimi o yoru nomi wa mimu
Word comes that it is growing light, and my heart will not settle. Are you to be no more than a spring night's dream to me, a thing seen only after dark?
Omoiki ya suginishi hito no kanashiki ni kimi sae tsuraku naramu mono to wa
Who could have foreseen it? On top of my grief for the one who is gone, even you would turn cold on me.
Naki hito o kimi ga kikaku ni kakeji tote nakunaku shinobu hodo na urami so
It was to keep the dead from reaching your ears that I have wept alone and held myself back. Do not hold that silence against me.
Aratama no toshi wa henedomo Sarusawa no ike no tamamo wa mitsubekarikeri
Not even a year has gone round, and already it seems I am to see the jewelled weeds of Sarusawa pond.
Kazu naranu mi ni oku yo no shiratama wa hikari miesasu mono ni zo arikeru
The white jewel that settles at night on a self that counts for nothing is a thing that shows its light for a moment only, and then is gone.
Haru no no wa haruke nagara mo wasuregusa ouru wa miyuru mono ni zo arikeru
The spring fields stretch far into the distance, and even so, the grass of forgetting can be seen growing there plainly enough.
Haru no no ni oiji to zo omou wasuregusa tsuraki kokoro no tane shi nakereba
No such grass will grow in that spring meadow, I think — the grass of forgetting. There is no seed of coldness in me for it to grow from.
Akikaze ni nabiku obana wa mukashi mishi tamoto ni nite zo koishikarikeru
The pampas plumes bending in the autumn wind are so like the sleeve I saw in those days that I find myself longing for you.
Tamoto to mo shinobazaramashi akikaze ni nabiku obana no odorokasazu wa
You would never have thought of any sleeve, or of me, if the pampas plumes bending in the autumn wind had not jolted you into it.
Furusato to arenishi yado no kusa no ha mo kimi ga tame to zo mazu wa tsumikeru
Even the grasses of this house, which has gone to ruin for want of you, I picked before anything else, thinking of you.
Yo ni furedo koi mo senu mi no yū sareba suzuro ni mono no kanashiki ya nazo
I go on living, and I am not in love with anyone. So why, when evening comes, does a sadness with no cause take hold of me?
Yūgure ni mono omou toki wa kannazuki ware mo shigure ni otorazarikeri
When I fall to brooding at dusk it is the tenth month over again, and I am a match for the cold rains themselves.
Hisakata no sora naru tsuki no mi nariseba yuku to mo miede kimi wa mitemashi
If I had the body of the moon up in the sky, I could cross to you unnoticed, with no one to mark my coming, and look on you at last.
Kashiwagi no mori no shitagusa oinu tomo mi o itazura ni nasazu mo aranamu
Even when the grass beneath the oak grove has grown old, and I with it, I would have you not throw me aside as a thing of no use.
Kashiwagi no mori no shitagusa oi no yo ni kakaru omoi wa araji to zo omou
Even in a world where the grass beneath the oak grove has grown old, no such thought will arise in me — that is what I think.