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- Heike Monogatari
Tachikaeru nagori mo Ari no ura nareba
kami mo megumi o kakuru shiranami
Since this is the Bay of Ari, whose very name says regret remains at parting, the god must be casting his grace over us in these white breakers.
Heike Monogatari - Sei Shōnagon (opening lines), Fujiwara no Kintō (closing lines)
Chitose hen kimi ga yowai ni fujinami no
matsu no eda ni mo kakarinuru kana
Your life shall run a thousand years—and hoping for as much itself, the wisteria has come to hang upon the branches of the pine.
Heike Monogatari - Fujiwara no Yukinari
Shiranami no koromo no sode o shiboritsutsu
kimi yue ni koso tachi mo mawarene
Wringing the white sleeves of my robe, white as the breaking waves—it is for your sake that I cannot even rise and dance.
Heike Monogatari - Dōmyō
Omoiyare kimi ga omokage tatsu nami no
yosekuru tabi ni nururu tamoto o
Think of me: each time the waves rise and come breaking in, your face rises before me, and my sleeves are wet again.
Heike Monogatari - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Koishiku wa kite mo mi yo kashi mi ni souru
kage o ba ikaga hanachiyarubeki
If you long for him, come and see him here. This shadow that clings so close to my own body—how could I ever let it go?
Heike Monogatari - Sugawara no Takasue
Yamahōshi orinobe goromo usuku shite
haji o ba e koso kakusazarikere
The mountain monks' robes of thin-drawn silk were too thin to cover up the shame beneath them.
Heike Monogatari - Sei Shōnagon
Orinobe o hitokire mo enu warera sae
usuhaji o kaku kazu ni iru kana
We who never got so much as a single strip of that thin-drawn silk are counted all the same among those wearing a thin coat of shame.
Heike Monogatari - Fujiwara no Kaneie
Isemusha wa mina hiodoshi no yoroi kite
Uji no ajiro ni kakarinuru kana
The warriors of Ise, in armor laced with scarlet, have every one of them been caught in the fish weirs of the Uji.
Heike Monogatari - Sei Shōnagon
Umoregi no hana saku koto mo nakarishi ni
mi no naru hate zo kanashikarikeru
A buried tree that never came into flower—and now at the last my life has borne its fruit, and bitter that fruit is.
Heike Monogatari - The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna
Hito shirenu Ōuchiyama no yamamori wa
kogakurete nomi tsuki o miru kana
The keeper of the great inner mountain, whom no one knows, only looks at the moon from where he stands hidden among the trees.
Heike Monogatari - Kyōgoku Tamekane
Noborubeki tayori naki mi wa ki no shita ni
shii o hiroite yo o wataru kana
Having no means by which to climb, I gather acorns on the ground beneath the tree, and with them make my way through the world.
Heike Monogatari - Kyōgoku Tamekane
Momotose o yokaeri made ni sugi kinishi
Otagi no sato no are ya hatenan
A hundred years turned four times over have passed here at Otagi—and must it now come at last to ruin?
Heike Monogatari - Sei Shōnagon
Sakiizuru hana no miyako o furisutete
kaze fuku hara no sue zo ayauki
To turn away from the capital of flowers for a plain where the wind blows—what lies at the end of that is surely to be feared.
Heike Monogatari - Sei Shōnagon
Matsu yoi no fukeyuku kane no koe kikeba
kaeru ashita no tori wa mono ka wa
Set against the bell tolling through a night spent waiting, what is the cry of the cock on the morning he goes?
Heike Monogatari - Fujiwara no Tomoyasu
Mono ka wa to kimi ga iiken tori no ne no
kesa shi mo nadoka kanashikaruran
The cry of the cock, which you once called a thing of no account—why should it sound so sorrowful this morning of all mornings?
Heike Monogatari - Fujiwara no Michitsuna
Mataba koso fukeyuku kane mo tsurakarame
kaeru ashita no tori no ne zo uki
Only for one who waits would the deepening bell be hard to bear. It is the cock at morning, crying your going, that hurts now.
Heike Monogatari - Fujiwara no Tomoyasu