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- Genji Monogatari
Inochi koso tayu tomo taeme sadame naki
yo no tsune naranu naka no chigiri o
Let my life be cut off if it must; but in a world where nothing holds, the bond between us is not of the world's ordinary kind.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Nakamichi o hedatsuru hodo wa nakeredomo
kokoro midaruru kesa no awayuki
It is not deep enough to close the road that runs between us, and still it leaves my heart unquiet, this thin snow of the morning.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Hakanakute uwa no sora ni zo kienubeki
kaze ni tadayou haru no awayuki
So frail a thing, it must vanish in mid-air before it ever lands—this thin spring snow that drifts wherever the wind takes it.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Somukinishi kono yo ni nokoru kokoro koso
iru yamaji no hodashi narikere
The heart I left behind in the world I turned my back on is the very tether that holds me on the mountain road I mean to take.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Somuku yo no ushirometaku wa sarigataki
hodashi o shiite kake na hanare so
If the world you left still weighs on you, then do not force yourself free of a tether you find so hard to part from.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Toshitsuki o naka ni hedatete Ausaka no
sa mo sekigataku otsuru namida ka
With all those years set between us I have come at last to Meeting Hill, and yet how little I can dam these tears that keep on falling.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Namida nomi sekitomegataki shimizu nite
yukiau michi wa hayaku taeniki
Only my tears will not be dammed, like the clear spring at the barrier gate; but the road on which we might have met came to its end long ago.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Shizumishi mo wasurenu mono o korizuma ni
mi mo nagetsubeki yado no fujinami
I have not forgotten the years I lay sunk at Suma, and even so I have learned nothing: I could throw myself into the wisteria pool of this house.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Mi o nagemu fuchi mo makoto no fuchi narade
kakeji ya sara ni korizuma no nami
The pool you say you would throw yourself into is no true pool, and so I shall not let those unchastened waves break over me again.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Mi ni chikaku aki ya kinuramu miru mama ni
aoba no yama mo utsuroinikeri
Has autumn come so close to me as this? While I watched, even the green-leaved hills went and changed their color.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Mizutori no aoba wa iro mo kawaranu o
hagi no shita koso keshiki kotonare
The water bird's blue-green wing does not change its color at all; it is under the bush clover that things have altered.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Oi no nami kai aru ura ni tachiidete
shiotaruru ama o tare ka togamemu
Come out at last onto a shore that has made a long life worth living, who would find fault with an old fisher whose sleeves are wet with brine?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Shiotaruru ama o namiji no shirube nite
tazune mo mibaya hama no tomaya o
With you, wet with brine, to guide me along the sea roads, how I would like to go and see that rush-thatched hut on the beach.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Yo o sutete Akashi no ura ni sumu hito mo
kokoro no yami wa harukeshi mo seji
Even the one who left the world and lives on at Akashi will never see it lift, that darkness a parent carries in the heart.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Hikari idemu akatsuki chikaku narinikeri
ima zo mishi yo no yumegatari suru
The dawn in which the light will break is close at hand, and so at last I tell the dream I saw in the world I once knew.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Ika nareba hana ni kozutau uguisu no
sakura o wakite negura to wa senu
How can it be that the warbler, moving tree to tree among the blossoms, singles out no cherry to make its roost?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu