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- Yamato Monogatari
Adabito no tanome watarishi somekawa no iro no fukasa o mide ya yaminamu
You faithless one, who kept me hoping all this while — am I to end without ever seeing the depth of that dyed leather's colour?
Sekanaku ni tae to taenishi yamamizu no tare shinobe to ka koe o kikasemu
No one dammed it, and still the mountain stream has failed, failed altogether. For whose sake would I let you hear its voice now?
Higurashi ni kimi matsu yama no hototogisu towanu toki ni zo koe mo oshimanu
All day long, on the hill where I wait for you among the pines, the cuckoo does not spare its voice — and it is when you do not come that it cries the loudest.
Nushi mo naki yado ni kuretaru matsu mireba chiyo suginikeru kokochi koso sure
When I see the pine standing dead in this dwelling that has lost its master, it feels as though a thousand years had passed.
Sore o dani omou koto tote waga yado o miki to na iiso hito no kikaku ni
If you feel anything for me, let it be this much: do not say that you saw my house. There are people who will hear.
Ima wa ware izuchi yukamashi yama nite mo yo no ukikoto wa nao mo taenu ka
Where am I to go now? Even up here in the hills, the hardships of the world will not leave off.
Asagiri no naka ni kimi masu mono naraba haruru manimani ureshikaramashi
If you were there in the morning mist, then as it lifted, little by little, I should be glad.
Koto naraba harezu mo aranamu akigiri no magire ni mienu kimi to omowamu
If it comes to that, I would rather it never lifted — so that I could think of you as someone the autumn mist merely hides from sight.
Ominaeshi oru te ni kakaru shiratsuyu wa mukashi no kyō ni aranu namida ka
The white dew that catches on the hand breaking off the maidenflower — can it be tears, that this day is not the day it used to be?
Okitsukaze fukei no ura ni tatsu nami no nagori ni sae ya ware wa shizumamu
The wind blows off the sea, and the waves rise in the bay of Fukei. Am I to be sunk by even the last swell they leave behind?
Yoso nagara omoishi yori mo natsu no yo no mihatenu yume zo hakanakarikeru
More than when I thought of it as something happening to other people, it is the summer night's dream, never seen through to the end, that turns out to be the frail thing.
Aware chō hito mo arubeku Musashino no kusa to dani koso oubekarikere
So that someone might have called me dear, I should have been born — if nothing better — as the grass that grows on the Musashi plain.
Shigure nomi furu yamazato no ko no shita wa oru hito kara ya morisuginuramu
In a hill village where nothing falls but cold rain, under the branches — is it because of the one standing there that the wet comes leaking through?
Tachiyoramu ko no moto mo naki tsuta no mi wa tokiwa nagara ni aki zo kanashiki
This ivy body of mine, with no tree at whose foot it might lean, stays green all year — and so the autumn is a sorrow to it.
Iro zo to wa omooezu tomo kono hana wa toki ni tsuketsutsu omoiidenamu
Even if you do not think much of its colour, I would have you look on this flower from time to time, and remember me.
Shirakumo no kokonoe ni tatsu mine nareba Ōuchiyama to iu ni zo arikeru
Since it is a peak where the white clouds rise in ninefold layers, that, I see, is why they call it Ōuchi — the Great Palace mountain.