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- Shui Wakashu
Yamabushi mo nobushi mo kakute kokoromitsu ima wa toneri no neya zo yukashiki
I have tried being both a mountain ascetic and a field ascetic; now what I long to see is the bedroom of a palace attendant.
Shui Wakashu - Monk Kenshu
Watatsumi wa ama no fune koso ari to kike nori tagaete mo kogiidetaru kana
On the great sea, they say, there are fisherfolk's boats, and nuns' boats, but this monk, mistaking both the Buddhist Law and the boat he should board, has rowed out to sea!
Shui Wakashu - The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna
Choku nareba ito mo kashikoshi uguisu no yado wa to towaba ikaga kotaemu
Since it is the emperor's command, I receive it in deepest awe and offer up the tree; but if the bush warbler should ask, "Where is my home?" how am I to answer?
Shui Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Ina oraji tsuyu ni tamoto no nuretaraba mono omoikeri to hito mo koso mire
No, I will not break the branch; if my sleeves were to be wet with dew, people might see it and think I had been weeping over love.
Shui Wakashu - Priest Jugen
Azusayumi haruka ni miyuru yama no ha o ikadeka tsuki no sashite iru ran
The rim of the mountains seen so far away: how is it that the moon can aim straight for it and sink into it?
Shui Wakashu - Onakatomi no Yoshinobu
Sorame o zo kimi wa mitarashi kawa no mizu asashi ya fukashi sore wa ware ka wa
You must have seen wrongly, as one cannot tell the waters of Mitarashi River shallow from deep; was that really me? Surely not!
Shui Wakashu - Ise
Ka o sashite uma to iu hito arikereba kamo o mo oshi to omou narubeshi
Since there was once a man who pointed at a deer and called it a horse, you too must be calling a duck a mandarin duck, that is, thinking your felt rug too precious to lend.
Shui Wakashu - Fujiwara no Nakafumi
Nashi to ieba oshimu kamo to ya omou ran shika ya uma to zo iu bekarikeru
If I say I have none, you will think I am grudging it, grudging the "duck"; I should rather have done like the man who called a deer a horse, and said I had what I have not.
Shui Wakashu - Onakatomi no Yoshinobu
Naniwae no ashi no hanage no majireru wa Tsu no kuni kai no koma ni ya aru ran
The horses mingled in, their coats like the flowering reeds of Naniwa Bay: are they perhaps colts of Kai, raised here in the province of Tsu?
Shui Wakashu - The Monk Egyo
Naniwagata shigeriaeru wa kimi ga yo ni ashikaru waza o seneba naru beshi
The reeds grow thick together on Naniwa's flats, surely because in your reign no one cuts the reeds and no one does ill.
Shui Wakashu - Mibu no Tadami
Miyako ni wa sumiwabihatete Tsu no kuni no Sumiyoshi to kiku sato ni koso yuke
Utterly weary of living in the capital, I am going to Sumiyoshi in the province of Tsu, a village that, I hear, is good to live in.
Shui Wakashu - Mibu no Tadami
Kimi nakute ashikarikeri to omou ni mo itodo Naniwa no ura zo sumiuki
When I think how, without you, things went badly and I came to cutting reeds, the shore of Naniwa grows all the harder to live on.
Shui Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Ashikaraji yokaramu tote zo wakareken nani ka Naniwa no ura wa sumiuki
We surely parted thinking that things would not go ill, that all would be well; why then should the shore of Naniwa be hard to live on?
Shui Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Naki hito no katami to omou ni ayashiki wa emite mo sode no nururu narikeri
Thinking of this as a keepsake of the one now gone, how strange it is that whether I look at the picture or even smile, my sleeves grow wet with tears.
Shui Wakashu - Lady of the Reikeiden
Mitsusegawa wataru misao mo nakarikeri nani ni koromo o nugite kaku ran
At the River of Three Crossings there is no pole to take one across; why, then, must one strip off one's robe and hang it up?
Shui Wakashu - Daughter of Sugawara no Michimasa
Kakushi koso haru no hajime wa ureshikere tsuraki wa aki no owari narikeri
So it is that the start of spring brings joy; what was hard to bear was the end of autumn.
Shui Wakashu - Fujiwara no Kuniaki