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- Ise Monogatari
Toward where you are I shall sit and gaze— O Mount Ikoma, let not the clouds conceal you, though even if rain should fall.
I shall sit gazing toward where you are; O Mount Ikoma, let not the clouds conceal you, even if rain should fall.
Each night you said that you would surely come has passed in vain; though I no longer rely on it, still do I live on longing.
Each night you said you would come has passed in vain; though I no longer rely upon your promise, I still pass my days in longing for you.
Through three full years of the new-turning year I have waited in vain; only this very night shall I take a new pillow.
After waiting in vain through three long years, this very night I shall take a new pillow with another.
Azusa bow, true-bow, and zelkova bow— through passing years, love him with fair devotion as once you did with me.
Azusa bow, true-bow, and zelkova bow—through the passing years, cherish him with the same devotion as you once did me.
Azusa bow— whether you draw it or not, from long ago my heart has leaned toward you and never turned away.
Azusa bow—whether you draw it or not, from long ago my heart has leaned toward you and never turned away.
Loving still, I could not detain the one who left, not loving me the same— and now my life has faded away.
Though I loved him, I could not detain the one who left without loving me the same, and now my life has faded away.
In autumn fields, my sleeves, parting the bamboo grass at break of day— yet more than that dew-wetness are the nights I lie without you.
More than my sleeves, wet with dew as I part the bamboo grass in autumn fields at dawn, are the nights I lie without meeting you drenched in tears.
Knowing not, perhaps, that I am like a shore where no miru grows, the fisherman, not weary, drags his feet and comes.
Not knowing, perhaps, that I am like a shore where no miru seaweed grows and thus nothing to see, the fisherman comes on, dragging his weary feet without ceasing.
Unaware, somehow, at my sleeves the harbor is all in tumult; only because a great Chinese ship has drawn near.
Unaware even to myself, at my sleeves there is a tumult like a harbor stirred to waves, only because a great Chinese ship has drawn near.
I alone, I thought, had one so given to thought— none other there was; yet beneath the water’s surface, there was one more.
I thought that there was surely no one so given to anxious thought as I, yet beneath the surface of the basin’s water there was another.
At the water’s mouth, am I perhaps seen there?— even the frogs, beneath the water, raise all their voices as one.
Am I perhaps seen there at the mouth where the water flows in? Even the frogs, beneath the water, raise their voices together; so I too weep in unison with you.
Why has it come to pass that thus our meeting time has grown so hard to gain?— though we had bound our vow as if to let no water leak.
Why has it come to pass that meeting has thus become so hard to gain, though we had bound our vow so firmly as if to let not even water leak through?
At blossoms never have I failed in lamenting— always it was so; yet on this night alone there has been no time like this.
At the sight of blossoms I have always lamented, never satisfied, wishing to gaze on them forever; yet never before has there been a night like this one.
Our meeting seems but like the cord between the gems, so brief it appears; your unfeeling heart seems to stretch on long and long.
Meeting you seems but like the cord between the gems, so brief it appears, while your unfeeling heart, in not coming to me, seems to stretch on without end.
If one without sin is made the object of curse, they say that forget- grass will upon one’s own self grow there upon one’s own self.
If one lays a curse upon a person without sin, they say that forget-grass will grow upon oneself, and one will be forgotten by others.
As in ancient days the rustic weaver’s spool is wound back again, would that there were some means now to make the past the present.
Just as the rustic weaver’s spool of old is wound back again, I wish there were some way to make the past into the present.