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- Genji Monogatari
Tori no ne mo kikoenu yama to omoishi o
yo no uki koto wa tazune kinikeri
I had thought these hills a place where not even a bird's voice comes, and yet the bitterness of the world has sought me out here.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Onaji eda o wakite somekeru yamahime ni
izure ka fukaki iro to towabaya
I would ask the lady of the mountain, who dyed one same branch in two colours, which of them she made the deeper.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Yamahime no somuru kokoro wa wakanedomo
utsurou kata ya fukaki naruramu
What is in the mind of the lady who dyes them I cannot make out, yet surely it is the colour that changes that goes deeper.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Ominaeshi sakeru ōno o fusegitsutsu
kokoro sebaku ya shime o yūramu
Fencing off the wide field where the maidenflowers bloom, is it with so small a heart that you rope it off as your own?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Kiri fukaki Ashita no hara no ominaeshi
kokoro o yosete miru hito zo miru
The maidenflowers of Asa Field in the deep morning mist are seen only by one who has set his heart on them.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Shirube seshi ware ya kaerite madoubeki
kokoro mo yukanu akegure no michi
Am I, who served as guide, the one to lose his way returning along this road in the half dark, with my heart unsatisfied?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Katagata ni kurasu kokoro o omoiyare
hitoyari naranu michi ni madowaba
Think of a heart that spends its days in the dark on this side and that, if you go astray on a road no one sent you down.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Yo no tsune ni omoi ya suramu tsuyu fukaki
michi no sasahara wakete kitsuru mo
Do you take it for an ordinary matter that I came parting the bamboo grass on a road so deep in dew?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Sayogoromo kite nareki to wa iwazu tomo
kagoto bakari wa kakezu shi mo araji
Though I do not claim that we have worn the night robe until it grew soft, surely I am not without the right to a grievance.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Hedate naki kokoro bakari wa kayou tomo
nareshi sode to wa kakeji to zo omou
Though our hearts may pass between us without a screen, I would have you not speak of sleeves grown soft with long wearing.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Nakataemu mono naranaku ni hashihime no
katashiku sode ya yowa ni nurasamu
It is not that we are to be broken off, and yet must you, like the lady of the bridge, wet your lone sleeve through the night?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Taeseji no waga tanomi ni ya Ujibashi no
harukeki naka o machiwatarubeki
Am I to go on waiting out the far reaches of the Uji bridge, with nothing to trust but your word that it will not break?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Itsu zo ya mo hana no sakari ni hitome mishi
ko no moto sae ya aki wa sabishiki
Even the foot of the tree I glimpsed once when the flowers were at their height is desolate now in autumn.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Sakura koso omoi shirasure sakiniou
hana mo momiji mo tsune naranu yo o
It is the cherry that brings it home: blossom at its best and crimson leaf alike belong to a world that does not stay.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Izuko yori aki wa yukikemu yamazato no
momiji no kage wa sugiuki mono o
By what way did autumn take itself off, when the shade of the crimson leaves in this hill village is so hard to pass by?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Mishi hito mo naki yamazato no iwagaki ni
kokoro nagaku mo haeru kuzu kana
On the rock wall of a hill village where the man I knew is gone, how long and constant of heart the vine has crept.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu