classic waka stream

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  • Genji Monogatari

Ōzora no tsuki dani yadoru waga yado ni
matsu yoi sugite mienu kimi kana

At this house of mine, where even the moon of the wide sky puts up, the evening of waiting goes by and you are nowhere in sight.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Yamazato no matsu no kage ni mo kaku bakari
mi ni shimu aki no kaze wa nakariki

Even in the shade of the pines of the mountain village there was no autumn wind that went so deeply into me as this.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Ominaeshi shiore zo masaru asatsuyu no
ika ni okikeru nagori naruramu

The maiden flower droops more than before; how, I wonder, did the morning dew settle and leave this trace behind?

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Ōkata ni kikamashi mono o higurashi no
koe urameshiki aki no kure kana

I would have heard it as one hears an ordinary thing: the cicada's voice, which now sounds hateful to me at the close of autumn.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Uchiwatashi yo ni yurushi naki Sekigawa o
minaresomekemu na koso oshikere

Look where I will, the world gives us no leave, and yet the name of having grown used to the barrier river is a thing to grieve over.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Fukakarazu ue wa miyuredo Sekigawa no
shita no kayoi wa tayuru mono ka wa

It may not look deep where the surface shows, and yet in the bed of the barrier river does the current ever fail?

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Itazura ni waketsuru michi no tsuyu shigemi
mukashi oboyuru aki no sora kana

The dew lay so thick on the road I parted through for nothing that this autumn sky brings back the old days to me.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Mata hito ni narekeru sode no utsurika o
waga mi ni shimete uramitsuru kana

The scent that has passed into a sleeve grown used to another man has gone deep into me, and I have resented it.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Minarenuru naka no koromo to tanomeshi o
ka bakari nite ya kakehanarenamu

I had trusted in a bond worn familiar between us; is it over so slight a thing that we are to come apart?

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Musubikeru chigiri kotonaru shitahimo o
tada hitosuji ni urami ya wa suru

The under-cord was tied in a bond that was not mine; am I to hold it against you with a single, undivided resentment?

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Yadorigi to omoiidezu wa ko no moto no
tabine mo ika ni sabishikaramashi

Had I not remembered this as the tree I once lodged in, how lonely this travellers' sleep at its foot would have been.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Arehatsuru kuchiki no moto o yadoriki to
omoiokikeru hodo no kanashisa

That you should keep in mind, as a place where you once lodged, the foot of a rotted tree fallen to ruin—there is the sadness of it.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Ho ni idenu mono omourashi shinosusuki
maneku tamoto no tsuyu shigeku shite

You are thinking, it seems, without putting it forth in ears: the slender plume grass, whose beckoning sleeves lie thick with dew.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Aki hatsuru nobe no keshiki mo shinosusuki
honomeku kaze ni tsukete koso shire

That the fields have come to the end of autumn is known by nothing but the faint stirring of wind through the slender plume grass.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Suberaki no kazashi ni oru to fuji no hana
oyobanu eda ni sode kaketekeri

Meaning to break it for my sovereign's headdress, I have laid my sleeve on a wisteria branch that lies beyond my reach.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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Yorozuyo o kakete niowamu hana nareba
kyō o mo akanu iro to koso mire

It is a flower that will bloom and be fragrant through ten thousand ages, and so today too I look on a hue no one can tire of.

Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu

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