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- Genji Monogatari
Kokoro o ba nagekazaramashi inochi nomi
sadame naki yo to omowamashikaba
I would not lament your heart at all, if only I could believe that in this world it is our lives alone that are unsettled.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Yo ni shirazu madoubeki kana saki ni tatsu
namida mo michi o kakikurashitsutsu
As never before in this world I shall lose my way: the tears that come before all else are darkening the very road I must take.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Namida o mo hodo naki sode ni sekikanete
ika ni wakare o todomubeki mi zo
I cannot dam back even my tears within these narrow sleeves; how should one such as I am hold back a parting too?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Ujibashi no nagaki chigiri wa kuchiseji o
ayabumu kata ni kokoro sawagu na
Our long promise will no more decay than the great bridge of Uji; do not let your heart be troubled by the side of it you fear.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Taema nomi yo ni wa ayauki Ujibashi o
kuchisenu mono to nao tanome to ya
The bridge of Uji is broken and unsafe so much of the time; would you have me trust it still as a thing that will not rot?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Toshi hu tomo kawaramu mono ka Tachibana no
Kojima no saki ni chigiru kokoro wa
Though the years go by, will this heart change—the heart I pledge to you here at the headland of the little orange isle?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Tachibana no Kojima no iro wa kawaraji o
kono ukifune zo yukue shirarenu
The colour of the little orange isle will not change; but this boat adrift upon the water—where it goes, no one can know.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Mine no yuki migiwa no kōri fumiwakete
kimi ni zo madou michi wa madowazu
I have come pushing through the snow on the peak and the ice along the water; on the road I do not lose my way—it is for you that I lose it.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Furimidare migiwa ni kōru yuki yori mo
nakazora nite zo ware wa kenubeki
More surely than the snow that falls in confusion and freezes at the water's edge, it is I who shall melt away in mid-air.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Nagameyaru sonata no kumo mo mienu made
sora sae kururu koro no wabishisa
Even the clouds in the quarter where you are can no longer be seen: how forlorn a season, when the very sky is darkening.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Mizu masaru ochikata no satobito ika naramu
harenu nagame ni kakikurasu koro
How must it fare with the one who lives in that far village where the stream is rising, in a season of endless rain that will not clear?
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Sato no na o waga mi ni shireba Yamashiro no
Uji no watari zo itodo sumiuki
When I take the name of this place for my own, the neighbourhood of Uji in Yamashiro grows harder still to live in.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Kakikurashi haresenu mine no amagumo ni
ukite yo o furu mi o mo nasabaya
I would make myself over into those rain clouds on the peak that darken the sky and never clear, and float there, and so pass my life.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Tsurezure to mi o shiru ame no oyamaneba
sode sae itodo mikasa masarite
Idly and without cease the rain that tells me my own worth keeps falling, so that even in my sleeves the water has risen higher than before.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Nami koyuru koro to mo shirazu Sue no Matsu
matsuramu to nomi omoikeru kana
Not knowing that this was the season when the waves go over, I thought only that the pine of Sue was still waiting for me.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu
Izuku ni ka mi o ba sutemu to shirakumo no
kakaranu yama mo naku naku zo yuku
Wondering where I might throw this body away, I go weeping even through hills on which no white cloud has come to rest.
Genji Monogatari - Murasaki Shikibu