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- Yamato Monogatari
Ōzora o wataru haruhi no kage nare ya yoso ni nomi shite nodokekaruramu
Are you the light of the spring sun crossing the wide sky, that you stay always elsewhere and take your ease?
Yukite minu hito no tame ni to omowazu wa tare ka oramashi waga yado no kiku
If I had not thought of you, who cannot come and see them, who would have broken off these chrysanthemums of mine?
Waga yado ni iro oritomuru kimi naku wa yoso ni mo kiku no hana o mimashi ya
Were it not for you, who break off the colour and send it to my house, would I have seen these flowers at all — or even heard of them, so far away?
Kumo narade kodakaki mine ni iru mono wa ukiyo o somuku waga mi narikeri
It is not cloud. The thing that sits on this high-treed peak turns out to be myself, who have turned my back on a world of hardship.
Onaji e o wakite shimo oku aki nareba hikari mo tsuraku omooyuru kana
It is an autumn that sets its frost on one branch and not another; and so even the sunlight has come to seem hard to bear.
Hana no iro o mite mo shirinamu hatsushimo no kokoro wakite wa okaji to zo omou
You will know it when you look at the colour of the flowers: the first frost, I think, does not settle with any partiality in it.
Watatsumi no fukaki kokoro wa okinagara uramirarenuru mono ni zo arikeru
I keep a heart as deep as the sea; and still, being out at sea and out of sight, it turns out to be a thing that gets resented.
Aki no no o wakuramu shika mo waga goto ya shigeki sawari ni ne o ba nakuramu
Does the deer pushing through the autumn fields cry out as I do, held back by the thick growth that stands in its way?
Shiori shite yuku tabi naredo karisome no inochi shiraneba kaeri shi mo seji
Though I break branches to mark the road as I go, this borrowed life is not a thing one can know — and so I shall not be coming back.
Ima komu to iite wakareshi hito nareba kagiri to kikedo nao zo mataruru
He was the one who said he would be back at once. And so, though I hear that it is all over with him, I still find myself waiting.
Yū sareba michi mo mienedo furusato wa moto koshi koma ni makasete zo yuku
Evening comes and the road is lost to sight; but to that old house of yours I go, giving the horse its head, for it knew the way before.
Koma ni koso makasetarikere hakanaku mo kokoro no kuru to omoikeru kana
So it was the horse you gave the reins to, after all. And foolishly I had been thinking it was your heart that brought you.
Ochikochi no hitome marenaru yamazato ni ieise mu to wa omoiki ya kimi
A hill village where, far or near, hardly anyone passes — did you ever think you would make your home there?
Michinoku no Adachigahara no Kurozuka ni oni komoreri to kiku wa makoto ka
At Kurozuka, out on the plain of Adachi in Michinoku, they say an ogre lies shut away. Can that be true?
Hanazakari sugi mo ya suru to kawazu naku Ide no yamabuki ushirometashi mo
That the height of its bloom may pass while I am gone — the yellow roses of Ide, where the frogs are heard, weigh on me and will not leave my mind.
Ōzora no kumo no kayoiji mite shi kana tori nomi yukeba ato wa ka mo nashi
How I should like to see it — the road the clouds travel across the wide sky. Only birds go that way, so no track is left behind.