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- Sarashina Nikki
Koyoiyori nochinoinochino moshimoaraba sawaharunoyoo katamitoomowamu
If there is any life left to me after tonight, then I shall keep this night of spring as my token.
Hitowamina harunikokoroo yosetsumeri warenomiyamimu akinoyonotsuki
Everyone, it seems, has given their heart to spring. Am I to be the only one left looking at the moon of an autumn night?
Nanisamade omoiidekemu naozarino konohanikakeshi shigurebakario
Why should you have remembered it so well—no more than a passing shower that fell for a moment on the leaves?
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Kashimamite narutonourani kogareizuru kokorowaekiya isonoamabito
Sighting Kashima and rowing out toward the straits of Naruto—so my heart burned and put out to sea. Did you know it, fisherman of the shore?
Ōsakano sekinosekikaze fukukoewa mukashikikishini kawarazarikeri
The voice of the wind blowing through the barrier at Ōsaka has not changed at all from the one I heard so long ago.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Otoninomi kikiwatarikoshi ujigawano ajirononamimo kyōzokazouru
The Uji River, which until now had come to me only by hearsay—today I count with my own eyes the waves breaking at its weirs.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Okuyamano momijinonishiki hokayorimo ikanishigurete fukakusomekemu
This brocade of maples deep in the mountains—how much more rain than elsewhere must have fallen on it, to dye it so deep?
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Tanigawano nagarewaameto kikoyuredo hokayorikenaru ariakenotsuki
The flow of the valley stream had sounded to me like rain—yet here was a dawn moon finer than any I had seen elsewhere.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Hatsusegawa tachikaeritsutsu tazunureba suginoshirushimo konotabiyamimu
As the waves of the Hatsuse River turn back and come again, so I have come back to seek it—and this time, perhaps, I shall see the token of the cedar.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Yukuenaki tabinosoranimo okurenuwa miyakonitemishi ariakenotsuki
The one thing that has not fallen behind, even under the sky of an aimless journey, is the dawn moon I used to see in the capital.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Taezarishi omoimoimawa taenikeri koshinowatarino yukinofukasani
The feeling that never once broke off has broken off at last, buried under the depth of the snow in the land of Koshi.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Shirayamano yukinoshitanaru sazareishino nakanoomoiwa kiemumonokawa
The fire inside the little stones that lie beneath the snow of Shirayama—is that a thing that could ever go out?
Satotōmi amariokunaru yamajiniwa hanaminitotemo hitokozarikeri
So far from any village, so deep among the hills—no one comes along this path, not even to look at the blossom.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Shigekarishi ukiyonokotomo wasurarezu iriainokaneno kokorobososani
Even here I cannot put out of mind the crowding troubles of this sad world—so forlorn is the sound of the evening bell.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Sodenururu arisonamito shirinagara tomonikazukio seshizokoishiki
I knew they were the waves of a rough shore, that would soak our sleeves—and yet that we dived there together is what I long for now.
Sarashina Nikki - Sugawara no Takasue no Musume
Arisowa asaredonanno kainakute ushioninururu amanosodekana
However one forages that rough shore there is no shell to find and nothing gained—only the diver's sleeves, soaked through with the tide.