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- Senzai Wakashu
Urameshi ya musubooretaru shitahimo no tokenu ya nani no kokoro naruran
How hateful! This under-cord so tightly knotted will not loosen, as your heart will not open; what kind of heart, I wonder, keeps it so?
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Yorimichi
Shitahimo wa hito no kouru ni toku nareba ta ga tsuraki ni ka musubooruran
They say an under-cord comes untied when someone loves you; then whose coldness, I wonder, keeps it knotted so tight?
Senzai Wakashu - Ben no Menoto
Hitori nuru ware nite shirinu ikemizu ni tsugawanu oshi no omou kokoro o
Sleeping alone, I have come to know through my own self the heart of the mandarin duck that has no mate upon the waters of the pond.
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Kinzane
Koi o nomi shizu no odamaki kurushiki wa awade toshi furu omoi narikeri
I have done nothing but love; and what is as painful as winding thread round and round a spool of shizu cloth is this longing, as the years go by without our ever meeting.
Senzai Wakashu - Minamoto no Morotoki
Asate hosu Azuma otome no kayamushiro shikishinobite mo sugusu koro kana
Like the sedge mat spread by a maiden of the East as she dries her hemp, I spend these days ever spread out in hidden longing.
Senzai Wakashu - Minamoto no Toshiyori
Yo to tomo ni yukukata mo naki kokoro kana koi wa michi naki mono ni zo arikeru
Ever and always my heart has nowhere to go; love, I find, is truly a thing without a road.
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Akisue
Tabigoromo namida no iro no shirukereba tsuyu ni mo e koso kakotazarikeri
So plainly does the crimson of my tears show on my traveling robe that I could not even pretend it was wet with dew.
Senzai Wakashu - Kakuga
Mitsu shio ni sueba o arau nagareashi no kimi o zo omou ukimi shizumimi
Like a drifting reed whose leaf tips are washed by the rising tide, it is you I think of, my wretched self now floating, now sinking.
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Kinzane
Waga koi wa ama no karu mo ni midaretsutsu kawaku toki naki nami no shitakusa
My love is ever tangled like the seaweed the fisherfolk cut, the grass beneath the waves that never has a moment to dry.
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Toshitada
Naozari ni Miwa no sugi to wa oshieokite tazunuru toki wa awanu kimi kana
Carelessly you told me to look for the cedar of Miwa, yet when I come seeking you, you will not meet me.
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Tokimasa
Tanomekoshi nobe no michishiba natsu fukashi izuku naruran mozu no kusaguki
The roadside grass of the fields you led me to rely on is thick with deep summer; where could it be, the grass where the shrike has hidden itself?
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Shunzei
Fuyu no hi o haru yori nagaku nasu mono wa koitsutsu kurasu kokoro narikeri
What makes a winter day longer than a day of spring, I now find, is a heart that spends the whole day in longing.
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Tadamichi
Yorozuyo o chigirisometsuru shirushi ni wa katsugatsu kyō no kure zo hisashiki
As a sign that we have begun a pledge for ten thousand ages, for now even the hours until this evening seem so very long.
Senzai Wakashu - Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa
Kesa towanu tsurasa ni mono wa omoishire ware mo sa koso wa uramikaneshika
Learn what love's longing is from the pain of hearing nothing from me this morning; I too, in just that way, could hardly bear my resentment.
Senzai Wakashu - Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa
Kanete yori omoishi koto zo fushishiba no koru bakari naru nageki sen to wa
I had known it from long before: that I would come to such grief, as one cuts brushwood for the fire, that I would rue ever having loved.
Senzai Wakashu - Taikenmon'in no Kaga
Koishisa wa au o kagiri to kikishikado sate shimo itodo omoi soikeri
I had heard that longing ends once lovers meet, yet having met, my longing has only grown all the more.
Senzai Wakashu - Fujiwara no Norinaga