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- Shin Kokin Wakashu
Tare ka yo ni nagaraete min kakitomeshi ato wa kiesenu katami naredomo
Who will live on in this world to keep looking at them? The brush traces written down are a keepsake that will not vanish—and yet.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Murasaki Shikibu
Naki hito o shinoburu koto mo itsu made zo kyō no aware wa asu no waga mi o
How long can we even go on remembering the dead? The sorrow we feel today will tomorrow be our own.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Kaga no Shōnagon
Naki hito no ato o dani tote kite mireba aranu sato ni mo narinikeru kana
I came hoping at least to see the traces of the one who is gone, but it has become a village I would not know.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Keisen
Mishi hito no keburi ni narishi yūbe yori na zo mutsumashiki shiogama no ura
Ever since that evening when the one I knew so well became smoke, even the name of Shiogama Bay, where the salt fires smoke, has grown dear to me.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Murasaki Shikibu
Aware kimi ika naru nobe no keburi nite munashiki sora no kumo to nariken
Ah, my lord—as the smoke of what fields did you rise, to become a cloud in the empty sky?
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Ben no Menoto
Omoe kimi moeshi keburi ni magainade tachiokuretaru haru no kasumi o
Think of me, my friend: not lost in the smoke that burned away, but left behind like the haze of spring that rises late and lingers.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Gen no Sanmi
Aware hito kyō no inochi o shiramaseba naniwa no ashi ni chigirazaramashi
Ah, my friend—had you known your life would end this day, you would never have made that vow by the reeds of Naniwa.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Nōin
Yomosugara mukashi no koto o mitsuru kana kataru ya utsutsu arishi yo ya yume
All night long I have seen the things of long ago—is this telling of them the waking world, or was the world that was once a dream?
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Ōe no Masahira
Utsuriken mukashi no kage ya nokoru tote miru ni omoi no masukagami kana
Thinking that the image of old once reflected there might remain, I look—and my grief only grows, in this clear mirror.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Shin-Shōshō
Kakitomuru kotonoha nomi zo mizuguki no nagarete tomaru katami narikeru
Only the words she wrote down, the brush's stream that flows and yet remains, turn out to be her keepsake.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Fujiwara no Kinmichi
Arisugawa onaji nagare wa kawaranedo mishi ya mukashi no kage zo wasurenu
The same stream of the Arisu River has not changed, yet I cannot forget the image of long ago that I once saw there.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Minamoto no Masasada
Kagiri naki omoi no hodo no yume no uchi wa odorokasaji to nagekikoshi kana
While you were lost in the dream of a sorrow without bounds, I thought I must not startle you awake, and so I have grieved in silence all this while.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Fujiwara no Shunzei
Mishi yume ni yagate magirenu waga mi koso towaruru kyō mo mazu kanashikere
It is this self of mine, which was not lost together with the dream I saw, that grieves me first of all, even today as I receive your condolences.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
Yo no naka wa mishi mo kikishi mo hakanakute munashiki sora no keburi narikeri
In this world, all I have seen and all I have heard is fleeting—nothing but smoke in the empty sky.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Fujiwara no Kiyosuke
Itsu nageki itsu omoubeki koto nareba nochi no yo shirade hito no suguran
When, then, are we to lament, when to think on it, that people pass their days knowing nothing of the world to come?
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Saigyō
Mina hito no shirigao ni shite shiranu kana kanarazu shinuru narai ari to wa
All people wear a knowing look, yet they do not truly know that there is a law by which we all must surely die.
Shin Kokin Wakashu - Jien