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- Gosen Wakashu
Hitofushi ni urami na hate so fuetake no koe no uchi ni mo omou kokoro ari
Do not resent me utterly for one small thing, one joint of the bamboo; within the voice of this flute there is a heart that thinks of you.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Hito ni tsuku tayori dani nashi ōaraki no mori no shita naru kusa no mi nareba
I have not even the means to attach myself to a patron, for I am only a blade of grass beneath the trees of the forest of Ōaraki.
Gosen Wakashu - Oshikochi no Mitsune
Musubiokishi katami no ko dani nakariseba nani ni shinobu no kusa o tsumamashi
If not even these children were left, keepsakes of the bond she tied before she died, with what could I gather the grass of remembrance?
Gosen Wakashu - Nurse of the Mother of Minamoto no Kanetada
Ureshiki mo uki mo kokoro wa hitotsu nite wakarenu mono wa namida narikeri
In gladness and in sorrow the heart is one and the same, and what cannot tell the two apart, I find, is tears.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Oshikarade kanashiki mono wa mi narikeri ukiyo somukan kata o shiraneba
It is not dear to me, and yet what I find most sorrowful is this self of mine, for I do not know how to turn my back on this weary world.
Gosen Wakashu - Ki no Tsurayuki
Omoiizuru toki zo kanashiki yo no naka wa sora yuku kumo no hate o shiraneba
It is when I remember that I grieve, for in this world, like the clouds drifting across the sky, we cannot know where we will come to rest.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Aware to mo ushi to mo iwaji kagerō no aru ka naki ka ni kenuru yo nareba
I will say neither that it is dear nor that it is bitter, for this world, like a shimmering haze, fades away while we can scarcely tell whether it is there at all.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Aware chō koto ni nagusamu yo no naka o nado ka mukashi to iite suguran
In this world, where we find comfort in the single word "aware," why is it that we pass our days only saying how much better things were long ago?
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Mono omou to yukite mo mineba takakata no ama no tomaya wa kuchi ya shinuran
Lost in grief, I have not gone to see it, so the fisherfolk's thatched hut at Takakata may well have rotted away by now.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Yume ni dani ureshi to mo miba utsutsu nite wabishiki yori wa nao masarinan
If I could see something joyful even only in my dreams, it would still be far better than this waking life of loneliness and want.
Gosen Wakashu - Oshikochi no Mitsune
Iwa no ue ni tabine o sureba ito samushi koke no koromo o ware ni kasanan
Sleeping a traveler's sleep here on the rocks, I am bitterly cold. Won't you lend me your robe of moss, your monk's robe?
Gosen Wakashu - Ono no Komachi
Yo o somuku koke no koromo wa tada hitoe kasaneba utoshi iza futari nen
The moss robe of one who has turned from the world is only a single layer. Not to lend it would be unkind, yet it cannot be doubled—so come, let the two of us sleep together.
Gosen Wakashu - Henjō
Au koto no toshigiri shinuru nageki ni wa mi no kazu naranu mono ni zo arikeru
In my grief that our meetings have failed, like a tree that bears no fruit in its barren years, I have come to know that I am a thing not worth counting.
Gosen Wakashu - Seiwa-in no Kimi
Adabito mo naki ni wa arazu arinagara waga mi ni wa mada kiki zo narawanu
It is not that there are no fickle lovers in this world, but as for me, I have never yet grown used to hearing such things said of me.
Gosen Wakashu - Fujiwara no Saneyori
Miyabito to nara mahoshiki o ominaeshi nobe yori kiri no tachiidete zo kuru
I long to become one who serves in the palace, O maiden flower, yet from the fields it is only the mist that rises and comes forth.
Gosen Wakashu - Unknown Poet
Waga mi ni mo aranu waga mi no kanashiki ni kokoro mo koto ni nari ya shiniken
In the sorrow of this self that hardly seems my own, has my heart too become something other than it was?
Gosen Wakashu - Taifu