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- Ugetsu Monogatari
Matsuyama’s waves keep the old, familiar face, never changing. Yet you, my beloved, fade, losing even form.
The waves that break upon the shore of Matsuyama, long celebrated in old poems, seem as they have always been, unchanged. And yet you—whom I believed to be just as eternal and enduring—are changing more and more, as though you were fading from this world itself, until even the trace of your former shape is being lost.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
Like a boat borne on waves of Matsuyama’s sea, washed in and then left— soon it comes to emptiness.
Like a boat borne on the waves that wash upon Matsuyama and drift ashore, only to be left to rot in vain, so too have I, having left the capital, come at last to wither away just as you sang.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
Like a plover on waves of Matsuyama’s shore, my traces go on to the capital, yet I cry with sound alone.
Like a plover by the shore of Matsuyama, my traces can pass on to the capital, yet my own body remains here in Matsuyama, able only to cry out in sorrow.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
Even if, my lord, the jeweled bed of old, though you once lay there, now that it has come to this, what use could it be?
Even if, my lord, you once sat upon the jeweled throne, now that you have come to this state, what use could it be? Set aside such attachments to this world and find your peace in awakening.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
The sorrow of my life no one will tell for me; O bird of evening call at Ōsaka Pass, cry that autumn, too, has waned.
The wretched sorrow of my own life—no one else can tell it to him for me. O bird of the evening call at Ōsaka Pass, cry out with me that the long-awaited autumn, too, has come to its end.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
Even so, my heart, thinking he would return, was taken in by it— how have I lived in this world till today, this life of mine?
Even so, my heart, believing he would surely return, was taken in and led on by that hope; and so, against all odds, I have gone on living in this world until today. Is this what my life has been?
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
So greatly, even so, the ancient Mama no Tegona was loved like this— so must she have been loved, Mama no Tegona of Mama.
O Mama no Tegona of the old tales—surely you too were loved by so many, just as deeply as Katsushirō’s heart loves in this tale of the present.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
At Matsunoo peak, in the quiet dawn of light, I lift my gaze— listening as I look up, the Butsuhōsō cries.
In the quiet dawn breaking over Mount Matsuo behind Matsunoo Shrine, I lift my gaze to the peak and, listening in reverence, hear the cry of the butsu-hō-sō—the Three Jewels.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
Even birds’ cries, too— the thickets of the secret mountain of vows.
On this sacred mountain where the secret practices of Shingon are upheld, even the birds’ cries seem to bear that secrecy, sounding from the deep and mysterious thickets.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
Even if forgot, will a traveler draw and drink from Tamagawa— in the depths of Mount Kōya, these waters of Tamagawa?
I fear that a traveler, forgetting the poison said to be in this stream, might draw and drink from it—the waters of Tamagawa in the depths of Mount Kōya.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari
In anguish falls this rain that pours and pours— Miwa’s cape; at Sano’s crossing there is not even a house at all.
This rain that pours and pours in anguish, as though to torment my lonely heart—at Miwa’s cape, at Sano’s crossing, there is not even a single house to take shelter in.
Ugetsu Monogatari - Ueda Akinari