Anthology of Japanese Literature by Donald Keene

pass,
Tsuki wo mishi kana
And this slow moon sink.
Lady Akazome Em on
TRANSLATED BY KENNETH REXROTH
    Sent when ill to someone
Arazaramu
Soon I shall be dead.
Kono yo no hoka no
As a final remembrance
Omoide ni
To take from this world,
Ima hito tabi no
Come to me now once again—
Au koto mo gana 4
That is what I long for most.
Izumi Shikibu
    . .
Hi mo karenu
The day has ended
Hito mo kaerinu
And the visitors have left—
Yamazato wa
In the mountain village
Mine no arashi no
All that remains is the howl
Oto bakari shite
Of the storm winds from the peak.
Minamoto no Yorizane
    . .
Yo wo komete
The night is still dark—
Tori no sorane wa
Even though you counterfeit
Hakaru to mo
The morning cockcrows,
Yo ni Ausala no
They will never let you through
Seki wa yurusaji
Ausaka Barrier. 5
Set Sh ō nagon
TRANSLATED BY DONALD KEENE
    [ from the Kiny ō sh Å« , 1128 ]
Awaji shima
Guardian of the gate
Kayou chidori no
Of Suma, how many nights
Naku koe ni
Have you awakened
Iku yo nezamenu
At the crying of the shore bird
Suma no sekimori
Of the Isle of Awaji?
Minamoto no Kanemasa
TRANSLATED IY KENNETH REXROTH
    . .
Murakumo ya
The clustering clouds—
Tsuki no kuma wo ba
Can it be they wipe away
Nogofuramu
The lunar shadows?
Hareyuka tabi ni
Every time they clear a bit
Terimasaru kana
The moonlight shines the brighter.
Minamoto no Toshiyori
    [ from the Shikash ō , c. 1151 ]
Kaze wo itami
Whipped by a fierce wind
Iwa utsu nami no
And dashed like the ocean waves
Onore no mi
Against the rocks—
Kudakete mono wo
I alone am broken to bits
Omou koro Xana
And now am lost in longing.
Minamoto no Shigeyuki (d. 1000)
    [ from the Senzaish Å« , 1188 ]
Mushi no ne wa
The cries of the insects
Asaji ga moto ni
Are buried at the roots of
Uzumerete
The sparse pampas grass—
Aki wa sue ha no
The end of autumn is in
Iro ni zo arikeru
The color of the last leaves.
The Priest Jamuren (d. 1202)
TRANSLATED BY DONALD KEENE
Footnotes
    1 The beauty of this poem is in its rhythm, created by the repetition of the word mo and the k sounds. It is the most famous of the poems about the Barrier of Ausaka (or Ō saka), a place on the road near Kyoto where travelers to and from the east were stopped and questioned. The name contains the word au , "to meet," and occasioned endless jeux d'esprit.
    2 Said to be her death-verse; the moon may refer to Buddha's teachings.
    3 A word for a sweetheart commonly found in the " Man'y ō sh Å« ," but rather archaic by this-time, when the usual word was "person," hito.
    4 The use of o and a sounds contributes to the effect of this poem.
    5 Refers to a Chinese story of a man who got through a barrier by imitating a cock's crowing and thus making die keeper of the barrier think that dawn had come—when the barrier was opened.

KAGER Ō NIKKI

    The "Kager ō Nikki" is the journal of a noblewoman known only as "the mother of Michitsuna." Beyond what she herself tells us, almost nothing is known of her life except that she probably died in 995. Her journal covers the years 954 to 974 and deals principally with her unhappy marriage to a distant kinsman, Fujiwara Kaneie (the "Prince" in the excerpts given here), who later became civil dictator. In this selection an attempt has been made to trace the main aspects of her relations with her husband by giving excerpts from the first two of the three volumes of the journal. It should be remembered that at this period husbands and wives of the nobility lived in separate establishments.
    The years of my youth have passed, and I can see little in them that suggests greatness. It is, I suppose, natural that I should have fallen into such mediocrity. I am less handsome than most, and my character is hardly remarkable. But as the days and nights have gone by in monotonous succession, I have had occasion to read most of the old romances, and I have found them masses of the rankest fabrication. Perhaps, I think to myself, the events of my own life, if I were to