From a folding screen with a picture of the moon, in the Engi period (901-23).
たなばたに脱ぎてかしつる唐衣いとゞ涙に袖や濡るらん
| tanabata ni nugite kasituru kara koromo itodo namida ni sode ya nururan |
For the Weaver Maid I’ll doff and proffer her My Chinese robe; What great flow of tears Will wet its sleeves, I wonder. |
Tsurayuki
貫之
When people were composing poems on ‘one’s feelings on arriving at a run-down house in autumn’ at the Kawara estate.
八重葎茂れる宿のさびしきに人こそ見えぬ秋は來にけり
| yaFe mugura sigereru yado no sabisiki ni Fito koso mienu aki Fa kinikeri |
Overlaying creepers Grow thickly on this house, So desolate, Folk nowhere to be seen With the coming of autumn. |
From a folding screen in the palace of His Majesty, former Emperor En’yū (959-991; r. 969-984).
| murasaki no Fudi saku matu no kozuwe ni Fa moto no midori mo miezu zo arikeru |
The violet Wisteria blooms upon the pine’s Treetops: The green beneath Has quite vanished. |
For a picture of a guest arriving at a house with plum blossom, on a folding screen in the Reizei Palace.
我が宿の梅の立ち枝や見えつらん思ひの外に君が來ませる
| wa ga yado no ume no tatie ya mieturan omoFi no Foka ni kimi ga kimaseru |
My home’s Trailing branch of plum: Was it that you saw, I wonder? For unexpectedly You have arrived. |
From a folding screen with a picture of the moon, in the Engi period (901-23).
あらたまの年立歸朝より待たるゝ物は鶯の聲
| aratama no tosi tatikaFeru asita yori mataruru mono Fa uguFisu no kowe |
Once again anew The year is come upon us; And by the ’morrow We will have waited long To hear the warbler’s song. |
The Monk Sosei
素性法師