Category Archives: Yamato monogatari

Yamato monogatari 45

A further poem:

時雨のみふる山里の木の下はをる人からやもり過ぬらん

shigure nomi
furu yamazato no
ko no shita wa
oru hito kara ya
morisuginuran
Showers simply
Fall upon a mountain retreat
Beneath the trees;
Has someone gone astray there
To make them seem so endlessly thick?

When he received these, His Majesty was not of a mind to respond. I have heard that he read the poems then showed them to someone, saying, `What is this about?I don’t understand!’, so it is said they had no effect.

Yamato monogatari 42

The late Master of the Right Capital Office was Lord Muneyuki. While he was fretting over when he might achieve advancement, His Majesty, the Cloistered Teishi Emperor was presented with a stone with seaweed clinging to it from the province of Ki, and various people presented poems on the topic. The Master of the Right Capital Office composed

沖つ風ふけゐの浦にたつなみのなこりにさへや我はしつまん

oki tsu kaze
fukei no ura ni
tatsu nami no
nagori ni sae ya
ware wa shitsuman
From the offing the wind blows
Upon the beach at Fukei;
Are the breaking waves
Indeed a memento
I might keep?