Category Archives: Tales

Ise Mongatari, Chapter 96

Written by a woman and sent to a man whom she had promised to marry, after her family have disagreed and taken her away:

秋かけていひしながらもあらなくに木の葉降りしくえにこそありけれ

aki kakete
iFisinagara mo
aranakuni
ko no Fa Furisiku
e ni koso arikere
‘When autumn comes’
I said,
And yet, ‘tis not to be;
Fallen leaves swept along
The inlet, indeed!

Ise Monogatari, Chapter 12

Once, long ago there was a man. He abducted someone’s daughter and when they reached Musashi Plain, as he was plainly a kidnapper, he would have been seized by the provincial governor’s men. Leaving the woman in the grasses, he fled. The pursuers, saying to themselves that doubtless the abductor was hiding there, set the plain alight. The woman, panicked, cried out:

武蔵野は今日はな燒きそ若草のつまもこもれり我もこもれり

musasino Fa
keFu Fa na yaki so
wakakusa no
tuma mo komoreri
ware mo komoreri
O, Musashi Plain
Burn not this day!
Fresh grass,
My man is hidden there,
As, too, am I…

Hearing this, they found her and, together with the man who had been found elsewhere, took her back with them.

Genji monogatari 195

伊勢嶋や潮干の潟にあさりてもいふかひなきはわが身なりけり

isezima ya
siFoFi no kata ni
asaritemo
iFukaFinaki Fa
wagami narikeri
At the Isle of Ise,
Upon the tide-revealed sands
I gather shellfish, yet
To no avail:
That is my sorry lot!

Suma, Genji monogatari
須磨、源氏物語

Genji monogatari 208

山がつの庵に焚けるしばしばも物問ひ來なむ戀ふる里人

yamagatu no
iFori ni takeru
sibasiba mo
monotoFikonamu
koFuru satobito
The mountain folk
Within their huts kindle
Firewood ever;
How I would that I could ask after
My distant love…

Suma, Genji Monogatari
須磨、源氏物語

Ise Monogatari, Chapter 10

Long ago, a man went wandering in the province of Musashi. And, in that province lived a certain lady. Her father thought to match her with a common man, but for her mother, only a man of the highest rank would do. Her father was a man of low rank, but her mother was of the Fujiwara family. Thus it was that she wanted a man of high rank for her daughter. So, she composed a poem and sent it to the man. They lived in the district of Iruma on the Miyoshino estate.

みよし野のたのむの雁もひたふるに君がゝたにぞよると鳴くなる

miyosino no
tanomu no kari mo
FitaFuru ni
kimi ga kata ni zo
yoru to naku naru
In fair Yoshino,
Even the geese upon the rice fields,
Alone
For you do
Yearn and cry.

The man replied:

わが方によると鳴くなるみよし野のたのむの雁をいつか忘れん

wa ga kata ni
yoru to naku naru
miyosino no
tanomu no kari wo
ituka wasuren
For me
Yearning and crying
In fair Yoshino
The geese upon the rice fields:
Can I ever forget them?

In the provinces they have still not ceased to do such things.