arashi fuku makuzu ga hara ni naku shika wa uramite nomi ya tsuma o kouran
Storm winds blow Across the arrowroot upon the plain Where bells a stag— Might it be with bitterness, alone, that He yearns for a mate?
Shun’e 47
Right
山里は妻こひかぬる鹿の音にさもあらぬ我もねられざりけり
yamazato wa tsuma koikanuru shika no ne ni sa mo aranu ware mo nerarezarikeri
In a mountain retreat, Filled with too much yearning for his mate A stag bells out— ‘Tis not true of me, yet Still I cannot sleep.
Lay Priest Master 48
The Left’s stag’s bell seeming to despise the arrowroot field and the Right’s inability to sleep on hearing a stag belling at a mountain retreat are both evocative of lonely sadness and neither sounds at all inferior to the other in the depths of the emotion they convey, so I find myself quite unable to distinguish between them.
Composed on the conception of the Song of the Everlasting Woe.
おもひかねわかれし野べをきてみればあさぢが原に秋かぜぞふく
omoFikane wakaresi nobe wo kitemireba asadi ga hara ni akikaze zo Fuku
Unable to bear my longing To the meadows where we parted Have I come and fixed my gaze, but Across the cogon grass upon the plain Indeed, the autumn wind is blowing.
ware kikite hito ni wa tsugeku hototogisu omou shiruku mazu koko ni nake
I listen, and To folk will tell, O, cuckoo, so Where I am lost in thoughts of you, Sing here first!
Mitsune 47
Right
かたをかのあしたのはらをとよむまでやまほととぎすいまぞなくなる
kataoka no ashita no hara o toyomu made yamahototogisu ima zo nakunaru
Until in Kataoka The plain of Ashita Does resound The mountain cuckoos Are singing now!
48
When ‘Until in Kataoka / The plain of Ashita / Does resound’ had been recited, His Majesty laughed, saying, ‘It would be impossible for it to resound,’ so the final part of the poem was not recited and it lost.
