Composed when I saw a little child crying for his mother by the side of the road and, on asking folk nearby, being told that both his mother and father had died.
いとほしやみるに涙もとどまらずおやもなき子の母をたづぬる
itōshi ya miru ni namida mo todomarazu oya mo naki ko no haha o tazunuru
O, how pitiful! The sight of tears Unending on An orphan child Searching for his mother…
yo ni fureba uki koto no ha no kazu goto ni taezu namida no tsuyu zo okikeru
Living in this world, My words of grief Number the same as My ceaseless tears, Falling as dewdrops.[i]
687
[i] See: Topic unknown. よにふればうさこそまされみ吉野の岩のかけ道ふみならしてむ yo ni fureba / usa koso masare / miyoshino no / iwa no kakemichi / fuminarashitemu ‘Living in this world / Brings only an excess of grief; / Upon fair Yoshino’s / Steep and rocky trails / Would I set my feet.’ Anonymous (Kokinshū XVIII: 951)
In the spring of the year following his daughter’s death, when the cherry blossom was in full bloom, he was gazing on the blossom at his house and, with others, composed on the topic of ‘expressing a little of one’s feelings’.
さくら花のどけかりけりなき人をこふる涙ぞまづはおちける
sakurabana nodokekarikeri naki Fito wo koFuru namida zo madu Fa otikeru
The cherry blossom Seem so at peace, but For her who’s gone My loving tears Will be the first to scatter.
Composed after I had met Dharma Eye Teinin,[i] and heard him tell the tale of Ōmine[ii] among other things.
おくやまの苔のころもに置く露は涙の雨のしづくなりけり
okuyama no koke no koromo ni oku tsuyu wa namida no ame no shizuku narikeri
Deep within the mountains Upon his robe of moss The falling dewdrops are A rain of tear Droplets.
613
[i] Teinin 定忍 has not been identified, but from the context here, he must have been a yamabushi 山伏, an itinerant Buddhist monk and practitioner of shugendō.
[ii] Ōmine 大峰 was a mountain in Yoshino in Yamato which was a major location for practitioners of the ascetic Buddhist practice of shugendō 修験道, which involved, among other things, ascending the mountain to increase one’s spiritual power.
