![]()
Japanese Love Poems
EMPEROR YRYAKU
Your basket, with your pretty basket,
Your trowel, with your little trowel,
Maiden, picking herbs on this hill-side,
I would ask you: Where is your home?
Will you not tell me your name?
Over the spacious Land of Yamato
It is I who reign so wide and far,
It is I who rule so wide and far.
I myself, as your lord, will tell you
Of my home, and my name.
EMPRESS KGYOKU
Presented to the Emperor Jomei by
a messenger, Hashibito Oyu, on the occasion
of his hunting on the plain of Uchi
From the age of the gods
Men have been begotten and begetting;
They overflow this land of ours.
I see them go hither and thither
Like flights of tealâ
But not you whom I love.
So I yearn each day till the day is over,
And each night till the dawn breaks;
Sleeplessly I pass this long, long night!
Envoys
Though men go in noisy multitudes
Like flights of teal over the mountain edge,
To meâoh what loneliness,
Since you are absent whom I love.
By the Toko Mountain in
mi
There flows the Isaya, River of Doubt.
I doubt whether now-a-days
You, too, still think of me?
EMPEROR TENJI
The Three Hills
Mount Kagu strove with Mount Miminashi
For the love of Mount Unebi.
Such is love since the age of the gods;
As it was thus in the early days,
So people strive for spouses even now.
Envoys
When Mount Kagu and Mount Miminashi wrangled, A god came over and saw it Hereâon this plain of Inami!
On the rich banner-like clouds
That rim the waste of waters
The evening sun is glowing,
And promises to-night
The moon in beauty!
EMPRESS IWA-NO-HIMĂ
Longing for the Emperor Nintoku
Since you, my Lord, were gone,
Many long, long days have passed.
Should I now come to meet you
And seek you beyond the mountains,
Or still await youâawait you ever?
Rather would I lay me down
On a steep hillâs side,
And, with a rock for pillow, die,
Than live thus, my Lord,
With longing so deep for you.
Yes, I will live on
And wait for you,
Even till falls
On my long black waving hair
The hoar frost of age.
How shall my yearning ever ceaseâ
Fade somewhere away,
As does the mist of morning
Shimmering across the autumn field
Over the ripening grain?
EMPRESS YAMATO-HIMĂ
Presented to the Emperor Tenji
on the occasion of His Majestyâs illness
I turn and gaze far
Towards the heavenly plains.
Lo, blest is my Sovereign Lordâ
His long life overspans
The vast blue firmament.
[After the death of the Emperor]
Though my eyes could see your spirit soar
Above the hills of green-bannered Kohata,
No more may I meet you face to face.
Others may cease to remember,
But I cannot forget youâ
Your beauteous phantom shape
Ever haunts my sight!
On the occasion of the temporary enshrinement of the Emperor Tenji
You boatmen that come rowing
From the far waters,
And you boatmen that come rowing
Close by the shore,
Ply not too hard your oars in the far waters,
Ply not too hard your oars by the shore,
Lest you should startle into flight
The birds beloved of my dear husband!
PRINCE IKUSA
Seeing the mountains when the Emperor Jomei sojourned in Aya District, Sanuki Province
Not knowing that the long spring dayâ
The misty dayâis spent,
Like the ânight-thrushâ I grieve within me,
As sorely my heart aches.
Then across the hills where our Sovereign sojourns,
Luckily the breezes blow
And turn back my sleeves with morn and eve,
As I stay alone;
But, being on a journey, grass for pillow,
Brave man as I deem me,
I know not how to cast off
My heavy sorrows;
And like the salt-fires the fisher-girls
Burn on the shore of Ami,
I burn with the fire of longing
In my heart.
Envoy
Fitful gusts of wind are blowing
Across the mountain-range,
And night after night I lie alone,
Yearning for my love at home.
PRINCESS NUKADA
Yearning for the Emperor Tenji
While, waiting for you,
My heart is filled with longing,
The autumn wind blowsâ
As if it were youâ
Swaying the bamboo blinds of my door.
FUJIWARA KAMATARI
On the occasion of his marriage to Yasumiko, a palace...
