Ono no Komachi's Poetry 
Very little is known about this Japanese poetess, and most of it is legendary. She lived around
850 C.E. (b. 834?) during the Heian period. The story about her is that she was a woman of unparallelled
beauty in her youth and enjoyed the attention of many suitors. She was, however, haughty and
cruel, breaking many hearts. She was punished by living to an old age and dying as a destitute
and ugly hag in loneliness. The legend is almost certainly false, but the passionate nature of
her loves survives (minus the didactic ending) to this day. In fact, the town of Ogachi in
Akita prefecture celebrates an annual Komachi Festival on the second Sunday of June (legend
has it that she was born in the village of Ono in Ogachi). There is a shrine dedicated to her.
What is certain about her, however, is that she was a major poet. As Helen Craig McCullough put it, she would have been a major poet in any society, not just in the rarefied circles of the Heian aristrocracy. Komachi's status is due to her waka in the first Imperial Anthology, the Kokinshû (compiled around 900 C.E.), abbreviated below as KKS. She also figures in the 13th century collection Ogura Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets, abbreviated OHI) and in imperial collection Gosenshû. Generally, the 18 poems in Kokinshû attributed to her are believed to be authentic, and the 4 in Gosenshû are also thought to be genuine. There is a later collection with 100 poems but the experts agree that they are of doubtful authenticity, almost certainly created long after her death. Finally, some poems appear in Ise Monogatari (abbreviated as IM), where they are given context missing from Kokinshû (and usually not quite flattering to Komachi). The "canon" thus consists of 22 tanka, on which Komachi's fame is based.
I have sometimes commented on certain poems because the variations in translation are
bewildering --- often changing the meaning of the original completely.
KKS:1030 (Miscellaneous Forms)
On such a night as this
When no moon lights your way to me,
I wake, my passion blazing,
My breast a fire raging, exploding flame
While within me my heart chars.
(Tr. Earl Miner)
KKS:113, OHI:9 (Spring)
The flowers withered
Their color faded away
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in the world
And the long rains were falling.
(Tr. Donald Keene)
KKS:797 (Love)
A thing which fades
With no outward sign
Is the flower
Of the heart of man
In this world!
(Tr. Arthur Waley)
KKS:658 (Love)
Though I visit him
Ceaselessly
In my dreams,
The sum of all those meetings
Is less than a single waking glimpse.
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:656 (Love)
In waking daylight,
Then, oh then, it can be understood;
But when I see you
Shrinking from those hostile eyes
Even in my dreams: that is misery itself.
(Tr. Earl Miner)
KKS:623, IM:25 (Love)
In this bay
There is no seaweed
Doesn't he know it --
The fisherman who persists in coming
Until his legs grow weary?
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:1104, IM:115 (Names of Things)
More heart-wrenching than
To sear my body with live coals
Against my flesh,
Bidding farewell on Miyakoshima's shore
As you part for the capital.
(Tr. Sarah M. Strong)
KKS:552, IM:142 (Love)
Did he appear,
because I fell asleep
thinking of him?
If only I'd known I was dreaming
I'd never have wakened.
(Tr. Jane Hirshfield and Aratani Mariko)
KKS:635, IM:143 (Love)
The autumn night
is long only in name --
We've done no more
than gaze at each other
and it's already dawn.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratani)
KKS:554 (Love)
When longing for him
Tortures me beyond endurance,
I reverse my robe --
Garb of night, black as leopard-flower berries --
And wear it inside out.
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:553 (Love)
Since encountering my beloved
While I dozed,
I have begun to feel
That it is dreams, not reality,
On which I can rely.
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:557 (Love)
"Reply [to a poem, in which someone has referred to his tears as gems]."
Tears that but form gems on sleeves
Must come, I think,
From an insincere heart,
For mine, though I seek to repress them,
Gush forth in torrents.
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:657 (Love)
Yielding to a love
That knows no limit,
I shall go to him by night --
For the world does not yet censure
Those who tread the paths of dreams.
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:727 (Love)
Translator's note: "the last two lines also mean `Why do you persist in saying that you are angry with me?'"
I know nothing
About villages
Where fisherfolk dwell;
Why must you keep demanding
To be shown the seashore?
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:782, IM:131 (Love)
Now that I am entering
The winter of life,
Your ardor has faded
Like foliage ravaged
By late autumn rains.
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:822 (Love)
How bitter it is to see
Autumnal blasts
Strike the rice ears;
I shall, I fear,
Reap no harvest.
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
KKS:938 (Miscellaneous)
This body
grown fragile, floating,
a reed cut from its roots...
If a stream would ask me
to follow, I'd go, I think.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)
KKS:939 (Miscellaneous)
What men call love
Is simply
A chain
Preventing escape
From this world of care.
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
?
His heart, grown cold,
has become my body's autumn.
Many sorrowful words
may yet fall
like the rustling leaves.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratani)
?
I thought to pick
the flower of forgetting
for myself,
but I found it
already growing in his heart.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratani)
?
Those gifts you left
have become my enemies:
without them
there might have been
a moment's forgetting.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratani)
?
Submit to you --
could that be what you are saying?
the way ripples on the water
submit to an idling wing?
(Tr. Burton Watson)
?
Sad --
the end that waits me --
To think at last
I'll be a mere haze
pale green over the fields.
(Tr. Burton Watson)
?
The pine tree by the rock
must have its memories too:
after a thousand years,
see how its branches
lean toward the ground.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)
?
The hunting lanterns
on mount Ogura have gone,
the deer are calling for their mates...
How easily I might sleep
if only I didn't share their fears.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)
?
Since this body
was forgotten
by the one who promised to come,
my only thought is wondering
whether it even exists.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)
?
This abandoned house
shining
in the mountain village --
how many nights
has autumn spent there?
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)
?
If, in an autumn field,
a hundred flowers
can untie their streamers,
may I not also openly frolic,
as fearless of blame?
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)
?
While watching
the long rains falling on this world
my heart, too, fades
with the unseen color
of the spring flowers.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)
?
Seeing the moonlight
spilling down
through these trees,
my heart fills to the brim
with autumn.
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)