Practise the thinking. Keep the judgement.
あらざらむ
Izumi Shikibu · 和泉式部
あらざらむ
此の世のほかの
思ひ出に
今一たびの
逢ふこともがな
Historical kana
あらざらむ
このよのほかの
おもひでに
いまひとたびの
あふこともがな
Original English translation
For a memory beyond this world, where I will no longer be, let me meet you one more time.
History and context
Izumi Shikibu was a major Heian love poet. The Goshuishū headnote places this poem during illness, making the requested meeting a memory to carry beyond the speaker’s present life.
Imagery and wordplay
The poem begins with absence and ends with reunion. One meeting is imagined as enough to cross death’s boundary.
Goshuishū · 後拾遺集恋三763
Japanese text and historical kana follow the linked Wikisource transcription. Classical poems can have variant spellings and wording in different anthologies. The source anthology reference identifies the version represented in this collection, not necessarily its earliest surviving text. English prose translations and reading notes are original interpretations; some wordplay permits more than one reading.