by Anonymous / Unidentified Author
Translation © by Kenneth Rexroth (1905 - 1982)
The purity of the moonlight freezes the...
Language: Japanese (日本語)
大空の 月の光し 清ければ 影見し水ぞ まづこほりける
Note: text as set by Phillips:
Õ zora no Tsuki no hikari shi Kiyokereba Kage mishi mizu zo Mazu kori keru
Text Authorship:
- by Anonymous / Unidentified Author [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Sheena Phillips (b. 1958), "The purity of the moonlight freezes the water", copyright © 2003, first performed 2006 [ voices ], from Images, no. 1
Score: Sheena Phillips [external link] [sung text checked 1 time]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in English, a translation by Kenneth Rexroth (1905 - 1982) , appears in One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, no. 9, copyright © ; composed by Karólína Eiríksdóttir.
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2026-07-06
Line count: 5
Word count: 5
The purity of the moonlight
Language: English after the Japanese (日本語)
The purity of the moonlight [ ... ]
This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.
Confirmed with Kenneth Roth, One Hundred Poems From the Japanese, New York, Directions Publishing Company, 1964.
Text Authorship:
- by Kenneth Rexroth (1905 - 1982), appears in One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, no. 9, copyright © [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Japanese (日本語) by Anonymous/Unidentified Artist
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Karólína Eiríksdóttir (b. 1951), "The purity of the moonlight", 1977 [ soprano, flute and violoncello ], from Six Poems From the Japanese, no. 6 [sung text not yet checked]
This text was added to the website: 2026-07-03
Line count: 4
Word count: 23