Consolatio

Rahel weeping for her children

Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.

             --Jeremiah 31:15, in the King James Bible

Izumi Shikibu: Why did you vanish into the empty sky?

 
Why did you vanish
into the empty sky?
Even the fragile snow,
when it falls,
falls in this world.

               --Izumi Shikibu (和泉式部) b 976?, woman poet of the Heian period, Japan. Her daughter, also a gifted poet, died in childbirth. Translation by Jane Hirshfield and Mariki Aratani in The Ink Dark Moon..

などて君むなしき空に消えにけん淡雪だにもふればふる世に