Autumn I: 5

Left.

秋來ても猶夕風を松が根に夏を忘れし陰ぞたち憂き

aki kitemo
nao yū kaze wo
matsu ga ne ni
natsu o wasureshi
kage zo tachi uki
Though the autumn has come,
Still, for an evening breeze,
Must I abide beneath the pines,
As did I to forget the summer,
Loath to leave the shade…

Lord Sada’ie.

309

Right.

夏衣まだ脱ぎやらぬ夕暮は袖に待たるゝ萩の上風

natsukoromo
mada nugiyaranu
yūgure wa
sode ni mataruru
hagi no uwakaze
My summer garb
Have I not yet put away;
In the evening
My sleeves await
A breeze over the bush-clover.

Jakuren.

310

Neither team can find any fault with the other’s poem.

Shunzei, however, says, ‘With regard to the Right’s poem, one marks the change of clothing at the end of spring into summer, and the passage from autumn and the entrance to winter. Does one say that now it is autumn, one changes from summer clothes? The Left’s ‘beneath the pines’ must win, must it not?’

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