asahi kage mada ideyaranu ashihiki no yama wa kasumi no iro zo utsurou
The morning sunlight Has yet to fall upon The leg-wearying Mountains, yet the haze’s Hues are shifting.
Takasuke, Gentleman-in-Waiting 9
Right
山姫のかすみのそでも紅に光そへたる朝日影かな
yamahime no kasumi no sode mo kurenai ni hikari soetaru asahi kage kana
The mountain princess has Her sleeves of haze turned Scarlet Draped with light by The morning sunshine!
Shimotsuke 10
The Left’s poem has no faults worth pointing out; the poem of the Right’s ‘morning sunlight draping scarlet light across the sleeves of haze’ is overly gorgeous, I think, while the Left seems perfectly beautiful, so it should win.
ōhara ya oshio no sato no asagasumi yukiki ni nareshi haru zo wasurenu
In Ōhara At Oshio estate among The morning haze Accustomed to go back and forth, Never will I forget that springtime!
The Former Minister of the Centre 3
Right
浦人のしほやく里のあさ霞春の物とやわかでみるらん
urabito no shio yaku sato no asagasumi haru no mono to ya wakade miruran
Folk dwelling by the bay Roasting salt in their village: The morning haze From a scene in spring ‘tis Hard to distinguish, is it not?[1]
Kozaishō 4
The Left’s poem composes ‘Oshio estate among the morning haze accustomed to go back and forth’ and, in addition to seeming to have some feeling in it, displays fine configuration and diction, while the Right’s poem ‘From as scene in spring ‘tis hard to distinguish, is it not?’ recollects Narihira’s poem ‘a scene from spring: ever-falling rain to gaze upon all day’ and has a gentle air about it, so both are difficult to distinguish from each other. I make this a tie.
shiogama no ura no higata no akebono ni kasumi ni nokoru ukishima no matsu
At Shiogama Bay uponn the tide-sands With the dawn Lingering in the haze are The pines on Ukishima.
A Court Lady 1
Right
春の夜の朧月夜の名残とや出づる朝日も猶かすむらん
haru no yo no oborozukiyo no nagori to ya izuru asahi mo nao kasumuran
A spring night’s Misty moon— Does it leave a keepsake in The rising sun Yet seeming hazed?
Ietaka, Junior Second Rank 2
Generally, for the judging of poetry, one chooses people who have been permitted to take this Way, who can distinguish the good from the bad among the reeds of Naniwa Bay and plumb the depths and shallows of the sea. And now I do so, when I have passed through the mulberry gate, but have no time for the Three Tiers and Nine Levels of Rebirth, or even for dipping into Tomi stream, and have but distantly heard the waves of Waka Bay these past sixteen springtimes, though I was wont, in the ancient blossom-filled capital, to string together a mere thirty-one syllables from time to time.
Though now I do not divert myself with this Way, Ietaka of the Junior Second Rank is a long-standing officer of the Poetry Office and a compiler of the New Ancient and Modern collection. His dewdrop life of almost eighty has begun to vanish now with the wind on Adashi Plain, but I thought to converse with him and just this once, debate over his deeply considered words and compare the configuration of his works. Thus, through the jewelled missives we exchanged, I had him assemble poems on ten topics by those from whom I am not estranged and write them down in pairs.
The numbers of such folk were not great, and among them are those who have only recently begun to have an interest in the learning the Six Principles. That the words of Shinobu’s sacred groves would be scattered by the wind and encounter hindrances here and there, I had thought, but in the end, I paid no heed to folk’s criticisms in order to avoid barriers on the path to rebirth. Among these, I match my own foolish compositions with those of Ietaka—it may not be an appropriate thing to do for the Way, but given our association, as ancient as Furu in Isonokami, I have done this out of special consideration for him.
Nevertheless, long ago I perused the poems of the Eight Anthologies from time to time, and they certainly have some spectacle about them, but yet many are now unclear. Indeed, among the poems of folk of modern times, over the past ten years I have not heard of even a single poem, for all that they are composed the same way, that it is possible to view as outstanding. Not only that, but as I approach my sixties and descend into my dotage, the signs of my own foolishness become increasingly apparent.
The first poem of the Left often wins, yet this has nothing remarkable about it. The Right’s poem, on the morning following a misty moonlit night, has a true link with the morning haze, and the sequencing of its diction and configuration are particularly charming. Nevertheless, the Left’s poem in the first round is in accordance with the matter, and I am thus not able to pick a winner or loser.
[1]Goshūishū XX: 1162: When she had been forgotten by a man, she went to Kibune, and composed this on seeing fireflies flitting about by the Mitarashi River.
[2]Shinkokinshū VI: 566: From when she presented a fifty-poem sequence.
[1]Kin’yōshū X: 612 (3): After the Koshikibu Handmaid had died, Izumi Shikibu had several robes which Empress Akiko had given her daughter over the years as keepsakes; when she saw notes she had made with Koshikibu, she composed.
[2]Shinkokinshū V: 507: On the conception of chrysanthemums under the moon by a lattice fence, when she presented a hundred poem sequence.
