Round Two

Left (T – Tie)

口惜しや雲ゐがくれにすむたつもおもふ人にはみえけるものを

kuchi oshi ya kumoigakure ni sumu tatsu mo omou hito ni wa miekeru mono o

How bitter am I! Hidden ‘mongst the clouds Dwell dragons—even they To one thinking fondly of them Do appear, yet…

Lord Toshiyori
51

Right (M – Win)

かつみれど猶ぞ恋しきわぎもこがゆつのつまぐしいかでささまし

katsu miredo nao zo koishiki wagimoko ga yutsu no tsumagushi ikade sasamashi

I have seen her once, yet Even more desirable is My darling girl— As a fine comb How would I wear her in my hair?

Lord Mototoshi
52

Toshiyori states: the first poem is one which appears to be incomprehensible to a particularly limitless extent. In the second poem, the ‘fine comb’ referred to is the one which Susanoo transformed Princess Inada and placed in his divine locks upon their first meeting. This poem has ‘I have seen her once’ and thus appears to have a conception that they have already met. The final section has ‘How would I wear her in my hair?’, which makes it seem that the comb has yet to be placed there. This appears to differ from the original tale. One could ask the poet whether he has mistaken this ancient tale—perhaps he has simply remembered it wrong? It’s not possible to decide upon a winner or loser.

[N.B.: Mototoshi mistakes Toshiyori’s use of tatsu (‘dragon’) for tazu (crane)—the two words were written identically. Toshiyori didn’t bother to correct him at the time of the match, but when Tadamichi asked for judges’ thoughts in writing after the event, he simply wrote, ‘It’s not a crane, but a dragon!’]

Mototoshi states: composing ‘how bitter am I’ and suchlike is something which I have yet to encounter in a poem in a poetry match. Someone said long ago that in both the poems of Yamato and Cathay one should select diction as fruit develop from blossom, and bearing that in mind, well, I have never seen such diction used in many personal collections and poetry matches and, it goes without saying, certainly not in the initial section. On the matter of ‘hidden ‘mongst the clouds dwell cranes’: this is something which has yet to appear in poetry. I wonder whether it appears in texts from Cathay? Possibly composed on the conception of ‘cranes crying beneath the sun’ in the Account of the World? The subsequent line should be ‘clouds spread broadly blue I see cranes so white’. It seems to be saying ‘flying hidden in the clouds’—meaning that cranes should live in the clouds. The cocks of Huainan entered the clouds—again, maybe that is a reference to cranes? Moreover, in Master Fu Qiu’s Classic on the Aspect of Cranes it states that cranes, at the age of one hundred and eighty years, come together as males and females for mating—if that is the case, then how does this relate to human beings? Furthermore, I feel the poem is illogical in the absence of a location where they could live, hidden in the clouds. Overall, this poem has an inappropriate conception and diction, too. The poem of the Right has no errors of diction and its tone is not that bad, so perhaps it would not be mistaken to say it’s a little superior.