Round Twelve

Left (Tie)

あらし吹くまくずが原に鳴く鹿は恨みてのみや妻をこふらん

arashi fuku makuzu ga hara ni naku shika wa uramite nomi ya tsuma o kouran

Storm winds blow Across the arrowroot upon the plain Where bells a stag— Might it be with bitterness, alone, that He yearns for a mate?

Shun’e
47

Right

山里は妻こひかぬる鹿の音にさもあらぬ我もねられざりけり

yamazato wa tsuma koikanuru shika no ne ni sa mo aranu ware mo nerarezarikeri

In a mountain retreat, Filled with too much yearning for his mate A stag bells out— ‘Tis not true of me, yet Still I cannot sleep.

Lay Priest Master
48

The Left’s stag’s bell seeming to despise the arrowroot field and the Right’s inability to sleep on hearing a stag belling at a mountain retreat are both evocative of lonely sadness and neither sounds at all inferior to the other in the depths of the emotion they convey, so I find myself quite unable to distinguish between them.