Round Twelve

Left (Tie)

しら雲を心なしともいひはてじ秋の月をばかくさざりけり

shirakumo o kokoronashi to mo iihateji aki no tsuki oba kakusazarikeri

That clouds of white Lack sensitivity, Surely, one cannot say, for The autumn moon They have not hidden.

Suketaka
71

Right

わきてしもをしまざらまし照る月の秋より後もくまなかりせば

wakiteshi mo oshimazaramashi teru tsuki no aki yori nochi mo kumanakariseba

Not at all Would I regret The shining of the moon, if After autumn, too It were made unclouded…

The Lay Priest Master
72

The Left sounds as if, in autumn in general clouds did not trail across the moon. It really does put me in mind of the preface to the Ancient and Modern collection, where it says that Kisen’s poetry is like ‘gazing at the moon in autumn when, just before dawn, it is covered with cloud’! As for the Right, it sounds as if whatever the season the moon is dark after autumn, but there are plenty of poems where you can ‘indeed see the moon in autumn’, and thus this is like blowing on someone’s hair to find a scab! These both seem of about the same quality.