Left
うき舟に一夜ばかりの契だになどありがたき我身なるらむ

ukifune ni hitoyo bakari no chigiri dani nado arigataki wa ga mi naruramu

In a drifting boat A single night’s Brief bond – even that: Why so rarely Do I get it?

Lord Suetsune
1145

Right (Win)
誰となきうき寢を忍ぶ海人の子も思へば淺き恨み也けり

tare to naki ukine o shinobu ama no ko mo omoeba asaki urami narikeri

Knowing not with whom She’ll briefly sleep, and regret Is my diving girl: But considering, little Will it trouble her!

Ietaka
1146

The Right state: ‘drifting boat’ (ukifune) fails to link properly with ‘single night’ (hitoyo). The Left state: although ‘diving girl’ (ama no ko) is used in the source poem in the section on pleasure girls in the Collection of Poems to Sing, we wonder about the appropriateness of simply using it to mean pleasure girl.

In judgement: there is no need to critique whether or not ‘drifting boat’ links with ‘single night’. In the final section ‘why so rarely’ (nado arigataki), though, makes me wonder why this should be the case! On the matter of the Right’s use of ‘diving girl’, our predecessors, including Lord Kintō, have provided poems on pleasure girls in the Collection of Poems to Sing, and who, indeed, would not utilize this? Furthermore, ‘knowing not with whom she’ll briefly sleep, and regret’ (tare to naki ukine o shinobu) certainly sounds like a pleasure girl! Thus, the Right must win over a pleasure girl finding it hard to get custom.