Left (Win).
空はなを霞もやらず風冴えて雪氣にくもる春の夜の月
| sora wa nao kasumi mo yarazu kaze saete yukige ni kumoru haru no yo no tsuki |
The skies are still Untouched by haze; The wind clearly brings A sense of snow to cloud The moon, this springtime night. |
23
Right.
梅が枝の匂ばかりや春ならんなを雪深し窓のあけぼの
| ume ga e no nioi bakari ya haru naran nao yuki fukashi mado no akebono |
Is a branch of plum’s Scent alone Spring? Still the snows lie deep Outside my window this dawn. |
24
Neither team has any criticisms to make of the other’s poem in this round.
Shunzei comments that both poems are simply and beautifully constructed in both form and phrasing, and the final two lines of both poems are equally charming. He feels, though, that the beginning of the Right’s poem would have been improved if, instead of ‘a branch of plum’ (ume ga e), which focuses the audience’s attention on the branch, and not the blossom, it had begun ‘Is the plum beneath my eaves’ (noki no ume), instead. In addition, while reluctant to discount ‘outside my window this dawn’ (mado no akebono), he cannot help but feel that ‘the moon, this springtime night’ (haru no yo no tsuki) is a more superlative conclusion, and so has to award victory to the Left.