Left (Win).
散る花をけふのまとゐの光にて浪間にめぐる春のさか月
| chiru hana o kyō no matoi no hikari nite namima ni meguru haru no sakazuki |
Falling blossoms To the gathering today Add lustre, Circling between the waves go The wine-cups of spring. |
153
Right.
岩間より流れてくだす盃に花の色さへ浮ぶけふかな
| iwama yori nagarete kudasu sakazuki ni hana no iro sae ukabu kyō kana |
From the rock-clefts Float down Cups of wine – Even the blossoms’ hues Seem adrift upon them, today… |
154
The Right team state that the Left’s poem, ‘seems good,’ while the Left state that the Right’s combination of nagarete (‘flow’) and kudasu (‘send down’) is ‘inharmonious and would be better reversed.’ (In his poem, Takanobu has combined an intransitive verb nagaru with a transitive one, kudasu, and the Left are complaining that it’s odd to have something flowing (on its own) and then being sent down (by someone), so it would have been better phrased as kudashite nagaru, ‘sent down and then flowed’.)
Shunzei comments that, ‘Both poems have superlative elements. The Right’s nagaretekudasu is not entirely inharmonious, but the Left’s “circling between the waves go the wine-cups of spring” is particularly fine. Thus, I award it victory.’