Left (Win).
夏の夜は更けゆく程やなかるらん暮るればやがて明るしのゝめ
natsu no yo wa fukeyuku hodo ya nakaruran kurureba yagate akuru shinonome |
On a summer night Seems to grow late there’s No time; It falls and then ‘Tis the dark before bright dawn. |
235
Right.
暮れぬとてたれこめたればやがて又ひまこそ白め夏の夜な夜な
kurenu tote tare kometareba yagate mata hima kozo shirame natsu no yonayona |
Night’s fallen and I’m curtained in my bed And then Through the cracks comes light Night after summer night! |
The Provisional Master of the Empress’ Household Office.
236
The Right state that, ‘The Left’s “seems…no time” feels overly feeble.’ The Left reply that the poet is exhausted by the heat.
Shunzei says, ‘The gentlemen of the Right have criticised the Left as overly feeble, but I wonder if their own poems are always forceful? In the summer, even if it has got completely dark, there’s no need to shut oneself up in one’s curtains, as in the Right’s poem. The Left must win.’