Round Twelve
Left
冬の夜の月はとほくやわたりけんかげみしみづのまづしこほれば
| fuyu no yo no tsuki wa tōku ya watariken kage mishi mizu no mazu shi kōreba | On a winter’s night Does the moon distantly Pass by? For The waters where I saw its face Are the first to freeze… |
22
Right
ながれくるみづこほりぬる冬さへやなほうき草のあとはさだめぬ
| nagarekuru mizu kōrinuru fuyu sae ya nao ukikusa no ato wa sadamenu | Flowing down The waters have frozen With the winter, so will The drifting waterweed still Leave little trace? |
23
Her reply
浪のうへに跡やは見ゆる水鳥のうきてへぬらん年はかずかは
| nami no uFe ni ato ya Fa miyuru midutori no ukite Fenuran tosi Fa kazu ka Fa | Upon the waves Can you see tracks? The waterbirds Drift and passed by have The years, but so what? |
Anonymous
Sent to a lady with whom he had simply been exchanging letters for some years.
水鳥のはかなきあとに年をへてかよふばかりのえにこそ有りけれ
| midutori no hakanaki ato ni tosi wo Fete kayoFu bakari no e ni koso arikere | Waterbirds leave But transient traces as The years go by— This simple back-and-forth is All we truly have! |
Anonymous
Temples 寺
谷ふかみ跡だに見えぬ山寺はかけひの水のゆくにてぞ知る
| tani fukami ato dani mienu yamadera wa kakehi no mizu no yuku nite zo shiru | Deep within the valley No tracks lead to This mountain temple: Water through the culverts’ Passing reveals it. |
Akinaka
Lacking a Glimpse of Love Letters 不見書恋
ふみつくる跡も見えねば浜千鳥たちゐるそらもかひなかりけり
| fumi tsukuru ato mo mieneba hama chidori tachi’iru sora mo kainakarikeri | Of letter writing, too, I see not a sign; The plovers on beach Take wing into the skies, just As pointlessly. |
Daishin
The Path Across the Shiga Mountains (志賀山越)
まだしらぬ人と友にぞこえにけるしがの山ぢの跡もなけれど
| mada shiranu hito to tomo ni zo koenikeru shiga no yamaji no ato mo nakeredo | With an unknown Companion, together Have I crossed Shiga’s mountain paths Leaving traces none, and yet… |
Akinaka
Left (Win)
誰となく寄せては返る浪枕浮きたる舟の跡もとどめず
| tare to naku yosete wa kaeru namimakura ukitaru fune no ato mo todomezu | To no one Cleaving, they return; Pillowed on the waves The drifting boats’ Wakes fail to linger long… |
A Servant Girl
1151
Right
何方を見ても忍ばむ難波女の浮き寝の跡に消ゆる白浪
| izukata o mitemo shinobamu naniwame no ukine no ato ni kiyuru shiranami | Whither Should I look in longing? With a girl from Naniwa I slept briefly, but her Wake vanishes among the whitecaps… |
Jakuren
1152
Both Left and Right together state: neither poem is bad.
In judgement: both poems seem elegant in configuration and diction, but the Right’s ‘girl from Naniwa’ (naniwame) raises the same issue as ‘diving girl’, only more so – there is not even evidence on this from inclusion in the Collection of Poems to Sing, is there? The Left’s ‘cleaving, they return; pillowed on the waves’ (yosete wa kaeru namimakura) really does seem like a pleasure girl, so I must say it is superior.
Left (Win)
唐国の虎臥す野邊に入るよりもまどふ戀路の末ぞあやうき
| karakuni no tora fusu nobe ni iru yori mo madou koiji no sue zo ayauki |
In far Cathay are Meadows where tigers lie, But rather than entering there, The confusing paths of love Are, at the end, more dangerous… |
Lord Ari’ie
1063
Right
我宿は人もかれ野の淺茅原通ひし駒の跡もとゞめず
| wa ga yado wa hito mo kareno no asajiwara kayoishi koma no ato mo todomezu |
At my home Is only a withered field Of cogon grass; The mount who once did cross it Has left no lingering tracks… |
Ietaka
1064
The Gentlemen of the Right state: how can love be dangerous? The Gentlemen of the Left state: the Right’s poem has no faults to mention.
In judgement: saying that the ‘paths of love are, at the end’ (koiji no sue) dangerous is perfectly commonplace. ‘Is only a withered field of cogon grass’ (hito mo kareno no asajiwara) seems to simply have taken the poem ‘Sedge fields lie / Around the estate of Fushimi, / All long overgrown; / He who passed across them / Has left no tracks at all…’ and swapped in ‘mount who once did cross it’ (kayoishi koma). Changing a man into a mount is discomposing, indeed. Again, the Left should win.
Left.
かくこそは長柄の橋も絶えしかど柱ばかりは名殘やはなき
| kaku koso wa nagara no hashi mo taeshikado hashira bakari wa nagori ya wa naki |
And so it is that The bridge at Nagara Has ceased to be, yet Are there not even pillars In remembrance of what’s gone? |
Lord Ari’ie
1013
Right (Win).
今も猶長柄の橋は作りてんつれなき戀は跡だにもなし
| ima mo nao nagara no hashi wa tsukuriten tsurenaki koi wa ato dani mo nashi |
Even now is The bridge at Nagara Being built? Of this cruel love Not even a trace remains… |
Nobusada
1014
The Right state: it is certainly possible to say that the ‘bridge at Nagara’ has ‘rotted’ (kutsu), but there are, we think, no other examples of it ‘ceasing’ (tayu). The Left state: we wonder about the appropriateness of saying ‘love not a trace’ (koi ni ato nashi).
In judgement: both poems refer to ‘the bridge at Nagara’ and, as has been mentioned by the Gentlemen of the Right in their criticism, the Left uses ‘has ceased to be, yet’ (taeshikado); there are many poems using ‘rotted’, because this is what happens to the pillars of bridges. After this bridge ceased to be, the pillars would still be rotting away. If you have the bridge ‘being built’ (tsukuru nari), why would you not then have it ‘ceasing’? That being said, I am only accustomed to hearing ‘bridge pillars’ (hashibashira), and having only ‘pillars’ (hashira) sounds completely lacking in logic. The Right’s poem uses ‘love not a trace’ (koi ato nashi): it is entirely natural for a variety of different things not to leave a trace. The current criticism must be due to there not being a prior example of this usage, but it is particularly difficult to say this about the initial section of the poem. The Right wins.
Cicadas (蟬)
うつせみのいでがたくても過すかないかでこの世に跡をとどめん
| utsusemi no idegatakute mo sugusu kana ikade kono yo ni ato o todomen | A cicada shell Is hard to reveal, yet Endures; Somehow within this world A trace will remain… |
Toshiyori