Composed as a poem on the moon.
あきの夜はころもさむしろかさねても月のひかりに敷くものぞなき
| aki no yo wa koromo samushiro kasanetemo tsuki no hikari ni shiku mono zo naki | On an autumn night Even with a robe and chilly blanket both Piled on, The moon’s light Spreading, is entirely matchless. |
Major Counsellor Tsunenobu
Composed as a love poem.
一夜とてよがれしとこのさむしろにやがてもちりのつもりぬるかな
| hitoyo tote yogaresi toko no samusiro ni yagate mo tiri no tumorinuru kana | ‘Just for one night,’ he said, but At night my bed lies abandoned, with A chilly, threadbare blanket Where the dust Is piled high! |
Sanuki
Left (Tie)
憂き身ゆへよがるる床のさむしろはしき忍び忍びてもかひやなからむ
| ukimi yue yogaruru toko no samushiro wa shikishinobitemo kai ya nakaramu | My cruelty was it that Kept him from my bed these many nights; My blanket: Should I spread it and think of him alone, Would that have no effect at all? |
Lord Kanemune
1133
Right
恋わびぬむなしき床のさむしろに幾夜いくたび寝覚しつらん
| koiwabinu munashiki toko no samushiro ni ikuyo ikutabi nezameshitsuran | Sick am I of love – In an empty bed’s Blankets How many nights, how many times, Must I awake? |
Nobusada
1134
Both Left and Right together state: we find no faults to mention.
In judgement: both of the ‘blankets’ (samushiro) of the Left and Right here seem elegant. The configuration of the Left’s ‘my cruelty was it that kept him from my bed these many nights; my blanket’ (ukimi yue yogaruru toko no samushiro) and the conception of the Right’s ‘sick am I of love – in an empty bed’s’ (koiwabinu munashiki toko no) are such that I find both difficult to put down. I must make the round a tie.
Left (Tie)
出にける君が夜床の狭筵にひとり寝してや肌を触れまし
| idenikeru kimi ga yodoko no samushiro ni hitorineshite ya hada o furemashi |
Departed Is he from our bed tonight, so On his blanket Should I sleep alone, Might I touch his skin? |
Kenshō
1129
Right
綾むしろ立ち寄る人はなけれどもあらましにのみ敷きてこそ待て
| ayamushiro tachiyoru hito wa nakeredomo aramashi ni nomi shikite koso mate |
To my patterned blanket He has not Drawn near, yet In simple longing Will I spread it and await him… |
Lord Tsune’ie
1130
Both Left and Right together state: this seems somewhat jocular.
In judgement: the Left’s conception of starting with ‘departed’ (idenikeru), as the poem of a woman sleeping alone and finding traces of a the man who has left on the blanket, sounds extremely poor in style. On the other hand, if it is a man’s poem, has he come upon the traces of a woman after she has left? In any case, whichever it is the initial line is not good at all. The Right’s poem, with its ‘to my patterned blanket he has not drawn near, yet’ (ayamushiro tachiyoru hito wa nakeredomo), also appears to be a woman’s poem. The Left’s humour, and the Right’s longing, are both eccentric. The round must tie.
Left (Win).
信樂の外山は雪も消えにしを冬を殘すや谷の夕風
| shigaraki no toyama wa yuki mo kienishi o fuyu o nokosu ya tani no yūkaze |
From Shigaraki’s Mountains, the snow Has gone, yet Does winter remain in The valleys’ evening breeze? |
17
Right.
春風は吹くと聞けども柴の屋はなをさむしろにいこそ寢られね
| haru kaze wa fuku to kikedomo shiba no ya wa nao samushiro ni i koso nerarene |
The spring breeze Blows, I hear, yet My twig-roofed hut is Yet chill: beneath a threadbare blanket I cannot fall asleep. |
18
Shunzei states the first part of the Left’s poem is ‘elevated in tone’, but that the final line is problematic: a reference to ‘morning’ might have been better, or just to the ‘valleys’ breeze’, but this would not have fitted the syllable count. If the intention had been to add a sense of ‘darkness’ to the poem, an expression such as ‘the valleys, shadowed by the crags’ would have been better. As for the Right’s poem, the image of the ‘twig-roofed hut’ is lonely, but the overlaying of the ‘cold’ with ‘blanket’ (in the original poem ‘samushiro’ is a play-on-words with both senses) is pedestrian, and so the Left’s poem, despite its faults, is adjudged the winner.