Round Three

Left

おぼつかないづれいづちのみちならむしをりも見えずふれるしらゆき

obotsukana izure izuchi no michi naramu shiori mo miezu fureru shirayuki

How strange! Which is which Path, I wonder? Even the laden branches go unseen In the falling snow, so white.

Retired from the World
47

Right

雪ふかみとなりのさともうづもれてけぶりのみこそしるしなりけれ

yuki fukami tonari no sato mo uzumorete keburi nomi koso shirushi narikere

So deep the snow, that The estate next door Is buried; Trails of smoke are the only Sign it’s there!

Senior Assistant Minister Past Lecturer

48

The poem of the Left’s ‘even the laden branches go unseen’ and what follows is both poetic and a familiar usage. As for the Right’s poem, how can ‘the estate next door be buried’ unless it’s the only place that snow is falling and nowhere else? Thus, I feel that the snow falling to conceal the broken branches has more feeling to it.

The Left’s ‘which path’ gives me the impression that there are many of them. This sense of multiplicity is something I can imagine—which is a good thing—and, I think, see me using myself. ‘Laden branches’ are something which occur on peaks deep in the mountains. It might be a bit remiss of me, but I wonder whether I can imagine snow drifting so high on a mountain peak?

As for the Right’s poem, we use ‘next door’ when there’s a fence of some sort between one estate and another, don’t we? As such, saying that the smoke is the sign is rather vague. Even if there’s been a quite extraordinary snowfall, there would be something other to notice as well as the smoke, so this is an error, isn’t it. It would be acceptable to refer to smoke if the estate were further away.