The Right team query, ‘How is it that the wind can pass “over the fallen dewdrops” (tsuyu yori ue o)?’ The Left content themselves with saying that the Right’s poem is ‘difficult to grasp’.
Shunzei, though, remarks, ‘The Left’s “over the fallen dewdrops” is a wonderfully charming expression. It is the initial “are yet uncut” (moto mo harawanu) which is extremely difficult to understand. The Right’s configuration and diction seem particularly fine [sugata kotoba yoroshiku koso haberumere], though, so it is, just, the winner.’
The Right remark that as the Left’s poem contains “carried on the wind” (oikaze ni), it would have been desirable for it to also contain “boat”. The Left content themselves with saying that the reference to “frogs crying” seems “bombastic”.
Shunzei judges, ‘It is as the Right have stated with regard to “carried on the wind.” “Comes with the waves” (nami mo yorikuru) and its associated section, too, sounds impressive, but is really not so. There is logic in the criticism of the Right’s poem for “frogs crying”, but this is how the Horie frogs sound. Thus, the Right should win.’
The Right team have no comments to make about the Left’s poem this round, but the Left wonder whether the essence of the poem, of the warbler’s ‘tears of ice’ and song inviting the waters, might not be a bit much?
Shunzei remarks that the form and phrasing of the Left’s poem is ‘certainly charming’, and echoes their criticism of the Right’s poem, as having an ‘impossible essence’. He then goes on to say, ‘The Left is placidly charming; the Right’s essence must be excessive. They are equivalent and I judge this round a tie.’
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.
matsu ga ne o
isobe no nami no
utsutae ni
arawarenubeki
sode no ue kana
The pine trees’ roots
By stony shore bound waves
Are struck, and
Must stand revealed
Upon my sleeves.
103
Right
初雁のとわたる風のたよりにもあらぬ思ひを誰につたへん
hatsukari no
towataru kaze no
tayori ni mo
aranu omoi o
tare ni tsutaen
The first, returning goose,
Borne before the gate of heaven, of the unseen wind
Is no harbinger;
Just so the fires of my love:
To whom should I reveal them?