kusamura no kokoro shi to tomo ni zo wataru kure wa shinubeki aki no oshisa ni
A tangled patch of grass is My heart—together Will it cross, and with The evening pass away Amid autumn regrets…[i]
23
Right (Win)
こりずまにあひもみるかな女郎花とまらずかへる秋としるらし
korizu ma ni ai mo miru kana ominaeshi tomarazu kaeru aki to shirurashi
While I do not dislike her, I will come to meet and see, My maidenflower! Not lingering, and returning Having had enough—as autumn seems to do, I know…
24
[i] The central part of this poem appears to have been corrupted as the division kokoro shi to tomo / ni zo wataru is anomalous as it places the bound morphemes ni zo at the beginning of a line. Given this, my translation is speculative.
The Right state: evening fortune-telling and crossroad divination are different things. The Left state: the Right’s poem has no faults.
In judgement: both evening fortune-telling and crossroad divination are conducted in the evening, and with either one could wish ‘Let it say, “Come with me!”’ (kon to tanomeyo), so this does not seem to be a mistake does it? The Right has the fault of having both ‘We will meet’ (au koto o) and ‘sunset bell, too’ (iriai no kane mo). The Left should win.
In judgement: simply saying, ‘Sleeping solo my sleeves remain damp in the morning’ (hitorine no sode no nagori no asajimeri) seems to lack the conception of love. I wonder who might have written the ‘recent poem’, ‘If he would be wet with waves should surely wait for evening?’ mentioned by the Right? How, indeed, can we avoid poems which are not in the anthologies? In any case, the poem here is ‘May to dampen them again, ‘til evening I would wish to wait’ and the initial line is different. This level of resemblance between poems is not uncommon. The Right’s poem is pleasant. It should win.
