asahi kage mada ideyaranu ashihiki no yama wa kasumi no iro zo utsurou
The morning sunlight Has yet to fall upon The leg-wearying Mountains, yet the haze’s Hues are shifting.
Takasuke, Gentleman-in-Waiting 9
Right
山姫のかすみのそでも紅に光そへたる朝日影かな
yamahime no kasumi no sode mo kurenai ni hikari soetaru asahi kage kana
The mountain princess has Her sleeves of haze turned Scarlet Draped with light by The morning sunshine!
Shimotsuke 10
The Left’s poem has no faults worth pointing out; the poem of the Right’s ‘morning sunlight draping scarlet light across the sleeves of haze’ is overly gorgeous, I think, while the Left seems perfectly beautiful, so it should win.
From among twenty poems he presented to a certain Chamberlain, wishing His Majesty to see them, during the same reign when he was serving in the Banqueting Section of the Royal Table Office and grieving that he was falling into obscurity.
いづことも春のひかりはわかなくにまだみよしのの山は雪ふる
iduko tomo Faru no Fikari Fa wakanaku ni mada miyosino no yama Fa yuki Furu
Everywhere should fall The light of spring Without exception, yet Still in fair Yoshino’s Mountains snow is falling.
[i] This poem is an allusive variation on a variant of KKS IV: 184, which appears in some Kokinshū manuscripts: Topic unknown. このまよりおちたる月の影見れば心づくしの秋はきにけり ko no ma yori / ochitaru tsuki no / kage mireba / kokorozukushi no / aki wa kinikeri ‘Between the trees / Dropped moon / Light, seeing it I know / Heart draining / Autumn, has come at last.’ Anonymous.
