Tag Archives: Love

Naidaijin-ke uta’awase 28

Round Four

Left (Both Judges – Win)

こひわぶる君が雲ゐの月ならば及ばぬ身にも影はみてまし

koiwaburu
kimi ga kumoi no
tsuki naraba
oyobanu mi ni mo
kage wa mitemashi
So cruel in your love,
My lord, above the clouds
The moon were you, then
Though it reaches me not
I wish your light to see…

Lady Kazusa
55

Right

いのるらん神のたたりはなさるとも逢ふてふ事に身をばけがさじ

inoruran
kami no tatari wa
nasaru tomo
au chō koto ni
mi oba kegasaji
You seem to pray for it, and
Even should a deity’s taboo
This break,
A meeting
Would be no pollution, I feel…

Lord Akinaka
56

Toshiyori states: the first poem makes a person into the moon, and is different in sense from the poem in the Tentoku poetry match which also uses ‘Though it reaches me not’. The second poem appears to be one written after becoming close to another—if that’s what the composition is about, then it should include an element from a prior poem for precedent. Then again, one could compose like this as a response to a prayer received from a man’s residence, in which case it would resemble something sent between people who have yet to meet. It loses.

Mototoshi states: saying ‘My lord, above the clouds / The moon were you, then’ appears an elegant sequence. I wonder if it was composed with the poem by Nakatsukasa in a poetry match in Tenryaku, where she uses ‘above the clouds, the moon’? While the ‘beloved light’ in this poem is very well depicted, here the diction seems stilted. As for the Right, up to ‘You seem to pray for it, and /Even should a deity’s taboo’ is acceptable, but ‘A meeting / Would be no pollution, I feel’ is extremely difficult to understand. Would a meeting, of whatever sort, be a cause of pollution? It really makes me feel as if something like ‘ditch’ was going to be dropped in! Neither has a charming conception, yet ‘above the clouds, the moon’ is slightly better in the present context.

Naidaijin-ke uta’awase 25

Round One

Left (T – Win)

絶えずたく室の八島の煙にも猶立ちまさる恋もするかな

taezu taku
muro no yashima no
keburi ni mo
nao tachimasaru
koi mo suru kana
Endlessly kindled,
At Muro no Yashima
The smoke
Yet rising more
Is my love for you!

Lady Settsu
49

Right (M – Win)

杯のしひてあひみむとおもへども恋しきことのさむるよもなき

sakazuki no
shiite aimimu to
omoedomo
koishiki koto no
samuru yo mo naki
Over a cup of wine
To press you to meet
I thought, yet
My love for you
Will never cool in this world!

Lord Akikuni

50

Toshiyori states: the first poem’s ‘endlessly kindled’ is an error. Fires are not actually kindled at Muro no Yashima—vapour rising from clear waters in the land appears to be smoke, so I wonder about the use of ‘kindled’ in this context. Nevertheless, if one was referring to real smoke, why wouldn’t you compose in this way? The tone of the poem isn’t bad. The second poem is an interesting display of technique, but it doesn’t appear that one would have to compose like this. Saying ‘cup’ leads to ‘wine’ and emphasises the drinking of it, but then if there were no wine and no drinking, how could one press someone to do something? In addition, I wonder whether it’s appropriate to begin with ‘cup’? This is an excess of technique over substance. The Left is more poetic, so I say it’s the winner.

Mototoshi states: what are we to make of ‘Endlessly kindled, / At Muro no Yashima / The smoke’? And what do the fires kindled at this location resemble? There are two senses of ‘Muro no Yashima’: one is a location in Shimotsuke; the second refers to people’s dwellings—we know from earlier treatises that forges are described as ‘Muro’. Which of these two senses is being used here? Whichever it is, ‘endlessly’ does not appear to have been previously associated with either of them. For example, there’s Koreshige’s poem:

風ふけば室のやしまの夕煙心のうちに立ちにけるかな

kaze fukeba
muro no yashima no
yūkeburi
kokoro no uchi ni
tachinikeru kana
When the wind blows
Across Muro no Yashima
At eventide as smoke,
Within my heart,
My passion soars…

It does not appear that the smoke rises endlessly here. Exemplars of endlessly rising smoke are the peak of Asama, or Mount Fuji, and these seem to have long been the subject of compositions. It seeming that this poem sought to express the essential meaning of ‘endlessly kindled’, such enquiries need to be made and, if I may be so bold, do not appear, do they? The Right’s poem has ‘Over a cup of wine / To press you to meet / I thought, yet’—while the conception of ‘press’ here sounds extremely unusual, what does it mean that ‘My love for you / Will never cool in this world’? It seems that ‘cool’ as a piece of diction is being used to make drunkenness a metaphor for being in love. If that’s the case, then, well, there are many foundational texts on this. So, even if one gets drunk, what then happens? Is there a world where this never ‘cools’? There was the case of man in Cathay who spent a thousand nights drunk, but that was only three years and not without end. In the sutras there is the drunkenness of ignorance and that might be a world in which one would not find sobriety, but there is no way to make this applicable in this poem. It is a little better than the Left poem’s endless kindling and extremely charming.

Kinkai wakashū 454

Composed on the conception of love at a famous location

とよ国の菊のながはま夢にだにまだみぬ人に恋ひやわたらん

toyokuni no
kiku no nagahama
yume ni dani
mada minu hito ni
koi ya wataran
In the land of Toyo, in the western isle,
Lies the long beach of Kiku, I hear—
Even in my dreams
Have I yet to see her, but
Will my love for her go on and on?

454