yaezakura furuki miyako ni nioedomo furizu mo hana no mezurashiki kana
Eightfold cherry Around the ancient capital Does glow, yet Unfallen and anew, the blossoms Are remarkable!
Cell of Fragrant Cloud 11
Right
みやこいでてかりそめにこし山ざとの花に心のからめられぬる
miyako idete karisome ni koshi yamazato no hana ni kokoro no karamerarenuru
Departing the capital On occasion I make my way To a mountain retreat where The blossoms my heart Have entangled.
Cell of Compassionate Light 12
The Left’s poem is a clear example of the overlayed diction fault. As for the Right’s poem, saying ‘have entangled’ is extremely overblown diction. Whatever sort of poem it might be, this expression would be unacceptable, wouldn’t it! Was this, perhaps, composed with an imperfect understanding of the Kawara Minister’s poem? That goes ‘For the scented / Breeze has yet to blow…’[1] Perhaps this is a misreading of a character in the poem’s text?[i] The Left has the fault of overlayed diction, and the Right…[ii]
The Left’s poem is extremely charming. I do have to say that having both ‘ancient’ (furuki) and ‘unfallen’ (furizu) is a fault and yet, this should not be criticized excessively. The poem of the Right’s ‘On occasion I make my way’, too, does not seem as if the poet is visiting the blossom, and so is lacking in sentiment. The concluding ‘have entangled’ is a piece of overblown diction, although it is not the case that it does not appear in prior poetry,[2] but I still feel that it grates on the ear a bit.
[1] When he participated in an archery display, during the reign of the Jōgan emperor [Seiwa]. けふ桜しづくにわが身いざぬれむかごめにさそふ風のこぬまに kyō sakura / shizuku ni wa ga mi / iza nuremu / kagome ni sasou / kaze no konu ma ni ‘Today let cherry blossom / Droplets my body / Drench! / For the scented / Breeze has yet to blow…’ The Kawara Minister of the Left (GSS II: 56)
[2] 美知乃倍乃 宇万良能宇礼尓 波保麻米乃 可良麻流伎美乎 波可礼加由加牟 michi no e no / umara no ure ni / haomame no / karamaru kimi o / hagareka yukamu ‘At the roadside / The briar rose tips / By bean vines / Are entangled, but from you / My love, I must depart…’ Hasetsukabe no Tori (MYS XX: 4352)
[i] Mototoshi is suggesting that Sōen has misread kagome かこめ in Minamoto no Tōru’s famous earlier poem as karame からめ, which would have been possible if reading a handwritten text.
[ii] There is a lacuna in Mototoshi’s judgement here, but it is clear from what he has said that he disapproved of both poems this round and so it would have been a tie.
hahasowara kurenai fukaku sometekeri shigure no ame wa iro nakeredomo
The oak groves Deeply scarlet Have been dyed, Though the rain shower Lacks any hue at all…
Lord Shigemoto 23
Right (M – Win)
山里はならのから葉の散敷きてしぐれの音もはげしかりけり
yamazato wa nara no karaba no chirishikite shigure no oto mo hageshikarikeri
My mountain retreat has The oaks’ withered leaves Scattered and spread around, so The sound of showers is all The more severe.
Lord Tamezane 24
Toshiyori states: the ‘oak grove’ poem, saying that plants fade and autumn leaves are dyed by things like dew and frost is as unremarkable as saying that one’s sweetheart’s skirt trails down. The ‘mountain retreat’ poem has ‘the oaks’ withered leaves’ and this is problematic. It would certainly have been better to avoid using ‘withered leaves’. In addition, I wonder about saying ‘the sound of showers is severe’? I feel it would be better to use this when looking down on the stony valley gate from the high peak of Mount Arachi. The first poem is slightly superior.
Mototoshi states; the poems of Left and Right are about the same quality, but the Left’s poem lacks a conception of showers and is entirely a poem on scarlet leaves, so in the current context ‘oaks’ withered leaves’ is slightly superior.
arashi fuku makuzu ga hara ni naku shika wa uramite nomi ya tsuma o kouran
Storm winds blow Across the arrowroot upon the plain Where bells a stag— Might it be with bitterness, alone, that He yearns for a mate?
Shun’e 47
Right
山里は妻こひかぬる鹿の音にさもあらぬ我もねられざりけり
yamazato wa tsuma koikanuru shika no ne ni sa mo aranu ware mo nerarezarikeri
In a mountain retreat, Filled with too much yearning for his mate A stag bells out— ‘Tis not true of me, yet Still I cannot sleep.
Lay Priest Master 48
The Left’s stag’s bell seeming to despise the arrowroot field and the Right’s inability to sleep on hearing a stag belling at a mountain retreat are both evocative of lonely sadness and neither sounds at all inferior to the other in the depths of the emotion they convey, so I find myself quite unable to distinguish between them.
saoshika no sora ni aware to kikoyuru wa yama no takane ni nakeba narikeri
A stag belling To the skies, sadly I hear— Perhaps, because ‘tis on the mountain’s peak He cries so…
Lord Masahira
45
Right (Win)
ゆふまぐれ霧のまがきのさびしさにをしか鳴くなり秋の山里
yūmagure kiri no magaki no sabishisa ni oshika nakunari aki no yamazato
Tangled in twilight With mist around my brushwood fence, Loneliness fills me, as A stag bells, by A mountain retreat in autumn
Shinkaku 46
What on earth is the conception of ‘sadly hearing something in the skies’? While no one can truly know why a stag bells, what is the point of saying that ‘sadness is in the skies’? And if one does hear it, it isn’t the case that anyone really knows that the stag is belling out of longing for his mate, is it. The stag seeming to bell by a brushwood fence in the mist, seems to sound a bit more moving at the moment.
