Round Six

Left

あきの夜のありあけのつきはくまもなしあさくらやまもなのみこそあらめ

aki no yo no ariake no tsuki wa kuma mo nashi asakurayama mo na nomi koso arame

At an autumn night’s Dawn, the moon Has not a cloud before it; The Mount of Morning Dark May be so in name alone!

Cell of Fragrant Cloud
39

Right (Win)

秋の月あかしのうらはなびきもにすむわれからのかずも見つべし

aki no tsuki akashi no ura wa nabikimo ni sumu warekara no kazu mo mitsubeshi

The autumn moon is Bright above Akashi Bay; Among the trailing seaweed Dwell tiny shrimp, Their number now clear to my eyes.

Cell of Compassionate Light
40

The poem of the Left is an entirely tedious composition. It simply states that a cloudless autumn moon does not fit with the place name, Mount Asakura. The moon at ‘dawn’ is the same as the moon at ‘dawntime’, while Mount Asakura is used when dawn has completely finished. As for the poem of the Right, while the moon is described as bright, it doesn’t seem right to then make it a poem about trailing seaweed—this does not seem charming at all. This round, too, there’s not much more I can say than that.

As I have already mentioned, ‘moon at dawn’ in the poem of the Left is an expression which it is impossible to say is praiseworthy. Even more so, really, the concluding ‘may be so in name alone’ just says ‘is so in name alone’, doesn’t it? It’s contrary to reason to say that it’s fluent and thus, and I say this reluctantly, it’s difficult to understand. As for the Right’s poem, I don’t understand this either: it ought to be ‘their numbers, too, I have been able to see’—saying ‘their number now clear to my eyes’ implies that you haven’t previously been able to see them up to that point, and it’s vague about when you have. Even so, it’s getting light, so the light of the moon at dawn seems superior.