Composed for a picture based on the Song of Everlasting Woe, for the scene where Xuanzong had returned home and the emperor was depicted weeping with insects calling from the withered cogon grass all around him.
ふるさとは浅茅が原と荒れはてて夜すがら虫の音をのみぞ鳴く
| Furusato Fa asadi ga Fara to areFatete yosugara musi no ne nomi zo naku |
My old home With cogon grass is Entirely overgrown; All night the insects Simply let forth their cries… |
Dōmei
道命
A poem sent by the Elder Maiden of Nakatomi to Ōtomo, sukune Yakamochi.
いなと言はば強ひめや我が背菅の根の思ひ乱れて恋ひつつもあらむ
| ina ipaba sipime ya wa ga se suga no ne no omopimidarete koitutu mo aramu |
Should you tell me no, Should I pointlessly implore you? As the sedge-roots In a tangle of passion Will I ever love you! |
The Elder Maiden of Nakatomi
中臣郎女
Left.
來ぬ床は明る頼みもなき物をひまや白むと待ぞあやしき
| konu toko wa akuru tanomi mo naki mono o hima ya shiromu to matsu zo ayashiki |
An unvisited bed, Of light has No hope, but Brightening through my bedroom door Is what I am awaiting – how strange… |
Lord Kanemune.
833
Right (Win).
頼めつゝ更けゆく夜半を歎きても鳥の音をやは待あかしつる
| tanometsutsu fukeyuku yowa o nagekitemo tori no ne o ya wa matsu akashitsuru |
Time and again he’d say he’d come, and Through the deepening night I’d grieve, but Is it now for the first bird call That I have awaited the dawn? |
Lord Takanobu.
834
The Right state: ‘Unvisited bed’ (konu toko) sounds as if it is the bed doing the visiting. The Left state: we do not feel that the Right’s poem expresses its intended sense fully.
In judgement: I feel it sounds better to say that ‘through the deepening night’ (fukeyuku yowa) ‘is it now for the first bird call’ (tori no ne o ya wa) that one waits, rather than that one is in ‘an unvisited bed’ (konu toko) waiting for ‘brightening through my bedroom door’ (hima ya shiromu).
eft (Tie).
雪消ゆる枯野の下の淺緑去年の草葉や根にかへるらん
| yuki kiyuru kareno no shita no asamidori kozo no kusaba ya ne ni kaeruran |
The snows are gone from off The sere fields, and beneath, Pale green: Last year’s growth seems To have returned to its roots… |
47
Right (Tie).
春雨は去年見し野邊のしるべかは緑にかへる荻の燒原
| harusame wa kozo mishi nobe no shirube ka wa midori ni kaeru ogi no yakehara |
The gentle rains of spring: To the fields I gazed upon last year Do they show the way? For greeness has returned, To the burnt miscanthus grass… |
48
Both teams state that the other’s poem was ‘in the same vein’.
Shunzei judges that the Left’s ‘Last year’s growth seems/To have returned to its roots’ and the Right’s ‘For greeness has returned,/To the burnt miscanthus grass’ are ‘pleasantly charming’, so neither poem can be adjudged the winner.