The Right state bluntly, ‘Using ‘darker’ (kuraku) in this poem is highly vulgar!’ But the Left snap back, ‘Composing with “darker” is completely commonplace.’ They have no comments to make about the Right’s poem.
Shunzei remarks, ‘The Left’s “garden much darker” (niwa koso kuraku) has nothing problematic about it. “Broad-leaved oaks” (nara no hiroha), although a commonplace expression, is undesirable here. The purport of the Right’s “for the hues of autumn” (iro ni wa aki o) seems rather contrived, yet one wonders if “scarlet leaves” (momiji yue) might not be concealed beneath the “broad-leaved oaks”! The Left’s poem, being more unaffected, wins.’
When the Regent and Grand Minister [Fujiwara no Yoshitsune] was Colonel of the Left, he held a poetry competition in one hundred rounds at his house. A poem composed on the oak tree.
時わかぬなみさへ色にいづみがははゝそのもりに嵐ふくらし
toki wakanu
nami sae iro ni
izumigawa
hahaso no mori ni
arashi fukurashi
Untouched by changing seasons are
The waves, yet have they taken colour,
On Izumi river;
In the oak groves
Storms rage through, it seems.
In the Fourth Month of the First Year of the Ōtoku period (1084) at the Sanjō Palace he composed this on the profusion of leaves on the trees in the garden.
たまがしはにはも葉廣になりにけりこや木綿四手て神まつるころ
tamagasiFa
niFa mo Fabiro ni
narinikeri
koya yuFu sidete
kami maturu koro
The oak trees
In the garden in full fledge
Do stand.
Look! Mulberry streamers flutter
For the gods here now!