Round Twenty-Three

Left (Win)

もしほぐさしきつのうらのねざめにはしぐれにのみやそではぬれける

moshiogusa shikitsu no ura no nezame ni wa shigure ni nomi ya sode wa nurekeru

Salt-seaweed grasses grow On the beach at Shikitsu where On waking is it By the showers alone That my sleeves have dampened?

Dharma Master Shun’e
95

Right

たびねにははにふのこやのいたびさししぐれのするぞさやにきこゆる

tabine ni wa hanyū no koya no itabisashi shigure no suru zo saya ni kikoyuru

Sleeping on my travels On an ochre clay hut’s Veranda boards The falling of a shower Sounds striking!

Lord Sanekuni
96

The Left’s ‘Salt-seaweed grasses grow / On the beach at Shikitsu’ is certainly particularly charming, and really what one should say. The concluding section’s ‘By the showers alone?’, too, does not seem simplistic in conception and diction. As for the Right, while it is not the case that at ‘an ochre clay hut’s…a shower..would sound striking’ has no point to it, the Left’s poem is particularly pleasant. Thus, it wins.