宿はあれてふるきみやまの松にのみとふべき物と風の吹くらん
| yado wa arete furuki miyama no matsu ni nomi toubeki mono to kaze no fukuran | My house, so dilapidated, Lies deep within the mountains, Simply pining among the pines, Only expecting a visit from A gust of wind. |
553
Tag Archives: pines
Eien narabō uta’awase 31
Round Three
Left[i]
君が代は神にぞいのる住之江の松の千年をゆづれとおもへば
| kimi ga yo wa kami ni zo inoru suminoe no matsu no chitose o yuzure to omoeba | My Lord’s reign: To the gods I pray, that Suminoe’s Pines their thousand years Pass on—that is my hope… |
Retired from the World
61a
きみがへむやちよのかずはあめにますとよをかひめの神やしるらん
| kimi ga hemu yachiyo no kazu wa ame ni masu toyo’okahime no kami ya shiruran | That my Lord will endure The number of eight thousand ages— Residing in the heavens, The Goddess of the Eternal Hills, The deity, knows well, no doubt! |
Retired from the World
61b
Right (Win)
君がよはつきじとぞおもふ春の日の御笠の山にささむかぎりは
| kimi ga yo wa tsukiji to zo omou haru no hi no mikasa no yama ni sasamu kagiri wa | My Lord’s reign Will never fade, I feel! While in spring the sun Upon Mikasa Mountain Shines down… |
Senior Assistant Minister Past Lecturer
62
Both Left and Right have neither strengths nor weakness in their diction and sense, but I feel that ‘While in spring the sun / Upon Mikasa Mountain / Shines down’ is a bit more dependable at present than ‘Suminoe’s / Pines their thousand years’.
It is certainly not the case that there are no dubious elements about the Left’s poem. As ‘eight thousand ages’ is a definite number, what is it that the Goddess of the Eternal Hills is expected to know? If this is something in the deity’s hands, then it should be, ‘does not even know the number’. I’m sure the Goddess herself would ask what she’s expected to know. The Right seems stronger.
[i] There are different poems by Eien this round in different versions of the text of the contest. As can be inferred from the judgements, Mototoshi saw the first poem and Toshiyori the second. This strongly suggests that Mototoshi’s judgements were circulated before the text of the contest was submitted to Toshiyori, and Eien revised his poem this round as a result (Kubota et al. 2018, 308).
Tsurayuki-shū 715
Kinkai wakashū 442
Kinkai wakashū 398
The end of the year[i]
塵をだにすゑじとや思ふ行く年の跡なき庭をはらふ松風
| chiri o dani sueji to ya omou yuku toshi no ato naki niwa o harau matsukaze | Will the dust Not even linger, I wonder; The departing year Leaves no footprints in my garden Swept by the wind from off the pines. |
398
Kinkai wakashū 379
Kinkai wakashū 345
Kinkai wakashū 344
Sumiyoshi-sha uta’awase kaō ni-nen 68
Round Eighteen
Left (Tie)
すみよしのきしかたのよにひきかへてはなさくまつのみともならばや
| sumiyoshi no kishikata no yo ni hikikaete hana saku matsu no mi tomo naraba ya | On Sumiyoshi’s Shore, for the coming world I would exchange— Waiting for blossom to bloom upon the pines— Myself, that’s what I long for… |
Koretsuna
135
Right
たのみこしかみのしるしにうきよをもすみよしとだにおもひなりせば
| tanomikoshi kami no shirushi ni ukiyo o mo sumiyoshi to dani omoinariseba | I have come to rely On a sign from the God, That this cruel world, too, Even become a pleasant place to dwell— Or so I have come to think… |
Suesada
136
Both the Left and Right this round only appear skilled in their use of diction. The poem on blossom probably needs a little more work, I think, but they really are about the same.
Sumiyoshi-sha uta’awase kaō ni-nen 60
Round Ten
Left (Win)
かぞふればやとせへにけりあはれわがしづみしことはきのふとおもふに
| kasoureba yatose henikeri aware wa ga shizumishi koto wa kinō to omou ni | When I count them up, Many years have passed, but Sadness Overcomes me for the events Of yesterday, I feel… |
Lord Sanesada
119
Right
いたづらにふりぬるみをもすみよしのまつはさりともあはれしるらむ
| itazura ni furinuru mi o mo sumiyoshi no matsu wa sari tomo aware shiruramu | How quickly Age has come upon my flesh, too— Sumiyoshi’s Pines must that Sadness know too well… |
Lord Toshinari
120
The poem of the Left: these are not matters which could be understood by just anyone, yet even a superficial glance at it reveals that its conception and configuration display and exceptional sadness. How true it is that off all the myriad things in our lives it is the events of yesterday and today that we recall, and this is how we pass through the years and months, so how difficult, indeed, it is to supress the configuration of ‘When I count them up, / Many years have passed’! As for the Right’s poem, well, the conception of the initial section is pedestrian at best, although the latter section does seem to have some conception to it in places and shows some signs of thought. It is the poor composition of the judge, who is into his dotage. Once more, therefore, I have not rendered judgement, however, I feel that the deity would determine in favour of the Left.
