The Right state: the Left’s poem lacks any faults to indicate. The Left state: is the Right’s poem not composed upon the plum blossom of the house next door?
In judgement: for the topic of ‘Nearby Love’, poems composed where the lovers are in the same room are most likely winners. Even so, how close do their dwellings need to be? The Left’s latter section, ‘Her night-robe’s scent upon my sleeves’ (sayogoromo nioi wa sode ni) is certainly elegant. The Right’s poem has ‘Their master is as far away’ (aruji wa tōki). Simply because of this, it is certainly not composed on plum blossom. Still, the Left’s ‘night-robe’ (sayogoromo) seems a little superior to ‘The scent drifting from the treetops is my only consolation’ (nioikuru kozue bakari o nasake nite).
In the Second Month of the Fourth Year of Kenpô (1216), I selected and ordered two hundred of my own meagre works. In the Sixth Month of the following year, I took the order apart and rearranged it somewhat. In the Seventh Year of Kenpô, I secretly presented it to His Majesty, and received an Imperial judgement upon it.
Left (Tie)
春日野にさくや梅が枝雪まより今は春べと若菜つみつゝ
kasugano ni saku ya ume ga e
yukima yori
ima wa harube to
wakana tsumitsutsu
On Kasuga field,
O, branches of blooming plum blossom!
From the spaces in the snow,
‘Now Spring is come!’
Do we pluck fresh greens.
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Right
消なくに又やみ山をうづむらん若菜つむ野も淡雪ぞ降
kienakuni
mata ya miyama o
uzumuran
wakana tsumu no mo
awayuki zo furu
Has it not gone, and yet
The mountains’ depths
Does bury?
Upon the fresh-green picking fields
A spume of snow falls on…
When Her Majesty, the Empress, was known as the Consort who was Mother to the Crown Prince, she selected topics and ordered Ise to compose poems for a folding screen as follows:
There was a picture of a man visiting a woman and conversing with her. The man, using the pretext of plum blossom to begin a conversation with the lady, says:
見し人にまたもやあふと梅の花咲きしあたりに行かぬ日ぞなき
misi Fito ni
mata mo ya aFu to
mume no Fana
sakisi atari ni
yukanu Fi zo naki
The maid I glimpsed,
I wonder, may I meet her more?
Plum blossom
Bloomed around about
Where the sun does ever shine.