ほととぎすまつよながらのさみだれにしげきあやめのねにぞ鳴きぬる
| hototogisu matsu yo nagara no samidare ni shigeki ayame no ne ni zo nakunaru | While the cuckoo I await one night In a summer shower, Lush as sweet-flag Roots grow my sobbing cries! |
530
Tag Archives: samidare
Kinkai wakashū 528
Eien narabō uta’awase 10
Round Three
Left (Win)
さみだれにぬるともゆかむほととぎすふたこゑきなくさとはありやと
| samidare ni nuru to mo yukamu hototogisu futakoe kinaku sato wa ari ya to | By the summer showers We will be drenched, yet let’s away! For the cuckoo Has come to sing and sing again At that estate, perchance… |
Retired from the world
19
Right
さ月やみくらくはくらくほととぎすこゑはかくれぬ物にぞありける
| satsuki yami kuraku wa kuraku hototogisu koe wa kakurenu mono ni zo arikeru | In the Fifth Month’s gloomy Darkness deep, The cuckoo Is unable to conceal his cry With anything at all! |
Senior Assistant Minister Past Lecturer
20
Both Left and Right are workmanlike poems with little evidence of thought. With that being said, however, the conclusion of the Right’s poem is identical to that of a famous work by the Horikawa Minister. That poem is ‘The River Sao: / Mist rises, and from beyond / Come plover cries, / Their calls uninterrupted / By anything.’[1] And the Right here is, at the very least, extraordinarily redolent of it! Still, I feel the Left does linger in the heart.
The Left’s poem is not particularly remarkable, yet it has no faults worth mentioning. It doesn’t contain any distasteful expressions and resembles familiar compositions. The poem of the Right’s ‘darkness deep’ sounds like something said by a black-hearted scoundrel—I don’t feel it’s poetic diction at all! In addition, on the matter of the concluding ‘unable to conceal his cry’,[i] well, this appears in a range of earlier poems, as does ‘his cry uninterrupted’, so one should be hesitant about using it. I make the faultless Left the winner.
[1] Composed on plovers for a poetry competition in Eishō 4 [1050]. 佐保川の霧のあなたに鳴く千鳥聲は隔てぬ物にぞ有ける saogawa no / kiri no anata ni / naku chidori / koe wa hedatenu / mono ni zo arikeru ‘The River Sao: / Mist rises, and from beyond / Come plover cries, / Their calls uninterrupted / By anything.’ The Horikawa Minister of the Right [Fujiwara no Yorimune] (GSIS VI: 388)
[i] The only surviving example of this usage pre-dating this match is: Written on the edge of a folding screen by a painting of geese flying in the clouds, when His Majesty ordered a celebration for the Junior Principal Handmaid. 白雲の中にまがひてゆく雁もこゑはかくれぬ物にざりける shirakumo no / naka ni magaite / yuku kari mo / koe wa kakurenu / mono ni zarikeru ‘Within the clouds, so white, / Entangled / Goes a goose, / Unable to conceal his cry / With anything at all!’ Fujiwara no Kanesuke (Kanesuke-shū 48). There is also one further example in later poetry: Composed and sent when he heard that Inspector Kinmichi had had a number of people compose poems on the bush warbler at his residence. 春霞たちへだつれど鶯の声はかくれぬものとしらずや harugasumi / tachihedatsuredo / uguisu no / koe wa kakurenu / mono to shirazu ya ‘The haze of spring / Arising, interferes, yet / The warbler / Is unable to conceal his cry— / I wonder if he know it?’ Former Consultant Tsunemori (GYS I: 50)
SIS II: 108
Entō ōn’uta’awase 23
Round Twenty-Three
Left (Tie)
時鳥山よりをちの里人はまたでや夜半の初音きくらん
| hototogisu yama yori ochi no satobito wa matade ya yowa no hatsune kikuran | O, cuckoo, Far from the mountains, Will villagers Without waiting, at midnight Ever hear your first cry? |
Chikanari
45
Right
うちしめる花橘の五月雨に軒もる夜半のほととぎすかな
| uchishimeru hanatachibana no samidare ni noki moru yowa no hototogisu kana | When utterly drenched is The orange blossom by The summer showers. Dripping from the eaves at midnight is A cuckoo’s call! |
Ie’kiyo
46
The Right’s poem has ‘Dripping from the eaves at midnight is a cuckoo’s call!’—this sounds like it conveys the conception, but yet is stylistically unclear. The Left’s poem takes up the conception of ‘On the leg-wearying / Mountains’ far side / Folk dwell—I wonder / Do they not have to wait for the autumn / Moon to fill their gaze?’,[1] doesn’t it? Neither has any real point worth making, so they tie.
[1] This poem is: Topic unknown. あしびきの山のあなたにすむ人はまたでや秋の月をみるらんashihiki no / yama no anata ni / sumu hito wa / matade ya aki no / tsuki o miruran Former Emperor Sanjō (SKKS IV: 382).
Entō ōn’uta’awase 22
Round Twenty-Two
Left (Win)
五月雨にやすらふ暮の時鳥そなたの雲に声なへだてそ
| samidare ni yasurau kure no hototogisu sonata no kumo ni koe na hedate so | In a summer shower, Hesitating, at twilight, O, cuckoo, Let not the intervening clouds Interrupt your song! |
Shō
43
Right
過ぎぬなりさやはちぎりし時鳥なく音ばかりはこぞにかはらで
| suginunari saya wa chigirishi hototogisu naku ne bakari wa kozo ni kawarade | And so you’ve flown by— Is that what you vowed, O, cuckoo? For only the sound of your song Is unchanged from the year before… |
Nagatsuna
44
The Left’s poem doesn’t seem bad. The Right poem’s ‘For only the sound of your song is unchanged from the year before’ is somewhat difficult to grasp—if the cuckoo’s call has not changed, then what has? After all, cuckoos have ‘the voice of yesteryear’[1]—among other references—so it’s obvious that their calls don’t change, so the Left is somewhat better, I think.
[1] KKS III: 137
