hatsu shigure furinishi sato o kitemireba mikaki ga hara wa momijinishikeri
The first showers Have fallen on this ancient estate I have come to see: Mikaki Field has All turned to autumn hues.
Suketaka 78
While the Left displays great technical skill in juxtaposing ‘deeply dyed with scarlet hues’ and ‘Yashio Hill’, the Right at present is conclusively composed with a somewhat more decorous configuration relaxed manner. In this it conveys emotion as poems of old did, and so I believe it should certainly win.
asahi kage mada ideyaranu ashihiki no yama wa kasumi no iro zo utsurou
The morning sunlight Has yet to fall upon The leg-wearying Mountains, yet the haze’s Hues are shifting.
Takasuke, Gentleman-in-Waiting 9
Right
山姫のかすみのそでも紅に光そへたる朝日影かな
yamahime no kasumi no sode mo kurenai ni hikari soetaru asahi kage kana
The mountain princess has Her sleeves of haze turned Scarlet Draped with light by The morning sunshine!
Shimotsuke 10
The Left’s poem has no faults worth pointing out; the poem of the Right’s ‘morning sunlight draping scarlet light across the sleeves of haze’ is overly gorgeous, I think, while the Left seems perfectly beautiful, so it should win.
Poems composed for a folding screen for the Minister of the Right in Jōhei 7 [937]: Women gazing at the scarlet plum blossom they had picked beneath the trees.
雪とのみあやまたれつつ梅花くれなゐにさへかよひけるかな
yuki to nomi aya mataretsutsu mume no hana kurenai ni sae kayoikeru kana
For the snow alone, O, have we ever waited, while The plum blossom Simply in scarlet Has scattered back and forth.
[2] This poem was particularly highly evaluated and so is included in numerous other anthologies (Kokin rokujō I: 125), exemplary collections (Shinsen waka 2) and senka awase – contests assembled from prior poems (Shunzei sanjū roku nin uta’awase 61; Jidai fudō uta’awase 49).
