yo to tomo ni harezu mo aru kana kogakurete yamabito ikade aku to shiruran
Even with the end of night, It never clears at all! Hidden ‘neath the trees How can a mountain man Ever find the light?
11
Right
よもの山こぐらくなりてなつのよの月ばかりこそもりてみゆらめ
yomo no yama koguraku narite natsu no yo no tsuki bakari koso morite miyurame
All around, the mountains Are dark beneath the trees; On a summer night ‘Tis truly only the moon That one might see dripping between them!
12
This topic refers to a hunted stag concealed among the trees in the summer mountains. There is not a particular strong feeling of either evergreen or other types of mountain forests,[ii] but the Left’s poem has ‘Even with the end of night’, forgetting that this implies a season of biting wind and showers striking the leaves on the trees—thus the darkness here is excessively conceived. While the Right takes ‘dark shade’ as an opportunity to compose with the elevated conception of the moon dripping between the trees—and surpasses the peaks in doing this—I wonder if the conceptions of both poems don’t contain brightness? Thus, both Left and Right are examples of the ‘Reizei Palace’,[iii] so I would decide on a tie for these.
さ月山こぐらきかげのしげしさはまさりてみゆる人もなきかな
satsuki yama koguraki kage no shigeshisa wa masarite miyuru hito mo naki kana
The Fifth Month mountains Dark shade beneath the trees is So deep that Skillfully seeing— There no one who can do that!
[i] An allusive variation on: Composed on ‘enjoying cool’ for the Poetry Match held by Yorisuke, the Minister of Justice. ひさぎ生ふるかた山かげにしのびつつふきけるものを秋の夕風 hisagi ouru / katayama kage ni / shinobitsutsu / fukikeru mono o / aki no yūkaze ‘Where red-oaks grow and / Cast their shade upon the mountain slopes / Ever secretly does it blow— / The autumn evening breeze.’ Shune (SKKS IV: 274).
[i] This poem is included as the final spring poem in Kokinshū (II: 134), attributed to Mitsune, and with the headnote, ‘A poem on the end of spring from the Poetry Contest held by Former Emperor Uda’.
