むさし野はまだ焼かなくに春くればいそぎもえ出づる下蕨かな
| musashino wa mada yakanaku ni haru kureba isogi moe’izuru shita warabi kana | Musashi Plain Is not yet even burnt, but With the coming of spring Hurriedly smouldering into bud Beneath is bracken! |
[Minamoto no] Moroyori師頼
Tag Archives: shita
Eien narabō uta’awase 30
Round Two
Left (Win)
君がよはあまのいはとをいづるひのいくめぐりてふかずもしられず
| kimi ga yo wa ama no iwato o izuru hi no iku meguri chō kazu mo shirarezu | My Lord’s reign: Since from the stone door in the heavens Emerged the sun, ‘How many circuits has she made?’, they ask— A number quite unknown. |
Lord Saburō
59
Right
みかさやまふもとのさとはあめのしたふるにおもひもあらじとぞ思ふ
| mikasayama fumoto no sato wa ame no shita furu ni omoi mo araji to zo omou | At Mikasa Moutain’s Foot, in a hamlet ‘neath the heavens Passing time—painful thoughts There I’d have not a one, I feel! |
Ushigimi
60
The Left’s poem goes beyond the general flow of diction, containing mystery and depth. I have to say it is truly superior. While the Right’s poem has no faults to mention, it has yet to emerge from prosaic expression. Thus, the Left wins.
The ‘stone door in the heavens’ is that which the supreme sun-deity Amaterasu stood before and then entered. But when we’re talking about dawn breaking at the end of night, we say ‘gates of heaven’. Which of these two was did the poet have in mind, I wonder? If he was thinking of dawn breaking, then the usage is erroneous, but even if he did mean ‘stone door of the heavens’, then do we use this about the circuits of the sun? This is vague. In addition, the final ‘they ask’ is difficult to pronounce. As for the Right’s poem, ‘‘neath the heavens’ lacks emotion. The dual use of ‘thoughts’ and ‘feels’, as I have already remarked, is not an error, but does grate on the ears a bit.
Kinkai wakashū 531
Kinkai wakashū 477
Kinkai wakashū 469
Kinkai wakashū 468
Sumiyoshi-sha uta’awase kaō ni-nen 39
Round Fourteen
Left
こころあれやかきなくらしそはつしぐれまださしはてずしばのかりいほ
| kokoro are ya kaki na kurashi so hatsushigure mada sashihatezu shiba no kari’io | Have some sympathy, And bring no darkness, O, first shower! For I have yet to finish putting up My crude brushwood hut… |
Lord Suetsune
77
Right (Win)
すみよしのまつがしたねのたびまくらしぐれもかぜにききまがへつつ
| sumiyoshi no matsu ga shita ne no tabimakura shigure mo kaze ni kikimagaetsutsu | At Sumiyoshi Beneath the pines, their roots are My journey-pillow, as The shower, too, with the gusting wind I hear blending together. |
Takanobu
78
The Left’s latter section, which states that the poet has ‘yet to finish putting up’ his hut, has a truly charming configuration as a poem on the conception of travel, but the phrase ‘have some sympathy’ does not appear to be a conception which has prior precedent. It could be a way of expressing the emotion through the shower. As for the Right, while I do question the sound of ‘journey-pillow’, it is the case that in Cathay-style poems this appears, but what are we do to about the fact that this is not ‘pillow on my journey’, I wonder? The sequencing of ‘the shower, too, with the wind’ is pleasant, isn’t it. Thus, I make the Right the winner.
Sumiyoshi-sha uta’awase kaō ni-nen 37
Round Twelve
Left
しぐれにはいほりもささじくさまくらおときくとてもぬれぬそでかは
| shigure ni wa iori mo sasaji kusamakura oto kiku tote mo nurenu sode ka wa | Caught in a shower, I’d not erect my hut, for Upon a grassy pillow Listening to the sound, still Would my sleeves be soaked! |
Tsunemasa
73
Right (Win)
たまもふくいそやがしたにもるしぐれたびねのそでもしほたれよとや
| tamamo fuku isoya ga shita ni moru shigure tabine no sode mo shiotareyo to ya | Thatched with gemweed is My roof upon the rocky shore, beneath it Drips a shower, so My sleeves, as I doze upon my travels, Wet with the salty tides – should I say that? |
Nakatsuna
74
The Left wonders whether his sleeves would be soaked, listening to the sound of a shower after abandoning all thought of a hut and grassy pillow—this seems extremely charming, but the configuration and sequencing of the Right, beginning with ‘thatched with gemweed’ and continuing with ‘my sleeves, as I doze upon my travels, / Wet with salty tides’, is extremely moving, isn’t it! Thus I have to award a win, once more, to the poem of the Right.
SKKS XV: 1376
Topic unknown.
みそぎするならのをがはのかはかぜにいのりぞわたるしたにたえじと
| misogisuru nara no ogawa no kawakaze ni inori zo wataru shita ni taeji to | Lustrations take place At the Nara stream, and On the breeze from off the river Let my prayer cross over— That our secret should be kept forever! |
Yashiro no Ōkimi
