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.