kururu ka to mireba akenuru natsu no yo o akazu to ya naku yamahototogisu
Did you think ’twas sunset? When a glance would show the breaking dawn Of this summer night- Unsated by your song, do you sing on, Cuckoo in the mountains?
The Right state: evening fortune-telling and crossroad divination are different things. The Left state: the Right’s poem has no faults.
In judgement: both evening fortune-telling and crossroad divination are conducted in the evening, and with either one could wish ‘Let it say, “Come with me!”’ (kon to tanomeyo), so this does not seem to be a mistake does it? The Right has the fault of having both ‘We will meet’ (au koto o) and ‘sunset bell, too’ (iriai no kane mo). The Left should win.
Neither team has anything to say about the other’s poem this round.
Shunzei, however, says, ‘Although the expressions ‘time and time again’ (kurikaeshi) and ‘uncounted ages pass’ (iku yo hete) seem somewhat forced connections with ‘threaded’ (ito), the final section beginning ‘identical azure’ (onaji midori) is superb. The essence of the Right’s poem, of gazing at the sky at sunset with the threads of haze stained, is charming, but I wonder whether it would not have been better not to force the reference to sunset into the poem. ‘Azure skies’ must win.