Composed and sent to the residence of the Superintendent Abbot of Tsurugaoka[i] on a morning when snow had fallen.
つるの岡あふぎてみれば峰の松梢はるかに雪ぞつもれる
tsuru no oka ōgite mireba mine no matsu kozue haruka ni yuki zo tsumoreru
When to the Hill of Cranes I lift up my gaze, On the peaks beyond, pine Treetops in the distance Are covered with drifted snow.
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[i] Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine (Tsurugaoka hachimangū 鶴岡八幡宮) is located in Yukinoshita in Kamakura and venerated Hachiman, the deity of war and warriors as the patron of the Minamoto clan. The shrine thus was, and still is, one of the focal points of the city and where many of its most important festivals are held. It was also the location of Sanetomo’s assassination in 1219. The Superintendent Abbot (bettō sōzu 別当僧都) to whom Sanetomo sent this time was probably the shrine’s third, Teigyō 定暁 (dates unknown) (Higuchi 2016, 96).
In judgement: both Left and Right mention ‘a crane calling for her chick’ (ko o omou tsuru). This would appear to be after the conception of the pentachord in Bai’s Works: ‘The third and fourth strings are chill, and at night a crane, loving her chick, calls from her cage.’ This is not the usual zither with seven strings, but it is certainly also a kind of zither. In the topic ‘On Zithers’ there is certainly no issue with alluding to Japanese zithers or Chinese ones, is there? In any case, neither poem seems greatly inferior or superior, so the round ties.
