Tag Archives: voice

Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 15

Round Three

Left (Win)

たれよりも秋のあはれやまさるらん声にたてては鹿ぞ鳴くなる

tare yori mo
aki no aware ya
masaruran
koe ni tatete wa
shika zo nakunaru
Who might it be that
The sadness of autumn
Strikes more keenly?
Lifting up his voice,
It is the stag crying out!

Lord Yorisuke
29

Right

春夏はなにに心をなぐさめて秋のみ鹿の妻をこふらん

haru natsu wa
nani ni kokoro o
nagusamete
aki nomi shika no
tsuma o kouran
Spring and summer, too,
How do they the heart
Console?
‘Tis in autumn, alone, the stag
Seems to yearn for his mate.

Kenshō
30

The Left charmingly sounds as if the scene it describes is entirely natural. The Right isn’t bad, but, I seem to recall that there was a poem in—I think it was the Poetry Match at Lord Aritsuna’s Residence—that has the phrase ‘In autumn, above all, / The stag seems to yearn for his mate’, so it would have better to refrain from the final two lines. The Left should win.

Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 14

Round Two

Left (Win)

ふく風も身にしむ秋の夕ぐれに哀をそふる鹿のこゑかな

fuku kaze mo
mi ni shimu aki no
yūgure ni
aware o souru
shika no koe kana
The gusting wind
Pierces my flesh on an autumn
Evening, as
Sadness laces
The stag’s cry!

Lord Michyoshi
27

Right

妻こふるさ夜ふけがたの鹿のねに声うちそへて秋風ぞ吹く

tsuma kouru
sayo fukegata no
shika no ne ni
koe uchisoete
akikaze zo fuku
Yearning for his mate as
Brief night wears on,
A stag’s cry
Is voiced, lacing
The gusting autumn wind.

Tamechika
28

Both Left and Right have the same overall content, but the Left’s ‘yearning for his mate as / Brief night wears on’ reverses the appropriate order of the diction: it would be preferable to say ‘Brief night wears on as / Yearning for his mate’. The Left has no such issues and so it should win.

GYS XV: 2180

On wind, from among His Former Majesty’s Miscellaneous poems.

ひびきくる松のうれより吹きおちて草にこゑやむ山の下風

hibikikuru
matsu no ure yori
fuki’ochite
kusa ni koe yamu
yama no shitakaze
Echoes come
From the pine-branch tips, as
Gusting down and
Losing its voice among the grass
Is the wind from off the mountains

His Former Majesty [Fushimi]

A kuzushiji version of the poem's text.
Created with Soan.

Kanpyō no ōntoki kisai no miya uta’awase 30

Left

夏の日を暮らし侘びぬる蝉のまにわがなきそふるこゑはきこゆや[1]

natsu no hi o
kurashiwabinuru
semi no ma ni
wa ga nakisouru
koe wa kikoyu ya
The summer sun
They know not how to endure,
So with the cicadas
My sobbing
Voice do you hear?

59

Right

恨みつつとどむる人のなければや山時鳥うかれでてなく

uramitsutsu
todomuru hito no
nakereba ya
yama hototogisu
ukaredete naku
How I constantly despise
The one who’s staying here
If he were gone, would
The mountain cuckoo
Have aimlessly left his home to sing?

60


[1] The phrase semi no (‘the cicadas’) is missing from the text of the contest, but has been suggested by later scholarship.

Love IX: 6

Left (Win)
笛竹の聲のかぎりをつくしても猶憂きふしやよゝに殘らん

fuetake no
koe no kagiri o
tsukushitemo
nao ukifushi ya
yoyo ni nokoruran
My bamboo flute’s
Voice beyond its limits
Might I push, and yet
Still, would this sorrow
Remain – even to the world to come?

A Servant Girl
1091

Right
わが戀はまだ吹き馴れぬ横笛の音に立つれども逢かたもなし

wa ga koi wa
mada fukinarenu
yokobue no
ne ni tatsuredomo
au kata mo nashi
My love: like
An unpractised
Set of pipes
Gives out discordant sounds, yet
No chance is there to meet…

Lord Takanobu
1092

Left and Right together state: no faults.

In judgement: the Right’s pipes would seem to sound very youthful, indeed! As for the Left, although I feel I have heard such a conception before, because for the life of me I cannot recall where, the style seems tasteful. The Left wins.

Minbukyō yukihira uta’awase 3

Left
鳴くになど驚かるらむ時鳥呼ぶ人毎にありと聞きつつ

naku ni nado
odorokaruramu
Fototogisu
yobu Fito goto ni
ari to kikitutu
Why does your song
Startle me so
O, cuckoo?
All the folk you call
Are there, do I ever hear…

5

Right (Win)
知らねども答へやせまし時鳥元つ人てふ声を哀れと

siranedomo
kotaFe ya semasi
Fototogisu
moto tu Fito teFu
kowe wo aFare to
I know it not, yet
I wonder will you reply,
O, cuckoo?
A familiar friend’s
Voice is moving, indeed.

6