Winter II: 24

Left.

引きかくる閨の衾の隔てにも響きは變る鐘の音かな

hikikakuru
neya no fusuma no
hedate ni mo
hibiki wa kawaru
kane no oto kana
Drawn up beneath
The covers in my bedchamber, and
With them between
The echo is somehow different
When the bells chime…

Lord Sada’ie.

587

Right (Win).

雪の夜の思ふばかりも冴えぬこそ閨の衾のしるしなりけれ

yuki no yo no
omou bakari mo
saenu koso
neya no fusuma no
shirushi narikere
It is a snowy night
I know, yet
There is no chill:
The covers in my bedchamber
Have that effect!

Ietaka.

588

The Gentlemen of the Right state: why have the ‘bell’ (kane) here? The Gentlemen of the Left state: the Right’s poem has no faults.

Shunzei’s judgement: the Left’s poem, having the poet buried beneath his bedclothes, which alter the sound of the bell recollects a composition on the ‘bell at the Temple of Bequeathed Love’. Nevertheless, the Gentlemen of the Right have asked, ‘Why have the bell here?’, and they are right to do so. The Right’s poem, on how the feeling of cold on a chill, snowy night vanishes briefly, exactly conveys the ‘bedding’s effect’ (fusuma no shirushi). Thus, it is without fault. I must make the Right the winner.

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