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… |
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! |
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.