Left.
なかなかにみるめばかりは難くとも遂にあふみの海と頼めよ
| nakanaka ni mirume bakari wa katakutomo tsui ni aumi no umi to tanomeyo |
‘Tis not enough to Merely catch a glimpse of you; ‘Tis hard, but Finally for a meeting By the sea must be my hope. |
637
Right (Win).
漁り火のほの見てしより衣手に磯邊の浪の寄せぬ日ぞなき
| isaribi no honomiteshi yori koromode ni isobe no nami no yosenu hi zo naki |
Since by fisher fires Dim light I glimpsed you, Upon my sleeves Waves upon a rocky shore Have broken, every day. |
638
Both teams say the other team’s poem sounds ‘extremely cliched’ [furikusaritari].
Shunzei’s judgement: ‘The gentlemen of both sides have stated that the opposing poem sounds clichéd. This is, indeed, a most perceptive judgement! Poems which use non-standard poetic diction [utakotoba ni mo aranu utadomo] often sound clichéd, do they not? However, given that the Left concludes ‘for a meeting by the sea must be my hope’ (aumi no umi to tanomeyo), it was unnecessary to mention mirume being difficult to obtain. Simply saying that it would be ‘absent’ [nashi] is what would be clichéd, surely? In any case, isaribi seems slightly superior.