Left (Win).
変れただ別るる道の野辺の露命に向ふ物も思はじ
| kaware tada wakaruru michi no nobe no tsuyu inochi ni mukau mono mo omowaji |
O, change Upon our parting! The path Through the dew dropped fields – How like life: I would not think such thoughts! |
713
Right.
別れ路のありける物を逢坂の關を何しに急ぎ越えけん
| wakareji no arikeru mono o ōsaka no seki o nani shi ni isogikoeken |
The path after parting Is such a thing, so Why to Meeting Hill’s Barrier Gate do we Rush to pass in haste? |
714
The Gentlemen of the Right state: the diction in the Left’s poem fails to link. The Gentlemen of the Left state: what novelty there is in the Right’s poem!
Shunzei’s judgement: in the Left’s poem it does not appear to me that the diction of the initial section links poorly. ‘How like life’ (inochi ni mukau) does, indeed, appear in the Man’yōshū and other works, but it does not seem that desirable. As for the Right, while it seems that the appearance of Meeting Hill is well understood, saying ‘why to the barrier gate’ (seki o nani shi ni) is inferior to ‘how like life’.