Left.
つれなさの類までやはつらからぬ月をも愛でじ在明の空
| tsurenasa no tagui made ya wa tsurakaranu tsuki o mo medeji ariake no sora |
Heartless on parting are you, And just so is the Indifferent Moon – no more will I care for it! – In the sky at dawn. |
Lord Ari’ie.
787
Right (Win).
逢ふと見る情もつらし暁の露のみ深き夢の通い路
| au to miru nasake mo tsurashi akatsuki no tsuyu nomi fukaki yume no kayoiji |
We met, I saw, and How fond were you, but how cruel The dawn, when I was drenched with dew alone from The path of dreams… |
Lord Takanobu.
788
The Gentlemen of the Right state: if the Left allude to the poem ‘At the dawning / How cruel it seemed / To part’, then this poem refers to the cruelty of a lover, but their poem suggests that the moon is the cruel one. Is this appropriate? In response: ‘At the dawning / How cruel it seemed’ can also be interpreted as referring to the moon. The Gentlemen of the Left state: the Right use the diction ‘fond’ (nasake), but the sense of this does not follow in the poem.
In judgement: the Left builds on the poem which starts ‘At the dawning / How cruel it seemed / To part, but’ and then says more than the lover’s heartlessness, ‘The fading moon / Cared not at all.’ So, given that this is the case, it’s not really saying anything different from ‘No more will I care for the moon!’ As for the Right, it sounds as if the lover’s fondness appears in the ‘dream’ (yume), but the final section seems good. The Right’s poem is somewhat superior.