Left
朝夕にみ山に通ふ賤だにも歎きはこらぬ物とこそ聞け

asa yū ni miyama ni kayou shizu dani mo nageki wa koranu mono to koso kike

Morning and evening, Travelling to the mountain deeps and back, Even the woodsmen Will not fell the tree of grief, Or so I hear…

Lord Kanemune
1181

Right (Win)
賤の男よ思ひはわれもこりぬべしをのが苦しき妻木ならねど

shizu no o yo omoi wa ware mo korinubeshi ono ga kurushiki tsumaki naranedo

O, woodsman! I, too, in fires of passion Must burn on; My longing for my love, your axe To kindling will not hew, and yet…

Nobusada
1182

The Right state: the Left’s poem has no faults to indicate. The Left state: the Right’s poem sounds like it is chopping kindling that the woodsman will do no more.

In judgement: ‘Travelling to the mountain deeps and back, the woodsmen’ (miyama ni kayou shizu) should ‘fell the tree of grief’ (nageki o koru), but in the poem they ‘do not fell’ (koranu) it – I wonder how appropriate this is. This conception seems to be one not relating to grief, but simply to tree-felling. ‘I, too, in fires of passion must burn on’ (omoi wa ware mo korinubeshi) seems somewhat difficult to interpret, but I must say that the configuration of the final section is superb.