Left (Tie).
梓弓射手引く春のかひありてけふの諸矢は世にひゞく也
| azusa yumi ite hiku haru no kai arite kyō no moroya wa yo ni hibiku nari |
Catalpa bows, Archers drawing them in springtime Has an effect, indeed: Today, the paired arrows Resound throughout the world! |
57
Right (Tie).
梓弓はる九重に散る雪をけふ立舞の袖に見るかな
| azusa yumi haru kokonoe ni chiru yuki o kyô tachimai no sode ni miru kana |
Catalpa bows: Drawn in the ninefold palace walls, yet Falling snow This day’s dancing Sleeves do seem! |
58
The Right team have no comments to make about the Left’s poem, but the Left remark that ‘catalpa bow’ is a makura kotoba (a conventionalised poetic image) used with ‘spring’, and it is difficult to think that it is being used appropriately if related to ‘New Year archery’. (The complaint here seems to be related to the fact that in his original Nobusada writes haru, which I’ve translated here as ‘drawn’, phonetically, rather than with a Chinese character, making it initially seem like the verb haru ‘draw (a bow)’, rather than the homophonous ‘spring’.) The Left go on to make the aside that dancing took place within the palace on many other occasions besides the New Year Archery festival.
Shunzei, however, states bluntly that both poems contain ‘unnatural associations’ of ‘catalpa bow’ with ‘springtime effects’ for the Left, and ‘drawn in the ninefold palace’ for the right, so neither can be declared a winner.