kumo kakaru takashi no yama no akegure ni tsuma madowaseru oshika naku nari
All hung about with cloud On Takashi Mountain In the gloaming Having lost his mate A stag bells out.
Nakamasa 11
Right
山がつの先あかつきをしりがほに裾野に出でて鹿ぞ鳴くなる
yamagatsu no mazu akatsuki o shirigao ni susono ni idete shika zo naku naru
A mountain man First of all, that ‘tis dawn Knows plain upon his face, As he sets out upon the slopes As a stag bells out!
Head 12
The Left poem’s conclusion, ‘Having lost his mate / A stag bells out’ seems no different from that of a poem by Gō no Jijū in poetry match held by the First Princess.[1] As for the poem of the Right’s ‘A mountain man / Awaits the dawn / Knowing plain upon his face’—what on earth might a mountain man look like while waiting for dawn? There is the tale of Hangu Pass in Cathay, where the barrier guard was waiting for dawn and opened the gate after hearing a cock’s crow, but the expression ‘a mountain man awaits the dawn’ has never appeared before in a poem—either one of Cathay or in the words of Yamato, so I feel that both Left and Right lack any superlative qualities.
[1] Stags. をぐら山たちどもみえぬゆふぎりにつままどはせるしかぞなくなる ogurayama / tachidomo mienu / yūgiri ni / tsuma madowaseru / shika zo nakunaru ‘On gloomy Ogura Mountain / Stands unseen / Among the evening mists / Having lost his mate / A belling stag.’ (Yūshi naishinnō-ke uta’awase eishō go-nen 27). This event was held at the residence of Imperial Princess Sukeko (Yūshi) on the 5th day of the Sixth Month, Eishō 5 [26.10.1050]. The poem won its round, and was later included in Goshūishū (IV: 292).
The Right state: we find no faults in the Left’s poem. The Left state: the initial section of the Right’s poem sounds a little clumsy.
In judgement: both the Left’s ‘dawning sky’ (ariake no sora) and the Right’s ‘shading of the dawning sky’ (akegure no sora) sound pleasant, but the Left’s conception of commencing with ‘Was the moon her?’ (tsuki ya sore) and following it with ‘I bring to mind, but simply see the dawning sky’ (shinobikaeseba ariake no sora) appears particularly profoundly appropriate for the topic. Thus, the Left must win.
The Right state: the use of the question in the Left’s poem, means that the comparison is not made sufficiently forcefully. The Left state: we find no faults worth mentioning in particular in the Right’s poem.
In judgement: neither poem seems to have any qualities which make them worthy of a win, or a loss.
