aki goto ni hamori no kami no tsuraki kana momiji o kaze ni makasu to omoeba
Every single autumn, The guardian deity of the leaves is Cruel, indeed! The scarlet leaves to the wind He does abandon, I feel…
Narinaka 89
Right
くれなゐに梢の色のかはるより風の音さへあらずなるかな
kurenai ni kozue no iro no kawaru yori kaze no oto sae arazunaru kana
Since to scarlet The treetops hues Have changed, Even the sound of the wind is Not as it was!
Tōren 90
The Left depicts things just as they are. If the Right has the same conception as the Cathay-style poem on the wind lessening every morning at Shanglin Park,[1] then it’s that one feels that after the leaves have turned, they’ll scatter, yet one has to think that, later, in summer the treetops will grow lush again, and the sounds do not resemble each other; neither of these are faults and so the round ties.
iro fukaki yashio no oka no momijiba ni kokoro o sae mo sometekeru kana
Deep the hues On Yashio Hill Of the scarlet leaves— Even my heart, too, Have they dyed!
Lord Yorisuke 79
Right
しぐれつつ秋こそふかく成りにけり色どりわたるやのの神山
shiguretsutsu aki koso fukaku narinikeri irodori wataru yano no kamiyama
With constant showers Autumn has, indeed, deeper Grown; A change of hue all across Sacred Mount Yano.
Lord Michiyoshi 80
While the Left sounds well-worn, it flows smoothly. As for the Right, it sounds to me as if the poet has simply picked and placed a location from the Collection of a Myriad Leaves into his poem, so ‘a change of hue all across sacred Mount Yano is stylistically archaic—thus the Left wins.
shirakumo o kokoronashi to mo iihateji aki no tsuki oba kakusazarikeri
That clouds of white Lack sensitivity, Surely, one cannot say, for The autumn moon They have not hidden.
Suketaka 71
Right
わきてしもをしまざらまし照る月の秋より後もくまなかりせば
wakiteshi mo oshimazaramashi teru tsuki no aki yori nochi mo kumanakariseba
Not at all Would I regret The shining of the moon, if After autumn, too It were made unclouded…
The Lay Priest Master 72
The Left sounds as if, in autumn in general clouds did not trail across the moon. It really does put me in mind of the preface to the Ancient and Modern collection, where it says that Kisen’s poetry is like ‘gazing at the moon in autumn when, just before dawn, it is covered with cloud’! As for the Right, it sounds as if whatever the season the moon is dark after autumn, but there are plenty of poems where you can ‘indeed see the moon in autumn’, and thus this is like blowing on someone’s hair to find a scab! These both seem of about the same quality.
