Left.
薦枕高瀬の淀に立つ鴫の羽音もそそやあはれかくなり
| komo makura takase no yodo ni tatsu shigi no haoto mo soso ya aware kaku nari |
Pillowed on a mat of rush Where the Yodo meets Takase The starting snipe With rustling wingbeats Draw in my melancholy. |
397
Right (Win).
あはれさは萩吹く風の音のみか有明の月に鴫も鳴なり
| awaresa wa hagi fuku kaze no oto nomi ka ariake no tsuki ni shigi mo nakunari |
Melancholy is not In the wind upon the bush clover’s Sigh alone but With the moon at break of dawn The snipe a’crying. |
The Provisional Master of the Empress Household Office.
398
The Right state that the Left’s poem is based on a misinterpretation of the song ‘The Spreading Moon Rises’, and this has led to the usage of ‘mat of rush’. Furthermore, in the absence of expressions such as ‘bush clover’ or ‘new grown rice’, ‘rustling’ lacks a context. The Left merely state that the initial section of the Right’s poem ‘does not sound attractive’.
Shunzei’s judgement: The gentlemen of the Right have already stated the issue with ‘rush mat’. As for ‘rustling’, I have already suggested that it was unsuitable in the earlier poem on bush clover in the topic of ‘Autumn Evenings’, and it is unfeasible to think that one could go so far as to use it in reference to ‘wing beats’. In regard to the Right’s poem, the initial line, indeed, sounds poor, and the central ‘alone but’ is also regrettable, but even so, it wins the round.