samushiro ni iku yo no aki o shinobikinu ima hata onaji uji no hashihime
Beneath a scanty coverlet How many autumns Have I endured alone? Now, indeed, I am the same As the maid at Uji Bridge![1]
515
[1] An allusive variation on: Topic unknown. さむしろに衣かたしきこよひもや我をまつらむうぢのはしひめ samushiro ni / koromo katashiki / koyoi mo ya / ware o matsuramu / uji no hashihime ‘Upon a scanty coverlet / Beneath a single robe / On this night, too, / I wonder, does she await me, / My maid at Uji Bridge.’ Anonymous (KKS XIV: 689)
yorozuyo no aki no katami ni nasu mono wa kimi ga yowai o noburu shiragiku
Of ten thousand ages’ Autumns a keepsake I will make: My Lord’s age Extended by a white chrysanthemum!
Lord Akinaka 29
Right
今朝みればさながら霜をいただきて翁さびゆくしら菊の花
kesa mireba sanagara shimo o itadakite okina sabiyuku shiragiku no hana
When this morn I look That’s how it is: with frost Bestowed A lonesome ancient seems This white chrysanthemum bloom!
Lord Mototoshi 30
Toshiyori states: this first poem is strongly characterized by felicitation, and that’s about all the fault I can mention. As for the second poem, ‘a lonesome ancient seems’ is certainly an expression I don’t know. Still, if I think of examples from prior poems, ‘lone ancient’ could be interpreted as deriving from ‘dotaged ancient’, but then the conception seems different here, so this is most likely wrong. I can only give a decision once I am certain.
Mototoshi states: ‘Of ten thousand ages’ / Autumns a keepsake / Will make’ resembles Kanemori’s famous work,[1] which has often been alluded to in composition, I think. This poem is charming. ‘Will make’ is an extremely abbreviated expression, and so the final ‘age / Extended by a white chrysanthemum’ appears to have little connection to it. There is Tomonori’ s ‘Dew-dappled / Let us pluck and wear’[2], and also responses sent on the 9th day of the Ninth Month to the residences of Tadamine and Tsurayuki like ‘Bearing droplets / Age is extended by / Chrysanthemums’, aren’t there. Given that’s the case there would be many such keepsakes of extended age. As for the Right’s ‘That’s how it is: with frost / Bestowed / A lonesome ancient seems, well, it seems that just how I composed a poem about lingering chrysanthemums—have I done something wrong?
