Tag Archives: barrier house

Love VII: 24

Left (Tie).
故郷に見し面影も宿りけり不破の関屋の板間洩る月

furusato ni
mishi omokage mo
yadorikeri
fuwa no sekiya no
itama moru tsuki
Back home
I saw her face, and
It lodges here,
At the Barrier House at Fuwa,
In the moonlight leaking through the boards.

A Servant Girl
1007

Right.
人恋ふる我ながめよ思けり須磨の関屋の有明の月

hito kouru
ware nagameyo
omoikeri
suma no sekiya no
ariake no tsuki
Loving you,
I will ever gaze,
I thought,
At the Barrier House at Suma
On the dawntime moon.

Nobusada
1008

The Right state: the Left’s poem is good. The Left state: the Right’s poem lacks any faults to indicate.

In judgement: the Left’s ‘Barrier House at Fuwa’ (fuwa no sekiya) followed by ‘the moonlight leaking through the boards’ (itama moru tsuki) is truly charming. In addition, if one wonders why ‘I saw her face’ (mishi omokage mo) has been used, it is certainly reminiscent of the poem ‘The dawntime moon, too, lodges in the waters clear’, but an improvement on it. It is difficult to say, however, that the Right’s ‘At the Barrier House at Suma on the dawntime moon’ (suma no sekiya no ariake no tsuki) is in any way inferior.