aki kurete chigusa no hana wa nokoranedo hitori utsurou shiragiku no hana
Autumn sinks to twilight, and Of a thousand blossoms Not one lingers, save Alone and fading A white chrysanthemum bloom.
Lord Shigemoto 41
Right (T – Win)
かぎりなく君が千代経むしるしにや散残るらん宿のしらぎく
kagirinaku kimi ga chiyo hemu shirushi ni ya chirinokoruran yado no shiragiku
That endless through A thousand ages will my Lord pass A sign there is: Not scattering and lingering White chrysanthemums at his house!
Lord Tadataka 42
Toshiyori states: I don’t have much to point out about the poem on ‘autumn sinking to twilight’, except that it could have had ‘indeed, linger’ in place of ‘not one lingers, yet’ to lead to ‘alone and fading’. As for the second poem, there are no other examples of saying ‘chrysanthemums scatter’, yet I do wonder about how this sounds? Nevertheless, it has a conception of Felicitation and this makes it somehow superior.
Mototoshi states: the poems of Left and Right are of the same standard in both conception and diction, so it’s not possible to tell them apart. These, too, are of the same quality.
The Right state that the initial line of the Left’s poem is ‘awkward’ [amari nari], and that they cannot approve of the final use of ya. The Left wonder about the appropriateness of ‘Holds all my regrets’ (uramihatenuru).
Shunzei’s judgement: The Gentlemen of the Right have a number of criticisms of the Left’s poem. However, with careful consideration, while the poem is not tasteful in its entirety [subete yū ni shimo arazaredo], the initial line does not seem that strange, and the final ya is fine, is it not? The Right’s ‘The clumps of miscanthus grass from time to time across the fields do wave’ is tasteful [yū naru], but all that connects with ‘arrowroot’, is the subsequent ‘seeing what lies beneath’. ‘Arrowroot’ is too briefly in the poem for this. The initial and final sections of the Left’s poem have been criticised by the Gentlemen of the Right, but they are not without purpose. Thus, the Left wins.
