karibito no toyama o komete yakishi yori shita moe’izuru nobe no sawarabi
Since hunters All the nearby mountains Have burned Budding beneath is Fresh bracken in the meadows.
Sagami 9
Right (Win)
花をだにをりてかへらんさわらびはをぎのやけのにいまぞおひいづる
hana o dani orite kaeran sawarabi wa ogi no yakeno ni ima zo oi’izuru
At least some blossom Let us pick and then return! Fresh bracken On the burned plain of cogon grass Is now a’sprouting!
Jijū no menoto 10
‘Fresh bracken’ is something which folk of old referred to in various ways, and the latter poem is in keeping with this. ‘At least some blossom / Let us pick and then return!’ is an extremely charming mental image, if one had simply seen it budding, one would wonder why the poet has not sought out some other location before returning home. Moving on to ‘Since hunters / All the nearby mountains’, this is an overly hackneyed, and thus distasteful, expression like ‘on eastern roads’, so the latter poem is superior, isn’t it.
tabinesuru ise no hamaogi tsuyu nagara musubu makura ni yadoru tsukikage
Sleeping on my travels, with Cogon grass from the shore at Ise, Dew covered, Woven for my pillow, Moonlight’s lodging.[i]
568
[i] See: 神風之 伊勢乃浜荻 折伏 客宿也将為 荒浜辺尓 kamukaze no/ ise no hamaogi / orifusete / tabine ya suramu / araki hamabe ni ‘Divine winds blow / Cogon grass on the shore at Ise / I weave and lay me down— / Should I doze upon my travels? / On this wild beachside…’ (Man’yōshū IV: 500).
ogi no ha wa kureyuku kaze ni otosu nari wa ga matsu hito no kakaramashikaba
The cogon grass fronds With the falling twilight breezes Sound out, though Were it the man I’m waiting for It would be better…
Major Controller of the Left Tametaka 31
Right
逢ふことはかた野にしげる荻の葉の音をばたつな秋ははつとも
au koto wa katano ni shigeru ogi no ha no oto oba tatsu na aki wa hatsu tomo
Our meeting, so hard: On the hillside thickly growing, O, cogon grass fronds Do not make a sound! For with autumn’s end I have had enough, yet..
Horikawa, Court Lady to Her Highness 32
I feel that the emotions encompassed by the sound of the wind in ‘Were it the man I’m waiting for / It would be better’ sounded more striking than ‘On the hillside thickly growing, / O, cogon grass fronds’.
