ほととぎすきなくさつきの卯花のうきことのはのしげきころかな
| hototogisu kinaku satsuki no u no hana no uki koto no ha no shigeki koro kana | The cuckoo In the Fifth Month comes to call From the deutzia blooms— Only cold, cruel words Grow lush for me these days! |
529
Tag Archives: Fifth Month
Kinkai wakashū 528
Eien narabō uta’awase 13
Round Six
Left
夜もすがらまつにはなかでほととぎすあしたのはらにひとこゑぞきく
| yomosugara matsu ni wa nakade hototogisu ashita no hara ni hitokoe zo kiku | All through the night I pined without a song, O, cuckoo Then with the morn on Ashita plain I hear a single call! |
Cell of Fragrant Cloud
25
Right (Win)
五月にはしばなくやとぞほととぎすなほうらまちにさぬるよもなし
| satsuki ni wa shiba naku ya to zo hototogisu nao uramachi ni sanuru yo mo nashi | In the Fifth Month Incessantly might he sing—I think, so The cuckoo I am already eagerly awaiting, Sleeping not at all on any night! |
Cell of Compassionate Light
26
The Left’s poem seems to have an extraordinary conception, yet its diction is insufficient. The Right’s poem is old-fashionedly artless and thus has elements which are entirely poetically backward-looking.
The Left’s poem is particularly oddly composed in that is fails to account for the essential meaning of Ashita Plain. Does saying a ‘single call now’[1] mean that that one could wait expectantly during the day, too?
As for the Right’s poem, a cuckoo is not something that calls incessantly, yet I wonder if this composition is not, in some form, a plea that it would? As for ‘eagerly await’, well, I feel that it would be better to have ‘awaited’ rather than ‘awaiting’—that sounds like something one would have done ‘nothing but’ first. It seems a bit distasteful, like a poem by someone who has been perusing the Collection of a Myriad Leaves.
[1] On a folding screen for the Coming-of-Age Ceremony of the Northern Princess. 行きやらで山ぢくらしつほととぎす今ひとこゑのきかまほしさに yukiyarade / yamaji kurashitsu / hototogisu / ima hitokoe no / kikamahoshisa ni ‘I cannot go ahead / As twilight falls upon the mountain paths / For a cuckoo’s / Single call now / Is what I long to hear…’ Minamoto no Kintada (SIS II: 106)
Eien narabō uta’awase 10
Round Three
Left (Win)
さみだれにぬるともゆかむほととぎすふたこゑきなくさとはありやと
| samidare ni nuru to mo yukamu hototogisu futakoe kinaku sato wa ari ya to | By the summer showers We will be drenched, yet let’s away! For the cuckoo Has come to sing and sing again At that estate, perchance… |
Retired from the world
19
Right
さ月やみくらくはくらくほととぎすこゑはかくれぬ物にぞありける
| satsuki yami kuraku wa kuraku hototogisu koe wa kakurenu mono ni zo arikeru | In the Fifth Month’s gloomy Darkness deep, The cuckoo Is unable to conceal his cry With anything at all! |
Senior Assistant Minister Past Lecturer
20
Both Left and Right are workmanlike poems with little evidence of thought. With that being said, however, the conclusion of the Right’s poem is identical to that of a famous work by the Horikawa Minister. That poem is ‘The River Sao: / Mist rises, and from beyond / Come plover cries, / Their calls uninterrupted / By anything.’[1] And the Right here is, at the very least, extraordinarily redolent of it! Still, I feel the Left does linger in the heart.
The Left’s poem is not particularly remarkable, yet it has no faults worth mentioning. It doesn’t contain any distasteful expressions and resembles familiar compositions. The poem of the Right’s ‘darkness deep’ sounds like something said by a black-hearted scoundrel—I don’t feel it’s poetic diction at all! In addition, on the matter of the concluding ‘unable to conceal his cry’,[i] well, this appears in a range of earlier poems, as does ‘his cry uninterrupted’, so one should be hesitant about using it. I make the faultless Left the winner.
[1] Composed on plovers for a poetry competition in Eishō 4 [1050]. 佐保川の霧のあなたに鳴く千鳥聲は隔てぬ物にぞ有ける saogawa no / kiri no anata ni / naku chidori / koe wa hedatenu / mono ni zo arikeru ‘The River Sao: / Mist rises, and from beyond / Come plover cries, / Their calls uninterrupted / By anything.’ The Horikawa Minister of the Right [Fujiwara no Yorimune] (GSIS VI: 388)
[i] The only surviving example of this usage pre-dating this match is: Written on the edge of a folding screen by a painting of geese flying in the clouds, when His Majesty ordered a celebration for the Junior Principal Handmaid. 白雲の中にまがひてゆく雁もこゑはかくれぬ物にざりける shirakumo no / naka ni magaite / yuku kari mo / koe wa kakurenu / mono ni zarikeru ‘Within the clouds, so white, / Entangled / Goes a goose, / Unable to conceal his cry / With anything at all!’ Fujiwara no Kanesuke (Kanesuke-shū 48). There is also one further example in later poetry: Composed and sent when he heard that Inspector Kinmichi had had a number of people compose poems on the bush warbler at his residence. 春霞たちへだつれど鶯の声はかくれぬものとしらずや harugasumi / tachihedatsuredo / uguisu no / koe wa kakurenu / mono to shirazu ya ‘The haze of spring / Arising, interferes, yet / The warbler / Is unable to conceal his cry— / I wonder if he know it?’ Former Consultant Tsunemori (GYS I: 50)
Kinkai wakashū 509
Entō ōn’uta’awase 18
Round Eighteen
Left (Tie)
神さぶるなげきの森の時鳥ひくしめなはもなくなくやこし
| kamu saburu nageki no mori no hototogisu hiku shimenawa mo nakunaku ya koshi | In divine Nageki’s sacred grove Does the cuckoo to Where the holy garlands Are hung not, come to sing?[1] |
The Former Minister of the Centre
35
Right
さとわかずなけや五月の郭公忍びし比は恨みやはせし
| sato wakazu nake ya satsuki no hototogisu shinobishi koro wa urami ya wa seshi | In every hamlet Sing, O, Fifth Month Cuckoo! For when you chirped before, I did not hate you for it… |
Kozaishō
36
The Left’s poem is based on ‘Prayers / Alone I seem to hear at / This shrine, indeed, but / In the end, passion to grief’s / Grove will turn, no doubt…’ and sounds pleasant. The Right’s poem says ‘For when you chirped before, / I did not hate you for it’ and has a graceful style—thus, they tie.
[1] An allusive variation on: Topic unknown. ねぎ事をさのみききけむやしろこそはてはなげきのもりとなるらめnegigoto o / sanomi kikikemu / yashiro koso / hate wa nageki no / mori to narurame ‘Prayers / Alone I seem to hear at / This shrine, indeed, but / In the end, passion to grief’s / Grove will turn, no doubt…’ Sanuki (KKS XIX: 1055)
Kinkai wakashū 157
Kinkai wakashū 138
Teiji-in uta’awase 39
Left
たまくしげ二上山のほととぎす今ぞあけくれなきわたるなる
| tamakushige futakamiyama no hototogisu ima zo akekure nakiwataru naru | On the jewelled comb of Futakami Mountain The cuckoos Now, indeed, both night and day Do fill with their constant song. |
78
Right
時鳥のちのさ月もありとてやながくうづきをすぐしはてつる
| hototogisu nochi no satsuki mo ari tote ya nagaku uzuki o sugushihatetsuru | O, cuckoo! A further Fifth Month There is, so Leisurely, the Fourth Month Have you completely spent? |
79
Kanpyō no ōntoki kisai no miya uta’awase 37
Left
おしなべて五月のそらを見渡せば草葉も水もみどりなりけり
| oshinabete satsuki no sora o miwataseba kusaba mo mizu mo midori narikeri | When the entire Fifth Month sky I gaze across, Blades of grass and water, too, Are green. |
72[1]
Right
くるるかとみれば明けぬる夏の夜をあかずとや鳴く山郭公
| kururu ka to mireba akenuru natsu no yo o akazu to ya naku yamahototogisu | Did you think ’twas sunset? When a glance would show the breaking dawn Of this summer night- Unsated by your song, do you sing on, Cuckoo in the mountains? |
73[2]
[1] Shinchokusenshū III: 152/Kokin rokujō I: 89
[1] Kokinshū III: 157, attributed to Mibu no Tadamine/Shinsen man’yōshū 57/Kokin rokujō VI: 4437