Round Eight

Left (T – Tie; M – Win)

山のはにはつかの月のはつはつにみしばかりにやかくは恋しき

yama no ha ni hatsuka no tsuki no hatsuhatsu ni mishi bakari ni ya kaku wa koishiki

By the mountains’ edge The Twentieth’s moon Just for a moment Did I simply see, so how Am I so in love?

Lord Morikata
63

Right

恋すてふ皆人ごとにとひみばやいと我ばかりあらじとぞおもふ

koisu chō mina hito goto ni toimiba ya ito ware bakari araji to zo omou

Saying they are in love— To all those folk Would I enquire, for Surely, I, alone Do not endure such feelings?

Lord Nobutada
64

Toshiyori states: I may be mistaken, but I get the feeling the first poem resembles an earlier work, with only the ending changed somewhat. The second poem sounds stilted. They are of the same quality.

Mototoshi states: the poem of Left lacks originality, being based earlier poems from the emergence ‘the Twentieth’s moon’ at the beginning, then continuing with ‘for coarse cloth a bobbin turning’ and then finally ‘here at Isonokami, in the ancient’ at the end, yet this is more poetic than ‘To all those folk’, so this is still win for the Left.