I wrote this on a fan with a picture of a cuckoo on it, which I had sent, with other things, to the residence of a person who was going up to Michinoku around the Fifth Month.
たち別れいなばの山のほととぎすまつとつげこせかへりくるがに
tachiwakare inaba no yama no hototogisu matsu to tsugekose kaerikuru gani
Left and departed, so If you go to Inaba Mountain, O, cuckoo, Tell her that I’m pining for her, and Wish she would swiftly return…[i]
603
[i] See: Topic unknown. 立ちわかれいなばの山の峰におふる松としきかば今かへりこむ tachiwakare / inaba no yama no / mine ni ouru / matsu to shi kikaba / ima kaerikomu ‘Left and departed— / If I go, to the mounts of Inaba / Where on the peaks, the aged / Pines; hearing you did so / I would return at once.’ Ariwara no Yukihira (Kokinshū VIII: 365)
The Right state that the Left’s ‘Blowing ‘cross the field before my gates’ (kadota fuku) is grating on the ear. In addition, ‘should one really expect an answer from a house?’ The Left simply say that they find the Right’s poem ‘good’.
Shunzei’s judgement: The Gentlemen of the Right have correctly identified two faults with the Left’s poem. The Right’s poem, on the other hand, in both diction and sentiment, is extremely charming, and the final section, in particular is most profound in form. I must make it the winner.
The Right find no fault with the Left’s poem this round. The Left wonder about the suitability of the phrase ‘folk within warding’ (hito wo moru), to which the Right respond that the expression carries the sense of wakefulness.
Shunzei’s judgement: the Left has the sound of bird clappers jointly guarding the fields, the Right, the sound of rice stirred by the autumn wind rousing folk in their huts – both poems display a particular skill in terms of form, but perhaps at the expense of feeling. Furthermore, I am unable to apprehend the Right’s ‘rice fronds; the folk within warding’. The Left wins, by a small margin.
