Round Forty

Left (Win)

山もとの杜のしめ縄ながきよを秋のをしかの鳴きあかすらん

yamamoto no mori no shimenawa nagaki yo o aki no oshika no nakiakasuran

At the mountains’ foot lies A sacred grove with garlands Long as the nights In autumn when the stag Bells in the dawn.

Tomoshige
79

Right

なよ竹のよながき秋の山風に幾たび鹿のね覚しつらん

nayotake no yo nagaki aki no yamakaze ni ikutabi shika no nezameshitsuran

Green bamboo with Knots as apart as the autumn night is long, While with the mountain wind How many times might the stag Have awakened?[1]

Dharma Master Zenshin
80

The Left’s poem has ‘at the mountains’ foot lies a sacred grove with garlands long as the nights’ which sounds pleasant. The Right has ‘knots as apart as the autumn night is long, while with the mountain wind’—these, too, seem to have no clear winner or loser, yet still, the Left should be superior and should win.[2]

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[1] An allusive variation on: Composed when the gentlemen in the Crown Prince’s service were presented with wine, on the occasion of Tadafusa being appointed Secretary of an embassy to China, during the reign of the Kanpyō emperor. なよ竹のよながきうへにはつしものおきゐて物を思ふころかな nayotake no / yo nagaki  ue ni / hatsushimo no / oki’ite mono o / omou koro kana ‘Green bamboo with / Knots as far apart as the night is long / While the first frost settles on my active / Thoughts these days!’ Fujiwara no Tadafusa (KKS XVIII: 993)