Left – Bur Reed
あきのこむとしのををのみくりかへしかぞへてうゑん草のいろいろ
| aki no komu toshi no o o nomi kurikaeshi kazoete uemu kusa no iroiro | Autumn will come To the ending of the year, simply, Time and time again, Counting them will I plant A variety of grasses… |
20
This poem is an acrostic, with ‘bur reed’ (mikuri) contained in nomi kurikaeshi.
Right – Missing
Round Three
Left (Tie)
おきあかしくまなき月をながむれば野原の草の露もかくれず
| oki’akashi kumanaki tsuki o nagamureba nohara no kusa no tsuyu mo kakurezu | Lying awake ‘til dawn, and Upon the cloudless moon A’gazing— Upon the grasses o’er the plain Not a single dewdrop is concealed. |
Mikawa
53
Right
月をみて心をこよひつくすかなくまなき空は又もこそあれ
| tsuki o mite kokoro o koyoi tsukusu kana kumanaki sora wa mata mo koso are | Seeing the moon, Tonight, my heart Exhausts! The cloudless skies Once more are such! |
Lord Kinshige
54
The Left’s ‘lying awake ‘til dawn, gazing’ suggests that the poet is at their own residence, but then it finally turns out that they are on the plain – what to make of this? It’s also the case that the moon doesn’t necessarily always appear over the plains. This poem should really have included a clearer reason for the poet’s journey. As for the Right, while it isn’t bad, the final line certainly regrettable, so this round is a tie.
Round Nine
Left (Tie)
秋はぎを草の枕にむすびてや妻恋ひかねて鹿のふすらん
| akihagi o kusa no makura ni musubite ya tsuma koikanete shika no fusuran | The autumn bush clover For a grassy pillow Has he woven—is that why Unable to love his mate The stag seems to lie? |
Koreyuki
41
Right
妻こふる秋にしなればさをしかの床の山とてうちもふされじ
| tsuma kouru aki ni shi nareba saoshika no toko no yama tote uchi mo fusareji | He yearns for his mate In autumn, above all, so In the stag’s Bed among the mountains He cannot lay him down, it seems. |
Arifusa
42
The Left isn’t bad, but isn’t there Controller Kore’ie’s poem:
秋萩を草の枕にむすぶ夜はちかくもしかのこゑをきくかな
| akihagi o kusa no makura ni musubu yo wa chikaku mo shika no koe o kiku kana | The autumn bush clover For a grassy pillow I weave tonight— Close by, truly, a stag’s Bell I hear! [1] |
While there is this earlier example, neither core nor the conceptions of these poems are the same, and as the Right’s poem is not all that good, after careful consideration I make this a tie.
[1] On hearing a stag at his lodgings. KYS (3) III: 224
Round Seven
Left (Tie)
草がくれ見えぬをしかも妻こふる声をばえこそ忍ばざりけれ
| kusagakure mienu oshika mo tsuma kouru koe oba e koso shinobazarikere | Hidden by the grasses, Unseen, the stag, too Longing for his mate, His bell, indeed, is unable To conceal! |
Lord Yorimasa
37
Right
秋の野の花のたもとに置く露や妻よぶしかの涙なるらむ
| aki no no no hana no tamoto ni oku tsuyu ya tsuma yobu shika no namida naruramu | In the autumn meadows, Upon the blossoms’ sleeves Are the fallen dewdrops The stag—calling for his mate— Letting tears fall? |
Narinaka
38
The Left is novel, and the Right charming, respectively. The Right’s poem does have a large number of identical syllables—while this is criticized in the Code of the Creation of Poetry as a ‘whole body fault’, it is not the case that poems containing this defect have not appeared in poetry matches from time to time, and I don’t feel it’s necessary to examine whether there are a large number of similar cases here: such things are simply a style of poetry.
