michishiba no tsuyu wakekitsuru tabigoromo shigururu yowa wa hoshi zo wazurau
Through the roadside grasses Dew have I come forging— My traveller’s garb In a midnight shower I’d dry—what trouble ‘tis, indeed!
Hyōenokami 79
Right (Win)
しぐれするおとにいくたびねざめしてくさのまくらにあかしかぬらむ
shiguresuru oto ni iku tabi nezameshite kusa no makura ni akashikanuramu
The showers’ Sound, so many times Has wakened me, so On my grassy pillow It seems the dawn can never come!
Michichika 80
The Left’s ‘roadside grasses’ have nothing remarkable about them and, what’s more, fail to link to anything. The Right has a charming conception of feeling the dawn will never come to a grassy pillow, but as in the poem ‘On a winter’s night / How many times / Have I awakened, / Deep in thought, my dwelling’s / Door-crack letting in the light?’, it is more charming to refer to the difficulty of greeting the dawn at the end of a winter’s night. This poem has the speaker being woken countless times by the sound of a shower and seems to convey the feeling of dozing on a dew-drenched pillow, doesn’t it. With that being said, the Right does appear to have some genuine emotion behind it. I would say it wins.
The Gentlemen of the Right state: the Left’s poem has no faults to mention. The Gentlemen of the Left state: the intial part of the Right’s poem is derived from an old poem, and so does the end!
In judgement: I wonder whether the cogon-grass (asajū), mentioned initially, is as clearly conceived as the ‘lawn’ (michishiba) mentioned at the end? The Right’s poem refers to ‘So full are my thoughts, what am I to do? With the autumn wind’, but reverses the beginning and end of that poem; it is extremely old-fashioned in style, but pleasant as it is plainly intended to be understood as a variant of its model. Thus, the Right wins over the combination of ‘cogon-grass’ and ‘lawn’.
In judgement: simply saying, ‘Sleeping solo my sleeves remain damp in the morning’ (hitorine no sode no nagori no asajimeri) seems to lack the conception of love. I wonder who might have written the ‘recent poem’, ‘If he would be wet with waves should surely wait for evening?’ mentioned by the Right? How, indeed, can we avoid poems which are not in the anthologies? In any case, the poem here is ‘May to dampen them again, ‘til evening I would wish to wait’ and the initial line is different. This level of resemblance between poems is not uncommon. The Right’s poem is pleasant. It should win.
