moonlit night | Waka Poetry

There is a river called the Sagami River. I composed this to say I would board a boat and cross it after the moon had risen.[i]

ゆふづくよさすや川せのみなれ棹なれてもうとき浪のおとかな

yūzukuyo
sasu ya kawase no
minarezao
narete mo utoki
nami no oto kana

On a moonlit night,
The beams strike the river rapids—
The well-worn pole to the water
May be accustomed, yet troublesome is
The sound of waves![ii]

591

[i] This river would have been familiar to Sanetomo, as it flows into the sea some twenty kilometres to the west of Kamakura, where the shogunate was headquartered. Based on the poem, the boat would have been a ferry, punted, rather than sailed across it.

[ii] See: Topic unknown. ゆふづく夜さすやをかべの松のはのいつともわかぬこひもするかな yūzukuyo / sasu ya okabe no / matsu no ha no / itsu to mo wakanu / koi mo suru kana ‘On a moonlit night / The beams strike the hillside / Through the pine needles / All year round, / As constant is my longing.’ Anonymous (Kokinshū XI: 490)

Round Ten

Left (T – Tie)

波よする蜑の苫やのひまをあらみもるにてぞしるよはのしぐれは

nami yosuru
ama no tomaya no
hima o arami
moru nite zo shiru
yowa no shigure wa

Waves break near
A sedge-thatched hut’s
Crude gaps
The leaks reveal
A midnight shower…

Lord Tadafusa
19

Right (M – Win)

ゆふ月よいるさの山の高根よりはるかにめぐる初しぐれかな

yūzukuyo
irusa no yama no
takane yori
haruka ni meguru
hatsushigure kana

On a moonlit night
From Irusa Mountain’s
High peak
In the distance circles
A first shower!

Lord Kanemasa
20

Toshiyori states: in the first poem, the shower sounds chilly! A shower is not something that one hears after getting up at dawn, yet this poem says that one first gets to know about it from the leaks, it seems that the poet has gone to bed, been leaked on, had his garments soaked and then got up and made a fuss. If he has not been leaked upon is this something he heard from someone else the following day? It really is very unclear. There’s a poem ‘Together with me / On my mountain pilgrimage’ which refers to showers falling on this mountain. The poem here refers to the same peak, so it sounds as if it’s referring to monks going around. Is that what it’s about? I am not just finding fault for the sake of it—these poems are unclear. As there’s only so much that can be understood from hearing them, they should tie.

Mototoshi states: one can compose about a shower falling anywhere and there’s no need to bring up a fisherman’s sedge-thatch hut, is there! Furthermore, one gets to know about a shower from the sound of it falling constantly on something like a roof of cedar boards, surely? Would one really be startled by rain of varying intensity falling soundlessly in spring? As for the poem of the Right, while it does not display a playfulness which would please the eye, ‘In the distance circles / A first shower’ is a bit better in the current context.