Once, long ago there was a man. He abducted someone’s daughter and when they reached Musashi Plain, as he was plainly a kidnapper, he would have been seized by the provincial governor’s men. Leaving the woman in the grasses, he fled. The pursuers, saying to themselves that doubtless the abductor was hiding there, set the plain alight. The woman, panicked, cried out:
武蔵野は今日はな燒きそ若草のつまもこもれり我もこもれり
musasino Fa
keFu Fa na yaki so
wakakusa no
tuma mo komoreri
ware mo komoreri |
O, Musashi Plain
Burn not this day!
Fresh grass,
My man is hidden there,
As, too, am I… |
Hearing this, they found her and, together with the man who had been found elsewhere, took her back with them.
Left.
武蔵野に雉も妻やこもるらんけふの煙の下に鳴なり
musashino ni
kigisu mo tsuma mo ya
komoruran
kyō no kemuri no
shita ni nakunari |
Upon Musashi Plain
Is the cock pheasant’s hen, also,
Concealed?
For today from beneath
The smoke come plaintive cries… |
A Servant Girl.
81
Right (Win).
妻戀のきゞす鳴なり朝霞晴るればやがて草隱れつゝ
tsuma koi no
kigisu nakunari
asa kasumi
harureba yagate
kusagakuretsutsu |
Longing for his hen
The pheasant calls;
When morning’s haze
Has cleared, how swiftly
He hides among the grass. |
The Provisional Master of the Empress’ Household Office.
82
The Right comment that the Left’s poem resembles Minamoto no Yorimasa’s poem:
霞をや煙と見えん武蔵野に妻もこもれる雉鳴くなり
kasumi wo ya
kemuri to mien
musasino ni
tuma mo komoreru
kigisu nakunari |
The haze
Does seem as smoke;
On Musashino Plain
With his hen hidden
A pheasant calls. |
The Left snap back that as Yorimasa’s poem is not included in the imperial anthologies, they could not have seen it, and in any case, what sort of criticism is it to say that it ‘resembles Yorimasa’s poem?’ As for the Right’s poem, ‘do pheasants always hide in the grass come the morning?’
Shunzei comments that it is ‘a bit much’ to avoid Yorimasa’s poem altogether. Although he does then go on to say that ‘there’s no reason to strong arm in examples’ of poems not in the imperial anthologies. However, ‘what’s the point’ of associating ‘today’ (kyō) so strongly with ‘smoke’ (kemuri)? (It was supposed to be used only for particular days, such as the first day of spring.) In the Right’s poem ‘When morning’s haze/Has cleared, how swiftly’ (asa kasumi/harureba yagate) ‘has nothing needing criticism about it’, so the their poem is superior this round.
'Simply moving and elegant'