oshimikane akanu nagori no kurushiki ni iru made wa miji aki no yo no tsuki
Unbearable regret, Unending is a memento Most painful— I would not watch until it sets: The moon this autumn night.
Kenshō 69
Right
月影のかたぶくかたにさしいればやどのうちにも霜ぞ置きける
tsukigage no katabuku kata ni sashi’ireba yado no uchi ni mo shimo zo okikeru
The moonlight as It descends Shines in, so Within my lodging Frost, indeed, has fallen.
Lord Yorisuke 70
The Left, saying that the setting of the moon is a painful memento, and thus not watching it until the end seems excessively topsy-turvy. The Right, saying that the setting moon enters one’s lodging, is both pretentious and misses the point—surely it depends on the construction of the house! This shows know knowledge of how diction should be used, so the Left has to win.
ama tsu hoshi ari tomo mienu aki no yo no tsuki wa suzushiki hikari narikeri
Stars in the heavens Appear there to be none on An autumn night when The moon a cool Light sheds.
Kojijū 61
Right
さ夜ふくる空にきえゆく浮雲の名残もみえぬ秋のよの月
sayo fukuru sora ni kieyuku ukigumo no nagori mo mienu aki no yo no tsuki
As brief night wears on Vanishing from the skies are The drifting clouds, Leaving no keepsake for The moon this autumn night.
Moromitsu 62
The Left, in addition to suffering from the Tree-Bank fault,[1] compounds this by adding a further line so all the first three lines begin with the same sound. This has been noted as a fault in earlier poetry matches. The Right, too, mentions ‘night’ twice and this is a significant fault, but I am unable to grasp the sense of the Left’s poem, so it’s difficult to make a judgement between them.
[1]Ganjubyō 岸樹病 (‘Tree-Bank fault’): this was one of the four poetic faults identified in the poetic treatise Waka sakushiki 倭歌作式 (‘Code of Creation of Japanese Poetry’), attributed to Kisen 喜撰 (fl. 810-824), hence the treatise’s alternative title of Kisenshiki 喜撰式 (‘Kisen’s Selected Codes’). This attribution is widely believed to be spurious, however, and that the work was probably written in the mid-Heian period. Ganjubyō refers to beginning the first and second ‘lines’ of a waka with the same syllable, in this case ‘a’.
shiogama no ura no higata no akebono ni kasumi ni nokoru ukishima no matsu
At Shiogama Bay uponn the tide-sands With the dawn Lingering in the haze are The pines on Ukishima.
A Court Lady 1
Right
春の夜の朧月夜の名残とや出づる朝日も猶かすむらん
haru no yo no oborozukiyo no nagori to ya izuru asahi mo nao kasumuran
A spring night’s Misty moon— Does it leave a keepsake in The rising sun Yet seeming hazed?
Ietaka, Junior Second Rank 2
Generally, for the judging of poetry, one chooses people who have been permitted to take this Way, who can distinguish the good from the bad among the reeds of Naniwa Bay and plumb the depths and shallows of the sea. And now I do so, when I have passed through the mulberry gate, but have no time for the Three Tiers and Nine Levels of Rebirth, or even for dipping into Tomi stream, and have but distantly heard the waves of Waka Bay these past sixteen springtimes, though I was wont, in the ancient blossom-filled capital, to string together a mere thirty-one syllables from time to time.
Though now I do not divert myself with this Way, Ietaka of the Junior Second Rank is a long-standing officer of the Poetry Office and a compiler of the New Ancient and Modern collection. His dewdrop life of almost eighty has begun to vanish now with the wind on Adashi Plain, but I thought to converse with him and just this once, debate over his deeply considered words and compare the configuration of his works. Thus, through the jewelled missives we exchanged, I had him assemble poems on ten topics by those from whom I am not estranged and write them down in pairs.
The numbers of such folk were not great, and among them are those who have only recently begun to have an interest in the learning the Six Principles. That the words of Shinobu’s sacred groves would be scattered by the wind and encounter hindrances here and there, I had thought, but in the end, I paid no heed to folk’s criticisms in order to avoid barriers on the path to rebirth. Among these, I match my own foolish compositions with those of Ietaka—it may not be an appropriate thing to do for the Way, but given our association, as ancient as Furu in Isonokami, I have done this out of special consideration for him.
Nevertheless, long ago I perused the poems of the Eight Anthologies from time to time, and they certainly have some spectacle about them, but yet many are now unclear. Indeed, among the poems of folk of modern times, over the past ten years I have not heard of even a single poem, for all that they are composed the same way, that it is possible to view as outstanding. Not only that, but as I approach my sixties and descend into my dotage, the signs of my own foolishness become increasingly apparent.
The first poem of the Left often wins, yet this has nothing remarkable about it. The Right’s poem, on the morning following a misty moonlit night, has a true link with the morning haze, and the sequencing of its diction and configuration are particularly charming. Nevertheless, the Left’s poem in the first round is in accordance with the matter, and I am thus not able to pick a winner or loser.
Taira no Sadafun had been conversing with a lady at the residence of Major Counsellor Kunitsune in great secrecy and matters had progressed to the point that they had vowed to be with each other to the end, when the lady was abruptly welcomed into the residence of the late Grand Minister, so he had no way at all of even exchanging letters with her; thus, when the lady’s five year old child was playing in the western wing of the minister’s mansion, Sadafun called her over and saying, ‘Show this to your mother,’ wrote this on her upper arm.
むかしせしわがかねごとのかなしきはいかにちぎりしなごりなるらん
mukasi sesi wa ga kanegoto no kanasiki Fa ika ni tigirisi nagorinaruran
Long ago did I promise, but Might the sadness Of how I did once vow Be my only keepsake?
The late Master of the Right Capital Office was Lord Muneyuki. While he was fretting over when he might achieve advancement, His Majesty, the Cloistered Teishi Emperor was presented with a stone with seaweed clinging to it from the province of Ki, and various people presented poems on the topic. The Master of the Right Capital Office composed
沖つ風ふけゐの浦にたつなみのなこりにさへや我はしつまん
oki tsu kaze fukei no ura ni tatsu nami no nagori ni sae ya ware wa shitsuman
From the offing the wind blows Upon the beach at Fukei; Are the breaking waves Indeed a memento I might keep?
The Right state: it is certainly possible to say that the ‘bridge at Nagara’ has ‘rotted’ (kutsu), but there are, we think, no other examples of it ‘ceasing’ (tayu). The Left state: we wonder about the appropriateness of saying ‘love not a trace’ (koi ni ato nashi).
In judgement: both poems refer to ‘the bridge at Nagara’ and, as has been mentioned by the Gentlemen of the Right in their criticism, the Left uses ‘has ceased to be, yet’ (taeshikado); there are many poems using ‘rotted’, because this is what happens to the pillars of bridges. After this bridge ceased to be, the pillars would still be rotting away. If you have the bridge ‘being built’ (tsukuru nari), why would you not then have it ‘ceasing’? That being said, I am only accustomed to hearing ‘bridge pillars’ (hashibashira), and having only ‘pillars’ (hashira) sounds completely lacking in logic. The Right’s poem uses ‘love not a trace’ (koi ato nashi): it is entirely natural for a variety of different things not to leave a trace. The current criticism must be due to there not being a prior example of this usage, but it is particularly difficult to say this about the initial section of the poem. The Right wins.
