New Year Archery
あづさ弓はるの日ぐらしもろ人のよに入るまでもあそびつるかな
| azusayumi haru no higurashi morobito no yo ni iru made mo asobitsuru kana | Catalpa bows At sundown in springtime Many folk, ‘Til night covers all, will Disport themselves! |
Daishin
Tag Archives: New Year Archery
Eikyū hyakushu 41
Eikyū hyakushu 40
Eikyū hyakushu 39
Eikyū hyakushu 38
Eikyū hyakushu 37
Eikyū hyakushu 36
Spring I: 30
Left (Tie).
もゝしきや射手引く庭の梓弓昔にかへる春に逢ふかな
| momoshiki ya ite hiku niwa no azusa yumi mukashi ni kaeru haru ni au kana |
Hundred fold, the palace, where Archer draw, within the gardens Bows of catalpa wood: Olden times are recalled And meet again, this springtime. |
59
Right (Tie).
梓弓春の雲井に引つれてけしきことなるけふの諸人
| azusa yumi haru no kumoi ni hikitsurete keshiki kotonaru kyô no morobito |
Catalpa bows: In springtime to the cloud-borne palace They are brought; How exceptional the scene: A crowd of noble folk, this day. |
60
The Right query why in the Left’s poem an annual festival should ‘recall olden times’, to which the Right respond that it is normal to compose poems about annual observances as if they had been discontinued and then revived. The Left make no comment about the Right’s poem.
Shunzei’s judgement is that, indeed, the Left’s poem had been composed as if an ancient rite had been revived and, furthermore with the reference to an ‘exceptional scene’ the intent had probably been to praise court festivals. Nevertheless, he has to adjudge the round a tie.
Spring I: 29
Left (Tie).
梓弓射手引く春のかひありてけふの諸矢は世にひゞく也
| azusa yumi ite hiku haru no kai arite kyō no moroya wa yo ni hibiku nari |
Catalpa bows, Archers drawing them in springtime Has an effect, indeed: Today, the paired arrows Resound throughout the world! |
57
Right (Tie).
梓弓はる九重に散る雪をけふ立舞の袖に見るかな
| azusa yumi haru kokonoe ni chiru yuki o kyô tachimai no sode ni miru kana |
Catalpa bows: Drawn in the ninefold palace walls, yet Falling snow This day’s dancing Sleeves do seem! |
58
The Right team have no comments to make about the Left’s poem, but the Left remark that ‘catalpa bow’ is a makura kotoba (a conventionalised poetic image) used with ‘spring’, and it is difficult to think that it is being used appropriately if related to ‘New Year archery’. (The complaint here seems to be related to the fact that in his original Nobusada writes haru, which I’ve translated here as ‘drawn’, phonetically, rather than with a Chinese character, making it initially seem like the verb haru ‘draw (a bow)’, rather than the homophonous ‘spring’.) The Left go on to make the aside that dancing took place within the palace on many other occasions besides the New Year Archery festival.
Shunzei, however, states bluntly that both poems contain ‘unnatural associations’ of ‘catalpa bow’ with ‘springtime effects’ for the Left, and ‘drawn in the ninefold palace’ for the right, so neither can be declared a winner.
Spring I: 28
Left (Win).
もゝしきに引つらなれる梓弓はるも鞆音の珍しき哉
| momoshiki ni hikitsuranareru azusa yumi haru mo tomone no mezurashiki kana |
By the hundredfold palace Arrayed, Catalpa bows: Sprung in springtime, bowstring on bracer: How rare the sound! |
55
Right.
舎人子が鞆うち鳴らす梓弓射手引わたる春は來にけり
| toneriko ga tomo uchinarasu azusa yumi ite hikiwataru haru wa kinikeri |
The guardsmen lads’ Bracers sound; Catalpa bows, Drawn by archers: Springtime is here, indeed! |
56
Again, the Right team have no comments to make about the Left’s poem this round, but the Left say the initial line of the Right’s poem is ‘unsatisfactory’. Shunzei, once again, agrees, remarking that, ‘the initial line sounds like the name of the tree used when referring to adding water to an ink-stone. Again, the Left is the winner.’ What he means by this is that toneriko, ‘guardsmen lads’ was homophonous with the word for ‘ash tree’. The old Japanese extracted a wax from ash trees, which was used to ease the running of sliding doors and shutters, and so by association, toneriko was used in poetry to refer to adding water to an ink-stone so that the ink, produced in solid sticks, would slide over it more easily. This image is inappropriate for a poem about the New Year Archery festival, and so the poem is of inferior quality, compared to the Left’s offering.