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?
namida ni wa
uki fukayamagi mo
kuchinubeshi
oki tsu kojima no
hisaki naranedo
Among my tears,
Drift, despairing, trees from the mountain deeps,
Rotting all away, though
On islets in the offing
On bush-covered beaches, they are not…
In judgement: both Left and Right use the image of ‘trees from the mountain deeps’ (fukayamagi), and neither is superior, or inferior, to the other in this, but I would have to say that the Left’s ‘though once branches lay atop each other I did hear…’ (tsuranaru eda mo ari to koso kike) is somewhat better than the Right’s ‘on bush-covered beaches, they are not…’ (hisaki naranedo).
