Left
こひわぶるひとにあふよのしののめにはわかるといかでみぬよしもがな
| koi waburu hito ni au yo no shinonome ni wa wakaru to ikade minu yoshi mogana | Suffering with love’s fire, After a night with her At the edge of dawn Parting—somehow ‘Twould have been better to have seen her not! |
38
Right
なげきつつおもひにあかぬあかつきはこころもゆかぬわかれをぞする
| nagekitsutsu omoi ni akanu akatsuki wa kokoro mo yukanu wakare o zo suru | Ever grieving, and With my passion’s fire unslaked, At dawn, My heart unsatisfied With our parting! |
39
Round Two
Left (Win)
君がよはあまのいはとをいづるひのいくめぐりてふかずもしられず
| kimi ga yo wa ama no iwato o izuru hi no iku meguri chō kazu mo shirarezu | My Lord’s reign: Since from the stone door in the heavens Emerged the sun, ‘How many circuits has she made?’, they ask— A number quite unknown. |
Lord Saburō
59
Right
みかさやまふもとのさとはあめのしたふるにおもひもあらじとぞ思ふ
| mikasayama fumoto no sato wa ame no shita furu ni omoi mo araji to zo omou | At Mikasa Moutain’s Foot, in a hamlet ‘neath the heavens Passing time—painful thoughts There I’d have not a one, I feel! |
Ushigimi
60
The Left’s poem goes beyond the general flow of diction, containing mystery and depth. I have to say it is truly superior. While the Right’s poem has no faults to mention, it has yet to emerge from prosaic expression. Thus, the Left wins.
The ‘stone door in the heavens’ is that which the supreme sun-deity Amaterasu stood before and then entered. But when we’re talking about dawn breaking at the end of night, we say ‘gates of heaven’. Which of these two was did the poet have in mind, I wonder? If he was thinking of dawn breaking, then the usage is erroneous, but even if he did mean ‘stone door of the heavens’, then do we use this about the circuits of the sun? This is vague. In addition, the final ‘they ask’ is difficult to pronounce. As for the Right’s poem, ‘‘neath the heavens’ lacks emotion. The dual use of ‘thoughts’ and ‘feels’, as I have already remarked, is not an error, but does grate on the ears a bit.
Round Three
Left (Both Judges – Win)
いはぬまの下はふ蘆のねを重みひまなき恋を君知るらめや
| iwanuma no shitahau ashi no ne o shigemi himanaki koi o kimi shirurame ya | Silently beneath the marsh rocks Creep the reeds’ Roots in such profusion, Not a space free from love, but Does my lady know, I wonder? |
A Court Lady
53
Right
身をつみて思ひや知るとこころみにながためつらき人もあらなん
| mi o tsumite omoi ya shiru to kokoromi ni na ga tame tsuraki hito mo aranan | Pinching flesh, Would you know passion’s fire? To test it, I wish For you there was a cruel One, too… |
Lord Masakane
54
Toshiyori states: the first poem is extremely charming. It seems to have no faults to mention. In the second poem, ‘For you there was a cruel one’ would be something quite impolite if said by a woman. Court ladies may lose their composure, yet they still appear to speak with dignity. In the absence of a prior poem as precedent, the first poem should win, I think.
Mototoshi states: this poem seems to have no faults to mention, and of the two, ‘beneath creep the reeds’ seems a bit more gently refined at present.
Round Four
Left
あくがるるたまとみえけむなつむしのおもひはいまぞおもひしりぬる
| akugaruru tama to miekemu natsumushi no omoi wa ima zo omoishirinuru | As my wandering Soul do appear The fireflies— Those feelings, now, How well I know! |
Kojijū
107
Right (Win)
いはずともおもひはそらにしりぬらむあまくだりますすみよしのかみ
| iwazu tomo omoi wa sora ni shirinuramu amakudarimasu sumiyoshi no kami | Needless to say My feelings within the skies Are well-known by The heaven-descended God of Sumiyoshi! |
Lord Sanemori
108
The poem of the Left appears to have a deep conception. However, this poem should be composed about the emotions expressed in Izumi Shikibu’s poem ‘Fireflies by the marsh: / From my breast’.[1] If so, then by having something like ‘As my wandering / Soul the fireflies / Do appear’, it appears as if you know how Izumi Shikibu felt. Here, though, we have ‘As my wandering / Soul do appear / The fireflies’ and this sounds as if you know how the fireflies feel—in which case it seems more in keeping with the poem by the Katsura Princess which says, ‘Their bodies bringing an excess / Of passion’s fires’.[2] Then again, does the diction, ‘As my wandering / Soul do appear’, perhaps, differ from this? The poem of the Right has nothing particularly evocative in its use of diction, but ‘My feelings within the skies’ and following this with ‘The heaven-descended’ at least sounds as if has a purpose to it. The Right wins, I should say.
[1] When she had been forgotten by a man, she went to Kibune, and composed this on seeing fireflies flitting about by the Mitarashi River. 物思へば澤の螢も我身よりあくがれ出づる玉かとぞみる mono’omoeba / sawa no hotaru mo / wa ga mi yori / akugare izuru / tama ka to zo miru ‘I’m at such a loss; / Fireflies by the marsh: / From my breast / Wanders out / My soul, or so it seems.’ Izumi Shikibu (GSIS XX: 1162)
[2] When Princess Katsura had said ‘Catch some fireflies,’ and one of the boys had them wrapped up in the sleeves of his jacket. つつめどもかくれぬ物は夏虫の身よりあまれる思ひなりけり tsutsumedomo / kakurenu mono wa / natsumushi no / mi yori amareru / omoinarikeri ‘Wrapped up, yet / Unconcealable are / The summer insects: / Their bodies bringing an excess / Of passion’s fires.’ Anonymous (GSS IV: 209)
Round Twenty-Six
Left
恋ひしなんいのちを誰にゆづりおきてつれなき人のはてをみせまし
| koishinan inochi o tare ni yuzuri’okite tsurenaki hito no hate o misemashi | Likely dying of love, My life, to whom should I Consign? That cruel girl’s Ending—would that show it to her? |
Shun’e
51
Right (Win)
つれもなき人はおもひもすてられでうき身のみこそなげまほしけれ
| tsure mo naki hito wa omoi mo suterarede ukimi no mi koso nagemahoshikere | So cruel is That girl, but my passion for her I cannot abandon; It is my pitiful self that I would wish to throw away! |
Kenshō
52
The Left isn’t bad, but it’s a bit cliched. As for the Right, having both ‘abandon’ and ‘throw away’ could be a fault and yet the conception of one ‘abandoning passion’ is different. Whichever way you look at it, it wins.
