Left (Win)
斧の柄を何かあやしと思けんしばしの恋も袖は朽ちけり
| ono no e o nani ka ayashi to omoiken shibashi no koi mo sode wa kuchikeri | An axe haft – What is there strange in that I wonder? For with this brief love My sleeves have rotted… |
Kenshō
1183
Right
あさましや心をしほる山人も身におふ程の歎きをぞこる
| asamashi ya kokoro o shioru yamabito mo mi ni ou hodo no nageki o zo koru | How surprising! Heartbroken A woodcutter, too, Is burdened by The tree of grief he fells… |
Lord Takanobu
1184
Left and Right together state: we find no faults to mention.
In judgement: For the Left, I wonder how long a ‘brief love’ (shibashi no koi) lasts? For one’s sleeves to have rotted, surely a certain amount of time must have passed, but in configuration the poem is certainly elegant. The Right’s woodcutter (yamabito) sounds like he is saying rather too much about himself. The Left should win.
Composed on the conception of thinking about flowers in the meadows.
今はしも穂に出でぬらむ東路の石田の小野の篠の小薄
| ima wa simo Fo ni idenuramu adumadi no iFata no wono no sino no wosusuki |
Now it is that Their fronds seem to appear: On the eastern roads, Through Iwata meadows, Fresh silver-grass among the arrow bamboo. |
Fujiwara no Kore’ie
藤原伊家
Left.
狩衣をどろの道も立歸り打散る雪の野風寒けし
| karigoromo odoro no michi mo tachikaeri uchichiru yuki no nokaze samukeshi |
Clad in hunting garb, and Down a path of thorns Returning, The scattered snowflakes make The wind off the plain feel all the more chill… |
535
Right.
諸人の狩場の小野に降る霰今日の御幸に玉ぞ散ける
| morobito no kariba no ono ni furu arare kyō no miyuki ni tama zo chirikeru |
Many folk Have Ono as their hunting ground, but The hail falling Today, upon this Imperial Progress Has scattered jewels. |
536
Neither Left nor Right have any criticisms.
Shunzei’s judgement: ‘A path of thorns’ (odoro no michi mo) recollects the gentlemen of the court when garbed for hawking, and certainly sounds accurate, but the final line does not say anything out of the ordinary. On scattered jewels of ‘hail falling on the hunting ground of Ono’ (kariba no ono ni furu arare), you have ‘many folk’ (morobito no) and then ‘today’s Imperial Progress’ (kyō no miyuki ni) which sounds as if both are indistinguishable. It is impossible to assign a winner or loser this round.