Tag Archives: Ono

Love X: 22

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.

SZS IV: 271

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

Winter I: 28

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…

Lord Sada’ie.

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.

Ietaka.

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.