Kindling 薪
折りくぶる柴さまざまにみゆれどもけぶりはひとつ色にこそたて
| orikuburu shiba samazama ni miyuredomo keburi wa hitotsu iro ni koso tate | Broken for kindling, The brushwood in many shapes Does appear, yet The smoke in but one Shade does rise. |
Kanemasa
Tag Archives: shiba
Eikyū hyakushu 375
Eikyū hyakushu 337
MYS XII: 3048
Winter II: 10
Left (Win).
吉野山篠の假寢に霜冴えて松風早し深ぬ此夜は
| yoshinoyama suzu no karine ni shimo saete matsukaze hayashi fukenu kono yo wa |
Upon Mt Yoshino, In fitful sleep upon a bed of bamboo, The frost falls chill, indeed, and The wind gusts through the pines, With the fall of night. |
559
Right.
外山なる柴の編戸は風過て霰横ぎる松の音かな
| toyamanaru shiba no amido wa kaze sugite arare yokogiru matsu no oto kana |
On the mountains’ edge My woven brushwood door Is pierced by the wind; Hearing hail blown horizontal Against the pines… |
560
Both Left and Right are exaggerated in their insistence that the other’s poem lacks any faults.
Shunzei’s judgement: The Left’s ‘Upon Mt Yoshino, in fitful sleep upon a bed of bamboo’ (yoshinoyama suzu no karine ni) would seem to suggest an ascetic who, having travelled into the mountains, has made himself a hut from bamboo and pillowed upon the tree roots, would it not? But here he seems to have simply cut them down, spread them out and lain upon them! In addition, ‘The wind gusts through the pines’ (matsukaze hayashi) fails to sound elegant [yū ni shi kikoezaru]. The Right, by starting with ‘On the mountains’ edge’ (toyamanaru), suggests that the poet is speaking of his own dwelling’s door in the mountains. ‘Hearing hail blown horizontal against the pines’ (arare yokogiru matsu no oto) also just does not sound appropriate. Both poems have an exaggerated feeling [kotogotoshikaran to wa kokorozashite], and I cannot grasp who they are referring to. However, the Left’s poem is, still, somewhat superior.
Autumn I: 29
Left.
昨日まで蓬に閉ぢし柴の戸も野分に晴るゝ岡の邊の里
| kinō made yomogi ni tojishi shiba no to mo nowaki ni haruru oka no be no sato |
Until yesterday Sealed by mugwort was This brushwood door; Swept clear by the gale The hills around my dwelling. |
357
Right.
假にさす庵までこそ靡きけれ野分に堪へぬ小野の篠原
| kari ni sasu iori made koso nabikikere nowaki ni taenu ono no shinohara |
Roughly thatched, Even my hut Has blown away: Unable to endure the gales Amongst the arrow bamboo groves… |
358
Both teams say they can appreciate the sentiment of the opposing team’s poem.
Shunzei agrees: ‘Both the Left’s “hills around my dwelling” (oka no be no sato) and the Right’s “arrow bamboo groves” (ono no shinohara) are charming. “Sealed by mugwort was this brushwood door; swept clear by the gale” (yomogi ni tojishi shiba no to mo nowaki ni haruru) and “Even my hut has blown away: unable to endure the gales” (iori made koso nabikikere nowaki ni taenu) have no failings in form between them. Thus, the round ties.’
Spring II: 7
Left.
立つ雉のなるゝ野原もかすみつゝ子を思ふ道や春まどふらん
| tatsu kiji no naruru nohara mo kasumitsutsu ko o omou michi ya haru madouran |
The flying pheasants Know these fields so well, yet Haze-covered, The fond way to their fledglings Does it sink springtime in confusion…? |
73
Right (Win).
鳴て立つきゞすの宿を尋ぬれば裾野の原の柴の下草
| nakitetatsu kigisu no yado o tasunureba susono no hara no shiba no shitagusa |
The crying, flying Pheasants’ lodging Should you seek out, look In meadows on the mountains’ skirts Among the brushwood undergrowth… |
74
The Right team wonder whether ‘know a field well’ (hara ni naruru) isn’t a bit ‘modern’ for poetry. Furthermore, ‘sink springtime in confusion’ (haru madouran) ‘seems to be missing something’ (by this they probably mean that you would expect the expression to be haru ni madouran, with the grammatical structure more clearly expressed). The Left team respond that the first line of the Right’s poem ‘grates on the ear’ and wonder, ‘What one is to make of “pheasants’ lodgings” (kigisu no yado)?’, meaning that traditional poetic expression called for ‘warblers’ lodgings’ (uguisu no yado).
Shunzei rather harshly says that the Left’s poem is ‘poorly constructed and unacceptable in both spirit and diction,’ wondering whether there was ‘a single school which would not find fault with it on the grounds of both logic and poetic form’? It would be possible to say ‘flying pheasants’ springtime confusion’ (tatsu kigisu no haru madou), and this would ‘not require any criticism’, just as ‘crying, flying pheasants’ lodging’ does not. Furthermore, the Right’s final stanza, ‘Among the brushwood undergrowth’ (shiba no shitagusa) is ‘particularly pleasant’ and so the Right’s poem must be awarded the victory.
Spring I: 9
Left (Win).
信樂の外山は雪も消えにしを冬を殘すや谷の夕風
| shigaraki no toyama wa yuki mo kienishi o fuyu o nokosu ya tani no yūkaze |
From Shigaraki’s Mountains, the snow Has gone, yet Does winter remain in The valleys’ evening breeze? |
17
Right.
春風は吹くと聞けども柴の屋はなをさむしろにいこそ寢られね
| haru kaze wa fuku to kikedomo shiba no ya wa nao samushiro ni i koso nerarene |
The spring breeze Blows, I hear, yet My twig-roofed hut is Yet chill: beneath a threadbare blanket I cannot fall asleep. |
18
Shunzei states the first part of the Left’s poem is ‘elevated in tone’, but that the final line is problematic: a reference to ‘morning’ might have been better, or just to the ‘valleys’ breeze’, but this would not have fitted the syllable count. If the intention had been to add a sense of ‘darkness’ to the poem, an expression such as ‘the valleys, shadowed by the crags’ would have been better. As for the Right’s poem, the image of the ‘twig-roofed hut’ is lonely, but the overlaying of the ‘cold’ with ‘blanket’ (in the original poem ‘samushiro’ is a play-on-words with both senses) is pedestrian, and so the Left’s poem, despite its faults, is adjudged the winner.
Winter 43
Left (Win).
朝夕の音は時雨のならしばにいつ降りかはる霰なるらん
| asa yū no oto wa shigure no narashiba ni itsu furikawaru arare naruran |
Morn and night The sound of rain upon Oaken boughs; When, I wonder, did it change To hail? |
85
Right
霰降しづがさゝ屋のそよさらに一夜ばかりの夢をやは見る
| arare furi shizu ga sasaya no soyo sara ni hito yo bakari no yume o ya wa miru |
Hailstones fall Upon my mean bamboo roof; Will I, at least, Briefly this night Catch a glimpse of dreams? |
86