Cuckoos at a Shrine.
五月雨をぬさに手向けてみくまのの山ほととぎすなきとよむなり
| samidare o nusa ni tamukete mikumano no yamahototogisu naki toyomu nari | A summer shower’s Streams proffered at Kumano’s three shrines as A mountain cuckoo’s Song resounds. |
638
Tag Archives: song
Eien narabō uta’awase 11
Round Four
Left (Win)
あたらしきただひとこゑをほととぎすいかなるさとになきとよむらん
| atarashiki tada hitokoe o hototogisu ika naru sato ni nakitoyomuran | How fine Simply is your single call, O, cuckoo, What might be the estate which Resounds with your song? |
Cell of the Fragrant Elephant
21
Right
いかばかりあはれならましほととぎすかくまたれてしきなかましかば
| ika bakari aware naramashi hototogisu kaku matareteshi kinakamashikaba | How deeply Moving might it be? For a cuckoo To have long awaited and He then comes to call… |
Cell of Everlasting Truth
22
In regard to the Left’s poem, in the Poetry Match held in Engi 3, there was a compostion which went ‘Until in Kataoka / The plains of Ashita / Does resound / The mountain cuckoos / Are singing now!’[i] When this was recited, His Majesty laughed and so it was not read aloud all the way to the end. The expression ‘resound’ is poor. The diction of the Right’s poem is terribly stilted and really doesn’t trip off the tongue, but strictly speaking it has no particular faults. I make it the winner.
The Left’s poem seems move my heart to the greatest degree. However, it really is the case that ‘resounding with song’ is something which happens after hearing it—that’s when it would seem right to compose ‘come resound with song’. It’s extremely imprudent to guess and say that somewhere ‘might resound with song’ without hearing it. And yet, there is the conception of there being times, too, when the cuckoo doesn’t sing. In the Right’s poem ‘To have long awaited’ lacks harmony, and I would want there to be a break there, so I should say that the Left wins.
[i] This poem is Teiji’in uta’awase 48.
Tsurayuki uta’awase 01
Tsurayuki’s Poetry Match,[i] 28th day of the Second Month, Tengyō 2[ii]
The beginning of spring.
Left
白雪のみにふりながら梅の花をりつるほどに春は来にけり
| shirayuki no mi ni furinagara mume no hana oritsuru hodo ni haru wa kinikeri | Snow, so white, Falling upon my flesh, While the plum blossom, Branches are breaking Spring has come! |
1
Right
鶯の巣立ちし日よりはるばるとおもひは音にぞまづなかれける
| uguisu no sudachishi hi yori harubaru to omoi wa ne ni zo mazu nakareru | Since the day the bush warbler Departed his nest, Endlessly Have I thought his song For the present has not been here. |
2
[i] Tsurayuki uta’awase 貫之歌合
[ii] 21 March 939
Entō ōn’uta’awase 22
Round Twenty-Two
Left (Win)
五月雨にやすらふ暮の時鳥そなたの雲に声なへだてそ
| samidare ni yasurau kure no hototogisu sonata no kumo ni koe na hedate so | In a summer shower, Hesitating, at twilight, O, cuckoo, Let not the intervening clouds Interrupt your song! |
Shō
43
Right
過ぎぬなりさやはちぎりし時鳥なく音ばかりはこぞにかはらで
| suginunari saya wa chigirishi hototogisu naku ne bakari wa kozo ni kawarade | And so you’ve flown by— Is that what you vowed, O, cuckoo? For only the sound of your song Is unchanged from the year before… |
Nagatsuna
44
The Left’s poem doesn’t seem bad. The Right poem’s ‘For only the sound of your song is unchanged from the year before’ is somewhat difficult to grasp—if the cuckoo’s call has not changed, then what has? After all, cuckoos have ‘the voice of yesteryear’[1]—among other references—so it’s obvious that their calls don’t change, so the Left is somewhat better, I think.
[1] KKS III: 137
Kinkai wakashū 150
Kinkai wakashū 149
Kinkai wakashū 134
Entō ōn’uta’awase 17
Round Seventeen
Cuckoos
Left (Tie)
さのみやは心あるべき時鳥ね覚の空に一声もがな
| sanomi ya wa kokoro arubeki hototogisu nezame no sora ni hitogoe mogana | Not much of The heart can you know, O, cuckoo, but On waking from the sky I would hear a single call. |
A Court Lady
33
Right
やはた山むかひの里の郭公しのびしかたの声もかはらず
| yawatayama mukai no sato no hototogisu shinobishi kata no koe mo kawarazu | By Yawata Mountain, At the estate of Mukai, A cuckoo, Fondly remembers someone With a changeless song! |
Lord Ietaka
34
The Left’s poem would seem to fail to reflect the essential meaning of the topic of cuckoos by having it not yet being heard, and thus its overall technique seems dreadful. The Right’s poem also lacks any superlative elements, they must tie.
Mandaishū VIII: 1713
When she had gone to a mountain temple around autumn, and heard the insects crying.
こころにはひとつみのりとおもへどもむしはこゑごゑきこゆなるかな
| kokoro ni wa hitotsu minori to omoedomo mushi wa koegoe kikoyunaru kana | In my heart One sacred truth I hold, yet from The insects song upon song I hear! |
Izumi Shikibu
Genji monogatari 3
鈴虫の声のかぎりを尽しても長き夜あかずふる涙かな
| suzumushi no koe no kagiri o tsukushitemo nagaki yo akazu furu namida kana | The bell-crickets The very limits of their song Have exhausted, but This long night, unending is The falling of my tears! |
Yugei no myōbu
