au koto o sono toshitsuki to chigiraneba inochi ya koi no kagiri naruramu
That we might meet For months and years She has not promised, so My life will my love’s Limit be, no doubt!
Lord Shigemoto 69
Right
よとともにもえこそわたれ我が恋は不二の高根のけぶりならねど
yo to tomo ni moe koso watare wa ga koi wa fuji no takane no keburi naranedo
With the coming of the night Ever burning is My love, though From Fuji’s peak Smoke it is not…
Lord Toshitaka 70
Toshiyori states: the first poem doesn’t seem bad. The second poem nothing but cliched. Thus, the first poem should win.
Mototoshi states: while love lasting lifelong without even a promise to meet over years and months is a painfully moving conception, someone burning every night is dear, too. Thus, it’s not inferior and these are of the same quality.
nami yosuru ama no tomaya no hima o arami moru nite zo shiru yowa no shigure wa
Waves break near A sedge-thatched hut’s Crude gaps The leaks reveal A midnight shower…
Lord Tadafusa 19
Right (M – Win)
ゆふ月よいるさの山の高根よりはるかにめぐる初しぐれかな
yūzukuyo irusa no yama no takane yori haruka ni meguru hatsushigure kana
On a moonlit night From Irusa Mountain’s High peak In the distance circles A first shower!
Lord Kanemasa 20
Toshiyori states: in the first poem, the shower sounds chilly! A shower is not something that one hears after getting up at dawn, yet this poem says that one first gets to know about it from the leaks, it seems that the poet has gone to bed, been leaked on, had his garments soaked and then got up and made a fuss. If he has not been leaked upon is this something he heard from someone else the following day? It really is very unclear. There’s a poem ‘Together with me / On my mountain pilgrimage’ which refers to showers falling on this mountain. The poem here refers to the same peak, so it sounds as if it’s referring to monks going around. Is that what it’s about? I am not just finding fault for the sake of it—these poems are unclear. As there’s only so much that can be understood from hearing them, they should tie.
Mototoshi states: one can compose about a shower falling anywhere and there’s no need to bring up a fisherman’s sedge-thatch hut, is there! Furthermore, one gets to know about a shower from the sound of it falling constantly on something like a roof of cedar boards, surely? Would one really be startled by rain of varying intensity falling soundlessly in spring? As for the poem of the Right, while it does not display a playfulness which would please the eye, ‘In the distance circles / A first shower’ is a bit better in the current context.
saoshika no sora ni aware to kikoyuru wa yama no takane ni nakeba narikeri
A stag belling To the skies, sadly I hear— Perhaps, because ‘tis on the mountain’s peak He cries so…
Lord Masahira
45
Right (Win)
ゆふまぐれ霧のまがきのさびしさにをしか鳴くなり秋の山里
yūmagure kiri no magaki no sabishisa ni oshika nakunari aki no yamazato
Tangled in twilight With mist around my brushwood fence, Loneliness fills me, as A stag bells, by A mountain retreat in autumn
Shinkaku 46
What on earth is the conception of ‘sadly hearing something in the skies’? While no one can truly know why a stag bells, what is the point of saying that ‘sadness is in the skies’? And if one does hear it, it isn’t the case that anyone really knows that the stag is belling out of longing for his mate, is it. The stag seeming to bell by a brushwood fence in the mist, seems to sound a bit more moving at the moment.
