In judgement: the poem of the Left has ‘unconnected with fishing diver-girls at Shiga would I seem?’ (yoso ni ya wa tsuri suru shiga no ama o min) and the poem of the Right has ‘floating upon my heart is a diver-girl’s fishing boat!’ (kokoro ni ukabu ama no tsuribune): both have profound conception and their diction sounds pleasant, so it is difficult to divide them into superior and inferior works. Thus, I make this a tie.
The Right state: the Left’s poem has no faults to indicate. The Left state: the Right’s poem is clichéd.
In judgement: the Right, in addition to being clichéd, can say no more than that love means wet sleeves. The Left’s ‘grasses’ roots’ (suga no ne) is certainly better.
Both Left and Right state that the opposing poem lacks a strong conception of the sea.
In judgement: I wonder whether the suggestion by both Left and Right that the poems lack a strong conception of the sea is correct. The Left has ‘the rising tide flooding the rocky shore’ (mitsu shio ni irinuru iso), while the Right has ‘crashing on the crags by the rocky shore’ (iwane utsu ara’iso). If these expressions do not strongly convey the conception of the sea, then I ask you, what would? I wonder, though, how one’s sleeves can get soaked if the waves, though high, are distant. The final section of the Left’s poem is elegant. It wins.
