Round Fifteen

Left

みちしばのつゆわけきつるたびごろもしぐるるよははほしぞわづらふ

michishiba no tsuyu wakekitsuru tabigoromo shigururu yowa wa hoshi zo wazurau

Through the roadside grasses Dew have I come forging— My traveller’s garb In a midnight shower I’d dry—what trouble ‘tis, indeed!

Hyōenokami
79

Right (Win)

しぐれするおとにいくたびねざめしてくさのまくらにあかしかぬらむ

shiguresuru oto ni iku tabi nezameshite kusa no makura ni akashikanuramu

The showers’ Sound, so many times Has wakened me, so On my grassy pillow It seems the dawn can never come!

Michichika
80

The Left’s ‘roadside grasses’ have nothing remarkable about them and, what’s more, fail to link to anything. The Right has a charming conception of feeling the dawn will never come to a grassy pillow, but as in the poem ‘On a winter’s night / How many times / Have I awakened, / Deep in thought, my dwelling’s / Door-crack letting in the light?’, it is more charming to refer to the difficulty of greeting the dawn at the end of a winter’s night. This poem has the speaker being woken countless times by the sound of a shower and seems to convey the feeling of dozing on a dew-drenched pillow, doesn’t it. With that being said, the Right does appear to have some genuine emotion behind it. I would say it wins.