As a Tanabata poem.
天河霧たちわたるひこ星のつまむかへぶねはやもこがなん
| ama no kawa kiri tachiwataru hikoboshi no tsuma mukaebune haya mo koganan | Upon the River of Heaven Mist arises everywhere; O, Herd Boy, Boating to greet your love, Row as swiftly as you can! |
Tag Archives: tsuma
Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 24
Round Twelve
Left (Tie)
あらし吹くまくずが原に鳴く鹿は恨みてのみや妻をこふらん
| arashi fuku makuzu ga hara ni naku shika wa uramite nomi ya tsuma o kouran | Storm winds blow Across the arrowroot upon the plain Where bells a stag— Might it be with bitterness, alone, that He yearns for a mate? |
Shun’e
47
Right
山里は妻こひかぬる鹿の音にさもあらぬ我もねられざりけり
| yamazato wa tsuma koikanuru shika no ne ni sa mo aranu ware mo nerarezarikeri | In a mountain retreat, Filled with too much yearning for his mate A stag bells out— ‘Tis not true of me, yet Still I cannot sleep. |
Lay Priest Master
48
The Left’s stag’s bell seeming to despise the arrowroot field and the Right’s inability to sleep on hearing a stag belling at a mountain retreat are both evocative of lonely sadness and neither sounds at all inferior to the other in the depths of the emotion they convey, so I find myself quite unable to distinguish between them.
Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 22
Round Ten
Left (Tie)
夜もすがら妻こふるまにさをしかのめさへあはでや鳴きあかすらん
| yomosugara tsuma kouru ma ni saoshika no me sae awade ya naki’akasuran | All night long, Yearning for his mate, Does the stag Fail to close his eyes, Belling until the dawn? |
Mikawa
43
Right
独のみみねのをしかのなくこゑにあはれ吹きそふ風の音かな
| hitori nomi mine no oshika no naku koe ni aware fukisou kaze no oto kana | A single, solitary, Stag from the peak Belling out Laces sadness into the gusting Sound of the wind! |
Kojijū
44
The Left’s ‘fail to close his eyes’ is a commonly utilised viewpoint, while the Right’s ‘lacing sadness into the gusts’ is unsatisfactory—simply ‘laced’ would be preferable. Nevertheless, neither of these are particularly significant faults, so these should tie.
Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 21
Round Nine
Left (Tie)
秋はぎを草の枕にむすびてや妻恋ひかねて鹿のふすらん
| akihagi o kusa no makura ni musubite ya tsuma koikanete shika no fusuran | The autumn bush clover For a grassy pillow Has he woven—is that why Unable to love his mate The stag seems to lie? |
Koreyuki
41
Right
妻こふる秋にしなればさをしかの床の山とてうちもふされじ
| tsuma kouru aki ni shi nareba saoshika no toko no yama tote uchi mo fusareji | He yearns for his mate In autumn, above all, so In the stag’s Bed among the mountains He cannot lay him down, it seems. |
Arifusa
42
The Left isn’t bad, but isn’t there Controller Kore’ie’s poem:
秋萩を草の枕にむすぶ夜はちかくもしかのこゑをきくかな
| akihagi o kusa no makura ni musubu yo wa chikaku mo shika no koe o kiku kana | The autumn bush clover For a grassy pillow I weave tonight— Close by, truly, a stag’s Bell I hear! [1] |
While there is this earlier example, neither core nor the conceptions of these poems are the same, and as the Right’s poem is not all that good, after careful consideration I make this a tie.
[1] On hearing a stag at his lodgings. KYS (3) III: 224
Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 20
Round Eight
Left
やまかぜにしほるる野べの草むらのねやさむしとや鹿の鳴くらん
| yamakaze ni shioruru nobe no kusamura no neya samushi to ya shika no nakuran | The mountain wind Withers the meadow’s Clumps of grasses— Is it his chilly bedchamber That makes the stag cry out? |
Moromitsu
39
Right (Win)
あはれとはねらふさつをも思ふらんをしか妻どふ秋の夕ぐれ
| aware to wa nerau satsuo mo omouran oshika tsumadobu aki no yūgure | ‘How sad,’ The aiming hunter, too, Seems to think, as The stag searches for his mate On an autumn evening… |
Lay Priest Sanekiyo
40
The Left shows no technique from beginning to end, compounded by the fact that, while ‘although the stag does lie’ is a common expression in poetry, ‘bedchamber’ is something I am unaccustomed to hearing. As for the Right, ‘aiming hunter’ is distasteful to hear, but the poem is not bad overall, so it wins.
Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 19
Round Seven
Left (Tie)
草がくれ見えぬをしかも妻こふる声をばえこそ忍ばざりけれ
| kusagakure mienu oshika mo tsuma kouru koe oba e koso shinobazarikere | Hidden by the grasses, Unseen, the stag, too Longing for his mate, His bell, indeed, is unable To conceal! |
Lord Yorimasa
37
Right
秋の野の花のたもとに置く露や妻よぶしかの涙なるらむ
| aki no no no hana no tamoto ni oku tsuyu ya tsuma yobu shika no namida naruramu | In the autumn meadows, Upon the blossoms’ sleeves Are the fallen dewdrops The stag—calling for his mate— Letting tears fall? |
Narinaka
38
The Left is novel, and the Right charming, respectively. The Right’s poem does have a large number of identical syllables—while this is criticized in the Code of the Creation of Poetry as a ‘whole body fault’, it is not the case that poems containing this defect have not appeared in poetry matches from time to time, and I don’t feel it’s necessary to examine whether there are a large number of similar cases here: such things are simply a style of poetry.
Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 18
Round Six
Left
草枯のふしどさびしく成りゆけばしかこそ妻もこひしかるらめ
| kusakare no fushido sabishiku nariyukeba shika koso tsuma mo koishikarurame | Among the withered grasses He lies down, yet into lonely sadness Does he sink, so The stag his mate Seems to long for all the more… |
Suketaka
35
Right (Win)
さをしかの声しきるなりみよしののいさかた山に妻やこもれる
| saoshika no koe shikiru nari miyoshino no isakatayama ni tsuma ya komoreru | The stag’s Bell rends my heart— In fair Yoshino On Mount Isakata Is his mate secluded. |
Tōren
36
I don’t believe I have heard a prior instance of the Right’s ‘Isakata Mountain’, have I? In addition, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for its use here. In general, it’s preferable to compose using terms which are familiar. As for the Left’s poem, it sounds as if the stag only cares for his mate when the grasses are withered, but implying that grass only withers in the Ninth and Tenth Months is at variance with the actual period when it happens, isn’t it? Moreover, it is dubious to compose pivoting around the topic—and doing this has been stated to be undesirable in poetry matches. Indeed, I recall that in the Poetry Match at the Palace in the Fields, when someone composed pivoting on ‘maidenflower’, the judge criticized it, saying, ‘it is mangling the words of our land to compose in this manner.’ Thus, although the poem does have a freshness about it, the Right must win, I think.
Daikōtaigōgū no suke taira no tsunemori-ason ke uta’awase 15
Round Three
Left (Win)
たれよりも秋のあはれやまさるらん声にたてては鹿ぞ鳴くなる
| tare yori mo aki no aware ya masaruran koe ni tatete wa shika zo nakunaru | Who might it be that The sadness of autumn Strikes more keenly? Lifting up his voice, It is the stag crying out! |
Lord Yorisuke
29
Right
春夏はなにに心をなぐさめて秋のみ鹿の妻をこふらん
| haru natsu wa nani ni kokoro o nagusamete aki nomi shika no tsuma o kouran | Spring and summer, too, How do they the heart Console? ‘Tis in autumn, alone, the stag Seems to yearn for his mate. |
Kenshō
30
The Left charmingly sounds as if the scene it describes is entirely natural. The Right isn’t bad, but, I seem to recall that there was a poem in—I think it was the Poetry Match at Lord Aritsuna’s Residence—that has the phrase ‘In autumn, above all, / The stag seems to yearn for his mate’, so it would have better to refrain from the final two lines. The Left should win.
