Tag Archives: ukikusa

Kanpyō no ōntoki chūgū uta’awase 12

Round Twelve

Left

冬の夜の月はとほくやわたりけんかげみしみづのまづしこほれば

fuyu no yo no
tsuki wa tōku ya
watariken
kage mishi mizu no
mazu shi kōreba
On a winter’s night
Does the moon distantly
Pass by? For
The waters where I saw its face
Are the first to freeze…

22

Right

ながれくるみづこほりぬる冬さへやなほうき草のあとはさだめぬ

nagarekuru
mizu kōrinuru
fuyu sae ya
nao ukikusa no
ato wa sadamenu
Flowing down
The waters have frozen
With the winter, so will
The drifting waterweed still
Leave little trace?

23

Spring III: 23

Left (Win).

雨そゝく池の浮草風こえて浪と露とにかはづ鳴くなり

ame sosoku
ike no ukikusa
kaze koete
nami to tsuyu to ni
kawazu nakunari
Rain drifts down
Upon the duckweed in the pond,
Driven by the wind
Among wavelets and dewfall
The frogs are calling.

A Servant Girl.

165

Right.

庭の面はひとつに見ゆる浮草をこゝぞ汀とかはづ鳴なり

niwa no omo wa
hitotsu ni miyuru
ukikusa o
koko zo migiwa to
kawazu nakunari
The garden’s face
Seems as one
With the duckweed;
‘Here lies the water’s edge,’
The frogs are calling…

Jakuren.

166

Neither Right nor Left has any particular remarks to make about the other’s poem this round.

Shunzei says, ‘Both poems are splendid in form, but the Left’s ‘among the wavelets and dewfall’ (nami to tsuyu to ni) is particularly pleasing. It must win.