I sent this in parting to a court lady who had served me closely, when she said she was going to a distant province.
山とほみ雲ゐにかりのこえていなば我のみひとりねにやなかなん
yama tōmi kumoi ni kari no koeteinaba ware nomi hitori ne ni ya nakanan
Distant the mountains, where Within the clouds, the geese Pass over—should you, too, then Will I, alone, simply Be left to sob out my cries?[i]
604
[i] See: 朝霞 蒙山乎 越而去者 吾波将恋奈 至于相日 asagasumi / tanabiku yama o / koete’inaba / are wa koimu na / awamu hi made ni ‘The morning haze / Trailed mountains / Should you pass beyond, then / Will I ever yearn for you / Until the day we meet once more…’ (Man’yōshū XII: 3188)
yama no ha ni hatsuka no tsuki no hatsuhatsu ni mishi bakari ni ya kaku wa koishiki
By the mountains’ edge The Twentieth’s moon Just for a moment Did I simply see, so how Am I so in love?
Lord Morikata 63
Right
恋すてふ皆人ごとにとひみばやいと我ばかりあらじとぞおもふ
koisu chō mina hito goto ni toimiba ya ito ware bakari araji to zo omou
Saying they are in love— To all those folk Would I enquire, for Surely, I, alone Do not endure such feelings?
Lord Nobutada 64
Toshiyori states: I may be mistaken, but I get the feeling the first poem resembles an earlier work, with only the ending changed somewhat. The second poem sounds stilted. They are of the same quality.
Mototoshi states: the poem of Left lacks originality, being based earlier poems from the emergence ‘the Twentieth’s moon’ at the beginning, then continuing with ‘for coarse cloth a bobbin turning’ and then finally ‘here at Isonokami, in the ancient’ at the end, yet this is more poetic than ‘To all those folk’, so this is still win for the Left.
mitinoku no sinobu modizuri tare yuFe ni midaremu to omoFu ware naranaku ni
Distant Michinoku’s Tangled fern-patterned garb: For whose sake might it be, that Secret passion leaves me so distraught? For it is not mine, I know, so…
