yamagatsu no kakio ni sakeru nadeshiko no hana no kokoro o shiru hito no nasa
By the woodcutter’s Lattice fence has bloomed A pink— A flower’s heart: There’s no one can understand!
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[i] Topic unknown. あなこひし今も見てしか山がつのかきほにさける山となでしこ ana koishi / ima mo miteshika / yamagatsu no / kakio ni sakeru / yamato nadeshiko ‘O, how sweet! / And how I long to see / The woodcutter’s / Lattice fence, where blooms / My darling Yamato pink!’ Anonymous (KKS XIV: 695)
Left and Right together state: we find no faults to mention.
In judgement: For the Left, I wonder how long a ‘brief love’ (shibashi no koi) lasts? For one’s sleeves to have rotted, surely a certain amount of time must have passed, but in configuration the poem is certainly elegant. The Right’s woodcutter (yamabito) sounds like he is saying rather too much about himself. The Left should win.
