...both spring showers and summer ones, too, are not things which fall constantly, so it is difficult to believe that they could fall ‘even beneath’. So, I have to determine that a shower dyeing the treetops is a little better.

Mototoshi states: saying ‘Waterfowl fly above / Aoba Mountain’ is extremely hackneyed, yet the poem of the Right has ‘Clouds rake in above / The fisher’s tiny boat— / Through its rush-woven roof’...

Toshiyori states: Continuing on from ‘Waterfowl fly above / Aoba Mountain’ with ‘the treetops dyed’ is simple and straightforward. The latter poem’s emphasis on the fisher’s tiny boat is an unexpected expression, yet because it is not a fault, I make this poem the winner.

Right (T – Win)

かきくもり蜑の小ぶねにふく苫の下とほるまで時雨れしにけり

Clouds rake in above
The fisher’s tiny boat—
Through its rush-woven roof
And even beneath
A shower has fallen.

Lord Michitsune
Naidaijin-ke uta'awase 8

Mototoshi states: one really wants to know what sort of lack there is. The poem says ‘soaked, something scented’, but doesn’t reference an earlier work which, for example, mentions plum blossom. Still, I feel that ‘Sounding among the showers / On this deep mountain’ is conspicuously good.

This is a bit unreasonable, but because it’s difficult to avoid the faults of its earlier model, I still feel it should lose.

The second poem appears to have replicated all the faults of an earlier work. While one can certainly say ‘Oak leaves / Scattered and spread’, saying ‘Scattered and spread / Oak leaves’ gives one the feeling that something is out of sequence.

If the garment is white, then it’s difficult to say that it changes colours, while if one is lacking in passion, it’s also difficult to see the connection with an umbrella of sleeves being scented. In general, though, the poem’s style is lacking in fault.

Toshiyori states: the first poem has ‘my colourless’—does this mean that the garment the poet is wearing is white? Or that the speaker is lacking in passion?

Right (M – Win)

冬くれば散りしく庭のならの葉に時雨音なふみ山べのさと

When the winter comes
Scattered and spread across the grounds
Are oak leaves,
Sounding among the showers
On this deep mountain estate…

Lord Masakane
Naidaijin-ke uta'awase 6

Mototoshi states: ‘the shower I shelter / Beneath my sleeves’ is better than ‘Happy am I!’

Both poems sound vague, so they should tie.

The second poem can be read as meaning that the speaker is happily being soaked by raindrops standing beneath scarlet leaves on one particular day, but getting drenched by any old shower, even if it’s one which stains leaves scarlet is not something that would make one happy and, sounds tedious.

Toshiyori states: The first poem’s section on ‘the umbrella of the dwarf-bamboo groves of Ina’ is well expressed, but then is ‘shower I shelter’ referring to clothing?

Right

ぬるれども嬉しくもあるか紅葉ばの色増す雨の雫とおもへば

Soaked, yet
Happy am I!
For the scarlet leaves
Take on brighter hues with these rain
Drops, I feel…

Lord Akikuni
Naidaijin-ke uta'awase 4

Mototoshi states: I feel that ‘With that of leaves and / Falling showers!’ is a moving and charming conception, but find it impossible to understand why Urago Mountain should ‘show such a thing’ in the poem of the Right! I have to say that the Left is superior.

Nevertheless, the assembled company have stated that ‘Urago Mountain’ feels unpoetic as a piece of diction, and thus I make the Left the winner.

Toshiyori states: While the conception and diction of the first poem are not that unusual, it appears to have no errors to indicate. The second poem’s choice of diction—using ‘show such a thing’—is vague: I wonder if when composing about this mountain that’s what one does?

Right

おぼつかないかにしぐるる空なればうらごの山のかたみなせなる

How puzzling it is!
What sort of shower
From the skies is it that
Makes Urago Mountain
Show such a thing?

Lord Toshiyori
Naidaijin-ke uta'awase 2