鐘消えて花の香は撞く夕べ哉 kane kiete hana no ka wa tsuku yūbe kana Bashō - As the temple bell fades, The ringing lingers in the blossom scent, Evening

Matsuo Bashō's verse moves a sound into a scent. The temple bell dies away, and then the scent of the blossoms strikes, the way a bell is struck. What fades and what strikes have traded places, and the evening holds both. The line can be hard to join, and some readers have heard a pun in it. Others hear the scent keep the bell ringing after the bell is still.

In the Japanese, 鐘消えて is the bell dying away, a sound fading out. 花の香は撞く is the scent of the blossoms strikes. 撞く, tsuku, is the verb for striking a temple bell. Written 衝く, the same word means to thrust or strike, and in the pun the scent strikes the nose. 夕べ哉 is the evening, with 哉 as the cutting word. Two of the hands end on かな for 哉, and one also writes 消えて and 撞く in kana, as きえて and つく.

The English is Timothy L. Jackowski's, made for Takase Studios.

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