塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風 tsuka mo ugoke waga naku koe wa aki no kaze Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind

Grave-mound, move too: my weeping voice is the autumn wind.

塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風 (tsuka mo ugoke waga naku koe wa aki no kaze): grave-mound, move too: my weeping voice is the autumn wind. 塚 is the burial mound and も makes it too, so the mound is to be shaken along with everyone at the graveside; 動け is the command, move; 我が泣く聲 is my weeping voice; 秋の風, the autumn wind, is the season word. The voice does not resemble the wind. It is the wind, and the wind is told to move the mound. The poet it mourns, Kosugi Isshō, was a tea dealer and the most prolific poet in Kaga, dead the winter before at thirty-six. The two had never met; Isshō had hoped to, and Bashō arrived to find him gone. On one of the designs Master Takase brushes うごけ and わが in kana; the words are the same. The English follows Asatarō Miyamori's, from his Anthology of Haiku of 1932.

Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind (塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風) in Cursive style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind 塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風 tsuka mo ugoke waga naku koe wa aki no kaze Vertical Cursive VC6B

Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind (塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風) in Design style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind 塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風 tsuka mo ugoke waga naku koe wa aki no kaze Vertical Design VD6B

Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind 塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風 tsuka mo ugoke waga naku koe wa aki no kaze Vertical Design VD6C

Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind (塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風) in Semi-Cursive style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind 塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風 tsuka mo ugoke waga naku koe wa aki no kaze Vertical Semi-Cursive VS6C

Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind 塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風 tsuka mo ugoke waga naku koe wa aki no kaze Vertical Semi-Cursive VS6D

More about 塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風

The verse was composed by Bashō at the memorial for the poet 一笑 in Kanazawa, on the twenty-second day of the seventh month of Genroku 2 (5 September 1689), printed first in 1691 in the memorial anthology 西の雲 and in 其角's 雑談集, and recorded in his own travel book おくのほそ道.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 塚も動け我が泣聲は秋の風.

About the Designs

Each design is Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's hand-brushed calligraphy of the word or phrase on this page, delivered as a PDF you can print. Every PDF includes the line art, so a tattoo artist or a craftsperson can work from the outline as well as the brushed image.

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Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind (tsuka mo ugoke waga naku koe wa aki no kaze)

Haiku by Bashō on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Bashō - Shake even the grave, My wailing is the autumn wind as a hand-brushed scroll

Master Takase personally brushes your scroll when you order, and it bears her red seal and her signature. The scroll has real silk borders and layered Japanese paper, so it hangs straight, and it arrives ready to display.