蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山 katatsuburi sorosoro nobore fuji no yama Issa - Snail, ever so slowly climb, Mt Fuji

An order to a snail: climb the highest mountain in the country, slowly, slowly. On one reading, そろそろ is not a limit on the snail but its method: one step and then the next. Japanese books have read it as a lesson. A teachers' manual of 1908 set it under 登高自卑, climb high from low, just after another poet's verse about climbing Fuji step by step. A 1927 travel essay on the Fuji climb said to go at its pace. A Zen teacher wrote in 1934 that between one step and the next there is no distance. R. H. Blyth, who translated it, read it another way: if you are a snail, be a snail. Which of the two you take is yours.

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

Note that in most haiku books "snail" has the romaji katatsuburi. The modern Japanese word for "snail" is katatsumuri. These designs all use the kanji so the different readings do not change the calligraphy. In R. H. Blyth's English: O snail, / Climb Mount Fuji, / But slowly, slowly! (Haiku, vol. 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952, p. 250).

The verse is Issa's by his disciples' word: they printed it in 1829, two years after his death, in the collection of his verse made for his memorial, the earliest print known here; the editor who in 1925 dated his verses from two of his diaries gave it no year.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山.

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