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, and here is how. The how is the whole of the verse. そろそろ, slowly, slowly, is not a limit on the snail but its method: one step and then the next. The mountain is reached that way or not at all. In Japan it has been read as a lesson. The schoolbooks set it beside a companion line, one step at a time and you are at the summit, to teach perseverance. Walkers on the Fuji trail quoted it as advice on pace. R. H. Blyth, who translated it, read it another way: the snail is told to be a snail and to climb as a snail climbs. Which of the two 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.

The verse is Issa's, first printed in 1829 in the collection of his verse that his disciples published two years after his death; the editor who in 1925 dated his verses from his diaries found no year for it.

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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