Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding in Japanese Calligraphy

鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding

Hatchet raised, about to cut, and there, the buds.

Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding	nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana	鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな
Shiki	shiki	子規

Translation by R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume Four: Autumn-Winter (1952), Preface, page vii.

鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな (nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana): hatchet raised, about to cut, and there, the buds. 鉈 is the woodsman's short heavy blade; あげてきらんとすれば is raised it and was about to cut, when, the turn inside すれば that carries a discovery; 木の芽, konome, is the tree's buds, the spring season word; かな closes on the buds and holds the arrest. It is the buds that stop the hand. In the preface to his last volume, Blyth found in it the haiku poet's tenderness of mind, shown, he said, almost too distinctly. A small verse of a young man's spring: the cut is coming, the buds are seen only now, and the verse is the stop.

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding (鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな) in Block style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding 鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana Vertical Block VB5C

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding (鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな) in Cursive style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding 鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana Vertical Cursive VC6B

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding (鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな) in Design style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding 鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana Vertical Design VD5B

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding (鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな) in Semi-Cursive style Japanese calligraphy by Eri Takase

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding 鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana Vertical Semi-Cursive VS5C

Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding 鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana Horizontal Semi-Cursive HS6A

More about 鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな

Shiki entered the verse among his verses of 1893 in 寒山落木, the manuscript collection of his own haiku, and it was first printed in 1924, in the first volume of his collected works.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 鉈あげてきらんとすれば木の芽かな.

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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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Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding (nata agete kiran to sureba konome kana)

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

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Shiki - Lifting up the hatchet, To cut it down, It was budding 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.