Semi-Cursive · gyōsho 行書 · VS5C
Semi-Cursive or gyōsho (行書) styles are a simplified and softer form of the kaisho styles. Gyōsho styles can be read by most Japanese.
How admirable, to see lightning, and not think life is fleeting[1] inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo 稲妻に さとらぬ人の 貴さよ bashō 芭蕉
Bashō admires the person who sees lightning and does not mistake the flash for enlightenment.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
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Your scroll arrives boxed, with a printed insert describing the haiku in detail.
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Ships in 1-3 days from Washington State
Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days.
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Every order is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If your scroll arrives damaged, or we made an error, we replace it or refund you in full, including shipping.
Explanation
Bashō set this verse down in the autumn of 1690, in a letter from Lake Biwa to a disciple in Edo, under a learned monk's warning against half-raw Zen. Bashō's modern English editors read the letter as faulting his students by the lake for complacent verse and loose lives.
Lightning is one of Buddhism's stock pictures of how quickly everything passes. In our reading, the verse turns the monk's warning on those students: someone half-way along in Zen sees the flash, feels a small thrill of insight, and calls the thrill awakening, and Bashō admires the person who sees the same flash and does not take it for awakening. It is a verse about not flattering yourself, aimed at people he loved.
[1] The English above is Robert Hass's, from 1994, one of the renderings our study sets side by side; word for word, the verse says lightning, and a person it does not enlighten: how admirable.
Learn More About This Haiku
We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ.
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