In the moonlight, the color and scent of the wisteria, seems so far away tsuki ni tōku oboyuru fuji no iroka kana 月に遠く おぼゆる藤の 色香かな buson 蕪村

月に遠く is far from the moon, or far, under the moon, and the verse turns on which; おぼゆる is the classical seems, is felt to be, the only verb in it; 藤 is wisteria, the late-spring season word, and 色香 is one word for its color and scent together; かな closes it. In 1903 three men of Shiki's circle read Yosa Buson's verse together and argued what the distance is: Meisetsu drew a triangle of moon, wisteria and poet; Hekigotō said the geometry is beside the point and the verse praises the hour; Kyoshi said the color is blurred in moonlight and seems far, and that the scent only seems far because the rhythm carries the word along. Meisetsu said at the meeting that were the moon bright, the flowers would seem near, and because it is faint, they seem far; Reiyoshi repeated it in 1921. Our reading follows them: the verse praises the dimness. Blyth translated it twice and took each side once. The English is Timothy L. Jackowski's, made for Takase Studios.

The verse is Buson's, one of the hokku he brought to the verse-writing sessions of his circle in 1780, and it was first printed in 1800 in the anthology 新五子稿.