池と川 ひとつになりぬ 春の雨 ike to kawa hitotsu ni narinu haru no ame buson 蕪村 In the spring rain The pond and the river Have become one

In the spring rain
The pond and the river
Have become one

池と川ひとつになりぬ春の雨 (ike to kawa hitotsu ni narinu haru no ame): the pond and the stream have become one; spring rain.

Yosa Buson's verse sets a large event under a small season word. A pond and a stream have run together and become one. In the summer rains that would be a flood. In the spring rain it is soft, a boundary that has melted away without force. Japanese readers have argued over how big the waters are, and the season word settles it: the rain is spring's, so the joining is gentle.

In the Japanese, ひとつになりぬ means have become one, and ぬ marks a thing quietly finished. The verse breaks there, and 春の雨, the spring rain, stands apart as the season. It is the soft, steady rain of spring, not the summer rain that floods rivers.

The English is R. H. Blyth's, from his Haiku of 1952.

The verse is Buson's, first printed in 1900 in Mizuochi Roseki 水落露石's 蕪村遺稿, a gathering from a manuscript of the verses his 1784 selection had left out; Stephen Addiss, following the 1992 Kōdansha complete works, dates it to 1782.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 池と川ひとつになりぬ春の雨.

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