朝顔に 釣瓶とられて もらい水 asagao ni tsurube torarete moraimizu chiyojo 千代女 The morning glory has taken the well bucket, so I borrow water

朝顔に釣瓶とられてもらい水 (asagao ni tsurube torarete moraimizu): the morning glory has taken the well bucket, so I borrow water.

Word for word, the verse says: the well bucket taken by the morning glory, water from another house. The story told with it is that a vine had wound round the bucket's rope overnight. In that story, rather than tear the vine, the poet went to a neighbor for water.

The verse turns on とられて (torarete), taken, which makes a flower a thief. Its last word turns a moment of looking into an errand. A Japanese dictionary calls her manner intellectual, with a popular flavor.

The verse was on everyone's lips, and not everyone liked it. Masaoka Shiki called the device of the borrowed water vulgar and superfluous, and said the verse could not be called a haiku. A comic verse laughed at it: the next year, Chiyo planted the vine away from the well.

The two forms of the verse differ in one sound. With や (ya), the opening five syllables are cut off and exclaimed: morning glory! A memorial stone of 1811 has that form, as books report it. A novel by Natsume Sōseki, printed in 1907, joked with both. Eri brushes this verse with に (ni).

Basil Hall Chamberlain put the verse into English in 1888 with its story, and said he could not tell whether it happened. In 1951 Suzuki Daisetsu printed it with や and read it as a moment of speechless wonder.

Kaga no Chiyo (1703–1775), a haikai poet of Matsutō in Kaga; printed with に in 『千代尼句集』, the collection of her verse whose preface is dated the first spring of 1764, and already told with や in a book of talk about Bashō's school written down before 1747.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 朝顔に釣瓶とられてもらい水.

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