蝸牛 そろそろ登れ 富士の山 katatsuburi sorosoro nobore fuji no yama issa 一茶 Snail ever so slowly climb Mt Fuji

Snail
ever so slowly climb
Mt Fuji

蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山 (katatsuburi sorosoro nobore fuji no yama): snail, slowly, slowly, climb Mount Fuji.

An order to a snail: climb the highest mountain in the country, slowly, slowly. On one reading, そろそろ is not a limit on the snail but its method: one step and then the next. Japanese books have read it as a lesson. A teachers' manual of 1908 set it under 登高自卑, climb high from low, just after another poet's verse about climbing Fuji step by step. A 1927 travel essay on the Fuji climb said to go at its pace. A Zen teacher wrote in 1934 that between one step and the next there is no distance. R. H. Blyth, who translated it, read it another way: if you are a snail, be a snail. Which of the two you hang on your wall is yours.

The English is Timothy L. Jackowski's, made for Takase Studios. In R. H. Blyth's English: O snail, / Climb Mount Fuji, / But slowly, slowly! (Haiku, vol. 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952, p. 250).

Though another way to look at the poem is that this is Kobayashi Issa simply encouraging his little friend to attempt the seemingly impossible.

Translation Notes:

蝸牛
そろそろ登れ
富士の山

1) 蝸牛 (katatsuburi) means "snail", though, in modern Japanese you will find this is read katatsumuri.

2) そろそろ (sorosoro) means "gradually; steadily; slowly; soon". This is used commonly in modern Japanese.

3) 登れ (nobore) is the imperative form "Climb!" of the verb 登る (noboru) meaning "to climb".

4) 富士の山 (fuji no yama) means Mt. Fuji. Mt. Fuji in Japanese is most commonly called 富士山 (fujisan).

Henderson writes, "The famous peak is known either as Fuji-no-yama (Fuji-mountain or Fuji-san Mt. Fuji). The western name Fuji-yama is unknown in Japan."

The verse is Issa's by his disciples' word: they printed it in 1829, two years after his death, in the collection of his verse made for his memorial, the earliest print known here; the editor who in 1925 dated his verses from two of his diaries gave it no year.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山.

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