They spoke no words. The visitor, the host, And the white chrysanthemum.^[1] mono iwazu kyaku to teishu to shiragiku to ものいはず 客と亭主と 白菊と ryōta 蓼太

Ōshima Ryōta's verse is a visit where three share a silence. The white chrysanthemum is one of the company, and it says nothing, like the guest and the host. In our reading, with a flower as the third, the silence is a comfortable one.

In the Japanese, the verse has one verb, and it is a negative: ものいはず, saying nothing. The small word と, which means and, comes three times, so the guest, the host and the white chrysanthemum make one list. The flower, 白菊, marks the season as autumn. Some designs spell a word another way, writing 言はず with the kanji 言, or the flower's name in kana, しらぎく. The words are the same.

One can imagine this as a setting for a tea ceremony - the host and the guest appreciate the white chrysanthemums in its place of honor.

Calligraphy Notes:

1) Students of Japanese know that when the hiragana は (ha) is used as a grammatical particle it is read "wa". So, for example, the sentence これはペンです is read "kore wa pen desu" and not "kore ha pen desu".

Prior to hiragana being codified in modern times, the hiragana は was also used in words to represent the sound "wa". In these designs, we use the convention at the time of the poet so instead of the modern いわず (iwazu), we use the now archaic いはず (iwazu). And to emphasize, the reading is the same, only the characters are different.

Translation Notes:

ものいはず
客と亭主と
白菊と

1) もの (mono) - meaning "things; something; anything; everything; nothing;".

2) いはず (iwazu) - not spoken. Negative of the verb 言う (iu) meaning "to say; to speak"

ものいはず thus becomes "nothing was spoken".

3) 客 (kyaku) - meaning "visitor; guest".

4) と (to) - meaning "and".

5) 亭主 (teishu) - meaning "master; lord; host".

6) と (to) - see (4) above.

7) 白菊 (shiragiku) - meaning "white chrysanthemum".

8) と (to) - see (4) above.

References:

[1] After R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1 (Hokuseido Press, 1949), p. 192.

The verse is Ōshima Ryōta's. Its earliest witness read here is the first part of his own collection, 蓼太句集 (Ryōta kushū), published in Edo in his lifetime with an afterword dated the autumn of 1769, where it stands among the chrysanthemum verses of the autumn book.