目には青葉 山ほととぎす 初鰹 me ni wa aoba yama hototogisu hatsugatsuo sodō 素堂 Green leaves for the eye, the mountain cuckoo, the first bonito

目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹 (me ni wa aoba yama hototogisu hatsugatsuo): green leaves for the eye, the mountain cuckoo, the first bonito.

Word for word: for the eye, green leaves; a mountain cuckoo; the first bonito. Three things of early summer, and no verb. A Japanese dictionary says that in Edo especially, people took pride in eating the first bonito.

The verse names the eye and leaves the ear and the mouth unnamed: the cuckoo is heard, and the bonito is eaten. A treatise of 1764 printed it as 眼に青葉, without は (wa), and said those five syllables hold all three senses. With は, the opening part runs one syllable past the measure of five.

In a verse contest of Sodō's own, printed after his death, the verse sits under the headnote when I went to see Kamakura. The judgment there asks whether, once green leaves for the eye is said, the ear and the mouth come through of themselves. It closes: all the scenery of Kamakura goes no further than this.

In the Edo period, Haruo Shirane writes, bonito were caught at Kamakura or Odawara and reached Edo by night. Makoto Ueda says an Edo comic verse alludes to Sodō's verse, and gives the comic verse in English as it costs nothing / for the eye and ear, but a lot / for the mouth.

Sodō knew Bashō, and published a collection with him in 1676. Harold G. Henderson called the verse Sodō's trinity of early summer in 1934. R. H. Blyth wrote in 1963 that he disliked it for its greediness.

Yamaguchi Sodō (1642–1716), a haikai poet of Kai who lived in Edo; printed in 1678 in 『江戸新道』, an anthology compiled by Ikenishi Gonsui, under 來雪, another of Sodō's names, Raisetsu, as 目にハ青葉山郭公初鰹.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹.

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