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荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河 araumi ya sado ni yokotau amanogawa Bashō - A rough sea: lying toward Sado, the Milky Way

荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河 (araumi ya sado ni yokotau amanogawa) is Bashō's verse from the coast of Echigo, in 1689. His companion's diary records heavy rain that night. Its verb is irregular, and in 1932 a commentator printed his late father's reading: nature itself lays the River of Heaven toward Sado.

Japanese Scroll of Bashō - A rough sea: lying toward Sado, the Milky Way (araumi ya sado ni yokotau amanogawa) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Bashō - A rough sea: lying toward Sado, the Milky Way荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河araumi ya sado ni yokotau amanogawa

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河, a rough sea: lying toward Sado, the Milky Way, is the hokku Matsuo Bashō 松尾芭蕉 set on the coast of Echigo in his travel journal, 『おくのほそ道』, from the journey of 1689 [1][2]. The first print, of 1702, writes the last word 天河, with no の; his scribe Soryū's other copy writes 天川, the 1706 print of his prose preface あまの川, and later books 天の河 and 天の川, all one word, amanogawa [1][3][4][5][6]. His companion Sora's diary, as two commentaries give it, puts him at 出雲崎 on the fourth day of the seventh month, with heavy rain in the night, and the commentators have argued since about where and on which night the verse was made, and whether its scene was seen [7][8][9][10][11]. Its verb, よこたふ, is irregular; in 1932 服部畊石 recorded, and declined, his late father's reading that nature itself lays the River down over Sado, the reading Haruo Shirane gives in English in 1998 [6][12]; I read the River as lying, as the dictionaries enter the verb, toward an island of exiles on the eve of Tanabata.

Overview

The text. The verse as brushed here, 荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河, keeps the spelling of the first print of 『おくのほそ道』, published in Kyoto in 1702 by 井筒屋庄兵衛, and of a reproduction of that print made in 1932 [1][13][2]. In both, the verse is the column after 文月や六日も常の夜には似ず, and its last character is 河, written in cursive: the water radical at the left and a looped 可 at the right, with nothing between 天 and 河 [1][13]. The same hand writes the 河 of 曾良は河合氏 the same way, earlier in the print [1]. Two manuscripts in Soryū's 素竜 hand survive, the fair copy and a second copy, the 柿衛本 [2]. 岡田利兵衞's transcription of the 柿衛本, printed in 1960 beside the fair copy's readings, gives the 柿衛本's verse as 荒海や佐渡によこたふ天川, and the fair copy's as ending 天河 [3]. 精選版 日本国語大辞典 quotes the verse in the print's form, 荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河, under 天の川 [14].

The sense. 荒海 is a rough sea: デジタル大辞泉 defines it 波が立って荒れている海, a sea with its waves up, running rough [15]. や is the cutting word: the line stops on the sea. 佐渡 is the island of Sado, out in the Sea of Japan; ニッポニカ says that in the middle ages it was 遠流の島, an island of distant exile, to which the retired emperor 順徳 and the monk 日蓮 were sent, and that in the Edo period its gold mine flourished [16]. Bashō's prose puts it eighteen ri off 出雲崎, the harbor on the Echigo coast from which, 世界大百科事典 says, the crossing to Sado was made and the island's gold was landed [4][17]. よこたふ is to lie across: 大辞泉 enters it as a verb of the 四段 conjugation, 横になっている。横たわる, to be lying sideways; to lie, with this verse as its example [18]. 天河, read あまのがわ, is the Milky Way: 日国 calls 天の川 銀河を、天空の川に見たてた呼び名, a name that sees the galaxy as a river in the sky, ties it to the Tanabata legend, and marks it a season word for autumn; 大辞泉 and 日国 also enter 天河 itself, read てんが, as あまのがわ, 銀河 [14][2][19]. So the line says: a rough sea; lying toward Sado, the Milky Way.

The words. 天河, 天川, 天の河 and 天の川 are four spellings of one word, あまのがわ. 日国's headword is あま‐の‐がわ【天川・天河】, and its first example is from the 万葉集; 世界大百科事典, in its entry for 天の川, says that the 万葉集's Tanabata poems write 天河 and 天漢, and that the dictionary 和名抄 gives 天河，天漢，銀河，阿万之加八, mainly passing on the Chinese names [14]. The verb is the harder word. 日国 enters 横たふ twice: first, intransitive, of the 四段 conjugation, to be lying, first found in a 狂言 line, 山上旅鴈は七めによこたふ, and then in this verse; second, transitive, of the 下二段 conjugation, to lay down. Its note on the word's history: 「〔二〕 の下二段活用の他動詞がこの語の普通の用法であり、これに対する自動詞形としては四段活用の「横たわる」が存在する。従って 〔一〕 の自動詞的用法は、かなり特殊で」 (the dictionary's section marks set here in 〔〕), the transitive is the ordinary use, and the intransitive form is 横たわる, so the intransitive use is quite unusual [18]. So Bashō did not coin it, but he chose the rare form.

The text in English. The earliest known English rendering, on the house's shelf, is Basil Hall Chamberlain's of 1902: A rough sea, and the Milky Way / Stretching across to Sado's isle [20]. The renderings since differ chiefly in two places: what the River does (stretching, lies, flowing, spans, unfurling), and what it is called (the Milky Way, the Galaxy, the River of Heaven). They are taken in order below.

The historical record

1689. The night. In the journal, Bashō leaves 酒田 for the northern road, the 北陸道, with 加賀 still far off; from the barrier of 鼠の関 to 市振, he writes, 此間九日、暑湿の労に神をなやまし、病おこりて事をしるさず, for these nine days, the heat and damp wore on my spirit; I fell ill and recorded nothing. Then come two verses with no prose between them: 文月や六日も常の夜には似ず, the seventh month: even the sixth is not like other nights, the eve of Tanabata, and this one [1]. Sora's 曾良 diary gives the days. 潁原退蔵, in 1944, sets them out from it: on the fourth day of the seventh month the two came from 寺泊 to 出雲崎 and stayed the night; the fifth, 鉢崎; the sixth and seventh, 今町, that is 直江津 [7]. 志田義秀's commentary on the journal, printed in 1948, two years after his death, quotes the diary's weather: the fourth was 快晴, clear, but at 出雲崎, 「夜中雨強く降る。」, in the night, heavy rain; 「五日、朝まで雨降る。」, the fifth, rain until morning; on the sixth it rained from the afternoon; on the seventh 「晝少々の内雨止」, in the day the rain stopped for a little, and 「夜中風雨甚し。」, in the night, a fierce storm [8]. The diary was not read for this history; the earliest dated reproduction in the 国書データベース's list of its editions is of 1943 [21]. Makoto Ueda gives the night at 出雲崎 as August 18 [22].

The prefaces. Bashō wrote prose for the verse more than once, and the versions do not agree. The 1948 commentary sets them out, from the shortest to the longest [8]. The shortest, in 『雪丸げ』, which 志田 in 1941 calls a collection Sora left, 曾良遺稿の『雪丸げ』, is the one the 1932 reproduction's editor quotes in his headnote: 越後國出雲崎といふ所より佐渡が島へ海上十八里となり、初秋の薄霧立もあへず、さすがに浪も高からざればたゞ手の上の如く見渡されて, from a place called 出雲崎 in Echigo it is eighteen ri over the sea to the island of Sado; the thin mists of early autumn had not yet risen, and the waves were not, after all, high, so that it could be seen across as if in the palm of the hand [9][13]. The preface in 正興's 『柴橋』, printed in 1702, as 服部畊石 quotes it in 1932, moves to the island's past and to a date: 昔よりこの嶋は黄金多く涌き出て、世にめでたき嶋にて侍るを、重罪朝敵の人々の遠流の地にておそろしき名に立てり。折ふし初秋七日の夜、宵月入果て、波の音とう／＼と物凄かりければ, from of old this island has given up much gold and been a blessed island to the world, but as a place where criminals and enemies of the court are sent into distant exile it bears a fearful name. It was then the night of the seventh of early autumn; the evening moon had set, and the sound of the waves was booming and dreadful [6][9]. 嵐雪's anthology 『其袋』, printed in 1690, as 志田 sets it in 1941, gives the verse after 文月や under one heading, 北國何トヤラいふ崎にとまりて、所の夷もおし入て、句をのぞみけるに, staying at some cape or other in the north country, where even the local rustics pressed in and asked for a verse, and then その夜北の海原にむかひて, that night, facing the northern sea: あらうみや佐渡に横ふ天川 [9]. 潁原, in 1947, adds the short prefaces: いづもざきにて in 『勧進牒』, 出雲ざきにて in 『泊船集』, and 七夕, Tanabata, in Sora's notebook of the journey's verses, the 書留 [23].

The longest is 「銀河ノ序」, preface on the River of Heaven, printed in 1706 in 許六's 『本朝文選』, among its 序, prefaces, under Bashō's name [4][24]. In the 竹冷 copy of that print it reads: 北陸道に行脚して。越後国出雲崎といふ所に泊る。彼佐渡がしまは海の面十八里。滄波を隔て。東西三十五里によこおりふしたり, walking the northern road, I stayed at a place called 出雲崎 in Echigo. That island of Sado lies stretched out across the sea, eighteen ri off over the blue waves, thirty-five ri from east to west; then the gold and the exiles, and 窓押開きて。暫時の旅愁をいたはらむとするほど。日既に海に沈で。月ほのくらく。銀河半天にかゝりて。星きらきらと冴たるに。沖のかたより波の音しばしばはこびて。たましゐけづるがごとく。腸ちぎれて。そゞろにかなしび来れば, I opened the window to ease a while the sorrow of travel; the sun had already sunk into the sea, the moon was dim, the River of Heaven hung across half the sky, the stars glittered clear, and from the open sea the sound of the waves came again and again, as if paring away the soul, tearing the entrails, and sorrow came on me unbidden; and it ends あら海や佐渡に横たふあまの川 [4]. A second copy of the 1706 print, from the same block, reads the same [25].

1694 to 1702. The manuscripts and the print. Soryū's fair copy was finished in the early summer of 1694; Bashō left it to 去来 by his will, and the 西村 family of Tsuruga has it now. Soryū's second copy is the 柿衛本, and Sora's copy of the draft the 曾良本. The book was printed in Kyoto in 1702 by 井筒屋庄兵衛 [2]. In the print, and in the fair copy as 岡田 transcribes it, the verse ends 天河; in the 柿衛本, 天川 [1][3].

The spellings of the River. From the witnesses read for this history, in order:

The same scholar writes the spelling of the witness he is setting: 潁原 is the clearest case. None of these is a different word.

The order of the two verses. 文月や is the eve of Tanabata, the sixth, and by the diary Bashō spent the sixth at 直江津, two stops on from 出雲崎, where he had been on the fourth [7]. So the journal sets 荒海や after a verse of the sixth, though the diary has Bashō at 出雲崎 on the fourth. 服部畊石, in 1932, said so: 出雲崎での此句は地理的に見て其前でなければならぬ, this verse, made at 出雲崎, must on the map come before it; the journal, he thought, ignored the order because both verses fell in the nine days of illness. The 柴橋 preface's seventh he called a later hand's addition, 天の川の季語に拘泥した後人の加筆, added by someone after, held fast by the season word 天の川, since it would have Bashō walk back ten ri and more from 直江津; and 其袋's that night he called an error [6]. 潁原, in 1944, read the same date the other way: 詞書に七日としたのは句の天の川を生かす爲であらう, the preface says the seventh, I think, to bring the verse's River of Heaven to life: the poet's own choice [7]. 志田, in 1941, also took the seventh as the poet's, but as a whim of the moment when he wrote the preface out for someone, 芭蕉が誰かへ書き送つた時の氣まぐれの作爲の附加, and so as no evidence of the date; and he set its booming waves against 『雪丸げ』's, 流石に波も高からざれば, the waves were not, after all, high [9]. 蝶夢 had already set the verse before 文月や in 1774 [5].

The two books under 志田義秀's name read it differently. In 1941 he gave a chapter to 「荒海」・「文月」二句の逆置, the reversed order of the two verses. That 荒海や was made at 出雲崎 and 文月や at 直江津 was, he wrote, 史料的文獻的に決定的, settled by the records and the texts; the reversal began in 『其袋』, as Bashō's report to 嵐雪, and he called it 眞實の事實に虛構的作爲を施したもの, a contrivance laid over the true facts, though of the creative kind, 創作的要求からのもの, to be told apart from 世俗的行爲に於ける虛僞, a lie in worldly dealings: 文月や simply stands better first. The journal, he argued, kept the reversed order and gave the two verses no prose at all [9]. The 1948 commentary was printed after his death, in January 1946 [28]; a preface signed only 編者, the editor, and dated August 1947, says it was put together as the first step of a project he left, and that after he helped publish the diary's new material he had taken up the question of setting the journal against it, その資料との對決といふ問題を取り上げて, and was waiting for it to ripen [29]. With the diary's weather in hand, the commentary reads that the order cannot be fixed as reversed: 『奧の細道』にあつては、兩句の關係が逆に置かれたものとも定められないのであつて、その順序のまゝに「荒ら海や」の句を「七夕」の「天の河」を句にしたものと解すべきである, in the journal the two verses cannot be fixed as set in reverse; the verse should be read, in that order, as the 天の河 of the notebook's 「七夕」 made into a verse, while allowing, 天氣から考へると, from the weather, that 出雲崎での印象に基づく可能性は十分にあり得る, it may very well rest on an impression at 出雲崎 [8]. Whether these pages are 志田's own last word or the editor's, the book does not say.

Seen, or made. The question under the order is whether the River over the sea was a sight. 河東碧梧桐, in 1903, before the diary was in print, took the verse as a scene from life: 天の川も多く南北に横つて居るもので、「佐渡に横たふ」といふのも架空でない, the Milky Way mostly lies north and south, and "lying toward Sado" is not invented. He gave the night as Tanabata's: この句もたま〳〵文月七日の七夕の夜に出來たので, this verse too happened to be made on the night of Tanabata, the seventh of the seventh month. And he made a larger claim for it: before Bashō, 天の川 called up the weaver girl of Tanabata, 空想的に, in fancy, rather than the shape in the sky; this verse, he wrote, was where it began to mean the great white river itself, though Bashō had not set out to do so [10]. 勝峯晋風, in 1947, answered an objector he does not name: 天の河は佐渡へは跨らないから、この句は虚誕であると云つて否定する者があるのです, there are some who reject the verse as false, because the Milky Way does not span Sado. 或はさうかも知れません, perhaps so, he wrote; but the verb is 佐渡に對して, toward Sado, so 併行線としても、反對側に見えても一向構ひませんでせう, it does not matter at all if it runs parallel, or appears on the far side [30]. A commentary of 1958 reads the night as dark: 佐渡は見えない。が、天の河が横たはつてゐるあたりが佐渡が島であらう, Sado cannot be seen; but where the Milky Way lies must be the island [31]. The 1948 commentary sets the rain beside the verse and still allows an impression at 出雲崎 [8]. 小島吉雄, in two articles of 1949 and 1950, drew the other conclusion. By Sora's diary, he wrote, it rained at 出雲崎 from nightfall through the night, and rained on until 高田; 荻原井泉水 had written that at 出雲崎 the River does not run toward Sado until the middle of the night, and by then it was raining. So 芭蕉は實際には天の川の佐渡へ流れたのを見てゐない, Bashō did not in fact see the River run toward Sado, and perhaps did not see it at all that night, and 「荒海や」の句は、つまりは、事實に即しない、想像の句なのである, the verse is, in the end, not true to the fact: an imagined verse. He added, in parentheses, that some say the River never lies toward Sado from 出雲崎 at all, and named nobody [11]. He read the verse as made between 直江津 and 高田, where Sora's notebook writes it under 「七夕」, its conception still from 出雲崎 with Sado before Bashō's eyes, and the journal's order as the order in which the verses were made, not a reversal. Whether the River really lay toward Sado, he wrote, 彼にとつて問題ではなかつた, was no matter to him: 芭蕉は天の川を通じて彼の感傷を佐渡へ投影してゐる, through the River, Bashō casts his sorrow onto Sado [11][32]. 和田徳一 wrote in 1952 that speaking of the journal's fictions had become 曾良の隨行日記刊行後の一つの流行, a fashion since Sora's diary was published, some of it going much too far. That Bashō was moved at 出雲崎 is as the 「銀河序」 says, he wrote, though that does not prove the verse was made there; he read it as finished on the fourth day, at 直江津 on Tanabata, from what was felt at 出雲崎, and, wherever it is placed, as 眞實の作, a true work, the journal's Echigo pages written 追想による眞實性に立脚して, on the truth of recollection [33].

The verb. Every commentator read for this history who discusses the verb calls よこたふ irregular, where 横たはる, to lie, would be regular, and says Bashō kept it for its force. 樋口功, in 1925: 「横たふ」と強くいつた所に千鈞の力が加はつてゐる, in saying it strongly, 横たふ, a thousandweight of power is added [34]. 大藪虎亮, in 1926: 横たふは普通ならば横たはると云ふべきであらうが、斯くては句調が弛んでしまふ。傑れた詩は往々形式を超越する, ordinarily one would say 横たはる, but then the verse would go slack; great poetry often goes beyond the rules [35]. 服部畊石, in 1932, gave the grammar its full weight: 「横たふ」は他動詞で、それを横たへる何者かがなけれでならぬ, 横たふ is transitive, and there must be something that lays it down; 横たはる would be correct but slack, and Bashō took the irregular form for the poem's sake, 無意識ながら自然に, without meaning to, naturally. Then he set down his late father's reading: 亡父耕兩居士は、神卽ち一大自然が、天の川を佐渡へ横たふたので、文法上破綻なき作として常に自分に語つて居つた, my late father 耕兩 always told me that God, that is, great Nature, laid the River of Heaven toward Sado, so that the verse is without a fault of grammar; 服部 doubted Bashō thought so far and did not follow it, but recorded it, since 文法に破綻なく解せんとならば、さう見るより外はない, if the grammar is to be read without a fault, there is no other way to see it [6]. 勝峯, in 1947, called the verb 平安朝文法には破格な, irregular by the grammar of the Heian court, and its force great [30].

The reading 服部 declined is the one that reached English. Haruo Shirane, in 1998: Bashō replaces what grammatically should be an intransitive (yodan) verb yokotawaru (to lie sideways) with a transitive (shimo nidan) verb yokotau (to lay sideways), implying that the Creator (zōka) lays the Milky Way down so that it reaches Sado, and, after 安東次男, the River so laid becomes like a boat or a bridge reaching out across the dark waters to the waiting exiles at Sado [12]. Adam Kern, in 2018, gives the same reading without naming a source [36]. 服部's page is the earliest known statement of it, in the National Diet Library's digitized books to about 1949 that the house holds and on the house's shelf; 安東's book was not opened. 日国 enters the intransitive 四段 よこたふ before Bashō, from a 狂言 line, so the verb Bashō used was rare and was not his invention [18].

The verse in English

1902. Basil Hall Chamberlain. In "Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram", read to the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1902: A rough sea, and the Milky Way / Stretching across to Sado's isle, with the note Composed on the coast opposite Sado one starry night, when the waves were running high and the loneliness of his pilgrimage oppressed his spirit [20]. Miyamori Asatarō reprints it under Chamberlain's name in 1932 [37].

1918. Torao Taketomo. In Stewart Culin's "Japanese Announcements and Programmes", in the Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, under the title (Seascape) and romanized Ara-umi ya / Sado ni yokotau / Ama no kawa: The turbulent sea! / And stretching to Sado / The Milky Way. Culin, who had put the museum's Japanese programmes on show, says the translations were made by his assistant Torao Taketomo, and sends the reader to Chamberlain's essay for more on the form [38]. Turbulent, which Keene uses in 1996, first appears here among the renderings read for this history [39].

1932. Miyamori Asatarō. An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, no. 27, printing the Japanese 荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川: The sea is wild! The Milky Way extends / Far over to the island of Sado, with a note on a night view Bashō enjoyed at Izumozaki. He prints, beside Chamberlain's, three more by others: Minoru Toyoda's The sea is rough; / Over the island of Sado / Extends the Milky Way; Shigeru Nishimura's O rough sea! Waves on waves do darkling rise, / The galaxy reaching down where Sado lies; and S. H. Wainright's The billows come rolling, / And the Milky Way / Stretches across to the Sado Islands [37].

1934 to 1958. Harold G. Henderson, three renderings. In The Bamboo Broom, 1934, under the title On Izumo Cliff: How rough the sea! / And, stretching off to Sado Isle, / The Galaxy ...., glossing ama-no-gawa as River-of-Heaven [40]. In Donald Keene's Anthology of Japanese Literature, 1955, under Henderson's own credit: How rough a sea! / and, stretching over Sado Isle, / the Galaxy. . . . [41]. In An Introduction to Haiku, 1958, under the title The River of Heaven: So wild a sea— / and, stretching over Sado Isle, / the Galaxy ..., with the note The Japanese name for the Milky Way, "Heaven's River," enormously helps the effect of the original [42]. One translator, revising; the 1955 rendering is Henderson's, not Keene's.

1942 and 1952. R. H. Blyth. In Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics: A wild sea, / And the Galaxy stretching out over / The Island of Sado, and, later in the book, A wild sea, / The Milky Way stretching across / To the isle of Sado [43]. In Haiku, vol. 3, 1952: A wild sea! / And the Galaxy stretching out / Over the Island of Sado, with the 「銀河の序」 in English as the Introduction of the Silver River [44].

1947. Kenneth Yasuda. A Pepper-Pod, under the title The Galaxy: Wild the rolling sea! / Over which to Sado Isle / Lies the Galaxy [45]. Galaxy is the word of these years, in Henderson, Blyth and Yasuda [40][43][45].

1962. Peter Beilenson. Haiku Harvest: HEAVY WAVES CRASHING . . . / SILENTLY / OVER SADO / FLOWS HEAVEN'S RIVER, the first rendering on the house's shelf to put Heaven's River into the verse itself, where Henderson had put it in a title and a note [46][42].

1966. Nobuyuki Yuasa. The great Milky Way / Spans in a single arch / The billow-crested sea, / Falling on Sado beyond [47].

1981. Hiroaki Sato. In one line: The rough sea: lying toward Sado Island, the River of Heaven [48].

1992. Makoto Ueda. Bashō and His Interpreters: the rough sea— / flowing toward Sado Isle / the River of Heaven, glossing the verb lie and dating the night at 出雲崎 August 18 [22].

1996. Donald Keene. The Narrow Road to Oku: Turbulent the sea— / Across to Sado stretches / The Milky Way [39].

1998. Haruo Shirane. a wild sea— / stretching to Sado Isle / the Milky Way, with the reading of the verb above, and the remark that Bashō reached Izumo Point, 出雲崎, on the fourth while the journal places the verse on the sixth, associating the Milky Way with Tanabata [12].

2004 to 2018. David Landis Barnhill, 2004: stormy sea— / stretching out over Sado, / Heaven's River, dated in his note to the seventh day of the seventh month, August 21, the day of the 柴橋 preface [49]. Jane Reichhold, 2008: a rough sea / stretching over to Sado / heaven's river, with a note that sets it in summer, when the Milky Way is directly overhead; the dictionaries opened for this history mark 天の川 as a word of autumn, and the 柴橋 preface itself calls the seventh day 初秋, early autumn [50][14][6]. Adam Kern, 2018: tumultuous seas! / stretched out to Sado Isle, / the River of Heaven [36].

Today. A rendering should keep the sea first, the island in the middle and the River last, and keep the River lying rather than doing: a rough sea: lying toward Sado, the Milky Way. Toward is for に, which says where the River lies with respect to Sado, not that it hangs over the island; 勝峯 made the same point in 1947 [30]. The River of Heaven is the literal name, and Henderson was right that it carries much of the original [42]; the Milky Way is what the dictionary says the word means [14].

A reading

The spelling first. 天河 is how the print writes the River, and the fair copy as 岡田 reads it; 天川 is the 柿衛本's; あまの川 the 1706 preface's; 天の河 and 天の川 the later books'. They are one word, read あまのがわ, and none of them is wrong [1][3][4][5][7].

The night next. The diary, as the 1948 commentary quotes it, puts heavy rain over 出雲崎 that night [8], and the prefaces do not agree on the date or the sky: thin mist in one, the moon set in another, the River across half the heavens in the longest [13][6][4]. 小島 took the rain to show that the verse was imagined; 和田 read the same pages as the truth of recollection [11][33]. I do not think the rain settles it either way. It makes the verse one that Bashō went on writing toward, in prose, after the night was over. I read it where the journal sets it, after the eve of Tanabata, as the 1948 commentary under 志田's name does, and as 小島 does [11]: the River is the Tanabata River, which parts the lovers, and here it lies toward an island where the exiled were parted from everyone [8][16].

The verb last. I read よこたふ as the dictionaries enter it, the rare intransitive: the River lies [18]. 耕兩's reading, nature laying the River down, is beautiful, and his son was right to record it and right to decline it [6]. The verse does not name anyone laying anything; it leaves the River there, toward Sado, over a rough sea. Signed, 典.

Notes

The forms of the verse. Point by point, against the witnesses read for this history:

Sources not seen

Sora's diary and his notebook of verses, the 書留, themselves. Both are known here only through 潁原's summary and the 1948 commentary's quotation; the diary's first print, of 1943, is served by the National Diet Library only as snippets.

安東次男, 『定本芭蕉』, p. 354, the source Shirane names for the reading of the verb as the Creator laying the River down. It would show how 安東 argued it, and whether he knew 服部's record.

『其袋』, 『勧進牒』, 『雪丸げ』, 『柴橋』, 『類柑子』 and 『摩詰庵入日記』 at a leaf. Their forms of the verse and its prefaces are given here from 志田's, 潁原's and 服部's typesets and from the 1928 index.

The fair copy, the 西村本, in facsimile. It would settle whether its first word is 荒海, as the print has it, or 荒河, as 岡田's small line reads.

The editor of 志田's 1948 commentary, and which of its pages 志田 wrote: the preface is signed only 編者.

The objector 勝峯 answered in 1947, who called the verse false because the Milky Way does not span Sado; not named on his page, and not found. 小島, in 1949, reports the same claim without a name.

荻原井泉水's 「奥の細道を尋ねて」, which 小島 cites for the River's bearing from 出雲崎 at evening and at midnight.

The 「銀河序」 in Bashō's hand that 小島 sets from 菊本直次郎's collection.

安東次男, 「よこたふ」, in 『俳句』 14-4, 1965, an article on the reading of the verb.

A study, after 1949, of where the Milky Way stood from 出雲崎 on the nights of the fourth to the seventh of the seventh month of 1689.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 『おくのほそ道』, 井筒屋庄兵衛, 元禄15 (1702), 北海道大学 copy, canvases 8, 41 and 42, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100000092
  2. 「おくのほそ道」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/おくのほそ道-219438
  3. 岡田利兵衞, 「柿衛本『おくのほそ道』(素竜自筆)」, 『連歌俳諧研究』 20, 1960, pp. 73–122 (the verse p. 113), at J-STAGE. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/haibun1951/1960/20/1960_20_73/_article/-char/ja/
  4. 許六 編, 『本朝文選』, 井筒屋庄兵衛, 宝永3 (1706), 東京大学 竹冷文庫 copy, canvases 123, 130 and 131, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100392659
  5. 五升庵蝶夢 編, 『芭蕉翁発句集』, 井筒屋, 安永3 (1774), 下 六ウ–七オ, scans 45–46, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2540314/1/45
  6. 服部畊石, 『芭蕉句集新講』 上, 四条書房, 1932, pp. 四六八–四七〇, scans 240–241, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1145820/1/240
  7. 潁原退蔵, 『芭蕉講話』, 出来島書店, 1944, pp. 一六五–一六六, scans 91–92, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128315/1/91
  8. 志田義秀, 『奥の細道評釈 : 新註』, 紫乃故郷舎, 1948 (printed after his death in 1946; its preface is signed 編者, the editor), pp. 一五九–一六一, scans 83–84, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1704037/1/83
  9. 志田義秀, 『奥の細道・芭蕉・蕪村』, 1941, pp. 八〇–八七, scans 46–49, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128374/1/46
  10. 河東碧梧桐, 『俳句評釈』, 1903, pp. 九二–九四, scans 49–50, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875616/1/49
  11. 小島吉雄, 「芭蕉の「荒海や」の句について(一)」, 『文學研究』 38, 九州文學會, 1949, pp. 一二一–一三八, at the Kyushu University Institutional Repository. https://doi.org/10.15017/2332971
  12. Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Bashō, Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 242–243 and n. 36, p. 331, read on the house's shelf.
  13. 野村宗朔 編, 『奥の細道 : 素竜本』, 大倉廣文堂, 1932, p. 七八, scan 54, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1175286/1/54
  14. 「天の川」, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/天の川-27193
  15. 「荒海」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/荒海-427803
  16. 「佐渡」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/佐渡-511312
  17. 「出雲崎」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/出雲崎-432524
  18. 「横たふ」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/横たふ-653922
  19. 「天河」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/天河-577530
  20. Basil Hall Chamberlain, "Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram", Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan XXX, Tokyo, Rikkyo Gakuin Press, 1902, p. 322, read on the house's shelf; the volume's title page seen at the image (Internet Archive transactionsasi20japagoog, leaf n6). https://archive.org/details/transactionsasi20japagoog/page/n6
  21. 「曾良旅日記」, work record 1373860, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/1373860
  22. Makoto Ueda, Bashō and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku with Commentary, Stanford University Press, 1992, p. 260, read on the house's shelf.
  23. 潁原退蔵, 『新校芭蕉俳句全集』, 全国書房, 1947, p. 一二七, scan 75, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128353/1/75
  24. 「本朝文選」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/本朝文選-135165
  25. 許六 編, 『本朝文選』, 井筒屋庄兵衛, 宝永3 (1706), 東京大学 copy, canvas 133, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100052648
  26. 勝峰晋風 編, 『日本俳書大系』 16, 1928, the index of Bashō's verse, scan 170, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179400/1/170
  27. 建部綾足 (凉袋) 編, 『古今俳諧明題集』 巻之五, 井筒屋庄兵衛, 宝暦13 (1763), scans 7 and 29, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2568541/1/29
  28. 「志田義秀」, ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典 and デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/志田義秀-73735
  29. 志田義秀, 『奥の細道評釈 : 新註』, 紫乃故郷舎, 1948, はしがき pp. 一–二 (signed 編者, 昭和二十二年八月), scans 4–5, and the colophon (昭和二十三年九月三十日發行), scan 108, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1704037/1/4
  30. 勝峯晋風, 『芭蕉・蕪村・一茶の俳句の鑑賞』, 1947, pp. 一六–一七, scan 14, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128324/1/14
  31. 宇佐美喜三八 監修, 『解説奥の細道』, 1958, p. 七〇, scan 46, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2531507/1/46
  32. 小島吉雄, 「芭蕉の「荒海や」の句について(二)」, 『文學研究』 39, 九州文學會, 1950, pp. 九七–一〇六 (the verse p. 九八), at the Kyushu University Institutional Repository. https://doi.org/10.15017/2332963
  33. 和田徳一, 「越後路における芭蕉をめぐつて」, 『連歌俳諧研究』 3, 1952, pp. 47–50, at J-STAGE. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/haibun1951/1952/3/1952_3_47/_article/-char/ja/
  34. 樋口功, 『芭蕉句集 : 選評』, 1925, p. 一九二, scan 104, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1016965/1/104
  35. 大藪虎亮, 『奥の細道の新研究 : 詳解口訳』, 1926, pp. 二四二–二四三, scan 156, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1882816/1/156
  36. Adam L. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin, 2018, p. 189 and the commentary, p. 359, read on the house's shelf.
  37. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, 1932, no. 27, pp. 139–141, read on the house's shelf.
  38. Stewart Culin, "Japanese Announcements and Programmes", Brooklyn Museum Quarterly V, 1918, pp. 211–217 (the verse p. 217), at the Internet Archive (catalogued there as The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1910). https://archive.org/details/bostonmuseumoffi56addi/page/n234
  39. Donald Keene, tr., The Narrow Road to Oku, Kodansha International, 1996, p. 127, read on the house's shelf.
  40. Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom: An Introduction to Japanese Haiku, Houghton Mifflin, 1934, p. 37, read on the house's shelf.
  41. Donald Keene, ed., Anthology of Japanese Literature: From the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Tuttle, 1955, Haiku by Bashō and his School, translated by Harold G. Henderson (EPUB, no page numbers), read on the house's shelf.
  42. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Bashō to Shiki, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, p. 41, read on the house's shelf.
  43. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido, 1942, pp. 39 and 216, read on the house's shelf.
  44. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido, 1952, pp. 367–368, read on the house's shelf.
  45. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Knopf, 1947, The Galaxy, read on the house's shelf in the Tuttle edition of 1976, an EPUB without page numbers.
  46. Peter Beilenson, Haiku Harvest, Peter Pauper Press, 1962, p. 35, read on the house's shelf.
  47. Nobuyuki Yuasa, tr., The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Penguin, 1966, pp. 130–131, read on the house's shelf.
  48. Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson, From the Country of Eight Islands, Anchor, 1981, p. 291, read on the house's shelf.
  49. David Landis Barnhill, Bashō's Haiku: Selected Poems of Matsuo Bashō, SUNY Press, 2004, no. 409, p. 97, and the note, p. 220, read on the house's shelf.
  50. Jane Reichhold, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Kodansha USA, 2008, no. 559, p. 142, and the note, p. 327, read on the house's shelf.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河 (araumi ya sado ni yokotau amanogawa)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/araumi-ya-sado-ni-yokotau-amanogawa.