Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

0
Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal accepted
Home › Library › Philology › Buson - The spring sea, all day rising and falling, rising and falling

春の海終日のたりのたり哉 haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana Buson - The spring sea, all day rising and falling, rising and falling

This is a philological study of the haiku 春の海終日のたりのたり哉 (haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana), given to Buson. It spans from its first print in 1763 and examines what its readers have seen in the sea, and why a house rendering's ebb and flow names a different motion than the poem does.

Japanese Scroll of Buson - The spring sea, all day rising and falling, rising and falling (haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Buson - The spring sea, all day rising and falling, rising and falling (haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana)

Haiku by Buson on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

View Scroll ›

Abstract

春の海終日のたりのたり哉, the spring sea, all day long, swelling and falling, swelling and falling, is Buson's, first printed in Shōzan 嘯山's 1763 anthology 俳諧古選 and inscribed with his name on a view of Edo bay by 1797. Every witness gives it to him, and every reader has praised its plainness and its sound, though Japanese critics disagree about what scene it pictures and the verse itself names no place. Miyamori, Blyth, Yasuda, Buchanan, Hass and Shirane carried the swell into English across the twentieth century; only the house's own rendering, ebb and flow, names a different motion.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 春の海終日のたりのたり哉, and the witnesses write one text four ways. 終日 and ひねもす are one word, the kanji read hinemosu, as the page's own explanation says: 終日 in the 1797 picture-book, the 1906 annotated edition, Okano 岡野 in 1924, the 1935 edition of the 句集 and Ebara 潁原 in 1943; ひねもす in the manuscript miscellany, Meisetsu 鳴雪 in 1906, Numanami 沼波 in 1909, the 三千句 of 1925 and the 1919 dictionary. 哉 and かな are one particle: 哉 in the 1935 edition, Ebara, the miscellany and the 三千句; かな in the 1797 book, the 1906 edition, Okano and the dictionary. In nine witnesses the repeated のたり prints as 〓〓, a scanning artifact of the iteration mark 〳〵 the printers used and the 1919 dictionary spells out. The design's writing, 終日 with 哉, is the 1935 名家俳句集's and Ebara's. No witness varies a word. The meter is five, seven, five: は・る・の・う・み, ひ・ね・も・す・の・た・り, の・た・り・か・な.

The sense. Everyone praises the verse and, as Blyth noticed, there is a surprising disagreement as to what the verse particularly refers to [1]: Shiki read it as the light waves on the sand, Meisetsu as the idle swell seen from anywhere [2], Okano as a painted sea [3]. But the disagreement is about the picture, not the motion. Every reader from Shōzan in 1763 to Shirane in 2016 hears the same slow vertical heave, and praises the same two things in it, its plainness and its sound: Shōzan's 平淡而逸 [4], Numanami's 想 and 調 in harmony [5], Miyamori's the merit is the rhythm of notari-notari, which cannot adequately be reproduced in a translation [6], Shirane's the musical quality that marks Buson's hokku [7]. Buchanan in 1973 adds a moral, ups and downs and monotony as in a life or a nation, which no Japanese reader here supplies [8]. The one thing nobody in two centuries has heard in the verse is a tide.

The words. 春の海 is the spring sea, the season word; Shirane calls it a relatively calm, open surface [7]. 終日, hinemosu, is all day long; Shirane hears in it a sense of time stretching out forever, and Blyth notices that the sounds of hinemosu almost reverse the sounds of haru no umi [1]. のたりのたり is the verse, and the 1919 dictionary defines it from the verse: のたり-のたり〔前條の重言〕のたるさま、うねり行くさまにいふ語, the doubling of のたり: a word for the manner of a slow heave, of going in swells, with this line as its citation [9]. Meisetsu in 1906 says what kind of sea it is: neither violent waves nor none, 波も徒然らしい樣, a sea whose waves look somewhat idle [2]. 哉 closes it. As words the line says: The spring sea; all day long, swelling and falling, swelling and falling. The page's own gloss, undulating; rolling slowly; gently swelling, is the dictionary's sense exactly. The page's English line, ebb and flow, is the tide's word: the sea going out and coming in twice a day, not the sea heaving in place all day, which is the poem.

The verse in English. Miyamori translated the verse in 1932 [6], and Blyth in 1949 and 1950 [1]; Yasuda followed in 1947 [10], Buchanan in 1973 [8], Hass in 1994 [11], and Shirane in 2002 and 2016 [7] — every one of them renders のたりのたり as a swell.

The historical record

1763. Shōzan, 俳諧古選, an anthology. The first print, by Ebara and Miyamori, with the editor's judgment on the verse, 平淡而逸, plain, calm, and free, which Ebara quotes [4][6]; the year is Ebara's.

1797. Akisato Ritō 秋里籬島, 東海道名所図会, the illustrated gazetteer of the Tōkaidō. A double-page picture, signed 政美, of the teahouses at 高縄 on the road out of Edo with the bay before them, boats moored and under sail; and in the sky of the left-hand page, in a cursive hand, the verse with the poet's name, 春の海終日のたり〳〵かな 蕪村. The verse inscribed on the view [12].

Undated. Komai Norimura 駒井乗邨, 鶯宿雑記; Yamaguchi Sei 山口済, 鶏(ソウ)録; two manuscript miscellanies. The first carries the verse with the note 悠々無涯 [13]; the second, in its entry for 御殿山, sets it beside a picture of the bay and a screen [14].

1906. Meisetsu, 蕪村七部集俳句評釈; Iwamoto Shiseki 岩本梓石, 蕪村俳句全集 標註. Meisetsu's reading: 春の海を見て居ると朝から晩迄一日のたり〳〵と波が打つてゐる, watching the spring sea, from morning to night all day the waves beat notari notari, neither fierce nor absent, the calm around them felt through them, 我と海と同化してしまふやう, until I and the sea become one, and it makes no difference whether one looks from a boat, the shore or a hill [2]. Iwamoto prints the verse under 春の海 without a gloss [15].

1909. Numanami, 俳句の作り方, a manual. The verse as the example of thought and sound in harmony, 其想に、其調に, so that the reader is brought by both to a slow and spacious feeling [5].

1919. Ueda Kazutoshi 上田万年 and Matsui Kanji 松井簡治, 大日本国語辞典. The entry quoted above, under のたり-のたり, with the source 蕪村句集 and the verse spelled out, ひねもすのたりのたりかな [9].

1924. Okano, 蕪村 その他 俳諧一家言. 彼の『春の海終日のたり〳〵かな』もいかにも春の氣分かも知れないが、土佐繪の海を見る, his "spring sea" may indeed be a spring mood, but one sees the sea of a Tosa-school painting, not of 文晁's brush: the verse as evidence that Buson's sensibility was Kyoto's, not Edo's [3].

1925 and 1935. 蕪村三千句; Fujii Shiei 藤井紫影, 名家俳句集. The verse in place in both, ひねもす in the one and 終日 in the other [16][17].

1943. Ebara, 蕪村, a biography. The passage quoted above, and the judgment: 嘯山は「平淡而逸」と評して居るが、誠に平明の中によく俗を脱して高いものがある, 嘯山 called it "plain, calm and free", and truly in its plainness there is something that well escapes the common and stands high; and the frame, that in these years Buson's work was painting and haikai was his 餘技, a side art, and that the 俳諧古選's editor listed Tan Taigi 太祇 and Buson as Kyoto men not yet recognized as a school [4].

The attribution. Buson's, at every witness, and from the start. Ebara's 1943 biography places the verse among the two or three of Buson's in print in the years after his return to Kyoto: 同年刊行の『俳諧古選』(嘯山編)に、「柳ちり」の舊作と共に　春の海終日のたりのたり哉　蕪村　等の二三句が收められて居るのみである, in the 俳諧古選 published the same year, edited by 嘯山, together with the older "柳ちり" verse, two or three verses such as "the spring sea, all day, notari notari" are all that are collected; the year is 寶暦十三年, 1763, named in his previous sentence [4]. Miyamori in 1932 says the anthology was edited in 1763 and the verse written in that period [6]; Shirane in two books says the poem was published in 1762 [7]. The difference is one year and one calendar; the anthology itself does not settle which. From 1763 the attribution never wavers: the 1797 東海道名所図会 inscribes the verse with Buson's name on its picture of the teahouses at 高縄 with Edo bay before them [12]; the manuscript 鶏(ソウ)録 sets it beside a painted screen of the same bay [14]; the 1919 大日本国語辞典 cites it as its example for the word のたりのたり with the source 蕪村句集 [9]; and every edition of Buson prints it. In English, Miyamori, Yasuda, Blyth, Buchanan, Hass and Shirane give it to Buson without a doubt.

What is not a source. The picture of 1797 and the manuscript screen show where Edo readers set the verse, the bay off 高縄 and 御殿山 at Shinagawa; they do not say where Buson wrote it, and no witness does. Okano's Tosa-school sea and 文晁's brush are a critic's comparison. Buchanan's nation is his own. None is a source; the source is the 1763 anthology itself.

The verse in English

1932. 宮森麻太郎 Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, printed pages 460–461. Behold! the spring sea undulates, / And undulates the whole day long, with the note on rhythm quoted above and the judgment Quite a masterpiece; and beside his own, 西村茂's The spring sea swells and falls, and swells— / Until the bell of tardy evening knells [6].

1949 and 1950. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Eastern Culture, and volume 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo. In the first, under TECHNIQUE: The spring sea, / Gently rising and falling, / The whole day long, with the note on the sounds of hinemosu. In the second: The sea of spring, / Rising and falling, / All the day long, with the remark on the disagreement quoted above [1].

1947. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Tuttle. All day long the spring / Ocean is undulating / And undulating, under the heading IN SPRING, with the romaji and the poet's name [10].

1973. Daniel C. Buchanan, One Hundred Famous Haiku, Japan Publications, numbers 22–23. The sea at springtime. / All day it rises and falls, / Yes, rises and falls [8].

1994. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press. The spring sea rising …, the rest of his three lines not printed here, and his note, this poem is admired for its sound [11].

2002 and 2016. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, and The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature. The spring sea— / all day long the waves / rising and falling, rising and falling, with the notes on the calm surface, the stretched time and the music [7].

Today. The house English, The spring sea / all day ebb and flow / ebb and flow, is a house rendering, verbatim to no one, and needs no credit. It needs one change. A rendering of this line has to keep the motion the word names, the slow heave of a swell, and the doubling that is the verse's sound; ebb and flow names the tide and loses the swell. Swelling and falling, swelling and falling or rising and falling, rising and falling keeps both, and is what Blyth, Buchanan and Shirane all wrote.

A reading

The verse is about one thing, the motion of a calm sea, and it gets that motion into the language by saying it twice. That is the whole of its art and 嘯山 saw it in 1763: plain, calm, free. I read it with 鳴雪, from no fixed point, because the verse gives none; there is no shore, no boat, no hill, only the sea and the day and the word for the swell said over. What I would add to the tradition is only that the doubling is not decoration but mimesis: のたりのたり takes as long to say as a swell takes to pass, and 終日 tells you it will not stop. The page's explanation understands this and its English line does not. Ebb and flow is the one word on the page the Japanese does not say, and the fix is three words.

Notes

References

  1. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Eastern Culture, and vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949 and 1950, p. 135.
  2. 内藤鳴雪 Naitō Meisetsu『蕪村七部集俳句評釈』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 875711, scan 20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875711/1/20
  3. 岡野知十 Okano Chijū『蕪村 その他 俳諧一家言』, 1924. National Diet Library pid 925072, scan 135. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925072/1/135
  4. 潁原退蔵 Ebara Taizō『蕪村』, 創元社, 1943, pp. 128–129. National Diet Library pid 1128419, scan 73. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128419/1/73
  5. 沼波瓊音 Numanami Keion『俳句の作り方』, 1909. National Diet Library pid 994608, scan 62. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/994608/1/62
  6. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, pp. 460–461.
  7. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, 2002, and The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, 2016.
  8. Daniel C. Buchanan, One Hundred Famous Haiku, Japan Publications, 1973, nos. 22–23.
  9. 上田万年 Ueda Kazutoshi・松井簡治 Matsui Kanji『大日本国語辞典』, 1919, pp. 128–129. National Diet Library pid 954648, scan 67. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/954648/1/67
  10. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Charles E. Tuttle, 1947, IN SPRING.
  11. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994.
  12. 秋里籬島 Akisato Ritō 編『東海道名所圖會』, 1797. National Diet Library pid 2559319, scan 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2559319/1/69
  13. 駒井乗邨 Komai Norimura 編『鶯宿雑記』, manuscript, undated. National Diet Library pid 10303817, scan 94.
  14. 山口済 Yamaguchi Sei『鶏(ソウ)録』, manuscript, undated. National Diet Library pid 2579217, scan 88.
  15. 岩本梓石 Iwamoto Shiseki 編『蕪村俳句全集 標註』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 875714, scan 18.
  16. 『蕪村三千句』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 11.
  17. 藤井紫影 Fujii Shiei 校『名家俳句集』, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1259717, scan 222.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios LLC)

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

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — several quotations corrected — 潁原's reading, Miyamori's page citation, the Blyth edition cited, and Yasuda's omitted rendering, now added; some addresses not openable — leaves not supplied, an untried tool call, and a page without a marked number