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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

春の海終日のたりのたり哉 (haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana), the spring sea, all day long, swelling and falling, is Buson's. It was printed in 1763 in the appendix of an anthology, whose editor judged it plain, calm and free. This study follows the readers who disagreed about the sea it shows, and its English renderings.

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春の海終日のたりのたり哉haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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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 1763 in the appendix of Shōzan 嘯山's anthology 俳諧古選, whose editor judged it 平淡而逸, plain, calm, and free, and printed again in Buson's lifetime in 1772 and after his death in 1784. Its doubled word のたりのたり is first attested in this verse; one print of 1773 sets the verse under the headnote at Suma Bay, and a guidebook of 1797 inscribes it on a view of Edo bay. Shiki's circle, in a reading printed by 1904, could not agree whether its waves were at the shore or out at sea, and Shiki asked whether it was a good verse at all. In English it has been a sea rising and falling from Miyamori in 1932 and Blyth in 1942 to Shirane in 2016, with Keene's slowly coming in the clearest departure.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 春の海終日のたりのたり哉, the words and the writing of the first print, whose appendix in 1763 writes 春乃海終日のたり〳〵哉 [1]; Ebara Taizō 潁原退蔵's edition of 1925 takes its text from that print because it is the oldest [2]. The witnesses after it write one text in four ways. 終日 and ひねもす are one word, the kanji read hinemosu: 終日 in 1763, in the 其雪影 of 1772 [3], in the 蕪村句集 of 1784 [4], in a letter of Buson's [2], in the 1797 picture-book, the 1906 annotated edition, Okano 岡野 in 1924, the 1935 edition of the 句集 and Ebara 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 1763, 1784, the 1935 edition, Ebara, the miscellany and the 三千句; かな in 1772, in the letter, the 1797 book, the 1906 edition, Okano and the dictionary. The 其雪影 writes the first words in kana, 春のうみ [3]. The repeated のたり is written with the iteration mark 〳〵 in the prints of 1763 and 1784 and spelled out in the 1919 dictionary. 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. Readers have agreed about the verse's sound and disagreed about its picture. When Shiki's circle read Buson's collection together, in a record in print by 1904, Shiki took のたり〳〵 for light waves slapping at the water's edge, 輕い波がバサリ〳〵磯際に打つてゐるのであらうか; Kyoshi 虚子 said not the shore but farther out, low waves heaving all day, 寧ろ仲の方で終日うね〳〵とあまり大きくない波がうつてゐるのではあるまいか; Hekigotō 碧梧桐 said that offshore was only a manner of speaking and the verse was the whole face of the spring sea, 春の海一面の光景 [5]. Then Shiki, who had known the verse so long that he found it hard to judge, asked whether it was a good verse or a bad one, 果たして善い句であらうか惡い句であらうか; Hekigotō and Kyoshi answered that it was rare and good [5]. Blyth reported the three readings in 1950 under the sentence all agree in praising this haiku, and added, rightly, there is a surprising disagreement as to what the verse particularly refers to [6]. Meisetsu in 1906 saw the idle swell and said it made no difference whether one looked from a boat, the shore or a hill [7]; Okano in 1924 saw the sea of a Tosa-school painting [8]; Shirane in 2002 and 2016 left the place open, either out at sea or against the shore [9]. What the praise praises is the same thing across two centuries: Shōzan's 平淡而逸 [1], Numanami's 想 and 調 in harmony [10], Miyamori's the merit is the rhythm of notari-notari, which cannot adequately be reproduced in a translation [11], Shirane's the musical quality that marks Buson's hokku [9]. Buchanan in 1973 adds a moral, ups and downs and monotony as in a life or a nation, which no Japanese reader here supplies [12].

The words. 春の海 is the spring sea, the season word; Shirane calls it a relatively calm, open surface [9]. 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 [6]. のたりのたり is the verse. The 日本国語大辞典 gives this verse, from the 1763 appendix, as the first example of the doubled word, in the sense ゆるやかにのんびり動くさま、ゆったりとしているさま, moving slowly and at ease; the single のたり, leisurely, at ease, is older, first cited from a 雑俳 collection of 1711, 建つめた中にのたりと増上寺 [13]. The 1919 dictionary defined the doubled word 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 [14]. Meisetsu 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 [7]. 哉 closes it. As words the line says: The spring sea; all day long, swelling and falling, swelling and falling.

The verse in English. Miyamori translated the verse in 1932 [11], and Blyth three times, in 1942, 1949 and 1950 [15][6]; Yasuda followed in 1947 [16], Henderson in 1958 [17], Stewart in 1960 [18], Buchanan in 1973 [12], Miner in 1979 [19], Sato in 1981 [20], Hass in 1994 [21], Shirane in 2002 and 2016 [9], Crowley and Sawa in 2007 [22][23], Aitken in 2011 [24], Keene in 2013 [25] and Kern in 2018 [26]. Nearly every one renders のたりのたり as a sea rising and falling or swelling; Sato's sloshes, sloshes and Sawa's tossing and tossing are rougher waters, and Keene's slowly coming in is waves arriving, not a swell in place.

The historical record

1763. Shōzan, 俳諧古選, an anthology of old and recent hokku with the editor's judgments, its preface dated 1760. In the appendix of recent poets, the verse stands second in a run of four under Buson's name, after 柳ちり清水涸石ところ〳〵, and it is printed 春乃海終日のたり〳〵哉 with the judgment 平淡而逸, plain, calm, and free [1]. After the run the editor notes of Taigi 太祇 and Buson: 祗村近倶居洛、雖然接入江都之部者以其調耳, Taigi and Buson have lately both come to live in Kyoto; that I set them among the Edo poets all the same is for their manner alone, as Ebara quotes it; Ebara read the note in 1943 as a sign that neither was yet counted a school of his own in Kyoto [27].

1772. Takai Kitō 高井几董, 其雪影, the anthology for the thirteenth anniversary of his father Kikei's death. The verse among the hokku of Buson's circle, written 春のうみ終日のたり〳〵かな [3]. Crowley counts about ten hokku of Buson's in the book and says the verse was by then at least ten years old and already in several anthologies [22].

1773. 康工, 誹諧金花傳, a treatise on haikai, its preface dated 1772. By Ebara's report in 1925, this book sets the verse under the headnote 須磨の浦にて, at Suma Bay, which the other prints named here do not carry; Ebara adds that the verse is also in the 日發句集, the 其雪影, the 句集 and the 發句小鑑, 蕪村の句中人口に膾炙せるものゝ一, one of the best known of Buson's verses [2].

Undated. A short letter of Buson's, dated the twenty-eighth of the second month. Asking for the New Year verses he and his correspondent had spoken of the night before, Buson adds his own: 且又愚老之句は 春の海終日のたり〳〵かな 御覽可被下候, and as for my own verse, "the spring sea, all day, notari notari," please look it over [2].

1784. Kitō, 蕪村句集, the collection of Buson's hokku made after his death. The verse without a headnote, 春の海終日のたり〳〵哉, after the verse on times gone by, 遅き日のつもりて遠きむかしかな, and before 畠うつや鳥さへ啼ぬ山かげに [4].

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 [28].

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 [29], the judgment the 續俳家奇人談 of 1832 prints beside the verse in its life of Buson, which makes him a man who lived by fishing on the shore [30]; the second, in its entry for 御殿山, sets it beside a picture of the bay and a screen [31].

By 1904. Naitō Meisetsu and others, 蕪村句集講義, the record of the Hototogisu circle's readings of the 句集. The exchange quoted above: Shiki's waves at the water's edge, Kyoshi's farther out, Hekigotō's whole face of the sea, Shiki's doubt and the others' answer [5].

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 [7]. Iwamoto prints the verse under 春の海 without a gloss [32].

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 [10].

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 [14].

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 [8].

1925. Ebara, 蕪村全集; 蕪村三千句. Ebara prints the verse from the 1763 appendix, with the 1773 headnote and the list of later prints in his note, and in his chronological appendix sets it among the verses of the 寶暦 years, which ended in 1764; his life of Buson calls it 實に當時の吟, truly a verse of those years [2]. The 三千句 prints it with ひねもす [33].

1935. Fujii Shiei 藤井紫影, 名家俳句集. The verse in its place in the 句集, 終日 with 哉 [34].

1943. Ebara, 蕪村, a biography. 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; 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. In these years, he says, Buson's work was painting and haikai was his 餘技, a side art [27].

The attribution. Buson's, at every witness, and from the start: the 1763 appendix prints it under his name [1], the 1772 anthology of his own circle carries it [3], he quotes it as his own in a letter [2], and the collection Kitō made after his death prints it [4]. The year of the first print is 1763; the editor's preface is dated 1760, and Shirane's 1762 matches neither [9]. Miyamori in 1932 says the anthology was edited in 1763 and the verse written in that period [11]; Ebara files it among the verses of the 寶暦 years [2]. 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 [28]; the 1919 大日本国語辞典 cites it with the source 蕪村句集 [14]; and every edition of Buson prints it. In English, every translator gives it to Buson without a doubt.

What is not a source. The places are not the verse's. The 1773 headnote puts it at Suma Bay [2]; the picture of 1797 and the manuscript screen set it on Edo bay off 高縄 and 御殿山 [28][31]; the life of 1832 makes its poet a fisherman [30]. The verse names no shore, and Meisetsu and Hekigotō read it as any sea at all. Okano's Tosa-school sea and 文晁's brush are a critic's comparison, and Buchanan's nation is his own. None is a source; the source is the 1763 appendix 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 [11].

1942. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, p. 39. The spring sea / Gently rising and falling / The whole day long, called Buson's untranslatable, as an example of a verse in which the same sun shines, the same breeze blows [15]. It is the earliest of his three renderings.

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 [16].

1949 and 1950. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Eastern Culture, and volume 2, Spring. 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 three readings of Shiki, Kyoshi and Hekigotō and the remark on the disagreement quoted above [6].

1958. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, p. 97. The springtime sea: all day long up-and-down, up-and-down gently, which he calls one of his finest—and most untranslatable, adding that there is something about the sound of hinemos' notari notari kana that makes one want to go on repeating it until one is almost drugged, and glossing the words Spring-sea | all-day-long | undulating | undulating | kana [17].

1960. Stewart, A Net of Fireflies, Tuttle. All day, with gently undulating swell, The spring sea rose and fell, and rose and fell, the effect, he says, depending in both original and translation, on the rhythmical onomatopoeia [18].

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 [12].

1979. Miner, Japanese Linked Poetry, Princeton University Press. The sea in spring rising the livelong day falling and rising, among the verses he sets out as Buson's distinctive features [19].

1981. Sato, From the Country of Eight Islands, Anchor. The spring sea sloshes, sloshes all day, in one line [20].

1994. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, p. 86. The spring sea rising and falling, rising and falling all day, with his note, this poem is admired for its sound [21].

2002 and 2016. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, and The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, p. 412. 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 [9].

2007. Crowley, Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the Bashō Revival, Brill, p. 106; Sawa and Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press. Crowley: spring sea all day, waves rise and fall rise and fall, reading notari as rise and fall [22]. Sawa and Shiffert: The springtime sea all the day long tossing and tossing! [23].

2011. Aitken, The River of Heaven, Counterpoint. The spring sea— all day long it rises and falls, rises and falls [24].

2013. Donald Keene, The Winter Sun Shines In, Columbia University Press, p. 102. The sea in spring All day long slowly coming in Slowly coming in, as an instance of the beauty of sound in Buson that Shiki's criticism passed over, with the note the verb notari is rare, perhaps invented by Buson. It suggests slow movement [25]. The motion is waves arriving, not a swell in place, and the note errs: the single のたり is in print in 1711, half a century before the verse, and only the doubled word is first attested here [13].

2018. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin. vernal seas … all day long swelling, falling swelling, falling! [26].

Today. The house English, The spring sea / all day rising and falling / rising and falling, follows Shirane's rendering of 2016 [9]. The literal reading above says swelling and falling for the same motion. A rendering of this line has to keep the doubling, which is the verse's sound.

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. 嘯山 saw it in 1763: plain, calm, free. I read it with Hekigotō, as the whole face of the sea and no single wave, because the verse names no shore, no boat and no hill; the headnote of 1773 and the picture of 1797 give it two different bays, which is what a verse without a place invites. The word itself, as the dictionaries record it, names slowness and ease before it names any wave, and the swell is what the doubling makes of it: 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. Shiki's doubt is the honest one, the doubt of a reader who had known the line too long to hear it; it is answered by saying it aloud.

Notes

References

  1. 嘯山 Shōzan 編『俳諧古選』, editor's preface 1760, printed 1763, 附録. Tokyo University General Library, 竹冷文庫 copy, NIJL 国書データベース biblio 100392466, canvas 121. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100392466/121
  2. 潁原退蔵 Ebara Taizō 編『蕪村全集』, 1925, p. 22 (scan 39), p. 814 (scan 438), the life (scan 485) and the chronological appendix (scan 514). National Diet Library pid 1018320. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018320/1/39
  3. 高井几董 Takai Kitō 編『其雪影』, 1772, in 潁原退蔵 校註『其雪影・続明烏』, 1924. National Diet Library pid 977299, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/977299/1/17
  4. 高井几董 Takai Kitō 編『蕪村句集』, 1784. NIJL 国書データベース biblio 300106341, canvas 12. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/300106341/12
  5. 内藤鳴雪 Naitō Meisetsu 等『蕪村句集講義』春之部, ほととぎす発行所, 1911 printing. National Diet Library pid 875705, scan 65. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875705/1/65
  6. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Eastern Culture, and vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949 and 1950, vol. 2 p. 135.
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, 2002, and The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 412.
  10. 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
  11. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, pp. 460–461.
  12. Daniel C. Buchanan, One Hundred Famous Haiku, Japan Publications, 1973, nos. 22–23.
  13. 『精選版 日本国語大辞典』, のたり‐のたり and のたり, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/のたりのたり · https://kotobank.jp/word/のたり
  14. 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
  15. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1942, p. 39.
  16. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Charles E. Tuttle, 1947, IN SPRING.
  17. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, p. 97.
  18. Stewart, A Net of Fireflies, Charles E. Tuttle, 1960, THE SPRING SEA.
  19. Miner, Japanese Linked Poetry, Princeton University Press, 1979.
  20. Sato, From the Country of Eight Islands, Anchor, 1981, SPRING SEA.
  21. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994, p. 86 and the note at p. 273.
  22. Crowley, Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the Bashō Revival, Brill, 2007, p. 106.
  23. Sawa and Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press, 2007.
  24. Aitken, The River of Heaven, Counterpoint, 2011, THE SPRING SEA.
  25. Donald Keene, The Winter Sun Shines In, Columbia University Press, 2013, p. 102 and note 18.
  26. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin, 2018.
  27. 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
  28. 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
  29. 駒井乗邨 Komai Norimura 編『鶯宿雑記』, manuscript, undated. National Diet Library pid 10303817, scan 94.
  30. 乾猷平 Inui Yūhei『蕪村の新研究』, 1925, quoting the 續俳家奇人談 of 1832. National Diet Library pid 1016943, scan 16. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1016943/1/16
  31. 山口済 Yamaguchi Sei『鶏(ソウ)録』, manuscript, undated. National Diet Library pid 2579217, scan 88.
  32. 岩本梓石 Iwamoto Shiseki 編『蕪村俳句全集 標註』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 875714, scan 18.
  33. 『蕪村三千句』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 11.
  34. 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

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 春の海終日のたりのたり哉 (haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/haru-no-umi-hinemosu-notari-notari-kana.