人も見ぬ春や鏡のうらの梅 hito mo minu haru ya kagami no ura no ume Bashō - On the back of the mirror, A spring unseen, A flowering plum-tree
This is a philological study of the haiku 人も見ぬ春や鏡のうらの梅 (hito mo minu haru ya kagami no ura no ume), given to Bashō. It spans two undated Edo commentaries and a disputed date of composition, and examines how readers for three centuries turned the mirror's cast-back plum into a figure for a virtue nobody sees.
Abstract
人も見ぬ春や鏡のうらの梅, a spring no one sees, the plum on the back of the mirror, is Bashō's at every witness that names a poet, dated 1693 by Chōmu 蝶夢's 1774 collection and to early 1692 by Shirane and Fitzsimons, neither checked at a source. Two Edo commentaries read the mirror's cast-back plum as a figure for unseen virtue, and a haikai manual placed the verse at the head of its eight styles; Shirane later read it as both a New Year's verse and a hermit's wish for retreat. Blyth translated it only once, posthumously in 1994; Haldane and Fitzsimons followed in the twenty-first century.
Overview
The text. The scroll carries 人も見ぬ春や鏡のうらの梅, and every witness has this wording; the writing splits only in the kana. 鏡 is kanji in every witness, かゝみ in the 1909 芭蕉句選; 見ぬ is kanji everywhere but the 1935 typeset's みぬ. One reading would have changed the poem and does not: the 1774 Chōmu collection scans as 夢のうら, the back of a dream, and the leaf shows 鏡 in a cursive hand; the 夢 was the scanner's. Another reading is noise: Shiki's 1889 copy scans as すや for 春や, and the leaf remains unsettled. No witness varies a word. The meter is five, seven, five: ひ・と・も・み・ぬ, は・る・や・か・が・み・の, う・ら・の・う・め.
The sense. The verse has been read one way since the Edo commentaries, and the way is a figure: the good that goes unseen. 師走嚢 said it plainly, the virtue no one knows; the 1783 compiler dressed it in the I Ching and made the unseen back the place of rest; the manual set it at the head of its eight styles. Shirane in 1998 gave it two layers at once: as a 歳旦吟, a New Year's verse, it celebrates the new year with the plum that blooms in the first month, and as a verse written when Bashō had shut his gate even to his disciples, the plum hidden behind the mirror is his own wish for retreat [1]. Ebara Taizō 潁原退蔵, through Ueda and Fitzsimons, made the same point as an aesthetic, Bashō was always attracted to inconspicuous beauty [2]. Blyth, in an essay printed after his death, heard Keats: a world of art which hardly belongs to this world except as a kind of perversion of it, a sort of back-of-the-mirror which our mind holds up to nature, and said Bashō, like Wordsworth, wanted the real one [3]. Nobody has read it any other way.
The words. 人も見ぬ春 is a spring that no one at all sees, the も making it not even people. 鏡のうら is the back of a mirror: a bronze mirror's reverse carried its cast design, plum among the commonest, and the page says this and it is right. 梅 is the plum, the first flower, and here the spring on the side no one turns over. The Edo readers made the object a figure. 師走嚢: 我身の徳を見知る人もなきは畢竟鏡のうらに梅の花なと鋳付たるはあれと … うらに有梅は見る人もなきことく世にしられぬもの, that no one knows one's own virtue is, in the end, like the plum cast on the back of a mirror: the plum on the back has no one to see it, a thing unknown to the world [4]. The 1783 第一義集 sets the other readings aside, 此句さま〳〵説ありといへども。皆もて穏当ならず, this verse has various explanations, none of them sound, and reads it through the I Ching's hexagram 艮, 艮其背不獲其身、行其庭不見其人, stopping at the back, one does not get the body; walking the courtyard, one does not see the person, and Teishi 程子 on stopping where one should: 鏡の面にうつる物は誰も見るべし。見れどもそれと気をつけざれば, what shows on the face of the mirror everyone sees, and seeing it no one attends to it; the back is the place to stop [5]. As words the line says: A spring no one sees: the plum on the back of the mirror.
The verse in English. Blyth's romaji appendix of 1952 carries no translation [6]; his first rendering came posthumously in 1994 [3], followed by Shirane in 1998 [1], Haldane in 2006 [7], and Fitzsimons in 2022 [2].
The historical record
1692 or 1693. Bashō, a New Year's verse. The date rests on the witnesses below, none of them checked at a source [1][8].
Edo, undated. Baimon 梅門, 師走嚢, a commentary. The verse glossed as the unrecognized virtue, in the words quoted above; the leaf is cursive [4].
Edo, undated. 幻住庵俳諧有也無也関, a haikai manual. In its eight styles of the hokku, 発句八躰之事, the verse stands first, directly under that heading and before the first style name, 幽玄躰, the style of the deep and dim. Whether the name belongs to this verse turns on whether the manual's names close their groups or head them, and the next leaf answers: the last name, 風曲躰, is followed by two verses and then the closing 右發句八躰の事, so the names head their groups, 幽玄躰 names the three verses after this one (やがて死ぬ気色は見えず蝉の声, 古池や蛙飛込水のおと, 梅の木に猶やどり木や梅の花), and this verse opens the list with no name of its own. 梅が香にのつと日の出る山路哉 stands eight verses down, the last under 無心躰 [9].
1774. Chōmu, 芭蕉翁発句集. Under 元禄六酉年, on a leaf of that year's spring verses, 人も見ぬ春や鏡のうらの梅, the 鏡 confirmed against the scanner's 夢 [8].
1783. Sanriki 鼻中庵三力, 俳諧第一義集, a Zen reading of the haikai canon. Under the compiler's headnote 目前分明, the verse, then two leaves of gloss: the other readings dismissed, the hexagram 艮 and 程子 quoted, and the reading that the plain front is what everyone sees and no one notices, so the back is where to rest [5].
1795. Akisato Ritō 秋里籬島, 俳翼, a small book of haikai relics. In the section 其角述 芭蕉翁四季発句, the verse, followed by a headnote for 乙州's departure to Edo and 梅若菜鞠子の宿のとろろ汁 [10].
1889. Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規, 発句類題全集, his manuscript copy. The verse in a mixed list; it scans as すや for 春や, and the leaf remains unsettled [11].
1909. 芭蕉句選, a verse list by season appended to a 菅菰抄 typeset. 春之部, page 143: 人も見ぬ春やかゝみのうらの梅, two verses under 梅か香にのつと日の出る山路哉, with 山里は萬歲おそしむめの花 between them; the leaf's margin note on another verse points the reader to 泊船集 [12].
1927, 1935. Shimada Seihō 島田青峰, 芭蕉俳句紀行全集; Chōmu's collection in the 有朋堂 typeset. The verse in the 1927 全集 [13], and in the 1935 typeset of the 1774 collection as 人もみぬ春や鏡のうらの梅, with 鏡, which is how the scanner's 夢 was first doubted [14].
The dictionaries today. kotobank's page for 松尾芭蕉 gives the poet's dates and does not quote the verse [15].
The attribution. Bashō's at every witness that names a poet, with no rival: Chōmu's 1774 collection, assembled by his colophon from the disciples' books [8]; Akisato's 1795 俳翼, which prints it in the section 其角述 芭蕉翁四季発句, the master's verses as 其角 told them [10]; the 1783 第一義集 and the Edo 師走嚢, which gloss it as the master's [5][4]; the 1909 句選 [12], Shiki's copy [11], the anthologies of 1927 and 1935 [13][14]. The date is a year in dispute between the witnesses. 蝶夢 files it under 元禄六酉年, 1693 [8]; Shirane writes that Bashō composed it at the beginning of 1692 (Genroku 5), at the age of 49, and his index gives First Month, Genroku 5 [1]; Fitzsimons dates it Spring 1692 [2]. Neither side has been checked at a source. The 1783 compiler heads the verse 目前分明, plain before the eyes, which is his and not the poet's. The Edo manual 有也無也関 classes it as 幽玄躰 [9].
What is not a source. The scanner's 夢 was never a variant; the leaf shows 鏡. The date is in dispute between Chōmu and the two modern scholars and neither has been checked at a source. The compiler's headnote of 1783 is his. The page's note on mirror backs is right about the object and is not a reading of the verse; the readings are above.
The verse in English
1952. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 4, Appendix, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo. The romaji in the appendix only, keyed to the preface; the four volumes carry no translation of it [6].
1994. R. H. Blyth, The Genius of Haiku, British Haiku Society and Hokuseido Press, page 99. A spring unseen of men,— / On the back of the mirror / A flowering plum-tree, with the Keats and Wordsworth paragraph quoted above. The one Blyth rendering, in a posthumous collection [3].
1998. Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams, Stanford University Press, page 50. a spring no one sees / plum blossoms / on the back of a mirror, with the 歳旦吟 reading, the retreat reading, and the date: at the beginning of 1692 (Genroku 5), at the age of 49 [1].
2006. Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, 2022. unseen Spring – / at the mirror's reverse, / the blossoming plum [7].
2022. Andrew Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō, University of California Press, no. 752. A spring no one sees / On the back of a mirror / blossoms of ume, dated Spring 1692, with Ebara's sentence through Ueda, page 335 [2].
Today. The house page carries no English rendering. A rendering of this line has one thing to keep: the plum is last, and it is on the back.
A reading
I read the verse as the tradition has from 師走嚢 to Ebara: the object is a bronze mirror's reverse, and the object is a person, the good that no one turns the mirror over to see. Shirane's two layers are the fullest account, a New Year's verse and a hermit's, and they do not compete. The date I would give as 1692 with Shirane and Fitzsimons, naming Chōmu's 1693 beside it, until one is read at a source. The 1774 leaf reads 鏡, and the scanner's dream is gone.
References
- Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams, Stanford University Press, 1998, p. 50.
- Andrew Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō, University of California Press, 2022, no. 752.
- R. H. Blyth, The Genius of Haiku, British Haiku Society and Hokuseido Press, 1994, p. 99.
- 梅門 Baimon『師走嚢』, manuscript, undated. National Diet Library pid 2540341, scan 13.
- 三力 Sanriki『俳諧第一義集』, 1783. National Diet Library pid 2568262, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2568262/1/9
- R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 4, Appendix, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952.
- Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, collected 2022 (rendering first published 2006).
- 五升庵蝶夢 Chōmu 編『芭蕉翁発句集』, 井筒屋, 1774. National Diet Library pid 2540314, scan 70. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2540314/1/70
- 『幻住庵俳諧有也無也関』, undated. National Diet Library pid 2539775, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2539775/1/15
- 秋里籬島 Akisato Ritō 編『俳翼』, 1795. National Diet Library pid 2541278, scan 10. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2541278/1/10
- 正岡子規 Masaoka Shiki 写『発句類題全集』, 1889. National Diet Library pid 2586392, scan 164.
- 蓑笠庵梨一 Saryūan Riichi『奥細道菅菰抄』, bound with 擲筆菴 編『芭蕉句選』上巻, 1909, p. 143. National Diet Library pid 888896, scan 82. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/888896/1/82
- 島田青峰 Shimada Seihō 編『芭蕉俳句紀行全集』, 1927. National Diet Library pid 1194541, scan 27.
- 藤井紫影 Fujii Shiei 校『名家俳句集』, 有朋堂文庫, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1259717, scan 66.
- 「松尾芭蕉」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/松尾芭蕉-16739