池と川ひとつになりぬ春の雨 ike to kawa hitotsu ni narinu haru no ame Buson - In the spring rain, The pond and the river, Have become one
This is a philological study of the haiku 池と川ひとつになりぬ春の雨 (ike to kawa hitotsu ni narinu haru no ame), given to Buson from his posthumous papers. It centers on a recorded 1903 discussion in which three of Shiki's circle argued whether the joining of two waters can be a spring-rain scene at all, and examines that dispute alongside the verse's one English rendering.
Abstract
池と川ひとつになりぬ春の雨, the pond and the stream have become one; spring rain, is Buson's, carried in the 蕪村遺稿, the posthumous gathering of verses left out of the 句集 printed in his lifetime. Its earliest print is 1902, and a recorded discussion of 1903 has three of Shiki's circle arguing whether the joining of two waters can be a spring-rain scene at all; a fourth reader in 1920 answers in Buson's own dream-voice. Blyth's rendering of 1952 is the verse's only known English witness, and it hears a metaphysics of water where the Japanese readers heard the size of a garden.
Overview
The text. The scroll carries 池と川ひとつになりぬ春の雨, and so does every edition of Buson: the 1902 全集 [1], the 1904 評釈 [2], the 1906 標註 [3], the 1907 lecture record [4], the 1921 annotated edition [5], the two 1925 editions [6][7], the 1925 三千句 [8], the 1935 dated edition [9] and the 1928 index [10]. One witness differs by a particle. A haikai dictionary of 1909 prints, under its entry for spring rain, 池と川とひとつになりぬ春の雨, with a second と after 川 [11]; the extra と may be the scanner's rather than the printer's. Nothing in the sense turns on it. The meter is five, seven, five: い・け・と・か・わ, ひ・と・つ・に・な・り・ぬ, は・る・の・あ・め.
The sense. One line and three readings, and they disagree about size rather than meaning. Everyone agrees the waters have joined; the question is whether the joining is small enough to be spring. Hekigotō 碧梧桐 in 1903 says no: a pond and a river becoming one is a flood, and floods are the summer rains' [4]. Kyoshi 虚子 the same afternoon says yes: make the waters small, a field-brook and a garden pond, and the season word governs [4]. Kōroku 紅緑 in 1904 says yes with the whole weight of the season word behind him: the spring rain is small, gentle, casual, feminine, and the verse's ひとつになりぬ has that casualness and none of the summer rain's decision [2]. 架空 in 1920 finds a way past the quarrel: the waters have not flooded together, they have come back level after the winter's low, and the oneness is of height rather than of body [12]. Blyth in 1952 reads none of this and hears a metaphysics, the omnipresence and omnipotence of water … what seemed three different things, lake, stream, and rain, are intrinsically one [13]. The Japanese readers were arguing about a garden; the English one about the world. The tradition's own answer, if the weight of the record is the answer, is 紅緑's: the season word decides, and the verse is soft.
The words. 池と川 is a pond and a stream, and the whole of the 1903 quarrel is about how big they are: Hekigotō hears a pond and a river, Kyoshi a field-brook hidden in the grass and a little pond beside it [4]. ひとつになりぬ is have become one; ぬ is the perfective, the thing has happened and is finished, quietly. 春の雨 is the spring rain, the season word: the soft, continuous, warm rain of spring, not the 五月雨 of early summer that floods rivers. Satō Kōroku in 1904 puts the whole distinction in a sentence, 五月雨は大きく烈しい感じで春雨は小さく緩やかな感じである, the summer rain is a large, violent feeling and the spring rain a small, gentle one [2]. The verse's device is that a large-sounding event, two waters become one, is placed under a small-sounding season word, and the reader has to decide which one governs. As words the line says: The pond and the stream have become one; spring rain.
The verse in English. Blyth's rendering of 1952, reprinted in 1994, is the verse's only known English witness [13]; every other translator searched does not carry it. His three lines keep the two waters and their joining as finished, and the season word's softness, unchanged between the two printings.
The historical record
1902. 山田三子, 蕪村俳句全集, a collected edition. The verse in the spring section, no note. The earliest known print [1].
1903, printed 1907. Naitō Meisetsu 内藤鳴雪, Kawahigashi Hekigotō, Takahama Kyoshi, 蕪村遺稿講義, the record of a reading meeting, written up by Kyoshi. The fourth session, headed 明治三十六年七月二十日老梅居に會する者、主翁、碧梧桐、虚子, those gathered at 老梅居 on 20 July 1903: the master of the house, 碧梧桐, 虚子, reads one leaf of the 遺稿's spring section. Kyoshi opens with the plain sense: 池の側に川がある。春雨の降り續いた爲に水がまして、池の水と川の水とが一つになつてぬまつてしまつた、といふのである, so printed, with a stray ぬまつて the compositor left in, there is a stream beside the pond; the spring rain has gone on so long that the water has risen and the pond's water and the stream's have become one. Hekigotō objects: 池と川といふと大きな感じで其水が一つになつてしまつた、といふのは五月雨の頃には見る景色だが、春雨の景色とは思へぬ, a pond and a river sound large, and their waters becoming one is a scene of the summer rains; I cannot think it a spring-rain scene. Kyoshi answers with the size of the waters, この池や川は大きいのでは無い。草隱れに流れて居る野川と其傍に在る小さい池とを想像すれば、春雨の趣きによくなつてゐると思ふ, this pond and stream are not large; imagine a field-brook running hidden in the grass and a little pond beside it, and it suits the feeling of spring rain well, cites the Chinese line 春水滿四澤, spring waters fill the four marshes, which he says has come up often in these sessions, and adds that the slow, drawn-out cadence of the verse is spring rain's, not the summer rain's. Hekigotō concedes the cadence and keeps the objection: 調子の延びてゐて春雨らしいといふ點には異論は無いが「池と川」といふとどうしても大きい感じになる、其を小さいものと解するのは無理ではあるまいか, I do not dispute that the drawn-out cadence is spring-like, but "pond and river" cannot help sounding large, and is it not forced to read them as small? The record moves to the next verse without a ruling [4].
1904. Satō Kōroku, 蕪村俳句評釈, a commentary. The fullest reading on the record, and it takes 虚子's side without naming him. 面白い趣向である、此の池は庭の池である池尻に籬かあつて山吹がそろ〳〵咲きかけて居る、平常は此の籬を通して池の水が小川に落合つて居るのだが、春雨のために水嵩が增して此の池と小川との區別がなくなり, an interesting conception: this pond is a garden pond, with a fence at its outlet and the yamabuki just coming into bloom; ordinarily the pond's water falls through the fence into a small stream, but the spring rain has raised the water until the distinction between pond and stream is gone. Then he sets the reader an exercise: 若し之れを五月雨にしたらば如何であらうか、「池と川ひとつになりぬ五月雨」此の點が考ふべき處ろである, what if one made it summer rain, "pond and stream become one: summer rain"? That is the point to think about. His answer follows on the next leaf: the summer rain is 大きく烈しい, large and violent, the spring rain 小さく緩やか, small and gentle; 五月雨は男の如く春雨は女の如くである, the summer rain is like a man, the spring rain like a woman; and the verse's phrase, 池と川ひとつになりぬといふも即ちなをざりの感じで五月雨の如く思ひ切つた感じでない, "pond and stream become one" has exactly that casual feeling, not the decisive feeling of the summer rain. Written a year after the 1903 sitting and printed three years before its record, the commentary answers the same question the sitting had left open [2].
1906. Iwamoto Shiseki 岩本梓石, 蕪村俳句全集 標註, an annotated edition. The verse in the spring-rain run without a gloss [3].
1909. 武田桜桃, 俳諧辞典, a haikai dictionary. Under はるさめ, as an example: 池と川とひとつになりぬ春の雨, the one witness with the second と [11].
1920. 木村架空, 蕪村夢物語, a critic's book in which Buson answers his readers in a dream. The 1903 exchange is restaged and then the dream-Buson rules on it: 作者の意は矢張り碧氏のいふ通りの池と川とであるが、それが強ち接近して居るのでもなし。又双方の水が合流したのでもない。旣に冬からの減水も、春雨の降る頃は舊に復して、河水も池水も水量が略ば平均した樣を云つたものだ, the author did mean a pond and a river as 碧梧桐 says, but they are not necessarily side by side, nor have their waters merged; the winter's low water has come back to its old level with the spring rain, and the verse says that the river's water and the pond's are now about level. A third reading: not adjacent, not merged, but equal again [12].
1921. Hasegawa Reiyoshi 長谷川零余子, 蕪村俳句全集 校註解釈, an annotated edition. The verse in the run, no footnote [5].
1925. Ebara Taizō 潁原退蔵, 蕪村全集, the scholarly edition, and the 蕪村三千句 of the same year. The verse in the apparatus run of the one and the spring section of the other; Ebara's apparatus is silent at this verse, though not at its neighbors [6][8].
1925 and 1935. Handa Ryōhei 半田良平, 蕪村俳句全集 季題別 and 季題別年代附, the collected verse by season word. Under 春雨, after the tag 右十四句、句集 closes the 句集 verses, the 遺稿 group opens with 春雨や珠數落したる潦 and 春雨にぬれつゝ屋根の手毬かな; this verse is its third, and the group closes eight verses after it with 右十一句、遺稿. The source tag is the editor's and is the record's plainest statement of where the verse comes from [7][9].
1928. Katsumine Shinpū 勝峰晋風, 日本俳書大系, the index volume. The verse filed under イケト with its source volume [10].
The dictionaries today. The Nipponica entry on kotobank gives the poet's dates, 1716–1783, and does not mention the verse [14].
The attribution. Every witness that names a poet names Buson, and the editions place the verse not in the 蕪村句集 of 1784, the selection printed in his lifetime's last year, but in the 蕪村遺稿, the posthumous gathering of what the 句集 left out. The 1907 lecture record says so at its head, 蕪村遺稿春之部四丁表より一枚, one leaf from the fourth leaf, recto, of the spring section of the 遺稿 [4]; and Handa Ryōhei's dated editions of 1925 and 1935 close the group before this verse with the tag 右十四句、句集 and the group it opens with 右十一句、遺稿 [7][9]. No witness dates the composition; the 遺稿's own leaf is the one address that would settle whether a headnote sits with the verse. The English record is Blyth's alone and he does not doubt it [13].
What is not a source. The Chinese line Kyoshi quotes, 春水滿四澤, spring waters fill the four marshes, is the opening of a quatrain on the four seasons in the Chinese tradition and was, by his own words, a standing reference at these sittings; it is a parallel he reached for, not a source Buson names [4]. Kōroku's three Buson summer-rain verses, うき草も沈む許りよ五月雨, さみだれに見えずなりぬる徑かな and 五月雨や滄海を衝く濁水, are the contrast he sets the verse against, not its kin [2]. 架空's dream-Buson is a critic speaking in the poet's voice and is a witness to 1920, not to Buson [12]. None of these is a source for the verse; they are the company the argument keeps.
The verse in English
1952. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 4, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, in the volume's opening section on Buson. In the spring rain, / The pond and the river / Have become one, with the sentence before it, The above and all the remaining verses of this second section are by Buson, and the commentary quoted above on the omnipotence of water [13].
1994. R. H. Blyth, The Genius of Haiku, British Haiku Society and Hokuseido Press, pages 101–102 (the verse at the foot of 101, the comment opening 102, by the file's page markers). The same three lines reprinted [15].
Today. The house English is Blyth's three lines exactly, in his order, without his name. A rendering of this line has to keep the two waters and their joining as finished, ひとつになりぬ, and it has to keep the season word soft; Blyth's lines do both and add nothing, which is why they have been copied. A house rendering that wanted to differ from his could only put the rain last, where the Japanese has it.
A reading
I side with Kōroku and 架空 against Hekigotō, and I think Hekigotō was the better reader for objecting. The verse sets a large event under a small season word on purpose, and the reader who feels the strain between them is feeling the poem; the reader who resolves it, as Kyoshi did by shrinking the waters and 架空 by leveling them, is explaining it. The season word governs, because in this form it always does: the rain is spring's, so the joining is soft, and ひとつになりぬ is a quiet completion, a boundary that has dissolved without force. Blyth's omnipotence of water overshoots a garden pond; his three lines do not.
References
- 山田三子 編『蕪村俳句全集』, 内外出版協会, 1902. National Diet Library pid 875715, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875715/1/15
- 佐藤紅緑『蕪村俳句評釈』, 大学館, 1904, printed pages 72–75. National Diet Library pid 875716, scans 41–42. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875716/1/41
- 岩本梓石 編『蕪村俳句全集 標註』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 875714, scan 16. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875714/1/16
- 内藤鳴雪・河東碧梧桐・高浜虚子『蕪村遺稿講義』, 俳書堂, 1907, printed pages 54–57. National Diet Library pid 875701, scans 31–32. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875701/1/31
- 長谷川零余子 編『蕪村俳句全集 校註解釈』, 1921. National Diet Library pid 968346, scans 20–21. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968346/1/20
- 潁原退蔵 編『蕪村全集』, 有朋堂, 1925. National Diet Library pid 1018320, scan 36. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018320/1/36
- 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 964212, scan 13. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964212/1/13
- 『蕪村三千句』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/924926/1/7
- 半田良平 編『季題別年代附』, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1090303, scan 11. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1090303/1/11
- 勝峰晋風 編『日本俳書大系』, the index volume, 1928. National Diet Library pid 1179400, scan 212. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179400/1/212
- 武田桜桃 編『俳諧辞典』, 1909. National Diet Library pid 875374, scan 63. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875374/1/63
- 木村架空『蕪村夢物語』, 1920. National Diet Library pid 947592, scans 191–192. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/947592/1/191
- R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 4, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952.
- 「蕪村」, ニッポニカ, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蕪村
- R. H. Blyth, The Genius of Haiku, British Haiku Society and Hokuseido Press, 1994, pp. 101–102.