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稲妻にこぼるる音や竹の露 inazuma ni koboruru oto ya take no tsuyu Buson - A flash of lightning, The sound of dew, Dripping down the bamboos

稲妻にこぼるる音や竹の露 (inazuma ni koboruru oto ya take no tsuyu), lightning, and the sound of dew spilling from the bamboo, is Buson's. It stands in his late selection, published by his disciple Kitō in 1784, the winter after his death. This study follows a fork in its last word, the readers who argued over its word order, and its English.

Japanese Scroll of Buson - A flash of lightning, The sound of dew, Dripping down the bamboos (inazuma ni koboruru oto ya take no tsuyu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Buson - A flash of lightning, The sound of dew, Dripping down the bamboos稲妻にこぼるる音や竹の露inazuma ni koboruru oto ya take no tsuyu

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

稲妻にこぼるる音や竹の露, lightning, and the sound of dew spilling from the bamboo, is Buson's, standing in his own late selection, the 蕪村句集, compiled by his disciple Kitō 几董 and published in 1784, the winter after the poet's death; an anthology of 1820 reprints it with 稲妻の for 稲妻に, and two books of 1925, each reissued, print 聲, the bamboo's voice, for 露, against the 1784 leaf. In Japan the verse was argued over more than it was praised: the round-table of Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規's circle disputed why the sound comes before the dew, two readers set it beside a waka of Saigyō 西行 on the bamboo in a storm, and Kawahigashi Hekigotō 河東碧梧桐, who had defended it about 1900, called it clever and contrived in 1934. Blyth gave the earliest known English rendering in 1949, with drops for the dew, and restored the dew in 1952, and most translators since have kept it.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 稲妻にこぼるる音や竹の露, and the last word is the one that matters. The 蕪村句集 of 1784 prints 稲妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 in its autumn section, the 雨 radical over 路 unmistakable, in a run of four lightning verses [1]. The next print, the 俳諧発句題叢 compiled by Aono Taikyū 青野太筇 and published in 1820, files it under 稲妻 with Buson's name and reads 稲つまのこぼるゝ音や竹の露, the particle の for に [2]; Ebara Taizō 潁原退蔵's edition of 1925 and the edition of Buson's verse in Shiki's collected works of the same year both record that reading beside the 句集's [3][4]. The Meiji and Shōwa editions, anthologies and manuals read 露: the 1906 annotated edition, いな妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 [5]; the anthologies and manuals of 1909 and 1910, 稻妻にこほるゝ or こぼるゝおとや竹の露 [6][7][8]; the 1932 prefectural history; 藤井紫影's 1935 edition of the 句集, 稻妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 [9][10]. Two books read otherwise. The 蕪村三千句 of 1925 and 半田良平's dated edition of the same year both print 稲妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の聲, the bamboo's voice, and 半田 tags the group 右四句、句集, claiming the 1784 book as his source for it [11][12]; each was reissued on the same page, the first in 1926 as 一茶蕪村名句全集 and the second in 1935, and both reissues keep 聲 [13][14]. The 1784 book reads 露, not 聲, so these are two instruments, perhaps one, against the source they name. The first two phrases vary only in writing: 稲妻, 稻妻, いな妻 and 稲つま; こぼるる, こぼるゝ and こほるゝ. The meter is five, seven, five: い・な・ず・ま・に, こ・ぼ・る・る・お・と・や, た・け・の・つ・ゆ.

The sense. The first Japanese reading is the round-table of Shiki's circle, printed as the 蕪村句集講義. Naitō Meisetsu 内藤鳴雪 took it as a garden scene: lightning, bamboo, the sound of its dew spilling, set in sequence so that the flash seems to shake the dew loose, 心地のよい句である, a pleasant verse. The question the table argued was the order. Hekigotō held that by logic the phrase should run 竹の露の音, the bamboo dew's sound, and that 音や stands first because the sound is the subject; Shiki answered that nothing is inverted, and the words come in the order they were felt: 即稻妻がした。こぼれる音がした。其こぼれたのは竹の露である, the lightning, then a sound of spilling, then what spilled was the dew on the bamboo [15]. Satō Kōroku 佐藤紅緑, in 1904, set the verse beside a waka of Abutsu-ni 阿仏尼 on a lonely clump of bamboo and one of Saigyō on dew and a dream woken by the wind in the bamboo, and judged that Buson had kept what each missed: 瞬間凄絶の光景を拉し來りて、刹那微妙なる露の音を配す, an instant of lightning, and against it the momentary, delicate sound of dew [16]. Noguchi Yonejirō 野口米次郎, in 1926, quoted the same waka of Saigyō and read the verse as a poet hearing the silence that the sound comes out of [17]. Hekigotō, returning to the verse in 1934, put it among Buson's lightning verses that いづれも洒落や小細工に落ちた作, fall into wit and petty contrivance, and kept his praise for the plain 堅田 verse beside it [18]. Blyth's commentary is the English reading: the grove, the flash, the whole of nature drawn tight for an instant, and the drip-drip of dew … felt so deeply, it can be called hearing [19]. The 1925 variant makes a different poem, quieter about the dew and louder about the bamboo; it is a good poem and it is not Buson's, on the evidence of his own book.

The words. 稲妻 is lightning, the autumn season word; Buson's lightning verses travel together in the 句集, 八丈かけて, 一網打つや, 堅田泊り, and this one [1]. こぼるる音 is the sound of something spilling over, こぼる being what dew does from a leaf and tears from an eye; the sound is small and it is the whole poem. や cuts the line after the sound and holds it. 竹の露 is the dew on the bamboo, shaken loose by the flash or by the thunder that is not named. As words the line says: At the lightning, the sound of spilling: the dew on the bamboo. 露 is dew, and no witness has rain: the delicacy the verse depends on is that a flash of lightning shakes loose something as small as dew, in a grove quiet enough for it to be heard.

The verse in English. Blyth gave the verse's earliest known English rendering in 1949, The sound of drops / Falling among the bamboos, and a second in 1952 that keeps the dew [20][19]; Stewart rhymed it in 1960, a gift anthology of 1967 reprinted Blyth's 1952 lines without his name, Beilenson gave three dew-drops in 1968, Sato kept the dew in 1981, Hamill gave water drops in 1995, and Ueda in 1998 and Sawa and Shiffert in 2007 kept the dew [21][22][23][24][25][26][27].

The historical record

1784. 蕪村句集, 前編 巻之下, 秋之部, edited by Kitō, the poet's own late selection. The verse stands in the lightning run, after いなづまや堅田泊りの宵の空 and before the headnote 春夜に句をとはれて that opens the next; it reads 稲妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 [1].

1820. 青野太筇, 俳諧発句題叢, 前編, 秋. Under the topic heading 稲妻, the second verse: 稲つまのこぼるゝ音や竹の露, signed 蕪村 [2].

1889. 正岡子規, 発句類題全集, a manuscript compilation of verses by topic. The verse stands in the lightning topic under 蕪村, with the source 題叢 [28].

1900s. 蕪村句集講義, the round-table of Shiki, Meisetsu, Hekigotō, Takahama Kyoshi 高浜虚子 and others. Serialized in ホトトギス and collected in book form from 1900; the autumn discussion is read in the 1911 edition: Meisetsu's garden scene and pleasant verse, the question why 音や comes first, Hekigotō's answer and Shiki's [15].

1904. 佐藤紅緑, 蕪村俳句評釈. 稲妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露, with the commentary comparing Abutsu-ni's and Saigyō's bamboo and closing on the phrase こぼるゝ音や as the verse's whole art: 中七字「こぼるゝ音や」の一句、一韻到底の文字なり [16].

1906. 岩本梓石, 蕪村俳句全集 標註, an annotated edition. いな妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露, in the autumn section [5].

1909 and 1910. 古今名家愛吟集; 沼波瓊音, 俳句の作り方; 護竹軒主人, 閑日月. Three anthologies and manuals, each with the verse in an autumn column under Buson, 稻妻にこほるゝ音や竹の露 and 稻妻にこぼるゝおとや竹の露 with furigana [6][7][8].

1925. 蕪村三千句 and 半田良平, 蕪村俳句全集 季題別, two collected editions. The 三千句 prints 稻妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の聲 and 半田 prints 稻妻にこぼるる音や竹の聲, the old 稻 in both and the repeat mark only in the first; 半田 closes the group of four with 右四句、句集 [11][12]. The 三千句 was reissued on the same page, p. 89, as 一茶蕪村名句全集 in 1926, and 半田's edition on the same page, p. 48, in 1935; both keep 聲 [13][14].

1925. 潁原退蔵, 蕪村全集, and 子規全集. 潁原 prints 稲妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 from the 句集 with the note 幽に物のこぼるゝ音せり、そは竹の露なりき。この句上五題叢に「稲妻の」, faintly the sound of something spilling, and it was the dew on the bamboo; the 題叢 has 稲妻の [3]. Shiki's edition of Buson's verse in the collected works prints 稲妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 with の set beside に and the sources 蕪翁句集 and 題叢 [4].

1926. 野口米次郎, 蕪村俳句選評. The verse as number 一九, with Saigyō's waka as the commentator prints it, 玉みがくつゆぞ枕におりかかる夢おどろかす竹のあらしに, the Chinese line 鳥啼山更幽, and Bashō's 閑かさや岩にしみ入る蟬の聲, then: 詩人は聲のなかから生れる沈默に觸れて、始めてその聲に偉大な價値があることを認める, the poet touches the silence born inside the sound, and only then knows the sound's worth [17].

1928. 日本俳書大系, 蕪村俳句類聚. The verse in the volume's own classified compilation, 稻妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 [29].

1932 and 1935. 広島県誌; 藤井紫影, 名家俳句集. The prefectural history quotes the verse inside a biographical notice; 藤井's edition of the 句集 prints it in place, 稻妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 [9][10].

1934. 河東碧梧桐, 蕪村名句評釈. Under 堅田泊り: the 八丈, 一網 and this verse いづれも洒落や小細工に落ちた作の中に、湖上の一風景のみ、穩やかで素直である, among works fallen into wit and contrivance, only the lake scene is calm and plain [18].

The dictionaries today. The Nipponica entry on kotobank, 蕪村, gives the poet's dates 1716–1783; Shimizu Takayuki 清水孝之's judgment that the 句集 was the poet's own late selection is at the attribution below [30].

The attribution. Buson's, and never anyone else's. The 蕪村句集 that carries it was published under Kitō's name in 1784 with a postscript dated 天明四甲辰之冬十二月, the twelfth month of 1784, which falls in January or February 1785 by the Western calendar [1]; the encyclopedia entry on kotobank, following Shimizu Takayuki, holds that the selection was Buson's own, made in his last years from his own verse-books, and that Kitō copied it faithfully to print [30]. So the book is as close to the poet's hand as print comes. The 1820 題叢 signs it 蕪村 [2]; Shiki's manuscript compilation of 1889 files it under 蕪村 [28]; every printed edition from 1906 files it as Buson's, and the 1928 compilation, the 1932 history and the 1935 edition likewise. No date of composition is given by any witness.

What is not a source. The three other lightning verses of the 句集 run, 稻妻や八丈かけて, 稻妻に一網打つやいせの海 and いなづまや堅田泊りの宵の空, are this verse's neighbors in Buson's own ordering and the reason 半田 could tag the group as 句集; they are its company, not its kin. The waka of Saigyō and Abutsu-ni are the commentators' comparisons, not the verse's sources; no witness says Buson had either in mind. The 1925 聲 has no support in the 句集 its editor names, and 潁原's edition of the same year, which records the 題叢's の, records no 聲.

The verse in English

1949. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Eastern Culture, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 270, under Haiku and Poetry. 稲妻にこぼるゝ音や竹の露 蕪村; A flash of lightning! / The sound of drops / Falling among the bamboos. Set after the sentence A haiku is the expression of a temporary enlightenment, in which we see into the life of things. Blyth's first rendering, with drops for 露 and falling for こぼるる, three years before his second [20].

1952. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, under LIGHTNING, page 69. A flash of lightning! / The sound of the dew / Dripping down the bamboos, with the commentary on tension and hearing quoted above [19].

1960. Harold Stewart, A Net of Fireflies, Tuttle, page 43. A rhymed couplet under a title of the translator's, Prelude for Koto: A lightning-flash! The liquid chime of dew / Dripping throughout the forest-high bamboo. [21]

1967. Silent Flowers, Hallmark. Blyth's 1952 three lines, A flash of lightning! / The sound of the dew / Dripping down the bamboos., under the poet's name and no translator's [22].

1968. Peter Beilenson, A Haiku Garland, Peter Pauper Press. Lightning flash, crash … / Waiting in the bamboo grove / See three dew-drops fall, under Buson [23].

1981. Hiroaki Sato, in From the Country of Eight Islands, edited and translated by Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson, Anchor Press / Doubleday, pages 344–345. One line under the heading Lightning: Lightning spills a noise: a dewdrop from bamboo [24].

1995. Sam Hamill, The Sound of Water, Shambhala. A lightning flash— / the sound of water drops / falling through bamboo, under Buson [25].

1998. Makoto Ueda, The Path of Flowering Thorn: The Life and Poetry of Yosa Buson, Stanford University Press. at a flash / of lightning, the sound of dew / falling from a bamboo, with the romaji and the edition reference (1: 577) [26].

2007. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press, page 130. With the lightning, / a sound of dripping down! / Dew on the bamboo [27].

A reading

The 1784 leaf settles the last word for 露: the poet's own late selection reads 露, the 1820 anthology reads 露, and the 1925 聲 goes into the apparatus as the reading of two Taishō books, not as a rival. The 題叢's 稲妻の is a real variant and a small one; に makes the lightning the occasion of the sound, の makes the sound the lightning's own, and the poet's book has に. On the order of the words I side with Shiki: nothing is inverted, and the line gives the listener's experience in the order it happened, the flash, a sound, and only then the knowledge of what it was. That is why the dew comes last. I read the verse, as 紅緑 and 野口 did, as a poem about the threshold of hearing. Lightning is the loudest thing in the sky and it makes no sound here; what is heard is dew, the quietest thing in the grove, and it is heard because the flash has made the listener still. Hekigotō's charge of contrivance is a real reading and it has a footing: the verse does lay a cause, the flash, under an effect it cannot have caused. I think the contrivance is the listener's and not the poet's, a mind that joins the flash and the drip because they came together, and that joining is the poem. Blyth's dripping down the bamboos keeps it.

References

  1. 几董 編『蕪村句集』前編, 1784, 巻之下 秋之部. National Institute of Japanese Literature, 国書データベース, biblio 300106341, canvas 44. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/300106341/44
  2. 青野太筇 編『俳諧発句題叢』前編, 1820, 秋, folio 54. National Institute of Japanese Literature, 国書データベース, biblio 200002554, canvas 397. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200002554/397
  3. 潁原退蔵 編『蕪村全集』, 1925, 発句篇, p. 155. National Diet Library pid 1018320, scan 105. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018320/1/105
  4. 『子規全集』, 1925, p. 502. National Diet Library pid 978848, scan 264. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978848/1/264
  5. 岩本梓石 編『蕪村俳句全集 標註』, 1906, p. 135. National Diet Library pid 875714, scan 78. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875714/1/78
  6. 『古今名家愛吟集』, 芳文社, 1909. National Diet Library pid 872345, scan 100. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/872345/1/100
  7. 沼波瓊音『俳句の作り方』, 文成社, 1909. National Diet Library pid 994608, scan 83. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/994608/1/83
  8. 護竹軒主人 編『閑日月』, 1910. National Diet Library pid 888988, scan 21. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/888988/1/21
  9. 『広島県誌』, 1932. National Diet Library pid 1030141, scan 583. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1030141/1/583
  10. 藤井紫影 校『名家俳句集』, 有朋堂, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1259717, scan 233. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259717/1/233
  11. 俳禅舎主人 編『蕪村三千句』, 1925, p. 89. National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 47. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/924926/1/47
  12. 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別』, 1925, p. 48. National Diet Library pid 964212, scan 31. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964212/1/31
  13. 俳禅舎主人 編『一茶蕪村名句全集』, 1926, p. 89. National Diet Library pid 968909, scan 48. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968909/1/48
  14. 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別年代附』, 1935, p. 48. National Diet Library pid 1090303, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1090303/1/29
  15. 内藤鳴雪 等『蕪村句集講義』, 籾山書店, 1911, pp. 32–34. National Diet Library pid 875707, scans 19–20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875707/1/19
  16. 佐藤紅緑『蕪村俳句評釈』, 大学館, 1904, pp. 210–212. National Diet Library pid 875716, scans 110–111. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875716/1/110
  17. 野口米次郎『蕪村俳句選評』, 1926, pp. 83–84. National Diet Library pid 1019055, scans 44–45. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1019055/1/44
  18. 河東碧梧桐『蕪村名句評釈』, in 『俳句評釈選集』, 非凡閣, 1934, p. 176. National Diet Library pid 1148254, scan 94. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1148254/1/94
  19. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952, under LIGHTNING, p. 69.
  20. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Eastern Culture, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949, p. 270.
  21. Harold Stewart, A Net of Fireflies, Charles E. Tuttle, Rutland and Tokyo, 1960, p. 43.
  22. Dorothy Price (ed.), Silent Flowers, Hallmark, 1967.
  23. Peter Beilenson (ed. and tr.), A Haiku Garland, Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, 1968, unnumbered page.
  24. Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson (ed. and tr.), From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry, Anchor Press / Doubleday, Garden City, 1981, pp. 344–345.
  25. Sam Hamill (tr.), The Sound of Water: Haiku by Bashō, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets, Shambhala, Boston, 1995, the Buson section.
  26. Makoto Ueda, The Path of Flowering Thorn: The Life and Poetry of Yosa Buson, Stanford University Press, 1998, p. 30.
  27. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press, Buffalo, 2007, p. 130.
  28. 正岡子規『発句類題全集』, 1889. National Diet Library pid 2586419, scan 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2586419/1/7
  29. 勝峰晋風 編『日本俳書大系』, 1928, 蕪村俳句類聚. National Diet Library pid 1179400, scan 212. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179400/1/212
  30. 「与謝蕪村」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/与謝蕪村

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 — the run mis-paired its inputs, so its findings were set aside; every page image re-opened by hand afterwards and every citation found to resolve; two renderings added

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 稲妻にこぼるる音や竹の露 (inazuma ni koboruru oto ya take no tsuyu)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/inazuma-ni-koboruru-oto-ya-take-no-tsuyu.