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稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo Bashō - How admirable, to see lightning, and not think life is fleeting

稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ (inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo), Bashō's verse, is followed from his 1690 letter through two spellings of its last word to English.

Japanese Scroll of Bashō - How admirable, to see lightning, and not think life is fleeting (inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Bashō - How admirable, to see lightning, and not think life is fleeting稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよinazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

Bashō set the verse down in the autumn of 1690, in a letter from Lake Biwa to a disciple in Edo that faults the disciples in Ōmi for complacent verse and loose lives, under a Zen teacher's warning against half-raw Zen. The first printing, of 1692, writes the last word 貴; the letter, as transcribed in 1947, spells it たつとさ. Its readers since 1783 agree that the admirable person does not take the flash for awakening, and differ on who that person is.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ, the 1692 form. Bashō's letter of 1690, as Ebara Taizō transcribed it in 1947, spells the last word in kana, たつとさよ [1]; the first printing, 己が光, writes the single character 貴 [2], as its 1934 typeset does [3]; a reprint of 1774 keeps 貴 and writes the first word in kana, いなつま [4]; the 1783 commentary keeps 貴, with the furigana タフト beside it [5]; an essay of 1800 reads 貴 in its text layer [6]; a treatise printed in 1829 under the name of Rōka 浪化 writes 悟らぬ, and its last word reads 尊 in the text layer [7]; one copy of the Edo manuscript 鶯宿雑記 reads 高 in its text layer [8]; Masaoka Shiki's 正岡子規 1889 manuscript writes 悟らぬ・尊 [9]; a 1909 typeset spells the last word out, とうとさよ [10]; a 1927 anthology keeps 貴 [11]; Hattori Kōseki's 服部畊石 commentary of 1932 spells it in kana, たふとさよ, under the tag 己が光 [12]; Ebara's 1947 edition prints both forms side by side [1]. Two splits run through the tradition, さとらぬ against 悟らぬ and 貴 against 尊, with 高 once. In the text layers of the seventy-nine books in the National Diet Library's digital collection that carry the verse, twenty-two, from 1911 to 1946, spell the last word in the historical kana たふとさよ, thirty-nine write 尊 and seventeen 貴 [13]. The meter is five, seven, five under either reading of the last word, た・っ・と・さ・よ or と・う・と・さ・よ.

The sense. The flash of lightning is one of the oldest images in Buddhism for how things pass; the Diamond Sutra ends on it [14], and Hattori Kōseki in 1932 quotes the sutra's phrase, 如露亦如電, like dew, like lightning, as the stock words of the fox Zen the verse rebukes [12]. The 1829 book sets it beside 石火電光, the spark from a flint and the lightning, the instant [7]. The readers named here agree that the person Bashō admires is the one who sees the flash and does not take it for awakening; they differ on who that person is. The Zen commentator of 1783 admires one who is awakened and does not claim it [5]. The 1829 book reads a warning against flexing the arm at the flash, and asks that lightning be seen as frail, pitiable and lonely [7]. Hattori admires the person who takes no notice of fox Zen at all [12]. Asatarō Miyamori reads a rebuke to a superficial sense of life's vanity [15]; R. H. Blyth makes it a plain statement, life is life and lightning is lightning [16]; Hiroaki Sato reads a great wariness of enlightenment [17]; Faubion Bowers reads Bashō as happy not to gain transcendence from a flash in the sky [18]; and Roland Barthes, quoted in Robert Hass's note, reads a joke at the expense of meaning [19].

The words. 稲妻 inazuma, lightning, the autumn season word; literally the rice's spouse, from the old belief that lightning ripened the ears [20]. に marks what the person is not enlightened by. さとらぬ satoranu, does not awaken, the negative of 悟る, the verb of Buddhist enlightenment; in the letter and the first printing it is in kana, and later printings write 悟らぬ. 人の hito no, the person's. 貴さよ tattosa yo, how admirable, the noun of 尊い / 貴い, noble, precious, to be revered, with the exclamation よ. The scroll carries 貴, the form of the 1692 first printing; about half the later printings write 尊; the letter writes the word in kana. As words the line says: lightning; and a person it does not enlighten; how admirable. The word has two readings, and both were in the language long before Bashō: tōtoshi is the plain descendant of the classical たふとし, which the Man'yōshū writes, and tattoshi a contracted form first attested about 1179. Bashō's own letter spells it たつとさ [1]; the 1783 commentary glosses its own 貴 with the kana タフト [5], a verse list of 1909 spells it とうとさ [10], and the 1932 commentary spells it たふとさ [12]. Of the English editions, the three complete ones, by David Landis Barnhill, Jane Reichhold and Andrew Fitzsimons, romanize tattosa; Miyamori, Blyth, Bowers and Michael Haldane romanize tōtosa, and Sato and Sam Hamill totosa. The split does not follow the headnote a translator prints: Barnhill, Reichhold and Fitzsimons print the 1692 headnote and date the verse by the letter, and Sato, who prints the letter's headnote, romanizes totosa.

The verse in English. The earliest English rendering in the sources searched is Miyamori's, in his anthology of 1932 [15], romanizing tōtosa. Blyth rendered it in 1942, and again unchanged in 1949 and 1952 [16][21]. Sato in 1983 romanized it totosa [17]. Hass in 1994 gave the house's title line, with Robert Aitken's literal reading in his note [19]. Bowers in 1996 printed a rendering of his own, romanizing tōtosa [18]. Hamill in 1998 romanized it totosa [22]. Barnhill in 2004 romanized it tattosa [23]. Haldane's rendering of 2006 romanizes tōtosa [24]. Reichhold in 2008 romanized tattosa [25]. Fitzsimons in 2022 romanized tattosa [26]. The house's title is Hass's 1994 line in his words, with its own punctuation; Hass's line shares its opening, How admirable, and its life is fleeting with Blyth's of 1942.

The historical record

Before 1690. The sutra's image. The Diamond Sutra ends on the flash of lightning as the figure for how everything passes: 一切有為法，如夢、幻、泡、影，如露亦如電，應作如是觀, all conditioned things are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow, like dew and like lightning; see them so, in Kumārajīva's translation [14].

1690, the sixth of the ninth month. The letter to Suganuma Kyokusui 曲水. The date is 7 October 1690 by Barnhill's conversion [23]; Reichhold alone writes winter [25]. Bashō, living at Gichū-ji 義仲寺 on the south shore of Lake Biwa, where he would later be buried, wrote to Kyokusui, his host in Ōmi, a high-ranking warrior of the Zeze clan in Reichhold's words [25], who was away on duty in Edo. More of Bashō's surviving letters are to Kyokusui than to anyone else; this one, by the account of the three modern complete editions, praises Kyokusui's sincerity and criticizes the disciples still in Ōmi for the complacency of their verse and the looseness of their lives. In it Bashō sets down something a Zen teacher had said to him and, under it, this verse. The letter's headnote, as the 1947 edition transcribes it: ある智識のゝ給ふ、なま禅なま仏是魔界, a teacher said: half-raw Zen, half-raw Buddha, that is the demon realm. The verse follows, 稲妻にさとらぬ人のたつとさよ, the last word in kana. The letter is quoted here as Ebara Taizō transcribed it in 1947 [1]; in 1956 the holograph was listed in a private collection [27].

1692. 己が光. Two years after the letter, the verse was printed for the first time, in the anthology 己が光, compiled by 車要 of Osaka [27]. In its autumn section the headnote ある智識ののたまはく、なま禅大疵のもとゐとかや、いとありがたく覚えて stands over 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ, signed 翁; the last word is the single character 貴, written as the same book writes 貴 in ことたらぬこそ貴けれ in its winter section [2].

1725. 十論為弁抄. Named only by Shiki's 1889 tag as the headnote's home, Shikō's 支考 treatise; the treatise itself is not read [9].

1774. 芭蕉翁発句集. 蝶夢's collection of Bashō's verses reprints the verse with the 1692 headnote, as いなつまにさとらぬ人乃貴さよ, the first word in kana and the last word 貴 [4].

1783. 俳諧第一義集. A Zen reading of the whole haikai canon, this sets the verse first under the heading 翁示門人六章, six verses the master showed his disciples, and glosses it: the admirable one is 覚りながらさとらぬ, awakened and not claiming it, who has become 赤子の心, the mind of an infant [5].

1800. 萍花謾筆. An essay naming the verse Bashō's [6].

1829. 『俳諧正語抄』, a haikai treatise printed under the name of Rōka 浪化 (1672–1703). A few lines after its account of Bashō's deathbed, in a run of his verses each with a comment, the book reads this one as a warning against 張臂, flexing the arm at the flash and calling that right seeing; the honest way to see lightning is as frail, pitiable and lonely [7]. The book was printed a hundred and twenty-six years after Rōka's death, from a manuscript said to have been kept at the house of Zushi Rogan 図司呂丸 at Haguro, and Shida Gishū 志田義秀 in 1934 calls it 僞書であらう, probably a forgery [28]; the reading is the 1829 book's.

Edo, undated. 鶯宿雑記. Komai Norimura's 駒井乗邨 manuscript copies the verse twice: one writes the last word 高さよ [8], the second writes the first word in kana, 稲つまにさとらぬ人の尊さよ, as it writes 稲つまや for Bashō's 稲妻や顔のところが薄の穂 two columns before [29].

1889 and 1891. Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規. In 1889 Shiki copied the verse into his manuscript anthology under 稲妻 with its headnote [9]. In 1891, defending a verse of his own, he reached for it as the whole of what he meant, capping it with 草木国土悉皆成仏, grass, trees, land and earth all attain Buddhahood [30].

1909. 芭蕉句選. A typeset verse list spells the last word out, とうとさよ [10].

1921 and 1927. Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男, in 1921, alludes to the verse in his own phrase, 「稻妻に悟らぬ人の」をかしさよ, rather than quoting it [31]. A 1927 anthology prints it whole, 稻妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ [11].

1932. Hattori Kōseki 服部畊石, 芭蕉句集新講. Hattori names the target outright: 野狐禅, fox Zen, which likes to tie a feeling of impermanence to every flash, as in "like dew, like lightning"; the person who takes no notice of any of that is far more admirable [12].

1934. 日本俳書大系. Reproduces the 1692 printing whole, with a different headnote from the letter's, ある智識ののたまはく、なま禅大疵のもとゐとかや、いとありがたく覚えて, a teacher said, "half-raw Zen is the root of great harm," and I received it with deep gratitude, then 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ, signed 翁, the old master [3]. なま, raw, unripe, half-done, is the word for a beginner's Zen, and the headnote has the shape of a proverb about a little learning being dangerous.

1947. Ebara Taizō 潁原退蔵, 新校芭蕉俳句全集. Ebara's edition gives both forms of the verse side by side, both headnotes, and notes that the verse also appears in 浮世の北, やどりの松 and 泊船集 [1].

1956. 芭蕉講座 書簡篇. This volume lists the holograph letter as (元禄三年)九月六日附曲水宛, 和田久左衛門氏蔵, among letters it does not annotate, and names 車要 as the compiler of 己が光 [27].

The attribution. Bashō's, in his own letter and at the first printing; no witness gives it to anyone else.

What is not a source. Barthes's reading of the verse as a joke on meaning is a reading, not a witness [19].

The verse in English

1932. Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, p. 149. Romanizes tōtosa. How noble he who realizes not, / From lightning-flashes, life is vain! [15] This reproves what Miyamori calls a superficial realization of the vanity of life, and Miyamori himself notes that most critics do not rate such didactic verses highly.

1942. Blyth, Zen in English Literature, Hokuseido Press, p. 372. How admirable, / He who thinks not, "Life is fleeting," / When he sees the lightning-flash [16]. Blyth turns it into an aphorism: life is not fleeting, life is not eternal; life is life, lightning is lightning.

1949, 1952. Blyth, Haiku vols. 1 and 3, Hokuseido Press, vol. 3 p. 72. Romanizes tôtosa. The 1942 line, unchanged [21]. In vol. 3 Blyth sets Whitman beside it: let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

1983. Sato, One Hundred Frogs, Weatherhill, p. 131. Romanizes totosa. Someone not enlightened by lightning / —how venerable!; headnote Undigested Zen and undigested Buddhism—they are hell, the letter's form [17]. Sato calls this Bashō's only hokku that directly bears on the subject of Zen, and reads in it great wariness of enlightenment.

1994. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco, p. 24; note p. 259. How admirable! / to see lightning and not think / life is fleeting. Note: Aitken's How noble / the person not enlightened / by lightning [19]. In the same note Hass gives Barthes, who in Empire of Signs took the verse as a send-up of the whole system of meaning that haiku and cultures run on: the enlightened thing is to see nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

1996. Faubion Bowers (ed.), The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology, Dover, p. 16. Romanizes tōtosa, and the second line satorenu. Bowers's own rendering, signed with his initials: A flash of lightning / but still benighted / Oh worthy man! [18]. His note: "Lightning" suggests the sudden enlightenment (satori) achieved by Zen masters. Here Bashō, in haikai's perverse fashion, is happy not to gain transcendence from a flash in the sky.

1998. Hamill, The Essential Bashō, Shambhala, p. 111. Romanizes totosa. How very noble! / One who finds no satori / in the lightning flash [22].

2004. Barnhill, Bashō's Haiku, SUNY Press, no. 508 p. 116; note p. 230. Romanizes tattosa. Headnote, the 1692 form: A virtuous monk once said, "Superficial Zen is the root of grave flaws," and I appreciate his words. lightning, / yet unenlightened: / so admirable [23]. His note: the letter criticized disciples in Omi who showed complacency in poetry and questionable behavior in their daily life.

2006. Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi 2022. Romanizes tōtosa. how striking! / those not enlightened / by the lightning [24].

2008. Reichhold, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Kodansha, no. 685 p. 171; note p. 346. Romanizes tattosa. Headnote, the 1692 form: A high priest says, "a superficial knowledge of Zen causes great harm." I appreciate his comment. with lightning / one is not enlightened / how valuable [25]. His note: Basho was criticizing the disciples in Omi for their complacency and corruption.

2022. Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, U. California, no. 652 p. 242. Romanizes tattosa. Headnote, the 1692 form: A learned monk once said, "Superficial Zen is the foundation of deep flaws," and I am grateful for his words. In a lightning storm / who sees no enlightenment / that's one to admire [26]. His note: the letter criticizes disciples in Ōmi … for the complacent conventionality of their poetry and their dissolute social lives.

Today. The house page's title, How admirable, to see lightning, and not think life is fleeting, is Robert Hass's 1994 line in his words, repunctuated (How admirable! / to see lightning and not think / life is fleeting.) [19], and the page credits it to him by a reference to that book; Hass's line shares How admirable and life is fleeting with Blyth's of 1942 [16].

A reading

The verse is Bashō correcting his students, and the correction is the poem. He had spent that year among the Ōmi disciples, and the letter that carries the verse faults them for complacent verse and loose lives; the teacher's warning he sets above it names the same fault in its Zen form, and the word なま, half-raw, is exact. That joining of the letter's complaint to the warning is my reading; the letter as transcribed does not spell it out. Lightning in the sutras is the emblem of how quickly everything goes, and the half-raw practitioner, seeing it, feels a small thrill of insight and calls the thrill awakening. Bashō's admiration is for the person who is not moved to that. Of the readers above I stand nearest Hattori. I do not read the verse as anti-Zen, as Sato half does, nor as Barthes's joke on meaning: the headnote is a Zen teacher's own warning, and in the printed form Bashō says he received it with gratitude. It is a verse about not flattering yourself, and it is aimed at people he loved.

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. Bashō's letter to 曲水, 元禄3年9月6日 (1690), as transcribed in 潁原退蔵 Ebara Taizō 編著『新校芭蕉俳句全集』, 全国書房, 1947. National Diet Library pid 1128353, scan 76. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128353/1/76
  2. 車庸 (車要) 撰『己か光』, 井筒屋庄兵衛 (Kyoto), 1692, printed copy, University of Tokyo 洒竹文庫, canvas 28 (the verse) and canvas 35 (ことたらぬこそ貴けれ). National Institute of Japanese Literature, 国書データベース, DOI 10.20730/100411341. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100411341/28
  3. 『日本俳書大系』第2巻, 蕉門俳諧前集, 春秋社, 1934, p. 434. National Diet Library pid 1194199, scan 241. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1194199/1/241
  4. 五升庵蝶夢 編『芭蕉翁発句集』, 1774, scan 62. National Diet Library pid 2540314, scan 62. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2540314/1/62
  5. 『俳諧第一義集』, 1783, scan 10. National Diet Library pid 2568263, scan 10. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2568263/1/10
  6. 桃花園『萍花謾筆』, 1800, scan 21. National Diet Library pid 2533755, scan 21. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2533755/1/21
  7. 『俳諧正語抄』, 1829, printed as 浪化's, 泉響園琴而 校, scans 30–31. National Diet Library pid 2540297, scan 31. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2540297/1/31
  8. Komai Norimura 駒井乗邨 編『鶯宿雑記』, ms. National Diet Library pid 10301270, scan 87. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10301270/1/87
  9. Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規 写『発句類題全集』, 1889, scan 27. National Diet Library pid 2586419, scan 27. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2586419/1/27
  10. 蓑笠庵梨一『奥細道菅菰抄』, 1909 print, 芭蕉句選, 秋之部. National Diet Library pid 888896, scan 100. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/888896/1/100
  11. 島田青峰 編『芭蕉俳句紀行全集』, 1927, scan 50. National Diet Library pid 1194541, scan 50. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1194541/1/50
  12. Hattori Kōseki 服部畊石『芭蕉句集新講』下巻, 四条書房, 1932, p. 640. National Diet Library pid 1145829, scan 56. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1145829/1/56
  13. The National Diet Library's digital collection, searched for the verse in its text layers (seventy-nine books). The last word in kana, たふとさよ, for example: 角田竹冷『芭蕉句集講義』, 1911, National Diet Library pid 875654, scan 34 (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875654/1/34); 沼波瓊音 編『芭蕉全集』, 1921, pid 931052, scan 63 (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/931052/1/63); 潁原退蔵『芭蕉』, 1939, pid 1115844, scan 34 (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1115844/1/34).
  14. Kumārajīva (tr.), 金剛般若波羅蜜経, closing gāthā. CBETA T08n0235, p. 0752b28–29. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T0235&juan=1
  15. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, 1932, p. 149.
  16. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido Press, 1942, p. 372.
  17. Hiroaki Sato, One Hundred Frogs, Weatherhill, 1983, p. 131.
  18. Faubion Bowers (ed.), The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology, Dover Publications, Mineola, 1996, p. 16; the rendering and the note are Bowers's own, signed FB.
  19. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994, p. 24, note p. 259.
  20. デジタル大辞泉, s.v. いなずま【稲妻／電】: 稲の夫(つま)の意。稲の結実期に多く起こるので、これによって稲が実ると考えられていた; 精選版 日本国語大辞典 語誌 on the same page: 古代では雷光が稲の穂と結合し、穂を実らせると信じられていた. At kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/稲妻
  21. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vols. 1 and 3, Hokuseido Press, 1949 and 1952, vol. 3 p. 72.
  22. Sam Hamill, The Essential Bashō, Shambhala, 1998, p. 111.
  23. David Landis Barnhill, Bashō's Haiku, SUNY Press, 2004, no. 508, p. 116, note p. 230.
  24. Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, 2022 (rendering first published 2006).
  25. Jane Reichhold, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Kodansha USA, 2008, no. 685, p. 171, note p. 346.
  26. Andrew Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, University of California Press, 2022, no. 652, p. 242.
  27. 『芭蕉講座』第7巻, 書簡篇, 三省堂, 1956, scan 161 (車要 and 己が光), scan 189 (the holograph list). National Diet Library pid 1344079, scan 161. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1344079/1/161
  28. 志田義秀, 「浪化」 附說, in 藤村作 編『日本文学大辞典』, 新潮社, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1235690, scan 1285. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1235690/1/1285
  29. Komai Norimura 駒井乗邨 編『鶯宿雑記』, ms., a second copy. National Diet Library pid 10301527, scan 94. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10301527/1/94
  30. Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規, letter of Meiji 24 (1891), in 『子規遺稿』, 1915 print, scan 384. National Diet Library pid 937217, scan 384. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/937217/1/384
  31. Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男『江戸文学研究』, 1921, scan 147. National Diet Library pid 968882, scan 147. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968882/1/147

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 · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — every claim tested at its address; a handful corrected in the account from the check's findings; the rest resolve

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ (inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/inazuma-ni-satoranu-hito-no-tattosa-yo.