Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

0
Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal accepted
Home › Library › Philology › 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 - How admirable, to see lightning, and not think life is fleeting

This is a philological study of the haiku 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ (inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo), from a letter Bashō wrote in the autumn of 1690. It spans from the letter itself, through the verse's first printing in 1692, and examines the two readings of its last word, the letter's tattosa and the printed tradition's tōtosa, and how eleven English translators have rendered the line since 1932.

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 (inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo)

Haiku by Bashō on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

View Scroll ›

Abstract

Bashō wrote the verse in the autumn of 1690, in a letter from Lake Biwa to a disciple in Edo, scolding the disciples he had left behind for their easy Zen. Lightning is the sutras' image of how everything passes, and the admirable person is the one who sees the flash and does not mistake it for awakening.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ, the 1692 form. Bashō's own letter of 1690 spells the last word in kana, たつとさよ [1]; the first printing, 己が光, reproduced whole in a 1934 typeset, writes 貴さよ [2]; the 1783 commentary keeps 貴, with the furigana タフト beside it [3]; an essay of 1800 keeps 貴 [4]; Rōka's 浪化 treatise of 1829 writes 悟らぬ・尊 [5]; one copy of the Edo-manuscript 鶯宿雑記 writes 高 [6]; Masaoka Shiki's 正岡子規 1889 manuscript writes 悟らぬ・尊 [7]; a 1909 typeset spells the last word out, とうとさよ [8]; a 1927 anthology keeps 貴 [9]; Hattori Kōseki's 服部畊石 commentary of 1932 normalizes it たふとさよ [10]; 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; and in the typeset editions from 1909 on the last word is often spelled out in kana, most often in the historical spelling たふとさよ [11]. The meter is five, seven, five: い・な・づ・ま・に, さ・と・ら・ぬ・ひ・と・の, た・っ・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 [12]. In Zen the stock phrase is 電光石火, lightning and the spark from a flint, the instant. A fashionable Zen of Bashō's day heard every flash as a small enlightenment and said so; Bashō's admiration goes the other way, to the person who sees lightning and lets it be lightning. That is what his teacher's warning meant, and the verse has been read that way by everyone who has written on it since, from the Zen commentator of 1783 [3] to the translator of 2022 [13]. What the readers argue about is only the flavor: the Japanese readers hear a rebuke to shallow Zen, R. H. Blyth hears a plain statement about life [14], Hiroaki Sato hears wariness [15], and Roland Barthes, quoted in Robert Hass's note, hears a joke at the expense of meaning [16].

The words. 稲妻 inazuma, lightning, the autumn season word; literally the rice's spouse, from the old belief that lightning ripened the ears [17]. 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; the printings of 1829 and after mostly 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 five hundred years before Bashō: tōtoshi is the plain descendant of the classical たふとし, 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 [3], a verse list of 1909 spells it とうとさ [8], and the 1932 commentary normalizes it to たふとさ [10]. The modern complete editions, working from the letter, print tattosa (David Landis Barnhill, Jane Reichhold, Andrew Fitzsimons); the translators working from the printed text print tōtosa (Asatarō Miyamori, Blyth, Sato, Faubion Bowers, Sam Hamill, Michael Haldane).

The verse in English. The verse entered English in Miyamori's anthology of 1932 [18], romanizing tōtosa. Blyth rendered it in 1942, and again unchanged in 1949 and 1952 [14][19]. Sato in 1983 romanized it totosa [15]. Hass in 1994 gave the house's title line, with Robert Aitken's literal reading in his note [16]. Bowers in 1996 printed a rendering of his own, romanizing tōtosa [20]. Hamill in 1998 romanized it totosa [21]. Barnhill in 2004 romanized it tattosa, from the letter [22]. Haldane's rendering of 2006 romanizes tōtosa [23]. Reichhold in 2008 romanized tattosa [24]. Fitzsimons in 2022 romanized tattosa [13], from the letter. The house's title is Hass's 1994 line, word for word, and Hass's line is Blyth's 1942 line reshaped.

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 [12].

1690, the sixth of the ninth month. The letter to Suganuma Kyokusui 曲水. Bashō, living at Gichū-ji 義仲寺 on the south shore of Lake Biwa, where he would later be buried, wrote to Kyokusui, a samurai of the Zeze domain and his host in Ōmi, 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 [25].

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 [25].

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 [7].

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 [3].

1800. 萍花謾筆. An essay naming the verse Bashō's [4].

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 [5]. 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 [26]; 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 [6], the second 稲つ方にさとらぬ人の尊さよ, a variant on the first word as well [27].

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 [7]. 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 [28].

1909. 芭蕉句選. A typeset verse list spells the last word out, とうとさよ [8].

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 [29]. A 1927 anthology prints it whole, 稻妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ [9].

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 [10].

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"; I found it deeply true, then 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ, signed 翁, the old master [2]. 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 [25].

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 [16].

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! [18] 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 [14]. 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 [19]. 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 [15]. 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 [16]. 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! [20]. 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 [21].

2004. Barnhill, Bashō's Haiku, SUNY Press, no. 508 p. 116; note p. 230. Romanizes tattosa, from the letter. lightning, / yet unenlightened: / so admirable [22].

2006. Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi 2022. Romanizes tōtosa. how striking! / those not enlightened / by the lightning [23].

2008. Reichhold, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Kodansha, no. 685 p. 171; note p. 346. Romanizes tattosa. with lightning / one is not enlightened / how valuable [24].

2022. Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, U. California, no. 652 p. 242. Romanizes tattosa, from the letter. In a lightning storm / who sees no enlightenment / that's one to admire [13].

Today. The house page's title, How admirable, to see lightning, and not think life is fleeting, is Robert Hass's 1994 line word for word [16], and the page credits it to him by a reference to that book; Hass's line reshapes Blyth's of 1942 [14].

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 is his complaint about them. Their fault was not that they meditated but that they believed themselves; the teacher's phrase なま, half-raw, is exact. 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. 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 Bashō is grateful for it. It is a verse about not flattering yourself, and it is aimed at people he loved.

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. 『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
  3. 『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
  4. 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
  5. 『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
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. The last word in kana, たふとさよ: 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).
  12. 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
  13. Andrew Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, University of California Press, 2022, no. 652, p. 242.
  14. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido Press, 1942, p. 372.
  15. Hiroaki Sato, One Hundred Frogs, Weatherhill, 1983, p. 131.
  16. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994, p. 24, note p. 259.
  17. 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
  18. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, 1932, p. 149.
  19. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vols. 1 and 3, Hokuseido Press, 1949 and 1952, vol. 3 p. 72.
  20. 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.
  21. Sam Hamill, The Essential Bashō, Shambhala, 1998, p. 111.
  22. David Landis Barnhill, Bashō's Haiku, SUNY Press, 2004, no. 508, p. 116, note p. 230.
  23. Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, 2022 (rendering first published 2006).
  24. Jane Reichhold, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Kodansha USA, 2008, no. 685, p. 171, note p. 346.
  25. 『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
  26. 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
  27. 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
  28. 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
  29. 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