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柿食えば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺 kaki kueba kane ga naru nari hōryūji Shiki - As I eat a persimmon, a bell rings: Hōryūji

柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺 (kaki kueba kane ga naru nari hōryūji) is a verse by Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規, from a teahouse at Hōryūji in the autumn of 1895. In 1902 a critic asked why he had not put it another way, and Shiki answered in print weeks before he died. That the bell was really 東大寺's is a guess first made in 1938.

Japanese Scroll of Shiki - As I eat a persimmon, a bell rings: Hōryūji (kaki kueba kane ga naru nari hōryūji) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Shiki - As I eat a persimmon, a bell rings: Hōryūji柿食えば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺kaki kueba kane ga naru nari hōryūji

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺, as I eat a persimmon, a bell rings: Hōryūji, is a hokku by Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規, made in the autumn of 1895 at 法隆寺, the temple at 斑鳩 in Nara, on his way back to Tokyo from Matsuyama; his manuscript and the selection of his verse printed in April 1902 write it 柹くへば under the preface 法隆寺の茶店に憩ひて, resting at a teahouse at Hōryūji, and his newspaper column of 1902, weeks before his death, prints 柿食へば [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In that column he answered Kawahigashi Hekigotō 河東碧梧桐, who had asked in a review why he had not written 「柹食ふて居れば鐘鳴る法隆寺」, while I am eating a persimmon, the bell rings at Hōryūji: a fair point, Shiki wrote, but the syntax would grow weak [7][5]. The Japanese readers before 1949 read here hear Hōryūji's own bell; that the bell Shiki heard was 東大寺's, at his inn in Nara, is a conjecture first known from a teachers' commentary of 1938, reasoned from Shiki's essay on the inn, which names 東大寺's bell and does not name the verse; a life of Shiki of 1967 told it as an itinerary, the inn first and Hōryūji the next day, and in English it was stated as fact by 1982 [2][8][9][10][11][12]. I read the bell as the preface places it, at the teahouse at Hōryūji.

Overview

The text. The verse as brushed here, 柿食えば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺, writes in modern kana the form Shiki's column in the newspaper 『日本』 printed in 1902 under his byline, 柿食へば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺 [5]. His manuscript, 『寒山落木』, which the National Diet Library catalogues as in his own hand, writes 柹くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺, with 柹, the old form of 柿, and the verb in kana, under the preface 法隆寺の茶店に憩ひて [1]. So does the selection 『獺祭書屋俳句帖抄』, printed in April 1902, under the running head 明治二十八年 秋, 1895, autumn [4]. The 1909 『子規句集』, edited by Takahama Kyoshi 高浜虚子 after Shiki's death, prints the verse with くへば in kana [13]. くへば and 食へば are one word, kueba, written in kana or with its kanji; whose hand set the kanji in the 1902 column, Shiki's, a scribe's or the paper's, is not known. デジタル大辞泉 quotes the verse as 「―くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺／子規」 under 柿 [14].

The sense. 柿 is the persimmon, tree and fruit; デジタル大辞泉 gives the fruit as a season word for autumn, 《季 花＝夏 実＝秋》, season: the flower summer, the fruit autumn [14]. くへば is as I eat or when I eat: Harold Henderson's word-for-word gloss of 1958 reads Persimmons | when-eat | bell | 's | peal | it-is | Hōryū-Temple [15]. 鐘 is a temple bell, and 法隆寺 is Hōryūji, the temple at 斑鳩 in Nara Prefecture which, デジタル大辞泉 says, 推古天皇15年（607）に聖徳太子が斑鳩宮のそばに建立したと伝えられ, is said to have been built by Prince Shōtoku beside the 斑鳩 palace in 607, and whose buildings are 現存する世界最古の木造建築, the oldest wooden buildings standing in the world [16]. So the line says: as I eat a persimmon, a bell rings: Hōryūji.

The words. The verse turns on two things set side by side, and both were chosen. 柿, 日国's note on the word's history says, was thought a low tree and a low fruit, and so rarely in waka: 「万葉集」に例がなく、八代集ほか平安時代の私家集では物名歌の題に見えるだけである。, there is no example in the 万葉集, and in the eight imperial anthologies and the private collections of the Heian period it appears only as a topic for poems that hide a word; it became common only in the haikai of the Edo period, 庶民生活を歌う江戸時代の俳諧になって、多く詠まれるようになる [14]. Shiki said the same of it in 1901, and claimed the pairing with Nara as his own: 柿などといふものは從來詩人にも歌よみにも見放されてをるもので、殊に奈良に柿を配合するといふ樣な事は思ひもよらなかつた事である。余は此新しい配合を見つけ出して非常に嬉しかつた。, the persimmon and its like have been passed over by poets and waka poets alike, and to pair the persimmon with Nara was a thing no one had thought of. I was very glad to have found this new pairing [10]. なり, after 鳴る, is the other word a reader stops at. A navy grammar textbook of 1944 takes this verse as its example of an old use: ○「なり」は古く動詞の終止形について詠歎の意味に用ひられたことがある。, なり was used of old after the plain form of a verb, to exclaim, with 秋の野に人まつ虫の聲すなり beside it [17]. Henderson's gloss reads it it-is [15]. No reader read for this history takes it otherwise. Ōsawa Masayoshi 大沢正善, in a study of 2009 given wholly to the verse, stops instead at ば: after くへ it states a condition met, and here, he says, one met by chance, 偶然確定: 柿を食べているとちょうど法隆寺の鐘が鳴った、という内容を表しているのであろう。, it says, I think, that as he was eating a persimmon, just then the bell of Hōryūji rang [11].

The text in English. The earliest rendering on the house's shelf is R. H. Blyth's of 1952, Eating persimmons; / The bell sounds, / Of Hôryûji Temple [18]. The renderings since differ chiefly over how to set the temple: as the bell's source, as the place, or as a name standing alone in the last line. They are taken in order below.

The historical record

1895. From Matsuyama, by way of Nara. In 1895 Shiki went to the war in China as a newspaper correspondent and on the way home coughed blood, 1895年、日清戦争に志願して従軍し、帰途喀血, as the encyclopedia puts it [19]. Hekigotō, in his review of 1902, gives the next steps: ○須磨の保養院を辭して松山へ歸つて、暫らく漱石君宅に居られた。, he left the sanatorium at Suma, went home to Matsuyama and stayed for a while at Sōseki's house, Sōseki being Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石, whom Shiki had known since the university preparatory school [19]; and ○松山から出京の途次法隆寺奈良等へ立寄られた。, on the way from Matsuyama to Tokyo he stopped at Hōryūji, Nara and other places [7]. Shibata Shōkyoku 柴田宵曲, in his life of Shiki of 1942, gives the dates: 十月十九日、居士は松山を出發して歸京の途に就いた。, on 19 October he left Matsuyama on his way back to the capital; a pain in his hip held him at Suma, and then he went to Osaka and Nara; 有名な 法隆寺の茶店に憩ひて 柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺 の句はこの際のものである。, the famous verse … is from this time; he stayed about three days in Nara; 居士が東京へ歸つたのは十月三十日である。, he was back in Tokyo on 30 October [3]. Shiki's own word on the journey is in the preface to his selection of 1902, where of 1895 he writes: 尤も秋の末に二三日奈良めぐりをして矢鱈に駄句を吐いたのは自分に取つては非常に嬉しかつた。, still, going round Nara for two or three days at the end of autumn and turning out bad verses by the heap was a great joy to me [20]. A study of 2009 gives the verse's first printing as the newspaper 『海南新聞』 of 8 November 1895, 初出（『海南新聞』明28・11・8） [11]; that issue was not found for this history.

The manuscript and the selection. In 『寒山落木』, Shiki's manuscript of his verse by year, the fourth volume files the verse under the season word 柹 with sixteen verses on the persimmon, so the 1939 Iwanami teachers' guide says: 【柹くへばの句】「寒山落木」卷四、明治二十八年、秋、「柹」十六句の中、「法隆寺の茶店に憩ひて」の句。 [2]. At the leaf, after 温泉の町を取り巻く柹の小山哉 and 柹の木や宮司が宿の門構, the preface 法隆寺の茶店に憩ひて stands over 柹くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺, with marks in blue, red and black ink above and below it and a red 碧 among them [1]. In 1902, still in his lifetime, the selection 『獺祭書屋俳句帖抄』, which the National Diet Library catalogues as edited by Kyoshi, prints the preface and the verse in the same words under 明治二十八年 秋 [4]. The choice of verses was Shiki's. His preface to the book, dated 30 January 1902 and closing 明治卅五年一月卅日某々等筆記し了る, taken down by certain persons, says so: これだから自分では自分の幽靈が昔の自分の句を選んでをるやうな心持で選ぶのである。, and so I choose as though my own ghost were choosing my old verses; and the book was Kyoshi's idea, それさへ俳書堂の出版の材料に何かあるまいかと虛子にいはれた時はじめて思ひついた位のことなのである。, even that I first thought of only when Kyoshi asked whether I had anything 俳書堂 could publish [20].

1901. The inn, the persimmons and 東大寺's bell. Six years after the journey Shiki wrote 「くだもの」, fruit, a sequence of short pieces printed in the magazine 『ホトトギス』 in two parts, in March and April 1901 [21]; a study of 2009 dates the piece on the inn to April, 「くだもの」明34・4 [11]. In the piece on eating 御所柿, a sweet persimmon, he reached Osaka on his way back to Tokyo at the end of October 1895, he thinks, and went on to Nara despite the pain in his hip, and found persimmons everywhere; at his inn, after supper, a maid brought a bowl of them and peeled them [21]. Then, in the 1938 typeset: ボーンといふ釣鐘の音が一つ聞えた。彼女は、オヤ初夜が鳴るといふて尙柿をむきつづけてゐる。, a temple bell sounded once, boom. "Oh, that's the first watch ringing," she said, and went on peeling … 東大寺の大釣鐘が初夜を打つのであるといふ。, it was, she said, the great bell of 東大寺 striking the first watch [10]. 初夜 is one of the six hours of Buddhist service in a day and night, 日国 says, 戌の刻。現在の午後八時から九時頃。, about eight to nine in the evening [22]. Kyoshi's edition of 1915 sets the same passage [23]. 「くだもの」 does not quote the verse, and does not name 法隆寺 [21]. Hekigotō, in 1902, tells the inn story too, as a joke of late: the inn was 角定, Shiki asked whether they had 御所柹, and a large tray of them came, heaped up, and a girl peeled them; in his telling there is no bell [7].

1902. The critic and the reply. Hekigotō reviewed the selection the year it appeared. His review opens ○獺祭書屋俳句帖抄に對する賛辭は、已に遺憾なく紅綠君に言はれてあるから、予は別に聊か予の意に滿たぬ點や其他何やがやの雜感を書いて見たいと思ふ。, the praise for the selection has been said in full by 紅緑, so I will write a few of the points that do not satisfy me, and other thoughts; he lists the Nara verses of the journey in the selection's order and says of them 皆途中の寫生である, all are sketches from the road [7]. Then, of this one: ○「柹くへば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺」いつもの子規調ではない。「柹食ふて居れば鐘鳴る法隆寺」とは何故言はれなかつたであらう。, this is not Shiki's usual manner. Why could he not have said "while I am eating a persimmon, the bell rings at Hōryūji"? [7]. A study of 2009 dates this part of the review July 1902, （明35・7） [11]. Shiki answered in his column in 『日本』, 『病牀六尺』, a sickbed six feet long, written from his sickbed in the last months of his life [19]. His replies begin in the entry 百八, which names the review and where it ran, ○ホトヽギス第五卷第十號に在る碧梧桐の獺祭書屋俳句帖抄評の中に, in Hekigotō's review of the selection in 『ホトトギス』, volume 5, number 10; 百九 goes on, on another verse, 右の句に就きての碧梧桐の攻擊, Hekigotō's attack on the verse above [5]; and the entry 百十 continues them and opens with the verse, in the paper's own clipping, as 柿食へば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺: この句を評して「柿食ふて居れば鐘鳴る法隆寺」とは何故いはれ無かつたであらうと書いてある, someone has written of this verse, why could he not have said …. He grants it a fair point, and then: 併しかうなると稍句法が弱くなるかと思ふ。, but put that way, I think the syntax grows somewhat weak [5][6]. The book of the column, set in 1927, dates the two entries 29 and 30 August 1902 [6]; Shiki died on 19 September [19]. Hekigotō's review was still running: its last part ends ○尙拙評を試みたい句もないではないが、子規君亡後であると思ふと、妄評の當不當を質す樂しみもないので、自然と勇氣も活氣もなくなる。, there are other verses I would try my poor criticism on, but with Shiki gone there is no pleasure in having him judge whether it was right or wrong, dated （三十五年十月十日）, 10 October 1902 [7]. Shiki's 百八 names the issue, 第五卷第十號, and the review's title, 獺祭書屋俳句帖抄評, as the 1939 Iwanami guide does [5][2]; the magazine was not read for this history.

Hōryūji's bell: the readers before 1949. The commentaries read for this history hear the bell at Hōryūji. The 1939 Iwanami guide: 法隆寺境內の、現在この句を刻んだ碑の立つてゐる所にあつた茶店に憩うた時の卽興吟である。, a verse made on the spot when he rested at a teahouse in the grounds of Hōryūji, where the stone carved with the verse now stands, and 丁度この古刹の鐘が腹の底までしみこむやうに鳴つた、といふのである。, just then this old temple's bell rang, sinking to the pit of the stomach: that is what it says [2]. Kyoshi, in a piece collected in 1943: 此句も法隆寺の茶屋で柿を食つて居ると、ゴーンと鐘が鳴つた、と云ふ只それだけの句であります。が、茶屋に腰掛けて休んで居る旅人の面影が想像が出來、その法隆寺の鐘の音を懐かしむ心持も現れ、同時に其境の靜かな心持も出て居ると思ひます。, this verse too says only that as he was eating a persimmon at the teahouse at Hōryūji, the bell rang, gong. But one can picture the traveler resting on the teahouse bench, and in it is the feeling of fondness for the sound of Hōryūji's bell, and the quiet of the place [8]. Shōkyoku, in 1942, sets the two bells side by side without joining them: after the verse, 奈良の宿屋では錦手の大井に盛つた御所柿を食ひながら、寂しい月夜に鳴る東大寺の初夜の鐘を聞いた。, at the inn in Nara, eating 御所柿 heaped in a large painted bowl, he heard 東大寺's bell for the first watch ring on a lonely moonlit night [3]. An anthology of Shiki's prose of 1938 joins them by a heading only: it sets the 「くだもの」 passage on the inn under the editors' title 柹食へば [10].

The 東大寺 conjecture. The earliest known statement that the verse first named 東大寺, in the books the National Diet Library's full text reaches, is in a teachers' commentary on the national school reader, 『小学国語読本綜合研究』, of 1938: 例へば柿くへばの句は、初案は柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり東大寺であらう。といふ子細は、子規の小品「くだもの」の中、「御所柿を食ひしこと」の條に、, the first draft of the 柿くへば verse was, I think, 柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり東大寺; the reason being that in Shiki's short piece 「くだもの」, in the passage on eating 御所柿 … [9]. The word is であらう, I think, it would have been; and the ground is 「くだもの」. A journal article of 1954 sums the argument up as the book's: 初案「柿くへば鐘が鳴るなり東大寺」であつたろうと、その理由を説明し、これを法隆寺にかえたのは、いつに俳句の配合の問題からであつて, it explains why the first draft would have been … and that the change to Hōryūji came wholly from the question of pairing in haiku [24]. In 1940 the teachers' journal 『信濃教育』 asked the question from the other side, why the verse that was finally born paired the persimmon not with 東大寺 but with 法隆寺, 柿に取合せられたのは東大寺でなく法隆寺であつた [25]. Ishii Shōji 石井庄司, in 1940, placed the inn beside 東大寺 from 「くだもの」, in words the journal 『国語教育』 had printed in 1939, and gave the inn's bell a verse of its own [26]: 「長き夜や初夜の鐘撞く東大寺」も恐らく此の宿での實景であらう。, 長き夜や初夜の鐘撞く東大寺, too, is probably a scene from this inn [27]. That verse is in Shiki's manuscript, in the same volume as 柹くへば: under the season word 夜長, the long night, 長き夜や初夜の鐘撞く東大寺, the long night: striking the first watch, 東大寺; on the spread before, under 夜寒, the night's cold, a verse stands under the preface 奈良角定にて, at 角定 in Nara [1]. So 東大寺's bell for the first watch has its own verse in Shiki's hand, filed under the long night, while 柹くへば is filed under the persimmon with the teahouse preface. In 1967 the conjecture became an itinerary. Matsui Toshihiko 松井利彦, in a life of Shiki, as the study of 2009 quotes him, guessed the inn as 「対山楼、通称角定」, the 対山楼, known as 角定, and went on: 「翌日、人力車で法隆寺に赴き、東大寺よりも法隆寺の方がふさわしいと感じてこの句を成した。」, the next day he went to Hōryūji by rickshaw and, feeling Hōryūji the fitter of the two, made this verse [11]. Matsui's book was not read for this history.

The conjecture in English. Janine Beichman, in 1982, states it as fact, with no source: The bell he heard, however, was actually that of the Tōdaiji Temple, not the Hōryūji Temple. The day after his original experience, Shiki visited the Hōryūji and decided that it would be a more fitting locale for his poem than the Tōdaiji, because of its famous persimmon orchards [12]. Faubion Bowers's anthology repeats the orchards in a note in 1996: Orchards around Hōryūji are famous for their persimmons [28]. Stephen Addiss, in 2012: Interestingly, it was not the bell of Hōryū-ji that Shiki actually heard, but that of Tōdai-ji; he decided that mentioning the earlier temple (which had persimmon orchards nearby) would have more resonance [29]. Donald Keene, in 2013, holds it as likely and gives another reason: it is probable that the last line was originally Tōdai-ji, another great temple in Nara … But why should he have changed Tōdai-ji to Hōryū-ji? Most likely it was because of the sound [30]. None of them, in the passages read, names a source for it. The order of the visits in Beichman's account, the inn first, Hōryūji the next day and Hōryūji chosen as the fitter, is Matsui's of 1967, above [11]; the persimmon orchards are in none of the Japanese books read for this history.

The readers since 1949. Ōsawa, in 2009, finds the verse famous without the commentators: it is taken up neither in the disciples' 『子規句集講義』 of 1916 nor in Kyoshi's 『子規句解』 of 1946, 高い評価を受けているわけではない, it is not that it has been highly rated, and a stone carved with it went up at the site of the teahouse in September 1916, 大正五年九月に法隆寺の茶店跡に句碑が建ち [11]. He quotes Yamamoto Kenkichi 山本健吉, from 『現代俳句』 in its edition of 1964: 「柿くへば」という、一見無造作な言い方に、子規らしい淡泊な特色がある。「柿くへば」おあつらえ向きに法隆寺の鐘が鳴ったという表現には、あわいユーモアがある。, in the offhand-seeming 柿くへば there is Shiki's characteristic plainness … saying that as he ate a persimmon the bell of Hōryūji rang right on cue has a faint humor in it [11]. And he reads Shiki's answer to Hekigotō through ば: with 食ふて alone the act and the scene would only be set side by side, the link between them lost, and 食ふて居れば puts 居る between them and stretches it, so that 「句法が弱く」なってしまうのである, the syntax "grows weak" [11]. Yamamoto's and Matsui's books were not read for this history; their words are quoted from Ōsawa.

Sōseki's verse. Books printed since 1975 give a verse of Sōseki's, 鐘つけば銀杏ちるなり建長寺, as printed in the newspaper 海南新聞 [31]; a book of 1998 reports that a supplement to Sōseki's collected works in 1996 pointed to it as made about two months before 柿くへば, at a verse gathering Shiki attended [32]. No book before 1975 that the National Diet Library's full text reaches names it, and the supplement was not read for this history.

The verse in English

1952. R. H. Blyth. Haiku, vol. 4: Eating persimmons; / The bell sounds, / Of Hôryûji Temple, under the Japanese 柿喰へば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺, with Shiki was sitting in a tea-house in Nara, eating his favourite fruit, when suddenly the great temple bell of Hôryûji sounded, and on the next page The past and the present, the heard and the tasted are one [18].

1958. Harold G. Henderson. Persimmons: as I chew, / a temple bell begins to boom / from Hōryū, deservedly one of Shiki's most famous poems, with the gloss above and how can anyone get the subtle connection—and there is one—between a taste he has never tasted and a sound he has never heard? [15].

1962. Peter Beilenson. Haiku Harvest, in capitals: OH HOW I ENJOY / EATING A RIPE PERSIMMON / WHILE DEEP / OLD BELLS BOOM!, naming no temple [33].

1982. Janine Beichman. I bite into a persimmon / and a bell resounds— / Hōryūji, citing 子規全集 II, 325, with the 東大寺 account above, and The point of the poem is, put most baldly, the juxtaposition of the bite and the bell [12]. Faubion Bowers reprints her rendering in 1996, with Scholars still puzzle over the ambiguity of the poem [28].

1983. Hiroaki Sato. One Hundred Frogs: I eat a persimmon and the bell rings at the Hōryū-ji, in one line [34]. In 2018, I eat persimmons and the bell rings at Hōryūji [35].

1997. Burton Watson. I eat a persimmon / and a bell starts booming— / Hōryū-ji, under the preface Stopping at a Teashop at Hōryū-ji Temple; in his introduction, Is Shiki telling us that there is some arcane connection between the eating of the persimmon and the sounding of the bell? [36].

2007. Tom Lowenstein. As I bite a persimmon / a bell rings out – / Horyuji., set in his introduction as a sound that stretches back through the centuries [37].

2013. Donald Keene. As I eat a persimmon / The temple bell tolls at / Hōryūji., noting the preface, a prefatory note stating it was composed at a teahouse near Hōryū-ji [30].

2018. Adam L. Kern. persimmon chewing / to the clanging of a bell – / Dharma Booming Temple, translating the temple's name, which his commentary gives as Hōryūji, one of the oldest temples in Japan [38].

Today. A rendering should keep the order of the Japanese: the persimmon, the eating, the bell, and the temple's name last, standing alone, as the verse sets it [1]. The bell is a temple bell and the temple is named; a rendering that drops the name, as Beilenson's does, drops the place the preface gives [33]. The scroll brushes 柿食えば, the modern spelling of the 1902 column's 柿食へば.

A reading

The text first. 柹くへば is Shiki's manuscript and his selection; 柿食へば is his column of 1902, weeks before his death [1][4][5][19]. One word, two spellings, both printed under his name in his lifetime.

The bell next. The preface puts Shiki at a teahouse at Hōryūji, and the readers before 1949 read here who say whose bell it was hear it there [1][2][8]. 東大寺's bell is real too, but it rang at the inn, in 「くだもの」, and Shiki gave it a verse of its own, 長き夜や初夜の鐘撞く東大寺, in the same manuscript [10][1]. The claim that 柿くへば first named 東大寺 begins with a teachers' commentary of 1938 as a guess, であらう, becomes an itinerary in a life of Shiki of 1967, and reaches English in 1982 as fact [9][11][12]. I read the bell as the preface places it.

The quarrel last. Hekigotō wanted the eating to be ongoing, 食ふて居れば, and the bell plain, 鐘鳴る; Shiki kept くへば and なり [7][5]. With なり the bell does more than ring: the verse stops on it and exclaims, as the 1944 textbook read it, and then gives the temple's name alone [17]. The dictionaries hold three readings of that なり, and the verse sits where they meet. After a verb's plain form it is first the auxiliary of hearing, 音や声に関係のある語句を受けて、音や声が聞こえること、聞こえると判断することを表わす, a sound coming to the ear; the 日国's note on its history says it was taken as exclamation from the Edo period on, 近世以来、詠嘆としてとらえられてきたが, and is now generally read as hearing and inference, and that in Edo and modern verse it ran together with the なり of assertion, 近世近代の歌文では断定の「なり」との間に多少の混淆がある [39]. 大辞泉 enters the exclamation as a use born in the Edo period, with a verse of Buson's [40]. 鳴る has one form for both constructions, so the words cannot choose: a bell heard, a bell exclaimed at, a bell asserted, which is Henderson's it-is [15]. Ōsawa finds the strength in ば, the eating and the bell joined as a chance met [11]; I find it as much in なり. That, I think, is the strength Shiki would not trade. Signed, 典.

Notes

The forms of the verse. Point by point, against the witnesses read for this history:

Sources not seen

The verse's first printing, which the study of 2009 gives as 『海南新聞』 of 8 November 1895; that issue not found.

The issue of 『ホトトギス』 that carried Hekigotō's review, 「獺祭書屋俳句帖抄評」, in 1902, which Shiki's 百八 names as 第五卷第十號; the National Diet Library's copy of that issue is not open to readers outside Japan. It would show the review as Shiki read it.

「くだもの」 in 『ホトトギス』 4 (6) and 4 (7), 1901, as first printed; read here in the typesets of 1915 and 1938.

『小学国語読本綜合研究』 巻12 (1938) beyond the passage quoted, and the name of the section's author; the book is not open to readers outside Japan. It would show how the conjecture was argued in full.

The supplement to 『漱石全集』 of 1996 that 『子規解体新書』 reports on Sōseki's 鐘つけば銀杏ちるなり建長寺.

The 『子規全集』 volume Beichman cites for the verse, II, 325, and its notes on it; which edition she used is not given in the passage read.

Matsui Toshihiko's 『正岡子規』 (俳句シリーズ・人と作品, 桜楓社, 1967) and Yamamoto Kenkichi's 『現代俳句』 (角川文庫, 1964), quoted here from Ōsawa; the 『子規句集講義』 of 1916 and Kyoshi's 『子規句解』 of 1946, which Ōsawa says pass the verse over.

Japanese commentary after 1949 on the verse beyond Ōsawa's study, among them 「「獺祭書屋俳句帖抄」上巻について」 in 『俳句研究』 (1966) and 「法隆寺子規忌百年の歩み」 in 『俳句史研究』 (2016), known here by title only; and on the 東大寺 conjecture after the 1954 article, beyond Matsui as Ōsawa quotes him.

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

References

  1. 正岡子規, 『寒山落木』, the fourth volume, the manuscript catalogued as in his own hand (正岡子規自筆, call no. WB12-19), scans 98, 99 and 147, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2546168/1/147
  2. 岩波書店編輯部 編, 『国語 : 学習指導の研究』 巻四, 岩波書店, 1939, pp. 一三四 and 一三九, scans 82 and 84, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1458899/1/84
  3. 柴田宵曲, 『子規居士』, 三省堂, 1942, p. 151, scan 84, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1069382/1/84
  4. 正岡子規 著, 高浜虚子 編, 『獺祭書屋俳句帖抄』 上巻, 俳書堂, 1902 (明35.4), p. 五七, scan 46, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875216/1/46
  5. 正岡子規, 「病牀六尺」 百八 to 百十, 『日本』, 1902, in the National Diet Library's volume of the column clipped from the paper (『病牀六尺』, call no. WB12-42), scans 55 and 56. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2532410/1/56
  6. 正岡子規, 『病牀六尺』, 岩波書店, 1927 (revised 1984), entries 百九 and 百十, at Aozora Bunko. https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000305/card43537.html
  7. 河東碧梧桐, 『新俳句研究談』, 東京大学館, 1907, the review 「獺祭書屋俳句帖抄上卷」, pp. 一一六, 一六〇–一六二, 一八一–一八二 and 二〇四–二〇五, scans 64, 86, 87, 96, 97 and 108, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875170/1/96
  8. 高浜虚子, 『正岡子規』, 甲鳥書林, 1943, 「俳句の概念を與へる」, p. 五四五, scan 280, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1069383/1/280
  9. 国語教育学会 編, 『小学国語読本綜合研究』 巻12, 岩波書店, 1938 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1457572
  10. 明治文学研究会 編, 『正岡子規』, 大都書房, 1938, pp. 192–193, scan 103, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1117007/1/103
  11. 大沢正善, 「「柿くへば」の「ば」」, 『岐阜聖徳学園大学国語国文学』 28, 2009, pp. 81–94, read at pp. 81, 82 and 93, at the university's repository. https://shotoku.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/1931
  12. Janine Beichman, Masaoka Shiki, Twayne, 1982, p. 53, read on the house's shelf.
  13. 正岡子規 著, 高浜虚子 編, 『子規遺稿』 第五編 『子規句集』, 俳書堂, 1909, p. 一一四, scan 69, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871911/1/69
  14. 「柿」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/柿-459531
  15. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Bashō to Shiki, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, p. 168, read on the house's shelf.
  16. 「法隆寺」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/法隆寺-132518
  17. 海軍省教育局 編, 『練習兵用国文法教科書』, 1944, p. 一〇〇, scan 53, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1445537/1/53
  18. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 4, Autumn–Winter, Hokuseido, 1952, pp. 134–135, read on the house's shelf.
  19. 「正岡子規」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus and 20世紀日本人名事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/正岡子規-16699
  20. 正岡子規, 「獺祭書屋俳句帖抄上卷を出版するに就きて思ひつきたる所をいふ」, the preface to 『獺祭書屋俳句帖抄』 上巻, 俳書堂, 1902, dated 明治卅五年一月卅日, pp. 一, 四, 五, 二六 and 三〇, scans 1, 3, 14 and 16, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875216/1/3
  21. 正岡子規, 「くだもの」, first printed in 『ホトトギス』 4 (6) and 4 (7), March and April 1901, in 『飯待つ間』, 岩波文庫, 1985, at Aozora Bunko. https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000305/card50383.html
  22. 「初夜」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/初夜-535192
  23. 正岡子規 著, 高浜虚子 編, 『子規遺稿』, 籾山書店, 1915, 「くだもの」, pp. 百四十八–百四十九, scan 239, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/937217/1/239
  24. 『信濃』 第3次 6 (1), 信濃史学会, 1954 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/6069531
  25. 『信濃教育』 649, 信濃教育会, 1940 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/6070255
  26. 国語研究会 編, 『国語教育』 24 (11), 育英書院, 1939 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1894902
  27. 石井庄司, 『近代名家俳句鑑賞 : 附・俳句の作り方』, 育英書院, 1940 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1684988
  28. Faubion Bowers, ed., The Classic Tradition of Haiku, Dover, 1996, p. 73, read on the house's shelf.
  29. Stephen Addiss, The Art of Haiku, Shambhala, 2012, the chapter on Shiki, read on the house's shelf in an EPUB without page numbers.
  30. Donald Keene, The Winter Sun Shines In: A Life of Masaoka Shiki, Columbia University Press, 2013, the introduction, p. 8, read on the house's shelf.
  31. 正岡子規, 『子規全集』 第16巻, 俳句選集, 講談社, 1975 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12534834
  32. 粟津則雄, 夏石番矢, 復本一郎 編, 『子規解体新書』, 雄山閣出版, 1998 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14171289
  33. Peter Beilenson, Haiku Harvest, Peter Pauper Press, 1962, p. 41, read on the house's shelf.
  34. Hiroaki Sato, One Hundred Frogs, Weatherhill, 1983, p. 137, read on the house's shelf.
  35. Hiroaki Sato, On Haiku, New Directions, 2018, the essay on Hasegawa Sosei, read on the house's shelf in an EPUB without page numbers.
  36. Burton Watson, tr., Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems, Columbia University Press, 1997, the introduction, p. 8, and no. 51, p. 42, read on the house's shelf.
  37. Tom Lowenstein, Classic Haiku, Watkins, 2007, the introduction, pp. 47–48, read on the house's shelf.
  38. Adam L. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin, 2018, p. 75, and the commentary, p. 272, read on the house's shelf.
  39. 「なり」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, the auxiliary, sense 一 ①, and the note on the word's history (語誌) (1) (ロ) and (ホ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/なり-590074
  40. 「なり」, デジタル大辞泉, the auxiliary of the end-form, sense 2 and its note, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/なり-590074

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 柿食えば鐘が鳴るなり法隆寺 (kaki kueba kane ga naru nari hōryūji)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kaki-kueba-kane-ga-naru-nari-horyuji.